Verdan and Ruan pushed on toward the estate, but as they moved away from the area around the Plucky Wanderer, they saw fewer and fewer vespa, even at a distance. None had been close enough for Verdan and Ruan to engage since the marketplace; it was as though there were none at all within this section of the city.

With each passing minute and each street they crossed, Verdan became more convinced that the vespa were either following orders or were being controlled somehow; they were simply too concentrated in specific areas for it to be anything else.

A true monster attack was usually driven by hunger or blood thirst, neither of which caused a creature to remain within an area. No, there was something else going on here; Verdan was sure of that.

“Boss!” Ruan cried out, pointing ahead to the glasshouses that Samuel and his people supplied and worked. The buildings were in good shape, but the road was littered with debris from a cart that had been torn to pieces. Claw marks scarred the glasshouses, and the doors of nearby buildings hung in tattered pieces.

“There are no bodies; they might have gotten away,” Verdan said, trying to keep a positive mindset as he looked at the destruction around them. “Come on. We’re not far from the estate. They might have headed that way to seek shelter.”

“Your lips to the ears of the gods,” Ruan muttered as they hurried along the road, following the path of chaos the vespa had left behind. As they moved closer to the estate, they began to hear the sound of fighting, along with occasional heavy impacts and shouts of alarm. They were too close to be at the estate itself, but all that was between Verdan and the estate now was the housing where the workers lived. Cold dread settled into Verdan’s gut as he ran with fresh speed, all but skidding around the corner of the next intersection to see where the sounds were coming from.

A pair of vespa were engaged in a sprawling melee with a dozen people, most of whom were armed with logging axes and improvised weaponry. The only exceptions were Pania, Pawel and Tom, who formed the core of the defence. Despite their organisation, seven or eight bodies lay unmoving on the floor, alongside a third vespa that had been impaled with a length of wood.

As Verdan watched, one of the surviving vespa darted forward, only to be counter-charged by Tom, the two of them slamming into each other with a booming impact. The stone path seemed to flow and flex around Tom, bracing and strengthening him as he grappled with the Vespa. Grappling the creature stopped Tom from dealing real damage to it, but it also prevented it from retaliating. As soon as Tom and the vespa began to wrestle for position, the creature was immediately set upon by the nearby folk. Their weapons might have only been pinpricks against the beast, but both vespa were already covered in blood and countless minor cuts from their efforts.

The other creature waited until the majority were engaged before darting in with a single explosive flap of its wings. Pawel and Pania did their best to block the creature’s attack, working with a few city folk who had weapons with a longer reach to keep it at bay until the other was forced to retreat. It seemed to be working, but Verdan saw quite a few of the fighters were injured, which brought it down to a test of endurance. Neither side was dealing fatal wounds for the moment, but that would only last so long.

“Boss!” Pawel shouted, waving them over urgently as he dodged back from the vespa he’d been fighting, letting the others commit to driving it back. “You need to get back to the mansion; they need help!”

“Aer torr!” Verdan cast a pair of air blades at the two vespa as soon as he was in range, wounding them further and making the creatures retreat momentarily. The vespa’s hide was durable enough that anything strong enough to take them down would do considerable collateral damage. Not a problem in the open area around the Plucky Wanderer or the damaged marketplace, but Verdan spied furtive movement in the houses as the locals hid from the creatures. Frustrated, he hurried to Pawel and gestured at the vespa, “what about them?”

“We’ve got a system, and Tom is holding back some Essence for if he really needs it. You need to go, Elliot and Samuel have been taking the wounded to a house near the manor, but they can’t get through while the vespa are attacking. Elliot mentioned something about the fwyn, but they had to go before the vespa started picking them off.” Pawel explained, a worried look in his eyes. “There’s a bigger one near the estate as well, and they’re bad news, be careful.”

“I’ll stay and help here, Boss,” Ruan interrupted before Verdan could say anything else. “My shield arm is done, but I can still fight.” Ruan gave Verdan a vicious grin as he spun his axe in one hand.

Verdan cursed himself for not replenishing the enchantments on their weapons, for not seeing this coming and at least planning on how to defend against a more direct attack. The wards he’d made would help, but they were designed for sorcerers, not creatures like these.

“Damn it, just be careful; that’s an order!” Verdan shouted as he left the under-equipped guards and the barely-trained sorcerer to fight two deadly creatures.

Running quickly down the street and turning to the estate, Verdan’s senses picked up on fluctuations of the ambient Aether; several creatures were using Aether nearby. Thankfully they weren’t using enough to alter the flow, which meant they weren’t beyond Verdan’s capabilities.

Distracted by the Aether disturbances, Verdan didn’t hear the heavy wingbeats of the vespa until it slammed into him from behind and drove him to the ground as its claws tore into his back.

White hot agony ripped through Verdan as the claws travelled across his back, gouging deep into his flesh before hooking onto his shoulder blades as the creature lifted him and threw him against a nearby building. Verdan couldn’t even cry out as the impact struck him like a giant’s hammer, and he slumped to the floor, winded, bleeding and dazed from the impact.

Words of power stumbled to Verdan’s tongue as he instinctively tried to shield himself, but he couldn’t catch his breath, managing little more than a wheeze. He could only watch impotently as the creature licked the blood from its claws and stalked towards him with a single-minded intensity. The vespa’s eyes were a deep black but were flecked with shards of gold, giving it an almost mesmerising effect that Verdan found himself focusing on as he desperately tried to cast a spell.

A whisper of Aether rippled past Verdan as the paved stone flowed like water up around the vespa’s feet between steps, solidifying and forming familiar stone shackles.

The vespa screeched in anger as it almost fell from the impediment, instead taking a moment to rip each foot free from the shackles. The stone was scattered and sundered with each step, but more rose and tried to bind it as the flow of Aether intensified.

Following the flow back, Verdan saw Aeva, Dru’s mate, standing in the ruined front of a building. Behind her, Verdan could just make out a huddled group of injured people sheltered by a worried-looking Elliot.

The vespa screeched again as Aeva slowly shackled more and more of its legs, bringing it down to the floor bit by bit despite its resistance. Much like with the darjee, the ground was slowly devouring the creature, the stone swallowing it up and dragging it beneath the earth.

Verdan struggled to breathe, and any attempt to take more than a shallow breath brought agony and a bloody coughing fit. However, he still couldn’t take his eyes away from the vespa as the diminutive fwyn’s power dragged it beneath the ground. One final screech of horror was all the creature could manage before the stone covered its mouth, and it was dragged down to its earthen tomb.

There was silence and stillness for a moment as the creature’s cries disappeared, and even the Aether ripples from the other casters faded to a mere fraction of what they had been.

Taking advantage of the reprise, Verdan rasped out the slightest word of power, coughing violently in response even as a minor healing spell ran through his body. The wounds on his back were the first priority; they were deep enough to cause internal bleeding that he needed to deal with as soon as possible.

Small hands helped him move into a more comfortable position as Aeva reached him, the small fwyn looking tired but concerned as she helped him.

A heavy impact shattered Verdan’s concentration as a huge vespa landed next to where its brethren had been buried alive. This particular vespa was almost nine feet tall, with dark crimson patterns flowing through its fur.

The creature crouched down and sniffed at the ground before its head tracked up to spear Verdan and Aeva with its rage-filled gaze, its right hand coming up toward its left arm before pausing as Aeva tried to restrain it with stone.

Shackles of stone tried to form around the creature’s feet, but it kicked free with almost contemptuous ease. Aeva had worn the other vespa down through continuous attacks, but the small fwyn wasn’t able to maintain the same pace this time, and this particular vespa was clearly stronger.

Aeva stepped in front of Verdan, and he felt her pour her Aether into the ground, saturating the stone with her power as grasping hands of stone assaulted the vespa. For a moment, the creature was slowed beneath the attacks, more and more stone getting a grip as Aeva gave it everything she had.

The vespa screeched in frustration as it lifted its right hand once more and slashed open its forearm, blood pouring out and flowing down to its right hand. Verdan could sense the power imbued into the blood, even disorientated as he was, but his heart fell as the creature’s blood thickened and formed a gauntlet around its right hand. Once complete, the vespa smashed the stone restraints around its body, its Aether directly beating back Aeva’s and weakening the stone until it could break free with ease.

In a blur, the vespa raced forward, backhanding the small fwyn with its left hand and sending her flying back toward the building she’d come from with a shrill cry of pain. Aeva hit a partially destroyed wall and crumpled soundlessly to the ground with a worrying boneless motion.

The vespa ignored Verdan completely and stalked after Aeva, paying no attention to the wizard as he prepared for a single powerful spell to attack the creature with. He had blood in his lungs and was struggling to catch his breath, so he doubted he could get more than one spell off before the creature judged him a threat and killed him.

“I won’t let you touch her,” Elliot’s voice broke the stillness of the scene as he stepped out from the building where they’d been sheltering the wounded and moved with purpose to stand between Aeva and the vespa.