Blin bent his knees and sprung to one side, dropping his shoulder and attempted to roll out of its path and with one hand was unconsciously protecting the ball of light as he rolled away.
Sera dove back into the line of fire, grabbed Sleepy's hand and dragged him behind her, just barely out of the way of being crushed to death by stone. "Too slow!", she called out to him as she picked up her halberd angrily and pointed it at the foe with a ferocious, wild roar. "Rrrrraaaaaaaaaahhhh!"
"Come get me, wormeater!" Blank shouted, beginning to move away from the group. He practically danced backwards, trying to lead the bird on a merry chase through the woods, and away from the rest of his group.
Blin turned to his fallen glider, taking advantage of the two people distracting the creature, and hurriedly took a strong brace from what was left. A short staff, something improvised, but pretty solid he hoped. Now armed he ran back and added his support to the girl and her ghostly companion.
Nikki dashed after Blank, tossing a few choice insults at the white avian over her shoulder. “So...what’s the plan?” she asked him when she caught up, her eyes shining with wild excitement.
"Just keep running," he said eventually. "Once we lead it away from Sera and Blin, it might eventually decide to find easier prey."
"No fair! I wanted to pierce its heart!", Sera cried out at the injustice of the whole situation. She pouted and raced after the fleeing boy, the halberd swinging with her steps.
"Bad idea." Blin said with a sigh of exasperation at her forwardness, he followed holding his staff defensively.
The
wormeater spread its coarse spotted wings and stood tall, its hollow eyes locked on the trailing squad of armed islanders. Bones rattled angrily at its throat, and the clatter of it resounded in the quieted forest.
Running in this untamed forest was not an easy thing. There were no paths, very few clearings, and walls of enormous plants, webs of thick straggled vines, stones and upturned roots and broken ground, and massive violet flowers that stank like sap and honey. All around was bright green and shadows and twists of white trunks.
Blank and Nikki -- at the head of the fleeing islanders -- rushed by a tall boulder that was twisting and shifting; it lifted in the air just as Blin and Sera made it past. Another huge rock, to the right this time, yanked itself out of the ground as the islanders approached. Pebbles hovered over the ground at their feet.
High above, over the tops of the trees, the pale deathly bird soared. It tracked their movements, clattering, raising stones to impede their progress.
A rain of pebbles shot after Sera and Blin, fast enough to cause real damage to their skin and bones. At this moment, the ghostly glowing shape at Sera's back lighted on her shoulder; it spread its wide wings with a snap, and a shock of bright fire blinded them. The pebbles struck the fiery barrier and melted at once, leaving Blin and Sera unharmed. A bit of the plantlife around them smoked and glowed, singed by the flames of the birdlike creature that now clung to Sera's shoulder, but Sera and Blin could not be burned.
The sinewy ghost around Blin's neck was less translucent now -- and as it gained corporeal form, its scales and spines seemed familiar. Its intelligent eyes stared up through the trees at the creature pursuing them -- and Blin would know, instinctively, that the bony bird above had swallowed a sword that belonged to him.
Ahead of Blank and Nikki -- among the rising stones that perpetually threatened their treacherous path -- something bright and manmade flashed between the leaves. Another grounded glider?
A great boulder zoomed past them, crashing ahead through the trees, raining down broken twigs and leaves in its wake.
"Well," Kelari said, her smile broken briefly by another wince, "I've read of stranger things, haven't I?"
The forest here was warm and quiet; the trees rustled overhead, and great green leaves hung like curtains all around. Just behind those leaves, something smooth and dark sat covered in lichen and vines. A statue -- carved out of black stone a millennia ago -- sat proudly atop a crumbling pedestal. The statue depicted a tall bird like a heron, with its bones exposed and a skull-like head. It clutched a smooth ball in one clawed foot, and a curved sword in the other.
Beside the mossy statue were the decrepit and overgrown remains of a wide staircase, carved into the side of a forested hill. The crumbled stairs disappeared into the shadows and plantlife above, destroyed by vines and roots and time.
The dense energy pressed on Kelari's skull and wrapped like tendrils around her limbs, pressing in, trapping her, as the sunlight glimmered merrily above.
One of the floating balls of light drifted and spun over her head, and then lighted gently on the back of her hand. Its glow brightened and swelled, and Kelari would feel the constricting tendrils leaving her, sucked into the growing energy of the light-ball. Relief flooded her chest, and her head was eased of pain. A new sensation -- a chill, like ice -- drew invisible patterns up her arm, but it was not an unpleasant feeling. Her breath billowed in a frozen cloud with each exhale.
Not so distantly behind her, something rumbled and flashed; it looked like firelight that suddenly exploded behind the trees, then was gone. Occasionally she heard something crash, like falling boulders -- and if she strained, she might hear the shout of human voices.
"Right, you've a date with some steel, bone-head," Gaius assured the intruder, lunging forward as soon as he was ready, and slashing length-wise at its collar-bone with his massive weapon.
In the moment Gaius raised his sword, the bird's enormous wings snapped wide. All around Gaius, stones and boulders suddenly wrenched themselves out of the ground and floated, suspended in the air. But the bird's attack came too late.
Gaius' sword snapped cleanly through bone, shattering the monster in two.
The rocks and stones all dropped at once, clattering and crashing to the ground. The bird's bony head fell backward; its wings collapsed and shed loose spotted feathers on the breeze. Broken and splintered hollow bones rattled down in an unformed heap in the grass.
Something silver glittered among the bones -- something that had been at the monster's core. It appeared to be a pocket watch on a thin chain, etched with tiny ornate symbols -- but upon opening the cover by a pressed switch, one would find instead a compass that pointed northwest, and a message inscribed inside the cover:
North shall hold sentinel
and West shall freeze the night;
East shall burn the darkness
and South shall guide our flight
Something boomed in the distance -- to the east, according to the compass. There was a crash and a rumble, and a flash of light like fire. Human voices shouted, distant on the breeze.
"Hey," Eli whispered to the girl, "How about I distract this thing and you take Sir Shroom and get away from here? Unless you want to take this thing down. I'm down for that, just say the word, we... Islanders can do great things when we combine our strengths. What was the name for that? Ah, yes, synergy!"
There was no time for planning.
The birdlike monster flicked its great wings open, displaying rows of spotted coarse feathers and a chest made of bone and dark. The rocks and stones at Eli's feet trembled and began to rise into the air, and the mushroom squeaked in fright -- but what happened next was entirely unexpected.
CRASH FWOOM BOOM!An emormous boulder shot through the trees like a cannonball from behind Eli, exploding through splinters of branches and a rain of ripped leaves. It narrowly missed Eli, crashed into the ground and skidded a long deep track straight for the bird-monster, which flapped and fluttered out of the way just in the nick of time. The boulder cracked into the thick trunk of a tree and came to an immediate stop.
A second bird-monster swooped down from above and lighted on the boulder. It turned to face the direction from which the boulder had come, and it waited, watching the shadows between the trees.
Within a moment, Blank and Nikki emerged into the clearing, followed closely by Blin and Sera.
The two bony bird-monsters stood at opposite sides of the clearing ahead of them, blocking their path.
"The cavalry's here!" the little mushroom-man shrieked from within the bag -- and it was unclear whether he meant the arrival of the other islanders, or the team of Chimes that now threatened their escape.
