False Skies (Challenger's Call Book 5), page 18
The whirlpool began to shift as well, as if it was trying to cast me down into its descending funnel. The amorphous sky above my head twisted, resembling a mass of stormy clouds.
The air close to my face started to whip about, as if it were trying to cut my face.
The bastard hadn’t been able to hurt me yet, so he was trying to show off, impress me with all of the little tricks he could do inside his own personal never-never land.
But I pushed back against the wind and rain and violent, twisting waves. Any one of them would be enough to finally knock me off my feet and pull me under, if I focused on them. But I kept my mind on the one goal I had: I wasn’t trying to find an escape, or prove that I could beat Cavus right now.
My goal was helping Stell win.
And as I reminded myself that, I felt the ghosts of my father and Avalon’s former Lord nod in approval.
One of the angler-snakes took the opportunity to strike from the cover of a rain-drenched breeze. I shifted my feet again, dodging the blow easily. My speed and balance had kept up with my physical and magical might, so responding to a straightforward, poorly concealed attack was child’s play. As Cavus’ head passed harmlessly to my right, I slashed Claimh Solais into the Umbra’s snake-like neck, cutting a long line through it that bled golden light. The head screamed as it writhed and dove back into the funnel of the whirlpool.
But then the enraged voices of the whirlpool rose by several octaves, and several new swells merged together as they drifted towards me. More of the water shifted, adding itself to the swell, until a massive rogue wave of snarling, screaming water swirled towards me, determined to knock me off the edge of the whirlpool and into the violently spinning funnel.
Now? Teeth asked, as several million gallons of water came bearing down on my head.
Now, I replied confidently, commanding Breaker to assume its third form, the basket-hilted bane of fear.
Battleform and dragonforms engaging, my mindscreen said to me as scales and elemental power started to crawl all over me.
My armor and skin became a mix of gold and red as the birthright of the two dragons I had bonded coated my body. I felt a second, scaly jaw grow over my face and merge with my helmet, giving me a sort of golden visor that I could somehow growl and bite with. My sword and axe were both enhanced by whatever material formed the talons of the two Cosmic Wyrms linked to my flesh and soul. I felt my muscles bulk up, as draconic and elemental energy surged through them.
The result was that I was now more than twice as strong, fast, and tough as I had been moments ago. And my magical power was taken to a level beyond even that.
So when the giant wave came crashing toward me, I brought Colada up in a powerful swing and roared, unleashing all of my stored signature spells at once, now enhanced with the elemental power of every Ideal I knew.
The two pairs of omnibolts and omniballs struck the center of the wave, and the result reminded me of military footage where they tested artillery on crumbling old cliffs, and got sued by the EPA afterwards. Explosions of fire and frost and lightning and earth and air and blood separated the center of the dark aquatic wall into a hundred million droplets. Colada descended swiftly in their wake, swung with the force of over a hundred and seventy normal Earthling men packed into one attack. The power of the blow buffeted the water droplets away from me, sending them scattering through the air and evaporating back into the cloudy false sky.
The next attack finally caught me. One of Cavus’ angler heads burst out directly from the water beneath my feet, attempting to bite me in half. I leaped upward to dodge, but one of the fangs grazed my leg, scarring the gold scales covering my shin and drawing blood.
It was my turn to roar in pain then, but I retained enough wits to finish somersaulting clear and counterattack with a well-placed axe throw. Toirneach came barreling into the side of Cavus’ piranha-like face, wreathed in bloody elemental magic. The weapon cracked into what probably passed for the ugly fish head’s temple, crunching past the skin and discharging its storm-like shroud of magical energy.
The abomination roared in agony, and a third head sank back into the waters.
Oh, hell yes, Teeth called as I began to sprint across the treacherous waves, Toirneach reappearing in my free hand. This is how our fights with Mr. Creepobitch need to go down.
Two of the yawning fishheads hissed at me, rearing back to strike. But it was the third one that held my attention. Cavus’ final fishhead had opened its oversized lower jaw, inhaling as the lure hanging over it began to glow brighter.
Incoming breath attack, I warned my dragon as I did my best to pretend my attention was on the two posturing heads in front of me.
Then I decided to test the limits of our new speed. I pushed more of the power roaring through my body into my legs, leaping to the side and sending screaming water splashing through the air.
The three remaining heads all swiveled to track me, but I was already dashing toward the leftmost head, moving faster than I ever had in my life. My trek created a clear opening for the head at the back to see me, and it took that opening to unleash a blast of hissing black fog at my body.
Which was exactly what I was waiting for.
I hurled Toirneach into the incoming smog, and the power-coated axe blasted a hole through the center of the smoky clouds. Much of its momentum was spent tearing through the breath attack, but it still had enough force to slam into the roof of Cavus’ still-open mouth.
And before he could close it, an omniball and omnibolt traveled in Toirneach’s wake.
The resulting explosions rocked the giant mouth back and forth, and finally two separate directions as its oversized lower jaw tore completely free.
As that head fell toward the sea, I fired off a spinning disk of air, slicing through the tendril on top and sending the lure with the glowing light trapped inside it hurtling clear of the monster.
The leathery orb fell toward the ocean with enough force to break it apart. As it tore open, a little white light flew out of it, shouting something I couldn’t quite hear.
There, I thought, as Toirneach returned to my hand. One light secured, five more to go. We could learn who they were after Cavus was dealt with for good.
The two remaining heads let out a horrified gasp, but then they grew quiet, pupil-less eyes watching me with what I thought was a calculating calm. Then the leftmost one darted forward, hanging low above the waves to strike at me. It twisted back and forth, as if it was a snake that needed to slither, instead of a fish that could breathe underwater.
I charged forward, as if to engage him, then immediately leaped as far as I could go to my right.
Another foggy blast struck the waves where I had been standing a moment ago. The head that had tried to distract me dove back under the ocean, sending up a spray of water that obscured my vision. I took two quick steps on the rocky waves to get better footing, then readied Colada.
When the breath-attack head predictably burst through the spray of water to attack under concealment, I thrust the blade of fear’s bane forward.
Cavus was not fear incarnate, like the Flood had been. But he was a coward at heart, and being this close to this form of Breaker made him hesitate for a fraction of a moment.
In that same moment, I hurled the blazing axe of the Woadlands into the base of the angler’s lure.
A second Starsown’s prison tore open, and a second light escaped.
Cavus’ maimed head roared. I jumped toward it, trying to predict and evade the last incoming attack.
I almost made it. Cavus’ only unharmed head burst out of the water under me, and one of the massive incisors tore across my scaled chest. It was only a grazing blow, and my torso was much more heavily armored than my legs, but it still split my script shields and the first layer of dragon scales and sent a bruised line across my chest.
But it would heal. I landed on top of the injured head, stabbing down into it with Colada. The blade penetrated Cavus’ skull even more easily than Toirneach had, despite the weapon’s smaller mass, and sent shivers from the Umbra’s head all the way down his serpent-like neck.
“No,” the skull whimpered, sounding more fearful than pained. “No, no…”
Cavus’ final unwounded head swung forward in an attempt to ram me off his other quivering skull.
This time I knew I would not be able to dodge at all, and that the blow would likely be enough to hurt even my reinforced body.
But I did not need to dodge it to win.
Keeping one hand on Colada’s basket-hilted handle and summoning Toirneach back into the other one, I swung it into Cavus’ final healthy head.
The Umbra apparently expected the attack, and twisted so that my blow struck at an angle, making it glance off his thick skull.
But this form of his had never seen my most powerful touch spell.
I discharged my Outer Current spell, and as it exited my body, it traveled down both my weapons, once again reinforced by all five of my Ideals.
The head that was currently penetrated by Colada spasmed, smoked, and cooked, then fell bonelessly back into the ocean. The head that I had only made surface contact with screamed as fire, lightning, rocks, and other magics scoured across its hide, blackening the first layer of scales over the side and top of his head.
Which, coincidentally, was also where the monster’s lure prison was.
A third leathery orb severed, popped open, and fell into the ocean.
And a third little light flew out to freedom.
But the remaining head’s momentum was nowhere near spent, so I had no time to celebrate the little light’s rescue before an unspecified amount of aquatic tonnage slammed into me, completely shattering my script shield and knocking me high into the air, head spinning and bones screaming.
As I flew through the air, I felt my Ideals reinforce my normal regenerative magic, holding my organs together and correcting the damage that all the shaking and spinning was doing to my cerebellum and brainstem. I landed hard on my back and bounced off the water like a skipped pebble, feeling bones crack one moment and seal back together the next. Then I regained enough presence of mind to flip my body to an upright position and land on my feet. The water splashed out on my impact, and I could feel some force try to pull me under the waves, but unnatural waves were still waves, and I had not lost sight of my goals.
Three Starsown saved, and I had actually managed to seriously hurt the asshole that had slapped me around the last three battles. Beyond that, Via was still racing toward whatever she needed to put her abuser down.
I decided to take back every bad thing I had said in the last twelve hours, because today was officially a good day.
I had to resist a few more pulls before my stance was fully steady. My vital guard had taken a serious blow, but it had held all the same, leaving me still fit for combat. I looked around for my enemy and found him in the waters above me, high over my head.
High over my…
I swore, realizing he had finally knocked me into the inner funnel of the whirlpool.
But the remaining angler head was paying more attention to the lure I had blasted off his body, and to the hole inside of it that the Starsown had flown out of.
“Go ahead,” Cavus’ remaining angler head growled as he turned to glare at me, half of his ugly fish head a blackened and torn mess. “There’s nowhere for any of them to run. You can knock all of them out, and they’ll still come back to me when you die.”
“Thank you for your feedback,” I replied, as I dashed against the maelstrom’s pull. It was like running straight up a hill during a landslide: normally impossible, but well within the boundaries containing all the other nonsense I’ve had to do recently. “When Via comes back and hands you your own ass,” I continued, clearing a large wave with a mighty leap, “I’ll have my scribes make a note of what you said so that I can improve the quality of our care.”
Cavus cocked his burnt head at me.
“Tell me, ugly, stupid boy,” he began, sounding angry and curious, “do you always talk this much when you fight?”
“No, see,” I said as I leaped clear of another massive, moaning wave, and slashed apart a claw-like water swell with Colada, “you need to pay more attention. If this was a fight, we’d both look like hell. This much more resembled an oral colonoscopy, with a six-headed hydra bitch as the patient.”
Cavus bared his teeth at me, but otherwise did nothing.
He sure makes a lot of tells when he tries to pull off a surprise attack, Teeth noted as we cleared another wave. Dodge left.
I listened to him, because that was a rule for fights like this anyway.
Then, to assert my independence, I leaped forward two more times.
The first mouth snapped up at the exact spot Teeth had warned me to leap away from. The second mouth was close to the spot before my second leap, but nowhere close enough to catch or even graze me. The final angler head rose up right where my final jump was carrying me to land, but he had pulled up far too soon, giving me enough time to react. My new reflexes allowed me to somersault, land on the top of his head with a stomp, then slash at his face with both legendary weapons before leaping away again.
I landed to get a good look at what had been attacking me, and swore. The first three heads I had injured had just rejoined the fight, and their old injuries had completely vanished. I immediately searched for the other two I had just wrecked, but I could see them still floating limply around the whirlpool, trailing black blood. The burnt head likewise appeared unable to heal, and my gamer instinct immediately locked on to those details.
The lures. That had to be the current source of Cavus’ regeneration.
Pay attention, Teeth warned me, he’s inhaling again!
Sure enough, all three of the newly healed heads were preparing for another breath attack.
I sprang straight into the air as three billowing columns of fog swept over the space where I had been standing just a moment ago. Cavus had spread his blast to cover a wide portion of the water’s surface below. If I had dodged in any other direction, one of the cones would have struck me.
But since I had dodged straight up, it was the fourth cone, which neither Teeth nor I had noticed, that struck me in the back from where the still-wounded angler serpent lurked.
A scalding, toxic cloak tried to smother my mind and lungs. I felt my own elemental shroud rise up in an attempt to combat it, but I fell back to the waves smoking and choking, unable to see.
They’re attacking again, Teeth warned, all four of them! Hurry up and get it together!
But I still couldn’t see, smell, or hear past the smoke burning against my upper body. I had no idea where to point my weapons.
Fuck it, FNG snarled, I’m taking over. We’ll use my senses.
The next moment, everything cleared as I switched to all the senses that Wrong-Me still didn’t believe we had. I blinked my second set of eyelids, felt the vibrations running through the surface of the water, and used the filter in my nostrils to sift out everything but Cavus’ disgusting scent. That was enough to confirm where they were coming from, so I pretended that I was a normal dumbass eighteen-year-old Earthborn and staggered around the waves for a few more moments.
The still-wounded head made the first move, diving toward our back. But it was a predictable strike, the kind that wyrmlings learn to stop using well before their first century. A twist that looked far more drunken on a human torso than it did on a dragon’s brought me just under the scorched maw’s attack, leaving me clear for a counter attack. I sliced upward with our Colada talon, and the blade lit up with our elemental power just before it cut a deep line below the monster’s jaw.
Cavus’ already-injured head gurgled before flopping onto the water’s surface and twisting into the whirlpool, neck slowly disappearing back below the waves.
The next head snapped at me in an obvious feint, similar to the kind of pack tactics that juvenile dragons use with their hatch-mates when they are too small to hunt on their own. I stepped forward just in time for the asshole’s teeth to close in front of me, and sliced at his ugly maw with my Toirneach claw.
The rest of the battle was more of a dance, one I had been learning for years, while my opponent barely knew the first few moves. Cavus snapped and twisted and hissed as he tried to read my footwork and get past my guard.
But he was a blob of filth and darkness pretending to be dragonkin, while I had over a thousand years’ worth of genetic memory to understand what he was trying and failing to do.
So I danced circles around his heads, slicing their hides open with my Colada talon and hacking at their temples with my Toirneach claw. Then, when the ugly faces were practically tangled up with each other, I tossed both of my weapons up into the air and fired an omnibolt and omniball from my left and right hands, respectively. The supercharged spells each struck a tendril and detonated, severing and rupturing two more lures, and freeing two more lights.
One left, Wrong-Me and I said at the same time, as the two outer heads succumbed to their damage and sank down. That last head was just now shaking free of the daze of colliding with my claws and his other heads. So I stretched out all ten of my upper digits and fired off my finger bolts into his face at point-blank range, then leaped back into the air to grab my weapons. As soon as my claws reattached, I landed down on top of the newly stunned asshole’s head, sliced off his tendril with my Toirneach claw, then stabbed into his skull with my Colada talon and discharged my refreshed Outer Current.
Multicolored elemental power leaked out of the Umbra’s exit wound, and then the final head of the multi-headed asshole fell lifelessly into the swirling, snarling ocean.
“And that’s what you get for making her cry!” I roared as I bared my fangs and brandished my weapons. “Prick!”
