by Rosie Scott
It made sense. Leura had long, bright red hair like my own, and her pointed ears were masked by the mane of it. It was possible the dwarves simply saw a lookalike in a leadership position and assumed it was me wearing Sentinel armor. As Leura noticed me arrive, she appeared relieved to get support.
That wasn't to say the new Sentinel was in dire straits. Leura was surrounded by charred dwarven bodies, and she had a life and death dual caster by her side who continually refreshed her reserves. Her face was splattered with blood from prior melee kills, and more of it was added as she threw her tri-headed flail in an uppercut at the enemy before her. The spiky balls lodged just beneath the woman's jawbone in soft flesh and muscle before being ripped back out, leaving round-shaped bleeding gaps in her throat as she collapsed to the ground wheezing.
Summun te finess. I eyed the charred corpses around the Sentinel and built a combination spell of death and fire. The blackish-red energy trembled within its barrier just before I directed it to a pile of dwarven ash. The spell sunk into the charred remains and disappeared. The soft crackling of fire preceded rising smoke from the center of the crispy corpse, and many of the dwarves started to take notice, backing away from the area like they thought the body would explode.
And then, it did. What once had been a dwarf's stomach exploded so intensely that the ashy body split into parts, limbs thrown in multiple directions. The majority of the torso was now hollow, leaving the shell crumbling to the cobblestone in piles of blackened dust. From the ashes rose a screeching bird of fire, its cry mimicking the crackling of flame. The bird had a wingspan of six or so feet across, filling the immediate area with so much heat with its proximity that I backed away from my own summon, my eyes tearing up with its temperature.
“'And from the ashes rose a phoenix, reborn from death, giving the men hope of everlasting life,'” Uriel murmured, watching the bird stretch out its flaming wings before it set its sights on our foes.
I recognized Uriel's quote, for I had read through most of his collection of books during our years in Eteri. “From the memory of the Sentinel Raza Freyr, circa 4100 G.E.,” I said.
Uriel smiled at my knowledge. “From his memory, and now from ours, Kai. Your reason for using this spell today is not lost on me.”
“Perhaps I like the symbolism,” I replied, to which the Sentinel chuckled. “Let it give you hope.”
The flaming phoenix hurtled through the skies and to a group of escaping dwarven prisoners of war, its body spinning rapidly like a projectile as its wings were folded into its side. Instead of a bird, it now looked just like an arrow of fire. The dwarves scrambled to flee the area, but most of them were too late. The phoenix spread its wings just as it dove into the midst of our foes, and along with the whipping movement burst a ring of fire that rippled out into the crowd, spreading its flames to dozens of dwarves.
Summoning a phoenix was a rare phenomenon, so many of our foes were left scrambling for options as they tried to figure out how to defeat it. Weapons were swiped at the bird as it flew over the crowds, using its own flames to shoot fireballs into our foes. Steel simply passed through the fire, leaving it to reconnect while dwarven flesh and armor broke and charred with the close proximity to heat. The bird paid little mind to attacks against it as it fought valiantly alongside our men. As if it had the brain to think, it avoided close contact with allies and only spread its flames in groups of foes. Like any other summon, its mindset was developed exclusively by the thoughts and loyalties of its caster.
Though dwarves usually weren't knowledgeable about magic, they understood enough to connect the death element of the spell to my image. Those surrounding Leura set their gazes on me.
“I'm the one you want,” I goaded them, building two different spells in my hands. I didn't miss Azazel's huff of amusement at my insistence on bringing the fight to me.
We were swarmed, our foes rushing toward us like one collective mass. Azazel shot many of them before they could get close, and some of the bodies tripped up comrades. The rest of them trudged onward, their eyes ablaze with thoughts of the glory my death would bring. I shot both of my prepared spells into the oncoming horde. The first was an ice shard, which stabbed so abruptly through the face of a dwarf that his skull exploded from the pressure. The shard continued on its trajectory to pick up more victims as the first body fell in the midst of blood and brain matter. The second spell was an orb of putrid grayish-black that spread out to encapsulate its victim, the energy seeking out exposed flesh and sinking into its depths. The woman's flesh started to degrade and lose its elasticity, and she fell to the ground, weakened by premature decomposing. The cracks of cobblestone beneath her were slowly filled with her draining fluids as the body deflated in its clothing.
One dwarf ran toward me with his ax raised high above his head, intent on using extra strength to shatter through my life shield as I leeched from others to regenerate my energy. I backed up a step defensively to avoid the hit.
“Oh, no, you fucking don't!” Cerin's voice sounded even rougher with a new leeching high, and his arms trembled as he grasped his scythe with both hands. He swung the curved blade toward my pursuer with such force that the man's head and both raised arms were severed. The limbs flew back from the body as it fell, colliding with former comrades. Cerin immediately clashed with another foe, buying me the time I needed to gather more energy.
The screeches of my summoned phoenix grew angered, and I found the bird attempting to flee from the area, its flaming wings rapidly gaining air. Scanning the scene, I figured out why. The dwarves had pulled one of their inventions to the battle. It reminded me a lot of the machine they'd used to put out flames on their warships years ago during our attack of Narangar. This invention had a long, flexible tube that they pulled out from a spool attached to a rolling metal barrel. A dwarf used a crank on the side of the barrel, revving the machine up as it rattled and clicked.
Pssh! Water shot out of the end of the tube like a cannon, arcing through the air with enough force to make up the distance between it and the phoenix. The flaming bird was wholly engulfed in mid-flight, and it dissipated into nothing more than soaked body ash that fell to the stone in clumps.
With the phoenix destroyed, the dwarves turned the invention on our soldiers, spraying water straight into the crowds. Mages were thrown back from the momentum and left scrambling to pick themselves up off of cobblestone. The dwarf wielding the tube laughed like a madman as he disabled dozens of Eteri soldiers with just the power of water.
Tranferra la agua ti friz. Clear water energy trembled in my palm. The dwarf swiped the tube over toward us, and the water left both Uriel and Cerin tumbling back from the fight, their life shields flickering from the power of its physical hit. I directed the spell forward just as I was pummeled.
After just a split second of being hit by the water, I was thrown back across the cobblestone, only stopping when I collided with Cerin as he struggled to stand. I regenerated my life shield, smiling through the pain of the fall when I realized my spell had worked.
The shooting water had frozen from the point where it hit me all the way back to the dwarven machine. The arc of water that had turned to ice was now in broken ice cubes over the ground, and the flexible tube was split with the expansion of water. The metal of the machine's barrel was cracked to reveal only the whitish-blue of solid ice within, and the rattling noise was now an egregious grinding. The dwarf beside it spit angrily at the ground as he cranked the gears in the other direction, shutting the broken machine off.
As Cerin and I pulled ourselves off the ground, Azazel went to work defending us from pursuers with his karambits. I could tell the archer was tiring. After all, it had been so long since I'd given him energy. Even so, the dwarven numbers around us were depleting. That left me perplexed. As hard as we'd been fighting, we hadn't killed through that many of them.
Cerin and I started leeching from those who were left, refreshing both Uriel and Azazel. I could no longer see Leura, so
I figured she'd moved her men elsewhere. The frantic screeching of my phoenix echoed through the skies above our battle.
The phoenix? The phoenix had been destroyed. I pulled my attention to the heavens, where Holter swooped down after finding us from his vantage point. The scout landed just between two stone buildings, favoring one side and resting against the wall. Blood leaked heavily from under his right wing. I rushed to heal him, but on my way, he started to transform back into his normal form.
“I'll guard the alley,” Uriel offered, standing at the edge of the buildings with his bloodied spear.
Azazel and Cerin came with me, though Azazel switched back to his bow to aid Uriel if he needed it. Holter's body shook with trauma as bones hardened and snapped into different places. Dark feathers fell from his flesh in heaps, leaving nothing but body hair over his dark bronze-purple skin. When he was his usual self again, it was easier to see the dwarven throwing ax buried between two ribs below his right arm.
Holter grimaced with extreme pain and backed into the wall he'd been leaning against earlier in his larger form. His long dark hair was greasy with sweat and blood, and small feathers stuck to it after merging out of his skin during the transformation.
“You shouldn't have transformed while you were injured,” I scolded him lightly, falling to my knees to examine his wound.
“I didn't have a choice,” Holter replied, lifting up one leg ever-so-slightly as if to hide his genitalia out of view. Even though he was only half-Alderi, I still found the humble move surprising. “I had to warn you all.”
“Warn us?” Azazel glanced back from watching the main street.
“The dwarves...” Holter grimaced again when I tugged the ax out from his torso. Because he hadn't waited to transform, the weapon had been lodged between two ribs that formed closer together than they had been in his oozlum form. He'd risked a lot to bring us a message. “...they're retreating.”
“Retreating?” I asked, thoroughly confused. I nearly argued that they'd just gotten there, but that wasn't true. The reddish tint of the sunlight over the stone surrounding us hinted that the battle had already lasted for most of a day.
“They've released most of the prisoners of war. Taking them. Taking many of the citizens, too.” Holter reached up to pull his hair out of his face.
“But they are in the city,” I argued.
“Altan told me he thinks that even though their initial plan worked to get through the wall, they were overwhelmed. Dwarves are being decimated by the beastmen and giants at the wall. Their cannons were overly powerful and destroyed so much of the city and many of their own people. And then, nobody anticipated the dragon.” Holter hesitated to take a breath. “The dragon's in the city, Kai. It killed many griffons and made its way here. It killed so many people earlier that we think the dwarves are retreating with as many of their people as they can to let it finish us or at the very least weaken our army.”
I nodded, seeing his point. “That dragon killed thousands out in the grasslands. If the dwarves retreat, no further casualties will be theirs.”
“Do you mind telling us how the hell you killed one of these things?” Cerin asked Uriel, who stood sideways at the edge of the buildings to listen to our conversation.
“Very slowly and carefully,” Uriel replied. “But this dragon is much older and larger than the one Cyrus and I took down. That dragon was also in the depths of the mines. It was contained. This one has access to the skies. If it's true that it killed most of our griffons, we'll have to disable it before we can injure it from the ground.”
“You have us,” Holter reminded him. “The flying beastmen have been keeping it busy. The ba'al-kin in particular have natural defenses against the metal shards.”
“The ba'al-kin, yes,” I agreed, “but not the oozlum-kin. I don't want you anywhere near it in the skies.”
“I am a good fighter,” Holter insisted.
“You are a great fighter,” I corrected, “but you have many more skills than being a beastman, Holter. I'd rather you be safe while helping us fight. You're a dual caster of death and earth, and much of Olympia is now crumbling. We need as many stone golems as we can get in these streets, and you can have limitless energy to summon them if you leech.”
Holter glanced up at me as I closed his wound and nodded. “Okay. I'll need clothes, though.”
I looked back at Uriel. He still wasn't fighting, proof that the dwarves truly had retreated from the area. “Uriel, can you find armor for him? There were many casualties in the street.”
Uriel nodded, though he smiled at the young man. “You're one of the few Alderi who mind being nude.”
“Don't see why,” Cerin commented with a playful grin. “I know now why Nyx wanted to bring you along.”
Holter laughed at that, embarrassed. “I'm half-Alderi,” he reminded Uriel. “The Alderi half blessed me with that particular attribute, and the Vhiri half keeps me just humble enough not to want to flaunt it around like Calder does.”
“Thank the gods for that,” Azazel jested.
Uriel tugged an Eteri casualty to the side of the street and slowly went about undressing the man. Whoever it was had been decapitated, so the yellow and black armor was mostly unblemished. Holter quickly dressed in the new gear, and I gave him one of the hair ties from my satchel.
“I'll give this back to you later,” Holter offered, pulling both sides of his ponytail to tighten it.
“Don't worry about it,” I said, looking away when my mind refused to stop comparing this situation to times with Jakan. There had been so many times I'd given hair ties to Jakan, and I'd never gotten them back. I reached up to hold the small bottle hanging over my chest that was filled with locks of hair from Jakan and Anto. It comforted me during times like these. “Lead us to the dragon, Holter.”
“I don't think you'll need me to,” he replied, as a roar reverberated from the skies. It echoed over the stone of buildings and streets alike so many times that it was impossible to tell its direction. I looked to Azazel for guidance, and the archer pointed over the building behind us to Olympia's western gate.
The group of us headed north through streets full of the dead. My energy was low from healing Holter, so Cerin raised hundreds of them as we went until we were followed by a small army of still-bleeding corpses. Our first glimpse of the dragon inside of Olympia was as it landed on the corner of a multi-story building at the edge of the merchant sector just south of the river. The ordinarily clear, turquoise waters of the river were cloudy and dark with blood, and recent casualties floated slowly toward the ocean in its current, getting caught up on one another.
The Hammerton Army was just a blip of royal blue on the distant horizon as the dwarves retreated, many rescued prisoners of war and civilians in tow. In the city, corpses of dwarves and Vhiri alike were swarming the streets in a mish-mash of blue and yellow. The undead crowded the intersection just below the perched metal dragon, groaning and hissing with frustration from being unable to reach their target. Overhead, multiple ba'al-kins were flying to the area from an earlier point of the battle. They looked unscathed, but it was also hard to tell if a creature that was perpetually bloody was injured at all.
The dragon itself was heavily injured. Its empty eye socket still oozed pus and blood, the liquids leaking down its face and between its teeth. In the left lower side of its chest, the hole Cerin had started to reach its hearts had been deepened. As far as I could tell, one of our soldiers had been successful in removing one of them. The beast still lived, and a grumbling sound echoed out from its gut as it prepared a new attack with metal. The undead before it paid no mind, having no sense of danger.
The dragon's long, metallic neck shone copper in the setting sun as it thrust its head forward, spewing metal shards into the crowds of the dead. Normally silver metal was splattered with red even before it passed its teeth, proof of the beast's internal injuries. Heads and limbs were separated from already dead bodies, falling in splats onto the cobble
stone. The intersection was filled with so much blood that it audibly ran down the street and into the river, darkening it further.
Two orbs of black fog exploded against the dragon, pulling considerable amounts of energy from its giant body before it raced back into the streets. I saw a flash of silver-blue scales between the still standing corpses and heard Calder roar with renewed power. Hundreds of black tendrils slithered through the area from his direction and buried themselves in the destroyed bodies, pulling mutilated parts back together. The corpses rose again, and the next time I heard Calder, I could have sworn he was laughing even in his reptilian form.
“Calder has the right idea,” Holter said, shooting two enervat spells of his own at the dragon, desperate to regenerate his own energy.
“Have you used enervat yet in battle?” I asked him, concerned. Because I hadn't known or taught the spell during our campaign through the wildlands and underground, Holter had only learned it during our trip here from Eteri. He was usually in his oozlum form while fighting, so I'd never seen him use his magic.
“Not yet,” Holter replied, watching with awe at the amount of thick cloud of black energy that rose from the beast.
“Then I hope you're ready,” Cerin said, just as the energy imploded back into the scout's chest.
Holter screamed so loud at the influx of power that the dragon turned its gaze to us. As Holter fell to the ground and heaved with the sudden unexpected agony, one silver eye watched, and the pupil narrowed into a slit.
Shik!
One of Azazel's black arrows splatted straight through the pupil. The dragon roared, lifting itself off of the roof while the white nictitating membrane of its eye attempted to glide by the organ, only to stop at the obstructive ammo. Its roars turned into pained cries as its injured eye started to leak, and its body wavered in the skies. Arrows and magic alike were thrown at the beast, only adding to its troubles.