David Wells - Cursed Bones

“You’re broken in the head, Zuhl. You’re going to die, permanently, before this is all over. See, while I was looking for you, I actually found the chamber where you keep your real body. I know,” Alexander said, holding up his hands to forestall Zuhl’s protest, “your chamber is warded, I shouldn’t be able to see inside, but I can. I figured out how to circumvent those kinds of magical defenses a few weeks ago. In short, I know where you sleep, and one of these days, I’m going to walk into that room and cut you in half.”

“And yet today, here you stand, nothing but a projection, impotent. Even if you do manage to kill me, how will you defeat them?” Zuhl asked, presenting his army with an outstretched hand. “Face it, you’re doomed, it’s just a matter of time … and I’m very patient.”

“Without you, your soldiers will lose interest in the rest of the world and go back to fighting each other.”

“So kill me then, if you can,” Zuhl said, then held up his hand with a look of confusion mixed with concern as he examined a ring on his middle finger that was glowing brightly.

“How can this be?” Zuhl said, looking out at the giant dragon aerie and seeing nothing to indicate any trouble, then walking quickly out the door, his guards falling in behind him without a word.

Alexander shifted to the clearing where Ixabrax was hiding.

“Zuhl knows what we’re doing-they might need your help.”

“Understood,” Ixabrax said, unfurling his wings and stretching them before launching into the sky.

“We haven’t much time,” Izzulft said, midflight. “Zuhl will know I’m free and he’ll order the others to fight or flee.”

He landed briefly, carefully depositing Abigail on the floor, but leaving her off-balance just the same, before leaping on top of Nix, his mate, and pinning her head to the ground, exposing the collar to Abigail.

“Quickly,” Izzulft hissed.

In the same moment that Abigail cut Nix’s collar, all four of Ixabrax’s siblings came awake, roaring in unison. Rather than fight, they launched into the sky, one after the other, flying from the aerie into the night.

Izzulft didn’t hesitate, he snatched Abigail up again, ignoring the threat the Thinblade posed to him, or perhaps trusting Abigail to avoid harming him, and launched into the sky toward the nearest of his children attempting to escape.

If felt like time slowed down for Abigail as she watched events unfold, helpless as she was, clutched in a dragon’s claw. Soldiers poured into the aerie from three different entrances while drakini floated into the aerie from above. Izzulft gained with each stroke of his powerful wings, reaching his child just before he reached the opening atop the dome-shaped aerie. With his free foreclaw, Izzulft grabbed his child’s leg and dragged him back into the aerie, bringing him down hard, protecting Abigail, though not gently, while subduing his son and holding his head still so Abigail could cut his collar.

The collar came free easily. She looked up to see soldiers everywhere, then the turmoil was interrupted by Ixabrax, roaring in challenge as he descended into the aerie, savagely attacking the drakini before landing in front of Abigail and Izzulft.

“You have done well, Ixabrax,” Izzulft said, “but we still have family to free.”

“These humans are necessary,” Ixabrax said. “We must preserve them.”

“Agreed,” Izzulft said, turning toward a troop of soldiers fanning out to surround Anatoly, who was already battling three men. The huge dragon belched forth a great cloud of super-cold air that billowed out, engulfing the entire platoon, freezing them solid to a man in moments.

“Gather your human friends and we will make our escape,” Izzulft said, turning back toward another platoon of soldiers and freezing them solid as well. Frozen statues spread out in a battle line, terribly lifelike, terribly still.

Ixabrax moved to surround Abigail with his body and wings while dealing fatal damage with his tail and teeth to any drakini that ventured too close.

“Call your friends to you,” Ixabrax commanded.

Abigail climbed up onto his neck and settled into a space between two of his back bone spikes, drawing an arrow and taking careful aim, letting it fly just a moment after she sat down, killing a soldier circling around behind Anatoly without anyone’s notice.

The big man-at-arms and Magda were squared off against twelve of Zuhl’s palace guard, brutish soldiers, most of them bigger than Anatoly and they were fanning out to surround the two of them.

Magda raised her hand and fired nine light-blue darts formed of magical energy, targeting three of the soldiers that had gotten closest. Each took three to the chest in rapid succession, Magda calmly selecting her targets and unleashing her magic at them, one right after the other. Each collapsed in turn, sputtering blood and groaning in pain.

The remaining men rushed them, raising a terrible battle cry as they charged. Anatoly hurled forward to meet them, stretching out with his axe, and bringing it down on the nearest soldier as quickly as possible, sacrificing balance for first blood. The blade cleaved into the man’s shoulder, driving him to his knees, wounding him seriously but not fatally. Anatoly nearly stumbled, going to one knee, bringing his axe in and then thrusting out into the midsection of the next nearest soldier, stabbing the top spike through his belly and out his back.

Soldiers collapsed in on him from all sides. A battle axe across the right shoulder turned him away from his attacker. A sword thrust into his left side staggered him, knocking the wind out of him despite the protection of his armor. Another sword thrust to the back drove him forward, opening his guard and slightly stunning him. A giant of a man stepped up in front of him with a war hammer held high. All Anatoly could do as the hammer fell was lean into it, take the blow on his dragon-scale helm, and hope to remain conscious.

He was driven to his hands and knees, his axe clattering to the floor beneath him, his head swimming in confusion and pain. The man with the hammer smiled down on him, raising his hammer for a second blow … but then he stopped, the war hammer slipping from his grasp and clattering to the ground behind him as he staggered to his knees, an arrow through the neck. Another fell a moment later with a shaft through the head to the feathers. He’d made the fatal mistake of separating from the group attacking Anatoly just enough for Abigail to feel certain of her shot.

Magda completed her spell, brandishing a longsword of blue-white magical energy and charging into the fray. She circled just behind the nearest soldier attacking Anatoly and stabbed him through the heart, drawing the attention of the man Anatoly had first wounded. Holding the wounded man’s eyes, she casually circled another soldier and killed him with one stroke of her conjured sword.

A soldier grabbed Anatoly, ignoring the commotion taking place in the background, and pulled his head back, exposing his face to two soldiers standing before him. Anatoly came up on his knees, bringing a knife up in each hand, stabbing under each man’s breastplate into the soft flesh of their lower bellies. Both men shrieked in sudden agony, spasming backward and collapsing to the ground in writhing pain.

The man behind him raised a knife but fell with an arrow through the skull. Anatoly staggered to his feet, war axe in hand, and scanned the battleground. Magda killed the last of the men confronting them with a well-placed trust to the heart. Seeing the enemy dispatched, she let go of her blade and it fell to the ground, vanishing before it hit.

Abigail beckoned to them.

The aerie was now home to a confused, mostly aerial battle with the drakini trying to attack the soft membranes between the bone struts on the dragons’ wings. Unfortunately for the drakini, the dragons were very good at killing them when they got anywhere close. All four dragons stood, back to back, in the center of the aerie and fought the drakini and any soldiers that were fool enough to charge into a dragons’ lair.