96
“Contact!” Jassie snarled, sighting the golem.
She took her shot without waiting. A blast of mana plunged into one of the golem’s shining red eyes. The gem’s shards were shot out through the other side of its head, but the golem kept coming.
The sound of the buzzing saw made Jassie’s guts squirm. It was every student’s worst nightmare.
All of them heard that sound at least once.
And it was always followed by a scream.
The only hope they had was that scream wouldn’t be their own.
She was on her belly, but out in the open. She could have stayed on her feet, but she felt more comfortable with her rifle when she had proper support under her elbows.
She took a second shot, deciding to try taking out its leg.
The golem was heavily armored around its joints, especially the hip and knee. But there was a gap just above the thigh. If she could punch a round exactly through the middle, it should at least damage the struts and wires inside enough to slow it down.
At least, that’s what Milo had told them.
Jassie grit her teeth, hoping he was right.
The bolt of raw mana punched into the golem’s leg, just above the thigh. Right into the slender gap between thigh and hip armor. Most of the energy was absorbed by the two plates either side. But enough powered inside to cause the golem to let out a low trumpeting groan.
Sparks huffed from the new hole, and Jassie grimaced in satisfaction as its leg jittered while trying to take its next step.
Its head spun, and she could feel its cold alien gaze seeking her out.
“Eyes on me!” Belt roared, lifting his shield as he brought a heavy mace down. The mace was a large sphere with heavy spikes. Lightning ripped up the man’s arm and gathered around the head of the mace.
It smashed into the same spot as Jassie had shot it.
Right below the hip.
As it touched the dwarven bronze, the lightning exploded with a white flash and crack of thunder.
The golem screamed again. It also swept its arm down onto Belt’s shield, making him drop to his knees. The saw let out a screech as the blade tried to rip through his shield. But the shield was also dwarven bronze.
It still gouged a deep line up the middle, though. Just not deep enough to cut through entirely.
The big man didn’t pause. He kept hammering at the golem’s leg.
“Jassie!” Cerena swerved to the golem’s right. “Take out its eyes! Martin! You’ve got that hip. See what you can do!”
“On it,” Martin said.
To his credit, he wasn’t stuck up or stiff about it. Some of the team members they’d tried had been resentful of her telling them what to do.
Some had openly argued with her enough that Belt had to step in.
But Martin had been through a few teams. The reason being he was an arcanomancer, which wasn’t as respected as other classes of mage. Arcanomancers used raw mana, which could be explosive and devastating, but was also expensive. Meaning they were quickly exhausted.
Most teams worked to replace him with someone who could last longer.
But so far, Cerena had been impressed.
While it was true Martin couldn’t last for long, his power output was impressive. He didn’t hold back, and was also inclined to follow orders as best as he could.
If only he’d open up with them, she would’ve considered making him a permanent part of her team. But he seemed more interested in his friends. And she wouldn’t try to dissuade him.
He put his hands together, and a thin beam of mana shot from his palms. The beam penetrated the hole made by Jassie’s rifle. And all of them heard a loud crunch as the beam cut through a strut inside the golem’s body.
The leg wobbled.
Then the golem tumbled forward.
As it fell, Jassie shot out its second eye. The blast also put another hole in the back of its head.
Without thinking, Cerena rushed in, her eyes focused on the spherical head.
It started to swing at her with an arm, but Belt lunged in front of her and took the blow with his shield. He grunted as the loud clang of metal on metal made sparks hiss between them.
He growled at her. “What are you doing?”
“Keep it off me.”
“Off you?” Belt gave her a bewildered look.
Cerena leapt past his shield and at the golem. “I got an idea!”
“Blast,” he muttered, bringing the mace down on the arm trying to swat her.
The golem struggled to lift itself. Its gears ground angrily as its head spun towards her. She saw the holes in front. She’d been hoping to take it from behind.
But front would be fine.
Cerena held out her hand, wand gripped tightly. The feeling of mana racing down her veins left her slightly giddy.
The remaining red eye flickered. Glowed hotly.
Then it exploded as Martin tossed a ball of raw mana into the gem. He’d stepped up beside Belt and was trying to keep firmly behind the shield.
Smart, Cerena thought as the golem started flailing blindly.
In front of her hand, she concentrated her mana. Feeling it roar down her arm to form a solid compressed ball of fire.
Spells didn’t need words.
But they did need some level of concentration. When she’d first cast her fireball, it’d taken almost ten minutes to form a ball hot and heavy enough to damage anything.
Now it only took a few seconds.
Some mages could do it almost instantly. She hoped to be like them one day.
The ball shot from her palm, timed so it would enter one of the holes left by Jassie. Then it exploded. As the heat was captured within the sphere, it melted everything inside the golem’s head.
The golem let out a long metallic whine.
Then steam coughed from the holes in its head. Its body let out a long sharp creak.
And it fell to the ground with a thunderous thump that made Cerena stumble on her feet. Belt snatched her before she could fall. “Are you alright?”
“Fine,” she said. Turning to Martin, she nodded. “Good work.”
“Thanks,” he said, a bit shyly. “But I think Jass did most of the work.”
“Eh.” Jassie approached slowly, the mana rifle held across her chest. Ready to whip it up and aim at anything else which might appear. “I cracked it. You broke it open.”
Belt hooked his mace onto his belt and knelt beside the golem to pick up the glittering dungeon stones which had appeared. “Hey, we got three.”
“Not bad,” Jassie said.
They left the area quickly, heading towards a small ruined building that looked like it might be easy to defend from. They’d use that as their initial base.
They didn’t plan to stay here. Like Vizzingbelle had said, they’d need to clear out a lot of the ruin first. But, if things went bad, they needed a place they could fall back to which they could defend from.
This would be it.
When they were settled, Jassie and Cerena were going to scout out the surrounding area while Belt and Martin used a mix of brawn and muscle to make sure the walls would hold.
Belt kicked around inside the ruin, quickly moving some of the rubble away to clear some space. “This should be fine,” he said.
“Do you want me to board up the window?” Martin asked.
“That’d be good. I’ll reinforce the front.”
“Deal.”
The two young men seemed happy with that, so Cerena didn’t interfere.
She stood instead with Jassie and looked out across the shattered landscape. She could see a few golems at the edge of the forest. They weren’t moving. It was hard to tell if they were deactivated or not.
She wasn’t about to test the theory by approaching them.
It would be best to leave them be until the hard work had been done.
“I hope Tania’s team’s alright,” Jassie said softly. “They’re not bad people.”
“Tania’s team?”
“Well, isn’t it?” Jassie smirked. “It certainly isn’t Milo’s.”
“He’s not exactly dumb, though.”
“No. But he lets her do whatever she wants.”
“That’s because he’s smart,” Belt put in. “Right, Martin?”
Martin nodded with an affable smile. “My dad always said a happy wife is a happy life. Never say no, he said. Doesn’t mean you always agree. You just don’t say no.”
“Men,” Cerena sighed with a roll of her eyes as Belt gave a sagelike nod as though it was the wisest thing he’d ever heard.
“How do they do it?” Martin asked suddenly.
“Do what?”
“I mean, they seem to just breeze through everything. And they’re always so quick.” He shook his head. “There has to be a trick to it, right?”
“I don’t know,” Cerena said. “Their planning is pretty good, though. And Milo’s ideas have always been worth buying.”
Martin tilted his head. “You don’t think they’ve got something special? Like, remember what Fergus used to say?”
“Fergus was talking out of his ass,” Belt said, earning nods from Cerena and Jassie. “I’ve sparred with Selma. A lot. She’s only ranked two, you know that? Rank two and she kicks my ass sometimes, and I’m a rank four.”
“Really?”
“Sure.” Belt shrugged. “I got a feeling they’re just real good at what they do. As a team. And it gets me thinking that maybe ranks are just a load of bullshit. Maybe skill beats spells sometimes.”
Martin felt surprised by that.
He’d always thought ranks meant more.
After all, more mana meant more powerful spells and more times a spell could be cast between rest. That surely should mean the highest ranks should be best.
But then he thought about the golem they’d just taken down.
Jassie had made the first hole.
His arcane magic had then been able to penetrate deeper into the golem’s leg.
And Cerena had been able to blast it from inside by using the hole in its head, too.
Then Belt had been there to distract it at vital moments.
The golem should have been impossible for them to bring down on their own. But with the four of them, it had been almost easy.
“Good synergy, then,” Martin said, deciding that made perfect sense. “They maybe know each other’s limits and abilities. They work together well.”
“Right,” Belt said. “That’s why we were dragging you out into the fields for the past few weeks. To get that synergy. Not to muck up your plans with your mates.”
Martin’s face flushed, but Belt’s words carried more amusement than anything, so he nodded and accepted the criticism. He had to admit he’d felt irritated more than once at having to train so much.
His other teams hadn’t done that much work.
“I’ll do better next time,” he promised.
“You’re fine now,” Belt said, giving him a firm slap on the shoulder. “Don’t sweat it too much.”
“I think you’re all wrong,” Jassie said, stifling a yawn. “It isn’t synergy or anything so fancy.”
“What is it, then?” Cerena asked.
“They’re just not human. That’s all.”