I

The spire claw lunged forward and fell into a death roll, its thorny spines threatening to tear Yoreno into pieces.

“Look out!” Dellwyn called.

Yoreno jumped and landed in the dirt, the spire claw’s dangerous thorns missing him by a mere hand’s breadth.

As he turned onto his back the thrum of Lev’s bowstring snapped. Something hit the spire claw and it flinched. Crying out in a roar of anger and hate, it turned back to them, the arrow Lev had loosed sticking out of the underside of its bony hide covering its shoulder.

Rushing forward on its two thick lizard-like legs, it raised its arms to slash Lev in half, but Yoreno stepped in and lopped its arm off.

The creature howled as blue blood spurted out of its stump into the sand, then Yoreno arched his blade around and pushed the narrow point into the monster’s stomach. Teeth showing and tongue wriggling in what must have been agenizing pain, it death cry shrieked through the air.

As the monster slumped to the ground, Yoreno pulled his sword free.

“Well,” Lev said. “that’s that.”

“That was tough,” Mai said from the rock she was standing on.

“Let’s hope no more of those spire claws—“

Thumping footsteps sounded above them in the rocky pass. Yoreno turned his head. “What was that?”

“I don’t know,” Dell said, shrugging his braid shoulders, “but that didn’t sound good.”

“It’s more of them!” Sorika said, her eyes narrow as she held her daggers in reverse grips.

“Dammit!” Yoreno hissed. “Get ready!”

The two creatures appeared before them, jumping from their hidden spots and coiling into death balls of thorny armor.

Yoreno turned and jumped up a rock where he would be safe—at least as long as the creatures were coiled up into their armored forms.

They rolled into the ravine as Dell, Sorkia and Lev scattered from their paths. As they missed their three targets and passed the group, Mai called out a spell and a plume of blue magic shot forth.

It cut into something, but the sound was wooden and hollow.

“You hit its armor!” Yoreno called up to her.

“I know!”

“Keep trying,” he said. “But wait until they come out of their armored states.”

Yoreno knew something about the spire claws. They all did. Not because they had experiencing fighting these monsters, but because an adventurer that didn’t study bestiaries was a pure fool.

Mai must have been in a state of agitation, and why would she not be? They were fighting for their lives as these spire claws attempted to kill them.

If they died, the Emblazoned Party would surely be dragged into the hills and eaten. These monsters were not higher thinking agents of evil, but rather more animalistic monsters that attacked, killed and ate their prey.

Yoreno preferred this kind to the horrors of the other.

Coming out of their coiled positions, the two spire claws ambled back up the ravine toward the group.

“Sink some arrows into them!” Dell called.

Laughing, Lev said, “You don’t have to tell me twice!”

He knocked an arrow and loosed. Yoreno waited to see the shaft sink into one of the spire claw’s necks, but instead it angled its shoulder and deflected Lev’s shaft.

“Damn!” Lev cursed. “That’s pretty good for an unthinking type.”

“It is,” Sorika said.

“I’ll get around them, provide distraction while Yoreno and dell get in with their blades.”

“Got it!” Yoreno said, and jumped off of his rock as he followed Sorkia, who was much smaller, less armored, but far more agile than he or Dell were.

She approached the spire claws and lashed out at them.

They swiped at her with their claws, but she ducked, dodged and summersaulted out of their reach. As Yoreno approached, one of the spire claws jumped back into its armored form and rolled up toward him.

Since it was moving uphill, the spire claw’s attack was slow and unsteady. Its momentum was lost and it fell over. As the creature began to uncoil, Yoreno tried to get his sword into the cracks, but the monster curled back in on itself.

“Dell!” he called.

“Yeah!”

Yoreno did not turn his head, knowing the monster could uncoil at a deathly speed and thrash him with its long tail in the process.

“I got this one. You handle the other one!”

He grunted, his sword hitting something hard. Definitely the creature’s armor.

“Look out!” Sorika said.

His spire claw uncoiled, its tail thrashing out at Yoreno, but he bent low and dodged the blow, then came down hard with his sword atop the creature’s chest and sunk his blade between the armored plates and into its flesh.

The tail came back, whipping through the air.

Unable to pull his blade free, he let go of the hilt and jumped away, grabbing for his dagger as he fell. As soon as he rolled over and got back to his feet, the spire claw was standing.

Something glinted through the air past Yoreno’s shoulder and sliced through the monster, its blue blood spilling out over the sand.

It was such a good strike from Mai’s magic that it toppled over dead without making another sound.

Yoreno stepped forward, grabbed his hilt and used his leg to assist his effort and yanked the blade back out of its bony body.

Once he had his sword back, dripping with blue blood, he glanced over his shoulder. “Thanks!”

“No problem!”

As he ran back to the other creature where Sorika was doing acrobatic games with the other monster, three of Lev’s arrows sticking out of its body, he missed his chance to steal the last kill as Dell swiped his blade through the monster’s throat.

It tried to howl, but more blood came out.

If fell, squirming and twitching as its tail thrashed about. “Stay back!” Dell said. “Let it bleed out. It won’t take long.”

“Damnation,” Lev said. “That’s a bad way to go.”

Dell glanced toward the similarly thick-shouldered Lev. “I’d expect one of the girls to say something like that, but not you, Lev.”

“What?” he asked indignantly. “I’m not sorry for the thing. I’m just saying.”

Sorika watched the creature’s thrashing lessen, not an ounce of remorse or pity on her face. Glancing behind as Mai strode up to the group, she also didn’t have any pity for the creature that would have happily tore them to pieces.

“You guys did great.”

Yoreno smiled.

Mai’s scar across her cheek was clearly visible as a bright slash. She had gotten that wound from the assassin leading the attack that killed King Branlin. She hated it, but Yoreno thought it gave her an edge that, despite her soft-spoken demeanor and friendly attitude, made her seem more of an adventurer.

“Thanks,” he said.

“Yeah,” Lev said, pointing to the dead monster. “Right through the throat. I’m surprised my arrows didn’t do that much to them.”

Glancing up at Lev, Sorika said, “I could give you a poison if you want?”

“Yeah?”

Sorika nodded.

“Just make sure you don’t poison all your arrowheads,” Dell said. “You’re way too useful at winging a runner.”

Lev chuckled.

Glancing at the group, Yoreno said, “We all did well. But the sun is setting now.”

“Whoa!” Dell said. “How long were we fighting those things?”

They had spent a considerable amount of time simply studying the first monster as it had rolled and thrashed in an attempt to kill them one by one, but evading and climbing upon high rocks, the single monster had not posed a great threat.

And then they had argued about who got to go down and kill it.

No one had wanted to, and every time Lev and Mai hurled something at it, the creature armored up and protected itself.

Those thrashing tails were intimidating.

Finally they had all worked together, Lev and Mai providing a distraction while Dell, Sorka and Yoreno climbed down to do the melee work.

In the end, they had taken out the monster and two more.

“It took a while to figure out,” Mai said.

“It’s your fault,” Sorika said as she gestured with her hand. “You two wouldn’t go down and kill it like you’re supposed to.”

“Hey,” Dell said. “You’re supposed to be on my side.”

“No way,” Mai said with a smile. “There’s three of you guys. We girls have to stick together.”

“We’re a party,” Yoreno said with a roll of his eyes. “Come on.”

“Well in that case,” Lev said, “it’s time you two girls started pulling more weight. You get to kill the next pile of monsters while we watch!”

“Yeah!” Lev said, grunting as he flipped the dead spire claw so he could pull his arrows out of its bony flesh. “Ah, come on!” he complained, holding up one of his arrows. The shaft had cracked near the arrowhead.

“Can’t save them all,” Dell said.

“We need to find a good spot to make camp,” Yoreno said. He eyed the ravine and the rocky cliffs, worried about more monsters. He didn’t want the party to get caught in the middle of the night.

That had already happened once.

It was never fun.

He turned, went up into the rocks and picked up his travel pack. “Well,” he said, as the others did the same and glanced about for their mounts. “I guess we have hunting to do.”

“Ugh!” Lev complained. “Stupid horses.”

“We’ll find them,” Dell said, then he called out to his horse.

“Quiet,” Sorika said. “You might alert more monsters.”

“That might be a good thing,” Lev said. “If we can’t find our mounts, we’re not going to be able to get out of here to find a good spot for camp.”

“We may have to make sure there are no other monsters in the area so we’ll be safe.”

“Gods,” Mai said. “Not another makeshift camp sight. “Let’s find the horses. Come on!”

“All right, Dorrin!” Lev called, a note of frustration in his voice. “You coward! You can come out now.”

“You don’t have to be so mean,” Mai said.

“She’s right,” Dell said as he glanced over at Lev.

The bush rustled and the skinny Dorrin Sylvain, wearing his brown trousers and green hood came out. He glanced about with wide eyes. “They’re gone, right?”

With his red hair and freckles, he had the look of a youth, but he was actually nineteen years old. He was short enough to be a youth too.

Yoreno had almost laughed the first time Lev made jokes, but he typically did not have that same rough sense of human their archer did.

“Are you all right?” Yoreno asked.

“Yeah,” Dorrin said, brushing off his trousers. “I’m fine.”

“You know,” Dell said, “that crossbow of yours can pack of a punch. You should help us more often.”

“Damn straight!” Lev said. “He deserves to be called a coward.”

“I’m sorry,” Dorrin said. “It’s just… I—“

“Am a coward,” Lev said.

“All right, all right,” Yoreno said. “That’s enough of that. The very fact that Dorrin’s been helping Sorika with the tracking is enough.”

Dell nodded. “Yeah, Lev. We didn’t bring him on this expedition to pound him into shape. He has a job to do.”

“Fine,” Lev said. “Well, tracker boy, which way did the horses go?”