《"Fight!"》Chapter 10

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It erupts beneath the Cayou, gnashing it with dragon’s fangs and snapping one of its hind legs clean off. The Cayou tumbles, landing on its rear and stomach, its forelegs missing Ylo by mere fingers as it tries to crush him with its fall, and finds itself wrapped in the craigworm’s coils before it can turn or drag itself away. Ylo watches as his serpent squeezes, snapping bone and juicing innards, and takes the chance to rise to his feet and check himself for injuries. His ribs ache where the Cayou struck him, its staves seeking the soft flesh of his belly and his vital organs, and he suspects they might be cracked. On top of that, the hip on which he landed now is feeling stiff and locked. But nothing that should hurt his chances. He will just have to make sure this doesn’t turn into a footrace.

There is an audible pop! and he finds himself sprayed in several of its fluids. He pinches them out with his thumb and forefinger, then resumes his scan of the circle, searching for the figure, or any follow-on attacks. Seeing none, he takes a breath, and prepares to take to the offensive.

He planned to use the craigworm to surprise the figure and create some havoc, ideally to knock it off its feet with the surfacing maneuver he’d been forced to use on the Cayou, then follow up with archers’ cover and a healthy dose of flying swarm. He planned to see how things developed, and, if attacks began to land, charge in from there himself and begin the fight in earnest. But now, absent the element of surprise, he will have to reevaluate.

He sends the worm back into the earth, and feels as much as watches as it burrows through the shale and clay as effortlessly as a fish might swim the ocean. Next he modifies the atmosphere, bringing fields of moist, warm air and cold, dry air together, and lets them mingle as they may. Storms begin to bluster and crackle, creating a natural source of lightning on the figure’s portion of the circle. It is a crude tactic, random and chaotic, but one he can leave to its own devices while he focuses on more targeted plays. Next he queues up a mischief of rats, their beady eyes the color of sulfur, their too-long teeth gnashing like shortswords fashioned of bone. They are not of the mist, but as a mass they roil like one, the dull luster of their coats lending them a mesmeric quality as they climb over, under, and around each other, searching for a tasty morsel. Scores of them find one in the spray of the Cayou, snapping up a ligament or a bit of supple tissue which the figure has wisely held in the world, before Ylo sends them across the circle. These he follows up with…

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Nothing. Not yet, anyways, not until he sees how things play out. His bandwidth is not unlimited, and he wants to hold something back. It is always wise to maintain flexibility whenever possible, in case an opportunity presents itself.

The figure raises its hands above its head, yanking them violently up from the earth, and a line of trees sprouts before it, each as tall as three men stacked, spaced perhaps a span apart. Their bark is dark, almost black, and their strands of elongated leaves as dry and sere as the brambles were. Their branches are short, thick, and bulbous, crabby little things that have grown slowly, over ages, and used to inhospitable soil. In each of them is seen a face, sometimes high, sometimes low, sometimes thin and limned on the trunk, sometimes fat, beery, and swollen, growing in amongst the branches. The fat ones seem to scowl at the world from within their oaken prison, imbued with haughtiness, contempt. The thin ones feel a bit more dour, resigned to whatever their fate may be. All are static, abstract visages, and could be written off as unremarkable twists of the wood, if one were obstinate enough. If there weren’t a dozen of them lined up side by side Ylo would probably have done just that.

It is a good defense. Better than Ylo was expecting. The roots of the Iron Willows will tangle in the craigworm’s bittings, forcing Ylo to bring it to the surface well before it enters combat, and its long, dangling strands of leaves can snare many of the rats. And the curmudgeonly nature of their wood makes them resistant to the lightning strikes Ylo had planned against another plant defense…

Kra-KOW!

A bolt strikes with blinding ferocity as Ylo retakes control of the storm. He gathers all its energies, and, speaking with a Voice of wisdom, amplifies them, focuses them, and directs them at the tree he judges weakest, just to the side of the crest of the arc. It topples, splitting less than an arm’s length up its trunk, leaving the upper portion leaning lifelessly against the next tree over and the stump charred and smoking in the rain that has begun to fall. The face, which is one of the bulbous ones, is now an abstract grimace of pain.

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Resistant, Ylo thinks. But not impervious. A small smile creases his lips.

He sends the rats in through the gap.

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