As the red lizard spun, preparing to launch itself at Longshank a second time, a net of webbing slammed into the side of its face. Shaking its head to rid itself of the clinging web, which was already sizzling and smoking, the pyromander turned its face toward Swift, who was giving her netgun a congratulatory pat on the stock.
Before the lizard could attack her, there was a flash of movement on its other side as an object hit the corner of its mouth and lodged there.
It roared as its head was pulled to the side. The owl talons that hooked its mouth were still attached to a spindly and by now somewhat mummified foot, which was affixed to a length of woven webbing. Cheer was tugging on the end of it, her cheeks flushed with exertion, and her stamina draining alarmingly as she strove to pull her opponent away from her fellow scavenger.
Once it realized what was happening, the pyromander chomped down on the talons. They broke with a series of cracks; the improvised grapple fell from the lizard’s mouth, and Cheer was left holding the least dangerous half of an owl’s foot on a string.
The distraction was enough. Longshank had unsheathed his spear, and now lunged at the creature, driving his weapon toward its more vulnerable underbelly. The speartip pierced the flesh beneath the lizard’s foreleg and drove in deep.
The pyromander recoiled from the blow. It coughed and jerked, and bits of liquid flame dribbled from its mouth. Wrenching itself off the spear, it looked around at the three gnomes, then at Ris’kin, who’d also unsheathed her spears and was poised to strike. It seemed to be reassessing the wisdom of continuing the fight.
Ris’kin and I bared our teeth. That seemed to finally make up its mind. With a screech, the creature limped along the ledge and slithered over the side, making its sulky way back down to the magma lake from which it had presumably emerged.
Swift went to high-five Cheer, but the other scavenger was leaning heavily against the wall. Her stamina was almost gone; a red symbol had appeared above her head which, once I examined it, helpfully pointed out that she was ‘Exhausted.’
They’d lost most of their belongings somewhere along the way, presumably when the water had dragged us all to the cave below, but the crafty little hoarders still had plenty of useful supplies stashed upon their person. Swift fished around in her pockets until she unearthed what looked like a handful of dried mushrooms, which she shared with Cheer. She offered one to Longshank, but he politely declined. The hunter was already chewing on a slice of raw fish, carved from the fangfin that had dared ruin his leg. Ris’kin and I accepted a chunk of that ourselves. It was surprisingly delicious, once you got past the fact that it was, well, raw fish.
The brief rest replenished a modicum of the gnomes’ stamina, though Cheer’s exhaustion status did not disappear. According to the Augmentary, until she was fully rested she would suffer reduced movement speed and strength. Given the urgency of our situation, that was less than ideal.
Another minor setback was Longshank’s weapon. The spearhead was gone, lost inside the pyromander’s lava-like body. The wooden haft was burnt off at the end, but was still usable otherwise, and Swift was able to shorten the haft and replace the spearhead with one of the white crystal shards they’d hacked from the caves below.
I glanced impatiently at the timer while they fixed it. On one hand we didn’t have time for this. On the other, an attack by another pyromander while we were unarmed would be an even bigger delay if not a disaster.
Longshank nodded approvingly when she handed the spear back to him. There followed a brief conversation between the two gnomes, after which Longshank nodded again and then turned his back on the scavengers. Swift sat beside Cheer once more. The exhausted scavenger was already nodding off to sleep, and Swift allowed her to rest against her shoulder, keeping her own eyes warily upon the pit.
“They’re staying behind,” I realized. Swift had clearly recognized that her fellow scavenger would be unable to keep up and had elected to remain behind with her rather than delay our progress any further.
Or perhaps they’d spotted a secret treasure trove en route, and were waiting for us to leave so they could plunder it for themselves. I felt a rush of affection for the scavengers. They’d been thorns in my side since the very beginning; they’d been the last of my original denizens to join my Faithful—I’d never seen anyone worship so grudgingly—and their fierce independence made them notoriously unreliable.
They were pains in the arse. But they were mine.
I’ll come back for you, I promised.
There were various passages all around the ledge—this place really was like the Heart—but Ket was already leading us up the spiraling stairs. The sprite’s attention was entirely focused on reaching the top; her earlier confusion was gone, and I knew we were heading the right way. Longshank, Ris’kin and I did the only thing left to do, and followed.
Fifty-Seven
Not Part of the Plan
Benin
Benin followed Coll down the trail. He felt somewhat weak, though it was no physical affliction; more that he was still mentally reeling from the previous day’s events.
“You sure the tiny shiny bloke’s all right?” asked Coll.
“Bekkit? He’s fine.” He waved a hand dismissively, glancing down at the half-asleep sprite hitching a ride between Pyra’s shoulder blades.
“Haven’t heard his high-and-mighty voice for a while, is all.”
“He’s just a bit weak. Terrestrial Body isn’t meant to be active for long periods of time.”
Coll was quiet for a while. Then he asked, “What happens if he’s away from Corey for too long?”
Benin had his suspicions, but was reluctant to voice them before the weakened sprite. To his surprise, though, Bekkit himself spoke up.
“A sprite’s essence is sustained by the
