Dream - 32

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Race: Saurian

Bloodline Powers: Strength, Rending, Emberbreath
Greater Mysteries: Fire (Noble) 3
Lesser Mysteries: Heat 4, Good Air 4, Embers 4, Pressure 3, Current/Flow 3

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Samazzar trudged through the meadow, Dussok at his side.  Overhead a black dot soared on the hot air raising up from the grass below.  Sam wasn’t sure whether  it was an ordinary bird or something more worrying like a storm crow, but whatever it was it seemed content to circle

“You know Samazzar,” Dussok remarked, shifting the giant axe on his shoulder, “I don’t think I realized how unbelievably boring it is to only see the same thing over and over again.  When we were back in the caves, we were used to it, but now, walking through endless grass, it’s fit to drive me insane.  I have to agree that it’s time to-

“Shush,” Takkla hissed.  When Sam turned to look at her she had a single hand up in the air, head cocked slightly as she listened for something.  She frowned slightly, closing her eyes entirely while she kept her hand raised.

Dussok froze, followed a second later by Sam.  Both of them crouched down in the waist high grass, letting only the tops of their heads poke above the surface.  Samazzar couldn’t see anything in the gently waving fields, but that didn’t mean that something wasn’t looking at him.

Takkla had always had keener senses than Dussok and him, but her awakening only exacerbated that difference.  Now that she was a Saurian, any comparison was laughable.  Samazzar might see more of the world with his magical sight, but Takkla’s normal vision, hearing, and sense of smell was absurdly detailed.

“Thudding of feet or hooves,” she finally spoke up, a distant expression on her face.  “A good number of them, all heading our way.”

“Any idea as to the size of the creatures?”  Dussok asked quietly, reaching out to grab Takkla by the wrist and pull her into a crouch as well.  “Maybe how many there are?”

Takkla closed her eyes, chewing on the lip of her muzzle as she concentrated.  Sam touched a hand to the ground.  It might have been his imagination, but he was pretty sure that it was vibrating slightly.  Of course, he couldn’t pick out any details.  It just as easily could have been a cave-in or a mudslide as opposed to approaching animals.

Finally, Takkla opened her eyes, shrugging unhappily.

“A lot and pretty big,” she said.  “They’re hitting the ground pretty big and frequently.  If I had to guess, I’d say that we’re dealing with a herd or a swarm of something a fair bit bigger than the three of us.”

“Well,” Dussok replied.  “Crap.  With any luck we’ll be able to hide from whatever these things are.  I’ve had enough fighting for-”

“They’re here,” Sam cut him off.  At the periphery of his senses he could feel the disturbance approaching.  Air currents flowed unnaturally around a good portion of the horizon.

“By the mysteries there are a lot,” Takkla responded, shaking her head.  “That’s got to be at least a hundred of them.”

Squinting his eyes, Samazzar could barely make out a black smudge on the horizon, but there was no longer any doubt that something was coming.  The dirt vibrated like a drumhead under the steady pounding of hundreds if not thousands of legs.

He stood up, closing his eyes for a second and stretching his magical senses.  It was hard to tell the difference in heat between a living being and warm grass, but the wall of creatures was somehow altering the airflow around them.  Samazzar wasn’t sure if they were as magical as the stormcrows, but it was clear that the approaching creatures had some sort of bloodline ability.

“It’s a stampede,” Sam said, standing up.  “Hiding won’t help us.  There will be too many of them coming too fast.  We need to find a way to ward the herd off rather than try to camouflage ourselves or engage them directly.

Dussok stretched to his full height next to Sam.  He pulled the axe from his shoulder, planting the flat top of its head into the ground as he held it in a two handed grip, ready to spring into motion at a moment’s notice.

“What’s the plan, little dragon?” He asked, muscles flexing under his scales as Dussok warmed his stiff limbs up.

The wall of shapes on the horizon was beginning to take form.  Rather than an amorphous smudge, heads were now visible above the grass.  Tan and conical, ending in rounded black snout, the animals’ faces pumped forward on muscular necks as they sprinted across the prairie.

“Whatever it is, we need to know fast,” Takkla remarked, her voice tight as she nocked a crude arrow in a shortbow she’d looted from the goblin village.  “They have horns, and as best I can tell they’re sharpened along the front edge.  Each one of them functionally has two swords.”

“Well, crap,” Samazzar replied before shooting his siblings an apologetic look.  “Both of you should have enough command over the mystery of heat to keep yourselves uncooked.”

“Wait,” Dussok interjected hurriedly, “what do you mean by-”

Sam’s throat bulged and he vomited out a small gout of flame.  Before the flickering embers could dissipate, he grabbed them with his mind, molding the fire into a narrow beam that leapt into the dry prairie grass.

A push from his will maximized the heat and good air, fanning the smoldering grass into a roaring flame.  Samazzar reached forward with both of hands, palms touching.  With a grunt, he pulled his hands apart.

The fire spread around the three of them, burning the dry grass in a tight, protective circle.  Sam couldn’t see the approaching creatures over the dancing flames and clinging smoke, but it was impossible for him to not notice the disturbances in pressure and air currents that marked their approach.

The circle burned outward, expanding under Samazzar’s guidance as it slowly exhausted its fuel.  Silently he cursed to himself.  One more level in the mystery and he would have been able to do more than shepherd the fire’s course.  Instead, all Sam could do was push to make the flames hotter and keep them from expanding completely out of control as he tried to ward off the oncoming stampede.

The hoofbeats of the herd swelled into a cacophony of dissonant noise.  They overwhelmed the crackle of flames, sounding like the combination of a crashing waterfall and a thunderstorm.

Outside the circle, Samazzar could feel the herd trying to curve around the slowly expanding inferno.  Most of them made it, but the press of bodies was too great for all of them to avoid.

One of the creatures burst through the halo of fire, eyes wild and embers clinging to its tan fur.

It was taller than Dussok.  Not by much, but by enough that it was immediately noticeable.  It had a four-legged body with hooves capping its feet like some of the horses that Sam had seen the human traders use, but it’s head was much smaller.

Most importantly, Takkla hadn’t been exaggerating when she warned them about its horns.  One behind each ear, they were curved slightly backward and as long as Dussok’s leg.

The front of the horns gleamed in the firelight, sharpened to a razor edge.  It snorted, swinging its head downward and Sam winced as the blade of the horns seemed to cut through the air current.

“Careful,” he growled, switching his focus from the flames surrounding them to the animal that now occupied the center of their circle.  “It’s not ordinary.”

The creature locked its eyes on Samazzar, it snorted again, but this time the sound was deeper and it almost had a musical note to it.  The animal’s horns began to vibrate in sympathy as the sound rolled through them, like a pair of glittering and dangerous turning forks.

Samazzar willed the embers on its fur to life, forcing good air toward them and increasing the heat around them.  It charged toward him, and Sam jumped to the side, reading the flow of air over the beast’s body to judge its speed and position with a level of accuracy that his eyes couldn’t match.

It burst into flame, oily fur providing the perfect fuel source for Samazzar’s magic.  The monster swung its head in his direction, horns humming as they cut through the empty air where Sam had just been.

With a twist of his mind, he pulled some of the fire from his opponent’s back, dragging the dancing line of red and orange along its hide until he had engulfed its face and snout in a mask of fire.

The creature tried to scream, but it only managed to inhale a lungful of flame.  As soon as the fire was inside its body, Samazzar frantically pumped good air and heat into the flames.  He could feel his magic’s efficacy waning as it entered the other creature’s body, but the fire itself formed a tether that let him enact his will inside the animal.

Flames scarred the inside of its body, searing its lungs and burning up the good air that the creature had been breathing in.  Soot and blood streamed from its open mouth, and it took a hesitant step forward, chest heaving as it tried unsuccessfully to draw in more good air through its fire ravaged mouth and throat.

Behind it, another animal jumped through the flames.  Takkla shot it with a bow, but the arrow barely penetrated the creature’s hide, drawing blood but not dealing any significant damage.

Dussok raced past her, swinging the magical axe at the beast.  It hopped backward, a deep snort in the air sending a wave of vibrations into its horns.

Before Samazzar could turn to help, a third animal jumped through the fire.  By now the defensive ring of flames had grown out of control, morphing from a narrow band of ultra-hot inferno into an expansive fire that was steadily consuming more and more of the overrun prairie.

Sam reached out with his mind, gripping the expanding flames and molding them into a line before spraying the back of the animal.  It bounded toward him, tail and rear haunches literally aflame as it lowered its head to try and slash and gore him

Tubes of pressure pulsed around its vibrating horns as the blades themselves sang, humming as the animal sliced them through the air.

He danced backwards, eyes half lidded as he felt the air currents twisting around the monster.  It was controlling the air itself to match speed with its movements, creating small, localized gusts of wind that minimized all resistance as it attacked.

In effect, even though Samazzar was smaller and more maneuverable than the four-legged mammal, it used its magic and bloodline to display a supernatural sense of agility that let it move just as fast as him.

Sam dug deeper, touching the air currents around the animal, and sensing the way they interacted with his bucking and stabbing opponent.

Then he pushed back, grabbing hold of the tunnel of air aiding the creature’s charge and twisting it to the side.

It stumbled, trying to put weight on the legs injured by Samazzar’s opening fire salvo in order to catch itself as the air itself yanked the creature off course.

The animal regained control a half pace past Sam, but that wasn’t quickly enough.  His magically sharpened claws flashed in the firelight as they easily parted the monster’s hide, opening a massive wound in the side of its neck.

It staggered as it wheeled around to face him, bag legs trembling as it glared at Samazzar.  Blood poured from the newly opened wound in its neck, but the monster didn’t slow.  Instead charging Sam once more.

He held still, closing his eyes as the beast lunged toward him.  He could feel the thrumming pressure waves around its horns, the way that the air tugged at its fur only for the currents to redirect themselves and aid its attack.

There was something there, some realization on the periphery of his perception that called to Samazzar.

He dodged at the absolute last second, letting the pressure thrumming off of the monster’s horns kiss his scales as he dashed past the animal, digging a claw into its flank and ripping its side open.

Scales shuddered and buckled under the pulse and hum of the monster’s air magic, but Samazzar’s claws did their work.  Warm blood sprayed over him, his dagger-like nails easily slicing through flesh and scoring over the surface of the monster’s ribs.

It stumbled, dropping to its knees as blood-loss and pain bested it.  The pressure around its horns flickered and faded as the creature lost the necessary focus to use whatever magic was empowering.

Sam took a stop closer, a hungry look in his eyes.  Air rustled around the downed animal as it tried to use its abilities once more, and in that moment everything clicked for him.  He didn’t understand completely how the vibrations worked, but pulses of air pressure they created served as a source for the air currents.

Good air, pressure, currents, it was all connected, and somehow the struggling creature before him held the key.

Without thinking, Samazzar lunged forward, grabbing the monster by the snout with one hand and letting his claws shred its cheek and jaw.  With the other, he stiffened his fingers into a line before driving his talons into the side of the animal’s head.

It struggled weakly in his grip, Sam’s claws scratching and scoring the side of its skull, before eventually they found purchase in a weak point just behind the monster’s eye.  With a crunch, Samazzar’s hand punched through, stealing its life.

He sighed, stepping backward as he surveyed the scene.  Takkla was holding onto a bruised arm where one of the creatures had kicked her, the cheap goblin bow broken and burning in the flames that surrounded them.  Dussok had a cut on his shoulder that was bleeding freely, but the animal they had been fighting was dead at his feet.

Without comment, Samazzar pulled a mid-grade healing salve out from his pouch, walking over to Dussok and applying it to his open wound.  The bigger Saurian hissed, clenching his jaw and eyes against the pain as the tonic began its work, but within a matter of seconds the bleeding had stopped.

It would still take at least two days for a cut that deep and ragged to heal completely, but early use of the salve virtually guaranteed that things would work out in the end.

Samazzar turned to Takkla, but she shook her head before speaking up through gritted teeth.

“It only managed to kick me.  It hurts, but it's just a bruise, nothing that we need to exhaust supplies to treat.”

Sam nodded, returning what remained of the salve to his pouch as he returned his attention to the battlefield.

His head whipped up.  Somehow air currents and pressure had solidified in a perfect half hemisphere at levels  Samazzar struggled to completely understand.  It was almost like he was looking at stone rather than good air.

A human male stood in the center of the half hemisphere, a green and purple knee length road whipping back and forth in the controlled tempest.  He waved as soon as Sam made eye contact, calling out to him cheerfully.

“I say good fellow, would you mind getting your fire under control?  The blade strider herd has already passed you by at this point, and I’d prefer to avoid some sort of inferno that consumes half of the Lossak plains, killing all of my students in the process.”