Outside Influences

Bel woke up feeling stiff and sore all over. “But I’m still alive,” she croaked out defiantly.

Her nose wrinkled with disgust.

“Ugh, and my breath is terrible.”

I can’t believe it, I’m actually missing my tooth brush. The jerky that she’d had for dinner had gotten stuck in her teeth and now she was paying the price. She only had a single full waterskin, so she didn’t want to waste it just to wash out her mouth. Instead, she tried to prise a needle from a nearby cactus to use to pick between her teeth.

“Travelling sucks,” she groaned. She looked at one of her dangling head snakes. “You agree, right?”

The snake flicked its tongue out.

“Thanks.” She heaved a heavy sigh and focused on the snake. “I can’t just sit around all day. Gotta go find the Barrier. Then I’ll throw stones at it, or something.”

The snake flicked out its tongue again.

Bel nodded with confirmation, drank a bit of water, and set off, determined to make good progress before it got too hot. Wow, there’s actual wildlife in this part of the world, she realized. I’d better drink it all in while I’ve got the chance.

She admired the tiny flowers on the scrubby plants, observed the behaviors of insects as they scuttled about, wondered how in the world ant-people like Daran had come to be, and took a break to watch the antics of a few of birds who had built their nests into holes in a large cactus.

Bel was zoning out as she sat in the sand, watching the colorful creatures flit in and out of their homes, when they abruptly flew back inside and went quiet. Bel had just began to turn her head when she heard a heavy snapping sound; it reminded her of the rippling crack of an open tent flap whipping in the wind. A loud thump followed, announcing the arrival of something large.

Bel gawked. The creature was perhaps three or four times her height, but half of that was its overlong neck. Its body perched atop four graceful legs, of which the front two had a flap of skin hanging between, under-arm wings hanging like sheets left out to dry. The wings were hairless, but the neck had downy fuzz all along its length.

Bel’s attention was pulled to the creature’s head. Mounted on the end of the trunk-like neck, The creature had had a comically long, thick beak. It looked like someone had held it by the legs and spun it until all of the mass from its body had moved from the bottom to the top. Bel thought that it looked like nonsense; the oversized head supported a colorful red crest, and the beak was a bright yellow with streaks of brown.

She gawked. It looked at her and made a braying noise, like some kind of enormous bullfrog.

Bel would have laughed at the absurdity of it, but she recognized it from far too many dire warnings: this was the oft-mentioned and greatly feared spearhead.

Bel froze in confusion and fear. It hadn’t dropped silent death on her from above. In fact, it looked utterly incapable of graceful movement on the ground. Bel simply backed away from it, moving from the flat ground to the slope of the hill, confident that it wouldn’t be able catch her on the uneven terrain.

“You’re an ugly thing, aren’t you,” she taunted.

The spearhead looked at her, put its two front legs into the dirt, and vaulted forward.

The speed of the practiced motion sent Bel scrambling to dive behind a bush before the predator sailed over her head. It landed a dozen of Bel’s strides ahead of her, or just out of beak range for it.

Bel tried to glare at it, concentrating all of her free mana in the attack.

There was no effect; the pressure from its larger core easily repelled her feeble attempt, just as she’d been warned.

Oh, I am so twirled.

The spearhead calmly advanced, almost prancing over the ground as it came after her.

Bel ran down the hill, ducking as she heard it launch again. The spearhead landed ahead of her, and was now ready to chase her back up the slope.

“Are you just going to herd me back uphill?” She clicked her tongue. “How frustrating.”

Bel wrapped her hands around the pair of weapons on her waist. I’m not dinner – not if I can help it. Her glare hadn’t worked, but with liquify and a pair of sharp blades she was sure that she could do some damage. This thing didn’t even have claws, and it didn’t seem to be able to attack from the air, not unless it wanted to risk landing head first. If she could just dodge the beak and get inside of its range, she would have a chance.

Bel charged, her eyes focused on the beak. When she was perhaps ten strides away its head blurred forward. Bel rolled to the side, narrowly dodging the snapping mouth. She was on her feet again before–

Then she was airborn, the world spinning below her. Her mind had just enough time to register confusion before she slammed through a small bush and into the ground, kicking up a spray of sand from her impact. The air was blown out of her lungs and she was momentarily dazed. She struggled for breath as she desperately cast about for her weapons. She quickly grabbed Beth’s gift, but was forced to abandon her short sword as the spearhead casually sauntered over.

Bel scrambled backwards, knife held up defensively as she tried to process what had gone wrong. Had it kicked her? With those puny like wing-legs? The same ones that it used to vault into the air?

Actually, that makes perfect sense. What has everyone been saying? Run?

Bel turned and ran. Her ribs tightened with pain with every movement, her right arm felt tingles of pain and numbness, and her vision was maybe a little bit blurry, but she didn’t have time to think about any of that. Bel ran, and when the spearhead vaulted towards her she turned to the side and kept running.

She kept it up for a minute. Her legs burned, her body hurt, and she wanted to stop and throw up, but she kept at it. A vague thought had entered her mind that she needed a distraction, something chaotic and unexpected, and the best place to find that was in the valley on the other side of the foothills.

Was it a good plan? She didn’t have time to think about that. She only had enough concentration to keep turning towards the crest of the hill as she evaded the spearhead’s lazy attacks. It clearly wasn’t fully committing, happy instead to wear her down until she simply collapsed. After all, why should it bother putting in any effort? What could she do, outrun a creature who could fly?

Bel finally threw herself over the top of the hill with a grunt of effort. The spearhead paused at the top to survey the area, obviously in no rush. Bel took the opportunity to put a few more steps between herself and her pursuer, narrowly stumbling around the slightly thickening undergrowth.

She dodged around a tree and ran directly into an animal that had been hunched over the ground, munching on some undergrowth. It immediately reared up, revealing the muscled body of a kangaroo half again her height. Larger and less human than the half-man, half-kangaroo that she’d met previously, this was one had two claws on the tips of its hands and glared at her with murderous intent.

Bel hunkered down, hoping that it would just ignore her as she slipped past. It didn’t look like she would be that lucky though – the thick-tailed creature turned slowly to track her movement.

Then a blur shot past Bel’s shoulder. She reflexively yelped in fear and surprise as the spearhead caught the kangaroo around its neck. The sudden victim flailed in alarm, but the larger predator viciously slammed it into the ground in an act of casual violence that sent Bel scurrying for safety.

She reached a scrubby tree growing next to a rock and squeezed herself behind it, watching the spearhead with wide, terrified eyes. Her snakes were whipping around in a frenzy, just as aware of their near death as she was.

The kangaroo was large – and a far better meal than she’d make. Maybe the spearhead would just eat it and leave her alone?

Then a heavy thump announced the arrival of a second one of the terrifying flyers. It was followed by second thump. Is the kangaroo enough for three? How much do they eat?

Bel turned and ran, the downhill lending her momentum as she accelerated.

I’m okay dying while taking down a few of the Dark Ravager’s people, she thought, but I’m not okay becoming food for some giant flying lizard thing.

The casual way that the spearhead had slammed the kangaroo into the ground replayed in her head as she ran. Terror flowed through her arteries, hiding the pain from her injuries as she ran for her life. If she couldn’t get away from the spearheads then what would some cracked ribs matter anyway?

Bel grabbed onto trees as she passed, alternatively pushing and pulling on them to quickly change her direction and hopefully throw off pursuit.

What can I do? Where can I go? She frantically cast about for something, anything… maybe a hole? Could she bury herself under the dirt? Dive into a puddle and hold her breath until they went away?

She saw some movement a few hundred strides away from her and sprinted in that direction. Maybe she could find something better for them to eat?

She didn’t dare look behind her; she could imagine the breath of a spearhead on her neck, the snapping of their wings in the air as they lazily trailed her path. Bel pumped her arms as she gave everything she had to keep going for just another few strides, just a bit longer…

One of her legs gave out – because she stepped wrongly or because she’d hurt something she wasn’t sure. Her body rolled over the rocky soil, her dagger cutting and slicing through her skin as she flailed about. She came to a stop and looked up. To Bel’s surprised, she was gazing into the eyes of a young woman.

The dark-haired, dark-eyed person stared back with a look of distaste. “Oh, gross,” she gagged, “what’s this thing supposed to be?”

A second head entered Bel’s field of view, her lips skimmed back as she inspected Bel’s snakes. “It’s one of those Medusa things,” she declared.

A third head popped up, much like the other two, but with a small golden tiara on her head. “A gorgon, you mean,” she said with disgust.

“What should we do?” asked the first. “Eat it?” She raised a paw, and Bel belatedly realized that they had the heads of women, but the bodies of a small, four legged predator that she could have comfortably carried in one arm.

Cats. They were cat girls. Her wits returned to her slowly, but she remembered the warnings. If the spearheads were bad, then these were worse. She needed to flee. Bel desperately struggled to get to her feet, but her head was spinning and something was wrong with one of her legs.

The third girl smacked the first one’s paw away. “No, silly, it can speak.”

The second one grinned, revealing a mouth full of fangs. “That means riddles,” she squealed with delight.

“Riddles,” repeated the first with enthusiasm.

Bel pushed herself onto her knees.

Something thumped to her right. She turned slowly, dread filling her body with ice. One of the spearheads was still following her.

Another thump. No, not one. Two.

One more thump. Blood still trickled around the mouth of the final spearhead. It had finished the kangaroo and was hungry for more.

Bel looked up in the sky and realized that they had attracted an entire flock of the things.

“Oh, gross, do we need to ask these things questions too?”

“They don’t speak, stupid. Blast ’em.”

Bel looked down as the second cat-girl opened her toothy mouth. A bright beam of blinding light erupted from her open maw, slicing straight through the shoulder of one of the spearheads. It stumbled and collapse on the ground, blood rushing from the gaping wound.

The three monstrous women cackled with glee.

Bel took off running, heedless of her injured leg. She had to leave.

“Hey, come back! You need to answer some riddles!”

“Yes,” cried one of the others, “what do men carry at their waist that they use to poke into holes that they’ve poked before?”

Bel kept running. She saw a flash of light and heard another spearhead bellow. Then there was another flash of light and the beast was silent.

“Where does a general keep his armies in the winter?” a shrill voice cried. Bel didn’t slow.

From behind she heard a snap of wings. Then, a series of bright flashes lit the world around her with an eerie glow, like lightning from a dream. Bel didn’t dare turn.

“Three ox drivers were thirsty,” a distant voice called out. Bel was almost too far to understand what the cat girl was saying, but she kept going.

Another flash of light lit up her surroundings, but Bel hunched her shoulders and kept moving. At this point her gait was less a run than a hobble, but fear had seized control of her limbs and pushed them forward, one jerky step at a time. She moved until she found the shattered slabs dislodged by a rock slide. The darkness of the rocky tomb called to her, and she desperately shoved herself in between the slabs of cold, heavy stone.

Surrounded by darkness and the solid bones of a mountain she finally gained control of her racing heart. Bel could finally take stock of herself: she’d dropped everything. Both weapons. The pack with her food and other supplies. Her waterskin was still at her waist, but it had been torn open and was filled with only dust.

But she was alive.

For one more day at least, she was alive.