“Set him down. Here.”
“He’s awfully pale.”
“He’s lost a lot of blood.”
“Are you sure he’s still alive?”
“Of course he’s still alive.”
I sway on unsteady legs in the road where Jilli set me down. I’m dizzy, but I just need to sit. As soon as I look down at the hardpack, my legs buckle, and I land hard on my rear. Mieklo is there. I’m glad. I had lost track of him when Jilli grabbed me.
Mieklo isn’t the only one watching me. A tiny person with crumpled black wings glares up at me. I try to form words, but the others aren’t paying attention to me.
“Do we have any wine?”
“No.”
“What about anything sweet?”
“I have honey.”
“Good, mix it with some water. Just enough so he can drink it as soon as he wakes up.”
“Set him up. We don’t want him to choke.”
Mieklo sees the agora and starts to chitter angrily at them. They hiss back, showing their many teeth, but back away. They drag themself back toward the forest. I’m worried about Mieklo getting too close to the creature, I want to scoop him up, but I’m too dizzy to pursue either of them.
The agora pulls themself through the ditch on the side of the road and to the base of a tree. They pause to catch their breath there.
Mieklo comes back. He strokes my arm and squeaks. I try to say something to reassure him, but it comes out as a slurry of jumbled letters.
“We should check on Lo too.”
I briefly recognize they’re talking about me now.
Mieklo stiffens and sniffs the air. Before I can wonder what he senses, the injured agora makes a tiny shout. I look just in time for something many times larger to poke through the trees and chomp down on the agora.
Mieklo squeaks, and I gasp. I try to run, but my legs can’t seem to lift me.
“Lo? What’s–”
Jilli’s voice is cut off as a creature that looks like a bear but larger and more fearsome swipes a giant paw and takes down a thick oak tree like it’s grass. It pulls its huge, hairy frame into full view, and I’m staggered by its size. It has claws extending from its paws that are longer than a sword. I scramble back until I collide with Jilli’s legs. As she draws her zweihander, the bear roars.
“Look lively, all. We’ve got a problem,” Jilli says.
Blaize rises from where Rent still kneels over Hax and draws two thin-bladed knives. She steps lightly past Jilli and fades as the bear turns its focus on her. It roars again, and smacks down a paw where she’d been when she disappeared.
“Great, a haz-dra,” Rent sighes. “Hax, drink this. I need you now.”
The elementalist is conscious, but groggy. He moans in reply to his brother and coughs on the honey-water..
The haz-dra’s appearance has given me the strength to rise and drop back behind Jilli. Despite her size, the haz-dra dwarfs her and her giant sword.
With a grunt, the haz-dra lopes forward, coming clear of the trees and into the road.
Jilli remains defensive. She raises her zweihander, staying just out of reach of the monster’s giant claws. She waits, keeping herself between us and it.
She has to dive aside as the haz-dra’s paw comes sailing through, thudding onto the hardpack with enough weight to shake the whole road. I go the other way, stumble, and land on my knees. The stones and dirt tear my pants and my knee beneath.
Another paw comes down. I scramble away, but too slow. It’s coming for my head, but an invisible barrier stops it. The barrier pops like a soap bubble, and the haz-dra’s paw bounces away.
Rent grunts, like the paw struck him a glancing blow. “I’m okay,” he assures me. “More importantly, you’re okay.”
I move closer to him and his brother. Hax is sitting up on his own now, still sipping the honey-water. “You seem to be a magnet for trouble, girl,” the elementalist tells me, wincing as he takes another drink.
I frown but don’t reply.
The haz-dra roars again. It rears up on its back paws, growing impossibly large. As it spins around, I see Blaize clinging to its back, two hunks of fur clutched in her hands. She still has one of her knives, but the other is lodged in the monster’s shoulder. It flails, trying to dislodge her. When it fails at that, it lopes back to the line of trees.
Blaize leaps free as the haz-dra barrels head first into an old maple. The tree explodes into chunks and splinters. The haz-dra comes back around, unfazed and growling a new challenge.
Hax tries to stand, but collapses heavily back onto his rear. He waves Rent and me off. Then he rolls to his side and starts to cast, propping himself up with one arm. The air grows frigid, and a shimmering icicle appears between Hax’s hands. With a push, he sends the ice dagger flying at the haz-dra.
It shatters against the bony plates along the monster’s muzzle. The haz-dra roars, but it’s cut short by another icicle, then another. A spray of smaller ice balls pelt its face.
Hax continues the assault, relentless and quick, though it seems to do nothing except annoy the haz-dra.
Jilli jumps in while it’s distracted and slices across with her zweihander.
Blood sprays from the haz-dra’s paw. It draws back with a pained growl, snarling and squinting at the ice that continues to pelt it. With one last roar of warning, cut short by an icicle shattering in its mouth, the haz-dra turns and lopes back into the forest.
“We need to move,” Jilli says. “It could come back, and I don’t want to be here.” She takes Gnuf’s reins, the big ummuth grazing in the grass along the edge of the road, and leads us north again.
Now Hax lets Rent and I lift him. He pants, a wheezy noise like he can’t get enough air, and sags heavily against us both. His legs won’t support him. Once he’s standing, Rent convinces him to drink more of the honey-water.
He makes a face. “This is wretched. Blaize, how do you eat this stuff?”
I start to tell him she’s not here, but she appears beside us. She walks at the same speed, as if we’ve been walking and talking all this time. When in truth, we’ve just outrun death twice in one afternoon.
“That must be why I’m so sweet and you’re so sour,” she quips.
Hax laughs, though it ends in a cough. “Sweet is not the word I’d use to describe you, elf.”
“If you don’t want it, give it to Lo. She looks ready to fall over,” Rent says. He doesn’t wait for Hax to reply. He snatches the jar and hands it to me. “Drink that. You’ve lost a lot of blood too. That’s why you’re dizzy.”
I look at the jar of thick honey-water and take a sip. Gods, it’s too sweet. Pure sugar.
Hax laughs at the face I make. “See? Lo doesn’t like it either.”
“That’s because humans have no taste,” Blaize says, folding her arms across her chest.
“What does that say about Jilli and you?” Hax says. He chuckles.
“That I’m an excellent human specimen, because I have extraordinary taste,” Jilli replies.
Blaize blows her a kiss.
“Oh, I like honey,” I say. “But I think I would prefer it on something.”
“Keep drinking it,” Rent says. “Your wounds are still bleeding. Those agora bites won’t clot on their own. I’ll tend to them when we get farther down the road. Until then, I need you on your feet.”
I study my arm and realize he’s right. All of the tiny agora bites still ooze blood. It’s not a lot, but I have many bites, a dozen on this arm alone. Now that I’ve noticed, I feel a trickle of blood run down my elbow.
I take another sip of honey-water and make another face.
“Humans,” Blaize laments, throwing her arms up. “What a waste of good honey.”
~ * ~
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