Our attacks surprised them, but they weren’t even close to being defeated. Despite injuring several of the creatures, the rest of the weird horde were still approaching, only more cautiously now. They spread out across the sand dunes. Some were still coming right at us, but more started flanking to the sides. Trax’s assurances aside, that seemed a lot more cunning than ratlets!
Azarin and I only needed to break the monsters’ charge long enough for everyone else to get on solid ground. I threw my second snail grenade at a knot of mutants, but this time, they understood the danger, and threw themselves beak first into the sand. From the angry hooting, some got hit by fragments, but that explosion wasn’t nearly as effective as the first one.
“They’re surrounding us,” Azarin warned as she jabbed another monster with fast pointy air. When that one took the punctures and kept charging, she hurled a copper shock rod at it. “Jolt!”
Her aim was off, only hitting it in the foot, but the rod fused to its skin, flashing and crackling with sparks and pops. While the monster’s muscles twitched helplessly, I swiftly drew the bargemaster’s handgun, aimed, and shot it right through the beak. Purple brains flew out the back side of its pointy skull.
The recoil stung my palm, and grey smoke billowed, but the creatures didn’t seem any more frightened of firearms than they had been by our spells.
I glanced back to see that Trax’s upper body was out of the water, and he was struggling up the beach, with a pair of taut ropes over his shoulder. As soon as the bottoms of the boats started scraping the unseen bottom, the braver Outcasts jumped over the side to wade the rest of the way. In his enthusiasm, Rufus forgot how short he was, sank beneath the waves, and promptly began flailing and drowning. Krachma hoisted him upby the collar and carried him until the dwarf’s kicking feet could touch ground.
We’d bought a bit of time, but not quite enough. Azarin and I were mostly encircled by mutants now. I tossed a pocketful of screws to one side in the hopes of stalling the charge. The little bits of steel went molten hot and began careening about, shrieking at a higher pitch than the creatures. When the screws hit water, they went out in a puff of steam, but when they hit rubbery flesh, they stuck and burned. Purple blood hissed and monsters squealed.
Then the others were on us!
A squishy man-mollusk tried to grab Azarin, and myShroud of Firecovered its face. Its skin was so moist and slimy, it didn’t catch, but the flash and heat caused it to flinch and cover its eyes with lids that were so thick, they made aslapnoise when they closed. Azarin yanked out the tiny double-barreled handgun Neves had left her and plugged that monster in the chest. Azarin was notoriously inaccurate with guns, but they were so close now, even she couldn’t miss.
I barely managed to duck a long arm that swung my way. We learned then that their limbs had several extra joints, because it suddenly changed direction, allowing claws to hook the edge of my cloak. It yanked me off-balance, sending me stumbling across the wet sand. Another monster tackled me from behind.
It was on my back. One ropey arm wrapped around my head. Its black beak snapped at my neck. My skin got sliced open by an edge designed to pry open clam shells.
I was about to die.
And then we were both getting the ever-living hell shocked out of us by one of Azarin’sJoltsticks. She’d hit the monster with it, but since we were both covered in salt water, the spell jumped bodies and I got zapped too. Having been hit by this spell in training, I knew my muscles would seize up uselessly forseveral seconds, then I’d be able to act. Which I did, faster than the surprised monster, as I broke away from its arm, spun about on my back across the sand, and kicked it square in the eyeball.
The heel of my boot left a dent. It let out a horrible wail, then began crawling after me, clawing at my legs.
Trax appeared and sliced its entire head off with his coral sword.
“There is an injury upon your neck, Carnavon.”
“Not as bad as his,” I said as the monster’s head rolled past me. I got back up and mashed my glove against my wound. It stung, but nothing was squirting, so it was just a scratch. Back to the fight.
The rest of the Outcasts joined the battle, but so did a bunch more squishy monstrosities. Some were popping out of where they’d been hidden beneath the sand dunes. There were tons of them.
“Oh shit!” I threw a flame shroud onto a sand-coated beast that was wriggling out of the ground only a few feet away. “They’re everywhere!”
“Apologies. I could not smell the buried ones. My earlier assessment as to the quantity of mutants may have been optimistic.”
Rade swept past me and slashed the monster I’d stunned. Purple blood flew high as the deadlander’s sword cut deep. Then he swept the enchanted blade in an arc, and the monsters just beyond his reach were pelted with black bits of shadow that materialized out of thin air. Those congealed into spiders which went to biting. That particular shadow spell was more of a distraction than a weapon, but a distraction was good enough, as Rufus hacked one’s legs out from beneath it with his axe, and Krachma brained the other with his mace.
It was utter chaos. Spells were going off everywhere. Monsters were dying and more were replacing them.
The biggest of the mutants were just over five feet tall, and most were far smaller, but their reach was disproportionately long, and their claws were sharp. I got cut again on the arm. Bognar cried out as his helmet pot got swatted off. Danny was run over, then Krachma hit that monster so hard, it flew back and splashed into the sea.
Sifuso might have been a coward when there was an arena full of people watching him, but here he went into a vicious frenzy, stabbing wildly with a pair of daggers, like he’d gone too crazy to remember any spells. Lacertians must have a really strong fight or flight reflex, and there was no chance for flight here! A monster clawed Sifuso across the chest, leaving three deep red lines. Our lizard man hissed angrily and slashed it right back, once, twice, three times, splitting seaweed until a big pile of purple guts sloshed out.
Poor Bognar got clobbered again, and by some miracle, Danny actually landed a spell and froze the monster’s arm before it could end our carpenter’s life. Slime turned to ice, slowing it long enough for Rade’s sword to cut that arm off at its second elbow.
Rufus was going to town chopping mollusk beasts with his battle axe. I remembered he had a spell calledStinging Sand,and we were standing on a beach fighting things with gigantic bulging eyeballs. “Rufus, useStinging Sand!”
“Why didn’t I think of that? Good idea, Carnavon!” He lifted his axe to slam the haft against the ground.
I shouted, “Everybody, close your eyes!”
The spell went off, and in his excitement, Rufus must have used far too much earth element, because it was like the entire beach rose up to blast us. Sand went everywhere.
When the sand cloud fell, I was glad to see the Outcasts listened to my warning, and the monsters, thankfully, had not. Most of those near us stumbled about, their big rubbery lidscrunched shut. All they could do was swing reflexively, and a few even clawed each other. We made fast work of everything around us while they were blind, and many monsters fell to steel, lead, or coral.
