Battle For RynHaven

The smithing district was chaos. Narrow streets with people running in every direction. But Baro was alive in it. Where others saw panic, he found his stride. A thick creeping fog filled the area and people were coughing and dropping in the streets as it rolled closer.

“Inside! Board the windows!” Baro’s shout cut through the noise. He scanned the street. He needed something to stop the cloud of poison. His eyes landed on a broken shopfront stacked with shields. A stupid idea hit him. Stupid, but possible. He sprinted inside, grabbed as many as he could carry, and tossed them into the air.

“Enlarge!” he yelled.

The magic took hold, swelling the shields as they spun. Wagon sized discs slammed together, locking into a massive barrier that blocked the street. The fog smashed against it, eating through wood and metal, but the wall held…for now.

The dragon shrieked. It stopped spewing poison and charged, claws tearing a hole through the barricade. People screamed behind it. Baro didn’t hesitate.

“You want me?” He grinned. “Come get me.”

He raised his axe. “Duplicate!” Another appeared in his hand. Acid surged toward him, but instead of blocking, he hurled one axe with all his strength. It spun like a sawblade, aimed for the beast’s head. The dragon slipped aside, until Baro yelled again.

“Duplicate again!”

Mid flight, the axe split. A perfect copy veered off and buried itself in the dragon’s shoulder. Bone crunched. The monster roared, staggering. Not enough to kill, but it still seemed like enough to hurt. Enough to piss it off. Its yellow eyes locked on him, full of murder. Baro planted his feet, hiked up his weapon, and smirked. “Round two.”

Across the city, the Noble’s District burned. Keito had drawn the Red Dragon away from the bridge, but at the cost of gardens, fountains, and marble halls that were reduced to rubble. He darted between flames, his moonlit blade blocking aside blasts that should’ve incinerated him. He felt he couldn’t win, but he could stall.

The Wardens ballistas were cranking into place on the far walls, but they were too slow. He was on his own. Another firestorm forced him behind a statue, the marble splitting from the heat. That’s when he saw her. A girl, frozen in the courtyard with a doll at her feet. The dragon hadn’t noticed her, but its next step would crush her. No time to shout. Only one thought was in his head…. protect her.

He poured everything into his armor. “Go.”

Silver light burst, and the armor shattered. Plates shot across the courtyard and wrapped the child in a cocoon of steel and moonlight. The dragon’s foot slammed down, missing her by inches. Fire engulfed the silver shell. Keito felt the heat burn his skin, though the armor wasn’t on him anymore. But it held.

The beast turned. Its red eyes locked on him, standing bare in nothing but a gambeson, sword in hand.

Keito lifted the blade. “Father… lend me your light.”

The dragon drew breath, ready to burn him alive, but Keito didn’t move. War horns sounded in the distance. The Wardens were coming. He just had to hold long enough.

The market square was silent except for the dragon’s footsteps. Elysia stood alone, the people she had shielded already running. The Black Dragon ignored them. Its eyes were only on her.

“Run!” she shouted after the last of them.

The beast opened its jaws. A blast of black sludge came at her. She raised her hands. A shield of water snapped into place. The sludge slammed into it, making her stumble but not breaking through. She shoved back, the shield bursting forward into a stream of water that hammered into the dragon’s chest. It staggered, annoyed more than hurt. Its growl shook her bones. Then she saw it's eyes and something about them seemed familiar …. She tried to think of where, and just as she remembered the mountains, it moved.

A claw struck her like a hammer, throwing her into a wall. Pain exploded in her ribs, blood in her mouth. She forced herself up. Another wave of sludge barreled toward her. She raised up another water forcefield, but weaker this time. It faltered under the pressure. And then a claw pushed through. It closed around her and lifted her up, face to face with the monster. Its eyes burned with rage, but under that rage she could see it was corrupted.

The gem on her forehead started to glow a bright blue. The clash of her magic against the corruption tore everything away. The square vanished. Her body vanished. She then felt herself falling until she landed in a pool of sludge…The source of the purple and black sludge. She saw a boy the same age as Keito and Baro thrashing about…

That's when she realized herself… She wasn’t looking at a dragon anymore. She was inside it. And it was screaming.

Baro focused as the dragon began to shift. It came toward him in a low run, claws ripping up ground. It hit the giant shields with a swipe that folded two shields like paper and sent splinters flying. Baro didn’t let that stop him. He pressed into the wall, boots sliding, and swiped his axe at the dragon’s reaching claws. The blade cut deep, poison hissing from the wound.

He grinned and swiped again, slicing a second line across the softer scales along the jaw. The dragon recoiled, then lunged again. Baro ducked under the bite and slammed the hilt of his axe into its nostril. The impact rattled his bones. The dragon sneezed poison in a spray toward him.

He took another step into its blindside of its reach and chopped at the tendon behind the knee. The dragon stumbled and Baro felt the fight tilt toward him. He could do this, he could win.

“Come on, then,” he said, breathing hard. “Come on.”

The dragon lifted its head to its full height and drew in a long breath. Baro saw the chest expand. He didn’t move, he thought that he could take whatever it was about to do and stay on his feet.

He was wrong.

The blast hit him like a train. Poison slammed into him chest first and lifted him off his feet. The world tilted and his vision blurred. He hit the blacksmith’s bench and broke it in half with his back. He tried to stand back up but his knees didn’t listen. They folded the moment he put weight on them. His throat closed and when he tried to breathe it felt like he was inhaling razors.

He could see the dragon’s shadow sliding over him, and he reached for the hilt of his fallen axe and his fingers couldnt close properly around it

“Baro!”

Footsteps came from his left, as someone skidded to a stop in front of him hard enough to spray dirt into his eyes. Hands grabbed his jaw and turned his face. He blinked and saw a narrow, freckled face framed in a green hood, lips already moving through a stream of syllables.

Guild colors. A mage. A dozen others poured into the street behind her, brawlers, a smith’s apprentice still wearing his apron, two runners in leather mantles dragging a crate of pikes. One of the brawlers planted himself between Baro and the dragon and raised his forearms like he intended to fistfight it. The mage’s hand hit Baro’s chest. Magical cold energy slid down his throat like clean water. His lungs opened. He breathed in and the sharp cuts in his throat began to fade to nothing.

“Cleansed,” she said, panting, sweat already running down her face. “Move.”

He moved. He grabbed her forearm and squeezed once… saying thanks without having the breath to say it, then rolled to his feet, scooping his axe up in the same motion. He still tasted the poison, and he still saw double… But his body was his again.

The others were already surrounding the dragon. An archer had taken a roofline and was shooting arrows into the wounds Baro made, forcing the dragon to blink and turn. The brawlers looped around one of the legs and were running opposite directions in a two-man tug that made the leg sweep wide and knocked it off balance. The smith’s apprentice, Jax had pulled at a hammer and stood firm

“On me!” Baro roared, and the guild moved in sync with him.

Baro slid under the dragon’s chin and cut in between the jaw and the neck. The mage stepped into range and slapped a red sigil onto the dragon’s chest, it detonated with a big blast that made the dragon thrash its head sideways. The archers next set of arrows hit their mark. The dragon tried to do a breath attack again. The mage saw it and warned the others. She jabbed two fingers toward Baro’s chest and snapped, “Breathe that and I won't cleanse you again.” He grinned without looking and lowered his center like a wrestler. When the poison came, he braced his legs, head down. Most of the breath flowed over him, and only a small amount hit his shoulder. His eyes teared up but his lungs were ok.

“Now!” he barked.

Everyone moved again. The brawlers braced their heels and pulled on the ropes that they secured around the dragon. Arrows slid into the soft pocket near the ear, and the mage threw a bolt of force energy that staggered the dragon again. Jax stupidly ran straight at the dragon’s face with a hammer and smashed it into a nostril. The dragon reared to bite him and brought its throat up into Baro’s swing.

The axe cut deep, everyone hearing bone crack. The dragon convulsed legs giving way. It slammed chest first into the ground, shaking the whole street. Baro didn’t stop there, he just kept hitting until the head went limp. The mage grabbed his shoulder when he would’ve swung again and said, “It’s done.”

He staggered, suddenly aware of the sweat in his eyes and the way his arms had begun to tremble. The guild whooped. Someone slapped Jax on the back and then immediately grabbed his collar when he swayed. The archer lowered her bow and blew out a breath of relief. Baro wiped his mouth with the back of his wrist and spat into the gutter. “ You're right,” he said, voice rough. Then his mind went and thought of the others. “Keito….. Elysia!”

Keito had his eyes closed as he called upon his father…. The sky answered.

The smoke all around the area split. Silver fell from the sky in thin lines at first, then in spears. Solid moonlight came down like thrown knives. The first shard caught the dragon across the snout and sheared a piece of scale clean off. The second sank at the base of a wing. The third struck where Keito would have been if he hadn’t already stepped right, and pierced into the stone.

The dragon flinched its head just as it drew breath. The exhale turned into a coughing, half aimed breath attack that scorched a statue instead of Keito. Keito didn’t waste the opening. He sprinted, scooped the kid into his arms and ran. As he moved, the armor broke apart and flew back to him in a stream of silver, each piece snapping into place. He looked down at the girl he held.

“Hold on,” he muttered, though he didn’t know whether she could hear him. He turned down a narrow alley to break line of sight and immediately hit a dead end. He pivoted, set the girl down behind a fallen column, and raised his sword.

The dragon turned into the alley Keito put himself between it and the child. It reared it's head back, it's throat swelling up with flame and magma. Keito gritted his teeth and then suddenly….

Horn calls. Two, then three. The narrow street filled with the clatter of boots and the metallic sound of moving gears. The Silver Wardens swung a ballista into the mouth of the alley and fired before their wheels even stopped rolling. The bolt punched through the dragon’s back at an angle and buried itself deep. The dragon snapped forward in pain, half collapsed by the force. A second team squeezed into the gap and released, their bolt slammed into the ribline. The dragon hit the ground roaring out in pain. The dragon tried to turn its head to track them and Keito planted his blade at the base of its jaw to pin it there.

“Move!” the Warden captain barked. “Make the shot count!”

A third bolt went in, this one jamming into its throat…It thrashed, crushing its own wingtip against the wall, and tore half its face across the stone as it tried to wrench free of the bolts anchoring it to the floor.

“Go!” Keito yelled to the girl, who was staring with her doll clutched to her chest. “Run to them, now!”

She ran. A Warden scooped her mid sprint and pivoted out of the alley with her bundled under one arm. The captain’s visor lifted an inch. “Sword,” he said to Keito… “On the throat with me.”

Keito moved when the captain moved. Together they shoved their swords into the dragons neck. The other wardens advanced in a line, swords and shields up. The beast tried to force a breath past the bolt lodged in its throat. It failed. The failure stunned it, just for a moment. In that moment, the captain swung his sword at the dragon again. Keito followed suit and his blade found it's mark. The dragon’s spine spasmed before suddenly stopping, the light going out of its eyes. Keito stood over it before pulling out his sword.

“Go,” the captain said. “We’ve got the bodies and the firepower. The square….”

“...needs us,” Keito finished. He nodded once, and ran.

He didn't get far before he saw the back of Baros head. He quickly caught up stopping him by grabbing his shoulder. Baro turned in defense at first but when he noticed it was Keito he breathed a sigh of relief.

“Breathing?” Baro asked.

“For now,” Keito said. “You?”

“Been worse.” Baro flashed a grin that meant, i’m lying a little, but I’ll make it true later. They heard screams from the distance and then looked at each other. “Square!”

They ran together, and as they came up to the square, they saw a puff of black fog. The Black Dragon stood in the center. It wasn’t breathing poison, actually it wasn’t moving at all. Its claw held Elysia to its chest, just below the line of the throat, as if showing her to the square. Her head was tipped back, hair matted with dust and sweat, lips parted. The gem on her forhead was lit so bright it hurt to look at. Her eyes were open and glowing the same blue. The dragon’s eyes glowed as well….

“Elysia!” Baro called, then immediately stopped, as if worried the sound would break concentration.

She didn’t answer…

Keito took a half-step, sword lowering without him telling it to. “It’s not… hurting her. At least I don't think.”

“No,” Baro said. He heard his own voice go quiet. “ She's doing something to it”

“What do we do?” a Warden murmured behind them, not to either of them in particular.

“Nothing,” Keito said, and surprised himself with how certain it sounded. He had spent all afternoon deciding to move. Now his whole body insisted on the opposite. “Not yet.”

Baro’s shoulders were still heaving from the run, but the set of his jaw softened. “She’s in there with it,” he said. “Same as before, hopefully purifying it.”

“Or fighting something else,” Keito said.