Micah

“We have less than a week to whip you into shape for the Wild Hunt,” Gaillard said cheerily, flicking a short riding crop into his left hand with a sharp crack that made Micah’s skin prickle. Next to the mage, Firenze looked comparatively innocent, licking his back teeth as he smiled.

“I hope you don’t mean literally,” Micah remarked, attempting a smile that turned into a cringe as Gaillard cracked the crop again.

“Of course not,” the mage replied, but cracked it again, grinning wider. “This is for something else.”

Firenze finally took the crop from the other’s hands, shaking his head.

“You’re going to give him anxiety,” Firenze chuckled, his honeyed voice more soothing than Gaillard’s jest. He said to Micah, transferring the crop to his other hand to keep it from the mage, “While the undar were carving out a new cavern, we found a creature that Gaillard figured might be suitable to test your new skills on. You will need to remember the elements of both my and his teachings.”

Gaillard’s grin didn’t fade.

“We’ve got quite the treat for you.”

Firenze tilted his head and said, “We’ve gathered an array of weapons here for you to use if you like. We will ensure—” he said, turning a stern gaze to the mage, “—that someone is nearby to help if you should find yourself in any real danger.”

He gestured to a rack of weapons, most of them worn and only suitable for training. There were axes, maces, daggers, a mighty claymore built for someone much bigger than Micah, halberds and harpoons, recurve bows, longbows, and a single massive warhammer. There were even a couple of the newly-acquired weapons from the forgotten city, which Micah picked up.

He held a curved dagger the length of his forearm, its pocked, brownish bone hilt blending seamlessly into the shiny, black blade, its material unknown. The hard surface was ridged, regularly-patterned, in a way that could only be organic.

“What is this?” he asked Firenze, who had been in charge of appraising the weapons before they had been deemed suitable to add to their usable arsenal.

“One of our only good weapons,” Gaillard interjected in jest before Firenze answered, more seriously, “I believe all of the surviving weapons from the city beneath are bone and the beaks of inkfish.”

Micah’s eyebrows raised.

“No way,” he murmured, looking more closely at the wickedly sharp edge and trying to see it as the beak of a living squid. The blade itself was the length of his entire hand and then some, so— “They must have been huge.”

“That is one of the smaller examples. The dual-bladed axes we found imply that the inkfish were gargantuan. Not only the weapons, but some features of the city itself also seem to be made of chitin,” said Firenze, pleased to find someone as fascinated by it as he was. His eyes grew a little dreamy as he continued, “That city lay far beneath us for so long, its stories untold of such intricate magicepts, the details lost—”

From the next cavern there came a rumbling, muffled roar that interrupted the bellicar.

“Ah. I forget myself. You are awaited,” he said to Micah.

“Will you tell me what I’m fighting?”

“An ifrit.” Gaillard smiled. The word meant nothing to Micah.

“Will you be wanting armor?” Firenze asked, raising his lean arm to show Micah his leather vambrace.

“I’ll probably move quicker without it,” Micah reasoned, and the bellicar shrugged.

Micah put the chitin dagger back on the rack and selected a light, mid-length sword similar to the guardless sabers Firenze carried. It was dark metal and had a perilous sheen to its edge; Micah was pleased by the weight of it in his hand. Firenze nodded approvingly.

Micah hesitated and then also picked a small buckler shield. He slid the strap across his chest, letting it rest on his back. He saw a small piece of chalk and smiled, knowing Gaillard had placed it there for him. He slipped it into the pocket of his trousers, and then turned to the pair and nodded, thinking himself ready for whatever they had in store.

He wasn’t.

He ducked into the adjoining cavern, almost as large as their entry cavern, and there waited a giant beast, chained by silvery shackles.

It stood on two legs thick as stone pillars, which seemed spindly underneath its huge torso and shoulders, laden with cords of muscle that wound into arms that could level hills. These arms ended in smooth, fingerless nubs. Its face, on a head mounted directly on its shoulders with no neck to speak of, was completely blank and featureless, but when Micah stepped into the room, it turned toward him with no explainable way of sensing him.

The creature strained against the chains shackled to its arms, enormous body flexing powerfully. It was charcoal grey, from its head to its toe-less club feet, and large, saurian spikes ran down its spine.

“Well,” said Gaillard, gesturing to it, “this is an ifrit. Hope you have fun.”

And with that, Micah was in the cavern by himself with the beast. He took a deep breath and stood straight, lifting his sword.

This shouldn’t be too bad, he thought. After all, it’s chained to --

As if in reply, the ifrit rose to its full height, and the chains pulled up chunks of stone from the floor, their ends dangling from its enormous limbs.

“Son of a bitch--” he started to say, and the ifrit bounded at him on all fours, shaking the caverns with the force of its footfalls.

He dove out of its way. It crashed into the wall behind him, bringing down rubble and shaking the compound.

The entrance he had come in was far too small for the creature, but it seemed much more concerned with him than with the exit anyway.

It stood on two legs and turned toward him again, apparently unfazed by its headbutt to solid rock, and Micah braced himself for the next attack.

He took a breath and tried to focus on grounding his stance, and then he had a split second in which he wondered how he could use the strigamyr against such a beast.

Then the ifrit raised an arm high, swinging it down vertically at him, the club-end of it shattering the rock where Micah had been -- he dodged but almost didn’t make it from under the blow, the weight of the shield on his back altering his movement in an unfamiliar way. He pulled it from his back and hurled it like a Frisbee at the creature, hitting it directly in its blank face.

Tunk. The ifrit didn’t seem to notice, bringing the other arm around in a sweeping arc. It likely would have separated Micah’s torso from his legs if he hadn’t ducked low to the ground, feeling thankful for the grueling physical training to which Firenze had subjected him.

He felt the chalk in his pocket dig into his thigh, but he didn’t want to resort to any sigils just yet. He held the sword up high and made a break for the ifrit’s legs, swinging the blade into its flesh, feeling the skin cleave against the edge.

The ifrit kicked out, casually, as if ridding itself of an errant tickle, sending Micah flying backward. He landed on his back and felt the air leave his chest in one sudden, painful whoosh.

What am I going to —

He rolled to the side just as the beast’s arm came arcing down again.

From the floor, he could see the black flesh he had cut seemed to be steaming but no other visible damage had been done.

Sigils it is.

Rising to a crouch, he picked up a palm-sized stone and removed the chalk from his pocket. He flung himself out of the way of another attempted blow and used the second between attacks to write a sigil on the rock, then turned and threw it as forcefully as he could at the thing’s face.

He was rewarded with a satisfying explosion that staggered it. Fire spread over its body as if it were made of dry paper. He had used the most powerful sigil in his book, an explosive fire magicept that he hadn’t even tested until now.

The smoke cleared, and the ifrit still stood, now covered in hot, blue flames.

It hurtled at him again, the air around him growing hotter as it approached. He dodged it, waiting for it to react to the flames, or the fire to go out, but neither was happening.

He, however, was growing tired.

The ifrit kept coming, indestructible and tireless like a train engine.

If the train engine were on fucking fire, he thought. Dear god, I just made it more dangerous.

A soft voice, not his own inner voice, spoke inside his mind.

You could be using actual magic against it, wheedled Asmodai. He ignored it, focusing on the giant. Already your energy grows thin.

Micah gritted his teeth. The sphere had been talking to him for days, even when he left it in his room, hidden in the toe of a spare boot.

It seemed to be with him always now, silent until it saw chances to needle at him about his weakness, of which he was already acutely aware.

The ifrit started toward him again and he formulated a plan to take it down.

He shuffled backward, letting it pursue him, leading the ifrit directly underneath a low overhanging slab of rock.

Micah ran around it and leapt onto its back, grabbing hold of the foot-long spikes that jutted from its skin.

Holding on for dear life, he climbed the creature as it swung wildly, attempting to shake him off, but its massive shoulders restricted its reach.

The flames on its body were concentrated on its front side, but he could still feel their heat.

He reached the head of the ifrit and could reach the surface of the overhanging stone; he hoped desperately that it didn’t jump and squash him against the ceiling as he stood on its mountainous traps. It lurched and he almost fell, grabbing its featureless dome of a head to steady himself. He tried again to reach the ceiling, pinching its head to between his legs. He was able to write a slapdash sigil on the rock overhang.

Unable to reach him with its clumsy club arms, the ifrit bucked again and Micah was thrown from it, landing in a roll, then standing just in time to catch its flaming arm that came thrusting at him, catching him along the left side. He felt his clothing catch fire and the skin sear. The smell of burnt clothing and flesh hit his nose. He knew he needed to roll to put the fire out, but the pain from landing and the blow itself had stunned him.

He knew if he didn’t move the ifrit would crush him.

Come on, roll, get up, go go go—

He forced himself to roll over, quashing the flames, and then used every ounce of his willpower to stand. He felt a wave of nausea roll over him, and he faltered. He wanted to pass out.

Micah compelled himself to stoop and pick up a fist-sized rock, write another sigil, and then, as the ifrit raised its blunt arm for another blow, he hurled the stone at the rock overhang above it.

The rock made contact and the two sigils reacted, the second sending a ripple of energy through the overhang and activating the first. The sigil he had slapped on the overhang disrupted the molecules of the stone and a surge of water issued forth, falling down over the ifrit and extinguishing its flames. It shuddered and it seemed as though it gave a muffled roar behind its mouthless face.

Dammit, that wasn’t what I wanted. He had intended to put the sigil for another explosion, but in his haste or perhaps his only-half-crystallized knowledge he had written the water sigil instead.

Its smooth face turned to him again.

No, no, crap, no — I thought someone was going to intervene if I’m in danger —

The ifrit charged.

Gaillard stepped in the way and opened his arms wide, a plume of snow and shards of ice sweeping forth from his hands. The chilly wave hit the ifrit and slowed it dramatically; it staggered and fell to its knees as the mage put his palms together. His fingers parted as if around a growing ball, and between them a rippling ribbon of water bloomed, freezing in the air as it spiraled out with a sharp crackle. Gaillard flicked his hands and the ice surged at the ifrit. It struck and a wave of water spread over the monster’s front, hardening into solid ice.

Micah saw spots in his vision. He took a deep breath and stared at the cave floor, keeping his eyes wide and focusing on staying conscious.

The ifrit was still, frozen in place. Gaillard turned to his student.

“Are you alright?” he asked.

“Not really, but gimme a sec,” the human responded. The feeling faded, and he was left instead with pain.

“Chalk, please.” Gaillard said, and Micah offered it up. The mage took it and wrote an unfamiliar sigil on the ground, then swept his hand in a small circle over it. An icicle the size of a stalagmite shot up from the cavern floor and impaled the ifrit in the chest, coming out the other side in a spray of shattered ice. The beast’s body was limp.

“What the hell was that?” Micah demanded, anger coming forward to replace dizziness.

“You mean your rescue?” said Gaillard, unfazed. “You were on the right track with the water, but it didn’t seem like you were going to make it.”

Micah cursed. I could have died, damn it, he thought, and he couldn’t decide whether he was angry about that, or that Gaillard had intervened so late, or that Gaillard had had to intervene at all.

Firenze ducked into the cavern, surveying the damage.

“That’s not quite what I was hoping for,” said Gaillard, running his hand over his beard as he studied the ifrit’s corpse. “The bit with the water sigil overhead was clever, but you wasted a lot of time with the fire and trying to keep up with it physically.”

Micah didn’t mention that he hadn’t even meant to extinguish the beast.

Firenze seemed a lot kinder as he asked, “Did you attempt any of the mindsets of strigamyr?”

Micah frowned and shook his head. He had dismissed the strigamyr almost immediately as useless. Firenze shrugged, but Micah could tell that it had been another mistake on his part.

“Come, we’ll get you patched up in the med cave,” said Gaillard, then added, “Firenze and I both have critiques of your performance, but it will be more constructive once you’ve had a chance to recover.”