NOVEL NEXT 103. The Hunted - II
It was not a friend who found us first. Rustling leaves. Snapping twigs. Or just in my head? Too much like before. I kept my head still, waiting for the one that—right. I tapped Esper's right shoulder, and she gave me a slight nod.
Then a shadow moved in my periphery. My eyes darted to the side just in time to catch a blur racing behind a tree. More decoys. One to my right, one to my front—a blur, another failed distraction—and on to my left.
I tapped Esper's right shoulder, then her nape, and finally her left shoulder. She didn't respond to my warning, but she lowered herself into a fighting stance. Her Marks shone with a soft light, and her Energy use skyrocketed. The air around us grew heavier; the forest fell dead silent.
Anything smart had fled.
My breath caught. Time froze. Three blurs. My forehead cooled. The world dropped to frames. The blurs… They. Moved. Closer.
I didn't dare point, but I whispered, "There are three of them."
Esper's shoulders tightened. "I know."
"You see them."
"I sense them."
These raptors lacked the scout's stealth, but they had enough intelligence to split up and encircle us. Then, without any hints of communication, they stopped in lockstep.
Yes. You know this is a bad idea. Retreat.
That hope died in a heartbeat.
My skin prickled. I pushed [Quicken Thoughts] to the limit. The world went mute and still. I tried to unpack the surges of Energy, but the raptors had moved in complete synchrony. All I caught was a wave of acceleration closing in. Energy sense failing, I returned to the tried and true. I examined every bit of the frozen landscape in front of me—and found it.
Pine needles hung in midair. Curved wisps of violet light hovered inches off the ground—markings bleeding through stealth. In the air? That could only happen when…
I shouted my warning. "They've jumped!"
Only the quiet shifting of needles marked their attack. However, in the air, they couldn't hide, not at their speed. The blurs morphed into rippling, brown-green masses.
Where's the roar?
Three harbingers of death, silent as the grave, sailed toward us—until a crisp, deep-red ring and two jagged red lines tore the air.
Crimson energy—no, liquid—sprayed in an arc of red from the lines that appeared in the air. However, that paled next to the volume of red and brown fluid that exploded in a conical spray a few feet behind the same deep-red ring hanging at chest height.
The flare from [Sense Injury] hit me so hard that I triggered [Quicken Thoughts] out of reflex. My mind went into overdrive, processing everything before me.
Crimson streaks—blood. Red-brown mass—blood and viscera. Brown and green blurs—raptors jumping.
My head started to throb, but I had to understand.
I added the data points from [Sense Injury], the shapes of the sprays of bodily fluids, and the massive fount of Energy right in front of me, and I came to one conclusion: Esper had somehow injured three death-claw raptors with invisible weapons at the same time.
I let my perception return to a normal speed, and the roars of pain that echoed through the forest gave credence to my deduction. Then, three injured dinosaurs resolved before us, stealthily fading. The two flankers tumbled from the air onto the ground in a plume of dried needles. However, the one in front of us rapidly shed its momentum, its trajectory suddenly shifting to take an unnatural angle, until it stopped six feet out, still airborne.
I blinked, taking in the scene and the abrupt reversal of the situation. The creature in front of me arched its feathered neck back in a spasm. Its markings flared, and its long, skinny arms and wickedly clawed legs flailed to no avail. It couldn't escape its predicament, and every attempt caused more blood to gush past its razor-sharp teeth. Esper had pinned a death-claw raptor half again as long as the scout.
How?
A dull ache pulsed in my temple as I dissected the sight before me. From the fist-sized ring centered in its chest, a thick red cylinder projected forward, splitting into thin, sinuous lines. The topmost edge remained straight, while the other edges gently bent toward the ground. Red drops of various sizes and shapes hung in the air around and below it.
Behind its bulk, a straight plane, deep reds spotted with dull browns, jutted straight out, too rigid to be natural. I traced its angle back through the beast's torso, the path forming in my mind.
An invisible surface coated in blood? Nothing else fit. And based on its shape and length, that made the object an invisible spear…
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I turned my attention to Esper. From my angle behind her, I caught only fragments of her Marks, but those shone with a fierce intensity. However, she had not moved since the raptors had leapt. She was fast, but [Quicken Thoughts] was faster. She couldn't have physically thrown a spear.
Did it matter? I had seen stranger things—people shooting energy blades from mining picks, a man shaping solid stone with his mind. What was a green-skinned Amazon launching unseen projectiles at dinosaurs?
I let the skill lapse to hear Esper chide herself. "Only one of three."
I had no words for that. She had put down a dinosaur that significantly outweighed the scout in a single shot.
The two wounded dinosaurs rolled to their feet and leapt into the air. Esper grunted with exertion, releasing the one suspended while unleashing another barrage. A spray of blood erupted from the attacker on the left, but the markings on the death-claw raptor to the right flashed. Its body shifted in midair, dodging Esper's projectile.
Still, Esper had diverted its attack. Esper raised a hand toward it, but it darted around a trunk before she could fire again.
Esper pushed her free arm against me. "Don't you dare try to finish the wounded ones. The one hiding is a matriarch. I won't be able to protect you, and the time they have left is short."
I was no fool. These raptors were in a size class above the scout. Their sickle claws extended much farther than the scout's. My right arm might be healed, but the memory of the dying scout's last gift remained fresh. Even with my mental enhancements, I couldn't reliably dodge, especially since the last one—the matriarch—earned its title. She had stood taller, her markings spread wider and pulsed brighter. When crouched, her eyes nearly met mine. Even if I'd been blind to danger, she needn't hold me back; I could see their ends.
Rot and pestilence had infiltrated the wounds of two fallen dinosaurs. That didn't stop the left one from trying to stand, but it faced the same fate as the scout. It roared in pain as its wounded leg buckled and collapsed. I didn't give the skewered death-claw raptor much thought. Hints of a sickly sweet scent had filled the air as the body underwent an accelerated decay. Whatever she had used to disable the scout, she had ramped it up a notch or three for these beasts. Neither of the fallen beasts would rise again.
"Do you think—" The rustles of leaves and snaps of twigs came from all around me, but this attempted distraction was clumsy at best. I ignored the decoys and used [Sense Injury] to track our attacker. The long gashes on the matriarch's flanks acted like a beacon, growing brighter each second they remained under the influence of Esper's skill. "Never mind. It's doubling back on our right."
Esper didn't need my warning; she had already shifted in anticipation. However, she nodded all the same. "Be prepared. If it is coming at us like this, it will fight to the end."
True to her word, the raptor burst around a massive trunk in a blur of motion. Esper pointed an arm in its direction. Her Marks flashed, but the raptor answered with a burst of light from its markings and dodged to the side.
The dance continued, the raptor mixing in feints and attacks. Esper held it back with frequent use of her ability. Some hit, but most missed. The beast had an uncanny ability to detect the invisible objects, and those strikes that did wound only left superficial scratches. Unlike the other beasts, they never festered, though they also didn't heal. Through all this, I stood there useless, supporting more of her weight as her defense exacted its toll.
"Aether," she grunted through gritted teeth.
That lapse in concentration opened a window large enough for the raptor to almost end the fight. The beast charged in low, dodging whatever invisible spears Esper had launched. It sprang forward, jaws wide. Its finger-long teeth gleamed with a red light.
A blurry streak shot out toward its head. The raptor shifted, its head moving just enough to avoid the shot. A fetid gust hit me as its jaws snapped shut to the side of Esper's shoulder instead of on it. A spray of red exploded from its back, but it barely registered the hit. With a low growl, it raked its violet-coated foreclaws across her torso. The strike tore through her clothes, leaving shallow gouges and pushing her back. I braced to stabilize her, only to find the tip of the raptor's tail coming in as a follow-up swing. She—we—couldn't dodge it.
The air in front of us shimmered, and a crack rang out as the tail stopped inches from us. However, some of the momentum still transferred. I grunted as the blow slammed her into me. My back hit the tree, knocking the wind out of me. I gasped, trying to suck in air, but I didn't let go of Esper even as the bark dug into my back. She may have blocked that blow, but it had sapped her strength. She was flagging, standing only because I bore her weight.
I didn't even try to reach for the potion. She had already begun mending her wounds. They healed faster than anything I could do, and she managed that while continuing to harass our attacker. However, in her current state, we'd lose this battle. She wasn't recovering.
She needed Energy, not Aether. However, she didn't trust me with transferring Energy. She'd rather risk Aether toxicity than the consequences of my novice attempts at Energy transfer. I had to agree. I had limited experience with creating Aether fields. Plants paled next to the complexity of people. You may let med students scrub in on the complex cases, but you had no guilt over kicking them out of the surgical field to give the attending surgeon space.
So Aether, not Energy. At least some practice is better than none…
I raised my hands to her forehead. I couldn't support her weight as well in this position, but distance mattered. While she had Marks all across her body, the ones on her face seemed to draw the most Energy. Plus, her skills seemed mental.
I focused and projected two spheres of Aether at a strength I could sustain for minutes, not seconds. Immediately, she shifted some of her weight off me. However, I didn't stop there. The Aether field I created differed from the forest's Aether. I generated what came naturally to me, what rejuvenated me the most. However, Aether differed. It had…flavors? I needed more time to analyze it, but I had lived with Aether enough to pick up differences. While monitoring her Energy flows, I tuned the field, turning one toward the forest's Aether, the other toward the mine's.
Reading her Energy was far harder than a plant's. To my perception, she was like a black hole. However, at this distance, with her back and head pressing against my chest, I could make out some shifts. My changes to the Aether fields had an effect. When I found one that worked best, I turned up the fields' strength.
The change was instant. She stood straight on her own. "More," she growled, a new fire in her voice.
My head ached. Teeth gritted, I held the Aether field and ramped the density to the limit my Energy allowed.
"More," she repeated.
Easier said than done.
I had nothing more to tap—that wasn't true. If she risked Aether toxicity, so could I. And after all, lower Aether density meant lower risk, right?