Summoner 20, page 36
“Go over and join Braden,” I commanded the half-canine, half-feline monster. “Use your venom to paralyze while the chimera and the king gryphon use their teeth and claws to tear it apart.”
My maripor sent a wave of understanding through the bond, and just seconds later, I spied the black-furred monster charge full-speed toward Braden and his monsters. When it joined him, I caught Braden’s eye, and the ox-like summoner gave me a nod of appreciation. I returned the gesture, and then I looked back to the regarat.
The putrid creature moved in disjointed, erratic movements that were thankfully incredibly slow. Even still, the pile of decaying vermin were disturbing the battlefield with their oozing bodily fluids. My eyes followed a trail of black goo as it trailed onto the forest floor, and my nose crinkled as I watched smoke rise from the liquid. It was acidic, and it ate away at everything it touched. Right now, it was only messing with the grass, but I feared what would happen if one of my friends or women were to accidentally step in it.
“Disgusting.” I cringed.
You can say that again, Dio gagged. Are you going to get out your sun giant and torch it again?
“That’s the plan,” I replied, and my hand flew to my bandolier. My sun giant had been gifted to me from Maelor just before I’d left for the Academy, and it was easily one of my most powerful monsters. In the past, the monster had been nearly impossible for me to control, but now that my magic was more powerful, and I had seven Archons under my control, I suspected it would be much easier to command. I worried about having such a huge monster in the clearing, but then again, the regarat wasn’t exactly small.
I was about to retrieve the bright red essence crystal from my belt when suddenly, the squeaks and screeches of the regarat filled the air, and everything felt as if it came to a sudden stop. My body began to relax against my will, and my hand dropped from its place on my bandolier. Even Dio halted in his tracks, and the immediate stop nearly made me fall from my perch on his back.
Disorientation flooded through me as I tried to make sense of my surroundings.
What had I been doing again?
The dizzying pressure was almost enough to make me fall asleep, but before the squeaks could consume my mind, I heard a familiar voice call my name.
“Nia?” I called out, and when I looked down on the field, I caught sight of my ashen-haired wife and Gawain. The pair of elementalists hustled over to Dio and me, and from the determined expressions on their faces, I could tell they had a plan.
“Are you okay?” Nia asked me first as her eyes swept over my familiar and me.
“We’re fine,” I assured her, and I shook my head to clear it of the regarat’s spell. “I sent the Archons to work on the pack, and Braden has the hija--”
“The shifters are also working on the pack,” Gawain interjected in a frantic tone. “That only leaves Hunnah and her wolf, and then Quilla on the dragon-snake thing.”
“Wyvern,” I informed him, but the haughty fire mage waved me off.
“Gawain and I can handle the regarat,” Nia assured me as fire magic flared around her fists. “Trust me, there’s nothing I’d love more than setting that disgusting pile of creatures aflame.”
“I like the way you think, Kenefick,” Gawain chimed in. The golden-haired mage followed my wife’s lead, and soon his hands and arms were covered in licks of ruby and citrine flame. “Let’s torch that beast.”
“Keep your wits about you,” I ordered them as I gave the monster a sideward glance. “The second it starts making noise, you need to protect yourselves.”
“We’ve got it.” Nia nodded. “Go ahead and work on the wyvern. We’ll handle this.”
“I know you do.” I smiled at her.
While I wanted to follow after them, I had to trust my team could handle themselves and put faith in their magical abilities. Nia and Gawain were two of the most powerful elementalists I knew, and if they were working together, the regarat wouldn’t stand a chance.
I scanned the field for Quilla and her wyvern and spied them about thirty yards away. The skeletal Archon’s navy-blue eyes watched me with a childlike innocence, and she gave me a knowing smile, almost as if she was waiting for me to come over before she struck. The petite goddess was a strange one, and her behavior bordered on unhinged.
I suddenly felt the space around me grow warm. I gathered myself enough to turn my head, and when I did, I witnessed one of the largest infernos I’d ever seen speed right past me.
Gawain and Nia stood side-by-side, and their arms were outstretched far in front of them. Fire magic blazed from their palms and flew right at the pile of decaying rats.
“Gryff, move!” my ashen-haired wife shouted over at Dio and me, and my saber-toothed-cat familiar and I snapped out of our trances.
“You heard the woman, we gotta get away from this,” I commanded my monster, and Dio bolted with no hesitation.
Once we were clear of the monster, I watched a wall of fire fly right toward it, and my lips curled up into a grin.
“Noooo!” Quilla screeched, but the skeletal Archon was too late. Her grotesque monster went up in smoke, and the smell of burning, rotting flesh invaded my nostrils.
I looked to Nia, and per usual, my jaw dropped in awe. The elementalist’s stance was nothing short of perfect, and while anyone else would have dropped to the ground from mana depletion by now, my wife had hardly broken a sweat.
Quilla’s cries were barely audible over the sound of the roaring flames, but I knew the loss of her precious monster had taken its toll on the skeletal Archon.
One down, three to go.
Suddenly, I heard the thunderous cries of raptors above me, and when I tilted my head skyward, I saw a blur of dark red followed by a blur of golden-brown. Vahla and Freya were badasses when they were in their human forms, but when they were completely hawk, they were on an entirely different level.
I’d been worried about how Vahla would fare in a bigger battle against the mistwolf pack, but the younger hawk shifter’s screeches, swoops, and slashes were just as calculated and impressive as her sister’s. Fenrir and Freya had done an excellent job of preparing Vahla for battle, and the russet-haired princess’ inner fire was more apparent than ever as I watched her sink her talons into the flesh of a mistwolf.
Though he was confined to the ground, Mur was also putting up a good fight against the pack. He’d shifted into his moose form, and I watched him rear his head up, swing it down, and use his antlers to knock into an oncoming mistwolf. As he kept one of the canine monsters occupied at the front, he used his rear legs to kick a wolf that had snuck up behind him, and I watched with satisfaction as the moose shifter drove one of his hooves right into the monster.
“Nice shot!” I called out to him in the language of the Clans, and the moose shifter let out a victorious bellow.
My Archons fought beside my friends, and I was surprised to see them all working together without complaint. Xan, Veopa, and Sera were paired together and worked to tear apart one portion of the pack, while Phi, Utuni, Miralea, and Carth worked on the other. It was odd to see the Archons behave like comrades, but I wasn’t about to question it.
My daggerdillos and kalgori were also hard at work, and I watched with proud delight as the monsters helped tear through the pack. It was convenient to be at a point with my monsters where I could issue a command from afar and have them carry out their attacks just as usual.
My butterfly-like summons was particularly helpful, and I watched with widened eyes as the swarm of razor-edged creatures slashed and hacked into Hunnah’s wolves.
Freya, Mur, and Vahla seemed as if they were trying to maintain their distance, but with a pack as large as Hunnah’s, that was an easy feat. Mistwolves fell left and right, and I grinned as I watched the pack dwindle in numbers.
We really had a shot at victory here.
Once I was certain the shapeshifters were alright, I took a breath and shifted my focus to the wyvern.
Instead of going on the offense, the bipedal dragon hung near his mistress, but the moment the monster took notice of me, its forked tongue flicked out, and its storm-blue eyes glowed with impish delight.
If it wanted to play, I could play.
I commanded Dio to take me over to where Quilla waited with her monster, and once we reached the space just across from them, I dismounted my summons and commanded him to help Braden.
My saber-toothed-cat summons was hesitant to leave my side but did as he was instructed and bounded across the clearing.
I watched him leave, and as he approached Braden’s place on the field, I realized my former roommate seemed to be faring well. The hija was alive, but it was on the ground, so we were likely closer to another monster down.
I reached through my bonds and summoned my roosa to my side, and within seconds, my large summons skittered over to me. The twelve-foot-long black scorpion monster clenched its pincers and let out a sharp noise of readiness.
“A roosa?” Quilla assessed in a cold tone as her eyes flickered over my monster. “Well, isn’t that fun?”
“Do you see this all as a game?” I addressed the skeletal Archon.
“Not all of it.” Quilla shrugged, and she wrapped her arms tighter around her wyvern’s neck. “But really, Gryff, why even bother? When we merge the worlds, it’s likely you would survive.”
“I’m not worried about me,” I fired back. “I’m here to protect the entire human realm from you and your sister over there.”
“Ah, so you are as noble as I thought you were.” The goddess smirked at me. “Your loyalty is impressive, Beastmaker, but it will be your downfall.”
Her wyvern let out another roar,
The roosa shot its imposing tail toward the wyvern, but the snake dragon slithered just out of reach. Quilla’s monster shook its own arrow-tipped tail in warning, almost as if it were a rattlesnake, and it bared a row of long, shiny white teeth as it hissed at my summons.
My roosa clacked its pincers again and lunged further. The wyvern didn’t seem to expect the move, and it barely managed to step out of the way this time. Quilla let out a startled yelp as she struggled to remain atop the bipedal dragon, and I realized the monster had two ways to move about. It could use its underbelly as a snake would slither about on the ground, but it also had use of its muscled, taloned legs. I had a few options to employ, but above all, I needed the roosa to paralyze at least one of the appendages the wyvern used to move around.
Before I could carry out the orders of the attack, the wyvern’s arrow-tipped tail flew at me and slashed against my bullet bass armor. Thankfully, I was still protected by the silver coating, but there was a distinctive slash mark I couldn’t ignore. That’d been a close call, and if the wyvern got another hit in, I was done for.
With how quickly, Quilla’s monster moved, paralysis didn’t seem like it was going to work unless I found a way to ensnare the wyvern first. I needed a net of sorts, something to keep the wyvern in place so the roosa could deliver its deadly venom.
As I peered around at the emerald forest around us, I remembered the monster Cyra had gifted me on our honeymoon, so I retrieved the prism-shaped yellow-green crystal from its spot on my belt and crushed it in my hands. My faun appeared, and the fifteen-foot-tall monster’s wide face peered at me with curiosity.
“A faun, how interesting,” Quilla called out to me. “Your collection is so diverse, Beastmaker.”
I ignored the Archon’s remarks and turned back to the faun. I hadn’t summoned the monster since the night before we’d left for Eyrie Island, and once again, I admired the strangeness of the creature. I didn’t know much about its magic, but the vines that wrapped around its abdomen and doubled as whips gave me the idea that it could utilize the forest around us.
“I need you to use your nature magic to gather limbs, vines, anything you can find,” I explained to the half-man, half-goat creature. “Split apart trees, use roots, whatever you have to do. I just need a net large enough to contain the wyvern.”
The faun nodded simply, and with calculated steps, he rushed into the thicker part of the emerald forest and raised his arms in the air. A hum built up around me, and through our bond, I sensed the faun was building up power from the trees.
Then the wyvern sent its tail over to me, and its arrow point came alarmingly close to my face. This time, I managed to swing my arm upward, and my kalgori’s blades slashed into the snake-dragon’s scales. The wyvern let out a roar of pain and retracted its tail. As blood streamed out, I felt the quiver of footsteps behind me, and my faun reappeared. His yellow-green eyes were as bright as the sun, and he wore a wicked smile on his face, as if to say he was fully charged.
I gave the command, and the faun cracked its whip down on the wyvern. Quilla’s monster was knocked to the ground, and the skeletal Archon fell along with it.
“Ahh!” Quilla rolled off the dragon-snake’s back and got tangled in her thick golden-brown hair.
Once she was out of the way, I commanded the faun to carry out the second part of the plan, and with a wave of his hand, roots flew up from the earth and wrapped themselves around the wyvern. The dragon tried to struggle, but the roots tightened around it like a vise.
Once the wyvern was in place, I commanded my roosa to strike, and my scorpion chattered happily as it lunged its impressive stinger toward the wyvern. The bipedal dragon let out a yelp, but it was too late. The roosa’s stinger delivered the killing blow, and Quilla’s monster seized up the moment it was struck.
As her monster turned to ash, Quilla let out an agitated yell.
“Damn you, Beastmaker,” she sobbed, and she curled in on herself on the ground.
The distraught display took me by surprise. I wasn’t used to the monster goddesses expressing emotion in the way Quilla was, and her cries were so sad that I almost felt bad for her.
Almost.
Part of me wondered if the skeletal Archon’s behavior was some sort of ploy to get me to drop my guard, and even though I wasn’t certain of that theory, I couldn’t take the risk. So, I commanded my faun to use its magic to bind Quilla to the ground so she couldn’t come after me while I was trying to deal with Hunnah.
The goat-like monster obliged and conjured roots from deep within the earth to restrain the goddess. I expected her to thrash and demand to be let go, but Quilla seemed to accept her fate easily.
As the skeletal Archon remained crumpled on the ground, I peered around the field once more and realized all of the growls, howls, squeaks, and cries had quieted significantly. Even more impressive was the emptiness of the clearing. My team, their monsters, and my Archons remained, but the pack of mistwolves had dwindled down so far that they could hardly be called a pack anymore.
Quilla was not much of a threat in this state, so that only left Hunnah. The copper-haired Archon sat atop her mistwolf, and her translucent wolf ears were no longer upright. She knew she was done for, whether she wanted to admit it or not.
I knew Quilla wasn’t going anywhere, so I took strides across the clearing until I neared Hunnah.
“It’s just you and me, Beastmaker,” Hunnah shouted at me from her perch on top of her mistwolf. “And I promise, I’ll enjoy flaying you limb from limb.”
“Look around you, Hunnah,” I scoffed as I gestured around the clearing. “It’s not just you and me. You are done. There’s no battle left to fight.”
“You think because you’ve slaughtered my pack, I’m done for?” Hunnah growled.
We were surrounded by the dust of the monsters we’d vanquished. A faint cloud of the monsters’ remains lingered in the air, and the smell irritated my nose so badly that I wanted to sneeze. The wyvern was defeated, the hija was no more, and the regarat was no more than a pile of charred ash. That only left a few stragglers in the pack, and while the remaining mistwolves snarled with bared teeth, they weren’t going to be able to do much.
“You are done for.” I smirked at her. “It’s all over. Us pathetic humans defeated you after all.”
“With some assistance,” I heard Phi say as she walked up behind me, and I shot a glare at the white-winged Archon.
The angelic goddess winked at me, and I relaxed my features.
“No, I… I will not accept defeat,” Hunnah insisted. The Archon swung her leg over and dismounted her mistwolf, and when she touched down on the ground, I noticed her entire body was shaking.
“You’ve hurt us all for the last time,” I said.
Hunnah raised her sword, but then her hand twitched, and the weapon crashed to the ground with a soft clang. The warrior Archon’s eyes were determined, but her body was not. I could tell she’d never experienced a defeat like this in all her long years, and apparently even goddesses weren’t immune to shock.
“Grab her,” I ordered my Archons quickly. “Quilla, too.”
The seven monster goddesses wordlessly crossed over to carry out my instructions, and my friends and lovers stepped away to give us all space.
Utuni, Miralea, and Veopa restrained Quilla while Sera, Phi, Xan, and Carth held Hunnah, and despite her defeat at my hands, the wolf-eared Archon struggled under her sisters’ hold on her arms and legs.
“Let go of me!” she demanded, and tears formed in the corners of her eyes as she tried to thrash, but the other Archons’ grip around her limbs was so tight, there was no hope of movement or escape. “Sisters! Release me at once!”
“It’s over, Hunnah.” I shook my head. “Stop fighting it.”
“Let me go!” the copper-haired Archon insisted.
I closed my eyes and did my best to tune out the warrior goddess’ cries, and once I was completely focused, I imagined the final pair of Archons joining their sisters in the expanse of my consciousness. Then I pictured a pair of cells, just like the ones the rest of the monster goddesses occupied when I locked them away, and I imagined Hunnah and Quilla inside of them.
I sensed a tug at my mana, and suddenly, pain flared as if I’d been bruised. I fought back a grimace as every inch of my skin suddenly tingled, and I focused my mind on capturing the pair. I’d never attempted to take two goddesses at once, and I could tell it was putting a major strain on my magical and physical capacity, but I had no other choice.
