Outside Influences

Bel chewed on her lip hard enough to draw blood. She could see Orseis’ skin shifting colors from the stress.

“Well?” The not-Crystal waved a wand around in the air before sending up another signal flare. “Nebamon’s probably on his way. You want to try to convince him to work with you, or are you going to turn tails and run?”

Orseis leaned close to Bel’s ear. “She’s trying to get us to run. She must be worried.”

Bel shook her head and her lips pulled down in a deep frown. “No, I think she’s just trying to get us to come out from behind this rock.”

She clicked her tongue. “Working with Nebamon would actually be our best chance if we had to fight her now, but time is on our side.”

“What?” Orseis asked. “How?”

Bel flicked a hand towards the other side of their cover. “Technis’ priests aren’t gods. Their patchwork creations start falling apart the moment they reanimate them. Just look at how many scales she’s missing.”

Orseis started moving to peek out from behind their rock, but Bel grabbed her by the scruff of her shirt.

“Don’t actually look,” she hissed, “she’s probably got a wand pointed right at us!”

“If we don’t look, won’t she just sneak up on us?”

Bel tightened her grip around Orseis’ shirt. “I’m sure she is. Hold tight.”

Bel tensed her legs and pounced. The ability was new, so the patchwork person wouldn’t know about it.

As always, the ability prevented any noise as Bel pushed against the ground. She held tight to Orseis as they sprang through the air. Bel could feel the beat of Orseis’ heart, the thumping mirroring her own and forming a discordant beat of stress.

She glanced over her shoulder and saw Crystal spinning in place, tracking them with a wand that was throwing visible sparks. Before Crystal could settle her aim, she and Orseis passed over a ridge and dropped to the other side.

Orseis’ tentacles relaxed. “We made–”

The ridge behind them exploded in a bolt of pure energy, releasing an explosion of rocks and superheated vapor. Bel had already jumped again the moment they’d touched down though, so the explosion only managed to push them farther away from Crystal. Her feet touched down on the far side of the mountain and she ran, making full use of the weaker gravity to descend at a breakneck pace.

“You can put me down now,” Orseis complained.

“Your legs are too short,” Bel responded.

More like bounding, Bel thought to herself. She’d reached one of the beaten down roadways left by the herds of thunderhooves and had opened up her stride. Under the weak gravity she felt like the additional weight from Orseis’ actually helped her get a better grip on the hard-packed snow.

“My legs aren’t short,” Orseis complained, “you’re just weirdly tall.”

“Can you see anyone following us, Ori?”

Orseis shifted around so she could peer behind Bel.

“Looks clear,” she declared. “I guess she’s really staying back to ambush the Dark Ravager’s people.”

“Well yeah, she can track me wherever I go.”

It took Bel several skidding bounces to finally come to a stop, after which she dropped Orseis.

Orseis frowned at the bitter tone of Bel’s voice. “So what are we gonna do?”

Bel rubbed at her snakes in frustration.

“I think we split up. I’ll lead her around in circles while you gather up whatever weapons Nebamon and his people leave behind and set up an ambush back at our old campsite. I’ll lead her back there after a while.”

Orseis narrowed her eyes. “You aren’t going to to die tragically, right? How long do I have to wait?”

Bel snorted. “Nah, I’d rather stay alive. I’ll try to get a big head start and buy you lots of time though.”

She glanced back at the large rock that they’d just fled. It was eerily quiet, but she knew that Nebamon wouldn’t be going down quietly. “Maybe a couple of days? I don’t think her body is that fast, so maybe a week? The longer we wait to confront her, the more degraded her patchwork pieces become.”

“I don’t really like splitting up,” Orseis grumbled. Her tentacles writhed as she looked backwards again. “I guess this isn’t a bad plan though, or at least I don’t have a better idea.”

She jabbed a tentacle into Bel’s stomach. “Just don’t go getting killed, okay?”

Bel flashed her a pair of thumbs up. “Of course not! I haven’t died yet, right?”

“Yet.”

Bel snorted. “Just have some kind of ambush ready. Get some, I dunno, explosives or something.”

Orseis spun around. “Where are we actually?”

Bel thought aboue the route they’d been taking. “Up ahead there should be a smaller path to our left. That should take you to rock that’s been rounded off to a wide hill. Go straight over it and you should find a wide path that’ll take you to the really tall rock that was next to the one with our cave.”

Orseis grimaced. “I think you’re better at mazes than I am. What if I get lost?”

“Don’t be a baby, Ori. You can always retrace your steps and try again.”

Orseis glanced back at the towering rock that they’d just abandoned.

Bel rolled her eyes. “Or just hunker down somewhere and wait a day for Crystal to start tracking me. Speaking of Crystal, we’d better get moving.”

“But where are you going to run?”

Bel flicked her fingers at a smaller path splitting off to their right. “That should kind of take me in the direction of the cultist’s camp. I’ll head that way and then take whatever route goes away from you. We saw some of the tallest peaks over there, so I think it’ll be easier to hide.”

Orseis’ lower lip wobbled and she wrapped Bel in a six-tentacle hug. “Stay safe, Bel. I don’t want to be stranded in this frozen desert all alone. Don’t forgot that you’re supposed to take me somewhere with a lot of eligible bachelors.”

Bel laughed and hugged Orseis back. “Yeah, I won’t forget.

Then they split up and set off at a light run. Bel glanced back right before she entered the side channel.

Be careful, kid, she thought.

The route Bel had chosen was a narrow chasm a couple of body lengths wide and three or four body lengths deep. The footing was just snow compacted into lumpy ice and was too slippery for Bel to move quickly. She hadn’t realized it before, but the creatures running from one rock island to the next tracked bits of rock with them, improving the traction of the major paths. The small, unpopular path that she’d chosen collected snow faster than rocks and was almost as slippery as snow on a frozen lake.

Bel was forced to spend so much concentration on her footsteps that it took her a few seconds to realize that the intense pain in her leg was coming from a crossbow bolt through her thigh.

“Son of a bitch!” she screamed. She spun to see her attacker and slipped into the wall of the path, bringing down a large clump of snow and nearly burying her.

“I almost forgot about you! The boss won’t mind tyin’ up a loose end though.”

Bel pushed her head free of the snow and saw that one of the cultists had been waiting in a hollowed out section of the path’s wall. His face was covered in a thick, bristly beard and he had two tusks jutting out of his mouth. His face was meaty and cruel and Bel immediately came to the conclusion that if she was about to be captured by him, then she would rather die.

She stood on her uninjured leg and reached down to her belt of woven plant fibers to pull out a makeshift bone dagger that had originally been an early attempt at a sword. Bel stared with open envy at the well-made crossbow the boar-man was resetting. To her surprise, he didn’t immediately point the weapon at her once it was reloaded. Instead, he lifted a want from a pocket in his robe and pointed it to the sky.

A spark of color burst from the tip and flew into the air before bursting into the same kind of signal that Crystal had been using to lure Nebamon.

“You should be careful announcing yourself like that,” Bel warned him.

The last thing I want is for Crystal to catch me again, she fretted. She looked down at her injured thigh with the pinky-thick bolt of metal running through it. It had hit just below the bottom of the plated skirt of Kjar’s armor, just above the knee. I’m in a really bad spot, aren’t I?

The boar-man laughed. “Who’s going to see it? We left that resurrected corpse back in the last layer and this one is nearly completely uninhabited. It’s just you and me and the rest of my fellows.”

As if summoned by his arrogant words, something moved near the top of the path, dislodging large clumps of snow from above.

The man frowned, but he kept his crossbow trained on Bel.

C’mon, look at me so I can glare at you, she thought with irritation. My best bet now that someone else has shown up is to run.

“Who’s there? Rikja? If you’re playing a prank again, I–”

His words were cut off when a fox-worm – the largest one Bel had seen – jumped to the bottom of the path. Its size wasn’t what help Bel’s attention though. Instead, she stared in wide-eyed surprise at a giant man who sat upon a saddle on the fox-worm’s back.

The boar-man, overwhelmed with the unexpected situation, decided to simplify things by shooting Bel. If his aim had been good he would have hit her divine armor and she would have been fine, but in his rush his bolt went slightly wide and passed through the fleshy part of her upper arm instead. The pain caused her to drop her dagger. Bel hissed in pain and stumbled back, cursing her distraction.

I’ve got to go on the offensive, she scolded herself.

She grasped the second bolt and liquified it, quickly pulling from her arm and clotting her blood to prevent too much blood from escaping. Then she scooped up her dagger with her uninjured arm and prepared to rush the cultist.

He was looking away from her again, pointing his weapon at the giant man and shouting angrily threats. Bel glanced at the giant again, hoping that he would be on her side; maybe a mysterious old warrior who had retreated from society to attain enlightenment, even though she knew that was nonsense from her brother’s fantasy stories.

He was obviously a warrior – his smashed nose and scarred face made that much clear. His expression wasn’t kindly though. In fact, it was closer to “I’m going to eat you” than “hello, let’s be friends.” He wore a helmet with two large, forward facing horns and the shield that hung on the side of his mount was lined in small, sharp teeth. His saddlebags were hung with multiple spears and nets, and dried blood smeared the front of his tunic. A couple of dead thunderhooves balanced over the back of his mount completed the look: he was a grizzled hunter.

He was also a giant of a man, easily three times Bel’s height. Tall enough to easily navigate the snow of the fifth layer.

The boar-man didn’t seem to be intimidated by the much larger hunter. He stepped forward, aiming his crossbow threateningly.

“You’d better walk away stranger. The Dark Ravager has claimed this place and all of its resources as his own.”

The giant man grinned, revealing a mouth full of pitted teeth. Bel felt a sudden urge to brush her own teeth. Unbidden, she remembered her brother and Beth.

If I survive this, I swear I’ll appreciate my brother more.

Bel tensed ready to run or fight, depending on what happened next.

The boar-man once again beat her to it. He aimed his crossbow at the stranger and fired.

A flurry of snow ripped itself from the wall and intercepted the missile, absorbing it mid-flight and carrying it away harmlessly.

The giant grinned again. Then, with a wave of his massive hand, he sent a wave of snow and ice at Bel and the cultist.

Bel’s body was lifted into the air and she was churned violently, like a child caught in a riptide. The bolt still lodged in her leg twisted and pulled, and Bel clenched her teeth to keep from screaming and inhaling a mouth full of snow.

She snow finally stilled after what felt like years, but Bel knew was less than a minute. She pushed herself to the surface and gasped a deep breath. Spots swam in her eyes as she stared up at the ceiling of the layer, so high above her that it disappeared in the white haze of the faintly swirling snow that now filled the air. The vastness of it made her feel small and irrelevant. Staying still was death, but she was so tired – she’d just been through a life or death battle, she wasn’t ready for a second one so soon.

Would James and Beth know what to say to get me moving? she wondered dizzily.

What about Ventas? Or what would her divine parents say?

Bel closed her eyes and pictured Nebamon stalking up to her prone form. His tail would wag in delight. Perhaps he would make some quip, maybe twist his mustache. Bel remembered how helpless she’d been when she’d lost three of her snakes and her left eye.

She groaned as the disturbing thoughts played through her mind, but they eventually cleared her head. Her ears were still ringing from the giant’s snowy assault, and she was dizzy and unsteady on her feet, but she was up.

She quickly found the giant. He dropped the mangled body of the boar-man to the snow. The he spit at the man’s corpse.

I think that I’d like to run.

One step told her that wouldn’t be possible. The barbed bolt was still buried deep into her flesh, and her eye was seeing double. Bel reached down to liquify the bolt, quickly pulling it free from her flesh.

The blood loss was unavoidable this time, and she wobbled slightly as the snow around her was stained red.

The giant sniffed the air.

Is he smelling my blood?

He turned to her, confirming her suspicions.

All right, I’ll hit him with a glare and then I’ll run away. Or hobble away. Whatever works.

The giant looked away from her, immediately foiling her plans. He whistled and his mount bounded over.

Bel stared, confused at the way the giant was suddenly ignoring her. He pulled his tooth-lined shield from the side of the fox-worm and flipped it around, revealing an interior that was polished to a mirror finish. The giant held up the shield and peered at Bel through the reflection.

She frowned at his grinning face.

What the hell is this? I can’t glare through reflections, can I? Does he know that?

She hesitated. I can’t run, obviously. I don’t think I can take him in a fight, not unless he gets close. And other than all that snow, he hasn’t actually attacked me. She tilted her head, puzzled by the giant’s actions. Her snakes coiled against her scalp, clearly distrusting the stranger. She could see his eyes flicking back to her from his reflection as he pulled something out from one of his saddlebags. It looked like a long rope with a few weights attached. It gave Bel a bad feeling.

“Hey, listen, how about I just leave? Maybe you should leave too, there are some bad people looking for me. I’m more trouble than I’m worth, I’m sure.”

If the giant understood her, he didn’t show any sign of it. Instead, he lifted the bolas over his head and began spinning them through the air.

Right, I’m gonna try to run.

Bel tensed her injured muscles and pounced on the snow above the compacted trail.

If I’m lucky, maybe I’ll be able to sink into a deep hole and he won’t be able to find me.

Bel whimpered in pain as she put weight on her injured leg, but a moment later she was ascending. Then the bolas struck her in the middle of her body. The weighted ends spun wrapped around her, binding her arms to her sides.

Bel fell awkwardly into the snow, ending face first at the bottom of the trail. She could hear the giant man laughing as she stalked over to her, the ground shaking with increasing vigor as he drew closer. He reached into the snow and pulled her out. Then he placed a sack over her head and cinched it shut.