Felix woke with a start, the rumbling of a distant roar startling him.
He sat up on the stone slab of the outdoor kitchen area, hand-drawn maps strewn about, looking around for the source. It seemed to be coming from upriver to the northwest.
Hopping down, he got to his feet and grabbed his club.
Lydia and Kyle emerged from their cottage. Kyle grabbed the small bow that had been leaning against the door of the cabin with the dead Cleric. Lydia brandished a crude spear.
“Come!” Lydia ordered as she began moving toward the northwest, heading for the spike wall.
Felix looked around, unsure what to do, then followed for lack of a better option.
They wove along the village path, through the cottages, most of which were covered in moss and lichen. The farther they progressed, the wilder the scenery became.
Finally, they reached the end of the clay-and-cobble path, at a gate made of sticks and vines, with spikes secured to the outside.
“Keep your eyes open,” Lydia said. “Be ready.”
“For what?” Felix questioned in a hushed but anxious tone.
Kyle knocked an arrow and half-drew the bow. Lydia paced the line of the barricade, eyes fixed like a hawk on the tree line ahead.
Felix sensed movement, and a scent caught the air.
“I think there’s something there.”
He pointed at a small thicket in a break in the trees.
“How sure?” Lydia asked.
“I can’t…”
His senses honed, and his finger shot out.
Kyle drew and loosed in the direction Felix indicated. The arrow soared, and with a sickening thump, found its mark.
A shriek shattered the silence.
The bush the arrow had entered shook, then became still.
A deep, rumbling growl emanated from the tree line, followed by several shrill, reptilian cries.
They burst from the thicket all at once.
Felix drew back.
Seven or eight large, lizard-like creatures rushed toward the village. They stood about four feet tall, running on their hind legs, arms extended with three large claws…
And a fucking thumb on each hand.
They had hands.
Felix got to his feet, moving to an empty spot in the defensive line. Lydia readied her spear, and Kyle loosed another arrow, narrowly missing the leading lizard.
“What the fuck?!?” Felix exclaimed.
“Sliders!” Lydia replied. “They jump, so be ready. Aim for the head!”
They were only twenty feet away now and coming in fast.
The tree line shook.
Something much larger was out there.
The first Slider leapt at the barricade toward Lydia. It was going to easily clear the spikes, whose tips rose eight feet or so off the ground.
She calmly planted the base of her spear in the ground, securing it with her left foot, following the trajectory of the beast with the tip.
It came down hard on the spear.
Felix gasped as the tip ruptured through the back of the thing with a spray.
Lydia didn’t even stop to see if it was dead. Instead, she let the dying animal pole-vault to its final resting place as she ran to the barricade and retrieved another spear that was lying amongst the spiked wall.
Kyle sent arrow after arrow.
Some hit. Some missed.
The next closest incoming creature took an arrow straight to the base of the neck and slammed into the spiked wall after a few faltering steps.
“This one’s you!” Lydia called out.
Felix followed the point of her spear and her gaze to see another giant lizard flying through the air above his head.
“Ohhhhh FUUUUUCCKK!”
He swung as the thing came into range, clipping one of its hind legs and causing it to rotate as it fell.
It reached to swipe at him with one hand, narrowly missing Felix’s face as it crashed to the ground and rolled.
Not missing a single beat, it was up on its hind legs, limping from Felix’s blow.
It moved toward Felix, whose back was now toward the barricade.
Felix took a feinting swing at the creature’s head.
It ducked.
He spun once, stepping closer to the animal, bringing the spiked tip of his club level with the new elevation of the creature’s head. Using momentum and centrifugal force, he accelerated the blow.
Contact.
The animal’s head detonated.
Actually fucking detonated like a damned watermelon, spraying Felix in teeth and gore.
“Back to the line!” Lydia ordered.
“Oh shit!”
He turned around to find four other creatures either dead on the ground or dying on the spikes of the barricade.
The forest rumbled.
The trees parted.
And then an iguana-monitor-chameleon-looking lizard the size of a fucking grizzly bear pushed through into the clearing.
Lydia was stabbing wildly at the pierced and wounded smaller attackers. Kyle was now focusing his defense on the larger aggressor.
Arrows bounced off its thick hide.
It lumbered closer and shot out its tongue toward Kyle, who ducked behind the spikes.
The tongue struck the spike wall, wrapping around a couple of the sharpened staves.
Then it retracted, ripping them from the earth as it pulled its tongue back toward its mouth.
It had large rear legs like the smaller creatures, with the same sharpened forelimbs. A large, teeth-lined mouth. Its skin shimmered with mottled red and green. Its eyes were vertically slit, with golden-yellow pupils.
It screeched a deafening defiance.
Kyle fired an arrow at the animal’s open mouth.
It landed, and the creature flinched, shaking its head. The arrow remained lodged in the roof of its gaping mouth.
It screeched in anger.
Lydia hefted a spear onto her shoulder and, with a lunging step, launched it.
Felix noticed that some of the smaller lizards stuck on the spikes were working to get free.
He ran to them, clubbing each one.
The larger monster, seeing its fallen kin being beaten to death, howled in fury and stormed the barricade.
The sticks bent and snapped as it trampled its way through, swiping away the defenses.
Lydia fell back as Kyle circled, firing arrow after arrow.
One arrow struck the creature in the eye.
A howl rang out, and the animal flailed in pain.
Lydia took the opportunity to rush in with her spear to finish the beast.
It swiped with its arm, catching her at the waist and sending her flying.
She landed in a sickening clump in the ground several feet away.
“Love!” Kyle called out, forgetting the battle as he ran to her aid.
The monster rose to its full height, easily ten feet tall, letting out a deafening roar of protest.
Felix stood a few paces away, club readied, half the size of the creature.
It landed back on all four legs and swiped at Felix.
He leapt over the razor-edged limb, straight at the thing’s head, club reared back.
The monster angled its head.
Felix was mid-flight, lined up to be taken in a single bite.
Felix swung the club like a baseball bat, ahead of himself, landing the spikes firmly in the other eye of the enraged animal.
Then, with the tip lodged in its orbital socket, the beast reared again.
Felix did not let go.
He swung by the handle, causing the spikes to twist.
Felix swung around onto its back.
The animal, still rearing, tipped past its center of gravity and began to fall backward.
Felix did not let go.
He swung around the back, clockwise, as the head of the creature twisted and met the ground right on the spikes of the club, driving them deeper into its skull.
The beast went limp, Felix sitting on it’s motionless form.
“FUUUUCCKKCKCKK YOOOUUUUUU!!!”
Felix screamed into the monster’s dead form.
Artavus Quill 