Chimera

Chapter Twenty-three: Alana

Alana spun around, just in time to see a horned Chimera surging towards an unexpecting Jaylin. He screamed and scrambled backwards, but the oryx Hydra moved to meet him. Surprisingly, he stood his ground.

Guess he's not as much of a scaredy-cat as I thought, Alana thought, still, he might need some help.

Their techniques for battle would be useless with the loss of Camila of Lance. That didn't scare Alana too much. Instead, without the calm but confident words of Lance restraining her, she could fight exactly how she wanted. Sure, that might not be the smartest way to go. With Lance's intelligent, planned moves, she might be able to find an enemy's weak points and take them down more efficiently, but that took the fun out of it. Alana knew she was reckless. But she also knew that she was brave. And that's how she wanted to stay.

She ran forward, raising her broadsword. The blade glinted in the pale, dying sunlight.

Jaylin was holding off the Hydra with fast slashes of his spear. With a pulse of adrenaline, claws pushed through her fingers. She sprang high, high into the air.

One of the Hydra's had spotted her, and attacked. It bit her arm open, drawing blood and pain. Biting her lip, Alana scratched at the Hydra. Her claws raked its skin and pierced its eye. The monster recoiled.

Now Alana was truly falling. Except she didn't feel like she was moving... it felt like she was hanging, weightless, as the world moved around her. The ground rushed closer. The trees became bigger and bigger and bigger, as did the battle below her.

She landed, talons embedding into the soil from the sheer force of the fall. Alana pulled them out and ran desperately forward to help Jaylin.

Had she not been focused on the fight and instead watching it, Alana probably would have found it was funny. A girl running desperately towards a Hydra, wounded arm leaving a trail of blood droplets, other arm swinging a sword to defend a boy who was lying on the ground, clutching a spear.

The oryx lunged forward to bite Jaylin's hand off, but he shoved his spear right down its throat. Its eyes bulged and a flush of blood escaped its mouth. Alana did a quick mental count. That was the fourth Hydra killed so far. Three to go.

A rhinoceros Hydra charged them, steam flying in plumes from its nostrils, feet pounding the earth. Its horn hit Jaylin and sent him sprawling. The rhino snapped at his leg and left a row of neat holes in his thigh. Jaylin yelped in pain.

Alana screamed a war cry. She jumped at the rhinoceros Hydra and hacked its head off with two swings of her sword. Her hands jarred, her bones jostled, left her fingers tingling. Then the pain in her left arm came back.

She sunk to her knees, panting. She had fought hard and was fatigued.

Another Hydra was in front of her, a lion. Alana glanced up. She could see a coarse main, jagged fangs, and those red eyes boring into her, like twin scarlet orbs.

"You Chimeras are poor creatures. You lack the power that we Hydras have," it said with mock sadness. It chuckled. Its jaw made a cracking sound as it opened its mouth impossibly wide, until she thought it would snap its head in half. She was suddenly gazing down a black tunnel, surrounded by a ring of teeth.

"Yes, but there's no power quite like the element of surprise," she said.

"What are y-"

Thunk! Thud!

Those were the sounds Alana heard as Callista's blade severed the Hydra's neck from its body, and then as it hit the ground.

Alana gazed up at her in admiring silence for a second, sitting as Callista kicked the head away.

If you've enjoyed reading this story, don't forget to vote, comment and add it to your reading lists. I will be adding a new chapter every day. If you have any tips for how I can improve my writing, or what I did well this time, please feel free to tell me (in a nice manner). Thanks so much for reading my story!

Thanks again, Sylver!