by Rosie Scott
Stone crackled to our left, and I pulled my attention to the three-story building beside us. It started to sway, at the mercy of weakening infrastructure as Holter summoned golem after golem, using the backbone of Olympia as his molding clay.
“Holter! Not the buildings!” Azazel shouted, instinctively grabbing my arm and pulling me away from the building as it started to crumble. Uriel and Cerin followed. The structure collapsed in a heap of dust and cracked stone, the vibrations of the destruction rattling through our bodies from our feet.
Holter paid no mind to Azazel's warning. He shot spell after spell at the surrounding buildings, his brown eyes bright with an overload of energy. An entire city block of the merchant sector was soon crumbling into rubble, and dozens of stone golems were pulling themselves out of the wreckage. The summoned monstrosities shambled down the street, their non-existent gazes on the dragon which still struggled to stay in flight.
“Holter!” Azazel grabbed the younger man by both upper arms, shouting the name directly in his face. At first, I worried that Holter's leeching high would endanger my best friend since the scout didn't seem to be in his right mind. But seeing Azazel right before him cleared his head, and Holter's eyes slowly came to the realization of what he'd done.
“Oh, shit.” Holter glanced down the line of ruined buildings, his nostrils flaring. “I'm sorry,” he offered weakly, first to Azazel and then to me. “I'm sorry,” he said again, appearing panicked.
I had no right to be angry with him for losing control when I'd done so myself so many times. “Don't apologize, Holter,” I reassured him, following the golems ahead. “I'm glad your mind is clear.”
“Wait.” Azazel reached out and grabbed my arm. “Don't go farther yet.” When I made no move, Azazel pulled his longbow up before him and nocked an arrow, his black eyes watching the dragon struggle in the sky. The arrow was released, zipping through the air with startling accuracy, sinking deep into the outside corner of the dragon's good eye. A high-pitched noise that could only be described as a whine escaped between its teeth before another arrow joined the first two.
A mixture of pus and blood now swirled in the eye, leaking over the bottom lid and clouding up the dragon's remaining vision. The dragon tumbled out of the sky, its enormous body crashing over most of the city block. The massive weight collapsed multiple buildings, leaving them in piles of rubble. Now that our minions had a route to the dragon, the undead and golems alike swarmed it. Walking corpses tripped over themselves and the uneven piles of rubble to finally get a hit in, though one of the dead humorously wandered around the street searching for a weapon.
Cerin leaned over and pried an ax out of the grip of a fallen dwarf before tossing it over the cobblestone at the unarmed corpse. It happily bounded over to the weapon, grabbing it with a cold hand and taking its prize on a journey up the rubble.
“Aw, looks like Cerin made a friend,” Uriel teased, to which Cerin huffed with amusement.
The dragon was so surrounded by attackers that it was impossible to get close to it. Cerin and I shot death bombs through the crowds of the dead, recycling our highs to Azazel and Uriel before repeating the spells.
“Calder!” Cerin yelled it as the beastman rushed up the rubble, intent on leaping onto the dragon again. Calder skidded to a stop, finding my lover's eyes through the crowd. “Get your dead to clear the dragon's left side!”
Calder nodded once, and barely a moment later, the swarm of dead parted just where Cerin wanted to be. My lover rushed up the rubble, immediately swinging his scythe toward the hole that led to the dragon's hearts. A spray of blood followed, completely covering Cerin from head to toe as the dragon screamed with the trauma. Cerin spit blood at his boots, only stopping to wipe the thick liquid from his eyes before he pulled the scythe back and swung it again.
“Cerin! Back!” Uriel hurried up with his spear at the ready. Cerin jerked his scythe out of the wound, and a river of blood splashed out after the movement. Uriel held his spear with both arms with the blade facing the open injury, still trembling from the power of his own high.
The spear thrust into the depths of the wound and the dragon shuddered so severely that stone blocks loosened from the pile of rubble and tumbled down to the ground. Uriel twisted the weapon, his arms bulging with effort as he spun the blades in a full circle while they pierced the heart. With a massive tug, the spear escaped the wound, one of the dragon's shredded hearts still skewered to bladed points.
A group of the undead fell in piles of gore as the dragon once again expelled metal. As I'd surmised, Holter's golems survived the attack, though the stone of the monstrosities was marred with evidence of being hit. Holter himself must have been directing them mentally, for as he watched his golems fight the dragon, they worked together to grab ahold of the dragon's lower jawbone with fists made of rock. The dragon was immensely powerful, but it was weakening. Its head stilled from the force, allowing Calder to take the distraction to hang off of the side of its skull and tear at the beast's remaining eye with glistening talons.
Uriel was in the midst of pulling his spear back from the wound once more, and another of the dragon's massive hearts came out with it. The healer kicked the giant organ off of the end of his spear, where it splatted heavily beside the other one. Still, the dragon did not die.
“How many hearts does this thing have?” I lamented aloud, still leeching from the beast through two funnels.
“More than the last one,” Uriel replied, thrusting the spear back into the dragon's chest. The wound was now so deep that the handle of the spear was almost fully engulfed by it, and Uriel pulled his weapon back with a face of frustration.
“Let me try something,” I offered, and the healer stepped aside. I dispelled leeching in one hand and built up the death spell that meant to halt organs. I couldn't be sure it would work on such a powerful creature, but it was worth a shot. The magic zipped into the wound like a black arrow. We waited a few seconds for the magic to work, but the dragon still moved.
I spun around, my eyes searching the crowds of allies. “Mirrikh!”
Mirrikh hadn't been on the frontlines, but he came forward when he heard my call. He was still in the form of his blood-kin, and as he climbed the rubble, the click-clacking of the scorpion's pointed shelled legs echoed creepily off of the stone. Two beady black eyes rose to meet mine, and they were still full of child-like energy.
“The hearts,” I told him, pointing to the deep wound. “Can you reach them to paralyze them?”
A happy chattering sounded from Mirrikh's chelicerae, which he tapped together energetically as he passed me. Uriel eyed the scorpion-kin's segmented tail that arced over his long body as if judging whether or not it was long enough to get the job done.
Mirrikh crawled just up to the dragon's side, his tail twitching with excitement. Without any warning, he launched the tail through the wound so quickly it was a blur of black, and the stinger pierced one of the remaining organs with a squelch. Mirrikh's whole body convulsed toward the dragon, his tail moving rhythmically as he pumped the heart full of paralyzing venom.
Then, the dragon collapsed in a heap, its body weight no longer supported by its four muscular legs. Three of its hearts had been torn from its chest, and evidently paralyzing the fourth had overwhelmed its systems. Mirrikh jerked his tail back from the wound, its stinger covered in blood. He snapped his two pincers together happily in celebration.
Uriel held a hand up and summoned detect life. Red energy appeared above his palm, but only in Calder's form as he jumped off of the dragon's head, a silver eye the size of a bucket in his scaled hands. Azazel's three arrows still stuck out of the organ. Calder tossed the eye at the archer's feet, smiling playfully from his piercing reptilian eyes as Azazel went to work retrieving his ammo.
“You thought it was still alive?” I asked the healer.
“I didn't know,” Uriel replied, breathing hard from the battle. “The other dragon had three hearts, and we had to disable t
wo to kill it. I think this one had five.”
“Three hearts or five, we killed it,” Cerin replied, his pale face still covered in blood.
“If I were to argue semantics,” Uriel began, “disabling its four hearts would have caused heart failure in the fifth. This dragon died from natural causes.”
Cerin glared over at the healer until Uriel smiled from his own jest. My lover finally grumbled, “Don't argue semantics, then.”
I laughed softly. “How the tables have turned,” I teased him.
“I'd be careful if I were you,” Cerin retorted lightly, motioning to all of the blood that drenched him. “I might decide I really want to hug you about now.”
“Go ahead,” I teased. “You've never looked better.”
“He's smelled better, though,” Azazel said thoughtfully, to which we chuckled.
I gazed over the city, and the elation I felt for getting through the battle was short-lived. There were thousands of casualties in the streets, and many of them were still in the grasslands beyond from the first clash. The Hammerton Army was no longer visible on the horizon. Presumably, the army was taking its freed soldiers to Griswald to the northwest. Thousands of the casualties here were dwarven, but considering our military forces had been much larger than theirs, our losses were considerable. Between the cannon fire assault and the dragon battle, Hammerton's once-prized city was in shambles.
At least it was still ours.
Twenty-eight
Knock-knock-knock.
Cerin groaned in the bed beside me and pulled his long black hair from his face, squinting at the morning sunlight coming through the shaded windows of the small cottage.
“At least it's not a war horn,” I murmured, throwing my legs over the side of the bed. Cerin huffed lazily as if in agreement. Every muscle in my body ached from the previous day's battle. I shambled over to open the front door, my joints popping and creaking protests.
Azazel smiled softly at me from the other side, his black hair glistening beneath the morning sun. “Morning,” he greeted, looking a bit regretful as he asked, “Did I wake you?”
“Always,” I replied, before a tired chuckle.
“I'm sorry.”
“Don't be.” I nearly invited him in, but I noticed Cerin was trying to go back to sleep with a pillow over his head. “What's going on?”
“I'm going to check up on Cyrus,” Azazel explained. “I thought you'd want to see how he's doing.”
“Absolutely,” I agreed, backing up to let Azazel in. “Let me get dressed.”
Azazel and I left the cottage together minutes later, letting Cerin continue to sleep. My lover and I were clearly the lazy ones because Olympia was already bustling with activity. Bodies were being collected, and allied casualties were being sorted through and identified. The giants surveyed the damage to the wall, and among them was Marcus in the midst of a conversation with Kirek, who turned to point toward the mountains. Perhaps plans were being made to build a new wall that would withstand the new dwarven cannons. Some of the cannons were moving through the western gate after being collected from the forest. I made a mental note to ask Maggie to study them.
The dragon corpse was as we'd left it, though Mirrikh and Calder were both beside it. Mirrikh had an elaborate set-up of tubes leading to dwarven steel barrels, and he appeared to be draining the beast's blood for testing. Multiple sealed barrels sat at the bottom of the rubble pile already, but Mirrikh clearly wanted to harvest as much blood from the dragon as possible. The beastman was still hyperactive and chatted Calder's ear off as he smoked a ferris cigarette. Given Calder had a high at the end of the battle, I could only assume Mirrikh's energy tested his patience enough to need the drug for stress.
Olympia had multiple hospitals, but the one Cyrus had been taken to sat just to the north of the river leading to the harbor. The metallic scent of blood hung in the air in the vicinity, either due to the injured or the nearby contaminated stream. As we approached, the front door was held open for us by a mage leaving the building with a bloody wrap around his head.
Azazel thanked the man and led me into the building. It was crowded with healers, surgeons, and those who waited for results of friends and loved ones. Most of the healers here appeared exhausted. There was so much to do after a major battle, but I decided I was most needed here. Few healers were as skilled as me, and I still had an abundance of energy from a night of sleep and the remainder of a high.
Azazel finally stopped at the end of a long hallway and tapped his knuckles on the wooden door. There was a place for a nameplate beneath the room number on the wall, but it was blank, as were all the rest. Organization was not a priority in a hospital during times of war.
The door opened with a creak, and Uriel smiled when he saw us both. “Azazel. Kai. He was just asking for you.”
“So he's awake?” Azazel questioned, leaning to glance into the room.
Uriel backed up to let us in so we could see for ourselves. Cyrus was lying in a hospital bed, appearing fatigued but happy. Azazel visibly relaxed when he saw the Sentinel was awake and aware.
“The tonics worked,” the archer murmured, exhaling thickly through his nostrils. “Thank the gods.”
“No, thank you,” Cyrus retorted lightly, motioning weakly to a chair that sat beside the wall. Azazel went to sit in it while Cyrus turned his attention to me. “There's only one god I should be thanking.”
I smiled and sat just on the edge of his bed, patting his shin through the blanket. “I'm so glad you made it through. How do you feel?”
“Well, first of all,” Cyrus nodded toward my hand which touched his leg. “I certainly can't feel that.” He chuckled tiredly.
I was confused for a split second before I remembered Cyrus's injury in Glacia. Though I'd healed his leg and Azazel had given him potions to encourage healing of his nerves, he'd never been able to get feeling back in the front of the limb. I tapped the shin with one finger hard enough for him to feel the muted movement, smiling at him teasingly from over the bed.
Cyrus grinned. “Okay, now I can feel it.” He looked over at Azazel. “I feel like shit, honestly, but the fact that I can feel anything at all is a good development. Uriel told me how severe my injuries were. Thank you for taking time away from the battle to save me.”
Azazel humbled, leaning forward over his knees. “I'm just glad I could. No one else was available, so it was all put on me. I was a nervous wreck. Kept thinking I'd mess up a recipe.”
“Plenty of other alchemists were available,” I corrected him, finding his eyes from across the room. “I trusted you the most.”
Azazel didn't reply, but I knew he thought of Vallen's mercy killing.
“How's your leg?” I was surprised when it was Cyrus asking me. I frowned at him until he clarified, “I have these blurry memories of you crawling to me. Uriel said you broke it.”
“Oh, it's still broken. I'm just dealing with the pain,” I jested, to which I received a smack on the arm. “Cerin healed it.”
“I'm glad.” Cyrus motioned to his head. “Everything that happened yesterday is a fog. I remember enough to know that you put your own safety on hold to aid me. Thank you.”
“Don't thank me for that.”
“She said the same thing when I thanked her for saving me in Glacia,” Cyrus lamented to Uriel, to which the healer chuckled. “Anyway, I'm going to be resting here for a while,” he informed me. “Not that I want to, but Uriel tells me I need to watch my fluid intake for a few weeks yet. Altan was by late last night and offered to bring me a keg of ale.” As I laughed at that, Cyrus mused, “He thinks he's being helpful.”
“I'm sure,” I replied. I glanced back at Uriel and added, “Did Uriel here tell you anything special about our battle yesterday?”
“About your fight with the metal dragon,” Cyrus said. “He acted like I should feel left out that I missed the fight, but I can't find an ounce of regret, myself.”
Uriel snorted a laugh at that, tho
ugh he directed his next words to me. “I said nothing of the subject, Kai. You told me you wished to wait to speak of it.”
“You are really respectful of requests and secrets,” I mused.
Uriel raised one knowing eyebrow at me. “You should be aware of that by now,” he teased.
“If there's a loop somewhere around here, I'd like to be led into it,” Cyrus said, though he only seemed amused.
“Uriel here saw me give Azazel a high, and his incessant curiosity didn't let him keep quiet about it,” I told the Sentinel. “I did the same for him.”
“Truly?” Cyrus raised his eyebrows at the other Sentinel. “How was it?”
“So that is what that was,” Uriel murmured, leaning back against the door and crossing his arms. “It felt invigorating, Cyrus. A little painful here.” Uriel swirled a finger beside his head, and then he frowned at me. “But it was life magic, wasn't it?” After I explained everything to him, he was only fascinated. “It's a wonder this connection has never been discovered.”
“It's never been possible before now,” I told him. “One of the words of the spell has never been used. I created it.”
“How?” Uriel questioned, tilting his head.
“At the Seran University, we weren't only taught spells of our element's known repertoire, but we were also taught a lot about the magic language itself. About root words, gendered words, prefixes and suffixes. The language has existed since the birth of Arrayis, which leads me to believe that it was created by the Ancients. It is different from our own language, but it still abides by similar rules. The two languages are connected. Many of the words are similar enough that I know one language inspired the other. By tweaking words of our language with prefixes and suffixes of the magic language, I was able to discover a few that gave me results.”
Uriel shook his head in disbelief. “And this is what you were doing with all that time you spent in our library?”
“A lot of the time, yes,” I admitted.
“Son of a bitch.” The healer chuckled. “You are either a genius or the most boring person in existence.” Azazel and I both burst out laughing at his unexpected jest.
