Hungry, weary from travel, and having just spent a good portion of Ash’s core, Holt couldn’t imagine a worse time for a fight. He reached for his sword and fumbled taking a grip of the hilt.
“Which direction are they coming from?” Brode asked.
“North. From deeper in the wood.”
“Everyone back,” Brode said. “Ash, stay alert in case they try to flank us.”
Pyra gouged deep lines into a tree. “We should not cower before sheep.” Talia held her tongue, but it seemed like she agreed with her dragon. Holt wasn’t so sure. Brode wouldn’t be worried without reason, but Holt couldn’t fathom what a group of regular humans could do against dragon riders. Maybe if they were ambushed but Ash had ensured that wouldn’t happen. Just Talia and Brode alone could handle twenty men, and they had
Pyra with them to boot.
“Holt,” Brode hissed, “draw your damned sword.”
Holt did so, fighting to steady his breathing and maintain a control over his bond. He pressed up against Ash for comfort.
“You ready?” Holt asked.
“We’ve survived worse,” Ash said, this time just to him. Then his neck went taut and he spoke to the whole group again. “They are here. Straight ahead.”
Figures emerged from the gloom of the forest, beyond which the last rays of the setting sun could not penetrate. At first Holt thought some carried spears, but then noticed the elongated, pointed axe heads at the top
of the shafts. These weapons were halberds, not axes and looked much longer and more vicious than any he had seen before. Apart from the halberds, others among their number bore great crossbows. Beyond their weaponry it was hard to distinguish between the figures, for each wore a cloak with the cowl drawn to conceal their faces.
The cloaks were made of a material Holt didn’t recognize. No two were the exact same color either, ranging from black and grays through to reds, blues, and greens although all were dulled as if by a lingering shadow.
“Wyrm Cloaks,” Talia said, fear entering her voice now. “You were right, Master Brode.”
This meant nothing to Holt. “Who are they?”
“Members of a cult that worship dragons. But they hate the Order.”
“Vile filth,” Pyra informed him. “I’ve never heard of—” “Later,” Brode growled.
The cultists seemed to be weighing up the situation, making hand signals to one another, and fanning out to cover more ground.
“Pyra,” Brode continued, “you mustn’t roar once it starts. We can’t afford any more attention.”
Pyra fought for control. The plant life around her talons started to singe and the already humid air became uncomfortably hot. Despite her gathering power, she wouldn’t be able to unleash her full force. Nor would Talia. Setting half the wood ablaze and drawing Silverstrike to them was the very last thing they needed. They’d have to rely on their physical abilities.
Yet Pyra couldn’t fly with her injury, and she was hampered greatly on the ground by the trees. Brode had no magic, and Holt felt exhausted. Ash was in a better condition, but he’d never fought in such a confined space before. Would so much noise ricocheting off trees and people make it harder for him to form a picture in his mind or just the opposite?
Brode continued issuing hurried instructions. “Pyra, Ash, keep your wings firmly folded against your back. They’ll try to tear them with special arrows if you expose them.”
Holt wiped his brow, keeping watch on the cultists as they readied themselves. He counted eighteen in total, a little less than Ash had estimated. Well, that was something at least.
The cultists stepped forward as one, methodical and careful. Nine carried the huge halberds; eight carried the great crossbows. The final
member wore a charcoal-gray cloak without any visible weapons and stepped forward from the group.
“Riders, what are you doing so far from your tower?” the voice was clearly a man’s, though it was high and tart as lemon. “I thought you had all been dealt with.”
Dealt with? Holt thought. It sounded like the cultists were aware the Crag had come under attack.
“That will be all, cultist,” Brode said with a contempt he usually reserved for Silas alone. “Be gone and we’ll spare your lives this time.”
The cultist cocked his head, his face still dark beneath his hood. Then he began to laugh; a skin-crawling tittering laugh.
“Elder Brode does not frighten them,” Ash said unsure.
A shiver snaked up Holt’s spine. To dismiss a threat made by a dragon rider seemed wild enough. But this man was laughing.
The cultist faced Pyra, dropped to one knee and lowered his hood. Holt didn’t know what he’d been expecting the man to look like, but certainly not a face so plain. So… normal. A sharp nose and chin were the man’s only distinguishing features, if they could be called remarkable at all.
“Noble fire drake, mightiest of your race, I rejoice in your survival. There is yet a chance for your glory to be saved. Let us free you of these insolent oafs so you may take your place at the Sovereign’s side.”
While the cultist prattled on, Talia spoke low so that only Brode and Holt could hear. “We should attack now.”
Brode raised his hand just enough to stay her and whispered, “Is that them all, Ash?”
“I think so.”
“On my signal then,” Brode said. “Holt take the crossbowmen on the right. Talia take the left. I’ll go for the halberdiers. Speed is everything.”
Talia nodded.
Holt nodded too. Sweat gathered on his brow. He’d been given a proper order this time. Brode expected him to contribute.
“Their cloaks are strong,” Brode said. “Strike at their heads or between the opening at their front.”
His heart pounded worse than before the battle at Midbell. There he hadn’t been expected to fight, he’d been surrounded by a friendly army and Pyra and Talia had free reign. Now they were outnumbered and confined by
the forest. But they had magic. That alone should be enough for an easy victory, shouldn’t it?
Holt tensed. What was Brode waiting for?
The cultist still droned on. “Any of these supplicants would gladly give themselves to satisfy your hunger. The Shroud—” The lead cultist stood again and raised his cowl. “— are at your service.”
Pyra growled dangerously. “I refuse. Go now and do not insult me with such offers again.”
The leader didn’t miss a beat. “Mighty drake, if you cannot speak freely with your jailor beside you, let us take their head. The red headed one is yours, yes?”
Pyra snorted plumes of smoke.
“Pyra,” Brode said warily, “you must stay cal—”
Pyra stomped forward, crushing roots beneath her. The force of her next words could have laid armies low, could have shamed the most arrogant of kings.
“No one threatens my human. Your bones will be ash.”
And before Brode could say anything, Pyra opened her jaws and gathered fire. At the same time, a halberd wielding cultist in a blood-red cloak dropped his weapon and ran forward.
Brode spun, seized Holt by the shoulder and pointed at the red-cloaked cultist.
“Blast him!”
At once Holt started gathering light in his palm, but under the pressure he faltered and had to restart. While he charged his Lunar Shock, Pyra unleashed a jet of fire toward the lead cultist. Pyra’s fire never made it to him. The red cloaked cultist ran into its path, raising his cloak as though against the rain, and absorbed the brunt of the attack. As the fire subsided, the cultist stood unphased with only smoke rising from him.
A beam of white light narrowly missed him next.
“Did I hit him?” Ash asked.
No one answered. It was all happening so fast and Holt was stunned.
The lead cultist seemed unconcerned at the whole affair. He sighed loudly. “You have succumbed, noble one. Better death than a life of servitude.”
Each cultist bowed their head and chanted, “The Sovereign mourns this loss.”
Several things then happened at once.
The lead cultist drew a vial from his cloak and downed its contents. All the cultists snapped out of their chant, lowered halberds or raised their crossbows and moved in as one.
Talia darted left.
Holt’s Lunar Shock was ready, so he raised his palm to strike when Brode stopped him.
“Focus on the crossbows,” he said. “I’ll take the leader.”
As Brode charged off, movement flashed in Holt’s peripheral vision. The closest green-cloaked cultist at the edge of the group had turned to aim at him. Holt dropped to the ground and heard the bolt whoosh overheard. From the earth he aimed his now charged attack at the cultist. Even using his left hand, it was hard to miss at this range. And laying on the ground, he aimed for the softer, exposed foot of his target. His Lunar Shock had such force behind it that the cultist’s foot snapped backwards in a sickening crunch.
Holt scrambled up and drove his sword through the opening of the man’s cloak, just like Brode had said. The man’s howl of pain ceased in a wet gurgle.
Something twisted inside Holt then. Not guilt this time. Not fear. Something he could not describe nor had any wish to linger on. He’d killed someone. Not a bug, but a person. This was not a rider’s duty. But his blood was hot, his life was on the line, and another of the crossbowmen took aim at him.
Holt was too far away to close the gap even with magic fueling his legs.
A Lunar Shock would take too long to build.
The cultist changed aim at the last second and released. Ash shrieked in pain. The bolt had lodged above the dragon’s right leg.
“No,” Holt cried, but was relieved to see Ash still charging the cultist.
The bolt must not have penetrated his scaly hide too deep.
Holt followed. As Ash tore the crossbow from the man’s grip, Holt stepped forward and brought his blade down in the most basic of overhead strikes. The steel struck at the base of the man’s neck, but the sword’s edge met heavy resistance from the cloak. It felt like trying to hack against stone. Ash was on the cultist then, crushing him into the ground, biting his shoulder and tearing with his talons. The cloak didn’t last long under such
strain but the fact it did at all was beyond impressive.
Two more cultists remained on Holt and Ash’s side of the fray. He glanced to check on the others.
Brode fought both the leader and the crimson cloaked cultist. They were giving the old rider with a Champion’s body a hard time which should have been impossible. What had that cultist drunk?
Holt understood now why Brode had been afraid.
Talia had carved her way through two crossbowmen as well but the remaining pair on her side were running to join the halberdiers closing in on Pyra. She was faring worst of all. Five bolts pierced her purple scales, and her movements were sluggish. A tail swipe might have taken the halberdiers out, but she didn’t have the space to make such a maneuver. She swatted clumsily at the advancing halberdiers, knocking a few aside while the others drove their pike-like weapons into her. Only one managed enough force to break her scales and then little more than a papercut but they had the dragon hard pressed.
Before Holt could help, he had to finish his task.
His remaining two targets trained on Ash as the main threat. They released their bolts at the dragon. One shot missed, the other grazed Ash’s neck.
Across the bond, Holt felt the dragon’s pain. It was all Ash could do not to roar from it. In response, Ash’s eyes flashed pure white and he fired a powerful beam back at their foes. He missed again but it separated the two cultists. One stumbled back, reloading a bolt. The other dove forward and came up close enough to Holt that they dropped their crossbow and drew a sword instead.
That was bad. Holt wasn’t prepared for a real sword fight, not without his magic. Quickly, he pulled on light from Ash’s core. The dragon bond burned in his chest, its beating as fast as the fight he was in. He had to be careful. If he drew on too much magic then the bond would fray, and he’d be left useless.
Worse still, the cultist approaching him was clearly trained.
Holt fell for his opponent’s feint and only evaded because of his temporarily heightened agility. With the cultist exposed, Holt sliced across the man’s waist, but the cloak blocked the cut as though it were made of plate armor. Now too close to make an effective maneuver, the cultist rammed into Holt, pushing him to the ground. The man placed his weight
down on Holt’s left side so he couldn’t raise his free palm for a Lunar Shock.
“Ash!” Holt called, unable to focus enough for a telepathic command.
But Ash of all of them would hear him.
Two more beams of light flashed, followed by a shrill cry. Ash must have hit the last crossbowman.
“I got one!”
“Wrong… one,” Holt choked out, struggling now as the cultist weighed upon him. “Here…” He tried to raise his sword, but the cultist pinned his elbow with one knee and readied to drive a blade through Holt’s belly.
Holt let his sword go and pushed magic to his right palm. Too quickly. But he had no time. His palm burned and the Shock was only half formed when he let it go but it drove the cultist from him.
Holt staggered up, leaving his sword behind, and started forming another Lunar Shock. Ash took the cultist down for him.
Holt gasped with relief. He checked his side. All their enemies were lying down, dead or dying. He could not see the face of the farthest one, a blue cloaked cultist, but they lay unmoving. That must have been the one that Ash hit.
Thinking his side clear, Holt checked on the fight at large. The red cloaked man was down.
Brode still exchanged blows with the leader.
Three halberdiers thwarted Talia’s attempt to reach the remaining crossbowmen. Each had a scarlet cloak of their own to counter her magic and seemed to match her speed. They must have drunk the same substance that their leader had.
Pyra struggled to remain upright. Nine bolts were in her now. A bolder cultist stepped in and lunged, planting the axe head of his halberd into the thinner hide of her back. She had enough lucidity left to snap her head around and clamp the man between her jaws.
One halberdier’s body lay blasted off far from the melee, as if hit by the concussive lunar magic. But that meant—
A thwack and wet thud drew Holt’s attention. Ash clawed at the ground, growling a suppressed roar of pain. A fresh bolt protruded from his side. The blue cloaked cultist had risen to a crouch, not dead as Holt had presumed. Ash had not hit him with his beam, he’d accidentally hit one of
the halberdiers instead. And it was no man wrapped in the blue cloak. Her hood had fallen.
She had blond hair pulled back off her face – such a normal face. Who were these people? Why were they doing this?
She began to reload her crossbow. Holt howled in rage. Person or no, she had tried to kill his dragon. They all had. And they would pay for that mistake. His palm burned, his new Lunar Shock fully charged. In his fury, Holt gathered extra power in his untrained right palm, searing that whole arm as magic flowed through it. He brought both his hands together for a greater Shock than he had harnessed before. For a moment it was as though a star’s worth of light gathered between his hands.
The cultist raised her cloak like a shield, perhaps thinking he wielded ice magic. Holt’s attack blew a clean hole through the material, hit the cultist in the chest and sent her hurtling back. She landed in a crunching sprawl.
His bond with Ash strained dangerously. He could barely see through to Ash’s core now and could not afford it to fray. Carefully, he let the connection drop. Holt gasped from the sudden plunge back into base humanity, feeling the acute ache of his muscles again. But there was more to do.
First, he checked on Ash. The dragon was back on his feet, though he wobbled. Blood trickled from his wounds and dripped from his teeth and talons, stark red against the white of his scales. That seemed wrong to Holt, like seeing a kind dog going savage.
“I don’t feel well,” Ash said. He stumbled forward as though learning how to walk for the first time.
Poison¸ Holt thought. Those bolts are tipped with some sort of poison.
A clever tactic from the cultists. Kill the dragon first and the rider’s magic dies with them.
And Pyra had nine of the bolts lodged in her. “Still good to fight?” Holt asked.
Ash shook his head as though to clear it. “Yes, boy.” Then he sniffed out Holt’s sword, picked it up and brought it to him. Holt had all but forgotten it.
“Thank you.”
“Can you still fight?”
“Magic or no, I’m not quitting.”
Ash growled his approval and they headed to help the others together.
Brode still fought the leader. The cultist was on the defensive now, the effects of his potion seemed to be wearing off.
Pyra had lost more ground to the cultists. Her eyes drooped, but she seemed to have accepted her lot and made the best of it. As the spike of a halberd sank into her, she bit down on the shaft of the weapon, pulled it free and then dragged the cultist wielding it in closer to finish him off.
Talia had managed to kill one of the three fire-proof halberdiers defending the crossbowmen, but she was now pinned between the remaining two. At some distance from them, she poured fire at both halberdiers at once – a jet from her hand and a jet from the tip of her blade. Sweat poured down her face from the effort. This slowed her opponents but each advanced doggedly. Their scarlet and crimson cloaks were artfully raised to shield their whole bodies and the fire burst off the material without harm. Their weapons were lowered and poised to strike should Talia give pause for just a moment.
The remaining crossbowmen had free reign to shoot either Talia or Pyra and with Pyra nearly poisoned to a standstill they seemed to think a stationary Talia was the better target. Both turned to take aim at her.
Words would have taken too long, so Holt passed a wordless communication to Ash – a sense of the danger to Talia and the intent to take the crossbowmen down.
Ash broke off to take the one on the left, Holt focused on the right. These cloaks would deflect his sword and his magic was all but spent. He did all his worn mind could think to do and jumped onto the back of his target, wrapped his arms around the man’s neck and pulled to one side.
The cultist yelled in shock. His shot went wild. They collapsed to the ground.
Holt rolled in the mud, tussling with the cultist in a wild scrap of flailing limbs. Somehow, he managed to bring the pommel of his sword down upon the man’s head. Protected by his cowl, the cultist’s skull did not crack but the man gasped as though all the wind had been knocked from him. Dazed by the blow, the cultist ceased moving. Holt seized his chance. He scrambled upright, found the opening at the front of the cloak and stabbed down.
Exhausted, feeling as though his arms would fall off, Holt got back up and found Ash had finished off the very last crossbowman.
Talia, however, was in trouble. Her pair of attackers had crept close enough to strike with their weapons.
“Come on,” Holt called. Then, with the last of his strength, he ran toward the exposed back of the closest halberdier. He and Ash took that cultist down together, just in time.
In the same instant, Talia’s second foe lowered his crimson cloak and thrust his halberd forward; a one-handed strike, so fast, so hard, it would have run a wild boar through.
Strong as the potion had made him, Talia was quicker. She extinguished her flames and swerved the attack by mere inches, then advanced and pinned the shaft of the halberd against her body. The cultist heaved but it was no good. Talia clove the shaft in two with her rider’s blade.
Her enemy did the only sensible thing. He tried to run. Talia stamped hard at the back of his cloak. It caught and pulled him down. As he tumbled backwards, Holt saw a glimpse of mail armor even beneath the powerful protection of the cloak. Not protection enough for a rider’s blade though as Talia found her opening.
Holt stood, panting.
Talia whirled around in a blur of golden-red hair. “I had that under control.” She wiped the sweat from her brow. “Thank you, though,” she said before running off at an Ascendant’s pace to relieve Pyra.
Holt took a few steps, meaning to follow, but dropped to the ground.
Concern from Ash flowed over the bond and Holt sent reassurance back. “Go on,” Holt gasped.
Only three of the eighteen Wyrm Cloaks remained now. The leader broke away from his duel with Brode, running to his two comrades facing Pyra.
“Time to retreat,” he called. “The Sovereign will take them in the end.” He downed yet another vial of the unknown substance. His fellows dropped their halberds at once and downed fresh vials of their own.
With that, they scattered in three separate directions. The leader went east, one south and the other west. Just like that, the fight was over.
