Chapter 78: Chapter 77

The wind flowed past them as they stood in the sky, nearly half a mile straight up. Analia tried to say something, but Nym couldn’t hear her over the noise. He hardened the air around them in a dome to cut the sound and said, “What was that?”

“I was asking how you handle this wind for hours and hours while you fly.”

“Oh, that. Mostly with warm clothes. I also got a special mask that has goggles built into it to protect my face.”

“So you’re telling me you don’t have a real solution,” she said.

“The mask is a perfectly valid solution.”

“What about this thing you’re doing here?” she said, waving a hand vaguely around.

Nym shrugged. “Fine for a few minutes long conversation, but it uses… hmm… about three times as much arcana to hold it in place as it does to hold myself up. I guess if you were just going to fly around town and didn’t want to worry about your hair getting messed up, it would work.”

“Boys,” she said, her voice flat. “You don’t even care, do you?”

“About what?” Nym asked, confused.

“Never mind. Let’s just do what we’re here for.”

“I’ve been doing that,” he protested.

The group was still two days from Valcort, but they’d stumbled across some disturbing signs. Something was tearing up the countryside and had slaughtered at least one farmhouse. Nym and Analia were scouting the landscape, with him holding them both up as she didn’t feel comfortable trying to channel two spells at once, let alone from two different layers. They both used spells of far sight to scour the ground below while their group traveled west down the road.

“Tracks over there,” Analia said, pointing to the south.

“Those are… really big,” he said, spotting them. “And deep.”

“Something heavy. Look at the punctures in the front. Three claws. Maybe talons. Bird-like?”

“Why would it be walking then?”

“Maybe it swooped down to eat something and had to chase it a bit. Look how it only runs for a hundred feet and then disappears again.”

“Okay, well that’s great. I don’t want to be up in the sky anymore,” Nym told her.

“Just hold on. We’re not done yet. See, there, the tops of those trees are broken.”

“That just looks like wind damage from a recent storm,” Nym said hopefully. If it wasn’t, that meant whatever had passed over them was at least fifty feet wide. He didn’t even know what kind of bird got to that size, but he was pretty sure if there was anything like that lurking in the area, people would know. That seemed like the kind of thing that would be a big enough deal to get some professionals in to kill it.

“What if it’s not?”

“Then we should probably walk faster and not stop to camp anywhere near here tonight.”

It was too bad none of the earth mages would willingly go up in the air with him. He would have appreciated one of their opinions right now. They were all more worldly than either Analia or him, and might have an idea of what exactly had made this stretch of road its territory. Maybe he could convince Ophelia to go up just for a few minutes to see it for herself.

“Are you ready to go back down?” he asked.

Analia didn’t answer. She just pointed down at the trees.

“Oh no,” Nym groaned. Whole trees swayed in a pattern similar to a person walking through tall grass. Whatever was pushing its way through the forest was big. The only good news was that it wasn’t heading towards the road and the rest of their group. The bad news was that it was running parallel to the group and keeping pace with them.

“Better get down there and tell them to expect company,” he said. Without waiting for Analia to answer, he brought them both back down to where the earth mages waited.

“Trouble incoming,” he reported, pointing at the forest maybe a thousand feet off from the road. “Something big enough to shake trees is walking around in there, keeping pace with you.”

“Of course there is,” Bildar said grimly, following Nym’s finger to stare at the tree line. “And of course we’re going to be the ones to kill it. Won’t even get paid for it either. Do we look like some sort of troupe of monster hunters? I don’t even have a sword!”

“I feel like we should have two swords, each,” Nomick said. “It would look better that way.”

“What would you do with the second sword?” Ophelia asked. “You don’t even know how to use one at a time.”

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“Well you wouldn’t use them both at the same time, obviously!”

Ophelia stared at him for a second. “Why do you need two then?”

“I don’t know! I read it in a book somewhere! Monster hunters have two swords.”

“Well we’re not monster hunters, so it doesn’t matter.”

They marched on in silence, tension hanging thick in the air. Everyone kept an eye on the trees, occasionally seeing some of the tips sway, but never getting a glimpse of whatever was keeping pace with them. Nym flew up over by Bildar and said quietly, “Do you want me to fly up and go get a closer look from above?”

“Not sure. Whatever it is isn’t making any move to get closer to us. We might just walk right out of its territory without a fight as long as we keep our distance. If it does decide to attack though, it’d be better to know what we’re up against. Ophelia, what do you think?”

“Whatever it is, it’s big enough that I don’t think we’re going to be able to throw up a wall strong enough to hold it back without hours of prep time. Knowing what it is isn’t going to help us prepare for it. If it’s just pacing us to make sure we’re leaving its territory, then we probably shouldn’t get too close.”

Without using flight and far sight, Nym’s other option was his scrying spell, which was up to about a three-hundred-foot range. Unfortunately, that wasn’t nearly enough distance to even make it to the trees, let alone get a look at what was hiding in them. If they weren’t going to get closer, it wouldn’t help them figure it out. He mentally went through every spell he’d learned, trying to think of something useful.

A screeching roar shook the trees, so loud that Nym could practically feel the vibrations. The whole group tensed up, all four earth mages already working together to throw up thick walls of dirt and stone. Nym rose up into the air for a better view, and called the complicated construct for a lightning bolt to mind. He started weaving it together, ignoring the forest for a moment so he could focus.

No great slobbering beast came stomping out of the trees. Instead, a second roar sounded, this one filled with pain. The roars turned into squeals accompanied by cracking and tearing sounds. Trees shuddered and burst apart under the hidden assault, crashing down to the forest floor or into other trees.

“Can I go look now?” Nym asked.

“Damn it.” Bildar gulped and closed his eyes. He held out a hand to Nym. “Straight up. Not too high. Take me with you.”

Nym regarded the outstretched hand for a second. “You know I don’t need to touch you, right?”

“It’s for me, not you. I don’t like feeling like I’m hanging there with nothing around.”

Somebody definitely would have made fun of Bildar for admitting that if the situation had been any less tense. Assuming they all survived, he’d endure the mockery later. For now though, Nym grabbed his hand and lifted them both into the air. They went up a few hundred feet, Bildar’s eyes scrunched tight the whole time. “Hey, look,” Nym said. “That’s what we’re here for.”

The angle was high enough up to see a massive gap in the trees. Nym wouldn’t call it a clearing or anything, since that would imply that the ground was clear. Instead, it was like the hand of God had reached down and squashed a few dozen trees, leaving the wreckage tangled up on itself and the outer ring of still-standing pines.

What wasn’t visible was whatever had made the mess. “God,” Bildar muttered, staring at the devastation. “What did this?”

A massive bird covered in dark blue plumage lunged into the air. Powerful wings flapped, trying to give it lift, and Nym noted that the span probably was about those fifty feet of broken tree-tops Analia had pointed out. However, the bird wasn’t flying away. It squawked in terror and pain, one leg still anchored to something below the tree line.

“So… what do we think?” Nym asked. “Giant bird seems to be losing a fight with something.”

“I think we should get back down on the ground and just leave. Whatever is fighting that thing, let them figure out between themselves. We do not need to be involved in this.”

Nym dropped them straight down, drawing a strangled yelp from Bildar before they slowed to a light landing on the ground. The bearded mage nearly fell over when his feet touched dirt, and he took a deep, shuddering breath before he opened his eyes again. “We keep moving, as fast as we can. Whatever’s going on in there has nothing to do with us and we’ve got no reason to stay here.”

They picked up the pace, all four earth mages alternating casting a spell that seemed to cause the earth to slide forward under their feet. Nym found it extremely disorienting to walk on, but the oxen plodded forward, completely ignoring it as they walked three times faster than normal. Within minutes, all of four mages were barely upright. Their limbs trembled with fatigue while their chests heaved as they tried to suck in air.

“Do you guys want some help?” Nym asked. He wasn’t about to reveal that he’d figured out how to cast the spell from watching them do it, but it was a desperate time, and he’d think up some excuse to explain how he could cast it later.

“Check and see if anything came out of the forest,” Bildar said, still panting as walked next to the wagon. He had one hand clamped onto it to help keep him upright.

Nym flew up and back and cast far sight again to scout behind him. To his surprise, they’d traveled several miles in maybe ten or fifteen minutes. Far sight’s range wasn’t good enough for him to see all the way back, so he flew closer to the forest to investigate. As he approached, he saw a flash of blue between the boughs of the trees.

For the first time, Nym got a good look at it. It was probably thirty feet tall with a thick body perched on top of two long legs. Talons longer than Nym was tall glinted with blood. The bird had a long neck and two wings that looked like they could be folded up against its body. A wickedly curved beak hung open, revealing a pointed tongue.

It was also extremely dead. Its neck had been snapped in at least two places and shards of jagged wood peppered its entire body. A rope was tied around one of its ankles, and the other end was looped around three different trees in a complicated knot. Even then, he could see exposed roots where it had almost ripped the trees out of the ground in its attempt to escape.

A man stood there with an axe held in both hands, butchering the monstrous bird. Nym got a glimpse of white hair tied back and two sword hilts poking up over his shoulders, but didn’t stick around to investigate. The threat was dead, killed by someone. The group would be happy to have that news.

He turned to fly back to the group, only to pull up short. A second bird, equally as big, was winging its way through the air towards the wagon. It didn’t look like his friends had noticed, but then the bird let out a terror-inducing roar, a sound that somehow didn’t seem right coming out from its mouth, and dived.

“It had a mate,” Nym whispered. He pulled on the arcana and shot forward at maximum speed.

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