Witchmarked (World's First Wizard Book 1) by Aaron Schneider (my reading book .txt) 📕

the rear of the ship even as the nose of the zeppelin began to bow forward. A few seconds later, they were fighting not just the wind, but the incline of the vessel as it began to plunge toward the valley floor. It seemed they wouldn’t have to worry about the mountain after all, but as more of the slime began to spread across the surface of the blimp and into the compartments below, Milo felt a shift.

Milo drew on the connection with the Si’lat in the vessel’s bridge and drove them to apply their efforts to the instruments. He couldn’t sense that they were having any success at first, but little by little, the zeppelin leveled out and then began to climb a little. Under his feet, he felt the trembling skin of the blimp, and wondered if its structural integrity, already sorely tested, would hold out.

Only one way to find out, he told himself as he hauled another hand up the rail.

“Incoming!” Ambrose shouted from behind him, and Milo turned around as the stolen carbine opened up. Looking just past his bodyguard, Milo saw not only the advancing waves of hungry mucus pocked with shrieking faces but also the towering manifestation of Kimaris. The glittering mockery of a human form rode the crest of the oncoming wave like the figurehead of a ship, chin up and arms thrust out behind it. Ambrose’s shots pattered uselessly into the gray tide, and a round that struck the figure’s featureless face only spread a spiderweb of cracks across the hardened surface that quickly vanished as the jelly within swelled to push everything back into place.

Milo swung his eyes to the stern of the airship. They had only a few dozen meters to go, but at this rate, the tide would overtake them before they covered half that distance.

It was time for something drastic

“Fire in the hole!” Milo howled as he swung around and pointed the raptor skull past Ambrose and toward the figure.

“BURN.”

Twin comets of emerald fire lanced down the length of the zeppelin, on target to bury themselves in the figure’s chest. With unholy quickness, the figure coiled and leapt clear of the tidal slime, which writhed and shriveled where the bolts scorched and burned.

The wave lost cohesion as the flames hissed and emitted contrails of acrid steam. Kimaris sought to smother the agonizing sorcery with its bulk. Milo might have crowed with victory as he and Ambrose continued their retreat, but behind them, he heard the figure land on the blimp with a clang. Glancing behind even as he continued to clamber across the blimp, Milo saw it begin sprinting toward them as the rest of the monster continued its crawling advance.

“It’s coming too fast,” Ambrose said, slinging the carbine over his shoulder and drawing his sword. “Go now. I’ll hold him off!”

In defiance of the trembling surface beneath its feet or the wind whipping across the surface of the blimp, it raced after them like a sprinter fresh from the blocks. Its spry feet dented the metal skin of the blimp, each step like a hammer stroke, raising a terrible clamor as it closed on them.

“Together!” Milo shouted, adjusting his grip to midway down the magical cane. “I’ll get him airborne, you spit him!”

Ambrose met Milo’s eyes and knew better than to argue.

Milo sent out a rapid series of witchfire bolts in a flurry of mental focus he would have doubted possible before that moment. Most flew wide of the mark and sailed across the sky like fireworks; just as well since there was no slime on the surface of the blimp to keep the burning missiles away from the hydrogen bladders behind the thin metal. The last few bolts streaked toward the racing figure’s head, and true to form, it leapt into the air, this time turning the movement into a pounce.

Ambrose was waiting, thrusting upward with the blade as the figure descended. The needle point met the hardened skin, flexing for the barest moment and then plunged through the thing’s chest until it sank halfway down the length of the blade. The figure writhed like a bug on a pin, one fist crashing into Ambrose’s face, smashing his nose out of alignment and shooting blood through the air.

Despite the ringing blow, the big man kept his grip on the hilt, twisting it hard as he threw his weight against his attacker.

The figure absorbed the shove with a ripple across its form and snapped back to chop one hand across the blade. When the edge of the descending hand met the spine of the sword, the blade snapped, and Ambrose was thrown off-balance, only to be snared around the throat by a huge crystalline hand.

Ambrose lashed out with the splintered blade and basket hilt, stabbing and punching, but the blows only created cracks that were quickly mended. With inhuman ease, it lifted Ambrose off his feet and shook the big man like a doll.

Behind the looming figure, the encroaching slime swelled to allow the gruesome faces to emerge like dark-crowned boils.

“BEHOLD THE PRINCE!” they cried, keening over the engine and the wind. “BEHOLD THE MIGHT, THE GLORY, THE—”

“Behold this!” Milo roared in defiance as he twisted around the rail like a pool shark making a trick shot.

Two lances of emerald flame sprang from the raptor’s sockets, passing within inches of Ambrose before burying themselves in the figure’s belly.

The avatar of Kimaris lost its grip on Ambrose, and it was all Milo could do to snatch the big man’s arm as he began to slide down the edge of the blimp. Ambrose gripped Milo’s arm feebly, still stunned, and they hung there as the figure, kindled by Milo’s attack, tumbled backward head over heels. By the time it splashed into the seething layers of slime coating the ship, it was blazing in flames of green. The chorus screamed, the disjointed, viscous sound of the drowning damned.

“Nearly there,” Milo growled, hammering home the last of his mental fortitude.

Drawing strength