Chapter 39 – The Sorcerer and The Not-So-Quiet Road

Shara ran past the burning wagon, left arm up as a shield and head turned the other way to preserve her night-vision, then slid to stop in the air and cocked her right arm back. Pink butterflies exploded around her feet, like sparks flying from metal-on-metal contact, and she twisted at the waist to hurl her fist-chain forward. More pink flowed along the chain as it grew in length, link after link magically appearing, until it struck a spike-armed creature in the side of the head.

Whomp, and the thing flipped sideways, its merciless spike missing the back of the sorcerer it had been sneaking up on, to hit the ground and bounce to the base of another wagon. Before it even had a chance to get up, a massive, hairy hand grabbed it around the calf and hauled it into the air.

“Thank you for the gift,” Born roared at Shara, his voice carrying clearly over the din of battle as magic and monster met in furious retorts up and down the road. Eager for blood, the creature twisted from where it hung upside side and drove one of its spiked arms straight into Born’s side. It was a blow easily powerful enough to kill just about anybody, but if the man noticed, he gave no sign of it, the thick hair covering his body seemingly acting like an armor as strong as Chronosteel. The Woolly Shambler, they called him, and he laughed as he swung the monster up and over his head to slam it down into the ground with an ear-splitting crack.

The creature twitched, not quite dead yet, and Born lifted it up into the air again. Then, with one of his customary laughs, he waded into another group of monsters, wielding the one in his hand as an unfortunate club.

“I think he’s got those ones under control,” Tel’s voice said from the air near Shara’s head. The first time she’d heard the sky talking to her in Tel’s voice, it’d almost scared her to death. Knowing it was one of those invisible floating balls made it a little better. Slightly. Assuming he was telling the truth and it wasn’t going to explode.

That, and now she’d always have to wonder when she took a shower.

“It does,” she said, having learned her voice would carry back to wherever he was hiding among the wagons. “Where next?”

“Looks like there’s another group of sorcerers struggling a few wagons past Born. They need your help,” Tel’s voice said.

“On it,” Shara said, dashing forward in a whirl of pink butterflies and nodding at the small salute a smiling Born gave her, the broken body of the creature still in his hand. “How many more of these things are there?”

Aside from communicating with her through one of the two spheres, it seemed Tel could use the other to monitor the battlefield. Pretty handy for getting support around where it was needed. Less handy when she was the one running up and down the line of wagons like a maniac to offer that support.

“Is a number really going to matter?” Tel’s disembodied voice asked.

“No need to be snarky,” Shara muttered, gaining some altitude as she added an incline to her steps. “You could’ve just told me ‘Oh, hardly any left, Shara’,” she added, dropping her voice to make it deeper.

“Is that really how you think I sound?” Tel’s voice asked.

“Best impression I could do considering I’m running through the air and fighting off wave after wave of stupid monsters attacking in the night!”

“I give the impression a four out of ten,” Tel said. “There, you should be able to see the sorcerers now.”

“Four?!” Shara practically shouted. “Is that good?” she asked more quietly, but her attention was really on the group ahead. With the sun having set, the monsters definitely had the advantage, the sorcerers fighting by the pink light of their chaos butterflies and the occasional flash of magic. It looked like a handful of the creatures had cornered a smaller group of sorcerers against one of the wagons, but were still somehow being held back, for now.

“Watch out above you,” Tel’s voice said, and Shara glanced up to see one of the monsters floating past her in what looked like a shimmering soap-bubble. It jabbed at the membrane of the bubble with its spikey arm, but the substance only stretched instead of popping, and then it was past her.

“I kind of want to ask,” she said, but got her answer as she looked again at the group. The sorcerer on one end of the wagon swept her arm out, and bubbles of all sizes, from regular size to as big as a small dog, appeared from her fingertips to hang in the air.

“Now!” the woman said, and the man next to her sucked in a breath, his chest puffing up to comical proportions as pink butterflies swarmed around him.

Fwooooooo, he leaned forward, blowing for all he was worth in an arch along the line of bubbles, which shot the small globes of magic forward. These bubbles, though, didn’t wrap around or capture the monsters like the bigger one had, instead popping as soon as they touched anything with the sizzle of burning flesh.

Still, the well-timed cooperation didn’t seem like it was going to be enough as the monsters rushed forward despite the gaps in their flesh and muscle where the acid bubbles had eaten clean through.

Looks like its up to me… again.

Already running as fast as she could, Shara leapt and spun horizontally in the air, kicking her leg out for extra torque, while the fist of her cudgel extended and built up momentum as it whipped around her. One full rotation, her foot touched down and she leapt again, the chain growing longer to circle with her second rotation. Pink energy balled around the fist as she finished her next flip, the chain spiraling around her several times and whipping at a dizzying speed like a pink whirlpool with her at the center.

“Any time now,” Tel’s voice said, the monsters now just mere feet away from the sorcerers.

“Working. On. It,” Shara muttered, flipping and finishing another spin, and… yes, there was the feeling! Her chain-fist practically screamed with energy, something about the building momentum magnifying the energy she was putting into it, and she leapt into the air for one final rotation.

This time, though, instead of keeping her arm in tight to her body to spiral the chain around her, she kicked higher into the air and snapped her hand out towards the rushing monsters.

Nothing seemed to happen at first, the creatures charging so close that one more step would put them within reach, but then the orbit of Shara’s fist came around, and it hit them like a comet. One second, they were there in a line, and the next whompwhompwhompwhomp, they were simply gone, the ground where they’d been standing carved open. The sorcerers didn’t even have a chance to look surprised before WHOOOOOMP, her weapon reached its endpoint with dramatic fashion in front of the wagon, blood and stone exploding into the air as the earth seemingly erupted out of nowhere.

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Landing again in the air on pink butterflies, Shara gave herself a few seconds for her head to stop spinning, but asked, “Did I get them?”

“Cut it close, but it looks like those ones are taken care of. It seems you learned a new trick,” Tel’s voice said.

“What, you think you’re the only one hiding surprises?” Shara asked as she caught her breath. The sorcerers by the wagon below her gave a quick wave, then moved off to help another group at the wagon behind them.

“… Shara… I…” Tel’s voice said, sounding typically serious through the floating sphere.

“I know, you want to do some tests,” she said.

“I… yeah… tests. That’s right,” Tel’s voice said.

“Sorry, they’ll have to wait. Looks like Neela needs my help,” Shara said, spotting the woman further down the road and surrounded by a trio of the creatures closing in on her from all sides.

“She’s probably…” Tel’s voice started, but Shara missed the rest of it as she dashed forward. She’d have to pick one of the creatures and focus on it. With the way they were all around Neela, she’d need to make sure not to get the other woman caught up in the concussive wave from the fist.

I’ll start with… no! Too late!

The creature on Neela’s left lunged in inhumanely fast as the woman parried an attack from the other side with one of her paired swords, the spike driving straight into her abdomen.

“Damnit!” Shara swore, but instead of falling bloody, Neela’s body burst apart into a swarm of pink butterflies. “Huh?”

The attacking creature stumbled forward, as if the resistance it’d been expecting wasn’t there, and suddenly Neela was behind it. Twin blades – now glowing pink – cut a vicious ‘X’ across the monster’s back, but it whipped its arm around to bash Neela’s head open.

Except she vanished in a burst of butterflies again to immediately appear in front of the confused creature, dragging her blades along its gut to spill its insides onto the ground at its feet.

Shara slid to a stop in the air as the woman below vanished from between the two remaining creatures to appear behind one, blades again going to work.

“She’s a teleporter,” Shara said in awe.

“A very dangerous one,” Tel’s voice said.

“How can a teleporter be more dangerous?” Shara asked, unable to pull her eyes from the whirling dervish of pink below her. Sure, the woman was obviously skilled with those swords, but for Tel to say that…

As if in answer to her question, Neela brought her blade up and over for a downward chop on the monster in front of her, though it got its spiked arm up in time to block the blade while its other arm cocked back for the counterattack.

How is she going to…?

Neela’s arm and sword – just her arm and sword – burst apart into pink butterflies to reappear immediately on the other side of the parrying spike, and cleanly slashed through the creature’s exposed throat. Blood spurted into the air, the creature stumbling back, and Neela advanced, blades flashing lightning-fast. Every time it looked like the monster would get one of its spikes up to block her attack, her arm erupted into pink, completely negating any defense it tried to muster.

Just like that, the creature fell, and Neela turned her attention to the third and final one.

“Guess she doesn’t need my help after all,” Shara said. Dangerous indeed.

“They’re not dead, but hurt enough they’ll be out of the fight for a while,” Tel’s voice said.

“Okay, where next?” Shara asked, looking up and down the train of wagons illuminated by lines of pink butterflies flowing through the night.

It’s kind of pretty…

“I think… yes… the remaining creatures are retreating,” Tel’s voice said.

“Eh?” Shara asked. “You sure you’re reading your… whatever it is right? Why would they run away?” But, maybe he was right. The flashes of magic had slowed down dramatically. Just the odd burst of power here and there, while the concentration of unused chaos energy was steadily growing.

“I don’t know,” Tel’s voice said slowly, like he did when he was concentrating on something else.

“Can you follow them?” she asked. “Maybe that portal Born and Neela were talking about is close.” Which would mean my aunt and mother are too.

“I can’t follow them and watch the caravan at the same time,” Tel’s voice said, hesitation there.

“Go. I think we’ve got things under control here,” Shara said.

“Okay,” Tel’s voice said. “Watch your back.”

“I’m standing above the treetops, Tel. What could possibly hurt me up here?” Shara asked back.

“The Twitcher I lost track of from the beginning?” Tel’s voice said. “You are literally a glowing pink target in the sky.”

Shara looked down at the pink butterflies swirling around her feet where she stood in the air, and then at the ones running down the length of her chain.

“You… may have a point,” she said, and started jogging down towards where Neela was finishing off the three creatures she’d been fighting.

“Normal people wouldn’t see them,” Tel’s voice went on. “But these things seem pretty sensitive to the energy. Likely because the source of their power is pure chaos, if what Neela told us is true.”

“It is,” Neela said as Shara got closer, but then narrowed her eyes and looked around.

“Tel’s dead,” Shara said with a sad shake of her head. “Just his ghost haunting me now.”

“Shara, that’s not funny,” Tel’s voice said, and the sphere appeared nearby within its pink ring.

“I have questions about that,” Neela said, gesturing at the sphere with her glowing sword. “But they can wait until later. We need to help the others.”

“The creatures ran away,” Shara said. “Tel is following them.”

“They did? He is?” Neele asked.

“Not me, precisely,” Tel’s voice said. “Another sphere like the one you see in front of you.”

“Okay,” Neela said, nodding to herself a couple of times like she was convincing herself to accept what they were saying without too many questions. “Where are they now?”

“They ran as a group about two hundred feet into the woods, but then split and went in different directions. I chose one at random to follow and… well… now its standing on a rock and not moving. The others are already out of range of the sphere’s sensors, so I’ll monitor this one and see what it does,” Tel’s voice said.

“How close are we to the portal?” Shara asked. “Could they be going back there? Like we saw in the woods.”

“Not close,” Neela said. “But… that’s not really what concerns me.”

“No? What’s… wait…” Tel’s voice said, changing tone. “My sensors are showing… the Twitcher from earlier is close. Where did it… no! Damnit.”

“Tel, what happened?” Shara asked. “Are you okay?”

Tel’s voice came through the sphere as an aggravated sigh. “The Twitcher destroyed the other sphere.”

“It wasn’t invisible?” Shara asked.

“It was. And fifty feet in the air. I think it must’ve done that blink thing we saw,” Tel’s voice said. “That’s disappointing.”

“Yeah, disappointing,” Shara said, but looked up into the open air above the road. The Twitcher’s blinks had looked a bit random when she’d seen it back in the forest. Was she just lucky it hadn’t caught her up there?

“Something very strange is going on here,” Neela said, the glowing pink blade in her hand vanishing in a swarm of butterflies, and a hilt popping up behind her left shoulder.

“You mean the fact these things can see floating invisible spheres, even though they don’t have eyes?” Shara asked.

“Or why they gave up and ran away?” Tel’s voice asked.

“No,” Neela said, shaking her head. “I mean, what are these things even doing here at all?”

“We’re heading to a portal. They must know where we’re going,” Tel’s voice said.

“Yeah, they’re trying to stop us,” Shara added.

“That might make sense if we were near the Gravelburg portal,” Neela said. “But, the monsters that come from each portal are different. These,” she said, pointing at one of the corpses on the ground, “are from that portal you closed. The portal in the Violet Desert had creatures that were more insect-like, while the one in Cynak reportedly had giant creatures forged from the fused bodies of the villagers.

“Why are the forest monsters here?” Neela asked while she looked at the corpse at her feet as if staring hard enough would give her the answers.

“Each portal produces different creatures,” Tel’s voice said like he was working on putting pieces of a puzzle together. “What kind of creatures does the portal in the Lost Isles make?”

“None,” Neela said. “It’s been sealed the whole time.”

“Are you sure it’s been sealed the whole time?” Shara asked. “It is called the Lost Isles for a reason. If it’s not the portal making ships vanish, what is?”

“That’s what your mother is trying to figure out,” Neela said. “Still, with these things here, now, I think we need to hurry. It can’t be a coincidence they’re this close to another portal.”

“Could the forest portal have reopened?” Tel’s voice asked.

“No, we have somebody watching it, and we get regular reports. Likely these are creatures that weren’t close enough to get destroyed like the others when you sealed the portal up,” Neela said.

“But that still doesn’t explain what they were doing here,” Shara said.

“I’m afraid I have the answer to that,” Born said as he strode out of the darkness. “We were watching the wagons, but something still got inside. Almost all the clocks we brought with us have been destroyed.”