Panicking has never done anybody any good, he reminded himself.
The base of the mountain was farther away than it had looked. Before they were half-way there, most of the group was too out of steam to run any longer. They walked swiftly, but some were even flagging at that. Caden kept looking back at them, alarm in his eyes.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have had everybody come with us,” Caden said to a sagging, breathless Landry.
“They--they wouldn’t--wouldn’t have stayed--stayed back,” she gasped out.
“I just don’t like us all being out in the open like this,” Caden admitted.
He kept looking down into the crater as much as he looked back at the people. He didn’t know why, but he kept expecting to see the Behemoth there. Would there be a White Dragon head mixed in with all the rest? He swallowed sickly. If that had happened, what could he do? The Behemoth could crush him. He wouldn’t even have Iolaire’s powers against it. Could Spirits die? He was afraid he might find out.
“T-there! L-look!” One of the people behind him cried.
Caden skidded to a halt and spun around. The person who had shouted was a middle aged man. Caden could imagine him working as a lawyer, a banker or an accountant. Some boring, yet safe desk job. He was dressed in a suit, though the tie was undone and the top few buttons of his shirt were open as if someone had grabbed him by the neck. He was pointing to the right towards a hulking figure that stood about fifty feet away.
“Werewolf,” Caden breathed and he felt a chill run through him.
It stood over eight feet tall. The head was massive with a set of jaws on it that likely could shear a person’s head off and crunch it down in one bite. Everyone was frozen. There were horrified looks on faces. People were covering their mouths trying to hold back screams. Eyes were huge in their heads. They were all completely out in the open. This thing could be amongst them in seconds, ripping open bellies with its claws, cleaving heads from necks, and pulling off limbs like they were dead branches.
“This is bad,” Caden murmured.
“Y-yeah, what do we do?” Landry whispered.
“M-maybe it will just go away?” Ross suggested.
The Werewolf lifted its snout into the air and sniffed the breeze. It let out a sound that was somewhere between a moan and a howl.
“I don’t think so, Ross,” Caden answered faintly.
“So what do we do?” Landry repeated with more anxiety.
Caden’s head jerked back towards where the base of Raziel’s mountain lair was. One hundred yards a way, maybe give or take. Obviously, the lair was at the top. He doubted that they could make it all the way up before the Werewolf was upon them. He doubted that most of them would even make it to the base of the mountain.
Not unless the Werewolf is distracted, Caden realized.
He was still relatively fresh. Maybe he could lead it away from the rest of the people? Give them a chance to get to the mountain where, at least even if they couldn’t reach Raziel’s lair, there might be places to hide? There certainly wasn’t in this plain!
“Okay, here’s what’s going to happen.” Caden licked his lips. “I’m going to distract the Werewolf and you all are going to run like Hell for the mountain.”
“That’s insane! That’s not a plan! That’s suicide!” Landry hissed.
“I think it sounds pretty good,” Ross muttered.
Landry hit his arm. “Why are you such a coward and a bad person?”
Ross rubbed his arm and said, “I’m not. It’s just Caden’s like a Dragon Shifter while we’re not. He can’t get hurt, right?”
“We don’t know that!” Landry shook her head. “I can tell that you don’t have your powers, Caden. You’re… you’re human like us!”
Caden swallowed. He didn’t have his powers. He couldn’t contact Iolaire. He had no idea if spirits could be hurt. “Landry, we don’t really have many other options here. I’m not sure… sure what powers I still have or if just being a spirit is enough to protect me--”
“You don’t know that!” Her eyes were huge with worry. So huge he could see them behind her too long bangs.
“I think the time for talking is over!” Harvey pointed towards the Werewolf which had fixated on a young woman at the edge of the group.
She was breathing heavily and was going to have difficulty running to the mountain, but now it looked like the Werewolf was going to run after her. Her face went pale as milk and her eyes bugged out of her head as the Werewolf took one large step and then another large step towards her. She let out a thin wail. People started back away from her as if they were offering her to the Werewolf.
Take her and leave me alone is what they’re thinking, Caden realized.
