Chapter 8 Bulette for the Win

  Felix woke me, and I tried to stand. My legs would not cooperate, and I colpsed to the floor and used my arms to pull myself up. Mateo chuckled at my disfort. I slowly got my legs w and could feel every raw area of skin from yesterday’s ride. Felix offered some advice, “Use the horse salve on your chaff marks. It smells mighty pu but works just as well on you as your horse.”

  I started pag up, but Felix stopped me, “No need. We are just going along the rao the south and looking fns of the griffons. If we are lucky, someone will spot one flying around, and we trace it to its .”

  I shambled outside and saddled my hinger with some help. Setting the girth straps took some skill. Too tight, and the horse would get chaffed. Too loose, and you were not going to remain in your saddle. Breakfast was a meaty mashed potate. Only fifteen men rode out with mage Castille. Mateo expined, “The others will also ride iher dire looking fns. This is our sed day searg. The griffons were st seen about nine days ago taking a sheep from a farmer.”

  I wao cry when mage Castille took our n to a heavy gallop. My body was being pounded day after day and had not had time to heal. I wished I had a healing spell instead of a stupid dimensional space spell. Thankfully after about six miles, the road ended, and Castille slowed her horse to a walk as we remained parallel with the mountains. Now at a walk, Felix could talk to me again.

  “Damn, Eryk. If I didn’t know better, I would say an ogre was making you his bitch by the look on your face,” he chuckled as a few others heard and ughed at his joke.

  I responded in a clear voice, “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were an expert on the subject.”

  After the men processed, the ughs started raining in, and mage Castille turned around to see what was so funny. It was Adrian who spoke nearby, “The raw recruit just gave Felix the verbal beating of his sad life.” She just nodded and focused fain. It was a good amount of time before things calmed down. We were all looking to the mountains fns of the griffon.

  Another soldier spotted a carcass that we rode toward and dismounted. Five legionaries moved to make a perimeter. I wasn’t sure what to do, so I followed the mage and fiono the carcass. One of the legionnaires k close, and I got just close enough to get a whiff. Visually I could hahe sight, but my olfactory senses were unprepared, and I quickly vomited my breakfast. Apparently, losing my breakfast was not ued. The others looked green but held it down. The kneeling man spoke, “Four days old…good ce it was one of riffons. It ate the ans and chewed off a haunch. Probably t it to the .”

  I got enough of my faculties baove upwind and asked, “What the hell was that?” I was talking to myself, but the tracker stood and answered me.

  “It was a stone bear. Fairly on around here. Maybe 1200 pounds. Most likely killed by a strike through the spinal cord at the base of the from above,” he spoke, and I moved close, and he spent time expining what details led him to his dedus. Everyone else had wandered back to their horses, and Castille looked to be sidering what dire to head.

  We were riding a short time ter on the same path, and I ate my st tles and gave the cores to Ginger. It was mid-day when our troupe stopped for lunch. Everyone had packed a small lunch except for me. My roommates had told me to leave my gear behind, but I was supposed to pick up a prepared meal from the unit’s cook—I didn’t. At least I had my satchel and had some apples earlier. Mateo took me to stary while everyone rexed, and the horses drank water at a stream ing down from the mountains. Seeing my predit, Mateo gave me some slices of sausage and cheese from his own lunch. I took a few drafts from his teen as well.

  “So, how long will we search friffons?” I asked as he expined how to maintaid which dire I should be focused on based oher sentries’ positions.

  “Castille doesn’t give up. She is probably using divination magic every few hours. She will l fiher the griffons or the body of the baron’s son,” he said. He suddenly stood and focused on something in the distance. I looked where he was looking. The ground was surging into a mound about a quarter mile away.

  “What is that?” I asked softly. Mateo blew a whistle around his neck. I guess I needed a whistle. Everyone looked where Mateo pointed.

  The mound started moving toward us. A few seds ter, we were rushing to our mounts. Mage Castille was screaming, “Bulette! Get on your horses and spread out. Make for Formica!”

  I mounted a nervous Ginger and started galloping back the way we came. What the hell was a bulette? If it was scarring the mage, then it had to be bad. I didn’t have ao talk to as roup read wide apart as per orders. I looked back, and the damn thing was getting closer.

  Many of my panions were pulling away…all of them were. I was dead st, I urged Gio a run, and she plied, sensing the danger ing at us. I tried desperately to find a different riding rhythm at a faster pace. At least my surging adrenaline pletely muted the pain. My growing fear made it hard to focus, and I started boung out of synch with my mount. Ginger leaped expertly over a rge shrubbery. When she nded, I went forward, not ready for the jarring nding. I do not kly what happened other than I was on the ground rolling, and Ginger tio race away, now free of her passenger. My first thought was I had given her all those damn apples, I thought we were friends.

  I stumbled to my feet. I was alone. Everyone was at least a quarter mile away or more. I turo face the mound of earth moving toward me. Something that resembled a shark fin emerged in the ter. Was this aal earth shark? I pulled out my only on, a short curved dagger in my belt. All my other ons were secured to Ginger.

  The groued in a shower of earth and stone, and a massive creature was flying through the air and pnning to crush me. Time seemed to slow as my death was clearly before me, my muscles paralyazed at the sight. An armored quadruped that looked a mix between a rhinoceros with a massive head of a snapping turtle soon blotted out the sun. I met my fate by opening my ten-foot dimensional cube, waiting as long as I could, and then shifting as much of the bulette’s underside into my dimensional space. The earth thudded around me, everythi dark, and I was covered in fluids and ko the ground by the forpabsp; I was alive and ihe cavity of the beast.

  The beast seemed uain about what had just happened. Its mass twitched around me, and it tried to move. I had gutted it, though. I was trapped in its hollowed chest cavity, but the beast no longer had essential ans—like a heart. My dimensional ste would not activate as the cost of pulling in so much bulette flesh had drained my aether. The fact that either mass or a creature resisted being forcibly pulled into my ste was good to know—albeit after almost being crushed. After a short time, I started digging in the earth with my dagger to tunnel my way out. Thankfully the fluids softehe earth and made it feasible to quickly gain my freedom before suffog.

  I squeezed out uhe hard shell and looked at the armored beast. It was a lot bigger than I remembered. The beast had an armored hide, short stubby legs, and massive bck digging cws. It reminded me more of a tank than anything else. I could see why the mage had decided to retreat.

  I oriented myself to the mountains and started walking back to Formica. When I had recovered enough aether, I dumped the 10x10x5 se of the bulette on the ground, spreading out like a squelg defting balloon.

  I did not think bulette blood was sidered a good topical agent for all my raw and bleeding chaff marks. I came to a wide stream and decided to wash up. I remained vigint as I stripped naked and began the process of ing everything. I focused on my leather armor as I had plenty of clothes to charge into. I mao scrub almost everything out of the material. It appeared our uniform was treated with something that made ing blood out of it easy.

  This got me thinking about a lot of the clothes I had taken at the fort. They all were well-worn, so I guessed they had e off of dead legionnaires. As long as they were now, I could hahe thought of wearing a dead man’s clothes. When I finished, I dressed in my damp clothes and armor.

  The bulette stomach had occupied the top half of my dimensional ste and had not disturbed all the other things I had pced in my dimensional ste. It was getting close to sundown as I sat on a rock, wet, tired, bruised, abused, and—alive. I took out a ration bar and munched on it, getting prepared to leave when Ginger came trotting up to me and drank uned at the stream o me. I shook my head, “Oh, now you show up! Well, I am out of apples.”