A horror of a monster was emerging from the mound. It looked even more nightmarish than its pictures in the bestiaries. If a hive-queen was the commander for a horde of silence-spiders, then this abomination was a commander for a swarm of blood-draks.

“Damn it! Everyone back! It’s a bloody blood-hydra!” Cedric roared.

Drestra swore from somewhere up ahead as she immediately transitioned from casting spells on the chitterer dungeon below, to chanting the beginnings of a powerful spell to cast at the emerging blood-hydra. She kept her reptilian eyes firmly fixed on it.

Hart let out a battle cry, but didn’t move toward the beast just yet.

“Claygon! Charge your fire-gems and fire on that thing” Alex ordered, pointing at the beast below.

Whooooom!

The fire-gems pulsated, gathering power for a tremendous blast.

“You three!” Watcher Shaw called to three Watchers. “Switch targets, we need to kill that thing before it gets airborne!”

Crack!

Earth shifted, more of the monster’s bulk was rising into view.

There was a piercing screech as what looked like gigantic worms erupted from the earth; nine serpentine necks thrashed on the shoulders of the blood-hydra’s insectile body, each capped by a draconic head spewing fountains of boiling blood through the air.

Its heads were horrifying. Its cries were hideous.

Its body…was strangely beautiful.

It resembled an enormous butterfly in shape with flexible wings that were unfolding as it crawled from an enormous tunnel. It shrieked again as its wings snapped open, taking the shape of moth wings shimmering like ship’s sails covered in ruby dust.

But, as beautiful as the shimmering was, it was equally as deadly.

Each time those wings beat, diseased blood droplets fell from them like rain, coating everything below in a crimson downpour. While they didn’t scald like the streams of blood erupting from its jaws, the droplets still hardened, trapping anything they touched, filling it with vile diseases. Already, a crust had begun forming on the earth around it.

That thing needed to die fast.

‘Claygon, now!’ Alex thought.

The golem directed all three of its fire-gems at the dragon as Drestra finished casting her massive spell: the mana coursing from her was almost overwhelming.

Whooooosh!

Three fire-beams raced toward the blood-hydra.

Drestra pointed both hands as she finished the spell. From one, a colossal wave of hurricane force wind gushed—angled to drive the creature back into the ground—and from the other…

Hsssssss!

A storm of acid droplets driven by magical wind surged toward it.

Both storms of magic closed in on the monster.

Its heads snapped up.

Nine pairs of eyes narrowed.

Whish!

Wings cracked like whips, launching the vast body up through the air at shocking speed. Its form blurred as it shot skyward, far from the blasts of hungry magic. The target had evaded Drestra’s winds so they hit the hill—at the same time as Claygon’s beams. A horrifying sound of sucking wind suddenly filled the air before...

Booom!

It all exploded.

The winds fed the exploding fire-beams and—rather than extinguishing them—created an explosion that was so violent, scores of emerging blood-draks dropped from the force of the blast. Acid rained down on Ravener-spawn.

But, diseased blood was raining down on the airborne defenders.

The blood-hydra soared through the air, picking up a shocking amount of speed, raining blood and death down on the flyers. Its bellowing cut the air while blood streamed from each head.

“Move!” Alex shouted.

Reinforcements were scattering in every direction, fleeing from falling blood.

Then the Sage roared out another spell.

She was chanting, bringing a tremendous rush of mana to bear, then pointing a hand above the reinforcements, Drestra sent a column of wind gusting above their heads. It hit the cascade of blood, sucking it in then swirling away.

The blood-draks scattered while their commander roared. It flew through the sky, shedding blood droplets with every wing beat…and those wings covered a lot of area.

Alex used the Mark to do a quick calculation of the creature’s wingspan. They were at least sixty feet from tip to tip, he estimated: enough to bury a group of defenders. If it flew over a city, it could annihilate a small army by simply flying over it. It would be pure horror. Alex shuddered at the thought, realising that the droplets from its wings had nearly coated everyone with him in only one swoop.

Blood kept streaming from its jaws.

Something menacing burned in its eyes as it circled with deafening roars echoing from all nine throats. The remaining blood-draks seemed to rally at the cries, their chaotic flight abruptly growing focused.

They launched themselves directly at the reinforcements with no regard for their own safety, hurtling around in a circle, spraying boiling blood seemingly with one goal in mind: corralling the reinforcements in one area.

Alex swore as blood-draks vomited blood and struck at him from all sides, their jaws snapping. He danced and spun in mid-air, dodging snapping jaws and streams of blood. The beasts were like enraged demons in a feeding frenzy, filling the skies with a red mist sprayed from all directions.

Hsss!

Droplets hit his force armour, force rectangles, and force shield, hissing and sizzling against the magic. He quickly pulled something from his belt that he’d been working on with help from Thundar.

A lasso.

He whirled the rope above his head, throwing it through the air—using the Mark to guide and perfect his aim—and caught a blood-drak’s tail. Tightening his grip on the rope, Alex let himself be pulled behind the monster as it tried to get away from him. But, he wasn’t about to let that happen.

It went into a frenzy then, doing loops and spins mid-flight, fighting to shake him off. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily.” He shouted. Then gritting his teeth hard, he began pulling himself—hand over hand—up the rope until he reached the blood-drak’s lassoed tail. In one movement, he sprang onto its back, grabbed hold of its exoskeleton and straddled its tail, holding on as it writhed, desperate to shake him off. There was no way he wasn’t letting go. Flexing his upper body, he used his captive as a shield, guiding it into different positions, blocking the blood spraying from other blood-draks close by.

He willed his Wizard’s Hands to harass every blood-drak around him, blocking eyes, forcing a set of jaws closed just before one of them spewed its deadly liquid. The Hands even pulled on horns, turning the monster’s spray toward each other and not his allies.

Meanwhile, Claygon’s fire-gems were charging. Alex kept one eye on the blood-hydra, he wasn’t about to lose track of it, not with so much going on to distract him. It was a small miracle that all the spinning the blood-drak was doing hadn't made him dizzy yet. Throwing up in his Orb of Air could get kinda messy, especially since he couldn’t really cancel the spell with so much deadly blood everywhere.

Watcher Shaw was barking out orders to combat the blood-drak’s coordinated assault .

“Stop them from corralling us!” He shouted.

Hsssss.

His force shield quickly shifted, catching a stream of boiling blood in the nick of time.

Cedric roared out a spell, raking the blood-draks with lightning as he swooped through the swarm, slashing them apart with his blades. Wounds he’d taken had already been healed with divinity, and Uldar’s Chosen seemed unstoppable as he ripped through the monsters’ ranks.

Isolde blasted her own lightning bolts through the horde, darting out of their reach, while the Watchers rained death in all directions, confirming their fearsome reputation.

“Above!” Watcher Shaw called out.

The blood-hydra had plunged into a dive, preparing to blast the defenders with boiling blood.

“Fire!” Alex yelled.

Whooooosh!

Claygon’s fire-beams lanced toward the blood-drak’s leader, forcing the creature to pull out of its dive as the beams chased it across the sky.

Whooooosh!

Another blast of wind fired from Drestra, deflecting the droplets. She raised her hands high above her head and fired another intense spell. A flurry of force missiles shot toward the blood-hydra, reaching the creature mid-flight, punching into its exoskeleton and driving it back.

A couple of force bolts mangled some of the monster’s legs.

Yet no one cheered. They knew what was coming.

Squelch.

Flesh was shimmering and boiling: wounds were closing and the severed legs had already begun to regenerate. Like the true hydra it was named for, its ability to regenerate and recover from wounds was an inborn part of its nature. It would always heal, unless it was annihilated utterly…

…or, its wounds were seared with fire.

‘Maybe I’ve got just the thing for that,’ Alex thought.

“That’s the way!” Watcher Shaw called. “We’re winnowing down the blood-draks, but we have to break that blood-hydra! The surveyors need to retreat, and it’ll hunt them if we don’t stop it!”

Alex looked down at Tyris and Vesuvius: they wouldn’t hesitate to take the fight to it normally, but they still had their hands full with blood-draks and chitterers. With Hart also fighting on the hill and the reinforcements fighting above, there was less pressure on them, but if she and Vesuvius went after the blood-hydra, then the ground forces could still get overwhelmed.

The retreat was just beginning and blood mages were loading wounded onto force disks, while the other surveyors gave them cover, holding off the remaining monsters.

The blood-hydra’s attention had turned to those on the hill, tracking them with nine pairs of eyes.

The wounded were the first being evacuated through the corridor of fire as fighters escorted them.

Watchers were providing ranged support, but that still left the blood-hydra free to attack.

“I’ll get the bastard!” Cedric shouted, flying away from the remaining swarm of blood-draks and shooting toward the blood-hydra above them.

“And there’s my cue,” Alex said.

He called his Wizard’s Hands, mentally pulling them back through the swarm to hover over his flailing, tiring, blood-drak. One pair of Wizard’s Hands untied the rope, while another pair covered the monster’s eyes.

Alex reached forward, grabbed its horns and pulled up, driving it up into the sky as Cedric soared toward the blood-hydra. As he broke out of the swarm, he pulled the horns to the side, leaping free of the blood-drak as it crashed into another one.

He headed right for the commander, drawing potions of sleep and booby-trapped flight.

“I’ve got this!” Cedric roared as Alex flew after him. “You kin get back!”

“We’ll break it faster together,” Alex shouted over the wind, calling his forceballs to him. “I’ve got a plan. You think you can slow it down for a bit?”

Cedric glanced at him, then down at Claygon. “Plan’s best if’n I just hit the damn thing until it drops. I kin blast it wi’ fire!”

“That works just fine for me,” Alex said. “You do your thing. Glad you still got Orb of Air around your head, ‘cos you’re gonna need it.”

“Aye?”

“You go ahead, do your thing and I’ll back you up!”

The Chosen raised an eyebrow then nodded, cast Haste on himself, then shot toward the blood-hydra at speed.

“Holy Uldar, grant me the power to strike this thing from the sky!” Cedric prayed, reaching above his head as the monster circled around, roaring a challenge down at both the Chosen and the Fool.

Holy fire swept into his hand—the divinity was conjuring a spear of flame—which he gripped as he approached the monster while changing his other weapon into a broad shield.

With deep breath, Alex soared toward the ascending monster, guiding his way through the Mark’s interference as he cast Call Through Ice. One of his Wizard’s Hands was shooting toward him, and he tossed his booby-trapped potion of flight into it.

He was watching the monster carefully as it beat its enormous wings through the air, spewing blood toward Cedric.

The Chosen’s shield expanded, spreading out into a half-sphere, parting the torrent of boiling blood like rain running off an umbrella. He shot through the liquid using it as cover for his charge, then, he burst from the torrent, moving his shield aside—wicking the hardening blood away—and with the strength he’d been blessed with, he cast the spear of flame toward the blood-hydra.

Crack!

It hit the monster’s chest with the sound of an exploding roman candle, erupting in a blast of light and flame. It shrieked, fleeing from Cedric while spewing its blood-breath onto the wound to douse the flame.

For that moment.

For that brief moment.

It took its attention off of Alex.

“Big mistake,” he said.

His Wizard’s Hand shot toward it.