Infinity in Pieces- Open Novella Contest 2021

Angry Lizard Demons

It can smell their fear. Swooping closer on night-dark wings, the creatures stay in formation, scanning. Hunting.

The master will reward them on their return. Ancient beasts should not be locked in cages. It is hungry. And the cage it was in has been destroyed.

Its focus zeroes in on a girl. She is so small, compared to the others around her. Her fear is especially potent. She palms her throwing knives and waits for us to reach her. The taste of terror is on the wind, mixing the smell of salt and death and fish.

It can see the faces of the people in robes. Warriors and scholars both. They do not show fear.

Shouts from the boat draw the attention of some of the ranks. They are new, undisciplined. Those others don't have the experience of the Elders. They have not heard the stories about the tortured screams of battles waged eons ago.

Drawing closer, the humans aboard the boat with wings have started fighting back. They shoot arrows into our ranks, only culling a tenth of our strength. They have not yet realized it is hopeless to fight.

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The creatures were figments of a nightmare. They flew as one unit, blocking out portions of the sky as they swooped towards the Guardians on night-dark wings. Muttering under her breath, Rosie mentally inventoried her weapons. Four small, balanced throwing knives and a long dagger strapped to her hip. Stupid, stupid, she chided herself as she tied her hair up with the ribbon in her pocket. She had known that the narrow pier they were meeting on only had one entrance and exit, and she hadn't thought to bring other weapons to defend herself with. The throwing knives she carried weren't very heavy, impractical for a battle. It was the ideal place for an ambush; the Guardians gathered there had shed the majority of their weapons in order to make this meeting seem diplomatic. And now they were trapped.

Rosie looked around quickly, counting up the number of Guardians with an actual chance to defend themselves. Just sixteen Guardians stood between those monsters and Tarsa's capital. The surrounding world calmed to silence as she whipped her head from side to side, scanning the pier that they were standing on. The pier jutted out into the sea and waves calmly lapped against it, seemingly undisturbed by the incoming beasts.

About twenty feet from where the Guardians were standing, boxes were piled on the pier, near the shore. Rosie gradually let sound trickle back into her ears, listening for threads to weave. To use. But the docks were silent.

Something was very, very wrong. She skimmed over the nearest ships and realized that not a single other ship had a crew manning it. Usually, the docks were swarming with sailors, ant-like from the distance of the Guardian's headquarters. The hole where sound and motion should be made her shiver, cold little spiders walking down her spine.

Rosie needed to get somewhere to observe, especially with her lack of defense. She locked onto the pyramid of boxes piled near the end of the pier and started running toward them, ignoring the other Guardians who told her to stay with them.

Distantly, she heard Kova shouting orders to her crew. Pistols and cannons fired into the blue, blue sky, made black by those... things. Bursts of fire erupted from the cannons as the shells smashed into the ranks of the creatures. The damage would've decimated any army, but the demons kept flying, unconcerned by the loss of their comrades.

Rosie took a deep breath. Okay, okay. Calm down. Think. She rolled the dagger in her hand as her mind raced, lungs heaving as her feet pounded across the wooden planks. A lesson her parents had drilled into her mind sprang into consciousness. If the enemy has the advantage, take those advantages away.