Todd doesn’t hesitate, he fumbles. His hand goes into his pocket and he pulls out the wrong bottle. He goes to switch it out for the right container, but he runs out of time. The beasts are here.

  “Gosh dang it.”

  The five cultivators rush to form a united front against the oncoming beasts. Before the two groups can meet, Candra uses her skill and bounds out to surprise attack one of the minks on the edges. At the last minute, the animal moves its head slightly. It takes a blow on the shoulder, avoiding a lethal strike.

  Candra slings backwards into line with a cuss.

  Nine minks spill into the clearing, their weighty bodies long and sinuous. Their feathers rise and spread, and their jaws open wide.

  “Randall!” Joe shouts.

  Todd’s friend flinches at the voice, and he reacts too slow to snatch hold of the perfect moment. Delayed by a heartbeat, he shoves one hand forward and a cone of flame bursts into the back line of the beasts.

  Three of the creatures are caught out and burn. The rest of them were too quick, they already leap and slam into raised shields.

  Todd reacts with barely a thought in his head. He fires his skill into the neck of a mink that is headed for his legs. Skin peels back and the beast lurches to a halt. It’s an opening that Todd leans forward to take, but then another mink leapfrogs over its compatriot and snaps at his left arm. Time feels like it slows down. In desperation, Todd swings sideways with his [mercury rod] lengthened ixwa. He doesn’t manage to get the blade in position, instead he collides the handle into the jaw of the beast and nudges it sideways. It rams into his chest crooked and Todd is thrown back. His feet flicker as he stumbles. He stays upright.

  The mink who hit him gnashes and thrashes. Todd shoves at it with his shin guard to make distance. Its claw scrapes at him and he yanks the leg back.

  A calm chill threads through Todd’s mind. He’s out of position, and his friends are going to get swarmed. This time he doesn’t jab wildly at the beast, he measures his strike. Cold adrenaline hyper-focuses him. For the first time he feels, really feels, the effect of his seventeen intelligence. In the milliseconds of struggle it helps him process faster; it helps him shepherd his dexterity, to place his limbs more accordant to his wishes, to react to changing conditions faster.

  He picks the right instant. His boot lashes out and smashes the beast in the nose. Blood spurts from it. Todd readies his stance, sets his feet, and lunges. He drives his spear into the beast’s neck at an angle. There is a subtle thump of pressure inside the creature’s circulatory system and veins burst with a gout of scarlet.

  Enraged and bleeding out, the mink tries to bite him in retaliation. He sees the teeth coming. His body isn’t fast enough. The beast clamps down on his arm and Todd grimaces in pain.

  But he doesn’t need to fear. Over the course of the last day, Todd had taken the skin of a horned pangolin and fashioned a shoddy replacement for his broken arm-guard. Little more than a pinned wrap studded with hard scales, the defense nevertheless protects him from this one injury.

  He shakes the dying beast off his arm, stabbing it again closer to the chin. The armored wrap slips off of him, coming completely untucked. Frustrated, Todd boots the faltering body out of the way and prepares another [water spear]. He unleashes it on the gap in the line and tears a ragged wound along the face of a beast. Then he rushes forward to fill his place.

  The sole of his right boot is coming loose, damaged from abuse. The toe flops as he goes.

  A monster comes at his thighs. Todd jabs at the open mouth and the point of his spear skitters off of the bone of its cheek. A strip of muscle is rent out and the beast recoils. He follows up with a thrust towards its body. The creature throws itself to the side.

  Todd scrapes at the cosmic energy inside himself, spraying the beast in the ribs and pummeling it into a roll. His first instinct is to lunge after it, but he knows he’ll abandon his place in the formation. Instead, he turns to the side and stabs his spear at the beast attacking Sue Ann. His weapon cuts into its rump. The beast squeals and leaps back.

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  Sue Ann and Randall are stuck performing overhead chops. Shoulder to shoulder with the others, they can’t swing sideways without endangering the others. It makes their actions predictable, and the beasts easily avoid the strikes. Todd does what he can to even out the odds. His spear punches out in either direction, closing off angles of attack. He forces them to pay to get close to his friends.

  A mink goes for Randall’s legs while his sword is out of position. Todd’s spear is there in its face to dissuade it. Sue Ann is leapt upon, and a mink hangs off the rim of her shield, dragging her arm down. It’s back legs kick at her legs and tear at her thighs.

  Todd pierces its armpit and throws it off her with a grunt of effort and a burst of cosmic energy.

  But soon the mink he’d blasted gets back up on its feet and rushes him. He fends it off with a warding jab, but it twists around his spear-point. It rushes into close range and he slips the blade into its back half in a shallow wound. But that isn’t enough to stop it, the creature scrabbles up his front, putting small tears in his padded armor. Then it goes for his face. Todd doesn’t have time to think, he just reacts. He leans back, then slams his head forwards into the mink’s nose.

  His helmet clonks. The inner padding saves him from a concussion. The beast rebounds.

  As it falls back, Todd stabs it near the liver and shoves. Blood gushes. The beast’s spine contorts as it curls up on itself. Suddenly, it snaps out again, going for Todd’s legs.

  Todd yelps, stomps on the back of its head, and stabs it in the neck from above.

  During this same time, Joe and Candra have been busy. Bit by bit, they dismantle their own opponents, weakening them for a final, decisive strike. Joe shatters all the teeth in one mink’s mouth. Then he bashes it in the skull with a sickening crack. Candra tucks low with her shield, defending her body as she lashes her mink. It coughs up blood from internal hemorrhaging.

  All in all, the fight is going as well as can be expected. Better than expected. Todd actually feels like he’s carrying his own weight for once. He pierces the minks body twice more to make sure that it’s dead, then he focuses back on the beast that’s fighting Randall.

  The stunned beasts that had been hit by [igneous bouquet] get their bearings again and move to flank the group. But the numbers have already evened out. Todd cycles the cosmic energy within himself. It’s just a matter of time before they win.

  At least, that’s what he thinks to himself.

  That thought is shattered by a roar that comes out of the woods. The overwhelming bloodlust and fury that comes from that sound shakes Todd down to the marrow.

  The entire fight is frozen in that moment. The minks flinch back too. They hesitate and then break off, their surviving members running into the forest.

  Todd’s heart beats furiously. His breath hitches.

  “Okay, what is that?” Joe asks aloud.

  “Maybe we should get out of here –” Candra begins.

  But there’s a crash. Thorned branches snap as a great beast barges through them and snatches a fleeing mink from the ground. Its curved beak shuts, scissoring into the flesh of the mink and cutting it wide open. It slams down the smaller creature with a massive clawed talon, pecks it once, and then bites its throat out.

  Todd’s friends shift their feet, backing up. Unsure what to do, afraid to catch its attention, they don’t make a sound.

  Todd however, he pulls out a bottle and puts the energy replenishing pill into his mouth. It burns like cold fire on his tongue. He tries to swallow it silently, but it goes down with the tiniest of gulps.

  Satisfied with the death of its prey, the great beast’s head turns towards them.

  “Shit,” Candra mutters.

  The beast is as tall as Joe’s shoulders. Its eagle-like head rises higher. It’s broad. A lion’s body measures a hundred centimeters across. Brown feathers make up a mane that trails along its back, and its fur is tan. Its back legs have huge paws, and its front limbs have four toed bird’s feet.

  Todd shivers. It’s a griffon without wings.

  The five cultivators huddle together, weapons out. The beast pads towards them casually, its head bobbing to the side. A cold curiosity flashes in it. It’s mouth opens slightly and its feathered tail swishes.

  “How are we doing this, y’all?” Joe asks, his voice cracking.

  “I don’t think we can run,” Todd says.

  “Randall blasts it,” Candra declares.

  “What?” Randall gulps.

  Candra shoves him forwards. “Go on.”

  Broken twigs and thorns hang in the beast’s fur. It stalks into the clearing warily. It gathers tension in its back legs in preparation to leap.

  A tiny little tingle whispers in Todd’s mind. “Dodge!” he shouts.

  He shoves Sue Ann at his left, using the impulse to throw himself into a roll to the side. The others react to his voice immediately, hurling themselves to safety – all except for Randall.

  Randall stands rooted in place as the beast leaps towards him with claws outreached. Tunnel-visioned, the young man throws out his hands and unleashes his skill. A curling ball of flame engulfs the incoming griffon mid jump.

  It screeches in annoyance, covering its face ineffectually with its talons. Its eyes shut against the heat and its feathers singe. But its great bulk doesn’t stop. It rams into Randall and rolls. Randall’s body slams down into the dirt like a door being shut. His head bounces hard off of the soft earth. His ribs crack as the griffon bounces off him.

  Executing a perfect roll, the beast hops back to its feet. Its eyes peel back open. Its burnt hair still smolders. Rage seethes in its gaze.

  “Randall!” Todd shouts. He steps forward and regrets it immediately.

  Todd’s friend groans on the ground. His helmet is cracked and his body is crushed. The griffon steps between Todd and Randall and its mouth opens in a terrifying scream.