Back up the mountain they went, then down. Jad muttered the entire way, and they ignored him.

Before long they were on the same plateau they’d camped at previously. As Xerxes stood at the edge and looked down, the road seemed clear. There was no stream of movement like before.

“See, the path’s clear,” Dasi said. “It’ll be a straight run, right back the way we came.”

Then a muffled booming sound reached their ears, from behind them and further up the mountain.

“What the hell was that?” Jad said.

Everyone turned to look back up the mountain. Due to the terrain and trees, it wasn’t possible to see the source of the noise.

“We were just up there…” Xerxes said.

Kashtiliash frowned. “We should go.”

They started moving. Down the mountain slope and back to the road. There was clear evidence of the mass movement of Abhorrent, the road having been torn by countless clawed feet. Their stink still lingered in the air as well. In fact, the road was in such bad shape that they had to stick to the side. They ran.

Five minutes later, the ground shook beneath their feet so violently that Dasi lost her footing and fell, tumbling across the ground in a cloud of dust for several cubits before stopping herself.

Xerxes skidded to a stop and looked back.

“This is bad,” he said.

At the base of the mountain, just below the plateau where they’d camped, as a massive Abhorrent. It was the same type as the one that had decimated Black Jackal Company, except bigger. It was prbably a hundred cubits in height.

“It’s at least a stage four or five juvenile,” Katayoun said. “But it could theoretically be a stage six. Or even… mature.”

It had four limbs that spread out in four directions from a bulbous torso. The limbs bent downward, ending in massive hands that could well have been human if they weren’t so massive. Xerxes saw no eyes, mouth, or any other distinguishing features. From this distance, it wasn’t possible to see what kind of hide the creature had, but it seemed to be covered with some sort of writhing fur.

“If it was mature, we’d be dead already,” Dasi said.

“P-Pontifarch save us,” Jad muttered.

Xerxes gritted his teeth. “The Pontifarch isn’t going to do a damn thing. We need to run. Now.”

He turned and ran, pushing himself to accelerate as rapidly as possible. Kat was at his side.

They ran. About thirty seconds later, Xerxes looked over his shoulder. The Abhorrent hadn’t moved.

“What the hell is it doing?” he yelled.

Kashtiliash was a few paces ahead and to the right. He glanced back. “Getting ready.”

They ran a bit more. He looked back again.

“It’s coming!” he yelled.

“We can’t outrun it,” Dasi shouted.

“Kat, what about Slow Death?” Xerxes asked.

She thought for a moment as she ran, then said, “It would take hours to kill a High Archon. A stage three juvenile would take something like two days to die. A stage six? Almost twice that long.”

Xerxes looked back again. The massive Abhorrent was picking up speed, its four hand-limbs slamming into the ground as it crawled across the ground.

Rabya had taught them to pick the battleground whenever possible when fighting Abhorrent. Use terrain to your advantage. On the disastrous overland journey to Puabi, they’d never had that option.

What about now?

He thought about the lands they’d crossed, as well as what he remembered from the map. Nothing came to mind as an ideal location to deal with the kind of monster that was pursuing them right now. It had apparently scaled a mountain and jumped down the other side with ease. Any nearby terrain that would cause a problem for it would cause even more problems for them.

“We can hide,” Jad shrieked. “In a cave or something.”

Xerxes glanced at the mountains to the right. It was true that there were caves. They had passed some on their recent ascent and descent. But could they find a cave deep enough that this beast couldn’t just bury them in it?

He looked back. It was only a few hundred cubits from them. There wasn’t any more time. Just as he turned his head away, something attracted his attention. The Abhorrent was doing something different.

It had planted its forward hands on the ground, and the back two arms swung through the air.

His eyes widened.

Two massive arms arced up, and then down. Right toward them.

“Speed up!” he shouted.

He ran faster, his thighs aching, his arms pumping.

Then he was knocked off his feet. Or rather, blown off his feet. A deafening boom accompanied a blast of force that shoved him forward through the air for at least a dozen cubits. Then he hit the ground, and though he tried to maintain his gait, he failed. He faceplanted, then tumbled head over heels through the dirt, before finally sliding to a stop.

Coughing dust, he squinted his eyes and looked back. The Abhorrent’s giant hands were planted into the ground dozens of cubits behind him.

His eyes darted to the left and right.

All the other mages were nearby, also having been flung off their feet.

“Get up!” he shouted, forcing himself into a standing position.

His eyes were mostly fixed on Kat, until he saw her struggling up.

Then he looked back at the Abhorrent. By now, the smell of the dusty road had been augmented by the stench of the monster. It was like boiled sulfur and burned honey, except a thousand times more acrid. He nearly gagged.

Worse, he now saw that the thing wasn’t covered with fur. Nor did it have feathers. Instead, it was covered with thousands upon thousands of small, human-sized arms. They swayed like fur, but they were arms, the fingers of the hands undulating and clawing at nothing.

He felt dizzy as he tried to come up with a plan for how to fight this thing. He remembered Mystic Rabya’s words.

“Abhorrent spawn might as well be mindless. But juveniles have brains and hearts. Regardless of the mages you have in your party, the Unsighted troops, the terrain, or the tactics, you will always have two main ways to kill them. Destroy the brain. Or destroy the heart.”

But how could he possibly know where this monster’s brain or heart was?

He was tempted to draw his longsword, but didn’t. Not yet.

The Abhorrent seemed to be rooted in place, unmoving. However, one of the smaller hand-limbs suddenly detached itself and dropped to the ground. No, it wasn’t one of them. It was two, except they were connected by a single ‘shoulder.’ Two hands. Two forearms. Two upper arms. The bizarre then flopped on the ground, then began ‘walking’ toward him like a pair of disembodied chicken legs. Some distance to the left, another of the things fell to the ground. Then a third and a fourth.

“Let’s go!” he bellowed. “We have to find a place to make a stand.”

They ran.

The disembodied hand-limbs gave chase, but at a certain point, they collapsed and disappeared into ash.

The thing has two magical powers, he thought. That meant it could either be a stage five or six juvenile. If it manifested a third power, it would mean it was mature. Please don’t let it have three.

“Look!” Kashtiliash shouted.

Up ahead, a quarry had been dug into the side of a mountainous area, leaving something like a cliff behind.

“Go!” Xerxes yelled back.

They veered off the road and sped up the embankment, angling toward the top of the ‘cliff.’

There, they stopped very briefly to catch their breath.

“Everybody okay?” Xerxes asked, looking back down the road to the still-unmoving Abhorrent.

“Fine,” Dasi said. “How are we going to kill this thing?”

Xerxes forced out a grin. “I like that attitude.”

Unfortunately, attitudes didn’t win battles. His mind raced. “Based on the last battle, what options are the best?”

“Last time we just hacked at it until it died,” Dasi said. “And about half of us died in the process.”

“Fuck,” Kashtiliash said.

Xerxes looked at Katayoun. “Kat, the effects of your spells stack up, right?”

“Technically, yes,” she said. “But even when full —which I’m not— I could only cast Slow Death five times. And even then, it would still take hours to kill it. And that’s not to mention the possibility of it having some sort of healing ability.”

“If it has healing, it’s a mature,” Dasi said. “And then we’re screwed no matter what.”

“It’s not a mature,” Xerxes said, more an expression of hope than anything else.

Dasi reached to her component pouch. “I can cast Minor Reshaping. It’ll shrink it down for about a minute.”

“The brain’s got to be in the middle,” Kashtiliash said. “What if we two just jump up there and hack at it?”

Off in the distance, one of the enormous hands lifted up off the ground, moved forward, then slammed back down. The thing was moving again.

Wild plans flashed through Xerxes’ mind. What if Dasi shapeshifted into a huge wooden spike, and he physically stabbed her into the thing’s center? No, too complicated and risky. What if Jad cast Stronghold Deflection around the Abhorrent, trapping it in place? No, Jad had never mastered the rune.

“Fuck,” he muttered. “Kash, it’s too risky considering you can’t cast Minor Augmentation. Alright Dasi, you shrink it. I’ll jump over and try to stab its brain.”

“No way,” Katayoun said, stepping over and grabbing his arm. “It’s too dangerous.”

The Abhorrent was accelerating rapidly in their direction. They didn’t have much time.

“It’s our best bet,” he said. He reached to his component pouch and drew out some stibnite talc.

“You’re not going alone,” Kashtiliash said.

“I am. Keep Kat safe. She’s our lifeline if anything goes wrong.”

The massive Abhorrent was closing in.

“Dasi, get ready,” he said.

“I already am.”

Then the giant Abhorrent loomed over them. Three of its massive limbs were planted on the ground, while one of the front appendages bent back, causing its hand to lift high overhead.

“It’s gonna smack us!” Katayoun said.

An idea popped into Xerxes’ mind.

“Jad,” he said. “Cast Personal Deflection as a flat disc, right when the hand drops. If the shield pops into being, it’ll either sever the hand or trap it in place.”

All four mages stared up as the hand began to fall toward them.

“Jad, did you catch that?” Xerxes looked over. “Jad!”

Jad was standing in place with his hand on his component pouch.

“Get out of the way!” Kashtiliash shouted.

Even as the hand blurred toward them, Jad reached into his pouch, grabbed some of his spellcasting component, and started tracing his hand through it.

However, Xerxes wasn’t going to bet his own life that Jad would get the timing right. “Kat, run!” he shouted, then dashed parallel to the cliff line. He looked behind him as he ran, and saw melam flowing around Jad. Then a sparkling light.

He did it!

Except, instead of spreading out dramatically, the light surrounding Jad like a cocoon.

That’s not a disc shape…. He’s protecting himself?

Xerxes bent his legs and jumped. Keeping the stibnite talc held tight in his fist, he flew through the air, narrowly getting out from under the massive hand as it slammed down behind him.

He rolled onto his shoulder, spun, and got back up. He started tracing the Asgagu Sebum rune.

Meanwhile, Dasi was also casting a spell. Melam surged around her, and she jumped forward. Her tiny hand slapped one of the Abhorrent’s huge fingers.

Where were Kashtiliash and Katayoun?

The fingers of the giant hand dug deep into the soil of the cliff, grabbing a massive amount of dirt that it took with them as the hand backed away.

Within that clump of dirt was a glimmer of light.

It has Jad, he thought. Please tell me he has some sort of plan.

He spotted Kashtiliash and Katyoun several cubits away, on the other side of a massive handprint that now created a sort of ravine between them. They were safe.

This is my chance.

He took a running leap off the cliff.

As he did, Dasi’s spell began to work. The gigantic Abhorrent twitched as it shrank. Of course, it only affected the creature itself, so dirt began to spill out of its clenched hand.

Xerxes kicked his legs in midair as he flew toward it.

He slammed into its forearm. The flesh was grayish and wrinkled. The hand-limbs swayed away from him. As the gigantic monster shrank beneath him, he cast Minor Augmentation.