The First War Mage: City in the Sky

By the time we had stopped again the sun was beginning to sink into the horizon, casting the densely packed forest in a beautiful orange-green glow from the reflecting rays of light and brilliant emerald leaves. I glanced over to where Tulip was currently laying next to a fire she had managed to get going after a long struggle with a pile of sticks and rocks she had successfully gotten a spark and lit a timid flame.

After that she had opted to lay next to the flame on a bed of leaves she had made, watching the dimming sky while occasionally glancing towards the impaled fish that were hanging over the top of the fire, with the embers gently licking at their edges, I could see even from the distance I was sitting at that it was beginning to darken, and I could more than smell it.

I let out a slow breath before inhaling deeply to try and focus on my body for a moment. When we had settled down Tulip had insisted upon looking me over thoroughly to make sure I hadn't hidden any injuries. All it really ended up with was my sling being reset again.

After that had happened I found a spot to sit a little further away from Tulip and the fire where I could focus internally. My own mana was what had caught my attention after Tulip said it should have been impossible for me to have used so little mana. Yet even though that was supposedly the truth, when I looked at my mana I found that it looked almost unchanged, it was darker, undeniably less vibrant than it had been which I assumed to be from the use of my magic. But it was still so vibrant, I could still feel so much that I knew I could do something like that again a half dozen times over.

"Foods almost done." I snapped out of my thoughts as I heard Tulip's voice, with my eyes opening once more to travel over towards her again.

"Finally... I don't know how much longer I could have handled waiting." I groaned out with some level of excitement to my voice as I pushed myself to stand and walk over to the fire, once beside the dull orange flames I found a spot to sit a few feet away from Tulip.

"Oh please you could've lasted." Tulip sighed out with a taunting tone to her words. I glanced over to see the gentle orange light of the flame illuminating her red eyes in a curious glow that barely hid the exhaustion that her body so clearly showed from the way her shoulders sagged, and the way her head hung slanted forwards.

"Yea, but you don't look like you would have." I knew I wasn't looking much better myself, but at a certain point I was just used to total exhaustion like this. Even just a handful of days spent walking through conditions such as this was draining me far more than any day of hard labor in the mines.

"Really that bad?" Tulip asked with a far more solemn tone as she reached forwards to the stick hanging over the flames. Gently she lifted the softly singed edges, pointing the stick towards me I reached over to slide one of the three fish off of it.

"Definitely, you look about ready to fall over." I leaned back to where I had been previously sitting, crossing my legs I looked at the fish in my hands before biting the head off at the gills, spitting the head to the side I started to eat away at the belly of the barely butchered fish.

"Wait... You eat it like that?" Tulip sounded stunned for a moment as she looked at the fish she pulled off of the stick for herself.

"Yea, at least it's how I always ate them the rare occasion we got something like this. Less risk of accidentally eating part of the gill or skull." I replied casually between bites, the fish was far from anything that tasted good. It was overcooked, charred, and lacked any flavor. But with the hunger that was raking through my body I couldn't care less about it.

"Huh..." Tulip seemed genuinely perturbed by the fact that this was how I had chosen to eat the fish, but with a shrug she followed suit doing the same thing, though she struggled to bit down with enough force to sever the bone for a moment.

For a moment I couldn't help but laugh as Tulip looked with utter confusion at the almost decapitated fish struggling to find a way to finish it off before she just gave up and grabbed the head to tear it off by hand with one twist, tossing the remaining head into the fire.

"Hey! It's my first time trying that alright!" Tulip spoke in defense of herself with a faux shock to her voice. I couldn't help but laugh even more at just how stupid the entire situation was.

"It's not that hard to just bite down harder!" I couldn't contain my amusement, struggling to keep what food I had in my mouth from spraying out across the fire from my laughing.

"It's weird to do that alright! I'm used to butchered fish!" Tulip finally contained her own amusement from the situation, while I was still struggling to regain enough composure to not choke on my own food. "Honestly how did you do that so effortlessly?"

"Just... Bite harder? You got to the spine there, it's not hard to get enough bite force to get through it." I commented once I finally calmed myself enough to cease my laughing and actually swallow the mouthful of fish I had.

After our laughing subsided we both fell into silence with hunger being the most prominent thing we felt still. Tulip looked hungrily at the remaining fish, though she offered it towards me first for a moment just for me to shake my head.

"You need it more than me. I'm used to working with, not a lot of food in my body." I sighed out, frankly the single fish had filled me more than enough to relax and rest back a little.

"Thanks." Tulip sighed, quickly taking to biting the head off of the second fish. She seemed ravenously hungry, far more than I was, so I didn't feel any real regret in letting her have the remaining food. I smiled a little as my head shifted upwards towards the dimming sky, stars were already visible in the night sky. Dimly lit specs in the distance of hundreds of colors illuminating the night sky. Yet, between the branches I could see movement, jumping branch to branch that got me to stand up in an instant.

"Whats wrong?" Tulip quickly asked, pausing in her devouring of the fish still in her hands, her red eyes reflective from the firelight locked onto me.

"Something is above us, quiet." I spoke in a low tone, trying to focus inwards towards my magic. I could feel dread climbing through my body while I kept my eyes moving, locked onto the dimly lit creature that was moving, circling above inside the tree branches. I couldn't make out any shape from the distance, but it didn't keep distance for long once it realized it had been seen.

"What do you mean- I don't see anything?" Tulip asked quickly only to fell to dreaded silence as a horrible hiss screeched out from above the two of us. I barely had an instant to react.

"Get down!" I screamed as I dashed towards Tulip as a massive, arachnid shaped creature leapt from the branches above down to the ground aimed for Tulip. Luckily Tulip was able to react quickly but I could hear the screams from the mistake she had made in her fight or flight reaction.

Tulip had launched herself to the side with her magic, the cuffs around her wrists and neck were visibly steaming, I could hear the pain she was in and all I could do was scream to her one more desperate plea for her to listen.

"Get to the water! Cool them down!" I had to hope Tulip would listen as I was forced to turn towards the beast that was now hissing merely two dozen feet away from me.

The Arachnid was a dim emerald green, with dozens of blood red eyes like gemstones locked onto me. It was easily the length of a bull, while it was about half the height of one with how it was standing keeping its body close to the muddy soil underfoot. Liquid dripped from its split mandibles, tinted a terrible blue-green that screamed for it to be toxic. It had eight limbs though it only seemed to walk on six of them with its front two being curved forwards with sharpened edges on them pointing towards the beast itself, they looked more than sharp enough to cut clean through me.

My eyes flicked to the side for an instant, the same instant that the Arachnid's did, we both had our eyes on the same thing. But luckily I was able to move around, keeping Tulip to my back, and the Arachnid to my front while she tried to get the metal cooled down.

"yea, you gotta get through me first." I spoke in a still lowered tone as my eyes comfortably settled back onto the arachnid, I had almost no hope of doing anything here. I didn't want to get within a foot of a creature as ferociously fast as this thing was. But I also had a distinct feeling that it wouldn't be giving up until someone, or something was dead.

I pulled in a slow breath, trying to steady my racing heart that felt about ready to jump out of my chest. I had never been more thankful for under eating as I was now, as I could at least still move freely and not feel bloated. The Arachnid let out a horrific screech, and began to charge forwards with speed that I couldn't hope to keep up with on my own. Diving to the side I barely avoided its overhead strike with its two forelimbs, only to be forced into a tight roll away from it when it turned on a dime.

Each step it took towards me saw one of its forelimbs striking down, I could hear the wind whistling across the blades on the inside of its arms as they came striking down. The only reason I even survived the first series of strikes from it was thanks to its lack of reach with the limbs, their awkward placement on its body left them to practically only be in range if I was underneath the thing.

With another rolling tide of strikes leaving deep gouges in the mud, I barely got to my feet, pulling my legs back to avoid them being cut off from my body. With my left arm tied so tightly against my chest it left with almost unable to get off of my rear in time. I couldn't even focus to try and channel my mana for an instant to fight back, I was just stuck with it striking again and again until one of the strikes would inevitably find its mark against my body.

When the Arachnids third series of strikes fell still it settled for a moment, almost sounded like it was snorting in annoyance at the fact that I wasn't dead. For a moment I had a little bit of hope that it would just back off and leave, but another resounding hiss screamed in my ears and I knew I wasn't going to get that lucky.