Chapter 455 (2/2)
“You went to all the trouble of hiding aon asked, and I noticed the faintest cut beneath her eye, barely more than a red line drawn across her pale skin “If you are the best Agrona has ed in all these years, I find myself in wonder that this war still continues”
Varg did not bother with a retort but flew out into the open air, keeping well back fro up and floating out into the dusty void after hiot a closer look at her face, her wound Soreen tendrils were expanding outward fro the flesh around it
Moving with such sudden speed that I could not follow, she flashed across the space between thespear a blur in the air as she lashed out in several entwined strikes The Wraith didn’t atte so that her strikes always just barely missed The speed of their conflict kicked up a wind that pushed back the dust, and I squinted down at the cloud’s edge Beneath theure waited, hidden
The boy whiht,before on’s attacks ca each movement, and pillars of dark ice for was beginning to appear strained, his face a mask of dire concentration
There was another tre e I didn’t dare to look back to see if the elders were still lying in the dirt beside their cart
My vision wavered and ht only adding to the pain A cut on onizing pain of my hand helped to blunt the pain from the rest of my injuries
A low of the sun,froht that I had to stop and look away By the ti away again, five figures darting around it, spells striking with clockwork coordination
Cart after cart had been left empty and abandoned Some s and fled Scattered throughout the devastation were dozens of bodies
I quickly checked each one, looking for any survivors but only finding corpse after corpse “One, just one,” Imore and more desperate Then, as my shadow crossed over the face of an armored woman, her eyes blinked open, and she stared up atout a hand only to pull back when I saw the stake protruding froh force to twist steel
Setting down the silent child, I took hold of the stake “This is going to”—I jerked upward, unsure if the strength of asped with sudden pain, but the piece of wood pulled free I tossed it aside, then conjured a spell to clean the wound of dirt and slivers Withdrawing clean bandages fro, then stepped back By then, the child was beginning to whih my body screaroaned as she stood, then she conjured stone around the daed section of her arlad—”
A sudden sonic burst popped ht ear, and I wobbled, unbalanced The child let out a cry, and the adventurer beside me winced and clutched the rock-covered wound
Glancing out over the dusty void, I saw only the white-ar to pierce the dust like spotlights as she searched for the Wraith, who had vanished Suddenly the dragon winced and pressed the back of her spear arreen from whatever rot the Wraith had infected her with
In thatdown fro up frouard, and her spear slashed through the air, shattering first one sword, then carving through Varg fro into the second blade, which exploded into a fine, glittering cloud
But frorowing rapidly Most ilanced off the side of her helmet Another, however, pierced the inside of her spear ar yet farther, so that in the blink of an eye, the ar, with her spear, down into the unseen depths below
The dragon spun away fro like a blade and unleashi+ng a crescent of white light, which carved into the dust in a circle around her I fell to ainst my chest, just in ti into the cliff face and carving the solid stone like sohard hit the back of my head, and the world swam as the explosion of pain nearly rippedonto All I could do was blink as I pressed h the nausea Stay awake, I thought Stay awake, stay awake…
Glancing blearily around, I saw a nearby cart and began dragging the boy andbeneath it
As I rolled over ontoin the crook of my elbow, I saw the wo almost exactly where had been when I first found her, severed cleaning in two by the asura’s spell
I stared at her for a long ti on around ht h the spokes of a cart wheel as the second white-aron woh one was nowfrom her cut cheek so that nearly her entire face was sickly looking
Despite the ru ht collapse at any s Even taking the for otherworldly about thes talked about I could see their lips reat to hear
Was she wondering what sort of creatures these Wraiths were, that they would sacrifice their own merely for the chance to wound her?
I sed hard How ons and Wraiths? Or how little? To the, but for myself, I couldn’t comprehend the value of the human lives lost in that battle Just help…one an to subside into a steady but painful throb, I draggedbody out fro up the boy once the stars behindas much toat the edge of a collapsed section of road, staring down at the skree-strewn hole that had earlier been passable ground They both ju out from under the cart, and the man spun and pointed the tip of a sword at ue feeling nuave a little shake ofbolt of pain struck out fro on the back of my skull “Sorry, that’s a bit obvious, isn’t it?”
“Lady Helstea,” thehis sword “By the abyss, everyone is…is…”
“There’s no tiht of Jarrod and the adventurer I had just helped only to see her cut down again “You’ll have to cliround should hold, but…grab onto the wall too”
The woman pulled a bundle in her arave a s a baby
Behind the fa flown up over the high peaks None of the Wraiths were in sight
I glanced at the boy in my arms, his eyes unfocused, his arded led to channel hts and had to set the child down to focus After a moment, a wave condensed out of the air to hammer into the cart I had hidden under Already half broken, the bed of the cart rolled off its axle, coet in”
“W-what?” the man asked, his face pale “You can’t expect—we’ll be crushed to paste”
The h above, a peak collapsed as a stray spell lanced through it
“You won’t,” I assured hiht co for a reply, I knelt beside the now isolated cart bed, gently pulling the boy with me Without its wheels and harness, the vehicle looked not unlike a s on the point where the road had collapsed, I felt for the distant ath by itself, but with the help of a competent water-attribute conjurer…
Slowly at first, then faster, water began bubbling up fro, then finally the stone broke open, releasing a flood that ran down the steep ra river Tentacle-like protrusions reached out from the water and wrapped around the cart
Ibundle in her arms “I can control the flow until you reach a safe place below But only if you go now”
She gazed at her baby for a few very long seconds, her face pale as death, then took a step toward the broken cart The rabbed her arainst his chest “What other choice do we have?”
He stared at me with raw, bloodshot eyes “Please…don’t let us die Don’t let our baby…” Read at readlnorg
I nodded, all e quantity of water I was atteot up into the cart, sitting on the floor and wedging themselves between the two benches, their aro
“And…I need you to watch after this little one,” I said, lifting the boy with ood arm while my ruined hand stretched out in front of me to help focus the spell
The boy yelled out as I set him in the cart, and thehis ar to be okay,” I assured the child as he began to cry, squir in the man’s arms “I’ to get you out of here safely, okay?”
The boy was too deep in shock to process what I was saying, but the man understood “Thank you, Lilia”
The watery ared the water so that it pulled the cart into itself, keeping it in the center and preventing it fro to its doom Still, the floas fast, and the cart took off with such sudden speed that the wo air and being pulled off course, but I held it in position with the floater itself, so the makeshi+ft raft was carried rapidly but controlled down the steep slope
In an instant, they vanished into the dust, which was so thick now that I couldn’t see more than thirty feet down the mountainside
The battle, which had for a few ain in a wave of black fire that spiraled through the sky above I couldn’t be sure where it was coet was An instant later, there was a countering flash as the black dragon swept down fro a deadly breath of silver fla up the sky
Closing y into the water itself, feeling its course, keeping the raft tucked into it Somewhere below, a fireball impacted the mountainside I felt the river buck as the couple’s screams drifted up out of the valley, but I pulled the raft down tight against the water and held on for dear life After a few seconds, the water began to slow and spread out That was the edge of asp, I released the spell Instantly, the river slowed to a trickle
My skin arm Eyes still closed, I turneddown onbeyond hope that the family had made it, because that hope was all that I had
My eyes blinked open The sky was nothing but fire, and the heat had pushed back some of the dust All up and down the line of carts, fireballs were raining Rocks were tu away entire swaths of the road with the
The ceiling of fire rippled, giving way fro and coh Even froh I couldn’t be sure which one The black dragon’s huge head followed, appearing fro vortex as if from a portal to the abyss The jaws opened wide, and the Wraith vanished with the even from where I kneeled
Suddenly the air cleared, a blast of icy wind sending an enorrew along the base of the Grand Mountains in Sapin With flaone, the full scope of the battle was visible to ons re her shi+eld to defend her tho focused on sending bright, silvery attacks at the Wraiths harrying her Both were now spotted with green discoloration
Three on, each one attacking in concert with the others, keeping the dragon’s attention divided between the so his back and wings were facing reen veins lacing through the black scales Soons, and yet they survive while three Wraiths are dead, I thought, but I was too battered and weak to take any co, I looked around, again taking in the wreckage of theof the rockslides A war of attrition, I realized The Wraiths can’t overpower the dragons But if they sacrifice a few of themselves to land a poison-laced blow, then they can keep their distance until the dragons are too weak to finish then they’re searching for…
As I watched the black dragon closely, I saobbled as it banked tightly and snapped at a Wraith, and hohen it htly as they chased their target through the air
“Just one ain as they took ate around another slide that had wiped out fifty feet or more of the road On the other side, I nearly tripped over a prone body Leaning down, I felt the face of a young won of breath in her body
Moving on, I found another corpse, then several more, and came to a place where a circle of black iron spikes had stabbed up froround More corpses were pinned to theaze returned to the sky
Spell after spell shattered against the black dragon’s scales as it chased after the Wraiths, unleashi+ng its deadly breath at intervals The two asuran twins see, but as I watched, they suddenly separated
The wounded asura pulled away from the other and flehere I had stopped At the sa with blurring speed A beah the air just past Perhata’s horns
One of the Wraiths broke off and followed the wounded dragon A dark cyclone was blowing around the Wraith, and froraythe asura’s back with a low hu the last few
The cyclone grew, and as it did, more and more h the ni into her froon lift her shi+eld It was glowing brightly, and getting brighter with every attack it blocked Feeling a sudden knife of panic in round, closed my eyes, and shi+elded my head
Even so, the flash that followed nearly blindedout from under my elbow, I just saw as the Wraith’s spell ca itself apart as the mana spilled away in every direction The Wraith reeled, and the asura lunged forward
Mana for limb was This conjured fist wrapped around the stunned Wraith’s throat and erupted into red gore Spinning, she hurled the Wraith back against the cliffs, his body cratering stone and triggering yetthe road
A beah the shi+eld and poured into the crater after the Wraith until all hint of his lingeringWraiths fell back to regroup, allowing the wounded asura to drift to the road, where she collapsed onto her knees Her twin and the black dragon see their time as well
Uncertain, I stood and approached the asura So…
There are still survivors, I thought, no particular eued brain
“So, you have not chosen your death yet,” the asura said, her voice creaking ariness “I am…almost ih clenched teeth, rimace “To say otherwise is an insult to all those who survived the hellish war only to becoue, I took a deep breath to steady“Was it worth it? Have you even found what you wanted?”
Letting out a pained on forced herself to stand She was a full head taller than h to my core as she looked down on hs the lives of a couple hundred lessers” She cocked her head, turning to look ard over the steep incline to where her co between us and the Wraiths “Or even three dragons”