Wizardborn (World's First Wizard Book 3) by Aaron Schneider (read me like a book txt) 📕

Without another word, they took off through the dark.

By nature, Rihyani and Ambrose were unhindered by darkness. Milo had applied nightsight before they’d leaped from the train. Yet being able to see in the dark did not render them omniscient about all the dark-shaded forest’s hazards. Roots still threatened to snare rushing feet, and branches still lashed passing faces. The promise of a horde of primal horrors on their trail did nothing to ease them, and things became even more difficult as they crashed down a slope and began slogging across wet ground.

A boggy strip of land swollen by recent rains stretched before them. Beyond it, Milo spied the break in the woods where the road lay.

“Almost there,” he growled, drawing one boot out of slurping mud as he searched for something to plant it on. As he did, there was a queer reflection in a pool of standing water beside him; for a second, it was as if the entire pool blinked under the dappled moonlight.

Milo’s arms and neck prickled with gooseflesh.

“Then we get to run for our lives on solid ground,” Ambrose groused as he forged ahead, his heavy tread sinking him up to his knees in places. “Just lovely.”

“Less talk, more walk, boys,” Rihyani called from up ahead, where she stood poised on a small patch of knotted grass. With a bound and the barest flutter of her will, gentle currents bore her to a toppled tree several meters away.

Milo blinked, sweating and yet cold from the icy mud. Had he seen a dark shape slither beneath the surface of the water?

“Easy for her to say,” Ambrose puffed as he tugged a foot free with a popping sound. “Damn pixie!”

Milo planted the tip of his cane in a patch of damp sod, scrambled onto the firm spot, and swept his gaze around him. He wiped sweat from his eyes, trying to press outward with his will to sense anything as he searched the inky pockets of water dotting the way to the road.

“Milo, what is it?” Rihyani called to him, and he turned, struggling to find words as his gaze kept roving.

The words died in his throat as he saw Rihyani staring at him, her back to a dripping monstrosity.

Fleshy whiskers twitched and swung to the side as its massive jaws gaped, revealing ridged gums studded with fangs. Bulging eyes glowed like ghostly lamps above a mouth wrinkled to accommodate the widening maw, turning its expression into a perverse smile. Thick webbed claws attached to swollen arms with rubbery folds stretched toward the fey as though inviting her into an embrace.

“RIHYANI!” Milo screamed, but the monster was already in motion.

Thankfully, so was she.

Talons raked the soggy tree as the huge jaws snapped shut on empty air with an audible smack. Rihyani was in the air riding willed currents, her fingers extending into dark sickles as her eyes flashed over bared fangs.

“COME TO TSAR’VODYANOY, MY SWEET!”

The sound was the chuckling of a thousand drowned throats at the bottom of a well—deep, thick, and viscous. Rihyani hissed in response but was forced to dart up to the canopy as the monster heaved its glistening bulk in a pounce. Webbed claws clapped centimeters beneath Rihyani’s feet, and a hideous burbling chuckle resounded from deep in its chest.

The Gewehr barked, and Tsar’Vodyanoy slapped back down on the tree trunk with a crunch, its slimy belly opened with a black oozing wound. Ambrose worked the action on his rifle with furious speed, punching hole after hole in the creature as it turned heavily to him. Compared to the terrifying display of strength and mobility it had demonstrated, its movements were slow and clumsy now. Milo dared to hope that the bulky creature had worn itself out.

When another burble rippled out of the horror’s flesh, Milo knew they had no such luck. The burble grew into a roar.

“TSAR’VODYANOY WILL HAVE YOU SOON TOO, CHUBBY LITTLE PIG!”

“Why wait?” Ambrose bellowed as he rammed another clip into his Gewehr.

Tsar’Vodyanoy’s drooping facial tendrils slapped together as it shook its great head, chuckling in its water-logged voice. With a shrug of its huge sloped shoulders, it swung back to find Rihyani, but she was nowhere to be seen.

“Now, now, play fair, my sweet,” the creature croaked, glowing eyes sweeping left and right in search of the fey.

Ambrose had begun firing again, and Milo decided to add his contribution.

FREEZE

Frozen darts punched into the ichor-dribbling wounds Ambrose’s bullets had opened, and wherever they bit, razor-sharp crystals of black ice formed. Rubbery flesh distended and split as more spurs of ice jutted from the tears, and with a tremendous groan, Tsar’Vodyanoy rolled over on its side and slid into the muck. With a burst of plopping bubbles, it sank beneath the surface of the pool.

“Is it dead?” Milo asked as he struggled forward to get a better look around the fallen tree trunk.

“Let’s make sure!” Ambrose growled and sprang atop the trunk with his rifle still at his shoulder. The Gewehr fired twice, and the water stirred beneath the heavy rounds.

Milo scrambled over the tree as Ambrose leaped into the pool. The big man waded through ankle-deep water before his boots squelched in mud. Two stomping turns revealed nothing but muck and marsh.

“Not dead then,” Milo spat, and his head began to swivel left and right.

“Not quite,” came the chuckle from behind him.

He spun in time to see huge jaws about to envelop him. By reflex, he drew on the physical empowerment of his cane and made to leap back. His footing on the ichor-smeared trunk betrayed him, and his legs went out from under him as he tumbled backward. Tsar’Vodyanoy’s mouth clamped down on the space he’d been in with a loud snap, but its huge bulk was already sending it churning forward.

Milo hit the pool behind the tree, and the aquatic horror’s face came down on top of him. He felt something dense and knobby bounce off his back—Ambrose?—and then it drove him through