Trial by Fire: Ch.2

From the shadows, I watched the seven men move into position. One Mercenary stayed outside of the fence while the other six filed in and fanned out. They acted like professionals who knew how to work together, but the way they were moving told me that they weren’t a hundred percent sure where I was. Either that, or they had a couple of guys coming from behind the stable.

I pulled Cutthroat around by her reins, pointing her in the direction of the approaching vanguard, and swatted her as I gave her the codeword command to attack. “Icecream!”

The hookwing knew what that word meant.

She lowered her head and charged out of the stable, breaking out into the open with a roar while I bounded out back to face the unseen rearguard.

Two Level 10 Mercenaries, one with a net, the other with a crossbow, had jumped the fence and were coming up from around the building. I nearly ran flat-footed into the net-carrier - and reflexively bought the butt end of my spear around to hit him in the side of the head. As he staggered, I triggered one of my skills, Shadow Dance. I shot to the side, a blur of darkness, as the other man aimed and fired his crossbow in the wrong direction. I reappeared out of Shadow Dance almost right behind him and slashed at his neck.

[You Backstabbed Mercenary Soldier!]

[Critical Hit!]

The Mercenary’s head went flying, hitting the other guy as he scrambled up. He was hardened enough to not juggle it and scream. Covered in blood, snarling maternal obscenities, he hurled the net at me and drew his sword. From out the front of the stable, I heard men screaming, a saurian shriek of rage - and pain.

“Don’t worry, sweetheart!” I called to Cutthroat, knocking the net away with the butt of the spear and whirling it to parry the first sword strike with the pointy end. “I’m coming!”

Mercenaries called to each other, and boots thundered around both sides of the stable as I dodged, blocked, then hit the soldier’s blade with a powerful parry, sending it flying out of his lacerated hand. I triggered Lunge, and drove the foot-long spear blade and part of the haft through his chest. He was a high enough level that it didn’t kill him outright, but the kick to the chest to get the spear out of his body and the [Bleed] debuff sure as hell did.

There was a cry from the yard. “He’s out back!”

“Where’s the dragon!?”

Hiding, assholes. I ground my teeth, and charged out to join Cutthroat.

The hookwing was surrounded, trying to fight in multiple directions at once. Men with pikes kept her from their throats, while crossbowmen plugged her full of bolts. Three [Mercenaries] were torn apart like wet rags on the ground.

I willed my body to become immaterial again. The tattoo on my right hand blazed with cold, sending shooting numbness through my body. My HP drained fractionally as I slithered into a haze of dark smoke. I dashed in past Cutthroat, supernaturally fast, and reappeared just behind one of the Mercenaries who was attacking her. He spun, panicked, and struck a glancing blow off my pauldron as the others rushed in. I danced back like a ghost, blowing around one of the pikemen and reappearing behind and to the side of him. The mobs converged on me, and as soon as they massed up, I deployed the nuke: my newest ability and first AOE attack, Umbra Burst.

“Hrragh!” I slammed the end of my spear into the ground, discharging the built-up dark energy in my body. Twisted thorny vines of shadow sprung from the docks, lashing out to capture - and puncture -  legs and arms. The men screamed in confusion and fear as ice crawled up along their flesh. I capitalized on the short Frozen debuff with another ability: Blood Sprint, which powered a slashing strike that blew three of the men off their feet and sent them to the ground, and its combo chain ability Blood Storm. 

The dark mana swirling around my spear turned dark red as I whirled the polearm around and cut a swathe through the mercenaries. Each successful blow restored health, and my HP jumped well above what I’d lost using Shadow Dance. Three Mercenaries screamed and fell to the ground, their skin dry and stretched tight over the bones of their faces.

Two weeks ago, I’d have been disturbed by what I was doing. But now, I had Karalti – and I would have eaten them alive if that’s what would protect her.

“Oreisal!” The Mata Argis Agent, who had been assessing the battlefield until now, leveled his hands at me and spat words of power. Only then did I spot what he’d been hiding under his cloak. He was wearing gauntlets reinforced with black matte crystal capsules and flexible tubing, the leather glowing with runes. 

A spellcaster. And he was Level 25.

The spell went off like a flashbang, blinding me and Cutthroat. It was like being stabbed in the eyeballs with a razor. NPCs who had been drawn to us to watch the fight fled, while screams of confusion pealed from the street. 

I struggled to keep position, hold a fighting stance, but I took hits from all sides as the Blindness debuff ticked down. Worse, I heard the Mata Argis mage speak another word of power. “Thoram!

Thunder cracked, and suddenly I was flying, and not in the fun way. The energy slammed into me and surged through my limbs. Like a bowl of wet noodles thrown at a wall, I hit the side of the stable, limbs turned to jelly, then bounced and clattered onto the ground. 

Or at least, I thought it was the stable. My vision swam back into view, and I saw that I’d actually flown across the yard, through the open gate, tumbled across the road, and hit the side of a large shipping container at the water’s edge. Barely ten feet away was a flimsy knee-high barrier and a sheer five-hundred-foot drop into the churning abyss that passed for Archemi’s oceans. 300 HP had vanished like a bad dream.

Groaning, I picked myself up to see the spellcaster whirl around and cast on Cutthroat as she charged him down, engulfing my hookwing in a cloud of ice. Cutthroat gave a croaky squawk as she toppled to the ground.

Fuck, this guy was fast. I slammed down a couple of healing pots as I dashed for the gate and slammed into the swordsman who came clumsily swinging for me. I slashed him to the side, and he fell, clutching his bloody throat. I bounded forward like a cricket to leap on the mage, but my spear and feet slammed into an invisible barrier. My eyes widened, just before he casually blasted me with the other hand. 

This time, I hit the corner edge of the shipping crate and crunched instead of bounced.

[Warning! You are Stunned!]

[Current HP: 25/624]

[Warning! This enemy’s challenge rating is dangerously high!]

“Urrgh…” The blood beat in my temples. I had to keep this fucker away from Karalti.

“You there! Search the stable!” The mage called back over his shoulder as he stalked through the gate and out to the street. The Stun counter was still ticking down, and I struggled to move as he closed in on me, hand raised. Lightning danced around his fingers. “And you, heretic! Where is she? Where is the queen?”

“She’s up your ass and around the corner.” I spat blood, moving to hands and knees. I still had the Spear of Nine Spheres wrapped in one tight-knuckled fist, for all the good it was doing me.

“You are in no position to sling insults.” The masked Mata Argis agent had a cold voice, dark with anger. “Where is she!? What have you done to her?!”

“The same thing I do to your mom every night, asshole.”

The mage wrenched me to my feet with a spell, his mage gauntlet burning with blue fire. “Have it your way: we will extract the information at base without any need for your input. By the power invested in me by the Warden of Ilia-”

His speech was cut off by a furious black blur of claws and teeth. Karalti dived at the back of his head and hit him at full speed, sending him staggering toward me. The spell dropped, his concentration broken, but he flung his hand out before it cut - and I was whiplashed around in mid-air before being thrown down at the rough ground. I hit the cliffside barricade hard, and felt something crack in my chest on the rebound. My arm went numb, and my spear skittered off across the dirt.

“Karalti! No! Stay back!” I yelled, rolling over to scramble up.

The little dragon puffed up aggressively. She hissed and spat, kicking with her powerful hind feet. She caught her sickle claw on the edge of the mage’s mask and kicked it free, baring a surprisingly young face. Dude looked like a Mormon without his Death Eater mask on. She got one good slash across his eyes before he caught her by the neck like a turkey. 

Karalti squealed, and my guts froze icy cold. 

“Let her go, you jackbooted piece of shit!” I roared, blood pouring from my nose, and charged at him, desperate to provide any distraction at all. If they took her...

“Hold fast!” The last swordsman was running towards the pair of them with a net outstretched. 

“No!” I screamed now, real terror overwhelming common sense, self-preservation, even the need to breathe. Every day, I was haunted by what had happened to her mother, and what would happen to her if they took her. “Let her go!”

“Hector!” Karalti screeched, limbs flailing as the pair of men closed in.

The soldier reached them before I did. He threw the net over Karalti’s struggling body, snaring her wings, and grabbed her in a bear hug.

“Stand by! Hold her! Don’t worry - she’s too young for fire!” The mage was struggling to see and catch his breath. He went to go pick up his mask. I bellowed, charging him, but he wasn’t distracted enough to ignore me - with a dismissive sweep of his hand, his magic sent me sprawling.

“HECTOR!” Karalti twisted in the soldier’s arms like a fish, slashing and biting. he tried to pull away from her, but a lucky claw caught him in the neck and he went down, blood spraying from his carotid. He dropped and she dropped with him, struggling in the net.

[Congratulations! Your Dragon is Level 2!]

“Time to end this,” the mage panted, standing over me. He levelled his smoking hand at my chest. “The Knight-Commander sends his regards.”