TWO HUNDRED TWENTY-FOUR: Here-to-There IV

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The first sign something was coming was a tock sound, so insignificant that Alden didn’t even realize he’d heard it among all the other noise until Stuart spun, attention suddenly fixed on Emban’s back even though he had been in the middle of a sentence. Ryada-bess was landing, light-footed, on top of a crate beside Emban in the next second, and it was only a couple of blinks longer before Bithe was with them.

All three squadmates were together, just that fast.

“I’m sorry,” said Emban, perhaps in response to the worry on Bithe’s face. “I did it by habit. There is something strange out there, though.”

Alden remembered the tock then and knew it had come from her direction. Even as he connected everything, he doubted his own assumption that people in a lighthearted mood had responded so quickly to a small sound like that. Nobody else on their hauler or in any of the vehicles around them was acting differently at all.

It was like the knights and Stuart had taken a step away from the party, unnoticed by all the other guests.

“I’m sure it’s nothing dangerous, but what is it?” Emban said.

Ryada and Bithe were on either side of her. Stuart hadn’t left his spot by Alden. Alden pulled his own eyes away from them all to follow the direction of their gazes.

Something was rising up from the desert’s scorched surface.

Animals?

They were still distant, but they seemed to be choosing their own direction instead of being driven by the winds as they flew into the air. The two Emban had spotted were joined by two more, then a fifth. The way they flapped around each other was peculiar. Alden couldn’t make out much detail, but they moved more like he imagined animated blankets might than like birds.

“What are those?” Stuart said, sounding curious, not worried. “They look like koobas.”

<<Skin ghosts,>> the translation informed Alden. <<Mythological.>>

Skin ghost doesn’t sound friendly. Glad we tacked on that mythological.

“They do look like koobas.” Ryada glanced around at Stuart before returning to her own study of the things. “And they’re coming this way.”

The flapping mysteries had stopped circling each other to fly in a V formation, pointed toward the caravan. The closer they got, the more obvious it became that they were large.

“Sorry if this is a stupid question, but there aren’t any dangerous flying creatures in this desert, are there?” Alden asked.

“There’s a venomous bug that can kill people, but it’s no larger than the end of your thumb. And the population is confined by magic to isolated areas far from here. Those things resemble no real creature on the Mother. They’re the creations of some wizard.”

Stuart had slipped off his private conversation ring. He motioned for Alden to pass his own over.

Alden thought he was the only one who was still tense. Emban’s warning sound had put her squad on instant alert, and they remained focused as the things approached. But their stances had relaxed. Stuart looked more like he was solving an equation than worrying.

They were on Artona I, Alden reminded himself. And protecting the Here-to-There was a mix of meaningful ceremony and roleplaying activity. The dangers were all social. Embarrassing yourself or your traveling companions, ruining the day for the people they were supposed to be caring for, angering somebody who’d hold a grudge—those were the risks.

A person could be hurt by mistake. One of the kids in another group had fallen while horsing around and was now sporting a smear of yellow paste on the arm he’d scraped. But if things called skin ghosts tried to eat their caravan, they could all be standing in a teleportation chamber in a second. Or the mythological creatures could be zapped into outer space if that was easier on magical resources.

So what was this?

It wasn’t long before others noticed what was going on. People were doing a remarkable job of not flicking an eye toward the knights, the Primary’s son, and their human Ryeh-b’t servant too frequently; but they were definitely pretty aware of them. Over the next few seconds, a murmuring began as the entire caravan discussed the flapping things.

Alden’s eyes widened, and he heard a couple of people gasp as more of them suddenly rose from the sand to join their fellows in the air. These were smaller ones, but there were at least a couple dozen of them.

“They’re coming from that way, too!” someone called.

“A big one just skyed itself ahead of us.”

“My fellow protectors!” Leeter-zis’s words were a bellow that made Alden lose his count of all the little ones that were appearing. “Look at these foolish koobas! They are rising up to feast on us as if we are weakened by these vast famine lands we’ve crossed. Though our journey has been long—”

They’d left the village less than half an hour ago.

“—our purpose is strong and our casting bones aren’t broken.”

“Wizards do not have casting bones,” Stuart whispered to Alden. “Those are out of stories. Like the koobas.”

“Stop the vehicles! Stand where you are and fight!” shouted Leeter-zis. “Fight these enemies fearlessly!”

Several of the wizards were giving Leeter-zis’s back annoyed looks. But most of the ordinary class members were smiling now, and the kids were ecstatic.

“Beat the koobas!”

“Use your casting bones to beat the koobas!”

“We have all the special ones!” yelled the boy who’d been eating Alden’s yovkew. “Our hauler has the special ones and the human too! It’s the safest!”

Emban, Ryada, and Bithe all winced or stiffened at that. Alden heard Stuart make a tense, short noise, like he’d started to groan and cut it off quickly. His head jerked from the incoming “koobas” to the bare, striped back of the wizard on top of the cart.

Alden thought he understood the problem. He didn’t trust his understanding enough to provide the solution that popped into his head out loud, though. Not himself.

[Those koobas may not even be worthy of bothering the knights,] he wrote in a text to Stuart. [They’ll have to prove themselves against wizards and Avowed first.]

Stuart read the message. He repeated it in a shout, not quite word-for-word, but with the same sentiment.

Then he looked at Alden. “Choose your shield.”

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The only dangers were social, but…both humans and Artonans were social species. Public humiliation felt horrible even if you weren’t someone obsessed with your image.

Alden had gotten beaten up a lot since joining CNH, and he’d learned how much easier it was to leave physical pain behind on the floor than it was to forget embarrassment. Reinhard was being such an asshat because he’d lost to a B-rank in a funny-looking way. And Alden was sure Hazel Velra would have preferred it if he’d pushed her off a low roof instead of saying he didn’t like her and thought she was abusive with her powers in front of a bunch of filming drones. He’d barely thought of her since it happened, but when she did cross his mind nowadays, that one video that had transplanted her screaming face on top of a foil-wrapped burrito always popped into his thoughts seconds later.

Your screw-ups changed how people saw you. Alden wasn’t going to waste sympathy on Hazel for the “bratrrito” meme, but Emban, Ryada and Bithe deserved better than being put on the spot like this days after their affixations. Emban had chosen an activity for them that should have allowed them to honor their responsibilities to the ordinary class without actually requiring any spells from them other than what Stuart could handle.

Nobody had gone into all of the details with Alden, but he’d caught the edges of enough conversations today to know that they were counting on material wealth and their knight uniforms to make their presence here the gift it was supposed to be. That pile of presents Stuart had sent ahead to their final destination was all really good stuff, and the uniforms enhanced their physical abilities. Their votary filled in the blanks. It should have been enough for a moving day celebration.

Nobody could have expected spontaneous combat theater.

Leeter-zis’s surprise might be okay.

Alden had his shield now, and what a shield it was. He wanted to do nothing but think about it, but he had a lot of koobas circling the caravan to watch. He had a job to do.

They were gathering overhead, casting shadows and shimmering in dark, iridescent colors. They really looked like blankets with mouths. Alden thought that was mildly creepy, but the kids, and plenty of grown-ups, were excited.

About the koobas. And about Alden, too.

The Avowed stood proudly at the front of their hauler, an elemental shield in one of his hands, guarding the wizard whose nimble fingers wove magic with an auriad. The brave knights all had their heads together, discussing strategy.

At least that was what Alden hoped they were conveying to their audience. In reality, the knights were probably clueless about what to do until they had the chance to see how the koobas responded to attacks, and given how Stuart kept glaring at Leeter-zis, he might very well be planning to obliterate the entire flock in a single cast to avoid this whole event.

It might all be okay if Leeter-zis’s creations will “die” to a physical blow, and if they come down here where we can reach them. As long as it’s not strictly a long distance spell-shooting game.

He didn’t want Emban to have to force herself to use her skill to save face, and he didn’t know if Bithe and Ryada could have done much with the koobas even if their skills weren’t agonizing to use right now.

She turned life to water, and he “mesmerized” and burned. It seemed likely the mesmerizing part was also life-specific. Unless Leeter-zis was twisted, the koobas should be objects, not mutated animals.

Looks like we’re about to find out.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“They’re coming!”

Alden prepared for the possibility that he might be about to suffer some humiliation so that the others wouldn’t.

If I get demolished by a toy we can all laugh it off as me being just an overly ambitious Ryeh-b’t, right?

He was glad he was already flushed from the heat. It meant nobody could see him getting any redder as he dramatically called out a challenge to the incoming enemy and raised his shield toward the sky.

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