(Dyn)

  Ourn trip to the airship, Wedge was the first to notice them, but kept his voice calm. “Maintain our current pace. Do not react, but we are being surrounded.”

  “Where?” Athrax closed his eyes to listen, lifting his snout to sniff at the wind. “I don’t hear nothing, and I ’t make heads of tails of all these bloody new sts.” A low growl rumbled in his throat.

  “Easy,” Ru said, fog orail ahead of them. “Wedge has superior hearing, eveer than ours.”

  Wedge paused, pretending to help the initiates climb over a rock as he casually shifted toward the rear. “They are irees.”

  Athrax’s head lifted toward the surrounding trees. He blinked, and the normal browns of his eyes shifted tht blue. It reminded him of Nathan’s Moonstone Gaze passive.

  “Bloody Pits,” Athrax muttered. “There’s an infernal army up there.” He tio steal upward gnces without making it too obvious.

  “They have been following since we left the airship. Until now they have just been watg,” Wedge said.

  Ru unscrewed her everflow fsk to take a long gulp. Her eyes peeking at the opy before she put it away. “What’s ged?”

  “Now they are trying to get ahead of us,” Wedge said. “I think they are preparing to strike.”

  P’reslen hovered just above the ground, gliding over the uerrain as he had earlier to avoid tougher spots. He drifted up beside Ru. “We should hit them first.”

  She shook her head. “Stay grounded, P’reslen. Athrax, get me a t.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m on it,” Athrax said. He kept walking through the juepping over and around obstacles as his head slowly turo assess their numbers.

  “I could use my drone,” P’reslen said quickly, the eagero help palpable in his voice.

  She pced a hand on his arm, her touch light but firm. “No, it could for early attack.” P’reslen nodded and followed her lead, nding to walk at her side.

  “Over thirty of ‘em,” Athrax finally said. “But I ’t be sure how many more without turning around.”

  “That’s fine,” Ru said. “ you identify them?”

  “Size and numbers suggest… saurmonks, but who knows? They’re barely warmer than the rest of this infernal jungle.”

  Ru hahem their orders as if reading a shopping list. “Athrax, take the right. P’reslen, you’re on the left—stay below the opy. Ostell up the rear. Wedge, keep the initiates in the ter. I’ll float to provide support where needed. Questions?”

  “What’s a saurmonk?” Dyn asked.

  Athrax snorted, shaking his head. “Pups… I tell ya.”

  “You will find out shortly,” Wedge said, stepping closer to Dyn.

  “Lend me one of those shields, yeah?” Athrax asked, gng back to Wedge.

  “No.”

  Athrax frowned a out a disappointed sigh. “You got two of em…”

  With one word, Ru shifted the team’s energy from teo explosive.

  “Go.”

  “Bout bloody time…” the old soldier muttered. He held out his hand, and a long ice spear materialized in his grip, the frost curling off it in cold wisps. He smmed it into the ground with a resonant crack, a grin tugging at his lips as pulses of energy surged outward from the icy duit. His eyes flicked to the treetops, brimming with anticipation, before he leaped into the branches and vanished from sight.

  Wedge uhed both shields, holding o toward Dy go, and instead of falling to the ground, it floated in midair. After a moment, the shield orbited around Dyn. Apparently, Wedge had an ability that allowed him to use his shields to protect other people, too.

  P’reslen rose effortlessly off the ground again. Thick sheets of clear crystal scales rippled across his verdant green skin. A wide grin spread across his face as he asded, his eyes igniting with a pierg white glow.

  Twin beams of intense white light shot from his glowing eyes, slig through the dense foliage. Wherever they struck, frost crackled and formed in shimmering patches across the leaves and bark.

  The more Dyn watched the noble drai in a, the more he was reminded of a certain caped superhero. P’reslen was the only team member who wore an actual cape instead of a cloak—no hood to pull up, just a flowing cape that looked really cool when he flew.

  Dyn was gd the adventurer didn’t wear his underwear oside of his pants; he wasn’t sure he could take him seriously if he did.

  A half-dozen rocks, each a different aterialized above P’reslen’s head and shoulders, swelling to the size of softballs in an instant. With a sharp crack, they hurtled into the trees, tearing apart branches, shredding leaves, and, hopefully, crushing any saurmonks in their path.

  Dyn stared in awe. “Okay… now that’s something Superman ’t do.” That attack reminded him of his own on, slung across his chest and leaning against his back.

  He ducked uhe strap to swing it around. Quickly unzipping his pouch, he pulled out five e shells. The gs were smooth and solid in his grip as he slid them into the chamber, one by one.

  He looked up from loading his gun and found himself surrounded. Eury, W’itney, Hay’len, and Wedge had closed in, their ons ready, f a tight defensive ring. The shield made another pass in front of him. Dyn’s eyes narrowed. They were coddling him.

  “What are you guys doing?”

  “What does it look like?” W’itney asked.

  “We’re proteg you,” Hay’len said.

  “Why are you all proteg me?” Dyured toward Eury. “Shouldn’t we be proteg the princ—”

  Eury’s head soward him, giving him a gre sharp enough to stop the words in his throat.

  “You are still a refugee uhe guild’s prote,” Wedge said.

  A bright fsh caught Dyn’s eye, ing from where Athrax was fighting. He raised an arm to shield his face as a brilliant micro star fred and asded into the sky.

  For a moment, the jungle plunged into shadow as the star faded, leaving Dyn blinking as his vision struggled to readjust to the ambient uory lighting.

  Then a ring of fire erupted high irees, the roar of fmes ing everything in its path. Burning creatures rained down, their screeches fading as they hit the ground, dead or dying.

  “Put out that fire!” Ru yelled. “Are y to burn down the whole bloody jungle?”

  Athrax dropped back to the ground and yelled back, “Stop w!” He cradled his cyberids around an invisible ball, his arms vibrating with effort as the grouh them quaked.

  A wave surged upward, as if pulled from the depths of an unseen o. The inky blue wall of water crashed through the burning patch with a deafening roar, queng the fmes and sending debris flying.

  When it subsided, aire swath of jungle y uprooted, the trees toppled like matchsticks.

  He walked up to a still-twitg body. Bending dowouched its scaly skin. As he rose, an e glow bloomed from within the creature, illuminating its skeletal frame like a macabre mp.

  Dyn watched his first saurmo cremated alive as an internal inferno ed the poor bastard from within. Before crumbling into a burned-out husk, the creature had been a green, hairless monkey with the head of a Komodon and a long, preheail. Some sort of hybrid lizard-monkey. From this distahey looked to be about the size of a chimpanzee.

  Hisses erupted from the trees as frenzied saurmonks dropped and swarmed toward Athrax. He raised his arm, f a fist and aiming at the closest ohe creature leaped at him just as a pulse of energy shot down his shoulder and arm, bsting out from his fist. The impact struck the saurmonk mid-air, halting any forward momentum before it fell to the ground, stunned.

  Dyn barely had time tister the first fall before the rest overwhelmed Athrax in a snarling, hissing wave.

  The old soldier swung his tehanced arms in a relentless rhythm, each strike carrying the weight of precision and power. Fists met flesh with siing thuds, sending saurmonks reeling. The ones he hit bled purple, streams leaking from their eyes, ears, and mouths as a debuff took hold.

  With a furious yell, Athrax released a burst of searing steam. The heat hissed against the air, scalding the closest saurmonks and f them to retreat. It bought him a few preoments before they surged fain, piling onto him in a shrieking heap.

  “Wouldn’t mind my bloody armor and shield right about now,” Athrax grumbled, throwing another punch. “A little help over here.”

  Ru had been watg both P’reslen and Athrax, just as Dyn had. She slipped into the shadow of a nearby tree—and emerged from Athrax’s shadow beside him. Above them, a curtain of bck clouds desded, shrouding Ru, Athrax, and the frenzied saurmonks in the growing darkness.

  She flexed her hands, and with a sharp hum, magical energy bdes extended from her forearms. The curved bdes bent backwards, defensively, but that didn’t stop her from using them to strike with surgical precision.

  With rhythmic sshes, she tore into the lower back of a saurmonk, eviscerating it in a blur of motion. The creature colpsed, its lifeless body nding amid the dark tangle of its owrails. Before Dyn could take in more, the curtain of bck clouds swallowed the se, obsg everything.

  P’reslen was still flying around, his frigid eye sers carving icy trails through the dense jungle. He approached a tree and thrust both hands forward, releasing a bst of sand that stripped bark, shredded leaves, and snapped branches. A saurmonk tumbled out of the opy, nding with a muted thud before scrambling onto all fours.

  He floated above the creature, snapping his fingers. A crystallirix spread across the saurmonk’s skin, its surface growing fractal prisms.

  As the saurmonk thrashed, the crystals shattered with sharp, crag pops, sending razor-like fragments into its flesh. Each frantic thrash to remove the growing minerals only made it worse, tearing fresh wounds until the saurmonk colpsed, bleeding out in a gory heap.

  One creature crept up a branch behind P’reslen, readying to pounce.

  “Behind you!” Hay’len shouted.

  He whipped around just in time, his body flickering away as he teleported. A moment ter, in his pce, an iova exploded outward, fsh-freezing the saurmonk mid-leap.

  He reappeared on the ground nearby, and a cascade of sky-tinted shards erupted in all dires, shredding everything around him.

  Dyn watched as the saurmonk’s frozen body crashed into the ground, sheets of its frozen skin shattered, sloshing off from the impact. The exposed muscle and sinew beh glistened with frost, a grotesque mix of purple and white. As the freezing effect faded, nothing stopped the blood from seeping through raw muscle, pooling on the ground us limbs as it shivered.

  P’reslen raised a hand to the sky, then brought it down in one swift motion. The opy above parted and a radiant rainbow desded, its colors shimmering with surreal brilliahe vibrant arc smmed into the saurmonk with a thunderous crash, crushing it instantly. With nothing to hold it together, the creature’s remains spttered outward in a gruesome explosion of gore.

  The rainbow tio pour down for several moments after the creature had died, b a deep crater into the jungle floor.

  The crystal-coated drai raised a hand toward the initiates. Behind them, the ground rumbled, cracks splintering outward as jagged crystal bdes erupted into the air.

  A saurmonk screeched as it found itself trapped in the cage, the sharp edges slig into its flesh as it thrashed about, searg for an escape. Purple blood streaked the bdes of the crystal prison that held fast.

  A thunderous roar bellowed from behind the group, its deep, guttural sound reverberating through the jungle and reminding Dyn of the big cats from Earth. It came from Ostello’s dire.

  He watched Ostello square off against a massive six-legged, brown-scaled creature. The beast was the size of a tiger, with long saber-like teeth and a tail that flicked side to side.

  “Holy shit,” Dyn said. “That’s a big cat, lizard, cat-lizard?”

  “Galizine,” Ostello corrected.

  Dyn hadn’t noticed when Ostello had put on a bluish gray anic bio suit, but it covered him from o toe. It looked amazing and reminded him of that ah the bio-armor, minus the helmet.

  A vivid e proje illumihe area where Ostello focused his gaze. The galizine growled, its scaled face t in disfort as it blinked against the light, but it appeared otherwise unfazed.

  “It’s immuo petrification,” Ostello said as a bone-white wand materialized in his hand.

  With a flick of his wrist, he unleashed ahereal bolt that rippled through the air. The galizine darted to the side, its movements unnervingly fluid, and tinued cirg him with predatory focus.

  Wedge held out his arm, pushing them all back away from the duel.

  Dyn pushed against his unyielding arms. “You should help him.”

  Wedge stood his ground. “I will not leave you undefended.”

  “Okay, then give me a clear shot.” Dyn dropped to one knee, raising the shotgun.

  He leveled the barrel at the galizine and squeezed the trigger. The bst echoed through the jungle, but the orbiting shield floated into his line of fire just as he took the shot.

  A shell full of medium-sized pellets ricocheted back at him, peppering his chest and arms. Some bounced off harmlessly, but others lodged in his skin, stinging like molten needles.

  “Fuck!” he cried out, wing as sharp pain shot through his face. The shotgun cttered to the ground, and he covered his fa both shame and pain.

  His stomach dropped at the thought, ‘Did I just shoot my fug eye out?’ He hesitated; terrified to open his eyes, and the a familiar presence appear beside him.

  “Give him room,” Ru said.

  Her haled firmly on his shoulder, and her mending ability took hold. A soothing warmth spread through him, tingling faintly.

  He heard soft plops as the pellets worked their way out of his skin, nding on the fallen leaves at his feet.

  Wedge stood over them as the mender worked. “I thought you said you knew how to use a firearm.”

  “I do.” Dyn frowesting one eye at a time. “Well, I did… Magic makes it a lot more plicated than point and shoot.”

  Ru opened her mouth to chastise him, but her gaze darted past Wedge. In a fluid motion, she pushed past him; her steps quid deliberate as she sprioward Ostello.

  “Brace!” Ru anded.

  Ostello raised an arm, brag himself for the ssh he couldn’t avoid. The attack hit with a siing ch, tearing through his armor and sending green rivulets of blood streaking down his arm.

  The flow stopped almost immediately, his body knitting itself back together as he healed in respoo following her and.

  “Time to let the big guy out,” Ru said. She stood beside Ostello, summoning her forearm bdes again.

  Ostello ched his jaw, his fists trembling at his sides, unwilling to back down from the galizine. “But I do this.”