Feral Mage Book 2: Chapter 40

“Smoke!” Vex growled.

Bryce’s eyes opened instantly at her words, and he began shaking Janna awake. Vex was already out of bed, quickly dressing. Her tail bristled as she grabbed her bow and quiver. With a whistle from her, Omelet was up and at her side.

“What’s going on?” Janna asked, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

Bryce frowned at the state Vex was in and pulled on his Manticore Aspect.

“Shit,” he growled.

Smoke, blood, and death…

He swung his arm at the wall separating their room from Callie’s and Bellamy’s, creating a loud thud.

“Wake up! There’s trouble!” Bryce yelled as he fastened his sword belt.

He started to hear screams, both from outside and within the Inn. He pulled back the string on his crossbow, readying it, then he looked at the girls. Vex already had an arrow in her bow, and Janna was holding her naginata.

“Oh, you fucking bastard!” Callie’s voice yelled.

Bryce heard snarling and swung the door to their room open, stepping out. A gnoll stood in the doorway of Callie and Bellamy’s room next door. The snow elf swordswoman held it at bay as its jaws clamped down on her blade. Blood poured from its mouth as it tried to tear at her with its claws, leaving scratches in her armor. Bryce lifted the crossbow and sent a bolt through the gnoll’s head.

“Thank you,” Callie said, catching her breath. “What the hells is this thing?”

Callie placed a boot on the gnoll’s neck and ripped her sword from its jaws, frowning as she saw the steel was now a mangled mess.

“Gnolls,” Bryce said, frowning at the collar around the beast's neck. “The Red-Shield Company is attacking.”

Callie swore as Bryce looked past her into her room, only to see it was empty.

“Where’s Bellamy?” he asked.

“She left first, horns sprouting from her head while still in her nightgown. My armor takes longer to put on than an Aspect,” Callie stated. “My guess is she is at the tavern since I’m hearing a lot of snarls and breaking furniture from that direction.”

Callie stepped over the dead gnoll as Bryce and the girls began racing down the hallway of the Inn toward the stairs and the tavern floor. The scent of blood grew stronger, and they passed by a few bloody spots where someone was dragged away as they bled. Oddly, they hadn’t come across any corpses yet.

There was smoke seeping down into the hallway from above. The roof was on fire, most likely from Fire Magic or torches being thrown on top of the building. It wouldn’t be long before the fire spread to the interior of the Inn. Bryce knew the place would soon be an inferno.

They’re trying to lure everyone outside…

He swore as he turned the corner and ran down the stairs, sword drawn. A gnoll waited at the of the bottom of the stairs as it watched the battle rage in the tavern. The beast already bore a few wounds on its body and it turned as Bryce drove his sword through its neck. He twisted the blade and ripped it downward, cutting through its throat. As it collapsed to the floor, he turned his attention to the fight in the tavern.

Bellamy was using her Howler Aspect, which gave her two curved horns on her head, feline eyes, and sharp claws. This was her most agile Aspect and one she preferred to use in close quarters combat.

She needed the agility with the three gnolls circling her. One looked as if it were about to charge her, only for a fireball to slam into it, sending the beast into a panic as its fur ignited. An arrow struck the leg of another, causing a yelp of pain to escape the gnoll as Bellamy raced for it, her sharp claws reaching for its neck.

Bryce charged the remaining gnoll, who had started to pursue Bellamy as she moved to deal with the injured one. His shoulder slammed into the beast, sending it crashing against the counter of the bar. Before it could regain its footing, he drove his sword through the creature’s eye and into its skull. He watched it twitch a few times before turning his attention to Bellamy, whose nightgown, as well as her hands, were stained red with blood from tearing open her gnoll’s throat.

“You okay?” Bryce asked, ripping his blade from the gnoll’s skull.

Bellamy frowned as she took in the room.

“I’m not injured, but none of us are okay right now. They’re a lot more waiting outside for us,” she said.

Bryce grimaced. She was right. Even with the smoke, blood, and stench of the gnolls, he could smell more outside, along with the dwarves that were with them.

“Yeah, it’s pretty clear it’s a trap,” Bryce said. “Question is why?”

Had the Red-Shield Company finally come for him due to killing two of its members? If so, how did they know he was here?

“They’re looking for someone. The gnolls haven’t killed, just wounded and dragged them outside the Inn,” Bellamy said.

Bryce heard the sound of armor clanking by the stairs and turned to glare at Callie.

“It’s about time you—” He froze in chastising her lateness to the fight.

She stood at the top of the stairs, a small child in her arms and a family behind her, fear etched across their faces. Callie wore a grim look on her face as she looked down the stairs toward Bryce. A look that silently conveyed a message both of them knew. When the fighting started, the family wouldn’t survive.

Bryce turned and looked at his girls, then Bellamy, and finally the door of the Inn. How many gnolls waited outside? How many dwarves armed with crossbows, axes, and spears?

“Bellamy, do you think you can break through the wall in the back of the tavern’s kitchen?” Bryce asked.

He saw her frown instantly.

“I can, but they would hear us and come,” she stated, but her tone already told him she knew what he was planning and didn’t like it.

“I’ll keep them from coming,” Bryce replied.

Callie descended the stairs with the family, passing the child off to one of the adults. Gasps and whispers of fear came up from them as they looked at the dead monsters on the ground.

“I’ll help you,” Callie said.

Bryce shook his head.

“I need to be the one to go out the front alone,” Bryce said. “My Primal Troll Aspect will give me better odds to survive whatever trap is waiting out there. Get the people safe and loop back around to join me if the fight is still going.”

He met the swordswoman’s eyes, and even Callie was frowning at his plan.

“If I can’t come back to myself this time, you know what to do,” Bryce said, holding out his sword to Callie. Her’s was damaged, and he would be fighting with his claws.

Callie’s frown deepened, but she nodded and took the sword.

Bellamy swore.

“You’re planning to become a chimera again, aren’t you?” Janna asked.

Vex let out a gasp.

“No!” she said as she ran over to him and put her arms around him. “We go together!”

He stayed put as Vex tried to drag him to the back of the tavern. Bryce just patted the wolfgirl on the head. She pouted and looked up at him.

“I need to Vex. It’s the best chance we have, and I’ve done it before.”

Her lips thinned, and he thought she was about to argue, but instead she kissed him.

“My Bryce,” she said before letting him go.

He smiled at her, then looked at Bellamy.

“Go, there’s not much time,” he said.

Janna rushed toward him and stole a kiss as well.

“Be careful, Bryce,” she said before moving to join Bellamy.

Bryce started toward the front door of the tavern as he heard the girls move. He pulled on the Primal Troll Aspect first, feeling his muscles growing and his shirt becoming tight, then he pulled on the Pale Queen Aspect. His body became cold as the gauntlets formed on his hands. He felt the monsters’ souls start to stir inside him, pulling at the threads of his very being.

He was almost to the door when movement in a polished bronze mirror hanging on the wall caught his eye. An elven woman with ashen skin wearing a black dress stared at him from within the mirror, a small smile on her face. His blood chilled as he met the gaze from her two sets of black eyes and quickly turned around, scanning the room.

Callie stood behind him, she was the only one remaining in the room. Her lips thinned as she looked at him with those blue eyes.

“You’re a good man, Bryce. I don’t make a habit of killing good men, so you better come back to us,” she said, then turned and moved to join the rest of them.

Bryce looked back into the bronze mirror, only seeing Callie race into the kitchen of the tavern. He shook his head as he grabbed the doorknob and opened it.

The town was pitch black except for the light cast by the burning roof of the Inn. A dozen gnolls and four dwarves waited outside, next to a pile of dead bodies that a few of the gnolls were picking at. The plain clothing of the corpses told him they were the patrons of the tavern. Just like Levi, these dwarves were mounted on matriarch gnolls. One had a gruesome trophy hanging from the neck, a human head. Bryce frowned as he looked at the glazed-over eyes of the man he had not long ago shared a drink with.

“I take it you just came from Baroness Julia’s towerhouse,” Bryce said grimly.

Laughter went up from the dwarves as the one with the trophy spoke.

“Aye, a waste of time that was. No Baroness and no girl with wings, just this bastard here and some piss poor excuses for soldiers,” the dwarf said, tugging on the rope that held Captain Taylor’s decapitated head. “Was he a friend of yours?”

A girl with wings? Thea…Why are they looking for Thea?

“I had a drink with him once,” Bryce answered. “Why are you looking for a girl with wings?”

He scanned the group before him, shifting to his heat sight, but didn’t see any other dwarves or gnolls waiting in the shadows.

“Commander’s orders,” the dwarf said with a shrug. “I heard a rumor you were looking for her as well.”

Just three gnoll handlers with over a dozen gnolls with them.

A nasty force, but not enough for a full dwarven mercenary company. So an advance party, perhaps? Did that mean the rest of the Red-Shield Company was at Baroness Julia’s towerhouse?

Bryce returned to his regular vision, seeing the lead dwarf grinning as he took a swig from a flask. The bastard was going to die for killing the Captain. He might have only known the old man for a short time, but he liked him. Well enough that he’d gut the dwarf as payback.

“Any of you know a dwarf by the name of Levi?” Bryce asked.

The grin faded from the dwarf as he snarled, and his compatriots started cursing. The gnolls became alert and started creeping toward him. Bryce drew a deep breath, wondering if the fact that he was a chimera would be enough.

“It was you!” the lead dwarf growled. “You killed my little brother!”