As the deadly feline moved in, another appeared out of the woods behind it, then another. Then Lyric spotted one coming around the side. He glanced to the other side and there was one there too. They were surrounded and the cats were slowly coming in together.
The first corca cat leapt into the air, hurling itself towards Lyric. Lyric slammed the end of his staff into the animal’s chest. The big cat was sent backwards, but as it was about to land on its back it twisted around in the air and landed on its feet. Oh great, they are as agile as city cats, thought Lyric before his attention was diverted to the cat on his right trying to attack.
Celine had moved him, and Lyric was glad that she’d obviously gotten some training from her Aunt Azina. She understood that right now his staff gave them both the best protection because of its reach. “Left,” she called out as the cat jumped towards them.
Lyric turned and swung his staff like a hammer, striking the cat across the head. The sound of the cat’s skull being crushed filled the air. The other cats growled and howled as they moved in closer.
Two cats attacked at the same time. One came straight at Lyric, while the other jumped to the right and turned back to attack and strike his flank.
Lyric smashed the first cat then quickly spun to knock the second cat back with a glancing blow. Looking past the two attacking cats, Lyric spotted three more cats coming out of the woods. He gulped and turned his attention back to the closest cats.
The attacks kept coming. Lyric could hardly keep track as cat after cat lunged towards them. He was a blur of action as he twisted and turned, his staff in constant motion as he struck each cat back before it could strike him or Celine with their deadly claws. But even with his dragon magic enhanced stamina, Lyric was starting to tire. Running with the two heavy packs and the fight itself was starting to take its toll. And other than two cats he’d managed to strike hard on the head, the cats were unfazed and relentless.
…
Kemoth was sunning himself with Leomaris and Ovalia when he felt it. His human was approaching.
Ovalia noticed the look on Kemoth’s face. “What’s wrong, Kemoth?”
“My human is nearby.”
“Really? Apophis thought humans wouldn’t come this deep into the mountains,” said Leomaris.
“Well, it’s here. I can sense it.”
“What do we do? Apophis is gone. And we aren’t supposed to leave the mountain unless we going to the coast to eat,” said Leomaris.
“We do nothing,” said Ovalia. “Kemoth, you heard what Apophis told us. If your human comes all the way here we’ll deal with that then but until then we wait.
Kemoth took a deep breath. Ovalia was right, Apophis had been clear that while she was gone they weren’t allowed to go anywhere. And while the human was only one mountain over, it was still beyond the area they were permitted to travel in.
“Don’t worry, Kemoth, if your human has come this far it means it is probably looking for you. I’m sure it will reach us eventually. And if Apophis is still gone we’ll just have to say hello. She didn’t give us any instructions on what to do if a human dragonblood arrived,” said Ovalia. “I want to meet your human too. I think it will be interesting, but there is no point getting in trouble. You don’t want to get banned to the mystic isle for not following instructions.”
Ovalia had a valid point. Kemoth sighed. “You’re right. I can wait.”
“How close do you think the human is?” asked Leomaris.
“It’s on the east side of the next mountain.”
“Maybe by tomorrow it will be within our territory,” said Ovalia. “That is exciting.”
“Exciting or dangerous?” asked Leomaris. “Humans are shady characters.”
Ovalia rolled her eyes. “Oh, please. We all get the same lessons. You know as well as I do, there are all types of humans, just like there are dragons. Judging a human before you meet it is stupid. Are you stupid?”
Leomaris stood up. “Who you calling stupid?”
Ovalia jumped on top of him, tackling him to the ground. “You, you big ogre.”
Kemoth laughed as the two wrestled. Leomaris was the biggest of the three younglings, but Ovalia was strong for a brown and could hold her own against the bigger Leomaris. Kemoth was the smallest of the three but he wasn’t afraid to tangle with the bigger dragons. He was small but tough.
As the two dragons rolled around, trying to pin the other to the ground, Kemoth watched. However, the connection to the human was growing stronger. He could feel the human’s feelings. Kemoth ignored the other dragons and focused on the human. He was having a hard time understanding what he was feeling. What was going on with the human. Its emotions were high and they were starting to effect Kemoth. Suddenly, Kemoth understood. His human was in danger!
“My human is in danger.” Kemoth flew into the air and disappeared.
Ovalia, who was on top of Leomaris, looked down at her fellow youngling. “Do you see that?”
“Yes. Kemoth just vanished.”
“Come on, let’s go find out what is going on,” said Ovalia.
“But what about what Apophis said?”
“The dragonblood is in danger. That is reason to leave. Besides, Kemoth just disappeared into thin air. Apophis going to want to know what happened. We need to find Kemoth.”
Ovalia jumped off Leomaris and started flying east. Leomaris was right on her tail.
24
Lyric ignored the pain in his leg. One of the corca cats had sliced open his leg and he had four long deep cuts from the big cat’s razor sharp claws. He kept swinging his staff, knocking the cats away.
The cats started to change their strategies. Multiple attacks from different angles while others tried to get behind him to reach Celine. As fast as he was, he was having a hard time stopping all the attacks and several times he was forced to expose his own body to attack to protect Celine. The cuts on his leg weren’t the only ones, but they were the deepest.
Suddenly, all the cats tried to attack Celine. Lyric pushed her back against the wall covering her body with his own but now he only had a little room to move and couldn’t swing his staff properly. A particularity large cat jumped into Lyric, knocking him into Celine. The cat bit into Lyric’s staff and held on to it while another cat’s claws raked Lyric’s chest.
Lyric cried out in agony. He pushed with all his might and knocked the big cat loose from the staff and struck the other cat at his chest. He then desperately jabbed with the staff at the other cats who were crowding in to strike at Celine.
Out of thin air a purple beast appeared and started attacking the cats. Lyric slumped to the ground as all the cats turned to attack this new threat.
Lyric watched in awe as the dragon fought the corca cats. It wasn’t a huge beast, hardly bigger than the corca cats themselves, but it moved so fast that the cats couldn’t catch it, and several times the dragon disappeared and reappeared behind a cat to grab it by the neck with its mouth and fling it into the rock ledge.
Then two more dragons appeared and the corca cats all took off running.
“Are you okay, Lyric? No, don’t close your eyes, Lyric. You’ve lost a lot of blood,” said Celine.
Lyric could hear Celine but he couldn’t stop from closing his eyes. He was so tired.
…
Kemoth was as startled by his disappearance as Ovalia and Leomaris had been, but he knew where his human was, just over the mountain, and he’d focused on that area as he started to fly and when he disappeared he appeared where he had been thinking about. And when he reappeared, he could see his dragonblood fighting the corca cats. Again, he focused on where he wanted to go and disappeared. He reappeared right in the middle of the corca cats and started attacking the beasts. He grabbed them by the neck and flung them against the rocks.
The cats were quick beasts, but Kemoth took advantage of his newly discovered talent and disappeared several times, reappearing behind cats so he could attack.
When Leom
aris and Ovalia showed up the cats all scattered.
Kemoth landed beside the two humans. The boy, his dragonblood, was wounded and slumped on the ground. The second human was rummaging through a bag. Kemoth didn’t know what to do so he just stood there watching as the female grabbed things out of her bag and started to tend to the dragonblood.
Ovalia came up beside Kemoth. “How did you do that?”
“I don’t know I just did it. Do you think he’ll be alright? He is hurt bad.”
The human girl spoke up. “He will be fine. I’ll make sure of it.” She then started spreading a strange but pleasant smelling goop on the dragonbloods wounds.”
Leomaris came up. “That was fun. We might get sent back to the isle for it, but it was worth it. Damn little cats are tough.”
Ovalia shook her head. “We aren’t getting sent anywhere. We have a dragonblood to protect.”
“He doesn’t look like much,” said Leomaris.
Kemoth turned and gave Leomaris a death stare.
“But he held off those cats well. Tougher than he looks,” added Leomaris quickly.
Kemoth turned back to watching the girl. He could feel the dragonblood better now. The human was weak, but he would live. And the female seemed to know what she was going. Also, Kemoth could sense she had magic of her own. “What is your name?” he asked the girl.
“I’m Celine, and this one is Lyric. Are you his dragon?”
Lyric, thought Kemoth. What an interesting human name. He liked it. “Yes, I’m bonded to Lyric. I’m Kemoth. This is Leomaris and Ovalia.”
Celine finished bandaging Lyric and wiped her brow. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. We’ve been looking for you.”
“So, what do we do with them now?” asked Leomaris. “We can’t leave them here. The corca cats will come back.”
Kemoth frowned. “We need to take them back to the caves.”
“We’ll carry them,” said Ovalia. “I’ll take the female, Leomaris you carry Lyric.”
Kemoth wanted to complain. He should be the one to carry the dragonblood. But he wasn’t sure if he could. Leomaris was much stronger and wouldn’t have a problem carrying him. Kemoth knew Ovalia was right. “I’ll take their bags.”
Celine took a piece of rope out of one of the bags and made a sling. She put it around Lyric and held the end up for Leomaris. Leomaris grabbed the rope and gently started to climb into the air hauling Lyric back to their mountain.
“You may climb on my back, Celine,” said Ovalia.
Celine handed the bags to Kemoth and grabbed Lyric’s staff and climbed onto her back.
Kemoth shook his head. He was the bonded dragon and yet now he was carrying the bags while his friends had the honor of flying the humans. What a strange day.
25
Lyric opened his eyes to see a pair of eyes looking at him out of the dark. The eyes were big as goose eggs and had gold and purple hues.
“You are awake,” said the dragon.
Lyric nodded and looked around. He was in a large cave. “Where am I?”
“You are in my cave, Lyric.”
“You know my name,” said Lyric.
“Yes. Celine told me it. Forgive me dragonblood, I should introduce myself. I am Kemoth.”
“Hello Kemoth.” Lyric could feel that this was his bonded dragon. It was the same feeling he’d had when they were fleeing the corca cats but it was only stronger now. “Where is Celine?”
“She is with Ovalia and Leomaris. They are flying together.”
Celine was flying with dragons? Lyric shook his head, he must be dreaming. He started to get up. He expected to hurt all over, but his wounds didn’t feel as sore as he thought they might. “How long have I been out?”
“A day. You lost a lot of blood fighting the lizard cats.”
“Yes,” said Lyric. “They are nasty creatures. They wouldn’t go away.”
“That is because they see you as a threat. They sense your dragon magic and wanted to kill you and your mate. You were in their hunting grounds,” said Kemoth.
“Thank you for saving us,” said Lyric as he headed for the opening of the cave. He could see okay in the dark with his enhanced dragon sight, but he wanted to see where he was, and to look for Celine. Surely, she wasn’t flying with dragons.
‘It was nothing. It is what bonded do,” said Kemoth.
“Bonded? Are we bonded now? I don’t know how this works?”
“Can you not feel it?”
“Yes. I can. Is that all that happens? Will I change more?” asked Lyric.
“I’m not sure. Celine tells us you were poisoned as a child to dampen you magic, and only recently started to heal your magical aura. That could affect you, and to be honest I don’t know what powers you can get. Dragons like me don’t bond very often. There are few in the history of dragons, so it is kind of a guess. And I am young, I haven’t developed all my own magic yet. I am still learning. In fact, I just learned something new when you showed up.”
Lyric thought back to the fight with the corca cats. There had been something strange about the way the dragon had shown up. “You teleported?” Lyric stepped out of the cave onto a large ledge on the side of a mountain. The ledge looked out onto the sea.
“Yes. I guess you could call it that. Dragons call it space slipping, or just slipping. It is a rare magic. I’m the only living dragon to do it, and that was the first time.”
“Well, it was awesome,” said Lyric.
Kemoth stepped out on the ledge beside him. “Thank you. I was worried you would be scared of magic. Celine told me not to worry, but humans have a history of being scared by dragon magic.”
Lyric gave Kemoth a long look, admiring the purple and gold colors of his bonded dragon. Kemoth wasn’t huge like he’d imagined dragons to be, but he was still an intimidating sight. “She was right, as are you. If I hadn’t already had a taste of dragon magic I probably would’ve been scared. But considering the timing I would say you could’ve done just about anything and if it would’ve gotten rid of those corca cats I would’ve been happy.” Lyric then felt a shadow cross over his face. He looked up to see Celine riding on the back of a brown dragon. “Oh. You weren’t joking. She really is flying.”
Celine spotted Lyric and waved down at him. “Lyric, isn’t this incredible!” she shouted down at him.
Lyric laughed. It was incredible.
“You’d like to fly too? I’m afraid I’m not big enough to carry you like Ovalia or Leomaris can. But I’m sure Leomaris would let you ride him. He likes to show off and it bothers him that Celine gets along so well with Ovalia.”
“I don’t need to fly. I think space slipping is amazing. Do you think I will be able to do it?”
“I don’t know. I’ll ask Ovalia when she comes down. She knows everything. She paid way more attention to her studies than Leomaris and I did, and she would ask the elder dragons all sorts of strange questions. She’s smart. And if she doesn’t know we just have to wait for Apophis to get back.”
“Apophis?” asked Lyric.
“Yes. Apophis is our alpha dragon. She rules all the dragons. It hasn’t happened often that an alpha has ruled all the dragons, but Apophis is special, and after the dragon wars we were all on one isle so having one alpha was good.”
“Yes, I suppose that makes sense. Azina, Celine’s aunt, told me about the isle and how dragons disappeared from the world to end the war.” Lyric looked around. “How do we go talk to them?”
“There is an old trail up the mountain. Can you climb it?”
Lyric looked to where Kemoth was talking about. It looked like an old goat trail, but it wasn’t too steep. “Yes, I can.” Lyric scrambled up the mountain until he reached a large plateau. There was a large gold-red dragon, and the brown-blue dragon with Celine on its back.
Celine jumped off the dragon’s back and rushed over to Lyric giving him a big hug then a long kiss.
Lyric stood wide-eyed as Celine finally let go of him. He smiled. “
What was that for?”
“For saving me and not dying. I thought those corca cats were going to kill us for sure, but you were incredible.”
“If it weren’t for the dragons we’d be dead.”
“Lyric Finch. There isn’t a man alive who could’ve survived those cats and saved me without the dragons help. That you held them off for as long as you did was heroic. Now, quit arguing with me and come say hello to Ovalia and Leomaris.”
Lyric nodded. He still didn’t agree about fighting off the corca cats being heroic, all he’d done was survive and keep her alive. It was the dragons who’d saved the day. But arguing with Celine was not the wisest course of action, and if she wanted to kiss him as a reward who was he to argue? Stepping forward, Lyric gave the two dragons a small bow. “Hello.”
“Greetings, Dragonblood,” said Leomaris. “You’ve healed nicely.”
Lyric looked down, he hadn’t noticed in the dark of the cave, but whatever bandages Celine had placed on him were gone and he couldn’t see any scars or wounds, even through the big gaping holes in his pants where the cats had sliced his legs. “Yes. Celine has some good magical salves.”
“I didn’t use magical salves,” said Celine. “You healed yourself. Besides that weird appearing and disappearing thing Kemoth did, purple dragons are known for their restorative and healing magic. Your body healed itself with dragon magic.”
Lyric turned to look at Kemoth.
Kemoth nodded. “I heal fast, and dragons around me heal fast. It is why Leomaris likes me so much. It doesn’t take long for his bones to heal after Ovalia crushes him.”
“I’ll crush you, you skinny little runt,” said Leomaris. “Ovalia has never broken any of my bones.”
“Ignore them,” said Ovalia. “They are always like this. Talking big then wrestling around like fools.”
Kemoth and Leomaris snorted at the same time. “Look who’s talking. She wrestles as much as either of us,” said Leomaris.
“I wrestle with you so you know who’s boss. One day I will be alpha and you’ll need to know to bow to me,” said Ovalia.
Dragon Magic: Lyric's Curse 2 (Dragonblood Sagas Book 4) Page 13