Jane smiled. She wandered over and wrapped her arms and hair around Red. "I think I still need protecting."

Red chuckled. "That you do sweetness. And I'll be there for you."

Then a perplexed looked came over her face. "But still, I worry about that little lug." She glanced at Tarloh. “How do you think he and Natasha are doing?"

Robbie lay on his back, bleeding from his nose and a busted lip. The Strays and the Raptors had scouted out the village and temple where the Heaven's Eye was being kept. They'd thought that all they had to deal with was a shaman and his bodyguard. They'd assumed that the shaman used parlor tricks and basic magic to scare the rest of the villagers into subservience. They'd thought and assumed wrong.

Robbie and Natasha had decided to try and reason with the man and convince him of their need for the jewel. It turned out that the shaman was quite insane, paranoid and quite a bit more powerful than they had anticipated. While the villagers grabbed the equivalent of torches and pitchforks, the shaman had summoned a number of earth golems. Robbie and his allies had found themselves in a major fight.

At that moment, Robbie was lying on his back. He had been broadsided by an eight foot walking pile of dirt and clay. He was trying to clear the cobwebs from his head, but almost wished he hadn't. When his head stopped spinning, he saw the golem raise a monstrous foot, preparing to squash him like a bug.

"Holy..."

", . . shit!" Robbie shouted. He, the Strays and the Raptors were fighting for their lives in the jungles of South America trying to capture a magical jewel called the Heaven's Eye from a maniacal shaman. The adversary conjured up a set of massive earth golems to aid his followers in the defense of the jewel, and all hell had broken loose. Robbie found himself lying on his back, scrambling to get out of the way of the descending foot of a golem before it crushed him like an insect.

‘If I let that thing step on me, Red will have my hide,’ he thought absently. Then he felt hands on his shoulders and was pulled out of the way just before the foot came down.

"I'm not explaining to your sister that I let you get killed,"

Natasha said as she helped Robbie to his feet. She looked pissed.

The Strays and Raptors were generally too fast for the golems but the golems were too tough to be readily destroyed. Most of the shaman's followers had been incapacitated or had run off, leaving a kind of roaming stalemate.

Besla and her Raptors had taken to trying to drop heavy objects on their earthy enemies, but they weren't able to lift anything big enough to do significant damage.

Natasha was strong but not strong enough to take on those things.

She didn't much care if they hit her. The shaman himself had watched her casually let one step on her and she just got up afterwards.

"This guy is pissing me . . . off," Natasha said, trailing off. She noticed one of the golems step in a fire pit. Shortly thereafter, it took a step and she saw several chunks dropping off its leg. "BESLA!" she shouted. She looked at Robbie. "Fire," she said excitedly. "These things are flexible. Fire ‘em up and they'll go stiff."

Robbie stared at her.

“What? Am I the ONLY one around here who took a ceramics course in college?!"

Robbie dodged a clumsy blow from the golem. “Never went to college, remember? And where are we supposed to find that much fire? I left my Greek Fire in my other pants."

“Is that what you told Besla?" Natasha said jokingly as she ducked another swat from the golem.

Robbie saw Besla bashing another golem over the head with a heavy stick, mostly to no avail. The quetzalcoatl were having Limited success by constricting and crushing the enemy, but it was a slow process that left the feathered serpents vulnerable. Robbie waved at her frantically. After a moment she flew over, obviously exhausted.

"Yes?" she snapped.

"Sorry," Robbie said. "Didn't mean to interrupt your lack of progress!"

Natasha stepped between the two hotheads. "Besla, we think we've found something we can use. Can anyone in the Raptors produce fire?