Chapter 88: Cheep!? 87

Cheep!?

Chapter 87

Tensely waiting in a bush, whilst keeping his eyes and ears open for any sign of a Hornet the size of a large dog, was certainly not what Niko had in mind when he thought of a good time. The fact that his companions were with him did little to diminish the fright he was feeling. Though, if there was anything working for him at the moment, it was the fact that his blood was positively singing at the thought of violence. ‘Under normal circumstances, that would be worrying, but I guess right now that’s par for the course,’ Thought Niko, trying to ignore the itchy brambles that unfortunately made up part of the bushes that he’d chosen.

At least he wasn’t Ronald, that guy had voluntarily claimed what locals called a Nepp Bush, or as Niko liked to call them, ‘needle’ bushes. If he wasn’t wearing armor, Ronald would have been wading into  what felt like a flexible cactus trap. Luckily, spiky parts aside, the plant was as mundane as it got, and Niko had little doubt that Ronald would be able to extract himself easily if it came to that.

Niko’s attention then turned towards the buzzing that was filling the air. It became harder and harder to actually parse where the sound was coming from, and not for the first time he was beginning to question if their strategy of trying to stagger the first wave was a good one. Considering all of the sounds that Niko could hear, he was also doubtful that the entire damn hive didn’t just come out all at once. 

Movement from the side drew his eyes as Skye made hand signs to the others, but to him spoke directly into his mind, “They’re near, hit the third hornet that flies by you.” 

As soon as the words entered his thoughts, Niko felt his blood vessels expand, his heartbeat quicken, and the sounds of the world both become sharper and more distant. Adrenaline surged through his blood, as Niko took a deep breath and cycled essence through his body, feeling the pseudo-veins burn with the sheer pressure he was putting on them. All of a sudden, the concerns and fears he had felt faded away as his Phorus side began to assert itself more fully. He embraced his own subconscious desires for battle, knowing it  to be more of a virtue here than a vice. 

Niko’s eyes honed to a razor degree as he surveyed the air above and around him, his sense of smell telling him that there was something odd drifting in the air. It was tangy, almost, like an almost sweet citrus scent. ‘Is that Massacre Hornet smell? That’s oddly innocuous, all things considered.’ 

Shaking himself from extraneous thought, Niko’s hind legs tensed, but he tried to keep his essence in check. He’d seen and felt the essence of an attacker enough times to know that a lapse in control could potentially give him away. Niko was still increasing the pressure on his patterns when the first blur of white and red zipped by overhead.

‘First one,’ Niko felt his eyes hone in further, even as the second passed by. He held his ground, patiently, even as he heard a ‘snap’ of something piercing exoskeleton behind him. But when the third hornet entered his field of view, Niko didn’t hesitate when his body demanded action.

With a burst of essence and exertion, Niko launched himself straight up out of the bush, like a Great White Shark breaking through the surface of the ocean with a seal in its jaws. Niko lacked a seal, but he would make do with other quarry.

The strike happened so quickly that Niko acted more on autopilot than conscious thought. His beak vibrated with essence, and snapped shut, finding the midsection of a large hornet overhead. The moment contact was assured, Niko swept up with his talons, holding both the hornet’s head and abdomen away, securing himself from both the dangerous mandibles and venomous stinger. With ruthless motions, Niko dragged the hornet straight down to the ground, carrying them both in an arc to the roots that partly covered the forest floor. The short-lived freefall with the stunned and blindly struggling hornet ended with a crunch as Niko used his vastly superior weight and sundering beak to tear the midsection clean out of the creature.

It twitched and struggled, but Niko could feel essence bleed from the creature like a bucket with its bottom removed. Relying more on his hearing than sight, Niko dragged the hornet towards him and twisted, just in time to receive an attack from another hornet. It had grabbed at him, but with Niko’s maneuver only succeeded in clasping onto its fallen fellow. The hornet clumsily tried to move backwards, but Niko didn’t allow it to disengage. Instead, he pushed forward, leveraging the almost-corpse against the newcomer and slamming it into the bushes that Niko had just come from. Angry buzzing permeated every second of the conflict, and dirt was flung up at every stumbling attempt to fly by the hornet's shimmering wings.

Aggressive snaps of mandibles aimed at Niko’s head were avoided with deft weaving for a second, before Niko’s beak filled with essence and he returned the hornet’s attacks in kind. In one swift strike, he buried the pointed tip of his beak into the side of the hornet’s head. Niko, working his essence and blade-like beak, pierced the hornet’s exoskeleton thoroughly, all the while ignoring the gore and the sickly-satisfying crunch that followed every movement. Another burst of essence plumed outwards, and greedily Niko marshaled his own essence to encourage it to come towards him. Like smoke to a vent, he drew much of it inwards, but he stopped after a few breaths with a regretful sigh. 

Controlling essence was nearly second nature to him now, but drawing it in like that still required more concentrated effort, something not easily affordable in the middle of battle.

“Help, over here!” Dachna called out, “I can’t keep them entertained much longer!”

Niko’s attention snapped over to his companion, as he only now realized that the man was dealing with three hornets. ‘Four, if you count the one on the ground,’ Niko gave an approving nod at that, before gathering himself up. Dachna was sweeping a chain around through the air, one with silver coins interspersed down its narrow length. Even in the midst of battle, Niko still found the sight almost entirely transfixing, but he was still, barely, able to draw his attention from it. The hornets were not so skilled at resisting however, and they frantically chased after the length of chain, furiously snapping at it with their mandibles and taking wild swipes at it with their singers. 

With bounding steps, Niko’s talons cleft through the earth with the power he pushed through them. He pulled another deep breath into his lungs, and as it rose back out from his throat he empowered it with essence. A mighty screech cracked through the buzzing cacophony, and the hornets all around him staggered at the pressure. Niko could see how the essence carried by his voice wrapped around and, with his intent, suffused his companions with power.

‘Looks like that worked! Peck yeah!’ Niko cheered mentally, before refocusing his attention on the air-borne hornets. Dachna spun, bringing the chain in tightly around his body while his other hand swept out from his overcoat. The closest hornet failed to dodge the projectiles the rogue threw, and instead caught several daggers with its body. It fell, a dagger sliding deeply, and fatally through its inflexible head armor. 

Unwilling to be outdone, Niko lept into the air, projecting his arc at the nearest hornet. Mid-leap, the insect must have detected him, because it tried to twist to meet him. Too late, though, as Niko slammed into its side, one of his feet firmly stabbing into its abdomen. They crashed into the ground as Niko grappled the hornet, and even with the limb advantage, the bug simply couldn’t overcome the sheer weight class difference that Niko enjoyed.

It was something he’d considered after the Kotyuk, ‘After all, if something bigger than me can’t get me off, then what hope does something smaller than me have?’ 

And, true to that line of thought, Niko frenziedly raked his back talons through exoskeleton, breaching through hard tissues and into softer organs within moments. He pumped his legs, the rhythm somewhere between swimming and bicycling, until he realized he was hitting dirt. Essence hit him, and Niko didn’t need to look to realize the utter mess he’d made out of the second hornet.

A roar sounded in the forest, and Niko turned his head to see Sasha take the remaining hornet out of the air. Her strike was fast and deadly, essence brimming sabreteeth pierced through exoskeleton like wet paper. They crashed to the ground, rolling chaotically, but Niko could plainly see that the angle of the strike left the hornet with no way to counter attack. Even the impact of their landing was firmly in Sasha’s favor.

“Thanks for the assist!” Dachna called out, just as Ronald and the Hind Bear, Thokk, returned from a neighboring clearing. 

Skye and Mithel followed from behind them, the first with her bow and arrow in hand, and the second with flasks. Niko didn’t look too hard at the flasks, as he still remembered the acrid muck that she’d made them all drink not too long ago. Yet, it had worked marvelously for the ambush, so he had to begrudgingly accept that it was well worth it.

“I counted ten altogether,” Skye called out to Ronald, even as she continued to survey the land.

The big man shrugged his shoulders out, “We took out three on our side.”

“Four here,” Dachna said while gesturing to the ground around him. He paused briefly at the devastated hornet that Niko had gotten to and murmured, “Bant’s arse, that’s nasty.”

“I got one on the outskirts as it tried to escape,” Sasha added while cleaning herself off, something that Niko briefly felt jealous about, but didn’t let it show. Though, admittedly, he didn’t expect the hornet goop to taste especially good.

After relaying Sasha’s words, Niko then added his own report, “And I got two, before helping Dachna out. That’s all of them, then?” 

Nodding, Skye looked over to Ronald, “Next plan?” 

“Pull back fifty meters and then we do it again,” Ronald answered, before pausing with his head tilted to the side as though he was listening to someone speaking to him. Niko glanced around in confusion before realizing he must be speaking through the communications crystal.

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The man’s expression soured as he listened, until finally his eyes settled back on the team. “Nevermind, the new orders are to fully retreat back to the wall. Apparently the second wave of hornets detected the traps and are waiting.”

Niko tried not to let the declaration chill his blood, but that sounded suspiciously like a military-minded tactic. The others didn’t look much better than he imagined that he did, but the Hind Bear especially looked beleaguered as he said, “They only do so when they plan to marshall a full-on attack wave. It is good to not be in the open when that happens.” 

With a quick chirrup, he translated to Skye, and with a grimace she added, “Then let’s get gone.”

The group moved backwards through the forest quickly, but they were several hundred meters out. Deeper and more secure scouts had reported several waves of hornets approaching, hence why this strategy had been adopted. If they could hit the hornets before they were allowed to group up, then combat would go much more easily.

Unfortunately, Massacre Hornets weren’t monsters, though they were perhaps halfway there. Then again, even if they were monsters, they probably would have simply grouped up in the first place. Now, they were placed in the awkward and dangerous position of being in no man's land, and needing to retreat. If the hornets marshaled more quickly than they’d anticipated, this could become a disastrous scenario.

No one needed to be told what would happen if a hundred hornets fell upon them all at once.

They were sprinting as quickly as they could when Ronald shouted, “Faster!” 

Niko felt his chest constrict at the statement, and that only worsened when Ronald didn’t explain anything further. The group could move quickly, but even with his order, Ronald, Mithel, and Dachna were already going as fast as they could.

And judging by what almost sounded like rolling thunder in the distance, they weren’t going to be getting to town quickly enough.

“Sasha, Thokk, can you carry one of them?” Niko asked desperately, turning to the two beasts that were clearly able to go much faster than they were currently, but were sticking with the group.

It didn’t take even a second of consideration for Thokk to answer, “Of course. I’ll take the big one.” 

Sasha was mildly more reluctant, but said, “I’ll take the short girl.”

Niko turned then, squawking loudly at Dachna. “What!? I’m going as fast as I can!” The man shouted, just before Niko drew closer to him, angling his back to him as much as he could. “Oh.” Muttering, Dachna blinked a few times before jumping at Niko, expertly twisting himself to comfortably land high up on Niko’s back.

After a second of adjusting to his weight, Niko only barely even noticed the rogue on his back. Begrudgingly, he put revisiting the idea of someone being able to ride on his back in combat back on his list of considerations. 

It had nothing to do with how it actually kind of felt comfortable. Like having a warm cat on your back. Nothing at all.

“Thanks, bud,” Dachna patted Niko’s side before hunkering down low to dodge more wayward branches. Nodding, Niko took a quick glance at the rest of the team, seeing Skye ahead with a complicated expression at the sight of Dachna on his back.

“Are you pouting?” Niko squawked at her in dismay.

Skye startled at the question, “N-No! What? Of course not!” 

“What’d he ask?” Dachna shouted back to her.

“Nothing! Focus on not falling off!” Skye shouted before grumbling something under her breath that Niko couldn’t hear. He decided not to focus on that, instead only confirming that the others were cared for.

Sasha easily carried the light weight Mithel, though the gnome was desperately clinging to her fur with a face as pale as a white sheet. ‘Heh, I guess she’s never gotten a ride from a sabretooth cat before… Oh… Actually I guess that could be terrifying in its own way, it’s not like she knows Sasha. How’s Thokk?’

Niko saw the Hind Bear a moment later with Ronald on his back, the big man bracing himself against the huge creature's back like a pro, one hand holding onto a fist full of fur along the upper back and his other hand clenching his pole-arm. ‘I never figured on Ronald being bear-cavalry… Huh.’ 

Their speed increased dramatically, and Niko felt as though the sounds were getting more distant. The forest thinned slightly as they went, and Niko took that as a sign that they were nearing Greenleaf. In less than a minute, they’d hit the city gates and enter the city, and from there it would be the siege that they’d expected and dreaded in equal measure.

“There’s a call for volunteers to run interference for the slower teams,” Ronald called out, “For anyone quick enough and able to escort. It’s being declared as extremely high risk with undeclared rewards.”

His words fell upon them and Niko subconsciously slowed his feet, halfway to a hissing fit at the fact that Ronald just had to tell them. Niko knew in the back of his mind, that they were lucky to be as mobile as they were. Even teams with tames and their own means of mobility probably didn’t have as much as they did. ‘I mean, peck, if Sasha and Thokk weren’t here, we wouldn’t have enough for us either!’ 

Niko heard Dachna curse under his breath, and clucked in agreement, but when Niko met his eyes they both saw the intent behind the gesture. Skye fell in line next to them, a stoic expression on her face, and her knuckles white on her bow.

“We’re already out here, Ronald,” Mithel called out their sentiment, “May as well put ourselves to work.”

Ronald, both nodding and beaming pridefully at the declaration, patted the big bear beneath him, “You don’t need to help us if you don’t want to, but I’d count it as a personal favor if you did.”

Niko listened to Thokk rumble in what might have been laughter, “I was beginning to worry you humans had no spine. Let us join in battle, then.” 

“I owe you all this and more,” Sasha’s chitter of cat sounds caught Mithel off guard on her shoulders, “But if it gets too much, I will take the short one with me and retreat. Dying will do us no good.” 

“Thank you, both of you,” Niko trilled happily at them, and even before the translation was over, Ronald was gently guiding Thokk in the direction of the first rescue with a broad smile on his face. 

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