Traps, Tricks, and Beasts [Book 2 Complete][Fantasy, Adventure, Underdog]

Squirt’s blade froze an inch from the Umberwolf’s neck, confusing the recruits. She stood slowly, her brows furrowed and her goggles in place as she straightened to look off to the distance.

Without any further ado, she darted forward and threw the blade as hard as she could towards the distracted lords.

A snarl sounded as the blade struck true, the massive chameleon leopard became visible, and Cirn smoothly beheaded it.

Stopping on a dime, Squirt reached into her pouch, grabbing her bow before both stringing and loading it in one smooth motion, firing off the warning whistle arrow.

The Captain of the Guard shouted, “Surge!” at the top of her lungs.

The hunters immediately killed every beast and collected the feystones while the recruits all froze. Several of them drew their blades, eager to prove themselves, but they all stared when the lord calmly walked over to Squirt and simply asked, “Headed towards the village?”

She nodded, her eyes forward before firing another arrow smoothly. “Yep.” The beast it caught was then swiftly dispatched by Cirn.

“Can we draw their attention instead?”

She scowled up at him before hissing out, “Yes,” and returning her eyes to scanning for more beasts. The other hunters joined her, wearing the goggles she’d made them during their off week. The knights and guards in the treebed came to the edge, stopping to await orders, while the rest spread out in a semi-circle centered around the two lords.

The recruits, many of them having never been in a true battle scenario, were a little awed, and many immediately became overconfident.

“Hm. Let us back ourselves against the circle line and draw them in there. We’ll rotate in shifts through it, trading the stones we have.” He turned and smiled at Lady Evense. “Let’s have the new recruits in the first shift to protect this staff. Teams one, seven, and eight will give their stones to the hunters who will back up the recruits.”

She nodded before barking out orders. Squirt scowled as she backed up with Lord Everwinter and didn’t immediately recognize the statement he then made silently to everyone there.

He turned his back on her.

Turned his back and strode towards the treebed, silently demonstrating an absolute faith in her abilities.

She, having other things on her mind, didn’t think much of it, focusing on the impending surge and how he was purposely setting up the recruits to fail.

At the edge, he turned and faced forward while the knights, guards, and recruits formed a tight shield line in a semicircle around him. Ranin stood next to him, with Cirn between them and the shield line. “Let us see how well the new recruits have listened. Hunters, knights, guards—only step in to save a life.”

One of the recruits shouted, “We’ve got this, milord,” followed by a chorus of cheers from the rest of the recruits.

Squirt’s sympathy died immediately.

Lord Everwinter pitched his voice to be heard over the battle, speaking to Squirt even if his eyes never left the action. “Athereon, can you call them here?”

She, likewise, kept her focus out on the creatures, ready to jump in the moment she was needed. The smaller feybeasts were now descending upon the trainees from the capital, and Squirt’s respect for the spring trainees grew as her respect for those here shrank.

At least the spring trainees could fend off moss weasels without having the more trained defenders jump in. These capital recruits? Her own hunters moved to stand close behind them, their weapons of choice at the ready. She almost jumped in when Jul incinerated a small group of moss weasels that dove on the right flank while half the recruits flinched in place.

Only when she was assured that the rest of the guard wasn’t going to let the feybeasts through, Squirt finally responded to Lord Everwinter, “It would be better to be in the treebed. Have them aim for there instead of for this exact spot, or the surge will turn into a stampede of death.”

Ala’ole whipped a moss weasel off a recruit’s neck. One broke formation to attack instead of holding the shield line, but Lady Evense did not correct him even as moss weasels slipped through the gaps.

The other recruits, however, were not so patient.

“Fuck, Joohi, hold the gods damn line—”

“Should we help him—”

“—get back here!”

He moved back but was clearly aggravated, especially when a shadowy tendril caught a moss weasel an inch from his eyes.

Squirt wasn’t needed here, clearly, and apparently the others agreed. One of the guards handed her a stone. Two others approached the lords. Lord Everwinter stood firm and said, “No. I will not risk them without also risking myself. Give it to Lady Cirn to accompany Athereon.”

Squirt glared daggers at his lordship for that, tucking her stone under the back of her glove to press firmly against the skin before she darted off for the treebed. Maybe if she moved fast enough through the twisting maze, she’d lose the veil woman.

Unfortunately, no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t shake fey with a perfect quickstep. She found herself breaking out into the center of the treebed with both still close behind.

Lord Prince Ranin blinked at the golden door where she had stopped. “… huh. Just like he said. A dungeon in the center of every treebed.”

Probably because the treebeds had been magical hotspots untouched for centuries by fey hands, but Squirt kept that to herself as she reached into her pouch, grabbing out a bag of sand. Slowly pouring the glittering white crystals out in a circle around herself, she then looked at her two companions and hesitated.

Ranin nodded encouragingly, a light of interest in his eyes.

She pressed her lips together before asking, “How big of a feystone could you break?”

The recruits, meanwhile, were struggling. Some with indignant fury, others with sheer terror. What had started as small rodents had scaled up to large wolves, invisible cats as large as a horse, giant flying bees that could launch a hundred stingers in a minute, and so many, many more. For more than a few, their energy was starting to flag.

Just as soon as it did, Lord Everwinter ordered, “Hunters, step in.”

Immediately, Tobias took up command from just behind the semi-circle of overwhelmed and nervous recruits, barking out succinct information to the hunters under his command. “Flame moths, nets! Chameleon leopard, three ticks southeast!”

The hunters took over a majority of the killing, letting those who were terrified breathe out a sigh of relief, while those indignant and needing to prove themselves only got angrier.

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“Recruits, you will now be replaced with those of Everwinter for a break.”

Then the boom happened.

A massive energy shockwave pulsed from deep within the treebed, bursting out with enough force that the entire surge came to an immediate, eerie standstill.

One of the frustrated recruits shouted, “Now’s our chance! Strike back!” before charging headfirst into the frozen feybeasts. In the same instant, the feybeasts turned as one towards the source of that burst and began a stampede forward.

A guard casually replaced him in line. The other recruits watched in horror as he blocked the man out without mercy. Not that the man noticed right away. But the moment he realized he was doomed? When the beasts began tearing him apart, he reached back out to the rest in line and screamed, begging for someone to save him.

The guard said gruffly, “Hold the line or that’s all of us.”

The recruits held the line. One by one, they were replaced by either a guard or knight of Everwinter. It was now that they were standing back, having been replaced by some who had been doing this for centuries, that they were able to appreciate the effectiveness of the strategy.

More than a few fell to their knees in terror, horror, or relief, while more than one stumbled off into the bushes, retching from the stress of the ordeal.

Lady Evense simply ordered, “Cover your stink when you’ve finished.”

One of the recruits glanced around at the feybeasts, realizing how many were going around the group and towards the treebed—

“Holy shit,” she breathed.

The others turned to stare.

The rest of the Guard, within the line of the hypnosis ritual spell, were casually laughing and joking while they piled up the different kinds of beasts throwing themselves at the invisible death trap.

Another recruit, a young elf, bared his teeth and snarled a furious, “Is this some kind of fucking joke to you all?”

The guards on the inside of the invisible circle turned to look at the traumatized young man. An old goliath, the largest of the guard at eight feet tall, slowly stood to his full height to stare down at the recruit. “I have lost many a loved one to a surge, including my own mate of three hundred years. Just a few weeks ago, we all lost friends to this horror. Today, others will lose their friends and families to this, those who won’t make it to shelter in time.”

The elf bit out angrily, “We’ve all lived through a surge, but that didn’t mean you had to leave him to die.”

The older man shrugged. “It was his choice to run out. The point of a shield line is to protect those behind you. We protect each other when we are following orders. I’m not risking my neck for a stupid kid. And surges in the Capital are nothing compared to surges in the Wylds.” He nodded behind the recruit. “Or do you normally have three basilisks charging at simple wooden walls?”

The recruits turned in stunned horror to the massive snakes that then launched themselves into the treebeds, one going right over the top of the shield line close enough that the recruits could count the scales on its belly. The elf was roughly pulled out of the way just as black inky liquid dropped on where he had been, sizzling and burning away the moss it landed on.

The goliath nodded to the venom. “Basilisk venom is deadly. One drop in one wound, and you will die an excruciating death.”

The elf paled, realizing that he had several open minor wounds on his face and neck from moss weasels.

The goliath then pointed to the invisible circle. “That? That was created by the greenling just a few weeks ago. She saved all of us during one of these surges from a basilisk, almost dying doing it. Now, we can comfortably relax while doing easy, manual labor instead of fighting for our lives.” He nodded to the shield line protected from the massive basilisk by a water shield, the lord’s aura glowing faint blue, the very air chilling from the strength of his magic.

The man continued, “His lordship there has a keen eye. Even in the shield line, he will keep you safe. Had you truly been in danger, he would have shielded you.”

The goliath then turned, working with the Captain of the Guard as the two of them picked up a basilisk with their absurd strength, moving it into place just as Athereon appeared at the top of the treebed, gazing out over the space with the lord and lady just behind her. Then she nimbly hopped down and trotted casually out of the circle of safety to stand besides his lordship and the now awed recruits. Pulling out a slingshot, she ducked out of the shield line, stunning them. Once far enough, she slid to a stop and aimed a red ball up, launching it and hitting a tree a few dozen yards away before ducking back into safety without a single feybeasts landing a hit. About a hundred shadowy snakes all fell writhing and screaming in pain from the branches in the tree, and she turned to watch, standing back with Lord Everwinter once more.

***

The lord frowned. “Those are new.”

“They’re not as common, but they’re a slightly different evolved form of the base earth snake.”

“That the basilisk evolves from?”

“Yes. They’re called wisp snakes. A colony like that is one beast, a hive mind. And like a hydra, cutting them is useless as you just make more of them.”

“Thus, the blazing ant powder.”

She nodded, her eyes scanning. “Thus, the blazing ant powder.”

Lord Prince Ranin, strolling casually up behind them and looking both a little windswept and smug, asked, “Blazing ant powder?”

“Common pest around here—not a feybeast, just an ant that releases an airborne toxin that makes the skin feel it is on fire.”

Lord Everwinter then asked, “If you didn’t have blazing ant powder, how would you defeat them?”

She shrugged. “Each one is weak on its own. You can squish them—their skin is similar to a slug, which is why the blazing powder is so effective. You just can’t cut them or drown them. Burn them, freeze them, squish them, all of that is fair game.”

“How do they attack?”

“A bunch will cover and suffocate you. They can reform into a larger creature briefly that will absorb your flesh directly into their bloodstreams before splitting apart again. Like I said, one creature, many bodies.”

“Like the Umberwolves?”

“Like the Umberwolves.”

Lord Prince Ranin cut in to ask, “How did you learn so much about the feybeasts?”

Squirt’s expression flattened, but between the distraction of the surge and the fact she was required to answer, the words naturally tumbled out in a bland, even cadence. “The previous lord stopped maintaining the protections on the village I lived in about a decade, though he’d never been good at maintaining them, anyway. So,” she loaded up and fired an arrow to divert the oncoming flame moths, which promptly flew around their group, “the villagers came up with their own solutions. Hiding underground was one, since surge beasts tended to stampede right over the top, and most Outskirts villagers don’t have enough magic to be a big target. Those who were big enough targets? That was more difficult.”

She put the slingshot away and pulled out her waterskin to take a quick drink, her eyes always darting around and assessing. “Sometimes they sacrificed themselves, running to draw the beasts in a different direction if the surge came on too suddenly. Others, the three of us of the Guard and volunteers from the village would defend them during the surge in caves they had dug into the ground, which only worked if they hadn’t flooded. Sometimes, it was just us in the guardhouse.” She shrugged. “Twenty years of defending against surges, most of it without even a shield to hide behind.”

Lord Prince Ranin studied her. “But you know about their habits outside of surges.”

She scowled, then answered, “As the season goes on and the beasts get larger and more discerning, I’m suddenly no longer viable food. My Guardsman would send me out to scout around the village for a week at a time as the watcher.”

“The watcher?”

“Yeah. The watcher.” Then she frowned. “The watcher, you know the watcher.”

By his expression, he did not.

Returning her eyes to the action, she scowled. “The watcher, the one who has to watch for surges.”

Lord Everwinter tactfully hid his smile behind his palm.

Lord Prince Ranin gave her a confused look. “I’ve never heard of this job.”

She scowled. “I bet it’s an Outskirts thing.”

One of the Guard supplied helpfully, “I’ve been in the Outskirts my whole life, huntress. I ain’t never heard of no watcher.”

She blinked a few times before she bared her teeth and muttered darkly, “That fucking old fart, I knew it wasn’t a real gods damned job.”

***

Given her reaction to his previous omissions, Lord Everwinter was not looking forward to the day she found out that he knew Stalf already. Rather than facing that consequence, he abruptly decided what she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her.

Instead, he turned around to the recruits. “Now. Turn and face the enemy. Observe and learn from your seniors. When you are ready, face me, and I will return you to the line. If you’d like to prove your strength, you are free to cross the line yourself or take your shots from behind the line like the hunters. If you do not face me by the time the surge has ended, you will be honorably rejected in the morning. There is no shame in realizing you were not made for battle.”

***

Squirt studied the recruits, wondering what had happened while she’d been occupied. There was a haunted look to many of their faces, and to her surprise, not a single one of them braved the shield line.

It was probably a good thing, as before the surge was out, she needed to brave it several more times.

That night, the exhausted recruits and contently tired soldiers camped out in the treebed while Squirt returned to her clearing to prepare for her trip. Around the campfire, those who had been on the expedition shared their war stories of the horrifying night watches and that first terrifying surge.

Naturally, Squirt ended up starring in most of them.

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