The dragon roared and spun around in place. It didn’t hit anyone, but the wind caused by its rotation alone was enough to knock them off their feet. The dragon began flapping its wings—the force was so strong that it kept them all pinned on their backs.
“We can’t let it get to the skies,” Olivia shouted as she tried to get up. Remi sucked her teeth and got ready for the moment the dragon took flight. The window was narrow, but if she acted fast enough, she would make it.
The dragon was finally high enough to start riding the thermals in the air and its wings weren’t forcing them into the snow anymore. Remi leapt up to her feet and sprinted forward, summoning her white Sage robe to appear around her for that extra boost of speed and strength.
She leapt into the air and let her eidolon go, reaching out for one of the dragon’s gigantic toes. She hung on tight and kept her face smashed up against the rough sandpaper-like skin. She closed her eyes and hung on tight as she could hear her teammates yelling from down below. She forced one of her eyes open and saw that she was high up in the air now, far above the trees, and more alarming, she could feel the dragon’s skin getting hotter. She looked up to see smoke coming from the dragon’s clenched teeth.
It was going to breath out more fire!
Remi grunted and hung on tight, wondering what she was going to do when an idea popped into her head. She knew it would take perfect timing though.
The dragon seemed to like getting close. She wasn’t sure why, but if her theory was true, what she did next would work in her favor.
The dragon dove toward the ground and straight for her friends, its skin getting warmer by the second. She forced her eyes open the best she could despite the unforgiving winds and waited until the dragon’s feet cleared the trees.
She made her move.
She took in a deep breath and activated her armor form just as the dragon swooped in to incinerate Olivia and the others. The weight wasn’t much, but it was just enough to catch the dragon’s attention. Remi clutched the dragon’s toe with one artificial hand and summoned her eidolon with the other. She wouldn’t need strength. Just precision.
She stuck her eidolon right under the nail of one of the dragon’s toes, just above the muscle and flesh.
It couldn’t have felt comfortable.
The dragon roared and craned its neck toward her, trying to snap its jaws and bite her but Remi leapt off in the nick of time. She rolled into the snow and was quickly lost in one of the mounds. She could sense that the dragon had changed direction though. It landed on the ground as its feet caused the trees around it to vibrate, bringing more snow down upon her.
It huffed and growled, searching for her earnestly, but she waited patiently.
Olivia was getting closer to the creature, and with the dragon distracted, it didn’t notice that she was warming up her next attack. The dragon took a step closer, sniffing the ground for evidence when it suddenly roared in pain.
Remi burst from the snow with her eidolon held high. She saw Olivia on the dragon’s back with her blade piercing through its spine. Olivia sunk the blade in deeper as she began to sweat. But the dragon didn’t try to snap at her. It started taking flight, and Remi knew it was a bad idea for Olivia to hang on. She couldn’t summon an eidolon nor did she have artificial limbs to help break the fall.
Remi ran forward as fast as she could considering the environment, and when she was close enough, she threw a large amount of energy into her sword and threw it at the dragon. It barely pierced the skin, but it would have to do.
Remi leapt up and grabbed the hilt just as the dragon took flight. Down below, the boys yelled at them as they were taken up higher. In a few seconds, Remi couldn’t see them at all anymore. There were only the clouds and the icy winds.
She expected the dragon to renew its assault, but instead it kept flying forward, further and further away from the forest. Olivia crouched down low and kept her body behind her sword as much as possible. The wind was blowing so hard that her hair was whipping her in the face.
Remi felt the eidolon beginning to slip from its position, but the danger quickly passed as a structure came into view.
In the distance was a mountain, so high that its peak went beyond their vision and up into a second set of clouds. Remi braced herself as the dragon neared the mountain with breakneck speeds. It showed no signs of slowing.
But just when they were about to hit the rocks, Remi found herself free falling. She glanced up and saw that Olivia was in the same predicament. It was as if the dragon had disappeared completely.
Thankfully, they were close enough to the mountainside to reach the rocks and they weren’t going to just freefall to their death. Remi took her eidolon and stuck it out, piercing through the jagged rock surface. The eidolon sliced through and it was slowing her descent, but barely. She was still falling fast and she dared not look around for Olivia. She wasn’t even out of her own predicament yet.
The eidolon slowed as she poured as much strength into the blade as possible. Finally it stopped completely and she kept the soles of her feet up against the rocks, wondering what she could do next.
She heard a cry echo across the sky above her and she looked up to see Olivia performing the same action with her own sword. Except with her, she wasn’t able to slow her fall in time. Remi reached out and grabbed her hand just as she whizzed past and she could hear Olivia’s arm pop out of socket once their grip locked. Olivia screamed out in agony as she hung off the edge, with her other hand gripping her custom sword with everything she had.
“That had to hurt,” Remi groaned as Olivia grit her teeth and sheathed her blade, her arm shaking the entire time. She reached out with her free hand and grabbed Remi’s wrist. Remi winced and tried to pull her up but she was already beginning to feel exhausted.
“Livi, you got to do more,” she cried out as she felt her grip around the eidolon getting slippery.
“What exactly?!” Olivia yelled. Her arms were quivering violently.
“Drop!” a cracked high-pitched voice cried out from below them. Remi strained her neck to see who had said it, but she couldn’t see anything through the fog. “It’s okay!” the voice said again. “You’re right above the town!”
“You believe this?” Olivia asked.
Remi clenched her jaw and considered their options. “Well, it’s not like we have much of a choice. We’re not going to fly out of here.”
She wretched her arm from Olivia’s grip and her friend screamed as she fell below the fog line. Remi grabbed the hilt of the eidolon with both hands and waited, trying to scrunch herself into a ball so that she could fight against the breeze. After a few seconds went by, she began to hear a familiar voice through the wind.
“You can drop!” she heard Olivia yelling. “It’s safe!”
“Okay!” Remi yelled out as she let go completely. It was a short fall, but still high enough to make her legs tingle when her feet hit the platform below—a large slab of red rock sticking out of the mountainside. She glanced behind her and saw Olivia and a very short man standing in front of a cavern entrance.
“Friend of yours?” Remi tried to act cool, but she felt like she was going to faint.
“Don’t know yet,” Olivia said, crossing her arms. “But he helped me to my feet so he can’t be too terrible.”
“No, I’m nice,” he said, scratching his exposed belly. “But the Mistress is still pissed. I can’t speak on her behalf.”
“The Mistress?” Remi asked, slowly gaining feeling back in her legs. She slowly stood to her feet.
“Yes,” the little man with no shirt replied. “The Mistress—the dragon you fought.”
Chapter 34 – The Mistress
“The name is Lain,” he replied, giving her a curt bow. “Welcome to Darkheart.”
“Never heard of it,” Olivia replied, staring down at the little man. He was no taller than a few feet and he appeared to be as old as forty. His hair was red and disheveled and he was barely wear
ing any clothes despite the chilly weather. He wore a pair of ripped shorts and a necklace that was composed of pieces of the mountain. There were nothing fancy to look at, but they must have had some relevance to him.
“This is a hidden place,” he said. “And most people don’t survive here. You still may not.”
“You said your Mistress was the dragon?” Remi asked. “Did I hear you right?”
“Not my Mistress,” he replied. “The Mistress. That’s what she likes to be called amongst us.”
“How many of you are there?” Olivia asked, looking down the cavern. They couldn’t see inside from where they stood.
“Nearly a hundred. But you won’t get to see them if the Mistress doesn’t approve it, and I doubt she will. It looks like she hurt you.”
“She better not have hurt our friends,” Olivia said. “The boys down below. Did anything happen to them?”
“Boys? I have no clue what you’re talking about.”
“I do,” she heard a woman’s voice echo off the cavern walls. Remi and Olivia snapped to attention as they heard the sound of heels clopping against the ice. Soon, the Mistress came into view. She was wearing a gigantic fur coat that was so big it made her shoulders look like that was the only part of her body that she worked out on. Her hair was made up of tiny curls and colored silver and an icy blue. Her skin was dark and her almond shaped eyes were as green as emeralds. Her lips were full and her skin was thick but not at all fat. It was apparent that she was constantly honing her body. As soon as she had taken a few steps outside the cavern entrance, she kicked her blue heels aside and stepped onto the ice with her bare feet. The cold didn’t appear to bother her at all.
“We want to talk,” Olivia said but the Mistress didn’t listen. She cocked back her arm and punched Olivia in the face before she could counter it. Olivia went sliding on the ice as she clutched her jaw. The Mistress kept walking forward, heading straight for Remi.
“Listen!” Remi said. “We’re not here to fight.”
“Uh-huh,” she muttered, swinging at Remi’s head. Remi ducked under the blow but her chin caught the Mistress’ uppercut. Remi fell onto the back of her head and the world started spinning before her eyes. The Mistress bent down, picked her up, raised her over her head, and then slammed her back down onto the ice. Remi nearly blacked out.
Olivia jumped up to her feet and started running toward their enemy, but the Mistress pivoted at the last second and leapt up into the air, kneeing Olivia in the face. Olivia cried out and went sliding on the ice again as their enemy turned her attention back to Remi. Remi rolled out of the way of her hands but not completely out of her reach. Remi’s eyes widened as a ball of fire came shooting out of the Mistress’s hand, hitting her square in the chest.
Remi screamed as her clothes caught fire. She ran toward a snow mound by the cave’s entrance but she found herself picked up in the air and held in place. Remi saw that the Mistress’s right arm had turned into a miniature dragon’s tail, and she had wrapped it around her so tight that it felt like her organs were going to be crushed.
Thankfully, the press of the dragon’s skin against hers smothered the flames but Remi still couldn’t find the air to breathe. Her lungs were being crushed and she could already hear her ribs cracking. She closed her eyes as she tried to focus. An eidolon shot out her back and into the dragon’s scaly skin but it didn’t cause any damage. Remi groaned and clenched her jaw as the Mistress kept squeezing.
“We’re not your enemy!” Olivia cried out and the Mistress decided not to crush Remi just yet.
“Then what are you?” the Mistress asked, glaring straight into Olivia’s eyes. “No one but enemies come here.”
“We…we’re here to find one of the Sorcerer’s weapons.”
“Yes, that is what my enemies do,” she said, turning her attention back to Remi. “That’s all they do.”
Remi took a deep breath and dug into her pants pocket, searching for what she needed. The Mistress glowered at her and began squeezing again but Remi found what she was looking for in time. She couldn’t stretch her hand out of her pocket by much but it was enough to touch the red shard against the Mistress’s dragon tail.
Immediately, the Mistress dropped her and Remi fell on her feet. She didn’t have time to worry about the state of her body though. She sprinted forward and unsheathed her eidolon from her shoulder, fusing it with her power. Remi rolled underneath the Mistress’s retracting tail and sliced through the right side of her abdomen, nearly cutting her body in half. The Mistress lost her glazed over look and roared in pain as her brain registered Remi’s attack. Remi prepared to touch the red shard against the Mistress again when it was suddenly smacked out of her hand. The Mistress grabbed Remi’s collar and pulled her close.
“What did you do?” she growled, her breath smelling like ash. It was so hot that Remi had to turn away. It felt like it was going to burn her skin.
“Let me go and I’ll tell you,” Remi groaned but the Mistress wasn’t willing to forgive her prey for the wound she received. She took a deep breath, cocked her head back and then breathed out a wave of fire toward Remi’s face. Remi stuck her eidolon between them and widened the blade as much as possible, but she could already hear the cracks in her eidolon beginning to appear.
Olivia jumped onto the Mistress’s back but the tail reappeared from under her fur coat, wrapping around Olivia and squeezing her just as tight as she had with Remi. There was little they could do to stop the assault. They were pinned down.
Remi reached into her pants pocket frantically with one hand as she kept the eidolon with the other. The force of the fire was so strong that she fell down to one knee, and the crackling sound of her eidolon breaking was getting louder. Remi knew that the red shard had been cast aside, but she had to try another. If only to see if it would have an effect on the Mistress. It was a desperate ploy, but she was out of ideas.
The Mistress was too strong, too resourceful, and far too durable. Remi thought about activating her armor form, but she was sure the Mistress could find a way in if she wanted. She had to end the battle quickly if at all possible.
She continued to sift through the shards in her pocket and then she remembered that the blue one was also in there. It had been her turn to carry the shards after all.
But it was too late.
She accidentally brushed her fingers up against the blue shard and it was like the world around her had been transformed. She was back in the darkness, but this time, there was a small end-table standing in front of her. It was barely staying together. It creaked without any outside influence, and a lone candle stood in its center, not being held up by anything but its own will.
Remi stared at the little fire flickering at the top and she wondered what was happening to her body now that her mind had been taken away. She couldn’t be dead. Otherwise, wouldn’t she no longer be aware of herself? Or would she only be with the darkness now?
“Give up,” she heard a man whisper in her ear. She turned around quickly but there was no one there, and she felt no presence around her. The flame on the candle suddenly went out, and she was cast in utter darkness once more. She waved her hands in front of her eyes in the pitch black but she saw nothing.
She was about to speak when light flooded her eyes.
Or more like…one of her eyes.
She couldn’t see out of the other. That one was still cast into the black.
But the other. The seeing one—that one saw Olivia bending down and hovering over her. She was saying something, but she couldn’t hear the words. Wait…yes, she could. Her other senses were beginning to return. But it was terribly slow. As if they had to be woken up individually from their slumber.
“Remi, talk to me!” she said, shaking her. Remi parted her lips and licked them. They were so dry and…they were bumpy. It hurt to the touch. What had happened?
“Don’t get up too fast,” Olivia said, patting her shoulder. “Your face is burned pretty bad. But don�
��t worry, the Mistress said that she can fix that. Just hold on. We’re getting you a hammock to lay on. They’re going to take you to their infirmary.”
“The Mistress…” Remi whispered. “She…help?”
“Alicia,” she heard the Mistress declare behind her. Remi couldn’t move her neck to confirm the exact location.
“Whatever!” Olivia snapped at her. “All you should be caring about right now is whether she survives this or not!”
“I told you she will. Calm down.”
“If she dies, so do you. Get that?”
The Mistress stayed silent but even Remi knew that threat couldn’t be carried out. Her eyes closed on their own and she felt the sweet hands of sleep beginning to take her into its arms.
She allowed it with no regrets.
***
“I. Am. Tired. Of. Waking. Up,” Remi said before she even opened her eyes. She heard Ian chuckle nearby and she sat up to attention, scanning the room around her. They were all there, sitting in chairs and waiting for her to wake up. “Are you all okay?” she asked them. She noticed that they were all staring at her intensely, but not one of them was willing to answer.
“Just take it easy,” Olivia said, rising from her chair. Remi looked behind her and noticed that the room was very small. She had been laying on the floor with a thin white sheet placed over her. The walls were made of the mountain rock—it wasn’t smooth at all, and parts of the wall jutted outwards. The floor under her was metal and cold, and there were only the chairs that her friends were sitting on for furniture. It looked like they were all in a holding cell.
Remi blinked and realized that she was still only seeing out of one eye.
“What’s wrong with me?” she asked. No one leapt up to answer her question which only made her more nervous.
“Alicia should be on her way to retrieve you,” Ian said. “It will all be okay.”
“Why are you talking like that?” Remi cried out. “What’s wrong?” She reached up and caressed her face and her hand dropped the moment her fingers brushed up against it. It was bumpy and sore, as if her face had recently scabbed over, and there was a sticky substance spread across her cheeks that made her skin tingle. She waved her hand in front of her blind eye. Something was definitely wrong with her face. It didn’t hurt when she touched it, but it wasn’t smooth like she remembered.
The Complete Seven Sorcerers Trilogy Page 33
