Dragon Magus 1: A Progression Fantasy Saga

by DB King

  “Of course, but only one at a time, and casting Banish drains me considerably. I wouldn’t make it past a half-dozen skeleton warriors. That’s why I’ve been tearing them apart with Explosive Orbs and Chain Lightning instead,” the battlemage said.

  Raphael raised Sunkiller and brushed his fingers against its bowstring. An arrow of golden light appeared, nocked and ready to be fired. He gave Fenix a nod. “Cast Banish on this arrow.”

  The battlemage did so immediately, clapping his palms together and uttering a short sequence of arcane syllables before pointing at the arrow of light. White radiance now swirled down its length.

  “Done,” Fenix announced. “It seems that whatever your arrow strikes will now suffer the effects of my Banish spell. But if you can only shoot one target at once, we’ll run out of Banish spells much faster than we run out of time, which we haven’t much of in the first place.”

  “Six minutes left,” Gabriella said grimly.

  Koshi was able to split his arrows when he fought Sylvia, wasn’t he? Raphael thought. But even if I can do the same thing, I won’t be able to destroy all the monsters quickly enough.

  Rayne poked its head out of Raphael’s pocket. Magus. Sunkiller was Koshi’s. All its secrets are yours, as they are his.

  What secrets does it have? Raphael asked.

  Sunkiller. The name, Magus. Its radiance eclipses the sun, taking its place and reaching where it reaches, the faerie dragon told him.

  “Taking the place of the sun? Its reach?” Raphael looked up. It was just past noon. The sun was directly above them, bathing everything in its light. If an arrow from Sunkiller could eclipse the sun, take its place, and reach everything it touched...

  He lifted Koshi’s bow up high and loosed the arrow of light straight up toward the sun.

  “What are you doing?” Fenix demanded. “That Banish spell wasn’t easy to cast! I—”

  The battlemage’s words died in his mouth as the golden radiance of Sunkiller’s arrow replaced the white light of the midday sun. Everywhere Raphael could see, it washed over the undead monsters, the corpses twitching in the throes of reanimation, and Hell Drakes alike.

  There was an immediate reaction among the skeleton warriors. Imbued with Fenix’s Banish spell, Sunkiller’s light stripped the fleshless monsters of their animation. They fell, clattering into heaps of scattered bones and rusty metal. The bale-wights lasted a moment longer, their thick robes offering some scant protection, but they, too, succumbed to the golden radiance, crumbling into piles of stinking ash. The fallen Hell Drakes simply stopped moving, their limbs stiffening once more in the cold embrace of death.

  The revenants recoiled and shrieked beneath Sunkiller’s luminance. Enchanted weapons fell from gray, bloodless hands. Spells died in mid-chant. But they were more resilient by far. Not a single revenant fell to the effects of Fenix’s Banish spell. Still, as they flailed and writhed in agony, the Hell Drakes seized the opportunity to cut their former comrades down.

  Swords and axes hacked limbs from undead torsos. Hammers and maces cracked revenant skulls, spilling their foul contents onto the arid junkyard dirt. Spells pulped unliving organs and scattered grayish viscera in every direction. Revenants fell by the dozen.

  Sunkiller’s light lasted only slightly more than a minute, by Raphael’s estimation, but by the time it faded, allowing the midday sun to resume its reign, the battle was over. The Hell Drakes stood victorious over the wreckage of their foes.

  Raphael sank to his knees, the edges of his vision dimming. Using Sunkiller like that had drained his Ryu-To-Ki reserves beyond any extent he’d ever experienced before. The light of the Dragon Meridian still shone, bright and clear, but the flames of his Draconic Braziers had receded, now faint embers where there had been blazing infernos.

  So tired. So weak. Never felt like this before. I can’t... Raphael fell on his back. He knew his eyes were open, but he couldn’t see anything.

  “Raphael! Are you alright?” Eliza’s voice throbbed dimly from somewhere he couldn’t see.

  Something warm touched his neck.

  “His heart is stopping!” he heard Gabriella hiss. “Stand back!”

  A tingle ran down the length of his increasingly numb body. Then the princess spoke again. “According to my Diagnosis spell, he’s somehow fatigued himself so much his body simply doesn’t have the energy to function anymore. Human beings aren’t capable of that. What exactly is he? How did he do that thing with the bow just now?”

  “Worry about that later, princess,” Fenix snapped. “His heart is stopping, you say? I’ll restart it with a touch of Chain Lightning.”

  “Don’t be stupid!” Gabriella replied. “He’s so frail now you’ll end up killing him!”

  Raphael tried to speak, to tell them that he’d be alright, that they needed to get ready to help Sylvia, but no words emerged from his lips. He hadn’t the strength to form them.

  “Please help him, your Royal Highness!” Eliza pleaded. The pain and grief in her voice made something in Raphael ache. He wanted to reach out and touch her, to somehow take her suffering away.

  “I... I’ll need to cast Revivify! But I’m not sure if I can! It’s a Healing spell of the Highest Order, and I’ve never succeeded before!”

  Magus, Rayne’s voice echoed in his mind. Look beyond the light of the Dragon Meridian. To your friends. Behold your soul threads. See where they lead. Feel whom they bind, and in turn, whose bind you .

  Raphael heeded the faerie dragon’s words, looking past the Dragon Meridian and its light. There, he sensed Eliza’s and Fenix’s souls, as open as they were to his when he shared a bit of the Dragon Meridian’s light with them to steel their resolve. But now, he could also see colored threads connecting all of them.

  White and pink ones bound his soul to Eliza’s. They filled him with warmth and hope. Red and green threads ran between him and Fenix. These bolstered Raphael’s heart, imbuing him with pride and an eagerness to attain yet greater heights. Black and silver threads began from Raphael’s soul and ran somewhere beyond he could sense, but he knew Sylvia lay at the other end. These hummed with a whimsy characteristic of the elf, yet Raphael was sure much lay beneath its veneer of humorous vulgarity, to be uncovered if he would only dare to brave such depths.

  And then a line of gold, the thickest and oldest of all, ran from his soul toward the heart of the junkyard, where Koshi would be found. Whatever Raphael might be, Koshi was his father, in name and by right. They were connected by ties thicker than blood, and they would never be separated, in this life or the next.

  Let them guide you back, Magus, Rayne told him. Much awaits you in the realm of life and light.

  Raphael reached out to the colored threads, and to his surprise, they pulled on him, drawing him back to the voices of his friends. The fading embers within the Draconic Braziers flared back to life, and though they were far from the blazing conflagrations they’d been, they burned strongly and steadily.

  Another thread emerged, thin but sturdy, royal blue in hue and humming with regal dutifulness. To Raphael’s surprise, it led back to Gabriella. It pulled on him as well, leading him back to where he belonged.

  Sensation engulfed him: the roughness of sandy dirt against his skin; the scent of arid air laced with death; the clamor of voices.

  He took a deep breath and opened his eyes.

  Twin visages greeted him, both lovely and framed in flowing blonde locks. Relief swam over the one on the left.

  “He’s alive. It worked,” Garbriella said. She sighed and sat back on her heels. “Good thinking, Eliza.”

  Eliza had been kneeling by the right side of Raphael’s body. She’d also taken off her helmet. Stifling a sob, she leaned over and wrapped Raphael in a hug.

  “You came back to us, Raphael,” she whispered breathlessly. “You came back.”

  Raphael nodded as best he could with his face buried in the crook of her neck. “Yes. I heard you calling, all of you. Thank you.”

&nbs
p; “Most of the credit should go to Eliza.” Gabriella patted her look-alike on the shoulder. “There was no way I, nor anyone else here, would be able to cast Revivify, and it might not have worked, anyway. But Eliza figured out that if exhaustion was the thing killing you, all you needed was Invigorate, and here you are, still breathing.”

  A shadow fell over Raphael. It belonged to Van Heim. The captain nodded gravely. “Good to see that you’re still with us, lad. Nice work back there, however you did it. Your war party’s battlemage explained everything. We still have about two minutes before the Prism’s enchantment unravels.”

  “Got it, sir. We’d better get ready, then,” Raphael replied.

  Eliza untangled herself from Raphael and brushed away the tears at the corners of her eyes. She took his elbow. “Can you stand, Raphael?”

  Fenix appeared by his side. The battlemage extended a hand. “Well, you’ve got to, somehow. Up you come. We’ve still got a lot to do.”

  Raphael took Fenix’s hand, and with Eliza’s help, he got to his feet. He shared a grin with them.

  I’m so lucky to have them by my side, Raphael thought. Rayne poked its head out of his pocket and nudged him gently in the thigh.

  Magus, look to the bonds you share with your friends, the faerie dragon sent. They will keep you true and help you stay on your destined path. And as these bonds deepen, your friends will be able to share their strength with you, as you did with them.

  Raphael thought back to how he’d been able to cast a little bit of the Dragon Meridian’s light into Fenix and Eliza’s souls and dispel their fear. He suspected that if he’d tried, Sylvia would be similarly receptive as well, not that the elf had needed his help. In contrast, Gabriella’s soul offered him no such opening. But then now, she too shared a connection with him, as evidenced by the royal blue thread connecting their souls. Perhaps if that bond deepened, he’d be able to share the Dragon Meridian’s light with her as well.

  Still, something that Rayne had said disturbed him. What did the faerie dragon mean by “destined path”?

  Raphael pushed that question to the back of his mind as the other Hell Drakes captain, Marco, approached. He was a man of slight build, clad in a sleeveless tunic of thick brown cloth and rough trousers. His shoulders and hips were festooned with bandoliers of glass vials, and he held a small crossbow in each hand.

  “We’ve regrouped, but we lost quite a few Hell Drakes during that last scrap,” he announced. “Counting everyone— armsmen, mages, and even auxiliaries—we’ve got just about twenty-three ready for battle.”

  “It’ll have to be enough,” Cyrano grunted, walking over. The big armsman had taken a beating, with his face covered in cuts and bruises and his armor hanging from his torso in ruined scraps. “Well done, boy. And the battlemage, too. Looks like Sylvia wasn’t mistaken about the both of you.”

  “Under a minute,” Gabriella said, staring at her pocket watch.

  “Battle positions!” Van Heim bellowed. The Hell Drakes raced to obey, forming up in staggered lines with armsmen at the forefront and on the flanks and the mages and auxiliaries in the center.

  Cyrano clapped Raphael roughly on the shoulder once before jogging off to rejoin the remains of his war party.

  “Replenish your spell dust if you have to,” Marco said, raising his voice to be heard. “Armsmen, make sure you’ve renewed your Martial spells. Remember, isolate and concentrate on one revenant captain at a time.”

  “Leave the Pale Haunter to Marco and me, along with Sylvia, of course,” Van Heim followed up.

  A chorus of assents and acknowledgments rumbled down the line of Hell Drakes.

  Van Heim nodded to Raphael. “You lot are to hang back in reserve. Marco, Cyrano, and I will be in the thick of it, so use your best judgment to determine where you can best engage. After that trick with the golden bow and the Banish spell, I’m sure you’ll do just fine.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Raphael said, picking up his glaive.

  “Any moment now!” Gabriella returned her watch to her robes, held out her hands, and began chanting. Razor-thin discs of ice spun into being and hovered over her open palms.

  Fenix produced a dozen Explosive Orbs in each of his fists. Eliza put her helmet back on and readied her weapons, mace in her right hand and enchanted dagger reverse-gripped in her left.

  Taking a deep breath, Raphael fed the Draconic Braziers with his Ryu-To-Ki. They blazed, filling Raphael with their strength. He spun his glaive in one hand, then snapped it point-down, catching the weapon’s butt under his arm.

  Ready as we’ll ever be, he thought. Raphael glanced to his war party. “Alright, let’s help Sylvia.”

  The Pocket Dimension Prism stopped spinning. It fell to the ground.

  Corpses rained from the sky above the artifact.

  Chapter 29

  The light of the Dragon Meridian guided Raphael’s gaze beyond the cascade of cadavers, to where Sylvia was. The elf hung in midair, held aloft by feathery wings of light sprouting from her shoulders. She cleaved a revenant captain clad in plate armor from crown to groin with her sword, before hurling the massive blade through the face of another, this one wearing purple robes streaked with black lightning.

  Something impossibly fast streaked through the air and swiped at her. Raphael barely made it out as a skeletal figure wreathed in a cloak of swirling shadows. It could only be the Pale Haunter. Sylvia leaned away from the blow, brought up her hand, and laced the monster with a barrage of lightning tendrils.

  The Pale Haunter surged through Sylvia’s spell and seized her wrist with a bony claw. Then it spun like a top, still holding onto the elf, before hurling her down toward the ground. Sylvia’s wings flared, screeching through the air as they sought to arrest, or at least slow down, her descent.

  The elf came to a halt an inch above dusty junkyard floor. She grunted, curled her body into a back-flip, and dismissed her wings as she landed. The entire exchange took place over the course of a single heartbeat.

  “She’s there!” Raphael said, pointing at Sylvia. “We have to help her!”

  “I see her,” Fenix replied. “But...”

  There was no need for Fenix to complete his sentence. Out of the thirty revenant captains that had been drawn into the Pocket Dimension, six yet remained, standing between the surviving Hell Drakes and the elf. They turned away from their master’s struggle against Sylvia and cast their hate-filled eyes on their former comrades.

  Van Heim swept his blades downward, pointing them at one of the revenants, a crimson-robed mage holding two short staves in its hands.

  “Attack!” he cried. “Pick your targets!”

  The Hell Drakes charged, breaking off into smaller clusters so that four or five of them took on a single revenant captain. Van Heim and Marco each engaged one themselves, matching captain against revenant captain.

  As the clamor of battle rose again, Raphael returned his attention to Sylvia. To his horror, she was breathing hard, and she bled freely from wounds to her right thigh and abdomen. A cut above her brow trickled blood down her face. She floated her sword in close, bringing one hand to her temple and the other thrust downwards. The index and middle fingers of her hands were extended, while the others were tucked in toward her palm.

  That’s the stance she used when she was fighting Koshi. The Pale Haunter must be really strong if she’s taking this so seriously. Raphael nervously adjusted his grip on his glaive.

  The Pale Haunter circled her. It was leering at the elf and flexing its bony claws. The undead monster seemed to be utterly unhurt.

  If Sylvia fell to the Pale Haunter, all would be lost. But if any of the Hell Drakes groups failed to vanquish their targeted revenant, the undead creature they fought would be free to flank their comrades. Every battle was crucial.

  Raphael made his decision. Koshi’s bow reappeared in his hand. He turned to Fenix.

  “Are you crazy?” the battlemage protested. “You nearly died from doing that!”

>   “We have no choice. Besides, as long as Gabriella can use her Invigorate spell on me, I’ll be fine,” Raphael said.

  “Not if the effort kills you outright,” Fenix replied, nodding at Koshi’s bow. “Besides, it doesn’t look like you can hold onto that thing, let alone shoot it.”

  Raphael glanced down at Sunkiller. The bow of light was flickering in and out of existence. Grunting, he brought it up and touched its bowstring. No arrow shimmered into existence this time. Raphael gritted his teeth and tried to feed more of his Ryu-To-Ki into the Fourth Brazier, but it was no use. He was too depleted. Sunkiller dissipated in his grasp.

  “There has to be another way, Raphael,” Eliza said. “Let’s think this through. High Captain Bjorn said he’d beaten the Pale Haunter before. Sylvia is at least as powerful as him, if not more so. Which means Sylvia can definitely defeat the Pale Haunter.”

  “The High Captain said he had help, and his entire war party paid with their lives to defeat the Pale Haunter the last time,” Gabriella pointed out.

  “So what we need to do is give Sylvia help.” Eliza pointed at the Hell Drakes engaged in combat with the revenant captains. “If we free them up, we can all take on the Pale Haunter together and destroy it.”

  “If we help one group destroy their target, we can work with that group to assist another, consolidating and strengthening our forces with every victory!” Fenix concluded.

  “Good reasoning!” Raphael said. He turned to Cyrano’s group and sprinted off toward it. “Let’s go!”

  As they neared Cyrano, it became evident that the armsman’s war party wasn’t doing well. The revenant they fought wore the flesh of a slight, diminutive woman clad in a plain gray robe. It held a steel scepter in its bloodless hands. A string of arcane syllables fell from its lips.

  Slivers of metal materialized in the air before the revenant’s scepter before slicing forth into Cyrano’s war party. The armsman brought his forearms up to his face as he dove low, dragging the mage who’d cast a spell on his chain earlier down with him.