Clint
It had taken Clint almost three hours to reach the clearing that marked one of the entrances into Lightning Ridge. The jagged valley was a gauntlet that wound from north to south, leaving only a narrow flat trail that zigzagged through a treacherous forest filled with toxic flora and vicious fauna. Clint would avoid this trail, which was widely considered to be a death trap, and instead hike through the rough mountains that gave the trail its shape.
He stopped as he came across a low cliff that towered him by only a yard. Spots like this were common in these mountains, which is why it was such an appealing spot for spellwarriors to train. Clint took a few steps back and approached the cliff at a running start. His hands, mercifully garbed in padded gloves, gripped the edge of the cliff and he pulled himself up. When he got to the top, he spotted a cluster of footprints. He examined the markings intently and decided that they belonged to three different people. Spellwarriors in training?
Clint decided to ignore the trail and search for a snake cave. Nonetheless, the footprints continued in the direction he was going anyway. Somewhere along the way, however, the footprints diverged. Whoever had been leading had slipped and fallen down the cliff. This seemed to drive the followers into a panic; they had ran back and forth several times in search of safe passage to where their leader had gone.
Am I seriously about to do this? Clint didn’t want to diverge from his mission in the slightest, but something about ignoring the plight of these travelers somehow felt wrong to him. So, against his most reasonable impulses, Clint began to study the tracks more closely. As they went on, he noticed that a second set of footprints had disappeared from the trail. He would have expected the third person to be even more panicked now, but noticed that the final set of footprints had pushed straight ahead, down a treacherous, narrow incline that led to the valley floor. They must have a plan.
Intrigued by this sudden change, Clint continued to follow the trail, noticing as he went along that the strides had gotten wider over time. This person was running from something. I’m probably following a corpse. He soon saw evidence of what had been chasing this person in the form of a curved line that looked about six inches thick. Snake tracks. Looks like a young one. If this person were a spellwarrior, even a novice, dealing with a snake this size would be no trouble.
Clint picked up his pace, determined to catch up to this snake before it made a meal out of the ill-equipped traveler who fled from it. But along the way, he spotted the snake, lying dead on the ground. Both the corpse and the surrounding vegetation appeared to be scorched and, curiously, he counted three sets of footsteps once more walking away from the snake. Believing that the group had somehow reunited, Clint turned his attention back toward the snake. He retraced its trail back in the direction he had come in search of its den.
He soon found the cave and crouched at its lip, carefully listening for movement. He figured that the snakes would smell his approach long before he became visible, so he wasn’t sure why he was bothering to hide. This instinct seemed to reward him, however, as he soon caught sight of something that was neither snake or even human. Suppressing the urge to yelp, Clint ducked behind a knotted tree and watched as three pitch black, bipedal monsters clambered out of the ground, spiked tails twitching with readiness. He did not to think far back to recall what he knew of them.
Sara had strongly emphasized the importance of being able to identify a maulan before they had gone their separate ways. From what he had heard of their surprising agility and toxic stingers, he knew they were best fought at a distance. Luckily, he had his rifle.
The intensity of this situation sent Clint’s mind into a fevered spin. Sara had made it clear that these abominations couldn’t be suffered to live. With this in mind, Clint began to take stock of his environment. The maulans were marching down hill from his position. As they walked away along the valley floor, Clint was sure he had a superior position. The maulans had no cover and, armed only with heavy clubs, no weapons with which to respond to his shots. Let’s see if they’re quick enough to dodge bullets.
Leaning against the tree for support, Clint aimed his rifle down toward the maulans and lined up his first shot. Before he could pull the trigger, though, a shout echoed through the valley.
“We’ve got the sword! Get back to the wagons, you lot!”
This announcement seemed to startle the maulans down in the valley. They changed direction and sprinted uphill, scrambling for the nearest treetops. Having lost his easy shots, Clint cursed his luck. Why couldn’t they just wait a minute longer to find that sword? Wait! They were looking for Nicholai’s sword! There were so many problems that sprung into his mind at once. He now how had to attack these maulans to get what he was looking for. Next was the troubling word, “wagons.” He didn’t even think of how outnumbered he was going to be.
Finally, why did they want the sword in the first place? Sure, this could be about making sure that he and the other champions didn’t get it, but why so many? A single maulan would have drawn less attention by collapsing the cave it was stored in. It seemed to Clint that this sword must have been just as important to Maula as it was to them unless she had simply overestimated their intelligence.
These guys have no sense of subtlety at all! They’re like those cocky bears who never know what it is to feel threatened until a bullet strikes. This thought excited him. This would be more like a hunt than a battle.
The maulans escaped his aim for now, but he knew where they’d be heading. Since they had not gone in the direction from which Clint had come, there was only one other way to leave the valley which was traversable by wagon. This meant that they could be heading for Solan or Palon. Thinking briefly of Alexis, Clint gave chase as quickly as he could without going into the valley. He took several shortcuts between the valley’s jagged points to make better time and soon found what he had been looking for; three passenger wagons were rolling southward pulled by elephants that Clint didn’t recognize with thick white fur, long legs, short tusks, and curled trunks. They were closely pursued by an impossibly thick cluster of giant snakes whipping furiously across the ground and through the trees.
Clint rolled his eyes, wondering why nothing about this could be even a little simple. Figuring that his first priority ought to be taking care of the maulans, he reached into his ammunition pouch and located three bullets, each marked with yellow caps. He loaded them and aimed for the wagons. With three shots, the front right wheel of each wagon exploded with such force that they toppled over the side. The panicked maulans, twenty-eight in all, toppled out of them just in time to come face-to-face with the snakes. The snakes cut repeatedly into the screaming abominations with their sword-like fangs. Hearing their anguish, Clint nearly felt guilty for what he’d done, until he remembered Seth’s story as accounted to him by Matilda.
As if the very thought of his name brought him into being, Seth was then spotted running behind the wagons. Two other people ran alongside him while six more snakes brought up the rear. They were heading into a trap to be sure, but Clint was in the perfect position to help. He fired a warning shot which struck the ground in front of Seth. Startled, the three stopped in their tracks.
This distraction allowed the snakes after the spellwarrior and his companions plenty of time to catch up, but not before Clint plugged one of them with his second shot. Seth had chosen that moment to make a stand, apparently, because he lashed out at the one in front with a flame-coated sword. He easily beheaded the snake nearest to him, but left himself vulnerable to a strike from another. Fortunately for the spellwarrior, Clint had one more shot loaded. After dropping the snake that threatened his friend, Clint decided to leave the remaining three to them and return his attention to the wagons.
He noticed immediately that five maulans remained struggling to put up a fight against the snakes. He spotted Nicholai’s Blade in the hand of one of the brutes, who was swinging it with one hand at the snakes. He watched the fight intently, anxious to keep the sword in sight until Seth caught up to them. He then realized that the snake’s numbers weren’t thinning quickly enough for his comfort.
We’ll just have to do something about that.
Clint reached into his ammo pouch once more and drew out three more bullets, this time with orange caps. He loaded them and fired randomly into the assembly of enormous reptiles. Each shot struck the ground with tremendous force, blasting the surrounding area with short-lived plumes of fire. He reloaded and continued his assault, leaving the maulans momentarily stunned. He glanced back over to Seth to see that he and his group had nearly reached the wagons. Just in time, Clint thought as he turned back to watch the Maulans finish off the remaining snakes; two more had died in the effort.
When Seth and his two friends found where Clint had taken down the wagons, they began to search the wreckage. Clint winced as he watched them slowly look through each of the wagons in turn, unaware that three Maulans were hiding in wait. The maulans seemed to be having an argument that must have been whispered based on their enemies’ lack of reaction to them. Whatever they had been discussing, the one holding Nicholai’s blade seemed to have won because the other’s conviction didn’t seem to keep his head attached to his neck.
Brutal though that was, it relieved Clint that there was one less target remaining. The other maulan did not seem interested in arguing with the one carrying the blade and they both stepped out from behind the front wagon to confront Seth and his group. To Clint’s dismay, however, no one was attacking. Seth had chosen to talk to the maulans! Clint rolled his eyes as he watched. What does he think is going to happen? Is that thing supposed to just hand over the sword and piss off? I hope he knows what he’s doing.
Predictably, the abominations charged the exhausted adventurers after a few minutes of talking. With a shrug, Clint shot them both. He had missed with the first shot and only struck the chest of the sword-wielder with his third. Unharmed, he turned toward Clint’s position with a look of confusion. Stupid indeed, Clint thought with a smirk when Seth took advantage of the maulan’s distraction and beheaded him with another stroke of his flaming sword.
***
“You bastard!” Seth roared when Clint had reached the bottom of the hill. He clapped him on the back and continued, “You scared the hell out of me back there! Where did you come from!”
“You’re welcome!” Clint quipped ironically before replying, “I just got here from Seres a little while ago. I’d been following your trail for about an hour, then I started following the snakes, then Maulans! Crazy, huh?”
Seth smiled exhaustedly. “Yeah, I’ll bet you can’t wait to hear what we’ve been up to while you were uphill playing with your gun.”
Clint smirked in turn. “Not really. I’m pretty sure I’ve got it figured out. The only part I can’t work out is how you ended up back with your friends after you got separated."
“It’s a long story,” Seth replied with a groan.
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