Marco set up shop in a small clearing near the edge of the tree line that gave a good vantage point to keep an eye on the bedragoned dock. While he waited for anything to happen, he decided to do a bit of housekeeping.

  He divided up the healing teas into four groups, with one jar bring odd man out. Two for each of them. Marco placed the extra into Ivys group, seeing as she’d have two lives to look after. He then had to give Heracles his spare satchel, given the beetle hasn’t taken well to the custom of clothing yourself. But he knew Heracles would likely get himself into a scrap like with the griffin, and the spare might not cut it. Fine. Heracles ended up getting Marco satchel and Marco used his own ratty spare.

  Marco placed two teas besides Yesenia after giving Heracles his new satchel. The wizard studied a small book while sitting on a fallen log. But from their posture you’d think they were sitting in the reading room of King Ceratin. Marco found Ivy cooing and petting her beloved mount. Hardly noticing Marco as he placed the teas into Lilys saddle bags.

  After a time, evening fell . The group slowly came together in the cool air. Ivy told a few stories of her time training with Bellona, this then pushed Yesenia to tell of a few classes in the very secretive tower of Emond Volar. A particular tale of a stern transmutation teacher caused Heracles to go into a long yarn about one of the leaders of the desert clans. A metal man who slew nearly thirty dragons in a flying chariot. Marco listened but deflected when pushed to tell a story of his own.

  He was about to call it a night and reschedule their little stake out when the night air was suddenly assaulted by the shrill sounds of splintering wood.

  Marco and Ivy silently rushed for their weapons. But whereas Marco advanced to the lookout point he had marked, Ivy retreated deeper to be beside her mount. Yesenia calmly and quietly collected the pie tins Heracles had been licking clean into a pile. With little effort, a section of the ground relented to Yesenia’s demand and rose to bury the beef scented tins. Heracles was the first to get a good look at the creature. His blood began to pump looking upon it, fists closed into mallets of chitin.

  All Ryba said was accurate. Two large wings. Only feathered and not leathered. Those wings attached to a powerful muscular chest, flexing and straining with every wing beat. On the end of its thrashing tail was a baseball sized bulb, where a curved hornet like stinger was placed. Rybas boys had neglected to say and or hadn’t noticed a rather odd fact about this night beast. It’s complete lack of limbs. Heracles thought it looked like a python who never skipped chest day. He guess it’s the only day it could do. Maybe tail day.

  The creature looked in a frenzy. Hissing and snarling as it sunk its toothy maw into the gunnel of a small rowboat. Latched on with its mouth, its tail began to furiously strike punching pin prick holes into this boat as it had to the others. Marco saddled up besides Heracles, watching as the beasts’ wings heaved into the air. The boat rose for a moment then, under the strain of its own weight the plank in the mouth of the creature splintered free. The boats drop seemed to set the beast off again, igniting another furious barrage of teeth and stinger.

  “What in the bitten-“ Marco whispered.

  “Do you know what that is?” Heracles said at normal volume.

  Marco jolted and was ready to scold Heracles, until he remembered how the boy’s voice worked. “It’s an Amphiptere.”

  Yesenia crouched down besides Marco squinting at the night shadowed beast. “An amphiptere?” Said in hushed breathy tones. “What’s an amphiptere doing in Breged? And in the mountains no less.”

  Yesenia and Marco jolted again from the only voice not hushed. “Doesn’t matter. Its breaking Mr. Rybas boat again.”

  Heracles began to stand but Marco held his shoulder firmly. “No kid, we gotta see what its up to...”

  “It’s just smashing shit.” Heracles protested.

  Yesenia hissed, not dissimilar to the amphiptere before them. “Don’t be dense. Monsters don’t just attack for no reason.”

  “Some do! This thing might not be a dragon but it’s making life hard for Ryba. What if it runs away?”

  Marco yanked Heracles back down to his knees. “We aren’t saying let it go. We are saying let us watch it for a bit kid.”

  Heracles bristled, his mandibles twitching and clacking together. “Don’t call me kid.” With that he pulled away from Marco and pushed his way out of the tree line.

  The amphiptere rent another plank from the boat. But this time when the boat fell to the water, another large object caught its slitted eye. A creature so preoccupied with the flying snake that it hadn’t even noticed the satchel it left behind stuck on a branch.

  The amphiptere hissed and flashed its stinger at Heracles. Heracles walked forward with purpose; fists clenched tight. No protection aside from what the gods provided at his birth. Marco noticed the forgotten satchel and retrieved it with frantic hands. He slung it over his shoulder and raised his bow as he stepped from the tree line.

  “Gods bite it Heracles!” Marco roared as he loosed an arrow at the snake creature. It deftly weaved its body to avoid the arrow, hissing in rage.

  “What’s happening out there!” Ivy shouted from her hiding place besides lily.

  “Idiocy. Bitten idiocy is what’s happening.” Yesenia began to draw sigils in the air with magical flames as they spoke hushed words.

  Ivy heard the creatures’ warding noises. The young woman steeled herself and bounded onto Lilys back. The horse was stamping and huffing in excitement, ready to trample any who threatened her mistress.

  Heracles raised his fists and his psychic voice boomed in the head of the amphiptere. “You stop that right now!”

  The creature reeled from the cerebral invasion. In fury and confusion, it lashed out. Rushing at Heracles in a gale of feathers and scales, it tried to latch onto him with its needle teeth. The maw found no purchase on the glossy smooth armor adorning the man. Within the eye of the snake storm, Heracles let two well trained punches fly. One the snake avoided, anticipating this Heracles drove the snake directly into the path of his other hand. Cracking a clean hit on the thick chest of the beast.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Marco knocked a second arrow but didn’t let it fly. The amphiptere was coiled in the air around Heracles. There was no clear shot that didn’t risk punching a hole into the young beetle. Marcos eyes watched calculated, searching for a shot.

  Suddenly Marco was thrust from his concentration by a ball of fire blazing past his head. The burning ember caught the snake’s wing, singeing a few feathers and making the animal recoil in agony.

  Marco whipped his head around to Yesenia, who was emerging from the forest. Already readying another bolt of fire. “What are you doing?!” He shouted.

  Yesenia did not stop their incantation. “What am I doing? What are you doing, marksmen?”

  “Don’t fire till he’s clear! Just restrain it!”

  Yesenia scoffed. “That much ice would take too long. Honestly your friend deserves a few burns from this behavior.”

  Marco seethed. He lowered his bow and used it as a staff to crack Yesenia on the wrist. The flaming sigils puffed into nothingness. “I said wait till he’s clear!”

  Yesenia looked at Marco with shock. So much shock they didn’t even have the time to be angry. “How dare you…”

  Before Yesenia had time to immolate Marco like a goose, Ivy and Lily broke the tree line. They charged at the creature, thundering across the wet mud swiftly. Ivy held her blade straight to her side, cutting the beasts body with nothing more than horse momentum. Nearly tar black blood splattered on Lilys coat as she curved her path out of reach from the wounded monster. Circling around wide for another go.

  The beast let out a frustrated cry. In revenge on the only thing within reach, its body coiled then tightened around Heracles. Pinning his arms to his side. He flexed and pushed at the body of the snake, but to no avail. The amphiptere flashed its wicked stinger, it looked so long from up close. In nothing but a flash, the stinger was sheathed into the softer armor of Heracles’ inner elbow.

  Heracles boomed in agony. Sending a shockwave of his voice into the minds of not only the beast but his allies as well. That halted the sinister glee of the amphiptere, sending it reeling once more in mental pain. The anger it felt did nothing to loosen its grip. Squeezing its new prey tight enough to crush a fleshier man, the beast beat its wings ferociously. Heracles began to lift into the air, being absconded with, like some half dead deer dragged into a tree by a puma.

  Reeling in kind with the beast, Marco watched on in horror. Thoughts swirled in his brain of ways to make this right. He thought of ways to track the creature back to its lair. But the venom would be long through with the boy by then. Maybe they could take it down over the water. The kid can’t swim. Why couldn’t he just have waited. Why couldn’t he have listened. His mind flitted to the only uncertainty still available.

  Yesenia readied another magical attack and Marco lunged at them. Grappling the much frailer elf. “Stop! Just- just use the grass to tangle it up!”

  Yesenia slapped ineffectively at his arm. “Use the- Are you having a fit?! I can’t do that!”

  Ivy watched the field of battle like in a dream. Feeling blood on her face for the very first time. Seeing her fast friend being on the edge of a painful death, if Marcos’s reaction to the venom was any to go by. And those here, fighting each other rather than the friend thieving beast rising ever upwards.

  Rising very slowly. Struggling. Heracles is massive in comparison to the average man, even a beast like this is having trouble with his weight.

  Weight.

  “Marco!” Ivy’s voice carried like a war horn. All while Lily began her slow build up back into a charge.

  Yesenia and Marco turned to the familiar voice sporting an unfamiliar tone.

  “What!?” Marco shouted.

  “Let Yesenia go, right this instant!” The command was cold and hard.

  “I won’t let you two risk him! I can figure this out!” Marcos’s shout bled into pleading.

  “I am figuring this out! Now let them go!” Ivy began to stand atop Lilys saddle while lily kept gaining speed.

  “Listen to her idiot!” Yesenia hissed.

  Marco watched Ivy, seeing cold resolve in her eyes as she stood atop her horse brandishing her halberd. He listened reluctantly and freed Yesenia, who immediately began their flame spell again.

  “No!” Ivy yelled without breaking her eye from her quarry. “No fire! Make Heracles heavier!”

  Yesenia stopped their weave confused, then were hit with realization. With well practiced and deft hand movements, Yesenia followed orders.

  The amphiptere’s ascent was halted, then transformed into a gradual descent. In rage the creature flapped harder, its wings attempting to match a hummingbirds for speed. All its effort afforded it was a slower plumet to the ground.

  Ivy held her halberd in both hands firm as a boulder. Lilys charge was aimed just alongside the amphiptere. Just within striking distance. With instinct heightening and training measuring her, Ivy brought down her weapon. Avoiding the fluttering wings, Ivy sliced at the creature’s thinnest point. In another spray of brackish blood, Ivy removed the stinger from the vile snake’s tail. Leaving it implanted inside of Heracles’ arm.

  The creature thrashed. Wings losing rhythm it fell like a stone. Heracles’ new weight made both he and the beast crash to the ground. The impact thud was accompanied by the sickening crackle of amphipteres bones being crushed by its prey.

  “Marco! The wings!” Ivy cried as she wheeled Lily around for a return trip to pain town.

  Marco sprang into action. Foregoing his bow and taking fists of arrows into both hands, he ran at full tilt. The creature thrashed and flapped its wings wildly, stretching its long neck to the sky above. Marco dove. Plunging his arrows into the wings with strength flooded by anger. In himself but more functionally in the amphiptere.

  The beast’s body pinned by weight, its wings by arrows, all it could do is stretch its neck to the sky in hissing desperation. Ivy swung her halberd like a baseball bat at the tautly pulled neck, severing the wicked mind from the venomous body.

  The creature writhed like a sun-soaked worm for only a moment. Then the body of the amphiptere caught up with time and fell limp and lifeless.

  Marco spared no time. The battle hadn’t ended, and he knew that. He franticly pulled away the dead heavy wings until he was able to reach Heracles’ head. He looked on the edge of unconsciousness, eyes half closed and mandibles hanging open.

  Ivy and Yesenia rushed over. Yesenia returned Heracles to his normal weight. Marco yanked the stinger out of his friend’s arm, brackish venom oozed out of both stinger and wound. Cradling Heracles’ head in his lap, Marco hurriedly cracked open a jar of life-giving tea. He found it more difficult when the life on the line wasn’t his own. He also found more tears in his eyes.

  Ivy and Yesenia watched on with bated breath as Marco poured the tea into the hole behind the loosely hanging mandibles. None had kept track of the time. Did cutting the stinger off stop or hasten the release of toxin. Was Heracles more or less susceptible to the venom. All questions were made in the seconds of complete silence. The seconds before knowing.

  Then Heracles coughed.

  The only universally recognized sound to pass his throat in the entire time Marco had known him.

  Heracles opened his little black dots and his mandibles tightened back to rigidity. Finally a weary voice sounded in his friend’s minds. “I… almost…”

  The wizard, rider and woodsman listened intently.

  Heracles shook his head. Still bound in serpent flesh. “I almost had it!” He boasted, wiggling with renewed vigor in an attempt to get free.

  Marco looked in shock. Then unable to hold back the tidal wave of emotion, he laughed. His laughter was followed by the measured chuckle of Yesenia, in awe at the situation, and the cheers of success from Ivy. They had slain their first beast as a team.

  And with only minor injury and no death! Near death didn’t count.

  Marco helped Heracles free of his scaled shackles and to his feet. Marco hugged Heracles tight, who of course hugged tightly in return. Then Marco turned to Ivy, and teary eyed said.

  “Thank you, Lady Ivy.”

  Ivy chortled at him. “Just Ivy dear. Just Ivy to you all.”

  Ivy pulled the other three into a tight group hug. The hug and laughter was then interrupted by cracking twigs and a soft voice.

  “That was incredible!” The willowy voice said.

  Ivy was the first to turn to its source. Her eyes widened in shock.

  “What by the gods is that!!!”

  Scurrying out from the tree line, holding Marcos forgotten bow in small hands, was a creature. In comparison to this small beast the amphipthere was run of the mill. In the dark it looked to be a walking bush. A topiary in the shape of an oversized chicken. Ghastly details made themselves known once it was in the light of the moon.

  Its basic structure was made of the sun-bleached bones of something long since gone. Bound back together in a crude falsehood of life by foliage, wood and vines. The creature was little more than waist high on its back legs. Those back legs resembled a deer or a dog, though the body plan was far more like a cockatrice but with a much longer tail. The tail coiled around the things feet as it sat down passively. Looking up at the four was the face of a goat, but a goat long dead. If it laid down you’d easily mistake it for a goat skeleton reclaimed by nature. It stared with little green flames as eyes, suspended in the middle of its eye holes

  Then it spoke again.

  “You dropped this!” Said the beast. The lower jaw went up and down like a macabre puppet as it spoke in a voice dripping with genuine kindness and joy.

  The entire party looked at the thing in stunned silence. All except Lily. She felt nothing strange from the small boney bush creature.

  The silence lasted for quite some time. The thing tilted its head to the side. It took a few steps forward and gazed up into Marcos stunned face. Then it took Marcos’s hand in its own and placed the riser of the bow into his palm and closed Marcos fingers around it.

  “There you go bubby.” It said before returning to its place several feet from the party.