The Accidental Archmage - Book Five, Edmund Batara [best way to read ebooks txt] 📗

A foggy stream immediately came from the rod and quickly formed into the form of the Aztecah spirit, floating above the ground. Tyler was a bit taken aback when he saw Nehua smiling.

“Finally! I get to be of help!” exclaimed Nehua.

“There are several approaching creatures, but they’re underground. We don’t know what they are. I need you to drive them out to the open. But be careful. And don’t step on the ground, it drains magical energy.”

“Of course, my lord. Can I kill those I can?”

“Please do. I don’t believe they’re friendly,” answered Tyler. “You can use that hole to enter the ground. Again, be careful about the soil!”

“I’ll take care, my lord,” said Nehua as she disappeared. The mage saw a tiny mist enter the hole Kobu had dug.

I have to fix that ‘my lord’ thing. It just won’t do. I could have used Birki, but I think Nehua’s powers are more developed at this point. That earth elemental said he still had to get used to his more powerful form anyway. Unless Nehua can’t take care of whatever is coming, thought Tyler.

He quickly joined the rest, though their faces were full of wonder. It was the first time they had seen the Aztecah spirit in her form. Then he noticed the expressions of the group.

“Hey! Something’s coming, remember?” he reminded them.

“My apologies, sire,” said Habrok as he positioned himself beside Tyler. “I didn’t expect the Aztecah spirit to be a young girl.”

“Me too,” said Tyndur. “But we’ll see in a few moments what she can do.”

“I guess we will all be surprised. Speaking from experience, such elementals are quite powerful, even at a young age,” chuckled Kobu. His weapon had shifted again to a naginata.

“Let’s spread out. But move quietly. I have a suspicion whatever is coming tracks our location by sound,” advised Tyler. And probably by scent. The smell of those dead lizards must have mobilized a lot of the predators of this land into action. Or made them hungry.

Without warning, the ground about fifty feet in front of the waiting companions violently erupted in a geyser of soil and rocks, the sudden and powerful disturbance showering them with soil and small boulders.

As the debris fell back into the field, they could see a huge, burning elongated object, broken in many places, and bleeding black slime all over its body. Another forceful eruption of dirt followed, and then another, all with dead or almost dead giant worm-like creatures. Some were cut in half while others were like the first, clearly broken in several places along their long bodies. All had one thing in common. They were on fire.

At the macabre sight, all Tyler could think of was melange from that movie. Like the lizards, the huge worms were of a sandy color and the mage could see the large and sharp teeth of its mouth. It had no eyes that he could identify. It was but a long, living tube of flesh with a mouth full of fangs at the end.

Carnivorous, thought the mage, an observation reinforced by the sudden emergence of other worms beginning to feed voraciously on the dead ones.

Oh, cannibalistic too, came the added observation.

Suddenly, the ground beneath Kobu opened up, and a large hungry orifice full of deadly teeth emerged and powerfully clamped around where the man was standing. Part of its long body followed the unexpected lunge.

Tyler’s heart sank at the sight even as Habrok’s arrows started to bury themselves in the beast. Tyndur was already leaping, and as he landed, the exposed body of the worm showed a large flaming gash. The einherjar continued his furious assault on the exposed form, quickly slashing in several places. The mage noticed the einherjar’s strikes were all shallow cuts. Trying to make an egress for Kobu if he was swallowed whole, quickly concluded the mage.

Abruptly, the exile appeared in the air. He was near the mouth of the creature and swiftly swung his weapon. Then he vanished and reappeared at Tyler’s side, to the mage’s immense relief. Tyler attacked with a large, flat force blade directed at the place where Kobu had struck. The frontal part of the worm fell down, cut clean through, Tyler’s magical construct finishing what the exile started.

The company turned its attention back to the incoming worms. The mage could see more geysers of dirt erupting from the ground, each delivering a dead or dying beast. All were on fire.

That many? thought the shocked Tyler, even as more of the creatures, of different sizes, appeared and savagely feasted on their own.

“Get back!” the mage shouted. Tyler flung force blades as quickly as he could at every worm he could see. He didn’t want them following the party if their dead kin weren’t enough for their appetite.

“Hal! X! I could do with some targeted blasts! We need to kill as many as we can!” he shouted inwardly, with panic in his voice. Tyler recognized the burrowing ability of the beasts as their most dangerous trait.

Multiple beams burst from the mage, each vaporizing parts of the exposed creatures, instantly killing them. Tyler continued throwing his force blade spells until no worm was moving.

“A few escaped, sire. They burrowed and fled,” said X, just as explosions of dirt started in the distance.

“Nehua will take care of them,” answered Tyler. For some reason, he felt proud of the childlike spirit of wind and fire. He then walked toward the small hole where Nehua entered the ground. There he waited.

A glance at the field where the worms were, showed him the scale of the gory devastation wrought on the predators. His view of the land was blocked by the torn and broken bodies of the monsters. Black slime covered the entire field. Here and there, a flame flickered, refusing to die out.

We massacred them, that’s how I would describe what happened. Though their own helped make it nauseatingly messier than the norm, Tyler thought.

After a while, Nehua’s figure appeared before him.

“That was fun! I hit them from below! You told