A slug shoots through the air, a whirlwind of teeth and spit. How do they even jump? The thought flashes through my mind, but there’s no time to think about it as more slugs slap to the ground from inside the teratome. I take a step back and they jump at me. The slugs fall short, landing between me and the corpse.

  Mandollel and Finna are both swarmed. A mass of slugs crawls toward them. Finna keeps up a shrill litany of curses the whole time as she dances around and away from them. She skewers a bug flying at her, dagger through the mouth, tip of the blade peeking out from the end. The bug still gnaws at the dagger, maw chomping on the edges of the blade, cutting and bleeding itself. Finna looks ready to throw up. She swings her arm up, throwing the slug somewhere into the branches of a nearby tree.

  Mandollel stands his ground, feet planted. He has his eyes almost closed, face even paler than his skin normally is. That doesn’t seem to matter too much, as he slices through a slug that flies in his direction. The flick of his sword passes through the thing, halving it in flight. He lets the pieces fall behind him, standing his ground even when the clear blood splatters him.

  There’s too many. I can’t shoot them all. Each has more teeth than I have seen anything have. The slugs look like hedgehogs turned inside out. The teeth glint milky white, translucent, needle-sharp. I take a halting step back and the carpet of slugs follows after me. The writhing makes me want to throw away my bow and run away. Instead, I nock an arrow and shoot the nearest slug. I have to do something. Rworg needs me. Everyone needs me. Running away is not an option.

  The arrow thunks into the thing, pinning it to the soft dirt path.

  Immediately, the nearest slugs jump. They don’t come at me, but fly over the pinned slug. Two actually collide in the air with a squelch and drop to the ground.

  Of course. The slugs are all going after Finna, as she keeps jumping and kicking at them. Mandollel stands in place. I don’t know what he’s thinking. Maybe he is too disgusted to do anything or then he’s preparing for a glorious, if slimy, last stand. Yet none of the slugs are going after him. One wriggles around just out of his reach on the ground, blindly chewing on a fallen plate from the main teratome.

  I grab an arrow and shoot it into the ground a couple of paces away from Finna.

  That gets her attention. “What the hell, hunter boy!” she shouts.

  “Stay still!” I shout back.

  Some slugs turn toward the arrow, even if more are going after her.

  “They are the same as the teratome! They go after vibration or movement or something. Stay still!”

  She slices at a slug flying at her, but plants her feet on the ground. The slug falls behind her, squirting clear blood on her hair and face. Even she isn’t immune to the stench at this point anymore. Her clothes are wet from the liquid and the whole area is filled with a stench so thick it stings my eyes. She presses her other hand on her face, blocking her nostrils with dagger angled so the pommel doesn’t stick into her cheek.

  I shoot another arrow at the ground, half-way between her and the slugs. The slugs near me wriggle around aimlessly. I keep my feet as steady and still as I can to not draw their attention.

  The slugs near Finna jump at the arrow. When they impact on the ground, more slugs jump at the place where the first ones landed. It becomes a pile. Finna creeps slowly backward. I want to shout at her to keep still, but the slugs don’t react to the movement. She slides backward, moving one foot behind another without a sound.

  Mandollel starts casting again. His mouth is set, eyes alive again. Feet set apart, he draws sweeping gestures with his other hand, cutting shining symbols into the air. I have no idea what is coming but I have a bad feeling. The runes he is drawing look violent, angles sharp and hard, and he keeps drawing more and more of them.

  “We need the blood!” I shout at him.

  “I’ll just precook it,” he snarls. “Now!”

  The last word is a warning. Finna jumps away from the mass of slugs between her and the corpse. She jumps back first, an insane thing to do. I know I couldn’t.

  A ball of fire roars from Mandollel’s hands. I can feel the heat on my face even as it’s just flying through the air. Finna hits the ground before it explodes. She pivots in the air, landing hands first and rolling to a prone position. Remembering the lightning bolt in Corum’s study, I slam my hands on my ears.

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  The explosion sucks the air from my lungs. A pillar of flame shoots up into the air high above the treetops, shaking the ground. Birds take flight around the forest. Everything is stark orange or black for a moment. The teratome corpse, silhouetted against the flame, rolls around from the force of the explosion.

  For a long while, smoking pieces of flesh rain down on us. Mandollel stands with his fingers splayed toward the demolished area. It wasn’t as loud as I feared, but my insides are still finding their places again after being shaken by the blast wave. Finna jumps up and shouts something indecent at Mandollel.

  He wakes up from his torpor and glances at Finna. His eyes go wide and he jumps toward her, starts patting her hair with both hands. The stench of rot has been mostly blasted away, but the smell of burnt hair replaces it.

  Finna and Mandollel slap at each other, but I concentrate on taking stock of what was left after the explosion. The slugs on this side of the corpse were mostly spared. They seem stunned, just writhing in place. The explosion must have been completely too much for their sense. The teratome itself is half burnt to crisp, but there’s probably still enough unboilt blood left to salvage.

  “We need to move!” I shout. I grab two waterskins from my bag and throw Finna and Mandollel one each. “Get bleeding. Everyone in all of Kerthar now knows where we are.”

  Mandollel sucks at his teeth. Finna slaps him once more on the shoulder, but then goes to fetch her dagger, left on the ground where she hit the ground earlier.

  With any luck, the rest of the Kertharians will assume the nearest camp will look into the explosion. The rest of their forward camps will actually have been handled by the Tenorsbridge squads that I saw practicing the attacks using the Mountain Ride earlier. We might not get attacked straight away, even if this was a preposterous disaster.

  Well, looking at the bright side, I didn’t die this time. I’ll take it.

  “So, you never saw that happen before?” I ask as we’re making our way back to the camp.

  Finna blows air out of her nose. “You think we normally sticked around to watch it hatch?” There’s an area at the back of her head where the hair is crispy and curled. Her clothes stick to her skin, wet with the blood of the teratome.

  Mandollel’s do as well. Mine don’t. Perks of being an archer. I keep five paces ahead of them to avoid most of the stench.

  We’re all carrying water skins, filled to the brim. No one can use these for water ever again, but it’s not like the original owners can complain. I hope there’s a kettle large enough in the camp. With this much, we can make more healing supplies than we left with. Calling the purified teratome blood ambrosia doesn’t feel right, even if it is functionally the same thing. Whatever you call it, I have a feeling we’re going to need all we can carry.

  Everything is as we left it at the camp. I spot a fox at the other end of the camp and some crows take flight from the corpses as we step back into the clearing. Mandollel shoots a spark of flame into the dying embers in the fire pit from his hand while we’re still walking towards it. The spark doesn’t go out, but rolls around in the fire pit for a good while and the embers catch flame. It feels like cheating. The guy is infuriatingly useful.

  He drops the waterskins on the ground the moment the fire lights. “I’ll find some place to clean ourselves.” He heads for the larger tents, already taking off his soiled coat.

  “I’m done. I’ll bring some wood and then I’ll take a nap,” Finna says.

  “You’ll take a bath!” Mandollel shouts from inside one of the tents.

  I grin. It’s impossible not to like these people. I guess Lictor knew what he was doing when he put this team together. Another thing I have to grant him, whatever else I think of the guy. “Take whatever you need. I’ll handle the rest. This will take some hours.”

  I stare into the fire. The flames licking the wood and the sides of the metal pot. The liquid bubbles, the surface of the pot swimming with rainbow hues and spew. I siphon it off carefully. The foam smells like death and I fling it as far as I can, using the ladle like an atlatl, a throwing stick used to fling spears. Gran told me they use those in Kerthar.

  She was also the one who taught me about purifying teratome blood. Not sure if it can be said she was teaching me, really, but I was around when she told the story to the smaller kids to yuck them. I need to get rid of everything teratome, the flesh and whatever elements of the monster there still are swimming around in the liquid. Keep stirring to make sure it’s the water that evaporates and that the heavier mana rich liquid doesn’t gather at the bottom and explode. What will be left at the end should be safe to use and work like ambrosia.

  Hillbilly ambrosia, healing moonshine. My mind is wandering, gaze lost in the flames. I said they could take as much time as they wanted, but I’m stinking as well and it feels like I haven’t slept in days. This is only the first night of the mission. In the real world, I’ve been gone for maybe six hours.

  Turns out, a lot can happen in six hours.

  Mandollel steps to the clearing. He has his coat on his arm. still wet from being washed, probably. Steam rises off it as he lays it near the fire to dry and sits down next to it. “How long still?”

  “Should be ready soon.” I stir the pot. There’s not much of the liquid left anymore, but still more than enough to fill the bottles we have and a clean, unused water skin on top of that.

  “He’s still asleep,” Finna says from behind me. I jump out of surprise. I’ve never been crept up so often before this mission.

  Mandollel is gazing at the fire. Burning flame, flowing water, a sleeping baby, you never want to look away, as Gran always said. Seems even elves are not immune. “He’s going to sleep until I wake him,” he says absently. “It’s just been a couple of hours, exactly as you said.”

  I nod. At least something went according to plan finally. I swirl the liquid for a last time, raising the ladle up to my eye to look at it, smell it. “It’s as done as it will ever be. Let’s go get him up.”

  I really hope I’m right.

  The first volume is now up on Amazon! I know you’ve already read it and can still do it here on RoyalRoad, but I’m just so hyped I wanted to shout it out :D

  Amazon! Having some ratings is the first step of me being able to continue doing this, so I would really appreciate the help ??