Hunted Dragon

1

Gale

It’s uncanny how quickly things can change once again. A week ago, I thought the war was behind us, that I wouldn’t have to face armed fae soldiers any time soon. Now, I’m fighting the vile soldiers, and from the back of a dragon to boot…

I hear the footsteps of the soldiers in the darkness surrounding Topaz and me, and for a moment I wonder how they know where we are when we can’t see shit. But then, they made this magical darkness, so they probably have some way so see through it or something.

As I look down, I can see Topaz’ back, but, soon, his neck disappears into darkness, although I can still spot a slight glow from the burning tree he’s holding between his jaws. A fucking flaming tree… How he came up with that… Not that it matters much, because while I can easily feel the heat of the flames, I can barely see the light of it, and it’s not very far away from me. We’re basically running blind here.

Topaz’ muscles move under me, tension rising in them as he moves his head side to side. He could try to blast the soldiers with fire again, but that was of little use when he did it before, because of the fae soldiers wearing armour made from fire dragon scales, making them almost invulnerable to the heat.

The fae soldiers keep moving and I’ve got a feeling they’re close to surrounding us now. I don’t like this, I really don’t like this. I’m used to working in the darkness, disappear into the shadows, kill unseen, but that does require for me to actually see my target.

“Topaz, any chance you can fly with me on your back, get away from them that way? It would be a good thing to try right about now.” If we can’t see the soldiers, and they probably can’t see us very well either, maybe we can get away from them, out of their range.

He extends his wings a little, then pulls them back, and does that a couple of times, jerking his head to the side at the same time.

Ah, yeah, his wings are massive, and we have no idea how close the soldiers are. They could easily cut into his wings with the venom blades and that would be really bad.

“If I blast air to the sides, push them away, out of the span of your wings, you fly up. Plan?”

He jerks his head up, the only things visible are the base of his neck and the dim light from the burning tree, though I’m covered in sparks from the fire. I’m really hoping I don’t catch on fire or anything before the end of this.

Then Topaz sharply pulls his head to the side and throws the burning tree into the darkness surrounding us. I hear some screams and sounds from the direction he threw in. Great distraction!

“Three, two…” I dig my knees into his back, making sure I’ll stay on as best as I can, and forcefully push my arms sideways, shooting air in both directions. The fae soldiers might be protected against fire, but it’s hard to fight against a strong gust of wind. That’s still going to push them around, get them off-balance, make it less likely they’ll be able to attack Topaz.

Topaz’ dragon jumps up into the air, and at the same time fully unfolds his massive wings, which disappear into the darkness at what I expect is not even a quarter of their full size. Fucking hell. I always forget how massive dragon wings are, I’m much more used to werewolves, and while big, they’re not this massive in size… And they definitely don’t have wings four to five times their own body size.

I grab hold of his shoulders, trying to stay on as he moves up higher and higher at speed. I’m almost used to flying on the back of a dragon when he stops rising suddenly. Fuck. No.

“Topaz?” Then I feel what the problem is as my head bumps up against the edge of the magical darkness. Hell. Earlier, we couldn’t get our magic into the cloud of darkness, but apparently, we also can’t just get out of it… No fun.

A loud howl sounds from somewhere below us. Lyell! We aren’t the only one trapped inside the magic. Fuck…

If we’re out of reach, of course, they’re going to go for him. He’s the easiest next target and at least he’s not as dangerous as Topaz was with his flaming tree.

Hell no.

That probably means that only Sophia and Kieran are still outside the darkness, they were much further away from us, and whoever of the backup group was still further away.

Think! Think! We can’t win like this. We have to take the box with the shadow magic out first.

“Topaz, find Lyell, protect him. I’ll take care of the box.” I try to get up a little so I can get off Topaz’ back, and he lets out a sound that sounds almost unhappy. “I’ll be fine. I can make it safely to the ground. Lyell needs your help much more than I need it. Go.” I stand on his shoulders and jump off, the sensation of falling very familiar until I use my magic to levitate myself. Topaz’ big body is out of sight immediately, but I can still hear his big wings as he flies away, much closer than is comfortable, so I quickly drop a little further down to stay out of reach of them. I don’t need him to hit me over the head.

As I lower myself, I hope that I don’t accidentally land on top of one of the fae soldiers or land in the middle of a group of them or something.

I have no idea where I am right now, how much distance we’ve covered, but with the direction we were going in, I should be closer to the box than we were before. I keep listening to my surroundings, trying to figure out where the soldiers are right now.

Someone whispers to my left, way too close, so I quickly rise again.

The box I’m looking for is black. That’s going to be a fun search when I can barely even see my own feet and there’s no light to guide me. I could stumble over the box before I even know I’m close to it.

Behind me, in the distance, Topaz lets out a loud growl, though it doesn’t seem like it’s from pain, followed by shouts from soldiers. Seems he’s a perfect distraction once again.

A loud voice from below me barks out orders. “Get them! We can’t let them get away! Don’t let that foul dragon escape!”

Some stumbling, and then there are more voices. “We can’t see anything. How are we going to find them?” The fae can’t see inside the darkness either, at least, not very well.

The first person talks again, probably the leader of the group. “Use your ears and magic. What kind of losers did they saddle me up with? How did any of you ever complete the training? Get moving!”

It doesn’t seem like there are many more people around, so I carefully lower myself to the ground, crouching down so I’m as small as possible. I slide a knife into my hand, in case I need to use it. You never know what could happen, better be prepared.

Footsteps pass me by, not too far away, but they don’t seem to notice me. One of the soldiers doesn’t seem very happy. “Use the magic he says, because it’s so useful to be able to see twice as much as I can now, I get three seconds not to trip over a fucking corpse instead of not seeing it until my foot lands on top of one.”

“Shhh.” Another soldier says. “If you keep grumbling, I can’t hear where we have to go. You don’t want to upset the boss even more because we got lost, again.”

The footsteps disappear and I make sure I don’t move before I can’t hear them anymore. If they’re going in the opposite direction, then that means I’m probably close to the centre of the darkness, since that seems to be where the people in charge hung out.

Staying low, I move in the direction of where I heard the voice giving orders come from. He’ll probably be close to the box. It’s not like I’ve got anything else to go on…

I hear some people move in the darkness, shifting their weight from one leg to the other, they’re not saying anything, probably trying to keep themselves hidden, but nobody outsmarts a shadow killer. I try to not get too close to them, I don’t want them to spot me, in case one of them can see further away than some of the complaining soldiers.

Then two things happen at the same time. I catch sight of the box, my hand reaching for it instinctively, and a voice close behind me whispers loudly. “Gotcha.”

Ice runs through my veins as I freeze in place, praying for a moment that the word is not meant for me, but the air behind me moves, letting me know someone is coming for me. I blast air back towards the person, hoping to slow them down just enough, while I draw my other knife too, spinning around so I can face my attacker.

The soldier smirks as he steps forward again and I realise that I can see further now, for some reason, what’s going on? The man is off-balance from my attack and he’s holding two knives, just like me. I hadn’t spotted a guy like this when I took down the magic user before, so either he hid himself well, or we’re dealing with much better trained soldiers than we first thought. Fuck.

“A witch, eh? Seems they’re sending everyone out here these days.” He starts moving towards me in a circle and I face him straight-on. I’m not letting him get between me and the box

“What’s going on?” The commanding voice from before calls out.

“Seems we lost track of one of them. He got to the device all on his own.” The soldier in front of me raises his voice, so the other can hear him.

“Get to the box!” A shout, and more footsteps. How many people were still here?

Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!

Plan B. Time for desperate measures.

If I can give the others a chance to get away or defeat the fae soldiers, then it doesn’t matter what happens to me. That’s why I exist anyway… This is what I’ve trained for for most of my life.

I blast out a wave of air in all directions around me, trying to force as many people back as I can, then I spin down, stabbing both my knives into the black box with as much force as I can. I break through the surface of the box, right in the middle. It’s made of a thin type of metal, reinforced by magic, which is of little use against my knives. Then I twist the knives, forcing them away to the sides, breaking as much of the box as I can in the process.

For a fraction of a second, I worry that nothing happens, that I need to do more to destroy it, but then black-purple magic explodes out of the ruined box and like that, the darkness around us disappears. It’s gone, like it was never there.

The sky on the horizon is starting to turn to grey, making everything around us even more visible, letting me get a quick view of what’s going on.

Then, one of the soldiers is on me, his arm around my neck, blade near my throat. “One move and I’ll put the blade against your skin. I’m pretty sure you know what’ll happen when I do.”

I try to stay as still as possible. I don’t really care what happens to me, but at least the others now have a chance to actually win this.