Chapter 342: The Hunted

A familiar form writhed through the moonlight, chilling Alex to the bone.

“By the Traveller,” he whispered.

“What was that?” Gwyllain screamed, his head darting back and forth. The wind whipped by as he and the young wizard soared through the night air. “What hap—Oh by the fae lords, what is that?”

Alex had seen the creature in his worst dreams.

He’d faced it in what seemed like a lifetime ago. Deep within the Cave of the Traveller.

From the treeline, the immense Ravener-spawn coldly observed him and Gwyllain: looming in shadow like the stuff of nightmares.

Alex took in its form: the lower body of a centipede, scores of legs, each ending in a blade; two massive arms capped by scythes.

And above those arms?

Carapace, harder than plate armour, sheathing a humanoid torso. Crowning the creature’s trunk was a spider’s head with five pairs of glinting black orbs clustered in its forehead. Ten eyes followed man and asrai, four upper arms flexed and opened coarse hands almost rhythmically, retracting and extending its claws.

“It’s a Hive-queen,” Alex murmured.

“A what?” Gwyllain cried.

“A leader among Ravener-spawn.”

The world dragged to a crawl.

Birds banked through the air, their movements slowing by the heartbeat in Alex’s perception. Plant juices seemed to spray at a snail’s pace as Claygon’s fists sank into crich-tulagh’s bodies with a squelching sound. Vines coiled around his limbs, fire-gems, and head, straining to pull him down…but he wouldn’t fall, instead, he dragged them like a raging bull.

Near the windmill, flames crackled through the clearing. Monsters burned. Some screamed. Others charged past the fire, piling onto Claygon or springing at Alex, but he and Gwyllain floated out of reach.

His summoned monsters harassed the Hive-queen while the aeld tree—panic bleeding from it in waves—was rushed to the woods. The young wizard shouted in the tongue of earth elementals: “Take the tree away! Don’t stay here, I’ll find you later!”

The sapling’s panic surged, its light flickering wildly as the earth elementals bore it away from the battle, weaving through charging Ravener-spawn.

The monsters ignored the aeld and summoned creatures like they weren’t even there.

Alex’s blood grew cold with realisation.

‘They’re not here for the tree,’ he watched the monsters racing toward the clearing, leaping straight for him.

And as for the Hive-queen?

Her eyes were fixed on him like nothing else in the clearing mattered. Her jaws spread apart, revealing needle-like fangs. Fire elementals and snarling hellhounds charged her, flame flaring as they closed the distance.

The Ravener-spawn’s massive lower blades blurred in arcs, cutting hellhounds and elementals down like a sickle through dry wheat. The summons were promptly blasted back to their home planes.

She levelled a clawed hand at Alex.

“Oh shit!” he swore, ready to move.

With eerie quiet, a gleaming webline streaked toward the bolting wizard, narrowly missing. The air whistled as it whipped by.

She was fast. He needed to slow her down.

“Taraneas! Bind her!” he shouted.

White lines of silk sprayed from the canopy, sticking to the queen’s back.

She writhed against them while he dug into his bag for a booby-trapped potion.

“Alex, looook ooooooouuuut!” Gwyllain screamed.

Crackle!

The sound of electricity.

Something was firing from the windmill.

Alex turned in mid-air, trying to soar higher, but—

“Oh shit!” He dove as lightning flashed.

A bolt tore through the air, aimed at where he’d been, but Gwyllain’s warning had kept him from flying headlong into it. His hair stood on end, the sky above crackled.

He shot a glance at the Hive-queen.

Two web lines raced at him.

Alex weaved his body between them, but one struck a deflective force rectangle.

It exploded.

Gwyllain screamed. “We’re dead! We’re dead! We’ve been killed!”

The Hive-queen’s legs tensed, she pointed at Alex and his screaming fae companion as she cleaved the taraneas’ webs.

Without a sound, webbing flew from her hand, arcing through the moonlight, cutting the air around his head. He dove, cursing the monster.

It was what she’d been waiting for.

Those hundred legs launched her massive bulk off the ground to spring at Alex; blades cut the air.

The wizard shot away from the slashing scythes, but an edge clipped a defensive force rectangle, shattering it.

Birds swarmed, pecking and clawing from all directions as he climbed.

“Aervespertillos! Screeeeeeeeam!” Alex yelled in the tongue of his summoned air elementals. “Stun her! Stun her!”

The bat-like creatures plowed through the bird swarm, heading for the Hive-queen. Their jaws spread wide, ready to shriek.

Another flash from the windmill. A crackle in the air. More mana.

“Looooooook oooooooout!” Gwyllain cried, pointing.

Behind them, lightning flashed from the top window and the crackle of electricity growled hungrily. Twin bolts sparked, directed at Alex within the mass of birds. Birds died, plummeting from the flock as he bolted, weaving across the sky in a zig-zag pattern. His hands blurred, grabbing a booby-trapped flight potion from his bag and whipping the vial at the window.

His aim was true…but too late.

Crunch! Whooooosh!

A lightning bolt struck the potion bottle, melting the glass and releasing the liquid inside. Any birds caught in the mist shuddered, and abruptly plunged to the ground, joining their companions littering the forest floor. The second lightning bolt was coming at Alex. He banked as it split the sky, incinerating more of the flock, thinning their numbers further.

Crack!

Another defensive force rectangle exploded, stopping a webline, keeping it from trapping him.

He flew at speed, tearing away from the Hive-queen with Gwyllain screaming at his waist. His forceshield spun around them, deflecting talons, helping him gain height and distance until…

Screeeeeech!

Alex flinched.

The aervsespertillos extended shriek stunned birds, Hive-queen, and any spawn near her. ‘Hit her while you can!’ Alex thought, whipping booby-trapped flight while she leaned over, holding the sides of her massive head.

The bottle spun, flipping over and over…

As a dead crow fell, picking up speed, plunging into the bottle’s path and deflecting the potion.

Crack!

Both went spinning into the night, landing somewhere in the woods.

“Damn it! Damn it!” Alex shot away, climbing higher.

Below, Claygon fought crich-tulaghs, silence-spiders, venom walkers and beast-goblins that wouldn’t stop coming, piling onto him. Each swing of his arms sent monsters flying, but more swarmed him like ants.

The Hive-queen shook herself like a fighter who’d taken a hard blow to the head. She looked up at the sky, then all four hands spun weblines, tying the ends, making knots the size of a grown man’s fists. Her body reared back, whipped forward, then with her full weight on the weblines, they lashed out.

Four whips snapped without a sound, while Alex frantically weaved around them.

“We’re going to die!” Gwyllain screamed. “We’ll be flayed! Our bones crushed! Our bodies broken! Our faces torn away! Oh, they’re not going to find enough of us to fill a spoon!”

“We’re not going to die! At least not at these bastards’ hands!” the young wizard shouted.

Alex’s heart pounded with fear, but also rage. Especially rage.

He flew through the cloud of birds, reaching the window…and found lurking in the dark..

Two blue annis hags.

Two blue annis hags working with Ravener-spawn.

‘What’s this all about?’ he wondered.

Gwyllain screamed at the sight of them. “She’s back! Oh by the fae lords, that’s her, Alex! She’s back! The hag that tried to cook me! Oh by the fae lords, she wants to eat me and you too! We have to flee!”

“She’s not going to eat us! She’s not eating anybody!”

The young wizard’s heartbeat quickened as his mind tried to piece it all together.

Think. Adapt. Think. Adapt. Think. Adapt.

The hags…a blue annis hag. One of them was driven out of Greymoor by him and his team.

‘She came back?’ he thought. ‘Did she move to this windmill instead of going back to her cave? Did she claim the aeld tree?’

No…that didn’t make sense.

Gwyllain was here earlier. He was alone, so, why wouldn’t she just eat him then? And if she’d claimed the sapling, then why weren’t the monsters trying to take it back?

No.

Something else was going on here…this entire thing felt like a trap, like some kinda set up.

The aeld tree had been the bait. The ambush…and all these monsters working together? He’d seen beast-goblins, crich-tulaghs, two different kinds of Ravener-spawn, a Hive-queen…wait, maybe there was a dungeon around here?

And what about that woman’s voice he’d heard in the woods earlier?

He thought about the clawed monsters from the patrizia’s ball: the one that lured him into the granary mimicking Theresa’s voice. Could it have been one of them? …maybe…maybe not. Magic could mimic different voices, and blue annis hags had magic.

…and certain fae could mimic voices too.

He looked down at the screaming asrai at his waist.

Was Gwyllain in on whatever this was? He sure didn’t look like he was in on anything. And why would he work with a hag that was trying to eat him? Unless he was lying, and they’d always worked together? No…he’d given his word and he had a debt to settle: if the asrai had betrayed him, then the fae magic would never give him a moment’s peace.

Which meant that he was just a victim in a bigger scheme.

Alex chewed his lip, searching for other possibilities.

He remembered the night the silence-spiders had attacked the camp.

…there was that silence-spider that Claygon had smashed…it seemed like it was going for his tent, didn't it? His heartbeat quickened, pumping haste potion through his veins. His thoughts raced. Suddenly, he felt cold.

Wait, was this ambush…for him? Or was it supposed to be for all the wizards, but he’d come out alone? He thought of the chitterer dungeon core and how it had targeted him. Was this whole thing just part of that?

Was he being hunted?

The why and how were things to consider later.

For now, what mattered was getting the hell out of here. His jaw clenched. He had the aeld tree, and he’d kept Gwyllain safe.

He could fly away, try to lose the birds and—

No. What about Claygon?

He looked at the fight below.

His golem was tearing into the crich-tulaghs with all four arms, and blasting them with his fire-beams.

But more monsters were piling in by the heartbeat.

Even as the Hive-queen lashed her whips at Alex, she struck Claygon with her bladed legs. He was fighting back, but he was up against a swarm, pressing him with no end in sight. Even when Alex had him spin in a circle, pick up speed, and fling the monsters off, silence-spiders clung to him like leeches.

Exasperation filled the young wizard: Claygon had been unstoppable so far…but if there was one thing the battle against Vesuvius had shown, it was that he wasn’t invincible.

Besides…he was family.

And Alex Roth didn’t leave family behind, no matter what.

Whiiiiish!

Crackle!

Whips slashed and lightning crackled on either side of him. His forceshield weaved around deflecting the birds.

“The lightning’s getting closer!” Gwyllain screamed. “We can’t dodge it forever!”

The asrai was right.

Alex couldn’t dodge forever. Not with that flock of birds harassing him. He needed to help Claygon, and he needed to destroy these monsters and—if there was a dungeon around—come back with help.

But he couldn’t do any of it if this horde followed him.

The air elementals were still pressed against the windmill; at least the birds hadn’t attacked them. Maybe his elemental beetles had been left alone too.

For his plan to work, he’d have to get as many monsters into that windmill as possible. And, right now, there was only one way he could think of to get them in there.

“Gwyllain?” he said.

“Y-yes?” the asrai asked.

“Forgive me.”

“Forgive you for—Oh by the fae loooooooords!”

Alex dove toward the ground at full speed, grabbing some sleeping and one booby-trapped flight potion.

First step, help Claygon.

He concentrated, looking for space within the screeching cloud of birds and calling his Wizard’s Hands.

‘No gap,’ Alex thought. ‘You need to make one.’

He threw sleeping potions.

Crash! Crash! Crash!

They landed in the waiting Hands, which snapped shut with force.

Whooooosh!

Vapour spread through the air.

Birds fell, clearing the sky below him.

There. A gap!

He whipped the booby-trapped flight potion at the monster horde.

The Hive-queen saw it coming and raised a hand, poised to bat it away but sprang aside instead; she'd seen what those potions did to her kin earlier.

Crash!

The bottle hit rocky ground, the impact shattered glass in the middle of the monster horde, releasing the potion.

Mist spread over Claygon and his attackers. Alex kept moving.