She had given in to the intense feelings of physical desire she’d had, and that had been mistake enough. But she had not expected to also end up falling in love with Stan. Maybe love was a strong word for someone she barely knew, but she didn’t know what else to call it. All she knew was that she had stronger feelings for him than she cared to admit. She wanted to spend more time with him, and to get to know him even better. And at the same time, she was terrified to spend time with him, and wanted to get away and be alone.
In other words, she was a mess.
The one thing she did know for sure was that she had been wrong to say she didn’t need a mission partner. The last few days had been humbling, and had taught her that, no matter how prepared you thought you were, it was always better to have someone else on your side, too. Especially if that someone else was a strong, handsome dragon.
That strong, handsome dragon was creeping along in front of her now, but he abruptly stopped and put up his hand, signaling that she should stop, too. She did as he’d instructed, but attempted to peer around him to see what the trouble was. The noise from the campsite had become louder than ever, and when she peeked past Stan, she saw why. She clapped her hand over her mouth in shock and confusion, looking back and forth between Stan and the scene below.
She and Stan were on a ledge overlooking a small valley, and in that valley was a clearing where the Dark Warriors had set up camp. There were quite a few of them there, from the looks of it. Abby saw no less than fifty tents. But the real surprise wasn’t the size of the army. It was the scene playing out in the middle of the camp.
There, in a giant cage, the missing students were being held captive. There looked to be about twenty of them, but it was hard to count from up here. Abby knew that the exact number of missing students was twenty-one, and she swallowed back the worry that filled her as she tried to determine whether all of them were in that cage. At least they were still alive.
They all looked terrified, and with good reason, Abby supposed. A few dozen feet away from their cage, a dragon was chained up. He had chains on every possible appendage: his legs, his neck, and his tail. The chains were thick, and even from here Abby could tell they were reinforced with magic. These Dark Warriors weren’t taking any chances on that dragon being set free.
On the one hand, the dragon being chained up was the best news Abby had had all day. This meant that the dragon traveling with the Dark Warriors was not an evil dragon who had been turned over to dark magic. Rather, he was a good dragon who had just suffered the misfortune of being captured by the Dark Warriors.
But that last part bothered Abby quite a bit. It took a lot of energy and skill to capture and hold a dragon. How had these Dark Warriors been strong enough to do that? And what did they want with this dragon? There was something very sinister about all of this.
The dragon was not attacking the students directly, which was a good thing. They all would have been toasted to a crisp if he had. But the dragon was thrashing about unpredictably, and Abby’s heart burned with anger when she saw why.
Several Dark Warriors were surrounding the chained dragon. The shifters among them were snapping and scraping at the vulnerable spots in the dragon’s hide, right beneath where his legs met his body. And the wizards were throwing all kinds of torture spells at him. Normally, dragons were protected from magic attacks by their thick hides, but this dragon was weak and could not stop the wizards from aiming the attacks at his vulnerable spots. The combination of magical and physical attacks was wearing on him. Abby had no way of knowing how long the dragon had been putting up with this, but it must have been a while. He looked weak, like he might crumple and die at any moment. Still, he thrashed about in pain and roared. Occasionally a stream of fire came from his mouth, but it didn’t seem like he was trying to actually hit anyone with the flames. It looked more like he had lost control of his own powers, due to how much pain he was in.
The students were also under attack by dark wizards, but Abby noticed that they all still had their magic rings. Stan seemed to notice it at the same time, because he suddenly shook his head and said, “That’s weird. Why would they let them keep their rings?”
Abby had no answer. Magic rings focused magic. Without them, any magic spells the students tried to cast would be weak and useless for defending themselves or attacking their captors. Usually, when a wizard was taken captive, the first thing the captors did was take away their magic rings. But these students all still had their rings. They were trying to put up shield spells against the dark wizards’ attacks, but they were only having mild success. These students were young, and not very skilled in magical defense yet. And shield spells were difficult to maintain at a level that would hold back dark magic. The dark wizards laughed and taunted the students, continuously launching attacks at them. The only explanation Abby could think of was that the dark wizards had let the students keep their rings to give them some semblance of control. This would make the students’ inevitable inability to hold up a shield even more frustrating.
Stan was still shaking his head, and slowly looking back and forth between the tortured dragon and tortured students.
“This makes no sense,” he muttered. “What are they trying to do here? Why capture a bunch of random students and a dragon, then torture them right in front of each other?”
Abby frowned. Stan seemed to be looking for some sort of deeper meaning, but she wasn’t sure there was any such meaning. The Dark Warriors liked to do evil things just for the sake of being evil. There didn’t need to be any overarching purpose.
One thing she did know for sure, though, was that she’d had enough of watching these students be treated this way. She knew if she gave away the fact that she and Stan were here, there would be hell to pay. The Dark Warriors would no doubt turn their attention to attacking them, which would probably piss Stan off. He was trying to spy on them and gather intel before making a move. If she messed that up, she was giving up any last hope she had that Stan would stick up for her to the High Council.
But in that moment, Abby didn’t care. She couldn’t stand there and watch a group of students being subjected to dark magic curses. In a fit of righteous rage, she stood up, pointed her ring at the cage the students were in, and yelled, “Magicae tuitio.”
The ancient magic shield spell Abby had chosen could be cast from a distance. She had only read about it in books and never actually tried it before, so she wasn’t sure she could pull it off. But from the way the students suddenly seemed to relax, while the dark wizards grew angry, Abby was pretty sure it had worked.
For a few moments, everything felt like it was moving in slow motion. Abby stood tall, holding her magic ring out toward the cage. The students looked up at her in shock, and the dark wizards turned to look, equally as shocked. Dimly, Abby felt Stan tugging on her hand, trying to pull her down and saying something about her needing to take cover. But she could not take cover. She would not. If she ducked down and broke this shield spell, the students would once again be open targets for the Dark Warriors. So she stood, her breath coming in ragged, angry gasps, as she struggled with the effort of maintaining such a difficult spell.
And then, all hell broke loose.
The wizards forgot about the students. They all started running in Abby’s direction. Many of them hopped on broomsticks, quickly casting flying spells that sent them high into the air above Abby. She braced herself as she saw their magic rings pointing in her direction. Reluctantly, she let go of the shield that she’d been casting around the students, and used all of her magical energy to shield herself. No one was paying attention to the students anymore, anyway. The whole Dark Warriors’ camp seemed to suddenly be focused directly on Abby.
“Oh, shit,” Stan said. Moments later, a rush of energy let her know that he was shifting into dragon form. There was no time to ask him what his plan was, or if he even had one. Abby’s angry outburst and sudden shield spell had forced their hand. The Dark Warriors had seen them,
and now Abby and Stan must fight or die.
A strange thing happened, though, as the Dark Warriors began rushing toward Abby. All of her fear seemed to rush away. The adrenaline of battle filled her, and all of her training finally kicked in. She raised her magic ring, and prepared to do what she’d been born to do: fight evil.
“Magicae appugno!” she yelled. In her peripheral vision, she saw Stan flapping his giant dragon wings and taking off from the ledge. He flew down into the clearing below, and straight toward the captive dragon. Most of the shifters that had been tormenting the captive dragon fled in terror, but a few of them attempted to stay and fight. Abby knew none of them stood a chance against Stan. He would take them out in a matter of minutes, and then probably chase after the fleeing shifters for good measure.
The students in the cage were yelling, and trying to cast magic spells to help Abby. But they were too frightened to do much good. Their spell-casting was frantic and chaotic, and most of the spells seemed to be missing their marks. They were too young and inexperienced to handle a battle like this. Abby, on the other hand, knew she could do this. Her fears of meeting an evil dragon had been unfounded, and she took courage in that fact. Things weren’t as bad as she’d thought they were going to be, so surely everything would be all right. She only had to fight evil wizards, not evil dragons. Easy enough.
At least she hoped it would prove easy enough. Dark wizards might have been easier to deal with than dark dragons, but they still weren’t a piece of cake. Abby stood on the top of the ledge with a magical shield around her and did her best to take down the attacking wizards as they flew at her. She used the most difficult ancient magic spells she could manage, which at first worked great. She was taking down enemy wizards left and right. Soon, though, she could feel herself growing tired. There were quite a few dark wizards, still, and the energy required to cast the ancient magic spells was leaving her exhausted. If she didn’t get a break soon, she wasn’t going to be able to keep her magic shield up.
Abby looked below her to see what Stan was doing. He’d taken out most of the shifters. All that remained was a small group of bear shifters, whom he was swiping at with his giant dragon claws. Those bears wouldn’t last long. The captive dragon had collapsed on the ground, and was watching Stan with wary eyes. The wounded dragon must have been far too exhausted to offer any help, but Stan seemed to be handling things okay on his own. The students were all still yelling and casting spells, but they weren’t having much effect on anything except the noise level.
Abby realized that she might be better off stealing a broomstick and flying down into the valley. She’d be closer to Stan, who was almost done dealing with the enemy shifters. He’d be able to help her fight the dark wizards then, and she’d be closer to the students. Maybe if there was less distance between her and them, some of the spells they were trying to cast would actually help her. Glancing around, Abby quickly located a broomstick from one of the fallen wizards, and ran to grab it.
“Magicae volant!” she yelled at the broomstick as she pointed her magic ring at it. Instantly, the broomstick buzzed to life and began to hover a few feet above the ground. Abby jumped onto it and took off, whizzing past the startled enemy wizards as she made her way down to the clearing. Time to show these fools who was boss!
Chapter Twelve
It didn’t take long for the enemy wizards to realize what she was doing. With angry shouts, they turned their own broomsticks around and raced after her. One of them managed to hit Abby’s broomstick with an anti-flying spell, and Abby felt herself suddenly losing lift. Thankfully, she’d already been coming in for a landing when the broomstick lost its magical flying power, so she only fell a few feet. Still, the tumble sent a sharp pain through her shoulder. She’d be feeling that one tomorrow.
Quickly, she hopped to her feet. She was a little bit to the right of the campsite’s center. The captive dragon and students were behind her, and Stan was on the opposite side of the campsite, shooting streaks of flames from his dragon mouth as the last of the shifters fled. Abby told herself to calm down. The shifters were taken care of, leaving only the dark wizards. And Abby would have help with those, thanks to Stan.
But her attempts at being calm suddenly faltered when the dark wizards quickly moved to form a large circle around her, trapping her in. She was trying to figure out the best way to break the circle when suddenly one lone, tall dark wizard hopped into the middle of the circle. He looked more evil than anyone Abby had ever seen, and the large scars across both of his cheeks showed her that he’d been through a violent fight or two.
“How dare you interfere with the Dark Warriors’ plans!” he shouted at her, his lips pulled back into a sneering expression. “When they told me that there was a wizard in these woods practicing ancient magic, I thought it was going to be some great warrior. Not a puny little girl. You’ll be a piece of cake to take care of.”
He threw back his head and laughed, and the unnatural sound of it sent unhappy chills up and down Abby’s spine. From the soulless look in this wizard’s eyes, Abby guessed that he’d been practicing dark magic longer than the rest of the group here. Every dark magic spell required a little piece of your soul to be effective, so the more powerful a dark wizard grew, the more soulless he or she became. Eventually dark magic would kill anyone using it, but it took a while. In the meantime, dark wizards could grow quite strong and evil. The wizard in front of Abby right now looked like he wielded quite a bit of dark power.
“Kill her! Kill her!” the other dark wizards started chanting. The dark wizard in the center sneered again.
“Oh, I plan to,” he said. And then, without any further warning, he raised his magic ring at her and sent a dark magic spell shooting in her direction. Abby barely had time to strengthen the magic shield around her body before the spell hit her and sent her flying backwards. The dark wizards all laughed as Abby struggled to get back on her feet. She’d barely stood when the wizard in the center sent another attack blazing in her direction. Abby saw this one coming much sooner than the last one, but she still couldn’t do much other than put a shield up to block it. She was knocked on her back again, and when she stood she looked frantically around for Stan. Where was he? Wasn’t he going to come help her?
She saw him standing over by the caged students, like a sentry. His giant dragon form towered over the cage, and his eyes were fixed on her. But despite the fact that she was clearly in trouble, he didn’t move toward her. He stood stock still, nothing moving but his eyes.
“Help me!” she pleaded. Another attack spell sent her reeling backwards onto the ground again. When she regained her feet, Stan still hadn’t moved. Why didn’t he come? This dark wizard was trying to kill her!
Stan seemed unimpressed, though. He still just stood, and watched. Anger bubbled up in Abby’s heart. Some bodyguard he was turning out to be! And didn’t he care about her even a little bit? He’d slept with her last night, for goodness’ sake!
She didn’t have time to think about how hurt she felt right now, though. If she didn’t step up and do something herself, this bastard wizard was going to kill her.
“Enough!” she yelled as she saw the next attack coming. This time, instead of throwing energy into a magic shield, she ducked and rolled to miss the magic attack completely. As soon as she came out of the roll, she held her ring up toward the wizard and yelled, “Magicae concussus!”
It was the strongest, most difficult ancient magic attack spell she could manage, and she hadn’t been sure she could actually pull it off. But it was her Hail Mary pass, her desperate attempt to stop this horrible man from killing her. For a moment, she wasn’t sure if she’d managed it or not. The wizard looked at her in shock, his eyes widening. But then his lips turned up in a sneer and Abby’s heart sank. The dark wizards all cheered, even as Abby felt tears of frustration pricking at her eyelids. All she’d done was slow him down for a moment, and that was the best she had. No other spell she could muster up was going t
o be stronger than that. Why wasn’t Stan moving? Didn’t he see the predicament she was in?
Abby turned wearily toward the sneering dark wizard, fearing that she was about to be hit with another attack. She gritted her teeth together and tried to gather her energy for a magic shield as she watched him raise his magic ring in her direction again.
But the attack never came. Instead, the dark wizard suddenly froze in place, his eyes widening once again. He choked, spitting up a little blood as he coughed. Abby watched in confusion as he began to sway unsteadily, and then, moments later, he toppled over and hit the forest floor with a loud thud. For several eternal seconds, everything was quiet. Everyone in that clearing peered toward the spot where one of the best dark wizards now lay quite still, and almost certainly dead. Abby looked down at her own hands, staring at her magic ring and wondering whether it was actually possible that she had done that. She had successfully performed one of the most difficult ancient magic spells.
The silence ended when one of the other dark wizards seemed to realize what had happened, and screamed in anger.
“Fool!” he shouted at Abby. “You killed him! You’re going to die for this!”
All at once, all of the dark wizards that had been standing in a large circle around Abby rushed in at her, attack spells blazing. But a funny thing happened. She was no longer afraid. She had taken down the worst they had to throw at her. The rest would be easy.
With her shield spell up, Abby spun in rapid circles, shooting attack spells at all of the dark wizards. The air was filled with the sound of wizards screaming and the metallic scent of blood. Abby felt like she was part of some strange war dance. She kept going, never slowing down, until finally the last of the enemy had fallen. When that last dark wizard fell, a cheer went up from the caged students. Abby looked up at them and smiled weakly. Then she looked at Stan, whose dragon lips were also turned up into a smile. She wanted to yell at him in anger, but she didn’t have the energy left. She saw him start to shift back into human form, and she knew the danger was over.
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