Sabien

I woke to screams. I was up in a moment, scrabbling for the dagger I kept nearby.

Navia bolted to her feet, eyes wide but face still soft with sleep.

"Look out!" Lucia shrieked, clearly the source of the scream that had woken me.

I looked around, still slightly disoriented and very confused.

"Sabien!" Navia yanked my arm and then stomped something into the ground.

I connected the dots then, and right in time to shake another of the worms off my foot. "What is going on?"

"The worms must've come from the creature we chased out yesterday," Skye's voice startled me.

I glanced around.

They were clinging to the wall on my left, a red spider the size of a rat perched on their shoulder.

"What?" Navia kicked another three away from us, rushing to call Cerco back to passive state. "Like, it left a cocoon or something?"

"I guess." Skye shrugged. "But I didn't see one last night."

"Did you really look?" Tazi snarled as he sliced a worm in half, then in quarters, and finally just smashed it with his axe. The blow effectively crushed it.

Skye raised a brow. "Yes." They answered evenly, unfazed by the stingray summoner's anger. "I checked every nook and cranny when you all fell asleep."

"It's true, I heard them." Zay confirmed.

There were more flashes of light as the others followed Navia's lead and called their animals to passive.

"Well obviously you didn't look hard enough." Tazi spat.

Skye rolled their eyes. "Or the creature is back. Did you consider that?"

Tazi opened his mouth, paused, then closed it with a mutinous expression.

"Tellun, Zay really jinxed it when she said she wanted somewhere quiet and that didn't try to kill us." Navia huffed as she dragged me back another step.

I steadied myself on her arm and wrinkled my nose. "Yeah."

"We have to get out of here," Sasha spoke up, taking a brief breather. Zay covered his back as he turned toward us. "We're easy targets in here."

"Sasha's right," Niko agreed, wiping an arm across his glistening forehead. His dark curls were still half-flattened by sleep. "This is a kill box. How long do you think it'll take before we aren't able to hold them back anymore? We'll exhaust ourselves, then we'll be overrun."

Zay nodded, switching with Sasha for a quick break. "I figure that if the creature really is back, it'll have the front covered."

"So we need to get out the back." Tyler looked to Skye. "Assuming there is a back exit?"

The spider summoner looked around, frowning. "There is, but it's a bit blocked right now."

"Okay, Skye, go see if you can—" Tyler started.

At the same moment, Tazi pointed to me and Skye. "Skye, take Sabien and clear the exit."

Tyler shook his head and pressed his lips together. "Yeah, take Sabien."

Skye glanced between the two, then met my eye. I shrugged with one shoulder, following them as they scuttled over toward the farthest wall.

A door was just barely visible behind the ruins of an old cart.

We set to work, me tackling the mess from below, Skye sticking to the wall to attack it from above. Within a few minutes, the exit was clear. Skye hopped down beside me to help pull open the heavy wooden doors.

"Come on!" I called as morning light spilled in through the opening. "Let's go!"

Navia, Zay, and Sasha turned. They all raced for the exit upon seeing that it was open, followed a moment later by Tyler, Lucia, and Niko.

"Tazi, it's time to go!" I shouted, already halfway out the door.

"Go, I'll get him." Skye climbed onto the wall.

I hesitated, wanting to protest.

"Go!" Skye repeated more forcefully.

I nodded and hurried out to the rest of the team.

Nothing could've prepared me for what I found.

There must've been ten, maybe a dozen, of the creatures we'd fought yesterday.

Sasha and Zay were back to back, fighting three between the two of them.

Niko was grappling with another one nearby, his staff on the ground a pace away. I scrambled to pick it up, running back and smashing the creature over the head.

It let out a furious howl, but the distraction was enough for Niko to kick it away. I handed his staff back to him.

"Thanks," Niko panted. "Did you see where Lucia went?"

"She's over by Tyler." I pointed to where the two were, side by side as they hacked at enemies with their blades.

He nodded. "Duck!"

I dropped to the ground, feeling my hair ruffle as Niko's quarterstaff flashed out where I had been standing a moment again.

One of the creatures let out a snarl as it was smashed to the side by the blow.

I sprang back to my feet, drawing my dagger.

Skye and Tazi burst out of the barn at that moment, both letting out a string of angry curses as they saw the battle before them.

"Aim for the eyes!" Skye called out, reminding me of how they'd launched rocks into the creature's eyes the day before.

Tyler shook his head. "There are too many of them," he huffed. "They aren't stopping."

"We can't just surrender." Sasha retorted, stabbing angrily into a creature's gut. His sword made a hideous sucking sound as he pulled it free again.

The creature seemed unbothered. 

"There has to be a way to kill them," Zay agreed. She kicked the creature Sasha had stabbed, frowning as its thick blood oozed on her shoe. "Gross."

I kicked at one that was approaching, the snap of its knee both satisfying and chilling. "Even if there is, we don't know what it is."

"Sabien's right." Lucia pursed her lips. "I don't think this is a fight we can win."

A flash of red in my periphery drew my concentration away from the conversation.

Three figures tore out of the woods, each wearing a red cloak and a white mask. The white masks were carved into animal faces, there was a lizard of some sort, something that looked like a cat, and what must've been a bird. They made no move to speak, instead leaping into the fray and tearing at the creatures.

The others seemed just as stunned as I was.

"Maybe I spoke too soon." Lucia said.

Tyler blinked out of his surprise just in time to deflect a creature's clumsy swipe at his face. "I guess so. It seems we have an unlikely set of allies."

10/08/21
ah!! redcloaks are so cool.
yes, you knew all of these redcloaks as conquerors. feel free to guess who they are in the comments (i will not say if you're right or wrong tho ;)
enjoy my lovelies!!