Bloodflowers Bloom (The Astral Wanderer Book 2)

disgruntled as he examined the bestiary. “Flayers can make a glue-like substance with their saliva to help build their homes. But like Asla said, they are usually little hovels, not something like this. I would expect to see this being the home of blood mages or cannibals, not flayers.”
“Cannibals eat their own, correct?” Asla questioned and gestured to a section on the left of the den. “It would appear you are not completely wrong, Jazai.”
The boys shifted their gazes to where she had indicated. Two skulls were visible, and from their sharp features, they appeared to be skulls of slain flayers.
“Well, I guess they stepped out of line,” Jazai murmured and closed his book.
Asla shut her eyes and sniffed the wind. She pulled a face of disgust before she opened her eyes again. “I smell death—both the scents of the long-dead and some that have only died recently.”
Devol held his sword out. “Those must be the hunters. Are any alive?”
Asla shook her head. “No, not from what I can tell.”
“That’s probably a good thing,” Jazai remarked. “Can you tell how many flayers there are?”
“There are several scents, a few quite similar,” she explained and attempted to cover her nose. “I assume those are the more lowly flayers and a much more noticeable stench almost masks them.”
“Do you guys feel that?” Devol asked and lowered his blade slightly as he looked around. “I feel mana.”
The other boy nodded. “I assumed it was the remnants of the hunters—their mana can linger for a little while, even after death.”
“Maybe, but…” His thoughts were interrupted when a skittering noise issued from inside the den. The three young adventurers prepared themselves. It appeared their quarry was coming for them instead of the other way around. “So, will we still go with the simple plan?”
Jazai sighed and held his hands up. “If I knew a cantrip that would let me blow this horror to pieces, I’d go with that.” He looked at the young swordsman. “Remember that fire of wrath you did against Koli during our first mission? Do you wanna give that another shot?”
“I’ve tried during training,” Devol responded and shook his head. “I haven’t been able to recreate it although I have been able to do other things.”
“Yeah, I’ve seen the party tricks.” The scholar chuckled. “They must have some value, I suppose, but I’m not sure what you’ll be able to do with those.”
“Quiet!” Asla ordered and crouched in readiness. “They are here.”
They focused intently on the mouth of the constructed cave and a few moments later, four scrawny flayers stalked out. They were smaller than the one Devol remembered from the Wailing Woods—around six feet tall—and seemed to be underfed, which made the ravenous noises they emitted more understandable. The one in front of the swordsman hissed as it ran one of its boney blades over another to sharpen them.
“Four?” Jazai sighed, “If it was three, we could each take care of one.”
Devol drew a deep breath as he lifted his blade and the light flared. The beasts screeched in surprise and he swung it in a deadly arc. The blade extended immensely before it struck the flayer in front of him. When the light dimmed, the creature twitched and jerked, then split vertically in two. Its companions shrieked with unbridled rage.
“That’s much better than merely a party trick, eh, Jazai?” he boasted with a smirk.
The other boy chuckled and nodded to concede the point. “Fair enough. You got me there.” He pointed to the remaining flayers. “But if you had slashed horizontally, you could have killed them all in a single strike.”
He turned away sheepishly. “Well…sure, but you two would have been bored.”
Jazai laughed but Asla frowned. “I think we would have been content,” she muttered.
The creatures shrieked their individual challenges and surged into the attack. Devol turned into a head-on clash with one of the flayers and its bone-scythe arms struggled against his majestic.
The scholar blinked around the initial attack from the creature that had focused on him and launched a missile of mana that hurled it back. Despite the force of the blow, it merely landed lightly and sprang toward him again. Rather than engage directly, he blinked into the branches of a tree and began to fire cantrips at the beast.
Asla caught the blade of the third creature with her gloves, turned, and flung it at a tree as her anima flared and the silhouette of a large, feral cat that glowed orange formed around her. She pounced closer to the beast and sliced at it with her claws. The flayer simply moved under her and the mana-enchanted strike felled the tree instead. With a groan and a flurry of splintered wood, it toppled into the forest.
This seemed to give Jazai’s adversary the same idea. When two mana arrows pierced its shoulders, it extended its arms and cut the tree he perched in down with a wide, cross-cutting swipe. He jumped clear and yelled, “Shield!” as he fell toward the beast. A blue mana shield formed in front of him.
The flayer raised its blades but his shield blocked them as his feet connected with the creature and pushed off. He landed several yards away, turned, and pointed at the arrows. “Chains!” The mana arrows on its shoulders began to unravel, encircled its arms, and attached to trunks behind it. They held it in place and it shrieked and snapped its jaws as he approached it.
He held a hand up and whispered, “Blade.” His hand was engulfed by the blue light of his mana and took the form of a short blade. The flayer continued to hiss and shriek at him as it struggled to free itself from the chains. The apprentice moved closer, swung his hand, and the mana-blade sank into its neck and beheaded it in one strike.
Asla dodged the third flayer with ease. While the beasts were known for their agile movements and quick kills with their natural blades, her seemingly malnourished opponent had almost no