Calling On Fire (Book 1) by Stephanie Beavers

reminded himself as he took to the skies. No matter how big and fierce this monster was, it was still well within range of their abilities. With their particular skillset, he and Toman excelled against purely physical threats. It was when they were up against magic-users that they struggled, since they had little defense against magical attacks.
    And that was why he worried about the possibility that this was a mage-construct. Just because there was no trace of a master behind the beast yet didn't mean there wasn't one, or that he wouldn't show up at an inopportune moment. But as he and Toman had already agreed, there was little they could do to prepare for such a possibility.
    Esset glanced down at Toman, who had his hands on the rock of the cave's ceiling and his eyes heavy-lidded in concentration. He could guess what his brother's plans were, but he'd find out for sure later. For now Esset kept his eyes on the skies as well as the ground below. The ground was remarkably sparse on wildlife, he was unsurprised to see. Some tiny movements betrayed a marmot, but the larger wildlife would have learned to steer clear of the beast's lair by now. The only other creatures around were birds, which made sense to Esset, since he couldn't see something the monster's size being able to catch such tiny and fleet meals.
    Esset circled Toman's location continuously, even checking the skies above—just in case. He started going through mental exercises to keep his mind from wandering, as it was wont to do, but he still found himself wishing that his brother's abilities didn't require quite so much time to prepare for a battle. And despite his attempts to keep sharp, Esset found himself surprised and unprepared when his mount suddenly started descending without his instruction.
    Esset panicked for a moment, cueing the animated stone to pull up several times before he saw Toman waving at him from below and realizing his mount's disobedience was of his brother's doing. He relaxed and waved back, curious as to why Toman was bringing him down.
    "Hey, nitwit, you've got all my chains!" Toman called when he was in earshot. Of course.
    "Well, numbskull, you should've taken them before I took off," Esset retorted good-naturedly. His mount's stone hooves clattered against the rocks as the chains wound around it slithered off.
    "So are we almost ready to go?" Esset asked, scanning above them in case the monster was returning.
    "Yup. I figure we can hide over there," Toman waved an arm at the rocks overlooking the cave, "and wait for the monster to enter his lair. When it does, I have a golem already posing as the ceiling. It'll drop down and crush the monster. With luck, that's all it will take, but if not, a bunch of these boulders I've animated into snakes can wrap around it and crush it. We shouldn't even need these chains, but I'll have them hide around here too. At the very least, me and mine should be able to keep the beast from taking off, which means you can summon your beasts to fight it."
    "Sounds thorough. But I still don't know why you brought daggers along," Esset said, waving at Toman's mount, which bristled with the weapons. "Those tiny little blades aren't going to be much use against the monster's tough hide."
    Toman gave him a broad grin. "Nothing has a tough hide on the inside," the animator said. "And they're small enough to fly inside the mouth of pretty much any large creature."
    "That's disturbing," Esset said, nonetheless impressed with his brother's ingenuity.
    "Effective," Toman argued.
    "And this looks like it'll be easy," Esset said. "Come on, let's get to our hiding place." His winged horse took off, angling up towards the adjacent hill. The surface of the hill was jagged and littered with boulders and crags—perfect.
    Toman and Esset dismissed their mounts so they could hide further away—the stone winged horses were rather noticeable, after all, and Esset could summon new mounts if they had to move quickly. Toman