The branches twisted and curved, clearing the path in front of me. I could feel them, almost like fingers, if less nimble. The ring was unwieldy. Loose tangles of wood and thorns bound the ring and middle fingers on my left hand together. I could still break it off probably, I hadn’t had the time to pour enough power into the ring in the two weeks I’d had it.
Fowl, Grize, and three others I didn’t know followed me through the path before I laid the branches down, covering our tracks. The forest was almost entirely silent, save for the rustling of leaves underfoot and rushes of wind grinding the trees together. I reached out sporadically, spreading awareness and feeling to small patches of roots, feeling for any disturbances nearby. The others acted similarly. The blond-haired woman’s eyes scanned the forest rushing back and forth unnaturally fast, and I knew that Fowl could extend his hearing through some item.
In a moment, Fowl raised his hand and all of us stopped. He gestured to the side of the rough trail we had been following and our group followed him into the tree line. Crouching behind bushes and trees I watched as he pulled a small conch shell from a pocket. He reached up and raised the shell to his ear, brushing away a short curly mat of hair.
That must have been what he used to hear. A closer look showed his ear was wrinkled from salt, with small barnacles extending from the back of his ear onto the side of his head. He pointed to a patch of woods across the path, then barely audible he said “Two hundred yards.”
At that, we all zeroed in on the area. The blond woman held up a finger that glowed yellow, tracing a small circle in the air, almost leaving an impression of light. Where Fowl had pointed I saw a small yellow glow, and I reached out to the trees in front of it. As I pulled the branches out of the way, from the corner of my eye I saw Grize take out her bow and nock an arrow. She loosed it quietly, with only a slight whistle from the arrow.
The glow faded and one of the people I didn’t know, tall and wrapped head to toe in cloth, reached out their hands. They grasped the air and pulled back, sending a small hare flying back towards us before it stopped midair, falling straight to the ground. With greying hair that shone in the dark, an older woman gathered the carcass into a large backpack. It didn’t appear to take up any space in it though I had seen her put plenty of other animals in there and if she felt the weight she didn’t show it.
Fowl turned to all of us, “Let’s rest here for the night, travel back in the morning. I’ll take first watch. Amy, pair up with me tonight.”
“I’ll take the one after that,” the blond woman added.
The bandaged figure raised a hand. “You want to take third, Bo?”
Bo- nodded, with a rough “Yes,” like it hurt them to speak.
Grize spoke last, “I’ll take last then, I don’t mind waking up early.”
—
We traveled back following the slight trail where we had walked. I used the roots of the trees to shift the leaves we disturbed. The thorns were growing just slightly into my fingers, and I felt the slow trickle of power flowing into my ring, like a tiny stream of water filling a massive crater. Fowl raised his hand, and again we all stopped. He held his hand flat, pointed downwards– prepare for danger. I drew in the roots and branches, at the ready.
The others prepared similarly, drawing bows and knives. Fowl clutched his own weapon, a farming sickle, as he brought his shell up to his ear. I couldn’t hear anything, but he spun around and pointed behind us.
“There, two beasts. They know we’re here, if we don’t eliminate them more will follow.”
I’d never seen a monster before, this was the first time I’d left the area around the Hill. They came in all shapes and sizes with varying degrees of intelligence, but most acted like animals. They were all strong, and our group wasn’t meant for combat. That was part of why they brought me along. I could move branches and roots to make it easier to travel without breaking them. We were meant to go out and hunt undetected, but if we let the monsters go they would come back en masse, and we were close enough to the Hill that they would find it.
“Erze, give us an update, what do they look like?” Fowl asked the blond-haired woman.
She replied without moving her head, “They look like a pair. One’s on four… no… eight legs, bone armor, three horns. The other has two legs, big tail with spines, big teeth too. Second one looks like it has a weakness in its stomach.”
“Alright, let’s go,” Fowl started running forwards, shortly followed by the rest of the group. Grize grabbed my hand and started pulling me forwards. I almost tripped on a rock before I caught up to the group's pace and she let my hand go.
“Don’t lag behind, we need everything we can get here, no second chances.” Grize’s words were reassuring, even if they were brief. None of the long-time hunters minced words, even back on the Hill. I suppose that’s how you turn out with so many curt commands.
“Yeah, right,” my voice cracked from underuse.
We carried on running, and Fowl laid out our plan of attack. “Grize, Bo, and I will engage directly, Erze you’re our eyes and head, give us commands and we’ll do them. Amy, make a barrier with the trees to protect you, Erze, and Moire. Intervene if you think you can help without getting in the way, trust your instincts but trust us more. Moire, stay back but flee if it goes south, get the food back to the Hill and tell them to evacuate.”
As he finished we came into view of the monsters, hard to make out but unmistakable in their stature and stark grey color. A second later both Erze and Moire stopped, and I reached out to the surrounding trees, drawing a small circle of roots around us. I drew new growths and old branches alike into a thin mesh, rising to outline the shell before I filled it in.
Both of the monsters turned to face the three of us that ran at them. As Erze described, one stood on two curved but muscular legs. Its spine curved back, supporting a bulging sack of membrane-covered organs in its stomach. It didn’t have any arms, but its head swelled into a large reptilian snout, held open by jutting fangs. Its pale, grey-scaled skin transitioned into a bright luminescent blue surrounding the sack. It looked like it was going to rupture, each beat of its visible heart threatened to split it open.
In opposition to the first one’s armless form, the other one had eight clawed limbs, all holding it just barely off the ground. Its long flat body was covered in bone-like ridges and plates, covering- more like containing the sprawling black mass beneath it. Its head was a skull, animated by the same ichor, with three long horns facing straight ahead next to each other like a trident.
The blond woman shouted out instructions to the three hunters as they ran forward to meet the monsters, “Grize, occupy the Skull one, whittle it down but keep it away from the other one. Fowl, charge the Lizard, Bo get ready to back him up.”
Grize fired an arrow at the bone monster’s head. It scraped off the skull, just next to the opening where its eye should be. Fowl charged straight at the two-legged lizard as it clambered forewards, lunging at him. “Jump!” Without hesitating he followed the instruction, leaping off of a stone, seeming to bound again in the air to an unnatural height.
He landed on the other side of the Lizard as it crashed onto the forest floor, lying prone on its stomach. Through the growing branches, I could see it right itself with a long, thin tail that I hadn’t seen before. The tail curved around a tree and it pulled itself up, nearly uprooting the entire trunk.
The woman called out again, “Knock it off balance! Fowl, go for the sternum but watch the tail!” Before it could launch itself again, the bandaged figure reached out a hand, sweeping it sideways. A moment later Lizard rocketed sideways, crashing against a patch of trees. Fowl flew forewards, tossing his knife at the recovering monster. As the blade spun through the air it impacted right at the top of the blue sack, and a tiny trickle of liquid went down the blade.
Lizard pulled itself up again, not minding the blade, and focused fully on Fowl. Instead of lunging, it turned and swung its tail towards the hunter, who dodged back out of the way just in time. Before it could continue attacking, Fowl had completely retreated, propelling himself back instead of upwards. It seemed like he had a burst of energy midair, like the full extent of his jumps were delayed.
“–for the joints! I need to see, make a gap in the branches!” I was so focused on Fowl’s fight I had almost missed the woman’s instructions. I focused on thinning the branches into a slit in front of her while continuing to widen the mesh that we were almost entirely covered in.
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