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Eyes among the Foliage

A massive monster streaks from the trees. It’s bigger than Storm, with a long, thin body and limbs, and a dark purple-brown carapace. Its two forearms look like sawblades with jagged little teeth running along their edges. Its mandibles clack horrendously, and venom drips from its jaws, dropping and burning away the foliage on the forest floor; this is the source of the burns we saw before.

It’s a monster insect from someone’s nightmares.

I hate this jungle.

It flies at us, sword-like arms raised as it lets out a shriek that will give me nightmares if we survive this. Daenn steps in front of me, already drawing his sword.

But the monster is intercepted. Storm charges in from the side, slamming into the beast and bowling it over. It snaps at him, narrowly missing his neck with those dripping jaws. His beak clamps down on one of its wings. There’s a crack, almost like a breaking branch.

I’m mesmerized watching them, terrified some of that acidic venom will land on Storm and burn him.

“Emana, get down!”

I obey on instinct, dropping to the jungle floor and rolling just in time to see Daenn clash with a second monster where I was only moments before. The monster’s arms slide along the blade of Daenn’s sword, and Daenn has to duck and spin away when the monster darts in to snap at him with its mandibles.

I scramble farther away, out from under their feet, and scan the edges of the clearing. If there are two, are there more?

Storm shrieks triumphantly as he uses his claws to tear the monster’s head off. He gives it a small shake and then drops it, turning to where Daenn faces off against the second one.

Daenn’s holding his own, using his smaller size to weave around the monster and hack at its limbs when he has the openings. The creature is fast, though, and succeeds in landing a slice against Daenn’s armor. My heart nearly stops at the sight, but while Daenn stumbles a bit from the force of it, I can’t tell if it penetrated down to his skin.

Storm leaps onto the monster’s back when it turns away from him, toward Daenn, making quick work of it from such an undefended angle.

The silence is sharp as the monster falls. No more clacking or shrieks. Only Daenn’s hard breathing and the rustle of Storm’s feathers as he picks his way off the monster’s body.

He nudges one of the legs with his beak, almost contemplatively, as if he’s considering eating it. Fortunately for us, he turns away in disdain.

Daenn lowers his sword and looks over at me. He’s breathing hard. “Are you all right?”

The question triggers my instincts to take stock of my own body. I’ve scraped my arm a bit from where I dropped onto the jungle floor, but it’s not bleeding, so I don’t bother mentioning it.

“Are you?” I counter.

He takes a moment to clean his blade before sheathing it again. “I’m fine,” he says, but he’s scanning the edges of the clearing, and I’m not entirely sure he even bothered to take stock before answering, so I look him over as I stand.

His armor has a scratch along it where the beast hit him but otherwise looks untouched. Before I can do a more thorough examination, Daenn is moving toward Storm.

“Let’s go. I want to cover as much ground as possible before we make camp.”

I don’t point out that we’ve seen evidence of these monsters since we’ve entered the jungle, and moving won’t mean we’re safe from them. But I also have no desire to camp next to two giant carcasses. So I don’t say anything at all, just follow Daenn to the gryphon, resisting the urge to look over my shoulder for eyes among the foliage.