A Monster Life

31 - Fight and Flight

31 - Fight and Flight

Conchim cursed herself for letting intruders come into their territory and worse, get so close to her while she was taking a relaxing swim. There was no sign of the intruders after two of her sisters arrived and cleared the smoke with their wind magic, which meant everyone scattered and hoped the intruders would betray themselves through accidental noise. They still hadn't found a trace after the moons had crossed nearly a quarter of the sky and the sun came up though, and she clenched her fists and stamped her feet on the soft ground. "They even managed to bring a wolf or large black dog!" she thought. "We should have noticed that!" She flew up and continued her search in frustration amidst the morning songs of the birds.

***

Ulric looked up and around at the nearly menacing stone cliffs looming towards them and disappearing up into the clouds lit up by the early sun. 'Geologists in my world would go nuts over these.' he said over the familiar link.

'Geologists, Master?' asked Kaui.

'People who study the planet, trying to find out everything on what it's made of and how it became that way. I wonder what explanation they'd have for a landscape like this.' He examined the stone with colours ranging from light grey to dark grey-blue and strands of black. 'It doesn't look like canyons carved out by a river like I learned in school.'

'There's an ancient legend about a mighty sorcerer that battled a powerful earth demon and they tore up the landscape by raising mountainous rock walls and blasting them with huge stone projectiles.' said Valdys. 'Looking at this I could imagine there's some truth behind it.'

Ulric chuckled. 'I wouldn't be surprised if that was indeed the truth in this world.' He sighed. 'I still can't believe magic actually exists despite witnessing it every day.'

Iphigenia ruffled his neck fur. 'I'd have the same reaction if I were in your world, Wolfie. It's so hard to imagine some of those things you told us about.'

'I miss some of the conveniences.' he said. 'Like pizza delivery. It's quite fun to hunt but sometimes I'd like to feel lazy and just get some pizza delivered to my door.'

Iphigenia chuckled. 'I'm really curious to try that pizza.'

'Maybe I'll get a chance to try and make one if we come across someone with a large stone oven.' he said. 'Then-.' A distant screech stopped them in their tracks. 'Time to reveal our power and hopefully get them to talk to us.'

***

'Surround them and rain down everything you can get your talons on over them!' Conchim shouted at the harpies flocking over the enemy and dove down into one of the smaller clearings between the trees to snatch a large branch. When she flew up again she smirked down at the group. 'They're not even armed with bows! We can take them on easily!'

She swept down and let go of the branch along with the others who carried more wood and rocks. The intruders spread out, twirled something around, and slung balls of leaves up at them. 'You'll have to aim better than that!' she laughed when the projectiles missed them all by a wide margin. The blasts above their heads turned their laughter to screams and battered them with acorns.

The harpies screeched at the barrage hurting them and let go of their ammunition to fly away as fast as they could. 'All right! It's working!' said Ulric when their winged opponents fled. 'That should keep them out of the sky overhead!'

Conchim clenched her teeth at the lingering pain on her wings and back. 'What was that!?' shouted one of the others. 'We can't counter such magic!'