One-Armed Beasthunter, page 17
It had heavy, muscular hind limbs and a long, serpentine tail tipped with a spike that was longer than Fer’s forearm. Its forelimbs were like a bat; big leathery wings tipped with three wicked-looking talons.
Fer stared up at it, mouth moving silently for a moment before he managed, “Well…hell.”
The Beast pushed off and launched itself into the air, its wings blasting dirt and sand into the sky with a sound like a hurricane touching down. Fer shouted a warning and dove out of the way, rolling towards one of the shrubs beside the road, as if it could grant him any kind of protection.
But the Beast flashed over the space he and Saer had been standing, slamming into one of the oxen still hitched to its cart. Talons dug deep into the animal’s hide as it bellowed in pain, and crashed to the ground under the Beast’s weight. The creature bent down, ripping off a mouthful of flesh as it looked around lazily, as if contemplating its next meal.
People screamed, animals panicked and ran, dragging wagons behind them. The ox that had been paired with the one underneath the Beast went wild in its terror, ripping itself free of its straps to flee into the scrublands, its pale hide streaked with blood.
Fer dragged himself out of the prickly arms of the shrub and back on his feet. His head snapped around, looking for Saer.
The wolf Beast had crouched down in an attempt to appear smaller, and Fer couldn’t blame it. The winged Beast didn’t seem interested in the humans. They were probably too small to be considered a meal. But Saer was almost of a size with the oxen, and might soon find himself a target. It reminded Fer of fighting the worm; it hadn’t even seemed to notice Fer until he’d stuck it.
But that didn’t mean that the winged Beast couldn’t change its mind at any time and swoop down on a farm or village. Even if it didn’t target humans specifically, its fires were still deadly to anyone trapped by them. Or could condemn them to a slower death by the elements or starvation with their livelihood burned to the ground.
It needed to be stopped, before it could wreak any more devastation.
“Come on,” he shouted to Saer. “Our only chance is if we can keep it on the ground.”
If it launched itself into the sky again, it could just attack from above and they’d never be able to reach it, much less hurt it. The question was, how could he keep it from doing that?
The easiest answer would be to damage the Beast’s wings.
Decision made, Fer charged forward. His fingers popped, the bones stretching, his nails spinning out into three prongs as his hand took its [Pitchfork Form]. If he could sink it into the leathery membranes of one of the Beast’s wings, it would do the most damage the quickest.
Fer hoped that the Beast was too intent on its meal to pay him any mind, but he only had crossed about half the distance between them before its head snapped around on its long, snake-like neck, and it sent a gout of onyx flames roaring his way.
He only just managed to fling himself out of the way, slamming into the hard packed dirt of the road, when the flames scorched by overhead. A strange, high-pitched shattering sound came from behind, and Fer dug his [Pitchfork Form] into the ground to drag himself to his feet.
The swath of ground where Fer had been standing had been fused into brittle black glass by the Beast’s flame attack. It carved a channel through the sand, cracking and warping from the residual heat.
“Right,” Fer muttered. “Great.”
The Beast’s maw opened, and Fer could see the flicker of dark flames down in its gullet as it prepared to attack again. He tensed, arms to his sides, ready to try and throw himself out of the way of the fire once it struck.
Saer slammed into the side of the winged Beast’s head, claws scrabbling against huge, curling horns to reach its eyes. The blow knocked its head to the side, and it roared its gout of flames into a standing cactus instead. The winged Beast thrashed its head from side to side, trying to knock Saer off, and when it couldn’t manage, it mantled its wings and prepared to lift off.
“Oh no, you don’t,” Fer snarled, racing forward.
Before the winged Beast could launch itself skyward, Fer commanded his arm to shift around, tines sprouting back into fingers and scales. The teeth at the center of his palm parted, and the coil of his [Whip Tongue] attack lashed out, wrapping around the heavy curve of one of the Beast’s horns just as it sent Saer sprawling.
When the Beast pulled itself into the sky with a powerful movement of its wings, Fer realized his mistake.
The motion yanked him across the ground and up into the sky before he could think to release his attack. The wind tore at him with shrieking claws, and he wrenched his head down to see the blur of the ground grow further and further away.
Too late to let go, not with any hope of surviving the fall, he could only cling to his own arm and pray that his grip didn’t loosen.
He couldn’t hear over the howl of the wind. It tore at his face, burning the skin as they barreled through the sky. Tears streamed from Fer’s eyes as he struggled to keep them open, to see at least where they were going.
His weight seemed to be throwing off the Beast’s flight, dragging it to the side and pulling down on its head.
Enraged, it snapped for him, but its own movement made the [Whip Tongue] jolt to the side, dragging Fer out of the path of its teeth.
Rocks and brush, sand and trees blurred by underneath them, and Fer realized they were heading for the mountains. The Beast must have a lair there, he figured. And he knew he would have a very bad chance of evading it between the mountain peaks if they reached them.
It had to land. None of his arm’s abilities worked at any distance, and clearly his [Whip Tongue] attack had been a poor choice. If the drag of the wind hadn’t been so brutal, he might have considered releasing some [Pustule Spores], but they would more likely than not just blow back at him, and he wasn’t sure he’d be able to hold them long enough to do any damage with the strain his arm was under. He had to force the Beast down if he was to have any chance of survival.
It was easier said than done, though. He had no leverage, dangling behind the Beast as it jerked around like a drunken bat. He wasn’t close enough to reach it, and he could already feel the burning pain of a shoulder strained past its limit. Even the muscles in his chest hurt, aching down to his ribs. He wasn’t sure how long before his grip gave out.
The Beast snapped its head around, trying to throw Fer off, and he careened into its side. The black scales were almost scorching hot against his skin, like they should be throwing off steam in the air, but Fer scrabbled at them with his left hand, trying to get a grip before another thrashing motion spun him away from the Beast’s body again.
He spun through the air, stomach lurching, bile flooding his mouth. The Beast dove towards the ground as though it would try to scrape him off, but then changed its mind and climbed steeply back towards the clouds. Fer ricocheted through the air, his shoulder screaming protest in chorus with his elbow and wrist, and he knew he was running out of time.
That wicked tail spike shot through the air like a furious snake, stabbing towards his torso, and Fer only just managed to swing himself out of its path, the razor tip of it dragging across his belly and leaving a burning trail of blood in its wake.
He really hoped it wasn’t venomous.
The ground was rising and falling below them like grey and gold waves as they headed for the foothills of the mountain range. If he could angle the Beast towards one, he might be able to get his feet on the ground, or at least find a safer place to land.
He waited for the Beast to attempt another roll or twist to throw him off, and then Fer flung his body as best he could, yanking with all the strength in his body towards one of the higher hills.
It dragged the Beast’s head around, throwing off its flight. Huge leathery wings raked the air as it tried to catch an updraft and pull up. The ground grew closer in a hurry, racing up to meet them.
The Beast managed to right itself, skimming only a dozen feet above the sand, and the muscles in its shoulders bunched as it prepared to head skyward.
A silver blur streaked across the hill below them, and Saer threw themselves up in an incredible leap. Lupine jaws closed on the winged Beast’s leathery wing membrane, and with a powerful twist of their head, Saer tore.
The winged Beast roared, its ruined wing crumpling under the force of the wind. It spun hard, intact membrane catching the air current and throwing it in a spiral towards the ground.
Fer had just enough warning to bring his legs up, waiting until the ground was close enough to release his [Whip Tongue] attack so he flew only a few feet. He felt the impact through his feet, up his legs and into his hips and back, and immediately fell forward into a roll to try and absorb some of it.
Sand scraped over his face as he bounced along the ground, crashing through a bit of sharp, fibrous grass until he finally slid to a stop feeling like he’d been trampled by every single ox in that caravan, and then had them come back for a second pass. His bones ached. His hair ached, and he hadn’t even known that was possible.
But there was no time to lie on the ground and rethink every decision he’d ever made, no matter how much he wanted to. As soon as he shook his head hard enough to clear the horrible ringing from them, he could hear the Beast roar, and Saer’s answering snarl.
Fer hauled himself to his feet, his legs trembling like a new born foal the whole while. He ran like a drunk man over to where the winged Beast had crashed into the dirt, carving a huge trough in the sand and red clay. It was trying to haul itself out of the crevice it had dug with its own momentum, but Saer wasn’t giving it a chance, harrying it with claws and gleaming ivory fangs.
The Beast’s good wing came up and slammed into Saer’s side like a bone club, knocking the lupine creature sprawling. It used the break in Saer’s attack to start hauling itself out of its improvised sand trap, jaws falling open to release ribbons of smoke into the air.
Fer charged forward. There was no time for finesse, no time to remember all the instructions the captain in charge of his training group had drilled into him over his months in the army. Most of that had been ‘hold them off until someone else puts them down’ anyways, which never seemed to be relevant anymore.
The Beast’s thrashing churned the dirt around it, turning the ground into a heaving mess of unsteady terrain. So, Fer leapt up onto its back and ran up the knobby length of its spine while his bones shifted around, black nails weaving together into a brutally sharp point with a flared base.
The Beast bucked, and Fer fell forward to scrabble the last distance with one hand and both feet, [Pike Form] held out to the side. Its tail whipped up, the wicked spine angling for Fer’s head.
Then Saer was there, long fangs digging into black scales as they wrenched the Beast’s tail to the side and pinned it under their bulk. They didn’t let go, even when smoke rolled up from their blackening gums, the Beast’s flesh scorching hot to the touch.
Fer clawed his way over the last few steps, and with all the power in his arm and back, he stabbed his spear point forward into the base of the Beast’s skull until he felt if pop out the other side into its snapping mouth.
The Beast went rigid, mouth locked open in a silent roar. Then it went wild.
Bucking and twisting, coiling in on itself and back again like a snake in its death throes. It flung Fer around like a rag doll, and he clung to its horns to avoid being thrown off and crushed, or having his arm torn off for the second time in his life.
Finally, with a few gasping heaves, the Beast collapsed, its tail thudding limp to the ground.
Fer cautiously lifted his head, squinting one eye open to assure himself that it was all over. He had to convince his arm to shift back into a hand in order to slide it back out through the hole in the Beast’s skull, and then he lay in the hot sand, half pinned under the corpse’s bulk and saved from being squashed only because he’d been pressed into the soft ground.
He wasn’t sure how long he lay there, staring up at the white disc of the sun in the sky and feeling every single muscle in his body complaining bitterly. Head throbbing, Fer closed his eyes and sternly told himself exactly how suicidally stupid it would be to take a nap out in the scrublands, pinned down under a dead Beast. He was still tempted.
A huff of hot breath across his forehead made him crack one eye open. Saer stood over him, peering down their long, lupine muzzle.
“Look at that,” the wolf Beast grumbled. “Not even dead.”
“Not today, at least.” Fer groaned as he started to wriggle and shift himself free of the enormous bulk of the winged Beast’s corpse. “You were right, by the way. Back of the neck is a really easy spot to kill someone from.”
Saer snorted. “I told you.”
After long moments of twisting, shifting, and a few growled huffs from Saer that sounded suspiciously like laughter, Fer managed to dig himself out from under the winged Beast and haul himself to his feet.
“Thanks, by the way,” he said, looking anywhere but at Saer. “For coming after me.”
“Of course,” the lupine creature said, as though Fer had said something incredibly stupid. “I wasn’t about to leave the whole thing for you to eat.”
Fer laughed. “Of course.”
The teeth in his palm clacked together eagerly.
It took them a little longer to devour the winged Beast than it had the worm. More limbs, Fer reasoned. He carefully ignored the almost spicy aftertaste that lingered in the back of his throat, in spite of the fact that the mouth in his head hadn’t eaten any of the creature’s flesh. Some things it was just best not to think about.
He was feeling more than comfortably full as he turned back to Saer. The wolf Beast finished crunching through a massive bone, swallowing the pieces easily, and then carefully cleaning the bits of blood from their paws like a particularly fastidious cat.
When Fer commented on it, Saer shot him a look from the corner of their eye. “Blood attracts attention. I’m full now, I don’t need others finding me.”
“You mean you deliberately use blood to attract things when you’re hungry?”
Saer wrinkled their muzzle. “Of course. Blood scent attracts others, and I can pick and choose from what prey to hunt. And if it attracts something too dangerous, I can leave the lesser prey to them and move on.”
Fer thought about it, rubbing one hand over the skin of his stomach. His gut grumbled a little, like he’d eaten something that didn’t agree with him. “Something too dangerous? Like another Beast? Is that why you left the Wastes?”
Saer paused, ears flicking in confusion. “What?”
“The Wastes. That’s what we call it,” he added, seeing the continuing confusion. “It’s the stretch of desert that most of the Beasts seem to come from. Did you leave because there was too much competition for food?”
It had always puzzled him, this new wave of Beasts spreading out from the Wastes like a plague of locusts. In years past, a few Beasts stumbled out of the wilds, looking for easy prey. Some even made it to the frontier farms before the King’s men could put them down. But they’d been leaving in droves, getting more and more bold, until the King had started his conscription to try and force them back before they devoured an entire kingdom. But why now? What had sent them out in such high numbers? Was it just too much competition? Beasts seemed to see each other as viable prey, so that didn’t seem likely.
Saer themselves confirmed. “No. Competition breeds strength. Strong prey grants more power.”
That made sense. Fer would never eat another human, but he had to admit that taking the flesh of Beasts did give more abilities to his arm. He couldn’t imagine gaining that kind of power from an ordinary human. Maybe it would be different with Powered individuals.
He went still, his gut roiling unhappily. Most of the attack teams organized by the King’s generals were made up of Powered people, and they encountered a disproportionate amount of Beast attacks. He’d always assumed that was because there were just so many more Beasts than there ever were before. But what if the Beasts were drawn to Powered humans, because they were stronger prey?
On the heels of that thought came another: if those in power knew that the Beasts hunted Powered in higher numbers, then did they send them out deliberately to lure Beasts to hunting parties? Or just because the Powered had a better chance of surviving an attack?
Fer’s gut cramped, and he breathed through the pain. There was no chance he wanted Saer to know he was having a problem. The lupine Beast might be an excellent hunting partner, if a little opportunistic, but that didn’t mean Fer wanted them to know when he was injured or in a weakened state. The trust only went so far, after all.
When he thought he could speak without wincing from the roiling in his guts, Ferren turned back to Saer. “If the Wastes are such an excellent hunting ground, and competition makes you stronger, why are you all leaving?”
It didn’t make sense.
Saer gave him a long look that made Fer feel distinctly judged. He wondered how the wolf Beast saw him, wondered if they saw value or found him wanting.
After a long moment of silence, they spoke in a low, growling voice, so quiet Fer had to lean forward to hear them.
“I told you. There’s always a bigger predator.”
A bigger predator.
Bigger. Stronger. More cunning.
There was something in the Wastes that was powerful enough to drive creatures like Saer, like the worm, like the winged Beast out of their own hunting grounds to bedevil humans and livestock. Something that had made monsters cede ground and leave, not even try to fight.
And then the worst thought hit, and the churning in Fer’s guts took a secondary place to the pit of black ice that formed there.
