At first, I thought it was a type of zombie, what with all the different parts, but it was agile as it turned to face us, lifting its massive beaver’s tail into the air. The tail was attached to what might have been the body of a boar, the back legs of a big cat, and what looked to be one otter leg and one chicken leg.

  The first head that I identified was that of a goat, but with too many horns. It was clear, though, that it had four heads, not two. It was a grotesque mockery of life, a horror that shouldn’t exist. The smell was not from the beast itself, but from the rotting corpses of monsters and forest animals strewn about the strange gully. Rough-hewn stone walls from the edges of the space, curving toward the gaping hole that had once been a ceiling.

  Looking closer, I noticed the remains of wood floorboards and support beams also at the edges of the building.

  The growls and cries of the four heads brought my attention back to the patchwork beast. The other heads were strange, with one being that of an anteater, and the other two looking like birds. Only the bird ones were just bizarre. The one that was obviously the one I had seen with the goat’s head from behind was blue and red with some sort of bony growth on the top of its head. The other bird one made me gag, as it looked like someone had replaced its beak with the mouth of a lamprey.

  Old stitch scars were partially visible where the disparate parts had been connected. It suggested… something. I didn’t know if such things like re-animating the dead were seen as an evil thing. Examining the abomination, I saw it had a name, not just a monster species as was usual.

  Zippymandias the Chimera, chimera, Level 85

  “Um, guys?” I said, furiously trying to remember how to put my horse into reverse. “I think this is one place we do not want to be. That thing is way out of my league.”

  “I don’t want to tangle with it either. Heals, do you have any soothing spells? Something to get us out of here?” Harper said.

  “I might have something, but I don’t know how well it will work,” Arilyn said worriedly.

  The chimera stalked toward us, and I yelled, “Do it!”

  She nodded and started chanting something in another language at the beast until a faint, purplish glow surrounded the beast. It stopped, looking at Arilyn curiously, took another step, shaking its heads. One of them yawned, and the beast circled three times before lying down.

  We quietly made our way out of what could only be called the creature’s den and retraced our path back to the road.

  “What did you do to the chimera, Heals?” Harper asked.

  Arilyn grimaced. “It was a post-love spell,” she said.

  Harper looked at her for a moment, startled, before explosively laughing. Arilyn cringed.

  Vessa looked at this with fascination. “What’s so funny? What does she mean, post-love? Is that the time after you love someone? And why did it make Zippy so sleepy?”

  My face colored at the questions, not knowing how to answer them. I’d never had to explain the birds and the bees, even to my brother Sean. “It has to do with—um—making of children.”

  “Oh, breeding? That still doesn’t explain why the chimera fell asleep,” she replied, confused.

  Arilyn surprisingly came to my rescue, despite the fact that I had not shared what my ward had said to me. “In many humanoid species at least, after the making of children there is a period of sleepiness.”

  “Oh! Well, that makes sense, I guess. I always thought that breeding would take a considerable amount of time and energy,” Vessa said thoughtfully. Her command of language still threw me, as her ‘birth’ was not that long ago.

  I gratefully relayed Vessa’s response, with a smile for Arilyn.

  “Oh, yes,” Arilyn smiled coyly. “Quite a lot of… energy.”

  This was enough for the little dragon, as she only had so much life experience.

  The next few days we didn’t see much in the way of wildlife until we neared the mouth of Arnold’s Pass. Taking in the rise of the mountains ahead was an awe-inspiring thing, one that I had been too focused on minutiae last time to really appreciate. I had missed the majesty of the Rocky Mountains when my family moved from Colorado to Minnesota.

  My gaze fell, and I noticed Arilyn grinning at me. Her light-brown curls seemed to almost sparkle in the early afternoon light. I grinned back. She was even more stunning when she smiled. One of the many things about her that just blew me away.

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  We hadn’t kept each other awake again since that night, but she had laid her bedroll next to mine. Vessa didn’t mind, as she had two people to keep her warm and had taken to Arilyn a lot more since the beginning of this journey. Harper, of course, just shook her head and cracked jokes. I didn’t know if that meant she was doing better with the whole demon ex-boyfriend thing or not. But it had to be a step in the right direction.

  Pushing up the pass, we were not planning on stopping at any of the messenger stations until Harper noticed it was the Ornac brothers manning the station still.

  “Jeffil, Dailen! How are you two?” Harper called out when we were close.

  The two elves’ faces went from pleased to stony when they saw me. My heart sank into my stomach. Of course, they knew I was a Mage.

  “Harper,” Jeffil said flatly. “I see you still have the Mage with you. Where’s the general?”

  Harper grimaced. “Juan sacrificed himself so that we could live at the Bridge of Ankana’Zuul. Finn is still uncorrupted, so please drop the bullshit.”

  Both messengers looked sad and bowed their heads. “The General will be missed. Do you want to send word ahead? Or report in person?” Dailen asked.

  Harper thought for a moment. “Send word ahead. We will give a full report, and will need a small contingent to help recover Juan’s body.”

  The message was written and sent, and we rode on. I was suddenly worried about how we would be received at the messenger base at the top of the pass, as the last time we were there, things were a little dicey. Harper listened to my worries, which I shared so that we could plan on how to deal with them.

  “I would like to think it would be okay, but you’re right. Maybe we should just keep going, not even try to stop,” she replied.

  “I just wish my class wasn’t so abhorred,” I muttered.

  After we reached the top of the pass, a group of twenty riders came toward us. It was hard to see them with the sun framing them. I tensed up, thinking that they were coming for me, and started to come up with a plan of attack.

  I wasn’t the only one thinking it. Harper checked her rapier in its scabbard and pulled out a couple of knives. The riders slowed to a stop, and one rode ahead toward us. There was nothing to tell us who they were, other than Allied Army, based on their silhouettes. When the person was close enough to be heard, they greeted us with their familiar voice.

  “Good thing we were here. Twinkle Toes overheard the messengers talking, and I decided we should talk with you first,” announced Captain Rebecca. “You won’t make it without the 303rd, Mage. Not through this pass, and certainly not into HQ.”

  With an enormous sigh of relief, I rode forward. “Thanks Rebecca. Any help would be appreciated.”

  “Did you hear about Juan?” Harper asked.

  “We… did. You can count on us to help get him out of that damned chasm,” Captain Rebecca replied, a hitch in her voice.

  I nodded. “Hopefully, the Council will help, too.”

  “I wouldn’t expect much in that regard, Mage,” the captain replied sourly. “There’s been talk of taking you off the board. Word’s been spreading throughout the Twelve Kingdoms about you, and with all the stories the Nathasian priests have been spreading, you are being seen as a bigger threat than the Empire.”

  “Then we’re not going to talk with the Allied Council,” Harper said bitterly. “They can fuck off.”

  “I don’t think we can do that, Harper,” I said softly. “They know we’re coming, and if I don’t nip this in the butt, we’re going to be hunted down. Right Rebecca?”

  Captain Rebecca nodded. “That’s the gist of it. We’ll all lose our commissions to boot. Don’t get me wrong, most of us in the 303rd have been on the run at one time or another, but I’d like to avoid that if possible.”

  “Why would you guys get into trouble?” I asked.

  “We’re in this, no matter what,” she replied fervently. “All of us Earthborn in the 303rd were trained either by General Venegas or by someone the general had trained. And the rest of the 303rd won’t run. General Venegas gave us specific orders regarding you, and we intend to follow them.”

  I nodded. “Your help will be welcome. We should move if we want to make it down before dark.”

  Captain Rebecca barked some orders, and the unit surrounded us. Arilyn, eyes wide, rode close to me, and I explained what was going on.

  “This is the group of soldiers you were talking about? They look… formidable. But weren’t there more?” she asked, relaxing.

  “There was,” I replied sadly.

  We rode past the messenger base and watched the angry faces of the soldiers and messengers who watched us pass. No doubt they had planned to capture me, and possibly worse. It wasn’t a good feeling to be so feared and hated. I had not earned either, and yet… I had done some horrible things.

  There was a weird dissonance there, though. Mages were feared for their power and how they used it. Yet the mob watching us go feared the 303rd more than me and what I could do to them. It would be easy to handle them, really. Even with my mana regeneration lowered due to a System error, I could still put an end to them with just a few spells. I learned that against the gnolls.

  The thoughts put a sour taste in my mouth. Was I so ready to do that again? Kill people with my magic? It wasn’t so much that I wanted to, but even knowing that I could and considering the how of it made me feel wrong. Like maybe I was as bad as they feared.

  “You’re not. Finn, you are a good person and you take care of me. You wouldn’t do that if you were evil, would you?” Vessa thought with conviction. She had crawled up to my shoulders while I was thinking.

  Before I opened my mouth to argue with her, I realized she was right. With our connection, she would know. I couldn’t deceive the little dragon about my intentions, as our minds were connected. Yes, I could be careful and keep some things buried deep or lock her out. But as soon as I let her back in, or accidentally thought about evil plans or whatnot, she would know. And even if she didn’t fully understand, the underlying feelings of the thought would clue her in.

  “And I can feel your essence, Finn. You aren’t evil and try really hard to figure out the best thing and learn from your mistakes. You want to protect the innocent, not use them!”

  Thank you, Vessa, I thought. I just worry sometimes that I am losing my way.

  Vessa nuzzled my face. “Not while you have me and Harper,” she replied. “And Heals, too.”

  The little dragon was right. I had to protect and care for her. Not only that, but I valued Harper’s friendship and experience, and wouldn’t do anything to lose it. And then there was Arilyn.

  Nothing could change how I felt about her.