Free Heir To The Nova (Book 3) by T. Michael Ford Page A

and eat him,” said the ram.
    “Excellent idea!” said the lion before he shot a blast of fire out of his mouth. Nia cleared the area and flew high into the air with no trouble at all, and my shield blocked the flame effectively for me.
    “Well, that didn’t do squat,” the ram laughed, the odd shape of his mouth not really wrapping around human words very well. It still looked like he was chewing cud when he talked.
    “Then you try if you think you are so smart.”
    Something else hit my shield. I didn’t really feel anything, but the air around me was suddenly filled with static electricity and a sharp after-the-rain smell.
    “Huh, why didn’t that work?”
    The dragon sighed and answered, “Fool, your lightning breath won’t work on him. That metal armor of his takes the hit and the lightning just runs into the ground he is standing on, not him.” The dragon head reared back slowly and winked. Oddly, somehow this gave me the impression that I should dodge this one. Green, slimy liquid blasted out of her mouth, spraying the area with green goo. I dodged the best I could, but still ended up getting gobs of the slime on my armor and shield. Fortunately, it just beaded up and slid off like rain on a window; the stone floor around me wasn’t so lucky. It was sizzling like hot meat on a grill, sending up small clouds of putrid white vapor and melting away the rock itself. Even she looked impressed, and puzzled.
    The lion just looked aggressive and pissed. “Well, that didn’t work either–imagine that! Fire, lightning and acid won’t work, so I guess we just rip you apart!”
    I dodged out of the way as the beast charged at me. It was surprisingly fast for such an awkward-looking creature. Nia went into her aerial darting and evasion tactics, peppering the monster with increasingly larger fireballs. She was targeting the hindquarters so that I wasn’t caught in any of the blast. Even though it probably wouldn’t hurt me, it could still distract me at a bad moment. From what I could tell in a fleeting glance, the detonations were just fizzling inches from their target.
    That second of inattention was enough for the ram head to clip me pretty good with one of his horns, and the sheer mass of the thing was enough to send me flying into the wall. The impact jostled my insides intensely, but just as in the fight with the demon, the armor wasn’t punctured and kept me alive to fight on.
    I pried myself out of the several inches of stone wall I had collapsed and readied my hammer for a shot at one of the heads. Nia was continuing to blast away from above, but it didn’t look like she was even scratching it. Every once in a while, the dragon would pick up a small treasure chest or piece of art with her long tail and lob it in the pixie’s general direction. It was more to give Nia something to think about than an actual attack with intent. But the other two heads were starting to notice as well and I saw the lion head begin to track her flight.
    “Mr. Alex, I think this thing is immune to my magic!” Nia screamed, as she frantically harassed the heads like a sparrow chasing a hawk from its nest. Even distracted, I could tell my pixie was weakening. Days of poor food and bad emotions were taking its toll, and I cursed myself for letting my personal funk interfere with the mission and possibly endangering my best friend’s life.
    Desperate to take the pressure off Nia, I activated the ice enchantment and slammed the hammer head down into the rock floor. As always, the hoar frost effect radiated out from the area of impact, turning the floor white with crystals and spreading like a tidal wave toward the beast. The ice flowed around and past the beast’s legs, and I waited for it to climb up and do its work, but for the first time, it failed me. The floor was a sheet of ice, but nothing touched the chimera. I wondered what it was going to take to kill this thing, and I was uncomfortably reminded of my experience