Dragon Alliance: Rise Against Shadow (58 page)

“Good idea, Mkel. Padonan, we’ll land behind the legion,” Colonel Lordan ordered.

“Good fight, my brothers,” Gallanth’s booming deep voice resonated in the air. The two silver dragons slightly bowed their heads in acknowledgment.

The three dragons, followed by Mkel’s friends, soared over the legion line as the cavalry charged into the scrub forest in pursuit of the fleeing enemy, with several platoons of infantry right behind them. Mkel could hear loud cheers from the Battle Point soldiers as they back winged and landed. General Daddonan and his small entourage started to walk over to the dragons and their friends that landed just as the dust settled from the three pairs of massive wings that had filled the air in the immediate area.

“The diplomacy will begin after the congratulations,” Lordan whispered to Mkel after they slid down to their dragons’ forearms. As the general and his staff came up to the dragonriders and their companions, Gallanth and the two silvers did something that no one had seen before. Talonth and Strikenth bowed their heads to Gallanth, who then returned the Draconic salute. All three dragons then bowed their heads to their riders.

“Gallanth, what is this for, my friend?” Mkel asked as a small crowd of the Battle Point soldiers also looked at the unique sight.

“Talonth and Strikenth thanked me for my help in this tough fight, and we all honor our riders for the enhanced strength you give us. For this separates us from our chromatic enemies,” the great gold dragon said with a slightly reverent tone in his deep voice. “The power we derive from your love and emotion translates into the fury that the chromatics experienced today. This, for me and for my brothers here, was enough to turn the tide against their numbers and their hatred,”
Gallanth explained to the surprise of all within earshot of the dragon’s booming voice, including their riders.

“I never knew that about the dragons,” a seasoned sergeant said out loud as his young soldiers gathered beside him. “I thought that they only derived their great power from eating gems and gold; so much for the POE propaganda. I know the Alliance dragons are renowned for their compassion, but I did not know to this extent.”

The support corps wagon trains were almost to the location of the current battle that Gallanth had given telepathically to Desiran, Beckann’s unicorn. She was riding up and down the long column that stretched hundreds of yards, to both check on their progress and to give them a little encouragement and confidence in knowing an elven wizard of power was guarding them. Plus the sight of a unicorn was almost as awe inspiring and morale strengthening as a metallic dragon.

Beckann was also watching both the battle that Gallanth and the silvers had just completed and the fight her husband was in with the giants through her staff’s dragonstone and her seeing-eye spell. She almost teleported out to join Dekeen, but she knew that would have left the wagon trains defenseless against a powerful opponent. Luckily that did not come to fruition, or that is at least what she thought. Then something started to make her anxious. There was a feeling of evil and magic nearby as they approached the final couple of miles from the battle scene. She spurred Desiran forward to the head of the column, where she felt the presence.

As Beckann rode at full gallop, she began to prepare her staff for a possible fight, muttering several words in Draconic. As she sped by the columns of wagons, all the support troops began to draw their weapons and ready short bows and crossbows for firing. The unicorn had just made it to the head of the column and the cavalry platoon that was also escorting the convoy when she noticed a subtle depression in the ground and vegetation that seemed out of place. She raised her staff and cast an antimagic spell at the depression. Her spell was absorbed by a distortion in the air, causing the area around the depression to flash and then shatter, like the breaking of a mirror. This revealed an assembled force of orcs surrounding a twelve-foot-tall, deep red colored balor in the center, flanked with three trolls. A young Talon sorcerer stepped from behind the demon half-breed creature and yelled out a command to prepare to attack, and then he fired a lightning bolt at Beckann. The deadly bolt was readily absorbed by her spell shield. Desiran then spurred, fiercely gazing at the hybrid demon, her horn glowing in an anticipation of a fight

“Surprised, apprentice?” she asked the younger sorcerer, who crumbled his tanned forehead over his thick black eyebrows. He quickly composed himself and gave the command to attack in Morgathian, at which the balor spread its bat-like wings, brandished its oversized flaming axe, and took to flight. The orcs charged toward Beckann and the wagons. She immediately cast a flame wall spell that forced the orcs to go around. The cavalry behind the elf wizard charged the attacking orcs, even though they were outnumbered at least three to one.

The Morgathian sorcerer whirled his short staff over his head, dark crystal pulsating, and cast a fireball at Beckann. She spurred her unicorn forward, almost launching from its position, the flaming sphere hitting their combined spell shields in the back half of the unicorn, inflicting only a portion of its energy on them. The sorcerer knew from the way she absorbed both spells without much effort that he was facing a powerful wizard. His master Ashram told him the attack on the Battle Point support corps wagons would be a massacre. This was now going to be a tough fight, especially without a mount.

Beckann unleashed a meteor swarm spell, firing six large projectiles of fiery energy at the standing sorcerer. His shield took the impact from all six, but it shook him mightily. He called for the balor in Draconic to aid him in the fight with the elf. The demonic creature immediately turned from his attack on the wagons and headed back to the sorcerer.

Beckann knew she could handle the apprentice sorcerer or the demon, but both at the same time would be a challenge, and all the while also trying to defend the support corps soldiers. She raised a small vial, touched it to her staff, and quickly formed the viscid liquid in the shape of an arrow. She then sent it darting toward the nearest troll, which was trying to catch up to Desiran. The acid arrow sped toward the hideous nine-foot-tall green and brown creature. The missile struck the charging troll, covering it in the caustic liquid, which quickly started to dissolve the creature. Troll skin, while tough and rubbery, was very susceptible to acid attacks. It let out a shrill cry as it fell, with its skin smoking as it dissolved.

Desiran galloped fast around the sorcerer as Beckann prepared another spell; three orcs then ran toward the charging unicorn. The large brilliant white mount lowered its head and speared the first orc, slicing it through its side, killing it instantly. Beckann whirled her staff over her head, bringing it down on the second orc as they galloped past. The power from her dragonstone staff blew the orc off its feet, sending it flying. The large unicorn trampled over the third orc like it wasn’t even there.

A large fireball struck the ground in front of Beckann, causing Desiran to rear up from her charge. While the blast was a miss, the secondary effects of the spell were absorbed by their magic shields. The balor then dove on the elf, his flaming axe poised to strike, but Beckann parried the powerful blow with her staff.

An amazing feat
, the junior Talon sorcerer thought to himself at how a thin female elf could parry such a mighty blow from the balor’s oversized axe, not knowing that she had hastily cast an energy sword spell on her own staff. As Beckann stopped, her blonde silvery hair blew in the rush of hot air from the fireball explosion, and her blue-violet eyes glared skyward as she extended her staff and cast a chain lightning spell. Bolts of white hot lightning fired in rapid succession from the dragonstone, as she bracketed the balor. It attempted to evade but the fourth bolt found its mark as well as the next several. The demon was knocked off of its flight path as Beckann’s bolts slammed into its magic shield.

The fifth hit smashed the balor’s shield, and two more sent it spiraling out of the sky, crashing with a good thud behind the apprentice sorcerer. She then turned Desiran toward him and prepared another spell as a lightning bolt struck their shield. The unicorn lowered its head and charged. Beckann pointed her staff forward like a paladin’s lance and uttered a few words in Draconic, as a disruption ray beamed toward the sorcerer. The bright beam hit his shield, shattering it, causing him to be knocked on his backside. Just as he got up, he barely ducked in time as the unicorn’s horn sliced into his shoulder, twirling him around and onto the ground, clutching the bleeding laceration.

Beckann edged Desiran toward the balor as it just started to rise from its crash landing. The unicorn lowered its horn again as it charged, with the demon raising its flaming axe to strike. Beckann knew that the balor was on its last legs; she didn’t want to waste a more powerful spell on it, so she quickly spoke the Draconic word for sword. At once her staff’s dragonstone projected an image of a sword made of light energy in front of her, which then solidified. She sent the energy blade forward and directed it to strike the balor from its left. As the demon parried the blow from the glowing sword, Desiran charged headlong at it and gored it in the center of its chest. The yellow-white horn easily sunk into the dark reddish dragon-like hide, its magical energy transferring into the evil creature. Desiran pulled back quickly to avoid a claw slash or a swing from the demon’s large axe; the dark purplish blood dripped from her horn and poured from its chest. It fell to its knees, one oversized clawed hand clutching its wound, the other driving the axe into the ground, its flames extinguishing.

“Back to the underworld, demon spawn,” Beckann confidently scowled at the dying balor; it fell forward, vanquished, but then it exploded. Her shield held against the blast, but the tremor was ferocious. A disintegration ray then hit her spell shield from the rear. The deadly beam was stopped but did a great deal of damage to the elf’s and unicorn’s magic shields. They turned around to face the sorcerer, who had a look of surprise in not getting the effect that he quite desired by his most powerful spell. She then spurred Desiran forward toward the sorcerer, the light sword staying right with them.

Without his shield, the sorcerer knew he was now almost defenseless, but he quickly prepared another spell, even though the dark crystal in his staff was nearing the end of the power he could summon from it. Beckann wanted to capture this young upstart rather than vanquish him for whatever knowledge he might possess, but she would not endanger her unicorn either. As she bore down on him, he managed to conjure up a freezing ray spell and fired it at her at the last second before she was upon him, but his quick aim and the nimbleness of Desiran caused the icy beam to only glance the shield of the powerful unicorn.

She then directed her conjured sword to move in and strike him; he parried the first blow with his black iron staff. The hovering light sword struck at him again, and again, until a final cleaving strike severed the staff in half, knocking him to the ground. “Yield, dark sorcerer, and your life shall be spared,” she commanded.

“Never, I know what you Alliance vermin do to prisoners. And I will not have my family put in the dungeons of Aserghul,” the sorcerer spat back at her.

“Surely, even though you are young, you do not believe the Morgathian propaganda and lies they spew about the Alliance?” she asked him.

“I know what I am told,” he said, “and I know what happens to the families of those that surrender. They are sacrificed to the chromatics to pay for our cowardice and regain honor from Tiamat.”

“Your loyalties are misplaced, and as for your surrender, you will be protected and kept in secrecy by the elves and the Weir. That you have my promise,” she offered to him.

“I can only offer this, elf!” he screamed as he took the half of his staff that had the dark crystal and thrust it into his chest. The pointed end of the staff pierced his heart, and the black purplish crystal absorbed into his body. He fell back convulsing as the dark energy transferred into him, as he repeated an incantation in the chromatic dialect of Draconic. His whole body became immersed in a dark light that drew in the two closest orcs, and then he burst. When the debris from the explosion subsided, two balors appeared; he had transformed the orcs in his dying move, and they now stood in front of Beckann and her mount. Just as the demon on the left raised his dark crimson claw to cast a spell, a powerful bolt of lightning struck it, as the holy Draconic word uttered by Watterseth echoed like a clap of thunder across the plain. The tall Weir cleric cast his most powerful smiting spell, and coupled with the power of his holy mace, it utterly destroyed the demon, shattering it, while also containing its death throes explosion.

“Thought you could use the help, my lady, plus I live to smite demons,” the cleric shouted to her as he galloped up on a borrowed Battle Point warhorse.

“Any help is always appreciated, my dear holy man. Now we still have this one last problem to deal with,” Beckann said, turning to the other balor, who was just getting up from being knocked down from his companion’s dying implosion. The demon raised his non-sword hand and spoke in Draconic, as he cast a fire storm spell, which unleashed a torrent of flames that engulfed the riders and their mounts. Both their spell shields held firm, especially Watterseth’s, for his defensive power against evil magic rivaled Jodem’s.

Watterseth cast a powerful dispel ray that eradicated both the flames and the balor’s shield. Beckann then sent her light sword to attack the demon. As it was parrying the blows from the spell sword, Watterseth prepared another spell from his mace. “I’ll give him a sonic blast to injure him, then you send him back to hell,” Watterseth told Beckann, who nodded an acknowledgment.