Dreamwalker's Bride - Chapter 411

Chapter 411: Hold on cause it’ll be alright
Ford tensed, holding the bag tightly. As Grandpa had demonstrated with the crocodile-like monster, he essentially only had one chance to pour these onto the monster, whatever it would be, to cut it.

Quickly, he tried to turn himself invisible… but his magic was still gone.

“How long until my powers come back??” He cried. Not terribly worried about it before, he didn’t expect to be in dire need of them quite so quickly.

“I don’t know. Probably a few more minutes,” Trace replied quickly. “Get ready.”

“How?? What does ‘get ready’ mean?” Mia asked desperately. “Do we hide? Run? Fight it?”

“The fewer of these things out in the world, the better, but if you can’t fight it, hide or run,” Trace told them.

“Hide where?” Ford glanced around. “With Denholm?”

“Coward never tries to stop anything unless it comes for him directly,” Trace snapped. “He doesn’t care about anyone but himself.”

“So what do we do?”

“Stop it if you can, but don’t get killed no matter what,” Trace seemed exhausted. “It’s battering at the walls of the dream now. I can’t hold it back any longer.”

Just next to the pillow, a strange flash of light caught Ford’s attention. There, on the puffy surface, a disoriented creature lumbered to its feet after an apparent tumble.

Ford tilted his head, a little surprised.

“Webster?”

But no, Webster was still down with Grandpa and Martin, far below them. This creature—

A roar of rage cut into his thoughts. The differences hit Ford square in the face.

Firstly, this creature had more legs.

Secondly, it had more eyes. Many more eyes.

Thirdly, Its antlers appeared to be made of steel. Razor-sharp, instead of cobwebs, they dripped blood.

That was all Ford noticed before it scuttled towards them.

“The eyes!” Mia reminded, but Ford wasn’t sure if she was reminding him, or herself.

If its eyes were weak, at least it had plenty of them to aim for!

“Run,” He told Mia sternly. “I can’t hide you.”

“I’m not leaving you,” She didn’t take her eyes off the approaching beast.

Ford wanted to sigh, and pointed left. “Run that way. I’ll run the other way. It’ll give one of us a better angle of attack.”

“Oh. All right,” She glanced at him and then took off like a shot. Despite her skirts, she was quick. The monster’s eyes followed her progress, and it paused, debating whether to go after the running human or the still one.

Ford made the decision for it, running directly for its face.

He hadn’t told Mia exactly which way ‘the other way’ was, exactly. Directly towards the beast was technically another way. One that guaranteed he would be the one attacked, and not her.

Thankfully, Mia wasn’t looking at him. He tried his magic again, but was unsuccessful in using it. Silently cursing his reliance on the gift, he froze as the monster reared onto its four back legs, brandishing the six front ones like spears ready to strike.

“You said you changed it to make it not as dangerous!” He accused Trace, but the man was too busy to answer.

Perhaps holding back things far worse than this.

Ignoring the instinct to flee, Ford waited in place for the monster to dash forward and capture him in the trap of its legs.

When it lunged, Ford darted underneath its belly, ducking as the creature reacted to his unexpected sprint. He was barely quick enough.

A low hiss alerted him that Mia had changed direction, entering the fray and stabbing one of the back legs with her knife. The move had given Ford just enough time not to be caught.

He remembered his own knife, still plunged into the head of the crocodile since no one had dared retrieve it.

Coming out from behind the beast, he realized that it would be an uphill battle–literally–to get to the creature’s eyes. It was simply too tall!

Mia rolled away, though whether by choice or because she had been knocked off her feet, Ford hadn’t seen. He wrapped his arms around the creature’s back most right leg and began to shimmy up.

The large, spiny hairs on the limb impeded his progress at first, until he began to use them as climbing rungs.

Angry, the monster spun in a tight circle, attempting to throw Ford from his perch. A wave of dizziness hit him, but he managed to hold on and continue his ascent until he was on top of the strange creature.

Up here, it resembled Webster far less. The thorax… was absolutely covered in eyes. Grotesque, red, bulging eyes with black pupils that narrowed and focused on Ford with absolutely murderous intent.

It was startling enough to almost make Ford forget his purpose up here. The exoskeleton rippled, and Ford lost his footing, falling onto this stomach. One of his hands landed in an eye, which blinked hard enough to cut Ford’s hand open.

He was laying on a bed of eyes, all blinking in an effort to catch and cut him. He felt fresh air across one knee as his pant leg on that side tore.

Gritting his teeth, Ford managed not to otherwise react to the injury, reaching down to the bag he’d attached to his belt before anything else could go wrong.

Pushing to his feet despite the screaming pain paralyzing his fingers, Ford opened the mouth of the bag and poured out the red blooms.

Almost too late, he remembered the exposed skin on one leg. He jumped back, barely managing to avoid being sliced open by the drifting petals.

Or did he avoid it? With the blood streaming from his hand, it was hard to be sure of anything just now.

What he did know was that he couldn’t afford to stumble now. There was no healing water, no way to undo the effects of the flowers.

So he leaped from the monster’s back, hoping the bed would be soft enough to not break his legs, or his neck.