“D damn it all,” Jay grumbled from her lead position at the head of the wagon. “They’re pooping again.”
“Horses defecate,” Aila called back to her. “Stop complaining.”
“I know horses shit,” Jay shouted back over her shoulder. “I just don’t like watching them do it! And I like stepping in their mess even less.”
The pair of soldiers on horseback Captain Willa had sent ahead on the trail, Gerd and Lutz, were far enough ahead that they couldn’t be talked to, but close enough that when the road was relatively straight Jadis could see them. Unfortunately for her, that meant that from her position as beast of burden pulling the Behemoth, she had a front row view to every bowel movement the two horses passed. Jadis did not consider herself to be of a delicate constitution; after all, she mashed demons to paste for a living. But the animal poop thing was really starting to bother her.
“None of my old aurochs ever complained this much,” Aila admonished Jadis mildly.
“None of your aurochs could talk,” Jay shot back.
“She sure talks like a city sprog,” Jadis heard Bridget chuckle from where she walked next to the wagon. “No farm folk are going to grouse about animals doing as they need do.”
“Nobles complain about those sorts of things. Oh! Ja—er, Jay! Are you and your sisters secretly Nephilim nobles? Are you Princesses!?” Sabina called out from the open door of the wagon behind Aila, getting progressively louder and more excited as she went on.
“No, we’re not,” Dys laughed. Turning partly to look back at the half-elf sticking her head out through the door, she continued. “No nobles or princesses where I grew up. We just didn’t have horses, either.”
Aila was giving Jadis a knowing look at Dys’ response. She had learned enough from late night talks to know that Jadis’ upbringing had been decidedly more sheltered than hers. In terms of creature comforts, she was closer to Eir than Aila in how their childhoods had gone, at least when it came to distance from farm work and manual labor. Jadis hadn’t grown up in a city, but being a suburbanite wasn’t that far off, so Bridget’s teasing accusation held some weight.
Not that Jadis was going to admit that to the orc.
“I’ll have you know,” Dys started as she turned to face forward again, “that I—”
Her playful words died on her lips as Dys caught sight of a large, pale figure on all fours racing through the shadows towards the left side of the wagon. Without pausing for a moment’s consideration, Dys ripped the harness from her shoulders and threw herself at the creature as it leapt forward. Their two bodies collided a scant few feet away from where Aila sat, causing shrieks of surprise and shouts of alarm.
“Weapons!” Syd ordered as she and Jay also tore the harnesses from their bodies.
All three of Jadis’ selves were wearing their full plate armor. As much as the weight added to the difficulty of pulling the wagon, it took too long to put the suits of plate armor on for her to not wear it during the day when they could be ambushed at any moment. However, she had forgone carrying her weapons, especially her insanely heavy war hammer, since that would have been too unwieldy to manage while acting as transportation.
Now, she was glad she’d kept the armor on as one of her bodies wrestled with the huge, reptilian creature, though she cursed herself for not having easier access to her stored primary weapons. There was no time for regrets, though. Many things were happening at the same time and Jadis had to focus all her attention on the actions of her allies and enemies around her.
The creature Dys had tackled was big, scaly, and cold. She barely had the time to process what it looked like beyond it having four legs and a tail, but the trait she couldn’t help but focus on was how utterly freezing the creature was. Her plate armor had a full layer of cloth and leather padding underneath it, plus her regular clothes underneath those, and she still felt like she’d just plunged headfirst into the arctic ocean at midwinter. Gritting her teeth, she wrapped her arms around the struggling creature and squeezed as hard as she could, just focusing on holding it down while her other selves moved.
As Dys grappled the beast, Syd lunged for the wagon. Sabina, seeing her rushing at her, quickly fell backwards through the door to the interior where she and Eir had been doing the gods knew what earlier. In the next moment Syd’s lance appeared for her to grab hold of, the shaft being passed forward by both Sabina and Eir. As Syd took hold of her weapon and pulled it free, Aila leaned back in her seat and held out her hand, pointing it in the direction of Dys and the beast she was intertwined with.
Neither Dys nor Syd could see what Aila was aiming at, but Jay could. As she rounded on her other self and the—was that a fucking dragon!?—she saw a second icy monster charging out of the brush. Aila’s force bolt struck the second creature square in the face, causing it to stumble as its head was thrown off balance. Jay, seizing the opportunity, lunged at the monster and caught it in a headlock. Much to her surprise, the freezing dragon thing actually had the strength to push her forward, her boots digging furrows in the dirt of the forest floor, then the cobblestones of the road.
“Frost drakes!” a voice Jadis didn’t immediately recognize shouted.
More shouts of alarm rang out, as well as the sound of combat, though Jadis couldn’t focus on anyone else’s battles. She had her hands full with the two drakes already.
Making a tactical choice, Syd stepped up to Dys first. Jay had her drake in better control with her headlock. Dys, however, had her arms locked around the beast’s waist, squeezing the breath out of it but leaving its claws free to rake against her armor. As the two rolled around on the ground, Syd thrust her lance into the monster’s side, piercing through its body and out the other side.
Despite running the drake through, Syd’s attack wasn’t a killing blow. The struggling beast continued to rip and claw at Dys, trying to either free itself or kill her. Dagger-like claws savaged her helmet, the sharp tips digging into her visor nearly reaching her eyes, while lower down the drake’s hind paws dug at her legs and stomach like a cat. Syd was forced to twist and rip the lance out of the icy monster to try for a second strike at a better angle. As she did so, a terrible freezing cold swept across her legs and feet.
Not just her feet, actually, but Jay’s as well. The drake Jay had in a headlock was exhaling a literal wave of ice from its jaws. It didn’t take a genius to realize the monster was casting some kind of magical breath attack, especially since giant icicles started spearing up out of the ground wherever its breath touched.
“No the fuck you don’t!” Jay shouted.
Shoving the drake back, Jay slammed her knee into the wingless dragon’s spiky chin, violently shutting its icy maw and cutting off its breath attack. As she did so, she felt a wash of soothing warmth touch her body.
Sparing a second to check her status, Jadis saw that her health had dropped from its maximum of nine hundred and ten to seven hundred and twenty-three. However, her health had leveled out, no longer dropping as Eir’s healing power regenerated her wounds.
A glance told Jadis her priestess had stayed on the wagon and was healing her at a distance with her ranged healing spell. Even though the spell cost five times as much magic power to use, it was the right choice since Eir absolutely needed to stay as far away from the drakes as possible. With a max health of only one hundred points, the ice breath the hoary creatures could use would kill her almost instantly.
With her lance withdrawn, Syd spun around and switched targets. With a well-timed thrust, she speared through the body of the drake right under the shoulder blade, where she imagined its heart had to be, presuming a magic beast like it had one. In the same instant, Jay slammed her knee into the drake’s face a second time, triggering Mirrored Strikes.
The drake’s jaw crumpled like ice as Jay’s armored knee crushed it. Syd’s lance had no spectacular effect, but Jadis was certain that if the knee hadn’t been enough, the lance had done the trick as the monster went limp. As relieving as it was to cut down one of the drakes, Jadis wasted no time celebrating her victory over the vicious beast. Spinning back around, Syd attacked the drake on top of Dys while Jay dropped the dead frost drake and dashed towards the wagon.
Eir was with Aila, the two casting spells from the elevation of the wagon seat. Sabina was nowhere to be seen, though since last Jadis had saw her she’d been inside the wagon, Jadis assumed she was still there. Thea and Bridget…
A frost drake hissed out its pain and rage as Thea slammed her shield into its face while Bridget struck it from the side with her flaming flail. The flames from the lantern seemed to have a particularly strong effect as the monster’s icy scales seemed to literally melt away from the magic fire. As the drake reacted to the orc’s fiery blow with a swipe of its claws, Thea blocked its feral attack with her shield, keeping it from getting close to Bridget. As the beast suddenly strafed to the right, a force bolt from Aila struck its flank, sending it reeling and giving Thea and Bridget a chance to both attack it again.
Good. The two were handling the drake well enough, aided by Aila’s magic. They could at least hold it off long enough for Jadis to grab the rest of her weapons.
Just as the thought went through her mind, a fourth frost drake appeared, leaping on top of the wagon and heading straight for where Aila and Eir were positioned at the front.
“Get down—!” Jay started to cry out but was cut off by a blinding flash of light and a boom of thunder that deafened her ears.
Blinking the spots out of her vision, Jay caught the tail end of the drake falling off the wagon, smoke trailing from its flash-fried body.
“Thank you, Nora,” Jay said under her breath as she resumed her mission to rearm herself.
Leaping up onto the front of the wagon, avoiding Aila and Eir as she leaned halfway through the door, Jay shouted into the dimly lit interior.
“Sabina! My axe!”
Her call was answered by another sudden, less intense, flash of light as the side of the wagon abruptly shot open.
“Grab what you need!” Sabina shouted back as she aimed her giant crossbow at the drake Thea and Bridget were fighting.
With a loud thwack, the smith’s crossbow shot the drake in the back haunch. Not a killing blow, but a crippling one as its back leg went out from under it. Unable to move as easily as before, the beast couldn’t avoid Bridget’s next hammering blow as she brought her lantern down on its head, crushing its skull in a blaze of steam and flame.
“Good work,” Jay said as she grabbed her axe and hammer from the back of the wagon. “But we still need to work on your aim.”
“You keep giving me practice like this and maybe I’ll get better!” Sabina replied in an almost manic voice as she reloaded her weapon. “But please don’t give me any more practice against drakes! I want to live to see level twenty!”
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