Page 180 of Vasmora

“Horde!” Corwin called from the doorway, heaving to catch his breath. “A horde! Just over the knoll! Moving fast.”

Zevander spun for the door, and I followed him outside to the open yard, where the Corvugons hopped and cawed, restlessly shifting about. We darted up to the hill’s crest, finding Adira looking out at the disturbing view below. A few hundred meters off, a motley horde approached.

“Corvugons started acting strange, so I ran to take a look. They’re coming fast,” Adira said.

Zevander rested a hand on my shoulder. “I’ll cover the ground. Get in the air.” He lowered his mask to kiss me before replacing it again.

Without a second’s pause, I dashed back down the knoll for Raivox, the Corvugon settling long enough to allow me to climb up his foreleg to the mantle of his back. Gripping his horn, I pressed my knees against his rough scales. “Fly.”

Wings unfurled, and he hopped twice with a series of hard flaps, sending us surging up into the sky, just high enough to see over the grassy knoll. Adira flanked my right on the back of Achlys, and I glanced down to see Corwin standing alongside Zevander and Lothare, his white glittery sword at the ready.

Raivox hurtled forward over the knoll, approaching what must’ve been two hundred, or more, mutations, some of them in the spider forms I had grown used to seeing, but a number of them appeared more human, or mancer-like in the way they hobbled.

The Corvugon pulled back, his wings swooshing around me as he hovered in place, and I stole a moment to study the unusual mutations below.

Their exceptionally oversized mouths framed what looked like a gaping void from the sky. Black teeth, I suspected, but it was difficult to discern from that distance. Long, black claws hung at their sides as they ran on two bony, human legs with far more segmented joints than was natural, as if they’d somehow evolved into an entirely new creature.

Without command, Raivox roared and darted forward, unleashing a crackling tempest of hot, silver flames, the heat burning across my face. Liquid metal rained down over top of them, coating the monsters below us. A glance over my shoulder showed the other two Corvugons also swooping down at the horde, a blast of hot silver pouring over the swarm.

A few froze in place, their bodies weighed by the hardening silver. But the humanoid monsters kept on, seemingly unbothered by the substance, their legs gleaming silver as they charged toward the cottage.

Two of them burst into smoke, flying upward toward us like black ribbons of ink in water.

The wraith-like creatures I’d seen back in Mortasia.

A rhythm of panic beat in my chest, as Raivox banked right and swooped back around, chasing after the wispy forms that flittered through the air. He charged toward them, dispersing the smoke as we flew through it, and two humanoid creatures materialized out of nowhere. One gripped Raivox’s wing joint, and I peered over his neck to find the other clinging to his foreleg, its nails lodging in his scales as it climbed toward me. Not even the rough shaking of Raivox’s limb tore it free, and my heart thrummed as it drew closer.

Raivox slammed to a halt and reared back midflight, my body crashing into his neck, and I winced at the pain shooting into my sinuses. With a frantic flap of his wings, the one clinging to him vanished into the smoke again, before materializing beside me, grappling for one of Raivox’s horns.

That close, I was able to see the black veins that crawled over its face, toward horns that stuck out from its cheekbones. Its eyes, a soulless black, held no trace of who it might’ve been before it’d mutated. Instincts drove me to thrust my metallic nails through the underside of its chin, its flesh so frail, the head popped off into my palm. My scream drowned in the whipping wind that swept its headless body backward toward Raivox’s tail, and muscles trembling, I threw its head, quickly wiping the black ooze onto my trousers.

Twisting around, I grasped both horns, heaving to catch my breath, and buried my face in Raivox’s feathers.

A screeching noise skated down my spine, and I winced.

Peering over Raivox’s neck showed the stubborn creature at his foreleg ducking out of the way of the Corvugon’s other swiping talon, as he attempted to scratch it away from his leg. It clawed for purchase, climbing onto his back.

Gripping tight to the horn with one hand, I raised my palm, sending a blast of Aeryz over it that did nothing more than flutter the ragged clothing clinging to its skeletal body.

Still treading air, Raivox violently shook and fluffed his feathers, and my stomach rose to my throat as we dropped through the sky.

Rough scales slammed into my left flank with his jostling. My hand slipped from the horn.

He flattened himself and darted forward, letting out what I perceived as a frustrated roar.

Against the jarring bounce of my body, I pulled myself closer to the horn, but a hard tug at my leg sent me sliding back.

Long, straggly hair and a delicate form marked the humanoid as female, as she dragged herself closer, claws reaching out for my boots.

Heart pounding in my throat, I kicked out, but a violent jolt of Raivox’s body threw me to the side, just missing the creature’s teeth.

She scampered closer, those oversized teeth snapping, leaking drool.

As my grip of the horn faltered, I slid down Raivox’s back, my claws catching on his scales.

“Maevyth!” Zevander called from below, the volume of his shout telling me we’d lost height.

The creature lunged toward me, teeth bared. She flung herself toward my face, but as I threw my arm up to block her bite, light flashed across my eyes and she launched backward, a high-pitched scream tearing out of her. She landed a few meters away down Raivox’s body, the bottom half of her jaw dangling by a thread of wet meat.