Page 61 of The Ruins of the Heartless Fae

The dreki’s wings flapped furiously as it steadied its back legs on the ground. It roared again, sending another shockwave over the sandy hills. Now that it was even closer to them, it looked even more hideous. The distance had hidden the crackling, black skin around its mouth, which wasn’t covered with scales. Its teeth were yellowed and caked with thick, white grime near its bluish gums. And its breath stank of death and decay as it breathed down on them heavily, inhaling as if to breathe another breath of fire.

It shot fire from its mouth again, and Kolfinna jumped out of the way once more. She rolled and managed to come to its side, as did Blár on its opposite side. The dreki slowly shifted toward Blár and screamed at him. Kolfinna took that moment to kick the dreki’s back leg. The scales were hard as steel and she bit back a string of insults.

They needed a sword to fight because Kolfinna couldn’t see how else they could hack away at it. The only parts that were fleshy and not covered with scales were around its mouth and its eyes.

Without thinking too much, Kolfinna dodged its skeletal wings and jumped onto its hind leg. It was too busy aiming fire at Blár to notice her climbing its massive body. Her fingers gripped into the grooves of its scales and she hoisted herself higher until she grazed one of its jutting spikes along its back. She grabbed it and climbed up until she was on top of it. The dreki finally seemed to notice her and tried shaking her off, but it was too focused on Blár, who was running in circles around it and garnering its attention.

“What are you doing?” Blár shouted, easily jumping away from the dreki’s fire breath. He was out of breath and sweat ran down the sides of his temples. “This thing is surprisingly stupid.”

Kolfinna made it to the neck and wrapped her arms around it as the dreki thrashed for a minute. “I’m gonna—” Her right foot slipped and she fell forward. Her hand shot out to grab the spikes along its back; her legs dangled in the air and a flash of panic washed over her. Her biceps cramped and she hauled herself back onto its back. “Distract it!” she shouted instead.

“That’s what”—he lurched away and shouted a curse—“I’m doing!”

She tightened her thighs between the creature’s neck and hugged it with her body to keep from falling. She tapped its eye and was surprised to find it was hard as glass, but fleshy at the same time. It reminded her of an egg, and she sure hoped it would be as easy to crack as an egg. Without wasting time, she balled her fist and smashed it into its eye. Her hand squelched inside its socket. Time slowed and the dreki screamed deafeningly loud—so loud that Kolfinna wondered if her eardrums had burst. She dug her hand deeper, her fingers warm with flesh. She didn’t have time to do the other side, because the dreki thrashed its head from side to side, and she was thrown off like a rag doll.

The sand softened her fall and she rolled before falling face first into a mound of sand. Her injured shoulder slammed to the ground and a jolt of pain shot through her. Everything went black and she struggled to push herself to her elbows. The dreki let out another earsplitting screech. She flinched and turned to watch it roar and spray fire in its path.

Blár launched himself onto the dreki’s back like she had done, but he was lither and quicker than she was. He easily climbed its back, despite the dreki whipping its head from side to side, and made his way to its neck. He hung there with one arm and did the same as she did, but instead of his fist, he jammed a stone into its eye. The dreki screamed louder, and Blár hopped off its neck, narrowly missing a slash of its claw to his face. He rolled on the ground and bolted toward her.

His eyes were bright with excitement, but when he opened his mouth, there wasn’t a hint of excitement in it. “Run!”

“W-Why?”

“What the hell are we supposed to do now? We blinded it. That’s good for now!” He scooped her arm and pulled her to her feet. “Now start running! We’ll think of a plan later. Now that it’s blind, we probably have an advantage—”

They both lurched in opposite directions as the dreki’s fire breath blazed toward them. Kolfinna scrambled to her feet and started running without direction. Soon, Blár was beside her. Behind them, the dreki screamed and flapped its wings to become airborne. It teetered to the side in the sky, but then flew above them and zoomed into the distance unevenly. And like that, their third encounter was over.

They had stopped running to watch it retreat into the horizon. Kolfinna breathed heavily and winced as her shoulder ached with every breath. Sure enough, the wound had opened and blood seeped through the thick padding Eyfura had bandaged her with.

“It escaped.”

“Not much we can do.” Blár didn’t breathe nearly as roughly as she did. He ran a hand through his sweaty hair before rubbing his shoulder. “Damn. That thing’s body is hard. I slammed into it, and I’m pretty sure I almost dislocated my shoulder.”

She remembered the pain in her foot when she had kicked it and grimaced. “How are we going to be able to defeat it then?”

“I … don’t know.”

“Even with weapons, it’ll be hard if its body is that hard.” The wind ripped through her hair. “Maybe if we had a spear, we could jam it into its eye sockets and somehow kill it that way?”

“Maybe …”

“Or …” She chewed her lower lip and sighed exasperatedly. “I don’t know.”

Kolfinna’s nose twitched and she quickly looked down at her hand. Slick, reddish-yellow gunk dripped from her fingers and coated her wrist. Bits of red flesh clung to her fingernails and her stomach churned as she realized it was the dreki’s eye fluids and possibly chunks of its eyeball. She didn’t have the guts to wipe it on the front of her uniform, because the fleshstank. Her eyes watered and the acrid stench of it blocked her throat; she couldn’t even vomit if she wanted to. It was too disgusting, and the feeling of its slimy eye juices running down her wrist made her stomach roll. She gagged and scrunched her nose.

“Here.” Blár held out a handkerchief, his own nose crinkled. “Wipe that shit off.”

Kolfinna snatched it and quickly engulfed her hand in the thick material, her skin crawling as the flesh clung to her. She kept wiping, her stomach twisting further as the white handkerchief morphed into a yellowish red. She was glad she hadn’t eaten anything, because she was sure she would’ve vomited it all up right then and there.

“Thanks,” she muttered and held it back to him. She kept it pinched between her fingers to keep from touching the stained, stinky material. The smell of raw, rotten meat made her gag when she flailed the material. “Here.”

Blár stepped back and held his hands up as if she had asked him to murder someone. “Keep it.”

“This is yours. You keep it.” She waved the handkerchief again.

Blár’s face shifted to a shade of green and he backed away up a sand dune, so he was even farther away from her. “No. You keep it.”

“Imustreturn your kindness.”

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