by Eric Vall
“What do you want me to do?” she asked in a strong voice, and she pushed the sleeves of her robes up to her elbows.
It was hard to believe this was the same girl who had screamed and collapsed when she saw the injured guards.
“Keep an eye out,” I growled. “I don’t know which way they scattered. Kill anyone that you see.”
Ravi inhaled sharply before she nodded once.
“There are footprints over there.” I gestured with my head. “We need to follow them.”
Ravi walked forward, past the trees that still burned from my fire, and I followed close behind her to make sure no one could sneak up on us. We stalked further into the forest as we followed the tracks, and then the sickly, sour scent of death filled my nostrils.
“Ravi,” I warned, “be careful. We’re getting close to something, and I don’t think it’s anything friendly.”
I had just finished my warning when a low growl came from a thicket of bushes on our left, and Ravi’s head whipped toward the sound. She took a single step forward, and there was a rustle from the plants and a strange clattering sound. Then the smell of death vanished nearly as quickly as it had appeared.
“What was that?” she whispered, and her grip on the flame-dagger tightened.
“Some kind of animal, I think.” I replied, but I wasn’t too sure. “Let’s keep going. We need to find the rest of the assassins.”
Ravi swallowed thickly, and fear was evident on her face as we walked forward.
I continued to glance back as we made our way through the forest, but whatever it was that lurked nearby didn’t seem to follow us, so we tracked the footprints deeper into the trees.
It was quiet, suspiciously quiet. Normally, I would be able to hear birds or bugs chirping, but right now, the silence of the forest was deafening. I would have blamed it on my dragon body scaring off the fauna, but this silence was different. It wasn’t fear that caused the quiet, it was the stench of death. I could also feel traces of magic through the air, and I growled. I figured the assassins would have brought more magic users this time around, but this felt different than elemental magic. This energy felt powerful and old. It was similar to King Rodion’s power signature, but it was warped and poisoned by death.
“Ravi, do you feel that?” I asked her, and she paused before she nodded.
“It’s magic,” she replied, “isn’t it?”
“Yeah. Someone just used really strong magic around here. We need to be careful.”
She hummed in agreement as we continued forward through the forest.
After a few minutes, the foul stench returned randomly, and I nearly gagged as I took a breath. Before I could warn Ravi, a growl, similar to the one before, echoed through the forest, and the phoenix spun on her heels.
“Evan,” she warned and took a step closer to me.
“I heard it,” I responded. “It came from the right.”
Another growl came from behind us, and we turned our heads. Then a third growl came from dead ahead, and Ravi let out a frightened yelp.
“They’ve surrounded us,” I growled and flexed my talons into the dirt. “They lured us here with the footprints so they could ambush us.”
“What do we do?” Ravi asked.
“We fight,” I told her simply, and I bared my fangs in a savage grin. “They sound like wolves, possibly bears, but I’m a dragon. I can handle it. Just stay close to me.”
Ravi took another step closer to me and leaned against my scaled leg. Then a noise came from the shrubbery to our left, and we spun toward the sound.
A gray paw appeared from the bushes, and the body of a large gray wolf emerged, covered in dirt.
Ravi gave a horrified gasp. “How is this possible … ”
I stared at the wolf as the back of my neck prickled. The beast’s eyes were bright green, and they seemed to glow with magic. Its gray fur was matted and fell off the body to reveal black, decayed flesh underneath. Its ribs were exposed on one side, and I could see into its exposed chest cavity. The wolf’s bottom jaw also hung from its mouth, and the mandible bone swayed loosely from two thin strips of skin that connected it to the head. Flies and maggots ate away at the black flesh, and my stomach churned.
“Necromancy,” I realized quickly. “The magic we felt, it was necromancy.”
“How do we kill it?” Ravi whispered, and she gripped her dagger of flames so tightly, her knuckles blanched white.
The wolf came closer and snarled, and it tried to bare its teeth at us the best it could with half of its jaw nearly on the ground.
I roared back, and the creature froze for a moment before it charged toward us. But it was still just a wolf, and I was a dragon, so I swatted at it with one of my massive clawed forelegs before it could reach us, and the wolf flew into the air and collided with a tree. The body shattered into a collection of bones as it hit, but a moment later, the bones realigned themselves with a rattle, and the wolf stood up once more.
I heard more growls from around us, and Ravi and I watched as more undead animals stalked out from the forest. Wolves seemed to be the most common animal, but there were various other beasts that came toward us. An elk, barely more than a skeleton, stumbled out of the tree line, and is body rattled with each step as the bones collided with each other. The empty eye sockets burned with green flames inside its skull, and a strange, horrible noise emanated from its maw.
“Evan,” Ravi said in a panicked voice, but I kept my eyes locked on our enemies, “we’re severely outnumbered, and they can’t die. What should we do?”
The animals came closer, and an undead bear roared loudly. It must not have been dead for a long time, since it still had most of its fur and flesh. There was only one long gash along its neck, and it had the same green eyes as the others, but it seemed to be fine other than that. I figured the bear would be the most trouble at this point, so I directed my attention to him.
“Just because the wolf came back, doesn’t mean they can’t die,” I comforted the phoenix. “I doubt they can come back if they are turned to ash.”
“Good point,” Ravi replied, and her shield and dagger vanished as she summoned her blue flames to her hands.
I sent an explosion of fire from my mouth and engulfed the bear in flames as it charged us. The bear roared in pain, and I could feel the magic drain from its body toward the earth as I burned him.
Ravi must have felt the magic fade as well, and she sent her fire to attack the first wolf we’d encountered. The wolf howled as it was consumed by the flames, and then the magic seemed to drain from him as well.
“I think it worked!” Ravi called out as the wolf burned to ash. “I could feel his magic disappear.”
“I felt it too, and I think you’re right. Let’s get this over with. We have bigger problems to deal with than these guys.”
More fire billowed from my mouth as I burned the zombified animals around us. I also used my lightning power and sent bolts zapping through beast after beast. A boar came charging at me with jagged, broken tusks, and I snarled as I opened my maw and fired another bolt of lightning. The hog squealed as it was struck, and then it exploded into charred bones, rotted chunks of flesh, and ash. I snarled and turned my claws on another wolf as I threw myself back into the battle. Smoke filled the forest in a thick, acrid haze, and I could feel the heat of the flames and lightning across my scales.
Ravi’s orange hair blew wildly as the fire consumed our victims. Her flames joined mine easily, and together our attacks burned every last one of the zombified animals until their magic seeped back into the dirt.
When we finished, Ravi was covered in ash, and her hair still smoked along the ends.
“That seemed oddly easy, right?” she said and gave me a weary smile.
“I was thinking the exact same thing.” I nodded.
There was another rustle from the forest, and Ravi and I turned toward the sound, ready to fight, but then Nike and Laika burst into the clearing with their swords rai
sed.
Ravi and I relaxed, and Nike and Laika lowered their weapons.
“What happened?” Laika panted, and her gray eyes darted around the scorched carnage around us. “I could see the smoke from the city. I thought it was some kind of signal. I thought something was wrong.”
“We found the assassins!” Ravi explained with a grin. “But they had some friends we had to take care of first.”
“They have a necromancer,” I growled and gestured to the numerous piles of ash around the clearing. “He used magic to reanimate dead animals, and the only way we could kill them was to use fire. It seems like it did the job.”
“That’s impossible,” Nike argued with a frown. “Necromancy has been deemed a dark magic, King Rodion banned it and all texts about it five hundred years ago. If this truly is a necromancer, we are dealing with an incredibly old and intelligent mage. We could be dealing with someone more powerful than we’ve ever seen.”
“Lord Nikolaus is right,” Laika agreed. “Necromancy is not something to take lightly. Raising the dead is only a small part of their abilities. They are masters of life and death. They know the balance of the world and are able to manipulate it to their own dark desires. We need to proceed with extreme caution.”
“Okay, we need to be careful, I understand,” I agreed. “You two should head back and grab your support. If this guy is as dangerous as you both think, we should have as much help as possible. Ravi and I can stay here and continue to search for the assassins.”
I finished speaking when I felt a rush of magic. It was similar to the power I had felt earlier. It felt like death.
“Guys,” I warned with a growl, “something is going on.”
The others turned toward me before we all stood together to looked down at the piles of ashes around us. The ground seemed to shake for a moment, and then there was a loud crack as the earth tore open and dozens of animal corpses poured from the dirt.
“What the hell are those!” Nike yelled as he slashed at a cat-like creature that screeched when his blade connected with its exposed bones.
“I told you, a necromancer!” I snarled and smashed another dead thing beneath my massive paw. “And weapons are useless, you have to use fire.”
“No! Don’t burn them!” Laika shouted as she fought back a zombified wolf. “You destroyed the vessels that way, but the spell seeped into the earth and created more of these monsters. We need to figure out how to destroy the magic that brought them back!”
“How do we do that?” Ravi questioned, and she dodged out of the way of a particularly grotesque looking boar. “We don’t know magic!”
“Alyona does,” Laika panted as she destroyed the wolf she’d been fighting. “She’d know how to stop these demonic creatures.”
“Go,” I ordered, and I swiped my tail out to knock back the next line of beasts. “We’ll fight these guys. You go and get Alyona. Have her portal back here as fast as she can. Be careful!”
Laika turned and sprinted back into the forest as we continued to fight off the creatures.
Ravi had summoned her flame sword to her hands, and she slashed out at the undead animals. Nike was a blur of steel as he whipped around the clearing with Aine flashing in his hand, and I alternated between stomping the undead beasts beneath my claws, blowing them apart with my lightning, and crushing them with stones. Nothing seemed to work against them, though. No matter how badly we destroyed them, they just reformed and continued their attack. Then the bones of the animals began to intermingle with each other, and some of the creatures started to reform with extra limbs.
“We need to do something,” Nike yelled above the various animals sounds that filled the area around us, and I turned to find him through the chaos. “There are too many of them, we can’t fight forever, and I doubt these guys get tired.”
“I know,” I bellowed as I crushed a bear that tried to attack Nike from behind, “but we don’t have to fight forever, just until Alyona gets here.”
Nike gave me a grateful smile for saving him, and we returned to the battle.
Ravi slashed across a wolf as it lunged at her, and she stepped back quickly as the bones rattled before they reformed. Then the phoenix yelped in pain as the creature sunk its teeth into her arm, and she dropped her dagger.
I roared in anger as I crushed the bones and looked back at her.
“Are you okay?” I asked, and I breathed a small cloud of glitter over her arm.
The wound healed quickly, and she let out a sigh.
“I’m fine now, thanks.” She nodded with a soft smile.
“Try to destroy them as much as possible,” I shouted to Ravi and Nike. “It takes longer for them to regenerate the more pieces there are.”
Ravi, Nike, and I continued to fight as many of the creatures as we could, but each time we destroyed one, no matter how badly its bones were shattered, they came back eventually and attacked with vigor.
I used my stone magic to trap some of them inside rocky prisons, but they wouldn’t last long. More cracks would just appear in the earth to allow for them to escape. I had a bit more luck with my new found web abilities, though, and I started to surround the creatures as they fell in the strong silky substance. It didn’t hold them forever, but it did give us a much needed break from the continuous onslaught.
“Where is the princess, they should have been back by now?” Nike panted as he stumbled over to my side. “We aren’t that far from Hatra, and they can portal back here.”
“They’re fine, Laika wouldn’t let anything happen to Alyona,” I responded, but worry tinged my voice.
Nike was right. They should have been back by now.
“I can go find them,” Ravi volunteered, but I shook my head.
“No,” I growled, “they’ll be here soon. We have to stay together and keep fighting. We can’t let these guys get past us. They could reach the city.”
Ravi and Nike nodded solemnly before they continued to fight back against the undead.
The creatures started to grow more confident and started to attack with more ferocity. A giant bear charged me from behind and slashed across my right hindleg.
I roared in pain before I turned my head and grabbed the bear in my jaws. My magic healed my leg easily enough, and I tore into the bear with my fangs. The stench of the rotted flesh clogged my nose, and I nearly gagged as the rancid meat reached my tongue. I pulled away with a growl and crushed the bear under my foot. Then I sent my magic to the other two to give them a boost of energy as the battle raged on.
Nike and Ravi were covered in black, sticky blood from the creatures who had recently died and still had blood inside their bodies. I was sure I would have looked the same if I’d been in my human form, but my black scales hid the gore pretty well.
Just then, a bright white light appeared in front of us. It was so intense, it was like looking into a miniature sun, and I squinted in pain as I turned away. The undead creatures screeched in pain as the light overtook them, and then they vanished into dozens of clouds of dust.
Alyona and Laika appeared once the light vanished, and a portal closed behind them. Laika walked with a crutch under her right arm and all of her weight on her left leg. I immediately sent a plume of rainbow glitter over to her, and her face relaxed as my power mended her leg.
“Sorry we’re late,” Laika apologized with a wince. “I broke my ankle on my way back to Hatra.”
“You’re here now, that’s what matters,” I replied before I turned to the princess. “Thanks for that, by the way.”
“Of course.” Alyona nodded. “I’m just thankful I was in the library when Laika found me. It was easy to locate a spell to destroy these poor souls.”
“Yeah, poor souls,” I repeated dryly as Ravi and Nike leaned against some trees to take a small rest. “Come on, we don’t have much time. Ravi, fly ahead with me. They already have a giant head start on us now. We’ll be lucky if we can catch them. We’ll have to be as fast as possible.”
&
nbsp; Ravi took a deep breath before she shifted into her phoenix form. Then she took off into the sky and began to fly in the direction we figured the assassins escaped toward.
“Alyona,” I turned my massive head to address her, “do you think you’ll be able to create more portals so the three of you can keep up?”
“I’ll do my best,” the princess replied.
“Don’t overwork yourself, if you start to feel weak, take a break.” I snorted, and smoke billowed from my nose. “Ravi and I will be able to handle things on our own for a little while. Nike, make sure they stay safe.”
“Of course,” the Lord of Leyte sighed as he wiped sweat and black blood from his brow. “We’ll catch up to you as soon as you can.”
“See you all soon, and be careful. The assassins could be anywhere. Don’t let your guard down.”
With that, I took off into the sky and followed after Ravi, and I kept my eyes on the forest floor, since we couldn’t afford to lose our prey a second time. Thankfully, we could fly much faster than any assassin could run, and it only took us half an hour to finally find them.
“Look!” Ravi called as she flapped in front of me. “They’re climbing the mountains!”
I looked toward the mountains and growled deep in my throat.
There were only seven assassins left since I’d burned the rest to ash back in the forest. The survivors had reached the mountains now and were scaling the rocky surface. Three of them reached the top while I watched, but the other four still scaled the rocks further down.
I smiled cruelly, took a deep breath, and roared as loudly as I could.
The sound echoed through the sky like a massive clap of thunder, and one of the assassins along the mountains slipped and fell about twenty feet back down to the ground. He landed flat against his back, and I heard the air as it left his lungs, as well as a few ribs break, and he coughed to catch his breath. Then he scrambled to his feet and tried to retreat back to the forest.
