Gods of Blood and Bone (Seeds of Chaos Book 1) (48 page)

The first thing that came to my mind was that it was a rock and lava golem. It was humanoid, with a featureless lump for a head, and limbs of rock held together by flowing lava. The second thing that came to my mind was that it was damn scary.
 

Jacky just happened to be on the edge of the platform it arose next to, and it caught her pant leg with a swipe of its rocky hand. She kicked it in the head hard enough to make the stone crumble, and it fell away from her into the water, leaving a smoking hole in the fabric of her pant leg.
 

Almost immediately, it recovered and shot to the surface again, this time climbing onto the rocky platform.
 

She squared off with it and started to fight, carefully avoiding the lava-flowing parts of it and crumbling away it's rocky limbs and head. One solid roundhouse kick to the abdomen cracked through its chest, and the thing collapsed into a steaming pile of rock and quickly cooling lava. "Go for the chest!" she called.
 

The water started to boil and jump even stronger all around us, and more lava golems shot upward. I bit my lip at the number, but noticed that there were no more red lights shining up from the bottom of the water, so at least there wouldn't be more than one wave of the creatures.
 

We started to attack, making surprisingly short work of them. We'd gotten stronger. A lot stronger. I was grinning cockily when the crushing sound of a lot of water crashing down blew past us, and a huge wave rolled out of the bottom of the column of steam, rushing out in all directions. "Damn," I said, the grin erasing itself instantly.
 

There was nowhere to run, and nothing to hold on to except the rocks beneath our feet.

"Jump when it reaches you!" I called out, and followed my own advice. I came back down into shallower rushing water, but the depth and strength of the tail end were still enough to knock me off my feet, and it was scalding hot.
 

I grabbed onto the edge of the platform and managed to pull myself back up after a few moments of spluttering. I was looking around to check on the others when something grabbed my foot. I had less than a second for the alarm to sound in my mind and to look back before the clear, watery fist yanked me off the edge and down into the water.
 

I kicked and struggled to swim away, but my efforts had no effect. When I looked down, I saw nothing, but I could still feel the fist around my ankle.
 

It pulled harder, dragging me down fast and far enough that the pressure of the boiling water began to feel uncomfortably strong. Finally, it stopped pulling and released my ankle, but before I could swim away, something wrapped around my torso and pressed against my face, pinning my arms to my sides and pushing against my nose and mouth, trying to force the burning water into my lungs.
 

I bucked and wiggled, but the liquid creature only swirled around me more strongly, completely dominating against my clumsy underwater maneuverings. Bug-eyed, I felt the air being squeezed out of me, and knew the burning panic of a person who's about to drown.
 

Then Jacky shot by like a rocket, ripping away my assailant and setting me free.
 

I swam toward the surface and sucked in a breath of air along with a little water. I choked and started to cough, but my head cleared and I was able to swim to another of the platforms. I spent a few seconds clearing my lungs and letting the dizzying heat of my skin cool, careful to keep away from the edge of the platform.
 

When I stood and looked down, I saw Jacky shooting around the water like a superhero, decimating vague watery outlines left and right. She’d burst out for a breath of air every minute or so, then dive back in.
 

Above, Adam was still dealing with the remaining rock and lava golems, and Sam fought by his side with his crowbar.
 

A roaring crackle sounded from the direction of the column of steam, and out of its center burst a ring of that strange light-and-dark fire. The fire separated, and pieces of it formed into bird-like shapes and flew out in all directions. They eyed us on the ground for a few moments, circling overhead, and then one made a dive for me.
 

If not for Sam's screamed, "Don't touch it!" I would have counterattacked with a rake of my claws or a kick as it went by. I skipped out of the way instead, teetering on the edge of my platform for a second.
 

The water below me bubbled and burst upward in a vague humanoid shape, arms reaching for me.
 

Jacky shot out of the water, spearing through its chest with a single punch, and crushing a fistful of harder clear liquid within her fist. "Gravity Skill comes in handy," she gasped. “I can go side to side, if I just pretend that way is down. I got the water. You can handle these, no?"
 

I nodded. "Thanks for the save. We've got this."
 

She took another deep breath of air and shot downward, feet first.
 

I moved to Sam and Adam, jumping along the stone platforms and avoiding the swoops of the fire birds. "What's wrong, Sam?"

"Anything they touch gets…unmade.” He held up his crowbar, which was missing one end.
 

"How the hell are we supposed to stop them, then?" I moved my eyes to the sky, scanning for signs of an attack, which would be especially dangerous since all three of us were together.
 

Adam lifted his hand, then, and shot a bolt of electricity at one flying dangerously close to us.
 

It jerked at the hit, then seemed to burn out of control and devour its own body. A few chunks of flame hit the water and sank still burning, but soon extinguished themselves.
 

"I guess that's how," Adam said. "I hope I've got enough power for this." He slipped a cylindrical energy cartridge from his pocket. "I've been saving this for an emergency. I think this qualifies."
 

He lifted his free hand. Another bolt shot from his fingertips, crackling outward through the damp air and hitting two targets at once.
 

"You handle them," I said to Adam. "Sam, you and I are going to go take care of the source of our problem." I pointed toward the billowing column.
 

He stifled a groan and adjusted his grip on his shortened crowbar. "Lead the way."
 

My chest had a strange tightness in it, because something big was moving within the mist and steam of the column, and I could feel it in the air. As we moved closer, the humidity made it hard to breathe, and I started to cough and worry about being steam-cooked, like my mom used to do with vegetables and chicken.
 

But then a huge arm made of stone and water swung, clearing a swath of steam. Another gargantuan arm swung, and almost hit me as it passed. More of the obscuring mist cleared, and I saw the colossal torso of a woman, literally rooted to the mountain. She had distinct features cut into the stone of her face, and more graceful arms and torso than the smaller golems.
 

Bright, clear water ran over her body and connected her limbs, and also filled the large cavity in the center of her chest. It seemed to completely defy gravity, and maybe a few other rules of physics, too. Right where her heart might be if she were human floated a small object, suspended in the glimmering water. Fire burned in lines around her base, and the stone near it ran a bright liquid orange.

She saw us then, and sound came out of her with the slow booming of a rock avalanche. Somehow, I vaguely understood it. "Bugs, you dare to come before me? I am not so weakened as to fall," she said. Then she brought down her palm in a flat arc to smash us as if we were insects.
 

* * *

I pushed Sam into the water and jumped out of the way onto a platform just far enough away to avoid her hand. The force of her slap caused the water all around to jump higher than my head. It reminded me of a child playing in the bath, slapping the water's surface and making it splash. "Except you're not that cute," I grunted.
 

Sam rose pink-skinned from the water and I grabbed the end of his crowbar and helped him back onto the platform. "Really? Push me into the water?" he gasped, dripping.
 

"I made sure you didn't get hit."

"Well, couldn't you have just yelled, 'Run,' or 'Jump,'" instead?"

"What if you hadn't reacted in time?" I shrugged. "This way I was sure. The chest seems to be the weak spot. I'm going to make a run for it."

A few running leaps brought me to a platform close to her base, which looked like hips growing into the mountain's core. Another leap brought me to her waist, where I used the claws on my hands and feet to scurry up the rock of her body like a spider.
 

I'd just reached the chest and was extending a clawed hand towards the water filled chamber that held her "heart" when I was brushed off. I went flying, my whole right side where I'd been hit feeling like I'd slammed hard into a stone wall, which I guess technically I had.
 

My Skills let me twist around to land on all fours, thankfully onto a platform. I dug the claws on all four limbs into the stone and gouged strips out of it, but I still had enough momentum from her swat to slide off the edge into the scalding water. I scrambled back out of it, gasping in shock at the temperature. No wonder Sam had been perturbed. A few minutes in there and he'd have been cooked like a lobster. Creatures who I suddenly had a lot more sympathy for, by the way.
 

Sam ran around her base in a circle, whacking the stone with his crowbar. It barely even chipped her. He tossed it away and positioned himself behind her, putting a hand on her in an attempt to use his Skill.
 

The mountain-slash-woman scowled in frustration for a minute, then unhinged her water-jointed arms and twisted them backward, over her head.
 

Sam stepped away from her, and a nice chunk of her base, crystallized and sparkly, crumbled away with him. He ducked her swing and made it a safe distance away from her on the other side, so that it looked like we were playing a doomed-to-fail game of monkey in the middle.
 

But then she roared and out of her burst another wave and ring of fire. Almost immediately the water golems popped out of the water, sliding around half submerged on water tails like a snake, and the fire creatures looked bigger and fiercer.
 

"We have to stop her," I called across the caldera to Sam.
 

The mist veil had cleared, and I saw that the other two were still busy fighting their respective golems. It was just us, and we didn't have much time before she multiplied again and the amount of golems became insurmountable. I flexed my claws and whispered, "I won't lose here," to myself, and sprang forward to attack the thing again, as Sam did the same. This time, I crawled up to her shoulder to hack and gouge at the joint there, trying to break off her arm so she'd lose some of her attack power.
 

Any piece of her rock I broke loose was immediately replaced with the glass-clear water, and I didn't know if my actions made a difference.
 

Once again, I saw her other hand racing toward me, but this time jumped out of the way, landing on her collarbone, at the base of her neck. I thought I was safe, and was surprised when the shock of her hand's impact with her shoulder shook her whole body like a large earthquake, sending me falling down her chest. I tried to claw my way to a stop, but her other arm came around and smashed into me again.
 

She was moving faster than she had before, almost as if she were waking up, or maybe warming up, judging by the heat radiating from those huge stone fingers when they smashed into my ribs and arm.
 

This time, I landed in the water and shot a good few meters into it before slowing and starting to pull my way back to the surface.
 

When I reached it, barely escaping a water golem, I climbed onto a steaming platform and coughed and shuddered as my head swam from the heat and lack of oxygen combined.
 

I looked up, only to see one huge stone hand throw Sam spinning end over end across the caldera like a skipping stone. He looked like a rag doll when he hit the water bouncing. He was stopped by a firm bodily meeting with the far wall, and sank into the water unmoving. I flinched at the sight, and hoped with all my might that he was all right. I wasn't sure how he could be, though. Not after being thrown like that.
 
He was our healer, and without him the aftermath of this fight didn't look so good.
 

I sent a Window to Jacky to help Sam, but in my worry over his survival, I was distracted. I noticed far too late the feeling of a huge hand rushing down toward me as the air swirled noisily with the force of its movement. I tried to roll away, back into the water, but knew that I wasn't going to make it. The shadow from above was already darkening the stone, there was no way.
 

But then there was Adam's voice, shouting "Animus!" above me, and a huge gust of wind as something collided with enough force to create a shock wave.
 

I looked up and saw that the beautiful tattoos of his arms and shoulders, which he’d so painstakingly and lovingly grown, were holding both her arms in place. They had sprung from his flesh huge and thick, and were rooting him to the ground, and her to him, in unmovable knots.
 

She brought her full weight to bear, trying to crush him into the ground along with me, even as he held her still. The sound of stone grinding on stone filled the air.
 

He looked over his shoulder to me, sweat and wet dripping hair hanging over his face. "Move!" he screamed at me, his voice raw and shaking.
 

I sprang to my feet and started running as fast as I could, digging my toe claws into the stone for more grip.