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I screwed up. We tracked the pack of Grizzlies to their den on the northern bank of a small lake, two and a half days walk from Rozenburg. Luster grizzlies were territorial and wouldn’t let any strangers inside their hunting grounds. But I forgot the season, and I never checked if there was another pack nesting nearby.
To preserve the health of the breeding pool, Luster grizzlies mated between packs. Once a year, they would stop feeding for a week and congregate for an extended mating session. We thought we were lucky, and our prey was lethargic from gorging on a successful hunt. Unfortunately for us, they were on the back end of a mating session, and the pack they finished mingling with was nesting for the night inside the tree line.
It was my job as the hunter to track the grizzlies to their nest and pick a spot to set up our ambush. But I was distracted by that damn tagalong. It was our first job in this country, and we were breaking norms by taking a job ranked this high. But our second in charge, Suzanne, decided to take this quest, the quest the suicidal mage was trying to convince the Guild clerk to let him do solo.
A track and exterminate mission was fine for our group, but Suzanne decided that we should have him tag along. Suzanne had a soft spot for strays. I wouldn’t be here if she didn’t. But I didn’t think we should be dragging some noble family's 14-year-old runaway with us.
His magic cloak looked like it cost more than our party earned in rewards for our last 5 jobs combined. Then there was his staff. It was clearly the most expensive mage staff I had ever seen.
I overheard our healer and our mage discussing it during our trip. They had no doubts about its power, thinking it probably cost enough for a family to live comfortably for 30 years. Even I, who had no mana, would feel a little nauseous when he waved it past my face.
Now here we are, flanked by a pack of Grizzlies that I was supposed to see, and the pack we already attacked from range, charging at us from a distance. One-on-one, our fighters can take Lusters down, with the odd support spell from our back line. But that's not how this fight was going. If we retreat, half of us would get away, the faster ones at least.
But when we started our retreat, that child froze; scared, or he was here to die. I don’t doubt he was planning on dying out in the snow on this quest or the next. But Suzanne decided he was buying time, and joined him so as to spare the rest of our party. Timothy wasn’t going to leave his lover, so our mage stayed; our cleric Patrice was too pious to be the only survivor, so he stayed too. Then there was our other fighter, Mimir, who was the slowest in our party. He would not have made it anyway, so he was intending on doing the brave idiot thing from the start.
If Luster grizzlies were even just a tiny bit better at pack tactics, we would have died from an ambush. But the group that attacked from the side was only seven, maybe eight, who charged in individually. We fought them off with only minor injuries and mana usage. But that didn’t matter. The larger group was a minute away. Far too many and far too close together.
I was out of arrows now; a hunter with no arrows was as bad as a mage with no mana. Suzanne wanted me to leave and to take that boy with me. He was still standing there, still hadn’t moved since the grizzlies came out of the trees. He’s been watching Suzanne risk her life to keep them away from him. Watched as Timothy got hurt protecting Suzanne, as Patrice was injured while healing Timothy.
He’s just watching us die in slow motion. It’s all his fault; he’s no different than those damn nobles who left my village to die, watching monsters come out of the forest day after day, doing nothing. I reached for an arrow to put one in his eye, for revenge, before my party died here. But I was already out.
I didn’t realize I was squeezing my fist so tightly that the nails cut into my palm, drawing blood. Suzanne yelled again, “Sara! Take him and run. We’ll cover for you kids!”
I don’t want to. I didn’t want another mother to die pushing me out the door. This is his fault, it’s all his fault. This was his quest. We’re only here because of him. If he wasn’t distracting me, I would have seen the other grizzlies. If he hadn’t stood still, Suzanne would have run, and Timothy, and Patrice, and Mimir, and me. We’re dying because some spoiled rich kid wanted to play “Adventurer.” He should die, not us.
“GO!”
“Sara, run!”
“Rudeus, run!”
“We’ll hold them!” They were all shouting the same thing.
Why? It’s his fault you’re going to die. Why do you want him to survive? I don’t want to lose a family again. Mimir shoved me from behind towards Rudeus. They decided to save him, I knew they would hate me if I left him. It’s for them, not me. I tried to grab his arm, but I missed. The world was obscured by a wavy filter, my eyes were watering.
It was too late; I took too long to drag him away. The grizzlies were here. That's when Rudeus turned, looking at the party; taking their battle stances, preparing for “Counter Arrow’s” final fight.
He was only 2 steps from me, but when he spoke, it sounded like he was a hundred feet away. “Thank you, I remember now.”
He turned his back on the party, facing the stampeding grizzlies. He was speaking in a language I couldn’t understand, “fly you fools.” He held his staff in his left hand like he’d been a mage for a hundred years, slamming it down into the snow.
The instant it touched the snow, it felt like the whole world responded. I felt myself falling, for just an instant, coming to a jarring halt. An enormous ring of earth disappeared below our party, about five feet deep. Rudeus was still standing on the edge. I was eye-level with his feet. I heard that language again, “you shall not pass.”
With his staff gripped tight in his left hand, he lifted his right hand; open and palm up. As it did, dozens of stone pillars rose, rimming the edge of the pit. Then, as he closed his fingers, the pillars followed suit, twisting clockwise and encasing the pit with a dome of interlocking stone. There were hundreds of gaps between them, far too small for a luster grizzly to fit through. But more than enough space for us to watch a boy ripped to shreds.
If we were all going to die, then I had planned on watching him fall first. But the cage he built was huge and sturdy, and I didn’t think there was a monster on this continent that could break it. But he made it around us, leaving himself outside. I didn’t know if there was a size limit, or if he mis-aimed, or if he simply wished to remain outside with the danger.
Strangely, I wasn’t angry anymore, I wasn’t scared either, I just watched as his tiny hand lifted the staff that was too big for him over his head. Then, like I’ve seen Timothy do a thousand times before, he lit a flame in the air about a foot above his head. Slowly growing from a faintly glowing pea to the size of a man's head.
But this one didn't stop; it grew and grew. Larger and larger, as big as a dog, a horse, a carriage. It kept growing until I had no more references to judge its size by. And with the ease of playing catch, he tossed it. Even before it detonated, the flame engulfed the whole pack. I don’t know how loud it was, but no one in the cage could hear anything but a painful ringing.
The explosion didn't spread out, burning Rudeus and my party; he seemed to force it up, into the sky. The flame rose above the trees. It didn’t stop rising until it could no longer hold its shape, billowing out at its peak. The smoke spreading out in all directions before being pulled back down and into the pillar of fire. As if there was a fresh snowfall, ash drifted down, blanketing the spectators and the bones that should have been corpses.