Page 31 of Wizards & Weavers (Cozy Questing #1)

Chapter

Twenty-Two

The tangle of dread in Braiden’s stomach knotted and knotted again as he took in the sheer size of the frozen colossus. How tall was this thing, truly? Not as tall as the Lighthouse, but still big enough to cause serious damage.

What havoc could a creature like this inflict on the world above? What horrors had the explosion unleashed? For the first time, Braiden found himself agreeing with Augustin’s plan.

He backed away from the icy giant, his fingers tugging on the edge of Augustin’s cloak. Maybe the thing hadn’t noticed them yet. If they moved lightly, kept themselves small, they could still make an expeditious retreat.

What if it was slow, anyway? It was frozen, wasn’t it? Surely those layers of ice around its limbs and joints needed to be broken before it could actually —

“Fascinating,” Augustin breathed, hands on his hips as he stared up at the colossus.

And here was a second great lumbering thing that seemed to have difficulty moving. Braiden tugged the wizard’s cloak harder.

“Augustin. We need to get out of here.”

The wizard shot him an incredulous glare, then gestured at the giant.

“But look at this incredible discovery we’ve made.

This is the largest elemental I’ve ever seen!

Talk about greater elementals, indeed. This place must be close to the source of the dungeon’s purest elemental essence.

Note how the balance of elements has shifted, water combining with air instead of earth.

For something to grow this huge, it must have tapped into a vein of — ”

Braiden tugged on the wizard’s cloak with all his might. This did not have the intended effect, throwing the pair of them into a heap. Braiden’s lantern slipped from his fingers and shattered as it hit the ground, the flame snuffed out as soon as it met the frost.

He shivered at the cold of the stone beneath him, but at least Augustin’s great stupid body kept him warm from the top. Still, a far too compromising position to find themselves in, especially in light of the threat still towering above them.

“What on earth is wrong with you?” Augustin barked.

“I know that you think this is some major scholarly breakthrough, and maybe it is,” Braiden said. “But that thing is massive. You’ve seen how aggressive the little ones are. How much angrier is this one going to be when — ”

Elyssandra screamed. “Look out!”

Above him, past the anger on Augustin’s face, the cavern darkened. The giant’s foot was coming down on top of them, and fast. He grabbed Augustin tight, throwing all his weight to one side, intending to roll.

But with an explosive whoosh of wind, Braiden found himself whipped upward into the air. He blinked hard, heart pounding against his chest, against Augustin’s. Gods, had the frost giant stomped on the ground so hard as to launch them straight up?

“Oh, gods,” Braiden breathed, gazing down at the cavern from high above. “Ybura preserve us. We’re flying.”

Augustin Arcosa’s cloak rippled, his hair teased by the wind as he maneuvered beyond the giant’s reach. An enormous hand lunged for them, bearing down with claws as huge and sharp as scythes. As quick as the twitch of a muscle, Augustin levitated them out of harm’s way.

The Wizard of Weathervale had definitely earned his name. Braiden would have liked to experience flying under less harrowing circumstances, but this was incredible, to feel lighter than air, to see the world from up above.

Down below, Warren was bounding in place, his staff held above his head in both hands, cheering them on. Right beside him, Elyssandra’s eyes were as big as boiled eggs, her mouth opened large enough to fit an entire Gwerenese omelette.

Braiden held tight, feeling somewhat inappropriate for essentially groping the wizard’s physique through his clothing, but feeling far more strongly about wanting to stay alive.

And there was still the messy business of making sure this deadly giant never left this cavern to devastate the rest of the dungeon, not to mention the Underborough, or Weathervale itself.

“What now?” Braiden asked, his hands much too busy with holding tight to contribute any of his own magic. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Leave it to me,” Augustin boomed heroically, his muscles tautening even more obscenely as he held Braiden closer with one arm.

Flying free with his hair in the wind, clasped in the arms of a great hero of Aidun, Braiden thought it was almost romantic. If only Augustin wasn’t practically squeezing the life out of him.

“Have at you!” Augustin cried, hurling a spell at the great elemental. The air roared as a howling vortex of magic erupted from the palm of his hand, spinning with destructive force.

Nothing happened. The swirling spell dissipated on contact with the giant’s icy form, the conjured tornado too weak to topple it, much less give it cause for concern. The creature lumbered forward, its heaving bulk emerging from the gloom, finally giving Braiden a better look at its face.

He almost screamed. The smaller elementals they’d fought only bore a rudimentary resemblance to humanoids. This thing had a far more realistic face, its angular brow lending it an expression of scowling anger, clusters of wicked icicles dripping from its chin to form a terrifying beard.

And its eyes: deep, carved hollows that reached into its proverbial skull, empty pits that showed nothing.

A storm was neither good nor evil. Wasn’t that how Augustin had explained it? This was much the same. Braiden could ascribe every sinister aspect that he wanted to this creature. In the end, it was a thing of ice, existing only to freeze, and snap, and sap the life out of the living.

“That usually works,” Augustin muttered.

Braiden would have thumped him on the chest if he didn’t think it would make the wizard drop him. He scanned the cavern instead, looking for something useful. If they couldn’t fight with their own magic, perhaps their surroundings had something to offer.

“There!” he called out, pointing at the icicles stuck to the ceiling, enormous things that might inflict a ton of damage if dropped in the right place. Right on the elemental’s head, for example.

“Excellent thinking, my weaver friend.”

This time Augustin slashed his arm sideward, the air blurring in an arc.

A faint crescent of something arcane fired from his fingers, traveling at top speed toward an icicle situated right above the elemental.

Braiden’s mouth fell as the concentrated blade of air sliced clean through.

The massive spike of ice and rock dropped onto the elemental’s head with a colossal crash.

The wizard whooped. The elemental raised its head and roared in fury. There, on top of its skull: a crack. It was something, but how many more icicles would it take to actually stop the beast?

Clacking, snapping noises echoed from far below. Elyssandra and Warren were each attacking one of the elemental’s feet. Elyssandra stabbed with her spear again and again like it was an oversized ice pick, and Warren battered the other foot with powerful strikes from his staff.

But nothing. Chips and shards of ice flew every which way, still hardly enough to damage the elemental. Their efforts did, however, draw the creature’s ire. It looked down, bending its horrifying head. It reached below.

“Take me down,” Braiden shouted, unsure of how he could help on the ground, but it was better than being completely useless up in the air. “Drop me off down below.”

“And then what?” Augustin asked in disbelief.

“I don’t know, but we have to do something before that thing flattens our friends. Hurry!”

Augustin grimaced. “Hold on tight.”

Braiden’s stomach lurched as they swooped into a sudden descent. He squinted against the chilling wind whipping at his face. The frost giant had noticed them again, all the disinterested annoyance of a man finding a pair of flies circling his lunch.

The sound of cracking ice filled the cavern as the elemental opened its mouth. A rush of mist emanated from its wicked maw, gathering into a shrieking gale as it blew. Fantastic. The monster had some wind magic of its own, and it was just strong enough to blow Augustin off course.

Braiden sputtered as they spun through the air, his hair scratching at his eyes, Augustin’s cloak tangling around them. With a decisive twist, Augustin regained his bearings, setting himself upright.

Unfortunately, that came at the cost of losing his grip on Braiden.

The air whistled in Braiden’s ears as he fell. Augustin cried out as he dove again, but Braiden knew in his heart that even the Wizard of Weathervale couldn’t outfly the pull of gravity. From somewhere below, Elyssandra screamed.

Calling on his very deepest reserves of calm, Braiden concentrated on the tips of his fingers. This wasn’t how his story was meant to end. Not here. Not now. He could fix this with magic.

Gritting his teeth in defiance, he swept one arm out, and then the other, conjuring the strongest, sturdiest cloth he could muster. He gripped its corners with desperate fingers. The fabric swelled up with a whoosh, puffed up by air on the way down, slowing his descent.

He gazed downward as he drifted back to the ground, a dandelion on the breeze. The cloth in his grip had ballooned into the familiar shape of a mushroom, or a jellyfish. He heaved a sigh of relief knowing he would land with both feet as Braiden Beadle, and not as a Perfectly Pressed Pancake.

The frost giant gave him a quizzical look. From high up above, Augustin cheered. From below, Elyssandra and Warren ran back and forth with their arms outstretched, as if hoping to catch him in their bare hands.

It almost worked. The three crashed together into a chaotic heap, bruised and aching, but none the worse for wear.