186 Chapter One Hundred and Eighty-Six – Mythos Spawn for Great Vengeance! (1/2)
”Whoooo!” Grym called out, swaying as the Wagon beneath him juked sideways. A tree, whirling end over end in their direction, crashed to the ground and tumbled and rolled right past them as they headed off on an angle, shattered branches flying everywhere.
An unnatural cry rolled over the landscape. Limned in a half-dozen shades of phosphorescent paint, the unnatural monstrosity thundering across the rolling hills after them let out an impossibly shrill scream for such a big creature, pounding at their heads. Tentacles grabbed at a jutting boulder, heaving it off the ground as the creature keened from three mouths spaced unevenly about its mass, the gleaming of five scattered eyes seeming to be rather angry.
A shining bolt plunged deep into one of those eyes, and the insectile legs propelling the elephantine bulk of the creature along seemed to shiver once in reaction. The keening tore at their minds again, but the only reply was two more bolts streaking into the mass of the godless monstrosity pounding after them, punching right through the unnatural toughness of its hide and finding interesting things to rip apart in its impossible anatomy.
”Left!” Verd called back over her shoulder, and Tabi veered away as that rock was heaved in their direction. It had to weigh at least a ton, but it still cleared fifty yards in the air, smashing to the ground very loudly where they would have been if the Horse hadn't shunted sideways at her command.
Tabi eyed the rock bouncing along the stony ground ahead of them, and shook his head as he kept his pace.
He wasn't actually running very hard. After all, he wasn't trying to outrun the thing.
Grym and Master Feist were up on the roof, the unnaturally smooth ride making it easy for them both to use heavyfoot to keep their balance, and were using the autobows to send shining quarrels back into the glowing target that was a Starspawn.
Why the Shadowknife hadn't brought its lifeline to an end, they didn't know, but that was fine. The Brilliant bolts Hazé had made up for just this situation were ignoring its thick natural armor, no different than they would a dragon, and punching deep and true. Wasn't like they could miss something so damn big...
The starspawn had come crumping through the scattered hills while invisible, thinking that it had found some sort of easy snack in the Wagon. It had not been expecting to be sensed and run away from so adeptly, or have these glowing quarrels of solid light stabbing deep into its innards.
It had tried to teleport on top of them, and found that was impossible with the Wards around the Wagon up, which rather shut down its most effective ambush tactic. When the bulbed bolts loaded down with alchemical dyes splashed over it and took away its natural invisibility, that had shut down its other natural advantage.
Well, other than being over twenty feet tall, with six massive insectile legs that could propel it much faster than a man could run... but not faster than a Horse.
Given that it could regenerate, the bolts slamming into it would normally be useless, just a waste of magic. However, the Interdiction radiating out from the Wagon in front of it was pressing down on its multi-dimensional existence, and preventing it from drawing energies from across the Veil to heal itself. It had tried bringing down mighty curses on its foes on the Wagon, and the little things had the temerity to dodge them all!
It had not noticed the Seal tossed off to the side almost a half-mile back, that suddenly lit up with a silvery light.
There was a crack of thunder, and something streaked past it, startling enough to center two of its remaining eyes on, and a couple of its mouths commented on the event in babbling Aklo as something Linejumped past and ahead of it slightly, startling enough to bring it to a splay-footed halt.
A human woman was standing on the air in front of it, thirty yards away, looking full into its madness-inspiring gaze. The abomination could easily see through her magical disguise, but that didn't stop its caution, and it instinctively tried to retreat.
The Interdiction was still locking it down, as the Wagon ahead abruptly slowed and turned around.
The disguised young human lifted the Staff in her hand, and it flared with a soft light that somehow dominated the harsher sunlight behind her.
Twin circles of twelve multi-colored crescents of force on her right hand... two more matching flaring up on her left.
The abomination had just about enough time to try and dispel the basic magical spell that had been juiced to a degree it had ever seen, when the Shards converged into a softly streaming Ray that hit a prism in front of each of her hands, and promptly split apart into a pair of purifying streams of energy.
Four Rays of silvery, almost wind-like energy sliced into the creature, converging like lines on a target and meeting in its off-center of mass.
An anatomy highly dependent on a multi-dimensional existence had no resistance against the power of the Cerulean Seal within that attack, the banefire, the anathema, and the pure raw amount of sacred Force energy locking it down and ripping through it all at once.
It set up a great howl of pain and mad enlightenment as the force-rays shattered into a million fractal waves, and ripped it apart like it was made of paper.
Flaming, vivic-burning hybrid thing sired by something beyond the stars flew everywhere within thirty yards, not quite reaching where Hazé was watching it. She watched the remains fall rather too slowly to the ground, still not wanting to obey the laws of physics, but the streams of vivus were rapidly sucked into the land, staining the grass and soil temporarily white.
Well, there were things you could make out of powerful Aberrants, but that didn't look like it was going to happen here today, she considered wryly.
The Wagon trundled to a halt just below her, and she drifted down to land on the roof. She took note of Grym and Feist on the roof, and Verd standing on the driver's seat, where she had been looking back to play spotter. ”Where are Veis and Amber?” she asked calmly.
”Oh, they decided to track the thing back to its lair, and see what interesting nonsense they might find there, big sister!” Verd smiled.
Hazé mused to herself that she should have expected such actions, and made a 'lead the way' gesture in resignation. Tabi knickered audibly, and pranced through the remains of the abomination proudly, cracking one of the ten-foot long lower legs under his hooves with emphasis as they headed back in the direction they'd come.
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”It seems creatures relying on telepathy to warn them and communicate don't work well when Nulls surprise them,” Feist noted, admiring the dead tentacle-faced ape-thing that had had its throat smoothly cut, and spine impaled. Two guardian creatures that looked like legged worms had been sliced smoothly open, and whatever passed for innards were burning brightly.
”Kneal-vurms,” Grym murmured on seeing the things with insides that looked like squashed brains. ”Third Herald?” he asked Hazé.
”Aye, the Worm of the Gibbous Moon.” Hazé followed the dwarf and hyn closely, Staff ready, but instead of finding things to fight, only found more bodies cleanly dispatched. ”Those two are getting cocky in their old age, Verd,” she noted to the green-locked spear-carrier at her side.