Chapter 57

“Jules,” Adrian yelled after he activated his communication device. “Help. Look up.”

He could feel the animal coming closer. It was class four and better designed for the air than he was. Even with a kilometre head start it was touch and go whether he was going to cross the half a kilometre between him and Jules in time. Wind threw him faster than he had ever moved.

Below, Jules put down Joanne and took two steps. Her eyes found where he was plummeting toward her. The animal, by this stage, was barely fifty metres behind him.

It entered his domain, forty metres away, moving quicker than him. The direction of the wind changed as the spear acted to protect him and he was spinning around to face the hawk.

He got his first look at what was hunting him.

Xeric Hawk

A medium-sized predatory bird that focuses on martial strength.

The Bird from Wagga was bigger, but this creature was still threatening. It had maybe half the wingspan of the larger bird. It was also coloured like a standard Earth hawk, with brown feathers on top and white underneath. It had four bird legs instead of two, and all four sets of talons were positioned to grab him.

Wind gust.

The blast of air propelled him to the side abruptly, and the hawk flashed past him. Right at where Jules was standing.

She had her club and was swinging it.

Boom!

Light filled the air, and there was a secondary thump as the hawk tumbled away.

It righted itself and swept upwards with two massive beats of its wings. Easily propelling itself fifty metres straight up as air him magic buoyed it. It was above the top of the nearby gum trees by the time Adrian landed lightly on the ground next to Jules.

She smirked and patted her club.

Omala struggled in his arms, and he let her go. He did not have time for her, anyway. Instead, he focused on the enemy hawk. It ducked down toward them and conveniently brought itself within Adrian’s range. Flames wrapped around its face.

A haunting craw came from the hawk as it swept back up into the sky.

When it was two gum trees high, it regarded him one last time before turning and its wings beat furiously as it flew away from them. Adrian didn’t blame it, if he had been hit by Jules’s club then stung with flames, he would run too. He kept watch on it and tracked it with his monster’s domain. Then it was gone, the echidna too, as it had apparently retreated while they were distracted.

It was over.

Adrian collapsed in shock.

He needed to lie down. Feel the dirt on his forehead.

There was the sound of a galloping horse.

Kiyoko was returning. She wanted to yell, and could not fault her. Only fools faced a class two when they had the choice to run instead.

The horse pulled to a stop above him. Its nostrils billowed with every breath.

From where he lay on the ground, he looked up at the judgement on Kiyoko’s face. He had ignored her order, but he could not bring himself to care. The grass and dirt were nice, but there were things to do.

“My foot?” he asked Omala, shutting his eyes and deliberately not making any eye contact with the oracle. It wasn’t within forty metres of him. “Where’s my foot?” he asked, looking up at the girl.

“I…” Her face went panicked. “I might have…”

“It’s fine,” Kiyoko said tightly. “You’ll find it.”

“That was a disaster,” Adrian said unnecessarily.

Everyone else started speaking at the same time.

Jules - “Yeah, what was that?”

Galan - “You sent us to die,”

Omala -“I almost did!”

“CHILDREN.”

Adrian pushed himself to his feet, still feeling sick to the pit of his stomach. He wanted to curl over and hide, but he was the World Saver. He almost laughed at the thought. He was the Hero. “It’s done.”

“But,” Jules protested.

“It’s not her fault,” Adrian said, suffering nausea.

“You weren’t trapped under a mound of grass and felt the grass trying to get into your mouth while other bits went up your nose.”

“Why do this?” Charlotte asked the oracle angrily.

“CHILDREN.”

“I lost my foot,” Adrian muttered into the sudden silence, speaking directly to Omala. He sort of understood some of the trauma she had gone through. As he spoke, he saw her gather herself together. “As for the rest of you.” His gaze spun around to pin Charlotte who had been most vocal. “It’s reality. It’s not a game. It’s always life and death and death at a moment’s notice. If we hadn’t been cautious, if we had tried to sneak through instead of doing it this way, we would be dead.”

“We needed competent eyes on it,” Kiyoko agreed.

“You told everyone to abandon me,” Omala snapped her anger boiling over.

“I told everyone to run. Ask Mike. It was the right call and Adrian was an idiot for going back. That stupidity almost cost him his life.”

“It didn’t,” Adrian said quietly. He just wanted this over and done with.

Kiyoko looked down at his missing foot, then her eyes scanned his body and focused on his shoulder. Self-consciously, he brushed the area and could feel that the leather had been cut clean through. The armour could repair itself. That damage was from the echidna fight. He hadn’t felt it, and from the width of the armour damage if that grass blade had been higher. Better aimed. He swallowed.

“I didn’t know.”

“Omala healed it,” Kiyoko informed him. “While you were up there.” She gazed up at the sky.

“Did you get what you needed?” Jules asked, looking at Kiyoko.

“Well, we know we’re not fighting it. That’s something.” The oracle laughed tiredly. Jules kept glaring. “I’ll need to do some auguries.”

“Auguries?” Jules raised her eyebrows.

“What else would you call it?”

Adrian shifted his spear with his strength and agility. He could use it as a crutch. “Mathematical model?”

“Asking the system for predictions?” Jules suggested.

“I think Augury sounds better,” Kiyoko said, and Adrian noticed how tightly she gripped the reins. This had shaken her, too.

Adrian hopped forward. “I’m not having this conversation now. Where’s my foot?”

Kiyoko shrugged. “Don’t know, I would offer to help but…”

“With my domain I’ll do better.”

“Can I ride the horse?”

“Why don’t you fly?” Kiyoko suggested. “It’s not like that hawk was scary.”

Adrian looked at her and nodded. Why wouldn’t he fly? He could and Kiyoko was right. If Omala had not been in his arms, he could have fought the hawk in the air without Jules’s help.

The wind whipped around him and picked him up. In seconds, he was moving at a fast running speed about a metre and a half above the ground. He half expected, half hoped that the hawk would take offence and attack him again. It would be nice to have a fight that he could win.

Unfortunately, nothing happened, and the hawk did not return. With a smile, he streaked just above the ground. Eyes mostly shut, with his senses stretching out, trying to find the shape he was after. But not always shut. Kiyoko’s playing with him reminded him to keep a lookout visually for the unexpected.

He reached where the echidna’s magic had imprisoned him, and the natural unnatural container was gone. There were no remnants of the whip blades of grass that had cut him or the barrier that had partially resisted his triple blades. Instead, what was left was the thickest and healthiest grass he had ever seen. Adrian remembered why the echidna had appeared. It had come in response to them destroying those purple and blue stalks. It had reacted to their provocation!

Yes, it had retaliated, but it had not followed them, just scared them away. Maybe it had tried to kill them, but more in the way he would try to squat a fly. If he got it great, if he didn’t well, he didn’t really care, providing it pissed off and left him alone. Adrian realised he did not want to kill it. He would prefer to work around it. Was its presence guarding this territory an issue for him?

Yes.

Was it a problem for Melbourne or Seymour? The answer was that it was probably a positive. It stopped monsters from attacking Seymour from the south and hopefully protected the northern suburbs of Melbourne.

Then there was this. That rich grass beneath him. It did not destroy, it nurtured, and over time who knows what that could add to the surrounding area.

Jaracol?

Silence.

He would see what Kiyoko had to say and then decide after.

All the burnt patches he had created were gone. The foot was not where they had fought.

He switched direction, flying back toward his friends, doing a basic grid pattern.

His awareness pinged, and he descended upon the spot. He landed in the tall, soft grass and immediately sank to his thighs.

If it was tricking him… then the grass would close on him and trap him for that tiny moment it needed.

Nothing happened.

There were no threads of intense green energy lurking to turn nature against him. With a sigh, he bent down and pulled out his armoured boot.

It still had a foot in it.

He doubted the healers could attach it but he should check, but the main reason was he needed the armoured boot to keep his legendary suit whole. Halving the number of shadow steps available would annoy him no end.

The wind picked him up, and he zoomed over to the others.

“Joanne, Omala, can you do something?” He handed the boot and foot over to Omala. She looked at his leg, then foot, and shook her head.

“Joanne.”

She fiddled with the boot cursed and then pulled out the foot. Despite everything he had been through looking at the Christmas sock he had put on this morning, stained red with a foot in it made him want to lie down once more.

He hurriedly looked away. Then, despite what he wanted, his ever-present sensory domain focused on the object Joanne held. It was still warm. There was congealed blood on the wound where it had been severed. With surprising dexterity, the sock was removed, and he knew the exact shape of his foot and the fact his toenails were overgrown.

Think about something else.

The sensory domain did not change he could not not see it.

Turn off sensory domain.

Suddenly, he could sense nothing. It all disappeared, every element.

Turn on long distant monster sense.

Turn on herb sense.

Both of them were back, and he relaxed now that any incoming threats would be noticed in time for them to respond. Anything that did not have a class was too trivial to worry about.

Thank you, Jaracol.

He wasn’t sure if it was the interface but it felt like it had helped behind the scenes. Or maybe the mental activation and deactivation were always present, and he had just never asked before now.

“Adrian, I think I can reattach, but it is going to hurt, and it’s not like it saves much time. It will regenerate by itself pretty soon.”

He deliberately did not look at Joanne. He was worried if he saw the foot he might faint. As ridiculous as that sounded, he still might faint. In the context of everything he had achieved, including the little things like the title of World Saver, a foot should not matter. But it did.

He felt lightheaded. Joanne was right he would grow a new foot within an hour, but it would not be the original. He would prefer… “Let’s reattach.”

“I don’t have any painkillers,” Joanne warned.

Adrian laughed. “What, Kiyoko did not foresee this?”

“The pain is good for you.” The oracle laughed at her weak joke. “Character building.”

She was as bad as Jaracol. It should not be that hard to just admit that you were fallible.

He caught Joanne’s eye. Not looking at the foot. “Do what you have to do?”

Omala, Jules and Joanne consulted each other in whispers, and he deliberately used his sound control to make sure he did not hear a word of it.

Joanne crouched next to his sore leg. “Did you get that?”

“No.”

“Probably for the best.”

Charlotte knelt next to Joanne and gripped his leg. The two of them moved around, lining up the foot with the rest of his leg. Adrian could not tell, as he kept his eyes shut.

“This is going to hurt,” Joanne warned.

“I’ll be fine.”

There was a flash of pain, which hardly even registered, and then healing energy hit him.

“Omala,” Joanne said with a tight voice after a moment. Extra power flooded into him. “Don’t move. That worked.” He felt someone squeezing his little toe. “Can you feel that?”

“Yep.”

“Great. You can open your eyes, you big wuss,” Jules said encouragingly.

He did as instructed and looked down. His foot was there. Also, an additional centimetre of his leg that had been hacked off.

With a flare of Flame, the left over flesh vanished. He felt himself going faint once more and then looked away. Charlotte was standing with her axes out. “You chopped off part of my leg?”

“Had to create fresh tissue to join the foot, too,” Omala explained. “Couldn’t really avoid it and having someone like Charlotte with magic axes is a lot faster than me with a scalpel.”

He wiggled the toes on his previously detached foot. It felt the same as normal. “Amazing.”

Joanne was assessing the wound. Touching it and prodding and looking at it with her magic. “The join is perfect, but weak for ten minutes. While you can probably walk on it. I wouldn’t.”

“I promise to fly.”

“I guess you saying that with a straight face is no more incredible than me reattaching a foot in the field and having you wiggle your toes immediately after.”

“Thank you.”

“No need. This just saved you an hour. I owe you big. You have saved me from a life of slavery and then saved my life again.”

“And the world,” Jules quipped unhelpfully.

“Jules!” he said warningly.

“What it’s true. I can see your title. World Saver.” She giggled.

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