Chapter 246: Pillar of Light

 

  A roar echoed from above. The hunters and mages looked up at the night sky, startled. A crimson dragon swooped down, the gust of its wingbeats shoved them to the ground.

  The dragon flew past the small clearing and craned its long neck at the mass of hunters still milling about the encampment. The colossal beast’s chest swelled and it roared fire. The flames burned in a multitude of colors, it swam through the tents and hunters alike. The men and women screamed and floundered in agony as the flames consumed their bodies.

  The ones lucky enough to have not been doused in flames watched in horror as a dozen of their guild brothers and sisters fell to the dragon’s magic. The chromatic flames burned what was left of them, leaving only charred bones. The grass had also burned to ash, yet the dead’s apparel and the nearby tents had remained perfectly intact.

  The dragon flew up into the sky and turned back around, diving towards the encampment once more.

  “It’s coming back!” Loh shouted. 

  Ismene pointed at the treeline in the distance, “Loh, Tauri! Get Stryg and the others to the forest, it’s our best chance at losing that monster!” 

  Before anyone could act, Stryg pulled Nameless out of Edwin’s leg and stabbed the poacher in the gut with three quick thrusts.

  “Uagh!” Edwin spasmed in pain and coughed up a splatter of blood.

  Loh grabbed Stryg’s hand and pulled him away, “Stop! We need to go!”

  Gale and Lysaila glanced at each other, nodded, and hurried after Stryg.

  “Vayu and the other students are still in the carriages!” Tauri yelled.

  “What are you waiting for?! Get them and hurry to the forest, now!” Ismene yelled.

  “Yes, ma’am!” Tauri ran off.

  “Miss Tauri, wait for me!” Cornelius yelled and ran after her in a panic.

  Astrid, leader of the Hunters Guild, stared at the burned bodies of her fellow brothers and sisters. Her face twisted with anger and grief. She screamed a war cry and aimed her bow at the dragon, “Hunters, with me! Kill the fucking beast!”

  Her guildmates echoed her cry of battle and fired their bows with an expert’s precision. Dozens of arrows screeched through the sky and struck the dragon true, yet the arrowheads shattered on its ruby scales harmlessly.

  The dragon ignored the archers and focused its attention on the few remaining hunters left in the encampment. The dragon’s chest swelled and it spewed chromatic flames over the terrified prey. They fell in a mass of pitiful screams and smoke. The dragon roared in satisfaction and flew up once more.

  Loh stared in dread as the dragon came around for a third pass. She suddenly stopped in her steps and turned back.

  “Master, what are you doing!?” Stryg yelled.

  “...Their arrows are meaningless, they won’t get past the dragon’s scales,” Loh muttered. “It’ll kill everyone in the clearing and then us… I need to slow it down.”

  “What are you talking about!? We need to run!” Stryg shouted.

  Loh smiled sadly back at him, “I can’t do that, not again. Tauri, get them all to safety.”

  Tauri opened her mouth to object, but stopped herself. She nodded grimly, “I’ll come back for you.”

  “May Bellum bless you in battle, Miss Noir,” Cornelius whispered quickly, before he sprinted away without hesitation.

  “No, I’m not leaving,” Stryg shook his head vehemently. “We’ll fight together! Master!” 

  “Shut up and move!” Lysaila picked Stryg up and threw him over her shoulder.

  “Let go of me!” Stryg yelled angrily.

  His words flowed over the lamia, strange silver sigils flared over her skin. The light in her indigo eyes dimmed. “No. Your survival comes first.”

  Lysaila ignored Stryg’s shouts and slithered towards the tree-line, bypassing the encampment and carriages altogether.

  “I’ll get the others,” Tauri ran off to the carriages.

  Gale didn’t follow after Tauri or Lysaila. Instead, she walked up next to Loh, “You’re braver than you look, Noir.”

  Loh frowned, “You’re staying?”

  “You think I’d run and let my old rival slay a dragon before me? You wish,” she smirked shakily.

  The dragon bellowed a deep growl and swooped down low.

  “Now or never, Noir!” Gale yelled.

  “Fuck it!” Loh raised her hands high and channeled orange mana. A burning orb of flames sputtered into existence above her palms and began to spin and grow in size until its diameter reached ten paces wide.

  Gale pulled her arm back, blue electricity crackled on her fingertips, and extended out into a giant two-pronged lightning whip. She stepped forward and threw her arm out in one fluid motion. The Twin Storm Whip flew out in a shriek of thunder and wrapped around the scarlet dragon, holding it in place.

  The dragon roared with indignation and pulled its pale leathery wings back; the lightning strands began to break apart.

  Gale’s arms shook with strain, she grimaced, “I can’t hold it much longer!”

  Loh clapped her hands together, her Infernal Sphere slammed into the dragon and exploded in a searing flare of orange light. The hunters flinched back from the overwhelming heat, a cloud of smoke covered the encampment.

As the smoke cleared a resonant chuckle echoed from above.

  “Pathetic tiny mages dare challenge Tandride The Scarlet Glory?” the dragon laughed in a rumbling masculine voice. There was not a scratch nor burn on the dragon’s ruby scales.

  “No damage?” Loh’s face paled. “That’s… not possible.”

  Tandride stretched his wings wide open, a grey halo of energy coalesced in front of him. 

  Gale gritted her teeth and quickly began writing red ward symbols in the air, “Get behind me!”

  Loh jumped behind her without hesitation.

  Tandride snapped his wings together, the grey halo fell to the earth in a silent whisper. It shattered and expanded in an explosion of energy, a nimbus of power echoing outwards, destroying hunters and structures alike.

  “I can’t stop this!” Gale screamed, her ward dome shook and cracked from the echoing force. 

  Loh channeled orange mana into her limbs in a panic. The agility magic dyed her veins grey and lessened her weight. She wrapped her arms around Gale’s waist and kicked backward as the ward dome burst in a cloud of red dust. The remnants of the halo’s blast slammed into them, tearing at their clothes and skin. Loh and Gale crashed into the ground hard.

  Gale moaned weakly and tried to stand. Loh lay a dozen paces away, unconscious; her body was covered in a dozen small cuts and bruises.

  “Still alive?” Tandride’s serpentine jaw pulled back in a malicious grin. He stretched his wings wide, a second grey halo began to form around his clawed hands.

  A clap of thunder pealed in the night. The Storm Spear shattered the half-formed grey halo and struck the dragon in his chest. Tandride’s head flung back and he roared in pain. A cluster of his ruby scales had been burned and cracked.

  Ismene lowered her hand, flecks of electricity still coursing through her fingers. “Miss Astrid, this creature is beyond you and your guild. Take whatever hunters you have left and head for the trees, my people will need your guidance through Glimmer Grove.”

  “Yes, my lady,” Astrid nodded tentatively. She turned to her guildmates, “You heard the Tempest Arch-Mage! To the forest, now!”

  Tandride reared his head down at the clearing where only Ismene now stood. “A small…human? You struck me..?”

  “It seems I have,” Ismene said softly and dropped her cane. As her knee buckled beneath her, a funnel of water manifested around her waist and raised her to the sky.

  Tandride laughed, a deep rumbling sound, “A child with actual power? Wonderful! Entertain me, small human!”

  Ismene closed her eyes and took a deep breath, “Then let it be so.”

  Lightning sputtered and crackled from her body and merged into a spear in the palm of her hand. She flicked her hand forward, the spear resounded in a rapid boom and flew at Tandride.

  A sphere of light bloomed around the dragon and absorbed the Storm Spear in a burst of yellow energy.

  “The same trick won’t work twice,” Tandride sneered.

  “Noted,” Ismene raised her hand up, palm open wide. Three cyclones of water flowed down from the sky and gyrated towards the dragon.

  The yellow sphere flared brightly, the cyclones smashing into it with immense force, yet the sphere did not crack nor shake.

  “Is that all!?” Tandride opened his wings, a grey halo forming above him.

  “Not even close.” Ismene raised both her arms up, a dozen more aquatic cyclones poured down from the sky and struck the yellow sphere from every direction.

  The tremendous surge of water spun and tore around the dragon’s sphere in a miniature hurricane of pure magical force. The yellow sphere grew brighter and brighter as the cyclones bore down on it. The sphere shook and bent inward, but it did not shatter.

  “Torrent magic is as weak as I expected!” Tandride taunted from deep within the waves of water, safe in his sphere of protection.

  Ismene ignored the words of derision. Her eyes were closed and she sat cross-legged above her funnel of water. Seven Storm Spears orbited around her body, each crackling with an arch-mage’s will.

  Ismene’s eyes snapped wide open, “Die, you goddamned monster!”

  The seven spears collapsed into one another. The night sky flashed white. The air burned with magic. The sapphire thunderbolt hurtled into the raging hurricane and blazed a rippling azure across the clouds. A thunderclap echoed what had already transpired.

  Gone was the hurricane, evaporated the instant lightning met water. The dragon’s sphere floated in tatters and patches of yellow light. Charred splotches riddled the dragon’s ruby scales where his magic had been pierced. The broken sphere flared yellow once more, it slowly regenerated and returned to its whole. 

  Ismene panted faintly, her body’s temperature had risen drastically from the overuse of magic. She stared at the dragon grimly, “...Fuck.”

  “You tried to kill me!? ME?!” Tandride laughed in derision. A grey halo formed between his scarlet wings and flew out at Ismene.

  She groaned weakly and summoned the last reserves of her blue mana. Tendrils of water swirled and twisted in front of her, and formed an enormous wall. The grey halo exploded and expanded in a ring of ruin, obliterating the aquatic barrier.

  The funnel beneath Ismene collapsed from the extending blast. She used what little remained of her magic and tried to slow her fall. She slammed into the dirt with a hard thud. The old woman lay still, her body soaked in water and blood.

  Tandride flew a circle around her and laughed in contempt. He turned his sight to the forest’s edge and flew towards the remaining survivors, a few hunters and mages. Tandride opened his wings wide, a grey halo forming above him. 

  An ear-piercing howl reverberated through the sky and shook the hills below.

  A towering pillar of moonlight burned through the clouds and pierced Tandride in all-consuming luminescence. The silver pillar obliterated the dragon’s sphere of protection and scorched him in glacial light. Tandride cried out in agony, but his shriek ended abruptly, his scaled body frozen in a blinding flash.

  The pillar of light disappeared as quickly as it had struck. The frozen dragon tumbled down from the sky and crashed into the ground, shattering into countless ruby shards.

  Gale watched the dragon’s fall in utter shock and confusion. It didn’t make sense, what had killed him? Still, she needed to move quickly, time for questions would come later. She would not wait to see what had made the pillar of light.

  Gale grimaced and pushed herself to her feet. She stumbled a step, but steadied herself. She limped over to Loh, picked her up, and threw the drow over her shoulders.

  “You’re pretty light, Noir,” Gale grinned weakly.

  Loh didn’t open her eyes, but she mumbled something indeterminable.

  Gale made her way to the small clearing where the Tempest-Archmage lay still in a small pool of water and blood.

  Gale swallowed the lump in her throat and reached down to check the old woman’s pulse. Nothing… then a beat, faint, but a heartbeat nonetheless. 

  “Oh thank Bellum,” Gale sighed in relief. She ignored the pain wracking her body and gently picked Ismene up in her arms.

  “Don’t worry, Ismene. We’ll get you some help, just hold on,” Gale whispered softly. “Just hold on, please.”