Vetica

  The moments leading up to the bear leaders’ defeat.

  Each bear was as powerful as the last. The overgrowth power up brought on by King Scalea’s ability was helping the scalers keep up, but that alone wasn’t enough to overcome the bear’s superior numbers.

  Vetica wanted to check on Charlie’s fight, but turning her attention away from the battle at hand would be too dangerous. One mistake, one moment of weakness, and it could cost her and the others their lives. She believed one thing for certain, though. This fight was different. Simply defeating the leader of these creatures wouldn’t be enough to win the battle. The boss was certainly a threat, and if it was allowed to join the battle, things might go poorly for them. But Vetica could tell by the ferocious manner in which the bears fought and the rabid looks in their eyes. These beasts would fight until the bitter end, with or without their leader.

  To achieve victory here, every single one of the bears had to be eliminated. Besides, that was what the contract had called for, wasn’t it? Aside from sparing Merlin’s life back in Sirra, Vetica had never failed a contract. It was time to get back on track.

  She had to make sure they won.

  Vetica turned her attention fully back to the battle at hand. She kicked off one of the bears, its thick, knotted fur nearly wrapped around her foot. Like a pebble thrown through the air, she soared, scanning the battlefield for her next target.

  “Where next? How can I be most useful? How can I help us win?” she thought to herself.

  There. An opening in their line.

  No, Bonehead was already moving to cover it. He could handle that.

  To the right?

  Two scalers struggled against one bear. Even two on one, the bear had the upper hand. Should she—

  King Scalea leapt into the fray, roaring an order for the other scalers to help elsewhere. He would take it from there. At least, that’s what she gathered.

  Vetica grunted in frustration, slicing the leg of a bear as she passed. It fell as its leg gave way, and one of the komodons leapt upon it. She turned to her left and her eyes shot open.

  Merlin, to her surprise, had been a genuine asset to the battle. He lobbed hexes all around the battlefield, obscuring the vision of the bears and creating openings for the scalers to strike. He’d even created opportunities for strategic retreats, allowing the scalers to disappear through hexes to catch their breath. Sometimes they even ambushed bears that followed them through the hex. What the conman lacked in power, he was making up for in strategic thinking and battlefield support. If she knew he wouldn’t get a big head about it, she might even offer him praise.

  But right now, she had to clean up Merlin’s mess.

  While their resident fake magician was busy scattering hexes to create as much chaos around the battlefield as possible, he’d neglected to notice the bears were starting to get a little too frustrated with his antics. One, in particular, had finally figured out Merlin was the one responsible. Maybe his hexes had created one too many close calls for the bear, or maybe it was just in the mood for human meat instead of scaler. Either way, it was now charging directly at Merlin.

  Worst of all, Merlin had inadvertently created a blind spot of his own. A lingering large hex just to his left obscured his presence. Vetica wasn’t sure if that had been its intended purpose, or if it was a leftover from some other fight, but either way, it was going to cost Merlin his life if she wasn’t quick.

  She maneuvered her body midair, kicking off the ground and then off a bear to redirect herself to intervene.

  Merlin would certainly hear the bear’s battle growl before long, or the massive stomp that emanated from paws that could cleave a man, or a Merlin, in this case, in two. But Merlin was inexperienced in battle. He’d proven he could think strategically, but intelligence wasn’t enough. You learned to fight through experience. You learned by making mistakes. Her father had drilled combat into her at an early age.

  The strongest fights in the world were people who got lucky enough to survive their own inexperience or had skillful masters watching over them. People who could dampen the effects and lessen the consequences of an oversight during war. Even then, prodigies die. Legends sometimes end a bit too soon. She doubted Merlin was a prodigy, or even a legend in the making. But he was a friend, as reluctant as she was to admit it.

  She flew toward him, moving as fast as she could. She kicked off bears as she went. Some were alive, others corpses. She delivered skillful cuts when she saw openings, just small enough to aid the scalers they were fighting without ruining her own momentum.

  Merlin was only ten feet away now. He still cast hexes almost at random, altering their size and color to further confuse the bears. He was in the middle of an incantation when he finally realized he was in danger.

  “Hazel Hex—” He paused, turning just as the large, terrifying head of a bear poked through the hex to his left. He reeled back, his body immediately opting for its preferred choice when presented with the choice of fight or flight.

  “Oh, goodness!” Merlin said as he turned to run. But as fast and prone to fleeing as Merlin was, even a man like him couldn’t outrun a sin bear.

  Vetica gripped her dagger tight. For all the running he’d done in his life, be it from towns he’d scammed or the bedrooms of jilted lovers, she really expected more from him. She paused at that as her dagger arced forward. Merlin? Lovers? She smirked. Yeah right. Where did that thought even come from?

  He was almost certainly a virgin.

  The bear roared. Vetica’s body moved like a finely honed weapon. She’d made it just in time.

  Merlin noticed her shoot past, her blade curving toward the bear’s jaw.

  “Vetica?” he called out as her blade flashed forward.

  The dagger went directly through the roaring creature’s jaw, severing its head in half through the center.

  She didn’t have time to check on Merlin. She had to keep moving and ensure the scalers were safe. If something happened to them, Charlie would be upset.

  “Thank you!” Merlin called out through cupped hands as she soared away. “I’ll buy you a drink sometime!” Merlin said. He looked down at the top half of the bear's head that landed beside him. “Yuck!”

  Vetica rolled her eyes. There wasn’t any time to slow down. She could feel her dagger, no, her hex radiating energy. It felt like something inside of it was building. But there wasn’t any time to worry about it. Every second that passed was another second where one of her allies could fall. She had to cut down as many of their enemies as she could.

  Next target.

  Blood splattered as she turned the mighty arm of a bear into a stump.

  Next target.

  A scorpion tail fell severed to the earth, it wriggled around uselessly as if it could reconnect itself.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Next target.

  Next target.

  Next target!

  She cut them, one after the other. With her help, the tide of battle was turning. The bear’s numbers were dwindling. Even so, it wasn’t enough. The scalers were still fighting ferociously, but they were receiving as many injuries as they were giving. Though this temporary power boost was helping them heal at freakishly fast rates, it was new, and King Scalea had barely developed it. They didn’t know its limits, and at any moment, it could give out and the fight could be lost.

  She had to keep going.

  Another.

  Another.

  She had to settle for injuries instead of casualties. Maiming a bear just enough to swing the fight in favor of its scaler opponent. She weakened them. She created openings.

  Just like Merlin.

  She sucked her teeth. That thought really pissed her off. But the building urge inside of her was becoming a more pressing concern by the second. A building urge to kill. She wasn’t satisfied with the injuries she was leaving in her wake.

  She wanted blood.

  She wanted carnage.

  She wanted to do more than maim. She wanted to decapitate. Eviscerate. Eradicate.

  She wanted to kill.

  Her eyes widened. A void of hazy darkness surrounded her dagger, a blackness. It felt as if the hex was spreading like a sickness. Like a plague overwhelming her. Spreading, coursing through her bloodstream and body. It was overwhelming. Her body felt tight and heavy, and her movements slowed.

  “What is this…feeling?” This building sensation? Something inside of her was on the verge of exploding. She saw a new target staring her down. A bear with an old scar down the center of its right eye. It was strong. She could tell just by looking at it. She could sense it. It had pinned down one of the komodon scalers.

  It had pinned down Bonehead.

  She cocked her head. Bonehead? His defenses surpassed those of any other scaler, King Scalea included. It shouldn’t be possible for the bear to overwhelm his bone exoskeleton. She noticed behind Bonehead there were two other komodons nearby. They were laying defeated on their sides. They weren’t dead, but they were dangerously close to it. Their wounds were already healing, but if the bear continued its assault, it would certainly finish them off.

  It almost appeared Bonehead had intervened and taken a hit not meant for him. If he had acted too quickly, it may have given the bear a rare opportunity to get past the scaler’s defenses.

  No. That didn’t make sense. Vetica squinted, and then she noticed it. The crack running along Bonehead’s side. It hit her then. What was going on. The overgrowth ability was slowing down. The changes were slowly reverting. It hadn’t been that his defenses had failed. King Scalea’s magic potential was reaching its limits.

  She needed to help, and she needed to do it quickly. Bonehead was too valuable an asset, and too sweet a scaler to lose like this.

  As soon as she focused her attention on killing the bear, the hex relaxed, and she felt her body return to normal. Her disjointed movements became fluid once more, and it felt like she was in familiar territory again. If anything, she felt quicker and more powerful than before.

  The bear noticed her hateful gaze and growled a challenge toward her. It was an ugly, pitiful, disgusting growl. She wanted to make sure she never heard anything as terrible as that again. She flexed her legs, ready to sprint toward it when her hex shifted.

  Vetica turned to look down at her weapon.

  She always fought with a dagger. It was what she’d been trained to fight with since childhood. But now, the dark aura around it had extended, making her dagger appear more like a short sword. The weight was still familiar, if not unchanged, and the ominous aura that extended into the point of the sword was made purely of magic. She could sense it. The tip of this sword was the essence of death itself.

  The essence of death.

  She heard an ability in her head. She nodded and shot forward.

  “Void Assassination,” escaped her lips on its own.

  One moment she’d been sprinting toward the bear. The next, she was standing completely still behind it. She had the memory of moving. The memory of severing. Her arm felt as if she had swung it, and her legs ached from a sudden burst of movement. Her body was tense, and her muscles screamed. But the movement had been so fast, her mind had scarcely processed it.

  One moment she’d been charging her foe, and the next its head was crashing into the ground behind her. The body wasn’t far behind. It crashed into the dirt with a loud thud.

  Bonehead offered her a thankful look, and then painfully crawled to check on the other injured scalers.

  She was gone in a flash. Her hex filled her with new energy, and she was a sudden whirlwind upon the battlefield. Her dagger was no longer an ominous short sword, but she could still feel the same powerful energy within it. Each kill made the hex grow more ominously. It was like the blackness increased each time she fed it more blood. She charged a bear head on and cut through it, jumping directly through its body as she cut and surged forward toward her next victim.

  In the middle of one of her leaps, her body tightened, and she lost control. She plummeted to the ground and smashed into it. All the air was knocked out of her body. She struggled to breathe; she lay there gasping. A sudden tumble at high speed had left her feeling broken and battered.

  Her dagger landed beside her, stabbing the ground near her head.

  She heard a woman screaming as power leaked into the surrounding air. It took only a moment before she realized the scream was her own.

  “What was this feeling? What was going on?” She wondered.

  “This is your inheritance. This is the Instrument of the Rawlins.

  This is your birthright. This is the Weapon of the Rawlins.

  This is your bloodline. This is the Right of the Rawlins.

  This is your ancestry. This is the Secret of the Rawlins.

  You and you alone can wield this power.

  Claim it, Vetica of the Rawlins.”

  She blinked. “What?”

  “Speak its name and claim its power.”

  She felt like she could breathe again and sucked in a deep breath. The name of the hex forced itself out of her throat. The deep, demonic voice spoke alongside her for all to hear.

  They spoke the name of her unique hex together.

  “Astral Hex Assassination!”

  “Excellent. Now, offer the hex a sacrifice. Feed it the lives of everyone and everything around you.”

  Merlin and King Scalea were already hurrying to help her.

  “Vetica!”

  “Arhhhh!”

  From the other direction, she heard a roar.

  The bear she’d been ready to attack was charging her.

  The voices’ words played over and over in her mind. She felt the power welling up inside her. She ignored the bear and sat up to look at her approaching friends. “No! Run away! Everyone get as far away from me as you can!”

  Merlin ignored her, but King Scalea sensed what was about to happen a moment before it did. He skidded to a stop and grabbed the back of Merlin’s cloak in one fluid motion. The scaler king yanked Merlin into the air. The conman’s arms and legs dangled beneath him. “Hey! Put me down!”

  Though his mouth was full, King Scalea did his best to roar an order.

  “Ar—ca!”

  The other komodons paused, immediately jumping away from their fights. Those that were healthy hurried to the aid of the injured and helped them stand. The komodons hesitated only a moment before turning and retreating into the woods. They scattered in every direction into the dead forest, abandoning the fight completely. King Scalea’s head swiveled toward Charlie, and he growled another warning. “Arh!” With that, King Scalea jumped high into the air and away from Vetica.

  Merlin held out a hand toward her. Shaking his head as the charging bear got closer and closer. “Wait! She’s in danger!” he shouted. King Scalea ignored him.

  Vetica smiled. “Thank you. For saving him,” Vetica whispered.

  The bear reached her and lifted a paw to crush her against the ground. A black smoke poured from her body and slowly wafted towards the creature.

  The bear hesitated, wondering what strange manner of attack this could be.

  It stared down as the long, painful black cracks formed along its skin. They spread like a sickness, slowly crawling up the creature’s body and spreading all over. In real time, its flesh decayed alongside the progress of the cracks. It roared in anguish and collapsed to the ground. It writhed as the effects of her hex spread.

  Vetica looked up at the remaining bears. The smoke was quickly spreading toward them, filling the clearing.

  It wouldn’t be long now.

  All of them were going to die.

  What does everyone think about Vetica's unique hex so far?