“Let’s be fair here,” Alex said. They’d fallen back a few yards to hatch out a plan of attack, and a discussion had broken out over the rights to the Vineling anthill. “We decided beforehand on the rotations, so now only because it’s my turn we’re suddenly going to change things up?”

“You’re the one corrupting the spirit of our deal over a technicality,” Diana said, scowling. “There’s a lot more than ten Vinelings there.”

“You don’t know that,” Alex said, though he did. And she did too. But he couldn’t really play the nice guy here, could he? Not when so much experience was on the line. Who knows when the Second might need it?

It rankled him to think like that, but he forced the guilt down with extreme prejudice. Selfishness was the way to go. Always. He knew that. He’d learned that more than once. With her, and with the other kids in the homes.

“Stop,” Valerian said. The word was softly spoken, but everyone listened. “You’re thinking about this the wrong way.” He turned to the crew leader. “How did you do it the last time you came here?”

“Zathan—I mean, one of my former crewmates. He’s a sorcerer, a second-rank mage.” Cedric coughed and gave them a smile. “He just flooded the thing with a water spell. Done and over with in five minutes.”

Valerian looked at Alex. “Can you do something similar?”

“I can torch the place—turn it into a giant oven. But…”

“But they can escape through one of the tunnels,” Valerian finished. Alex made a face, but nodded. The paladin then turned to Diana. “And you?”

She bit her lip. “I don’t have the strength to pull the air from the hill and suffocate them. Not yet,” she said. “I can cause a dig in, though. But…”

“But they might just dig themselves out another way,” Valerian said. “Or the cave-in might not kill them all.”

Cedric was nodding along. “Yes, you need to work together on this one,” he said. “And you’re all forgetting about Daven in this equation. The deal is only fair when he gets to kill the monsters on the wings.” He shot a questioning look at the archer. “What do you say?”

Daven seemed to think for a bit, then shrugged. “Can’t do much about all of that with just arrows,” he said. “I’ll take the ones who skitter out, and you two blow the thing up or whatever.” He pointed first at his sister then at Alex. “You owe me though. Big time.” He cracked a smile.

Cedric chuckled. “Good lad,” he said, and clapped him on the shoulder. Valerian too nodded at the archer. Daven tried to hide it, but he straightened and held his shoulders higher where he sat on a fallen log.

Alex wanted to say they were wrong, but they weren’t. He knew that. Damn them, but he did. He silently clicked his tongue. “Fine, then.” He grabbed a loose stick and started drawing on the dirt ground. “How about we do this?”

xx

Alex circled the area of the clearing, staying low beneath the tree line. He moved with silent steps, as silent as could be when you weren’t a woodsman and there were leaves crinkling underfoot.

So long as the Vinelings in their anthill didn’t notice, then it didn't matter. They weren’t human enemies that would keep scouts and patrols to check for spies and stalkers. Occasionally, one of the monsters popped out of the nest and went off into the forest, toward some other smaller nest the creatures kept.

Or, in the case of the one who went the way Alex had just come from, straight into one of Daven’s arrows undoubtedly.

As he crept along, errant shrubbery grabbed at him like fingers, tangling at his clothes. He pushed the knife-edged twigs away when he could, and were he not wearing long sleeves he’d be scratched worse than the owner of a schizophrenic cat.

The anthill loomed closer and closer. The giant turd, as Daven had called before they left, was hard against the northern side of the clearing, its sprawling base nearly reaching the tree line there. He followed the movement of monsters on the hill with dark eyes, and something twisted inside his stomach. Apprehension. Fear. Excitement. All jumbled together.

They weren’t feelings Alex was used to having. At least not before yesterday. There wasn’t much adventure to be had in the life of a quiet community college student with no family and no friends.

It was a dangerous mixture, and he liked it.

Up above, the sun hung proud just shy of the center of the sky, though a chilly breeze kept any heat from truly warming the day. Still, sweat prickled the skin of Alex’s back. He felt flushed, high on the thrill of the hunt.

I want this. The realization came as a surprise. I’m eager for it. He always saw himself as an apathetic person. And sometimes a pathetic one as well, for the lack of life in his life. But perhaps he didn’t know himself as well as he thought he did.

A hiss came from behind him. He swung his head back, and saw Diana clasping a hand to her forearm. Her shirt was sliced there, and a thin line of red blossomed on her pale skin. She muttered a curse, at herself or at the offending briar that cut her, then wiped it off and urged him forward with a nod of her head.

Until they got to the opposite end of the clearing, Alex kept his long-sleeve-wearing arms close to his chest. “Are you ready?” he asked once they settled behind a broad tree.

Their view of the anthill was unparalleled here. They were just a stone’s throw away—a very short throw too. The Vineling nest was dotted with more tunnels than a Vietnamese forest. On this side of the giant turd, and this close, Alex could count near a dozen of the monster just by peeking inside the holes.

Diana was looking at the nest too, counting as he was, and her eyes swiveled to meet his. She raised an eyebrow and didn't speak. She didn’t need to.

Alex sighed. “Yeah, yeah.” He made a pacifying gesture with his hand. “You were right. Are we doing this or not?”

She nodded through a victorious smirk. “On three,” she said, three fingers up. Then two. One. Then they were sprinting, straight at the giant turd.

The plan was simple. One of the oldest in the book. Shock and awe, as it were. Even though they were both mages, they didn’t have enough power to take the thing down at a distance, so they needed to get close. And crossing the entire clearing—an open field of green grass without any sort of cover—to get to the objective sounded more like a suicide attempt than anything else. So they snuck along until they could attack.

It worked. The Vinelings only noticed them when Alex vaulted over the knee-high brush near the tree line, Diana hot on his heels. He made it a step onto the dirt base of the little hill before any monster had rushed him. The hill rose steeper than he’d initially expected, taller than he was by a few feet.

Diana caught up with him, panting, and promptly dropped to the ground. Her hands found purchase on the loose earth easily. “Give me…” Her brows knit together with focus. “Thirty seconds,” she finally said.

Alex grunted a reply and planted himself in front of her. Pulling on the power came easier than ever now. It swept through his chest like a torrent, aching to be used. The first basketball-sized mass of vines that click-clacked to within five feet from him got a fire arrow to the face for its trouble.

The thing stumbled on its numerous twig legs like it was drunk for half a second before it buckled onto itself. A glance at its corpse before it disappeared into black glass showed it had burnt up from the inside. Alex suspected an attack of similar strength wouldn’t have killed the monster if it was another element other than fire.

Another two sidled up to him on both sides, vines trashing in anger, and Alex was double wielding now. At this distance the arrows were easy to aim and hard to miss. The first got the same treatment as the one before, but the Vineling to his left suddenly leapt, dodging the arrow by a centimeter. It had the high ground on him, too, and it flew straight at his face.

Only to get crisped by a wall of flames before crumpling down at Alex’s feet. He smiled, wiped sweat from his forehead. He had come up with the trace back in the Riverbend woods, a fire barrier in a semi circle around him, chest high. It wouldn’t do much against stronger enemies or physical attacks like arrows and swords.

But against a bit of plant wrapped up in twigs like the Vineling? It was perfect.

The heat of the flames didn’t affect Alex, but a quick glance behind him showed Diana sweating like a faucet. The other Vinelings that had been outside rallied at him. They didn’t seem to have a way to communicate amongst each other—beside the clacking of their legs, the Vinelings made no noise even as they died with a flaming arrow to center mass or burnt up once they got too close—so the ones inside the giant turd stayed there as Alex ravaged their compatriots.

When he was surrounded by five of them, Alex pulled out another trace. Seeing Diana in action earlier yesterday had given him ideas when he was practicing, so he fell to his knees, hands splayed close to the ground, and created a carpet of fire in a small area in front of him.

The Vinelings closest to him, their whip-like vines already flickering in the air for a taste of his blood, were caught up in the storm when their wooden feet burst into fire and broke apart.

Two managed to jump back in time, nimble as they were, and Alex had to let go of the carpet trace to pepper them with the arrows again. He couldn’t yet maintain a trace like this one or the fire barrier while also attacking with fire arrows, and he needed direct contact with the fire to keep so much control of it. It was the reason why his fire arrows had such a short range. Were he to try and shoot them at a long distance they would just disperse halfway there.

By then, Alex had gotten into a rhythm. Arrows when he could, barrier or carpet when he needed. Rinse and repeat. During those thirty seconds, the throbbing at his throat was forgotten. The fear of a new world inexistent. Any suspicions he had evaporated. Distant things that made no matter.

All there was in the world was the rush of power. The drumming of his heart. The fight. The victory in each kill.

“Alex!” Diana’s voice brought him back to reality. “I’m ready,” she called.

He shot another fire arrow. “Do you want a formal invitation to start?”

Diana’s answer came by way of a deep rumble on the earth. Alex almost lost his footing, and the smaller Vinelings shook up and down like they were under an earthquake. They would’ve tumbled over had they not had eight legs each.

Then one by one, the bee-hive tunnels of the Vineling anthill start closing up. Earthen jaws closed any passage into the gullet of the giant turd. Despite having no eyes or mouth, the little Vinelings seemed slack-jawed as they dumbly watched the entrance to their homes disappearing.

And when an arrow flew high into the sky, with a strip of white cloth tied to the shaft flapping in the wind, Alex knew Diana had succeeded in blocking the tunnels on the other side as well.

Only one opening remained, the one right in front of Alex. He glanced at the four remaining Vinelings still skittering outside and spoke over his shoulder, “Your turn to play bodyguard.”

Diana pulled her hands from the earth and gave him a tight nod. “Got it.” Her breathing was coming in heavy gasps, and she almost stumbled trying to stand. The effort had clearly taken a lot from her.

Not your problem now. Alex slid up to the open tunnel and planted his feet on the dirt wall next to the entrance. Inside, a curious Vineling poked out from an intersection deeper into the passageway. He smiled at it, then brought both hands to bear and stuck them inside the tunnel.

There was no fancy way to do it. Fire bloomed out of his hands, the constant streams from before all concentrated into that one narrow crevice. The Vineling at the end of the tunnel didn’t even have time to be surprised before he was engulfed into the orange flames of his power-made flamethrower.

But it wasn’t strong enough. He knew it. It wouldn’t be sufficient to torch the entire place, every passage and hole and crack in the earth the little fucklings had carved out. Frowning, he looked to the numbers blinking faintly at the side of his vision.

HP: 60/60

MP: 66.8/130

Alex had recovered his mana during Diana’s rotation, but the carpet and the barrier cost a lot to use—and maintain. Nearly twelve points each spell, then half a point for every second.

Thinking back on the way he’d managed to compress his normal fireball into that bite-sized explosion, Alex realized what he had to do. He chanced a look up, and saw his fellow mage standing in front of him, battling the Vinelings on the anthill with swords of solid air and lances of earth that poked out of the ground when the monsters got too close to them.

Shaking his head, he quickly brought himself back to task. Focus now!

Reaching deep inside him, farther than he’d ever dared, he sunk every single ounce of power available to him into the fire blowing from his hands. The outburst nearly toppled him backwards. In an instant, the stream turned into a tide, a blazing wave of red-orange flames that flooded the mouth of the tunnel before surging inside like a hungry animal.

With a direct connection to the fire, Alex could almost feel the conflagration rushing through the passages, seeping deeper and deeper into the ground, consuming everything it encountered. All he could hear was the roar of the fire and the earth cracking beneath him like a giant dragon’s egg.

On the screen, his mana winked out in chunks, first ten points, then fifteen, and on and on. Alex wanted to get all the Vinelings inside, every last one of the critters, but he couldn’t leave himself vulnerable without any mana. He didn’t think Diana would let him be attacked, but he couldn’t trust that she could handle it if the remaining Vinelings mobbed them or other monsters emerged from behind, not before Cedric and the others arrived.

He just couldn’t bring himself to bet his life on the back of others so easily.

Reluctantly, he stopped the flow of fire. The whoosh of hot air and flames being flushed into the tunnel winked out. A gasping breath escaped him as he finally released his hold on the power. His arms felt heavy, weighed by a ton of lead, and Alex reeled back when he noticed that the skin of his forearms was steaming in the cool air, like the pathways inside had been burning up with the heat of the power.

He realized he’d been staring too long when he heard a shuffle on the dirt. His head shot up, ready to use his remaining ten mana if necessary. But there were no more Vinelings anywhere around them. The anthill was deserted. The giant turd looked to have been baked. Smoke rose from tiny cracks on it all along its face.

Only Diana stood there further up the mound above him, watching him with wide eyes.