Gathering of the Chosen (17 page)

“Unlikely?” said Saia. “How 'unlikely'?
Are we talking 'the gods actually giving a damn about Ruwa'
unlikely or 'Tinkar appearing out of nowhere to save us from the
crustaceans' unlikely?”

Carmaz just patted Saia on the shoulder
and said, “Just do it. I promise you'll be safe. The creature
clearly wants Raya anyway, so it will probably give up chasing you
when it realizes it's been tricked.”

Without waiting for Saia to answer, Carmaz
ran back into the alleyway between the buildings and made his way
through the other alleys until he found himself watching the
creature stomping toward Raya from behind her. The creature didn't
seem to have noticed either Carmaz or Saia just yet, but then the
rock that Carmaz had given Saia from earlier flew through the air
and struck the creature in the side of the head.

But the creature didn't even look at Saia
as it walked. It continued stomping toward Raya with single-minded
obsession, as if it hadn't even felt the rock hit its head.

Plan B, then,
Carmaz thought.

He dashed out from the alley as fast as he
was able. The creature was upon Raya now and raised its swords
again. Raya looked too afraid to move. She just stared up at the
blades through the hair plastered to her head as though she were
facing an executioner about to behead her.

Desperate, Carmaz jumped the last few feet
and tackled Raya to the ground. The two rolled across the pavement
until they stopped and Carmaz found himself on top of Raya, way too
close for comfort.

But then Carmaz heard the sound of the
street cracking and looked up to see that the creature had brought
all four of its blades down on the street. The street was now
cracked and broken, which was an impressive feat, because Carmaz
had not seen any cracks or wear in the streets of World's End since
he got here. He had been under the assumption that the streets were
made of some kind of unbreakable stone, but if this thing could
crack the streets, then Carmaz was pretty much certain that there
was no way any of them could beat it in a fair fight.

Carmaz scrambled off Raya and hauled her
to her feet. She practically collapsed against him, shivering and
cowering. It seemed like the creature's attack on her had
traumatized her, making her even more useless than ever, though
Carmaz found that he oddly liked the way she clutched him so.

Then Saia ran up to them and said, “Sorry
the rock didn't work! I threw it as hard as I could, but—”

“Doesn't matter,” Carmaz cut him off.
“Just help me get Raya out of here. We can't beat the monster, but
I think we can outrun it if we try.”

Saia nodded and without another word
grabbed Raya's other arm. The two hauled her between them as fast
as they could, but it was slow-going. Raya could hardly stand on
her own and could walk even less well, perhaps only walking every
two or three steps. The rest of the time Carmaz and Saia had to
drag her and, while she was not a particularly big or heavy woman,
it still felt like dragging a large bag of rocks between them
anyway. That it was raining, thus making their clothes heavy and
obscuring their vision, only made everything worse.

Just when they were halfway to the alley
from which they had emerged, Carmaz heard a whistling in his ears
and the monster was in front of them. Raya screamed when she saw
it, while Carmaz and Saia looked up at it with pure fear. It raised
its swords again and then swung them as ferociously as a swamp
tiger swiping with its claws.

All three of them dropped to the street,
narrowly avoiding getting their heads cut off by the monster's
blades, which whistled by over head. Then Carmaz, seeing an
opening, stood up and punched the creature in the stomach as hard
as he could.

But it was like punching solid brick. As
soon as he hit its stomach, the pain in his hand exploded, causing
him to cry out and fall back down next to Raya and Saia. His hand
felt broken, though he had no way of healing it at the moment.

The monster grunted, as though amused by
Carmaz's pathetic attack, and raised its blades again. This time,
Carmaz was absolutely certain that it was not going to just kill
Raya, but him and Saia as well, but he wasn't going to let that
happen.

As fast as he could, Carmaz grabbed Raya
and then kicked Saia with his foot. The blow sent Saia rolling
across the wet street away from them with a cry of shock, while
Carmaz and Raya slid across the slick stone street underneath
them.

None of them slid or rolled very far, but
it was enough to put them out of the reach of the creature. Only
this time, the creature seemed to realize that they had escaped,
because it stopped itself from smashing its swords down on the
street and turned to face Carmaz and Raya, completely ignoring
Saia, who was now cowering on the street behind it.

Carmaz got to his feet, ignoring his
broken hand and using his good hand to haul Raya back up to her
feet. He tried to pull her along, to make her run away with him,
but she was so traumatized by the monster's attack that she just
stood there as frozen as a statue. Raya seemed to have lost all
will to live, which almost made Carmaz want to just leave her and
run.

But he didn't. He stood by her, pushing
her behind him, as the monster stomped toward them again. This
time, even Carmaz could tell that the monster was losing its
patience, as if this attack was taking far longer than it had
planned.

Then, out of nowhere, a burst of light
hurtled through the air and struck the monster in the side. The
monster let out a yelp, the first sound it had made so far, while a
familiar voice nearby shouted, “Hey, ugly, long time no see!”

Carmaz and Raya looked in the direction
from which the light had come. Braim stood in the alleyway from
which Carmaz and Saia had emerged, wand in hand, soaking wet from
the rain but clearly ready to fight. He tossed his wand from hand
to hand, his large, confident grin visible from under his hood even
through the thick rain.

“What, did you miss me?” said Braim.
“Because I didn't miss you, you know, since you tried to murder me
the last time we met and all.”

Much to Carmaz's surprise, the monster
turned away from him and Raya and began making its way toward
Braim. Almost as soon as it did so, however, Carmaz felt the wind
whistle by him and then heard the sound of metal tearing through
flesh and the monster actually screamed.

A second later, Carmaz saw an aquarian
man, with a shark-like head, standing to the right of the monster.
The aquarian man—who Carmaz had never seen before—carried a sword
of his own, but it was a strange one, resembling the fin of a shark
more than anything, though it glowed with energy, which meant that
it was probably not an ordinary sword.

The monster staggered forward, strange
gold blood leaking out of a wound on its side where the aquarian's
sword had cut through its skin. The gold blood melted through the
stone underfoot, hissing and sending steam into the air.

As for the aquarian, he stood up and
turned around, holding his blade in both hands. The monster also
turned to face its assailant, making growling noises as it did so,
but it didn't even get another two steps before Carmaz saw motion
out of the corner of his eye. Something small landed on the
monster's back and stabbed it with two short swords.

Again, the monster cried out in pain, only
this time it tried reaching for whatever had landed on its back.
The small thing, however, jumped off before the monster's four arms
could reach it, and landed next to Carmaz and Raya.

Now Carmaz saw that the 'thing' was a
person, a very short, middle-aged woman, who carried twin short
swords that glowed like the aquarian's sword. She wore a tunic
similar to theirs, except gray. She stood up to her full—albeit not
very considerable—height and looked up at Carmaz and Raya with a
concerned, almost motherly look on her face.

“How are you two, my dears?” asked the
woman, as if she had not just stabbed a strange shadow beast in the
back with her two swords. “Did that monster hurt you at all?”

Carmaz and Raya—both utterly speechless at
this sudden turn of events—shook their heads in response.

“Oh, how wonderful,” said the woman with a
kind smile. “I was worried that I'd have to tear that thing apart
with my swords if it hurt a handsome man and beautiful woman like
you two. Though that thing is a lot tougher than I thought.”

The woman was right. The monster, despite
now having two small but rapidly bleeding holes in its back to go
along with the sword cut in its gut, whirled around to face them
again. It now looked finished with this entire situation, but it
still stepped toward them again anyway, as if it was not yet ready
to give up.

Not that it got very far before a chunk of
the street rose up in front of its feet. The creature tripped over
the protruding bit of street and fell flat on its face, causing
more of that strange gold blood to leak from its wounds and melt
the street beneath it.

A sudden laugh caused Carmaz to look to
the right. He saw yet another godling—this one a young man who
didn't look much older than Raya, perhaps even younger due to his
baby fat—pointing a wand at the monster, clearly trying (and
failing) to hold in his laughter. He waved at them with a large,
rather mischievous grin on his face, as if he was sharing a great
joke with them.

“Hey, wasn't that funny?” the young guy
shouted. “First he tried to kill you, but then he tripped and fell
over himself. All thanks to little old me.”

“This is not the time for joking, young
man,” the aquarian swordsman shouted over the rain, the irritation
in his voice obvious. “This is the time to kill this monster before
it can kill any of us.”

The young man looked offended by the
aquarian's admonishment, but before he could respond, the monster
rose back to its feet. Only this time, Carmaz noticed that it
struggled to rise, no doubt due to the pain caused by the immense
amount of blood it had lost already. That it could still stand at
all was an impressive feat, though Carmaz doubted it would be
standing up much longer.

“Let's stop playing around, guys,” Braim
shouted, causing the three newcomers to look in his direction.
“Let's finish this off so we can get the Tournament started
already.”

“At least someone around here is taking
the threat seriously,” said the aquarian swordsman loud enough for
the young mage to hear him, who only scowled in response.

Then Braim fired another burst of light
from his wand tip, while the young mage waved his own wand and
caused two stone chains to rise up from the street and wrap around
the monster's waist. The light blast struck the monster in the
back, right where the motherly woman from before had stabbed it,
causing the monster to howl in pain again.

Then the aquarian swordsman and the
motherly woman jumped toward it with their blades above their
heads. The monster struggled to escape the stone chains holding it
down, but the blood loss must have weakened it considerably,
because the chains didn't even budge under the stress it was no
doubt putting on them.

But just as the swordsman and the woman
came within stabbing reach of the monster, it melted into a puddle
of shadow, leaving the stone chains still standing where it had
been moments before. The swordsman and the woman landed on top of
the stone chains and then looked around rapidly, as if trying to
find the monster.

Carmaz also looked around while Raya
clutched him as if she was afraid that he, too, would melt into
shadow like the monster. The rain was letting up now, making it
easier to see the street around them, but Carmaz saw no sign of the
monster anywhere, save for the melted parts of the street where its
blood had been.

Before Carmaz knew it, all four of their
saviors—Braim, the young mage, the aquarian swordsman, and the
motherly woman—were gathered around them. Saia, too, was with them,
but he looked rather intimidated by all of the godlings and seemed
hardly able to speak in their presence.

“You two okay?” said Braim. “How about
Raya? Is she all right?”

Carmaz looked at the quivering Raya at his
side. He didn't see any wounds on her, so he nodded and said, “I
think so. She just got scared is all.”

Then Carmaz's hand—the one he had used to
punch the monster—flared with pain, causing him to grunt. But the
motherly woman then touched his painful hand with one of her swords
and the pain vanished instantly.

“There you go, dear,” said the woman.
“Just a tiny bit of panamancy to make your hand all better.”

“Uh, thank you, er …” Carmaz trailed off
uncertainly, because he did not know her name.

“Malya,” the woman said as she sheathed
her short swords. “I'm a godling just like you. I'm from Friana and
I am also in the Avian Goddess Bracket, in case you were
interested.”

“My name is Tashir,” said the aquarian
swordsman, who unlike Malya kept his sword unsheathed. “Spider
Goddess Bracket. I come from the country of East Yudra in the
Undersea. Graduate of the Undersea Institute.”

“And I'm Yoji,” the young mage said. He
puffed out his chest. “Student from the Itrijan School of Magic.
Graduated top of my class, since I'm a child prodigy. Also in the
Hollech Bracket.”

“I see,” said Carmaz. “But how did you
four find us?
Why
did you even come search for us?”

“Because you three were gone for too long
and Alira was getting impatient,” Braim said. “Said that the start
of the Tournament is going to have to be put off until tomorrow
thanks to Raya storming off like that. As for how we found you,
Yoji here knows some topomancy, so it was easy to locate you guys
that way.”

“It was really hard, though,” said Yoji.
“It was like you guys just disappeared off the face of the earth.
And when we did locate you, I thought it was a fluke, but I guess
I'm just that awesome.”