Wild Gourmet: Chapter 24

Brand watched the drake go. It was the only thing he could do, even with Neil injured and the rest of the town in unknown condition and locations. If the drake circled back, he had to be ready.

The creature had been in no particular hurry on the way in, it turned out. As fast as it had moved, it was now really moving, and there was no comparison. It took a handful of seconds for it to clear the wall. The daggers were still in it, and the debuff was still at least theoretically active, which made what it was doing that much more impressive. When his stomach finally lurched in an odd way and the drake shot off like an arrow from a bow, he knew it had shaken off the effect entirely.

It broke the debuff.

Every monster he had used the crippling throw on before this had died while the skill was still running. On some level, he had simply assumed the debuff was locked in place until its target stopped moving permanently. Now he knew different. If he was in a tough fight, he’d have to choose between stacking the crippling effect or saving something in reserve to refresh it. It was a lesson he had learned cheap, while his enemy was running instead of while it was still actively fighting him.

He wasn’t sure yet exactly how much it would matter, though he was sure it would matter at least some. The runners had been dispatched too quickly for the question to come up, and the ashwolf was killed before the skill expired. But there would be a fight someday, probably soon, that would drag on long enough for the debuff to wear off at the worst possible moment. He needed to be thinking about that before it happened, not during the danger.

The drake was a speck on the horizon only a minute later. He watched it until it was gone entirely, then just a few more seconds to make sure. After that, there was nothing left for him to do but hope it was really and truly gone.

Wasting no more time, he turned and ran to Neil. The boy was face down in the dirt, arms at his sides. Brand dropped to a knee beside him and put a hand on his back. He was breathing, at least, even if he was just as banged up along his back as his front had seemed.

“Neil.” Brand shook him a little. “Are you conscious?”

“I’m fine.” The voice was muffled by the ground. “It just hurts.”

“Where?”

“Everywhere.” A pause. “I got hit as soon as I stood up to it. It was on the ground before you came here. It shot me before I could even stab it and then took off again.”

Brand tried to picture it. In the moment after the attack, the town would have been chaos. Not only did Neil run into danger by himself and not only did he get shot for his efforts, he reacted to that bad outcome by standing up and trying to limp back into the fight. Another shot would have certainly killed him, and he didn’t give up.

He’s sixteen years old and he got up after that. Well done, Neil.

“Can you stand?”

“Give me a few minutes.” Neil turned his head to one side, getting his face out of the dirt. His eyes were clear, if stuck in something of a permanent wince. “My healing needs to catch up. I’ll be fine once it does. Go check on everyone else.”

Brand looked up. From where he was kneeling, he could see most of the open ground in the center of the settlement. There were no new craters beyond the one the drake had blown out beside Neil and the ruined cellar door. The walls of every building he could see were intact, or at least not more damaged than they had been. Whatever damage had been done seemed confined to either Neil or the area Brand and the drake had fought.

He allowed himself to hope that Moira had gotten everyone below ground in time, or else that anyone who couldn’t get there had time to hide. He thought it was probably both. He stood and crossed the square in a run, reaching the remains of the cellar door almost immediately. There wasn’t much left of it, really. Just a frame, hinges, and scattered splinters from where the bolt had proved the heavy wood wasn’t so heavy after all.

“Is everyone all right down there?” He yelled. “Any injuries?”

“I think we’re fine. Give us a moment.”

He heard movement and muttering below before Moira appeared at the bottom of the staircase.

“What happened to the drake?”

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“It fled.” Brand said. “For now, at least. I’m not sure how long it will be gone.”

“All right then. We’re coming up.”

Moira came up first, then the others. Brand counted faces. Remm and Pare, Darvon, and Shemi were all accounted for. Shou and Luisa were missing, and Brand continued hoping they had taken cover somewhere. Four faces he didn’t recognize at all were among the group. They were the new arrivals Moira had mentioned that morning, he guessed.

Each of them stopped and verified the drake was gone for themselves as they exited into the light. Everyone was unhurt, it seemed, if shaken up.

“We just made it.” Moira turned to Brand. “We were all together getting ready to go pick up your piles of monsters, and we still barely made it. I don’t even know how, considering how fast that thing was moving.”