Chapter 489: What I came for

Mason (and a newly summoned Streak) charged straight into another pack of little demons. The wolf’s increasingly deep growl drowned out the sound of their pathetic mewling, the animal clamping its jaw over a demonic head before swinging it like a chew toy.

Mason cleaved his first with the longer Claw, skewering another through the chest. His Pathfinder showed him everything in the mist. Somehow between ‘One with Nature’ or maybe his demon titles, he could see the bastards like glowing red blips, practically begging to be found and murdered on his map.

He obliged at all possible speed.

The smaller creatures were fast but not fast enough. The bigger bulls were strong but slow. He slaughtered both like a wolf in a chicken coop, swapping between elven bow and Claws, abyssal arrows and brutal strikes as he hacked his way around the outskirts. It was getting kind of fun, if he was honest.

Then he heard Lila scream.

He activated Aspect of the Cheetah and bolted, ignoring the creatures and willing Streak to run out and search. He watched his map, and it didn’t take long to see the red dots chasing something not far ahead in the mist.

His bow was back in his hands, fingers twitching with ever-enhanced reflexes, just waiting for a useful shot. The demons ahead were ignoring him, and he put a few arrows in the backs of skulls without slowing. The target was close.

He found Lila riding a centaur, a swarm of demons closing in on them. By the amount of dots they’d apparently made the pair a special project. Mason cursed and banished his bow, sprinting full speed, forcing away the natural caution of a sane thing running into something it could hardly see.

A form appeared and slammed into him. The creature bounced off his hip with a shriek of surprise, but Mason hardly slowed. He saw the cluster of dots and went straight at them, then realized Lila and the centaur had separated. For some reason it had left her standing on her own.

He slid and nearly fell on the moist grass as he came to a stop, summoning his Claws as he moved closer to Lila. She was surrounded by demons, the creatures apparently so excited to have caught her they couldn’t seem to agree what to do next.

“She’s mine,” grumbled a voice, a huge bull stepping past smaller creatures.

“It was my thralls that found her,” hissed something that looked like an ostrich mixed with a man. The demons stared and growled at each other, their teams of minions lining up behind their masters, looking just as happy to kill each other as anything else.

Mason took two good strides and jumped. He sailed straight through the gap between the two talking demons, swiping at the ostrich’s long neck and plunging his shorter claw into the bull’s chest, leaving the shorter blade before hitting the ground and rolling.

Both demons collapsed. Mason stood up a few feet from Lila. She was gawking at him with wide and terrified eyes, and he gave her a wink before he re-summoned his shorter blade, grinning at the many confused faces of smaller demons.

“Who knows,” he said, looking at the lesser creatures, tossing his traps one by one around the girl in a square. “Maybe you’ll do better.”

The abyssal demons stared at him, his titles no doubt making him glow like whatever their version of a demon was. But it seemed like they were still going to give it a shot.

Streak plowed into them from behind. The wolf knocked over three or four before chomping his huge jaw entirely over a creature’s face with a terrible crunch. Mason jerked like he meant to charge, and every demon nearby turned and ran.

“Please, save Pally!” Lila grabbed Mason’s arm and pointed. He hesitated, then lifted her (which made her scream again), threw her over his shoulder, and ran. He whistled for Streak, running towards the red dots wondering when the hell he’d gotten in the business of saving centaurs.

One demon was on the creature’s back, apparently trying to eat him. He was fighting with two or three more, rearing up to kick and maybe shake off his grappler. Mason hacked off the thing’s back legs, then pulled the rest off.

He set Lila down, but she wouldn’t let go of him, especially when Streak padded up and put himself right in front of her.

“Stay with the wolf,” he said, pulling off her grip, then running a half circle around the centaur as he chopped more demons to bits.

“Are you idiots the B-team or something?” He kicked a slightly bigger bull into oblivion, then grabbed another of the smaller creatures and crushed its skull with his bare hand as a test. “You’re soft as fucking cheese.”

“Thank you, Hunter…” The injured centaur wiped blood from his face and grimaced. “I…expected to die.”

“I find that’s best.” Mason swept the creature with his Ranger’s Mark and decided he’d live, unless he bled out. “We need to move and get you healed or stitched. I left Night Eyes east. We’ll go to him.”

Palacus looked ready to complain or offer his own suggestion, but he just nodded.

“I’ll go where you say, Hunter.”

Mason glanced at Lila huddling in terror near streak, the big wolf growling at any demon who built up the courage to look at him funny.

“Can you carry the girl?” He glanced at Pala, and the centaur nodded. She shrieked again when Mason picked her up without a word, carried her over and plopped her on the centaur’s back. Making Lila scream wasn’t something he was entirely unfamiliar with, and now that she was safe the thought forced him to resist a smile.

“Alright,” he said. “Follow me.”

It was all a fucking inconvenience, is what it was. Ancient Maker forts and demonic invasions. Mason just wanted to get his geographic reward and move on.

He needed to get to Demi, to explore a little more, than figure out how to cross the damn sea and see to his potential allies in the east, and stop an insane ‘emperor’ before the idiot finished off what was left of mankind.

He also realized there was a decent chance the slaves he’d been bargaining for were dead. Or escaped. One didn’t generally save one’s slaves first, he imagined, when it came to an emergency. With the exception of Lila, apparently.

Either way he led them through the mist, dropping demons with arrows whenever he had the chance, hissing at Streak not to go running off. The wolf whined and growled at anything that got close, a careful eye on Lila and the centaur.

“I have no idea how you eat those things,” Mason said, Power Shotting another bull straight back to hell. “They smell absolutely disgusting. I can only imagine how they taste, it has to be…”

Mason staggered and just about vomited when a distinct flavor transferred from Streak through their bond.

“Oh Jesus.” He coughed and retched. “Never. Never do that again.”

The wolf quirked its head in confusion, then it lost interest and its mind drifted to the wind. Or possibly a gopher. Then back to Lila and the centaur, then a demon getting a little too close…

Mason shook his head and shut out the bond as best he could. If there was anything the intelligent wolf had taught him it was a thing could be very smart but still focused on stupid things. He tried not to transfer that insight onto himself. Or mankind in general.

A few more demon kills and Mason found Night Eyes with maybe fifty other centaur gathering at the edge of the camp. These looked like determined, angry warriors, all bristling with weapons and armor. Night Eyes seemed to be the only shaman, and also in charge, directing runners and healing the wounded. He saw Mason and visibly sagged with relief.

“Welcome back, Hunter. We found two portals spewing shadows. We have warriors going to them now, but your assistance would be most welcome.”

Mason sighed but nodded.

“I’ll go with him,” Palacus said behind. It wasn’t all that convincing though as the pale-faced creature looked about ready to drop, staggering as Lila climbed down.

Night Eyes raised a hand and swept the creature with his strange blend of green and black energy, which miraculously closed wounds in real time. Even so, Mason met the shaman’s eyes and shook his head.

“I need you here, Palacus. The mist makes movement and communication almost impossible. Help me to rally the Pathfinders.”

The big scout leader winced with obvious understanding, and a bit of stung pride, but he nodded. As Lila realized Mason was leaving her she started looking increasingly panicked. She ran to him and hung on like he might fly away.

“You’ll be safe with them. I can leave Streak, if you like, he’ll make sure…”

“No.” Lila looked at the wolf with wide eyes and Mason sighed. “I…” Lila swallowed. “I’ll be alright. Thank you for saving me. I thought I…I mean…I didn’t think…”

Mason squeezed her hand, glad she was alright. He really hoped he wasn’t about to deal with another greater demon, and maybe get cursed again. But so far this ‘event’ seemed a lot less…intense than the one outside Nassau. He was guessing it really was a kind of ‘secondary’ thing with far less threat.

It took a minute, but he managed to ease Lila away with a hug and a few comforting pats, then followed the centaur warriors back through the mist.

They went in a ragged line, all holding bows and bringing down the few demons that emerged with waves of arrows. The mist seemed to be clearing, too, which helped bolster the centaur’s courage and made their shots a hell of a lot easier.

By the time they reached the portal there was a good fifty centaurs in two circular rings, bringing down demons with impressive efficiency.

Mason ran out ahead, seeing the same pattern and ‘blackened’ ground as before, though these portals were much smaller. The creatures must have been ‘spawning’ for a long time before they finally attacked, because it didn’t look like they formed all that fast.

The centaur stopped at the edge of the portal, clearly afraid to cross onto the dead grass. Mason summoned his swords and stepped over, moving in until he found half-formed demons and gestured at them with a blade.

“Kill these. Anything you see on the dead grass. You can still hit them.”

A dozen arrows ripped into the still-forming creature, and it hissed and collapsed into a stinking puddle of goo. Mason walked on to the next, hacking down a few stragglers and splashing the foul ichor in the portal ‘zone’.

He and the centaur spent maybe five minutes killing anything that spawned. The first flickered and hissed with energy, then sucked itself up and shrunk until it vanished, just like the others. The second portal went next, until all that was left were the corpses outside its range, and the circles of dead grass.

The centaur whooped and hollered their victory, and Mason wiped some blood off his chest, checking himself over for Transformations. He hadn’t taken much damage—just a few cuts and scrapes and a spike or two stuck in his skin. He flicked them out with a meaningless stab of pain, and watched the wounds close with callus.

There was no Gaia-water fountain around, which meant he couldn’t ‘revert’ back to his normal form. At least not that he was aware of. He considered at least a bath in the centaur camp, but he was pretty sure he wouldn’t be able to keep Lila away, and then it’d be a whole thing.

He went back to Night Eyes to find a very bored Streak, and a very dramatic Lila. She threw herself into his chest and cried as he held her, a real ‘there there’ energy as he pat her back. This definitely wasn’t a girl like Becky. But he supposed she’d probably picked civilian for a reason.

“Portals are closed,” he said to the shaman. “I know things are a bit chaotic, but I’d like to see these Pathfinders now. I want what I came for.”

Night Eyes bowed his head, looking out over the centaur camp with those increasingly familiar cunning eyes.

God only knew what opportunities the clever shaman might have been considering after the emergency. But it wasn’t Mason’s concern. Or so he hoped.