The Forsaken Hero

The walls of the slave quarters blurred past us as Fable raced down the hallway. Lava dribbled from cracks in the ceiling or bubbled up from fissures in the floor, hissing beneath Fable’s paws. His silver darkened with ash and flecked with small glowing cinders, like stars in the night sky.

Tremors of pain wracked my soul, keeping me bent over his shoulders, whimpering softly. Bursts of hostile auras, accompanied by piercing shrieks, caused me to huddle closer, but Fable trampled any lava elementals in our path with impunity.

As Fable slowed to a trot, I mustered my strength and lifted my head, staring around. The dull black walls of the slave quarters were fractured, the floor buried under chunks of rubble. A gaping hole in the ceiling continued through the next several floors, ending with the red-pained ceiling found only in the servant’s quarters.

I tightened my grip as Fable tensed and squeezed my eyes shut as he launched himself up the tunnel he’d burrowed through the spire. His paws touched down, and before I could gather myself, we were racing down another corridor.

The servant quarter crackled with orange flames, smoke drifting in a thick haze. I kept my head low, coughing into my sleeve. My wards filtered the harmful particulates and intense heat, but I hadn’t yet found a ward to keep the dry air from sucking every molecule of moisture from my throat, leaving it cracked and raw. The itch worsened the longer we stayed, and now blood flecked every cough.

I swooned, growing lightheaded as another problem became apparent. The lower floors had nothing to burn, but in the upper levels, furniture, carpet, and fabric smoldered in every corner. The fires were voracious, sucking the oxygen from the enclosed tunnels. Yet another danger I’d never anticipated nor prepared for.

My coughing grew weaker, and I laid my head back on Fable’s shoulders, gasping erratically. Every breath was empty, my lungs burning as hot as the embers kicked up in Fable’s wake.

A bright light pierced the gloom, extending like a sunbeam toward me. I raised my hand toward it, groping empty air. Was it Luke? Had he come to save me?

His face played across the shadows clouding my vision, and I tried to smile, only to wince as my lips split into bloody cracks. Water. I needed water but couldn’t focus enough to cast a spell.

The light grew brighter, enveloping me. My next breath stung, causing me to gasp. My eyes fluttered open, and I stared up dazedly. The sun? But the sun was outside. We were...also outside?

A deafening roar shook the earth, and the light disappeared. I saw a dragon wheeling above us, cutting off the late evening sun with its massive coils. The sunlight dyed red as it filtered through the sheets of fire cascading from its body.

Yeah, we were definitely outside.

Air flooded my lungs as I remembered to breathe. Violent coughs ripped through my throat as my lungs struggled to recover. I frantically soul-cast a low-level water spell, splashing it haphazardly across my face. It led to another bout of coughing, but with a little healing magic, the inflammation started to die, and the itch faded.

”Fable...” I moaned.

Tears welled up in my eyes, and my fingers curled into his fur, seeking something to hold. I’d lost track of how many different ways I’d almost died, but suffocating deep underground, trapped by all and choked by smoke, was a horror of its own. Right now, more than anything, I yearned for a hand to hold or a shoulder to cry on.

Fable broke into a dead sprint, the acceleration clawing at my fragile body. The broken landscape blurred into a formless mass, interrupted only by bursts of aura or fire from the monsters above.

The next thing I knew, we were standing behind in the ruins of a scorched courtyard, sheltered from the dragons’ auras by a toppled tower. Avant stared at us from between a fallen parapet and the smoldering barrel of a mana cannon.

”You look dreadful,” he said.

I nodded, too tired to respond. He wasn’t waiting for one, already raising his arms and chanting a spell. I slipped from Fable’s back, collapsing to my knees, watching with little interest as eight magic circles appeared around him.

”It won’t work,” I mumbled, closing my eyes and leaning back on my heels. ”I touched my forehead, my fingers coming away gray with ash and grime.

He shot me a scathing look, continuing to chant until the spell finished.

”Glacial Rend!” he shouted.

The magic circles combined into a single ice-blue circle the same circumference as the fallen tower. Tendrils of mana erupted from the runes, streaming into the center of the magic circle and forming a small, dense ball of ice.

As the last of the power condensed, the circle faded. Avant thrust his hand forward, and the sphere shot into the air, missing the nearest dragon by a hundred feet. It continued until it disappeared from view.

I frowned, glancing at the mage, but his lip curled smugly.

”Think I missed? Heh, younglings these days.”

I shook my head. ”No, I’m just wondering why you’re wasting mana. You barely hurt it the last time you tried this.”

”What the hell are you going on about?” he asked, eyes fixed on the sky. ”Just enjoy the show. This should give Elaine the opening she needs.”

Dark clouds exploded out from a singular point just beneath the layer of smoke blanketing the sky, right where the ice sphere had disappeared. The temperature fluctuated, cooling a few degrees before a random gust of fire swept over our position.

By the time the flames died down, the clouds had thickened, swirling above the dragons like a miniature hurricane. Hail descended from the storm in thick waves, but it melted before reaching the dragons.

”Now,” Avant said, snapping his fingers.

Titanic hailstones broke through the clouds like whales breaching in the ocean, filling the sky with icebergs the size of skyships.

One of the dragons roared as it was struck near its hind limb, spiraling down in a blaze of ice and fire. The other, warned by its cry, spun back, releasing a blast of fire that diverted the path of the mountain-sized chunks of ice raining upon it.

A gleaming red mote of light streaked through the air, striking the falling dragon in its head. A tremendous surge of mana, rivaling the eight-level spell in power, cut a jagged arc into the dragon’s skull, sending literal rivers of blood cascading in all directions. The dragon’s blood was thick and viscous, glowing like lava and hissing as it hit the ground.

The dragon struck the ground hard, kicking up ash and dust. A mansion crumbled beneath the bulk of a single coil, and its tail rolled across the ground, knocking over ridges and mountains. Shockwaves from the impact rolled through the ground, causing jets of molten lava to spew from newly opened fissures.

”Your power is useful, filthblood,” Avant said, grinning. ”But your experience and battle sense are lacking. Eighth-circle spells are more powerful than you give them credit for and can certainly harm Ninth-level beings.”

”Four seconds,” I said.

”Hmm?” He raised an eyebrow.

I gestured at the dragon struggling on the ground. Another explosion indicated Elaine had landed a solid hit.

”That’s how long before it regenerates. Large-scale destruction spells only work if they have wings.”

”Wings? Since when have the Magma Tyrants had wings?” Avant scoffed.

”I...don’t know,” I held my head, squeezing my eyes shut as it started to hurt again. ”There’s was once, no twice, that they–no, wait, maybe it was...somewhere? They had wings once. I know it!” I cried.

”Calm yourself, child. Your prattling is distracting,” he said, raising his hands to cast another spell.

”Now,” I said, staring at the dragon.

As if on cue, the dragon roared and surged into the sky again. I pointed my staff and soulcast a fifth-level spell, ignoring the sharp pain in my soul.

”Wind Sail.”

A small, ghostly blue magic circle materialized several hundred feet away, hovering fifty feet above a burning hamlet. The smoke shifted as air currents wove together, forming an invisible fabric of wind.

Avant raised an eyebrow, but I ignored him, pouring as much mana as possible into the spell.

The dragon swiped with its claw, striking the small, glowing dot that was Elaine. She careened through the air, smashing directly into the Wind Sail. The air cushioned her fall, dispersing most of her momentum and allowing her to land on her feet.

I waved my hand, and the sail folded around her, pulling her toward us. She caught on quickly and sent a spurt of mana into her legs, sprinting toward us. I let the spell go, sinking back against Fable, sweat dampening my forehead.

”Good catch,” she said, panting lightly as she landed beside us. ”I assume you found something?”