Framework of the Frontier, Sain Artwell [read me a book .TXT] 📗

“I don’t have enough water for another spray,” Duhie shouted. The stream petered out. She switched wands.

The chimera growled and its eyes, glowing with malicious intelligence, locked on her. Though its body stayed on the roof, its enormous claw reached into the coach’s hallway like a kitten’s into a toy-house.

God give me strength, William muttered under his breath. He dashed to receive a swipe meant for Duhie’s neck with his falchion. Long talons wrapped around metal and yanked the blade.

Squeezing the handle was a mistake. Strength didn’t make him any heavier.

A casual flick of the chimera’s limb was enough to send William flying. He slammed against metal. Though the falchion remained in his grip, it was now a dented mess with a claw imprint on the blade.

Trotto still wrestled with the thick snake. It coiled around his neck while keeping teeth lodged in him. The troll groaned as he attempted to wedge an ax blade through the scales. Orien stabbed wildly at that snake’s body, shouting in panic about the poison.

“Quiet love.” Trotto grunted, vessels on his thick neck bulging as he began to win the wrestling match. “As long as it’s not fire I’ll heal.”

In the camp cabin, Eren hung limply in the embrace of the other snake’s bite. Foam dribbled from the faun’s mouth. Both brothers were effectively out of commission.

Cursing loudly, the elf girl unloaded a good portion of her quiver in rapid-fire at that very snake head. One sank into its eye, drawing out a hiss that rivaled the main head’s growl. It let go of Eren and launched at Raneign — the elf — but she rolled out of its range while continuing to pelt it with arrows with inhuman dexterity.

Ember unleashed her own arrows at the chimera’s goat-lion head at a slow steady rate, while Duhie whipped its face with a cord of water that followed the movements of her wand. They pushed it backwards, made it squint its eyes, and made it angrier.

William sprinted back in to help the two of them. His mangled falchion clashed with the claw again. This time William was careful to keep control of his blade as he struggled to be the women’s shield.

“How do we kill it?” He shouted, repeating the prayer when the burning sensation of strength began to flicker out.

“We need to kill every head, I think.” Ember shot an arrow at its mouth, making the creature snap down its second attempt at breathing fire.

“You think?”

“I don’t know! They’re quickly mutating creatures. It’s impossible to know for sure how many brains or hearts this one has, but the brains are usually inside the heads.”

“Right, thanks. Keep it up, you’re doing good.” William took a look around them.

Trotto and Raneign were doing good, winning, albeit slowly. Main head was the problem. Its thick mane shrugged off the arrows and weathered the splashes of water like it was rain. It maintained an advantage by sitting on top of the coach, reaching out with a single paw, which matched William’s attacks and whittled his blade into a barely pointy clump of steel.

He needed a way to slow pin it down.

“Spear! Get me the spear,” William shouted towards the cabin, hoping either of the brothers had enough strength to move.

Neither did. Instead, Raneign dodged a snake head with a two-step wall run and kicked the spear up from the ground into a spin towards William. He picked it up between parries, repeating the blessing again.

“Hold your fire!” He waited for another claw-swipe, taking the risk to weave out of range instead of blocking it. Sharp blades raked his chest so fast he didn’t have time to feel pain, only a throb of warmth, but he wasn’t dead and he had his opening. William stabbed the spear at the back of the chimera’s paw with his full might, nailing it in the wall. He hoped it would hold and leapt to drive the falchion into jaws big enough to swallow him whole.

It didn’t pierce through the brain. The creature shook its mane violently, slashing William’s arm from bicep to palm with canines as it threw him down. William landed ribs and skull first, losing a few moments in the after clang of the impact.

Sounds and sights merged into a hazy soup.

Someone shouted something. His head felt like splitting. William watched light fade from the chimera’s eyes. The other two snake heads fell limp when Orien and Raneign landed killing strikes.

Ember rushed to fret over William, coddling his head in her lap. She was saying things that didn’t register as full sentences, but he got the gist of it.

“All cool, just rattled. Go help the brothers,” William said. He glanced at the bleeding arm and chest wounds. Pain was starting to grow beneath the wet warmth. “Oh-haha… Maybe not hundred percent okay.”

Behind Ember twinkled new dots — another pair of snake-eyes.

It had a third snake tail.

The chimera’s dead main mouth opened once more with fire. He wouldn’t be able to avoid it. I’m dead.

“God bless your strength,” William blurted as he shoved Ember, hoping he could at least save her.

In that instant, when the wisps of his divine energy merged with Ember, he felt her. He felt her worry for him, her genuine care for a kind stranger, her secret longing for his attention — affection — and he felt her rolling hills of anxieties and self doubts. Every last drop of it. The bursting joys. The gut piercing loneliness.

Ember’s wide eyes flashed. Sorcerer’s Eye became visible as bright white interwoven geometric patterns and arcane sigils.

In the instant, she spun around and let loose an arrow past the fiery maw. It pierced through the upper jaw of the third snake-tail, impaling its brain. She added another in its eye

The monster’s body slumped, its strength lost. Its maw closed around