“Hold your fire!” Karalti ordered, swooping in low. “Karalt’ba’nakh!”
I braced on her back, ready to jump as her wings cast the Lalassu Riders into shade. The dragon’s body pulsed with a wave of dark light, which sucked in against her skin and then exploded out in a sphere around us. The Shadow Wave swallowed four riders, who wailed and collapsed into smoke as the Dark magic unmade them. Others were injured enough that they veered off course.
“Well look at that! I think you spooked them!” I banged a fist on Karalti’s back.
“UGH.” Karalti groaned as she Split Turned and swung back. Laughing, I held the Spear out to one side and got ready to roll.
My Jump landed me right on the back of a Lalassu Charger. I drove the Spear down into its spectral saddle and pierced the heart of the ghostly hookwing it rode. It evaporated, dropping me to the ground. Others galloped by, mowing down screaming Riflemen like stalks of wheat. Whoever the lances touched turned to dust and collapsed, their remains drifting away on the wind. The Riflemen were defenseless, running in all directions as I vainly tried to kill the spectral cavalrymen. Stabbing and thrusting, discharging Umbra Blasts when I could and burning AP like no tomorrow, I couldn’t help them all alone. I saw a Charger leap onto a teenage soldier, its lance raised to strike just before bolts of boiling, translucent watery energy slammed into it and knocked it off its mount.
Quazi let out piercing eagle cries as they dived in formation, mages casting from their backs. Fire, Water, Light and Dark magic rained down on the Lalassu Chargers, who split and galloped back to try and reform. The aerial mages chased them down the battlefield, hounding them away from the infantry. Karalti swooped in and took another unit of them out with a second Shadow Wave, killing six with her AoE.
“They’re in retreat! Come pick me up!” The wave of zombies and skeletons was barely a hundred feet from us, clambering over the next line of barricades.
“Coming!” Karalti flew straight through a volley of arrows, bellowing as they clacked off her scales. Wings pumping, she came in low and snatched me off the ground. I held onto her foreclaw; when she let go, I swung around it like a mast and used Spider Climb to clamber up her body and back onto the saddle.
Undead spilled over the barricades like a liquid, falling straight into the pits of pitch below them. It was hard to believe, but our plan was working. The undead relied on cheap, expendable units, on overwhelming the Defense through sheer force of numbers, and this terrain was using their biomass against them. The zombies and skeletons were crushing each other, each wave making it more difficult for the ones behind. Towering stone and metal statues, visions out of some ancient Sumerian nightmare, tried to wade through the sea of corpses but become bogged down in the piling mountains of dead and burning zombies, leaving them easy pickings for cannons. The sheer number of bodies was staggering. Slowly but surely, they were getting closer.
“Fall back!” I screamed out loud and to Karalti at the same time. “Shield that infantry! Fall back!”
Arrows, bullets, and cannonballs were flying. Panting with effort, Karalti strove for altitude to avoid being struck. From above, I was able to see that the second line of defense was actually performing better than I could have hoped for. The riflemen and archers were picking off zombie after zombie, causing them to collapse over one another in a great big heaping pile. The Demon's infantry was forced to climb the hill of their own making or be crushed – and so I wasn’t surprised when Ashur’s army began pulling back, out of the kill zone.
[Your Militia Riflemen are now Rank 4!]
[2nd Company Ravensblood Dragoons are Rank 3!]
The undead were changing up tactics - bringing the zombies back, sending their heavies forward to smash the piles of corpses. They would flank around and come at the battlefield from the sides, trying to get to the manned bastions. Ashur had probably lost ten thousand infantry in ten minutes - a deep scratch on his army.
Zombie T.rex charged up the newly formed mounds, jaws gaping as they weathered arrows and rifle fire. Some of them were bristling like hedgehogs by the time they reached the bastions, where soldiers fired point-blank into the eyes of skulls of the skeletons they carried. The right flank of the undead were focusing their artillery on the third line of defense. Blue flashes flared out as groups of mages repelled the bulk of the impact with their shields, ricocheting deformed grapeshot and cannonballs back toward the teeming mass of undead. A squadron of Bathory airships were coming in from the side, ready to lay down fire across their ranks.
"Let's go back up those ships, Tidbit!" I dropped to a crouch.
"Wheee!" The dragon swooped down, almost skimming the fighting troops. She blasted a column of skeletons that were almost over the inward-curving defensive wall protecting the bastions, then pumped her wings to rise up toward the skirmishers. I nearly swallowed my tongue, giddy as we crested up beside them. Karalti winged around the bow of the Orozlan, giving a good fifty feet of clearance, and came to a stop in the air. Her neck reared, crests flared sharply in alarm as she swiveled her head around to face the south. "What was... oh no."
"What?" I held on as she hovered in place, following her line of sight. "What's the matter? Airships?"
"No, I thought... I felt..." she hesitated, and was just about to wing over when a chill wind suddenly whipped up from the wrong direction. Karalti brayed in alarm, flapping ungainly as she turned us around and began to beat her wings hard and fast, striving for altitude.
"What!?" I yelled, louder this time. I clung to the saddle with desperate strength. "Karalti, what-!?"
The dragons appeared with shocking suddenness. One second, the air was clear; the next, no fewer than twelve white, blue and silver dragons were just there, flying straight at us and the warships like torpedoes. Karalti's desperate reach for altitude became horrifically clear as the ships were pinned by lightning from all directions. Karalti emitted a piercing shriek of rage as the mana shields blew, the engines and sails caught fire, and every single ship lurched and then plummeted out of the sky, bearing their screaming crews to the ground far below. Even as the airships fell, the disciplined, experienced wing of dragons regained formation and chased us up into the air with Lucien and Violetta in the lead.
Chapter 45
I was too shocked to react. Shocked at the appearance of a full wing of Dragon Knights, here, on the opposite side of Artana. Shocked at myself for not predicting they would come.
“Lead them to the artillery, Tidbit!” I shouted aloud, clinging desperately as Karalti barrel-rolled to avoid a spit of lightning. It seared past us, crisping the air with the smell of ozone.
The wing of dragons split into two teams of six. The team lead by Violetta’s blue swung westward, where the warship Arpad and its Bathory-class escort were raining destruction down on the Demon’s archers. Lucien and his white flew for the much-closer Novara – the ship carrying Admiral Gehlan.
“By the Nine, how are these mongrels fielding TWELVE-WHORE FUCKING DRAGONS!?” The Admiral shouted on the Battle Management channel. “Shields, mortars, harpoons!”
The battle crew began firing on the dragons as they swooped down. Cannons boomed, and one brawny little silver dragon screeched as its wings shredded and it plummeted like a star to the seething battlefield below. Karalti cried out in distress. “No! My sister!”
“We can’t do anything to help them, Karalti!” I snarled. “Bioscan them! We need to know what we’re dealing with!”
“Okay!” She breathed the spell as we sped toward them from behind:
Solonkratsu (Dragon, Young Adult: Order of St. Grigori)
Sex: Female (Drone)
Level 6
HP: 2000/2000
MP: 100/100
Weak Against Gravity
Resistant to Light and Time
Dragon Knight (Order of St. Grigori)
Sex: Male
Level 14
HP: 1200/1200
Lucien and Violetta’s NPCs weren’t anywhere near as
powerful as they were. I bared my teeth. “I’m sorry, Karalti. Let’s take out the humans if we can!”
A sorrowful moan was Karalti’s only reply. We descended on an unsuspecting silver from above, cloaked by the deepening darkness of the night. The Knight was crouched on the saddle like a windsurfer, intent on the destruction as bolts of lightning seared away the shields of one of the skirmishers and sent it plunging to the earth. Karalti’s jaws parted, drooling white fire that she spat venomously at the human’s back. He screamed, trying to spin around, but his saddle straps trapped him in place. The sticky Ghost Fire clung to his full-plate armor, cooking him alive. His dragon wailed as she broke rank, flying in desperate loops to try and put out the flames.
“That’s what I’m talking about!” I struck the edge of our saddle with a fist, feeling a dark, gloating presence leer from behind the mask of my face. But it was brief – Lucien’s enormous dragon broke through the blockade as another flaming Bathory-class plummeted to its doom.
“Hold on, Admiral! We’ll draw them away!” But even as I tried to reassure him, the massive, twisted bull dragon soared underneath the Novara, staying out of range of its weapons. He rolled in the air, jaws gaping, and blasted the underside of the warship with a continuous stream of glowing hot plasma. The Novara’s mana shields flared with brilliant blue light, then burst in a chain reaction of arcing energy that knocked several people off the decks. The other dragons swooped in, spitting lightning at the ship’s vulnerable wooden hull. A cannonball smashed right into the back of one of the whites, breaking its spine and sending it whirling to the ground in a limp, fatal spin. But only one. Within seconds, the Novara caught ablaze, explosions rippling through the great mana engines – and once they failed, it was over. The warship sagged, then toppled, scattering screaming people from the deck. Lucien and his monster pulled out of their lazy roll and spotted us by the light of the fires. I saw the blond son-of-a-bitch grin from ear to ear.
[You have lost a Hero: Admiral Constantin Gehlan]
[Army Morale has dropped! Militia Pikemen are at risk of Shattering!]
“Retreat!” I leaned my bodyweight the way I would on a motorcycle. Karalti moved with me, wheeling around on a wingtip as the mutated white dragon bellowed and leveled out on a course toward us. Two other blues followed him, shrilling out piercing cries of challenge. "Suri! Dragons on our six o'clock! Mayday mayday, turn your fire on our tail if you can!"
There was nothing I could do but hold on for dear life as Karalti cast Haste on herself, winging like a swift to draw the dragons to the wall, in front of the cannons. The battlefield was in complete disarray. Twelve dragons could do what fifty thousand zombies hadn't. Blasts of electricity shattered the heaps of dead, cracked stone and knocked dragoons from the sky, their screeching quazi convulsing as they fell. The infantry, formerly disciplined behind the protection of their defenses, were now a panicking riot. They were sitting ducks for the dragons. The Arpad was burning, sinking slowly toward the seething army below. Violetta and her wing had abandoned it to its fate, and were swooping and diving, snatching men from the ground and spitting lightning down among their ranks. Armored skeleton cavalry flowed through the gaps the dragons had created in a victorious wave, headed straight for the wall.
“We’re so fucked.” I clung to Karalti as she strove for speed ahead of our pursuers, still on our tail. When I looked back, I could still see Lucien’s stupid shit-eating leer. He wasn't even wearing a helmet, just a pair of goggles.
"The dragons have flanked the wall! They're going for the evacuation ships!" Istvan's voice cut in through the battle management chat.
I spared a glance at the battlefield, and my heart sank. Pockets of infantry were holding out, but the dragons had let the horde through the defenses. Ranks of giant metal scorpions scuttled over the flash-frozen mud and heaps of twitching, burning zombies with ease, headed straight for the last of the defenders. The men on the ground were covering the escape of their comrades up the wall. They would be the last load of evacuees. They were possibly not even evacuees. I checked the Mass Combat unit window: we'd lost about half of the original three thousand.
Grimly, I cycled back to the group chat. "Istvan! Immediate retreat! Suri, Vash, get off the wall with as many men as you can! Rin – blow the dam, now!”
“But… There's still people who aren't evacuated!" Rin’s voice was high and panicked. “What’s happening?”
"The Wall is getting swarmed, and if we don't flood the field, we'll lose everyone, including the ships that have already left. Blow the fucking dam!" I snarled back.
“R-Roger.” Rin cut her voice chat with a sob.
As Karalti and I closed on the center line, I could see that most of the elevators had already been destroyed, the men below clamoring, climbing over each other to try and get into the ones that still worked. A few had reached the gate, but hundreds of riflemen were stranded below. The western line of defense had collapsed, swarmed by undead. The wetter eastern side was doing better, but there were fewer routes up that side of the wall. The men there were now being attacked by the dragon that had stayed behind.
“We’re lining you up enfilade, Hector,” Suri said, her voice cold with focus. “Pull these cunts in front of me and Vash and we’ll blow their snouts back into their arseholes.”
"Come on, Tidbit! Push as fast as you can!" I turned on the saddle, hooking my feet under the hand grips so that I could watch our backs while Karalti concentrated on flying. She was at about half stamina from sheer exertion: even with exceptional Dex and boosted with Haste, Lucien's Level 55 monster was catching up to us, foot by foot. Lucien was riding him in the orthodox fashion: tied to the saddle, bent forward, gripping a lance in one hand and a small shield in the other.
“There they are!” Karalti’s mental voice was strained. “I have three seconds, two…”
"You’re in range! When I say stall, you two had better bloody stall out!" Suri's P.M blasted through my head. "One, two, three, four... STALL!"
Karalti gasped with effort as she swung her hindquarters forward and pulled her wings in, arching her back. Like a lady swooning in a faint, she halted her forward momentum and dived backwards toward the ground. The trio of dragons pursuing us shrieked in victory, closing in with claws outstretched... and then shrieked again, this time in terror as a volley of grapeshot blasted them from the side. The concealed 12-pounders nailed them in the ribs and under their wings. Lucien's dragon bellowed, but didn't fall; the other two NPC dragons wailed as the cannons roared a second time, blowing great bloody holes through their torsos. Gobbets of flesh, scales and mana blew out into the wind. One blue collapsed into a fatal headspin; the other rolled out, wings flopping, and plunged to the earth on his back.
The white dragon, Vesper, thundered over our heads like a 747. He was too large and too clumsy to change course and come after my smaller, nimbler queen. Or, so I thought – until I saw his real destination. Violetta and her unit: they’d had flown back toward the center and were coming in along the top of the wall.
A flash of fear surged through my chest. “SURI! Get out of there!”
The night sky lit up with the breath of five dragons as they formed a line and blasted the parapet. The acrid mineral stench of ozone and slagged stone filled the air as they incinerated soldiers, blew chunks of debris into the air, and destroyed our weapons. Desperate soldiers sprinted down toward the bastions. The ones further away had wheeled their mobile 12-pounders around and were aiming at the descending dragons, resigned to their fate.
“We have to go help them!” Karalti strove for altitude, panting as she pumped her wings with sweeping, powerful strokes.
Of course we did – but what the fuck were we going to do against two Level 55 dragons?
Violetta pulled her blue up. Tempest roared, hovering over the parapet with his jaws agape. The three smaller dragons split while Lucien and Vesper circled, trying to get behind the fleeing soldiers. I fixated on Suri and Vash – they were marshall
ing people to escape, shouting soundlessly from our distance.
“Behind you!” I shouted over the chat.
Vash whirled as Vesper swung around, leveled, and swooped toward him. The rangy monk sneered as he stepped into a defensive stance, fists raised. He said something to Suri, who nodded and began to run, ducking her head. Lucien laughed with contempt as Vesper came in – not to breathe lightning, but to bite.
We weren’t going to make it in time.
Chapter 46
Vash stared contemptuously back at the dragon as it bore down on him, and shouted something as a whirling, churning field of dark energy ripped up a circle of fire around his feet. His gauntlets blazed to life, billowing with black fire , and as the dragon opened its mouth, he darted forward in a blur of shadow.
Vesper didn’t see it coming. When Vash reappeared, he slammed his fist into the dragon’s snout. A shockwave of raw magical force pulsed out, rippling down his neck. His head snapped up, and he bellowed and turned away, soaring back up from the point of contact and lurching as his wings began to stroke the air unevenly. But the shockwave went both ways: Vash was blown back, his arm exploding in a bright red welter of blood and bone. He pitched to the ground in a smoking heap.
Karalti and I yelled at the same time, angling straight toward him – and were bowled away as one of the smaller dragons smashed into us from the side. Karalti screeched, whirling to fend off the teeth and claws, while I turned to see the knight raise her lance. Without a second thought, I bounced up from the saddle and tackled her, taking her by complete surprise. Tied to her saddle as she was, she had no idea what hit her. I drove the Spear between the gap formed by helmet and armor, twisted it until blood sprayed, and then discharged a Shadow Lance with the blade buried in her flesh. She cried out hoarsely, slumping like a wet sack as her dragon kicked and snarled.
Archemi Online Chronicles Boxset Page 121
