***
Morgan clung on as Yolandra dived, even as she put a shield around herself and the dragon. Blinking past tears, she prayed her mother and Edana were alright. She’d seen a scarlet shield surround Edana before Thorgoth had hit her so perhaps they were fine, but truthfully she had no idea.
What she did know was that Hattie and Fennokra had crashed into the ground. The dragon had managed to avoid hitting any allied formations but she lay groaning.
“Fennokra!” Yolandra’s claws skidded, sending shudders up through her limbs. Morgan leapt off. Her wide eyes searching for her friend.
To her relief, she saw the half troll some distance away, waving her hand. She was leaning heavily on Silver Star and was covered with dust, but if the divot she’d crawled out of was any indication, she must have shielded her impact.
“I’m alright! What happened to Frances?” Hattie asked.
“She got hit, but I think Edana protected her. I don’t know what happened to them,” said Morgan. She swallowed. She didn’t want to think about what might have happened to her mother. Not when Thorgoth still stood.
“Morgan? Morgan!”
Hattie’s voice jolted Morgan back from her thoughts and she shook her head. “Sorry. Let’s… let’s help Fennokra first.”
The dragon was in a bad way. Gold ichor gushed from the gash in her side. Yolandra was trying her best to stem it but clumsy claws were not something that could clot such wounds. Fennokra’s groans had ceased and the dragon now only could whine.
“Yolandra, let go. I got this,” said Hattie. Raising Silver Star, the half-troll started to sing, her dark-blue magic covering the wound, she slowly began to knit it together.
Morgan didn’t know such advanced magic, so she stood guard, watching the fight.
There was a dwindling number of Thorgoth’s Royal Guard fighting near him. The king himself was locked in a duel by several mages. She spotted Master Kellyanne, Leila, and an Erisdalian lord with a wand engaging the king. More mages were arriving, some whom she recognized like Dwynalina and Mistress Spinealla and others that she didn’t.
Her communication talisman shook. Morgan grabbed it. “Hello?”
“Morgan, I’m fine and so is Edana. Is Hattie alright?” Frances asked
“Mom! Hattie’s fine! I’m…I’m so sorry—”
“That’s alright. I’m glad you were able to help, even if I am a little exasperated that you both put yourself in danger again. How’s the battle against Thorgoth?” Frances asked.
Morgan glanced back at the battle. She could see more friendly banners and formations arriving in the area. To make matters worse for Thorgoth and his forces, Telkandra was continuing to circle them. Every so often, once she saw an opportunity, she’d plunge down and spit a jet of flames at the king, forcing him to shield the blow. Before he could retaliate, the dragon would pull up and away, zig-zagging to make it too difficult to hit her.
“He’s surrounded along with his Royal Guard but they’re still fighting. I can see a lot of our allies coming in as well.”
Frances let out a sigh. “Good. That’ll keep him busy until I get back.”
“You’re going back?” Morgan squawked.
“I have a plan. I…I’m going to need your help, though. Stay with them. I’ll find you.”
“Alright mom. Love you,” said Morgan.
“Love you too. Stay safe.” Frances hung up, allowing Morgan to turn back to Hattie.
“Frances is safe. She said she had a plan to stop Thorgoth, and she’s coming for us,” said Morgan.
Before Hattie could answer, Fennokra let out a grunt, “What a strange world this is that I am relieved that the Stormcaller is alive.”
“Stranger still that the cause for our family’s dispute with the Stormcaller saved your life and now heals you,” said Yolandra. She gave the half-troll a toothy grin. “Thank you, Hattie.”
“It was the right thing to do,” said Hattie in a quiet voice, but she was smiling too as she continued to channel her magic into Fennokra
Yolandra snorted and gently touched her wing to Fennokra. “I need to help Telkandra. Rest well, sister.”
Fennokra nodded. “Oh I shall, but before you go, something just occurred to me. There’s an ally of Thorgoth’s that is unaccounted for.”
“Who?” Morgan asked.
“Queen Berengaria. Thorgoth has engaged the Firehand, the Stormcaller and now is fighting some of the best remaining mages of Durannon. Where is his queen?” Fennokra asked.
***
Helias’s fingers danced over his Fanghorn’s hilt as he watched Berengaria and her harpies come to a hover overlooking him and his command staff. Around him, more soldiers were running up to take his side, courtesy of Saika who was still muttering frantically into his communication device.
“General Helias! Countermand your order, immediately!” Berengaria hissed.
Helias pursed his lips. “You are the queen. You know you can do that yourself, right?” He kept his tone mild in an attempt to mask the tightness between his shoulders.
“General, I am ordering you to lead our army into battle or you, your wife and your children will die in agony!”
Under typical circumstances, Helias would have knelt. The harpy queen was a powerful mage and she had commanded authority and respect far greater than his own. Emphasis on “had commanded.”
“I don’t think that would do anything, Your Majesty. You already tried ordering them back into battle.” Helias smiled as the scowl that Berengaria already had turned ugly. “I heard you demand different commanders by name. None of the folk are listening to you and I doubt they would listen to your husband.”
“You moron. Don’t you understand that you surrendered to let yourself get fucked by these humans? They won’t ever let you or any of you traitors live after what you’ve all done!”
“I don’t doubt they probably want my head, but if the Alavari fighting with them are any indication, they won’t kill my surrendering soldiers, who you’ve been all too willing to throw away.” Helias drew his Fanghorn. “Last chance, Berengaria, surrender and spare us this stupid battle, if not for yourself, at least for the harpies with you.”
“When I put you down, I’ll send your wife and daughter with you!”
Berengaria fired a spell at him but Helias was already kicking his horse into motion. He dodged that first blast, and shot back with his own magic bolts.
The general knew he was at a bit of a disadvantage. Most of the troops Saika had gathered were from the reserves, a mixture of conscripts and battered veterans. He could see his command staff shooting back. Bands of panicking troops so young most were barely out of childhood rallying around grizzled old veterans with peg legs and hooks for hands.
Berengaria’s harpies were all from her personal retinue. Elite and fanatically loyal, they continued to reload and fire their carbines at the enemy. From experience, he knew that once they saw an opportune moment, they’d swoop down and attack the flanks of his soldiers.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
Grunting out a note, Helias put up a barrier to cover himself and Saika as Berengaria and one of her harpy mages blasted them with a fireball. Keeping a firm grip on his very very scared horse, the general rode away from his aide to try to draw the queen’s attention.
No, they were not going to survive this and from the looks of the other Alavari running for the camp, which was probably being looted by Titania’s forces. Hopefully, Sarah was safe.
“Fire!”
There was a thunderous roar of musketry. Volley after volley cut through the air, a barrage of lead that shattered wings and blackened feathers. Helias whirled his horse around and stared as Alavari and human musketeers in sky-blue reloaded with unerring speed. Meanwhile, cavalry carrying a great banner with a lightning bolt flying across from it, fired carbines and pistols in the air against the harpies. At their head was an armored woman with a warhammer hanging from her hip and a pistol in hand.
“General Helias, we meet again, under better circumstances. Did you truly give that order to surrender?” Elizabeth asked.
Helias nodded, pensively wondering how odd this situation had become. “Aye. The war’s gone on far enough. I only wished I could have given that order sooner. Did you bring any mages?”
“They’ve all been sent to contain Thorgoth. You just got me for the moment. That Queen Berengaria?” Elizabeth asked as she reloaded her pistol.
The harpy queen, circling overhead now, sneered at the pair. “Elizabeth the Otherworlder, Commander of the Lightning Battalion. Oh I will enjoy ending you.”
“Shouldn’t you go back to your husband, featherbag?” Elizabeth asked, raising her gun. “He’s not looking great.”
Berengaria shrieked, throwing a wicked-looking purple lance at Elizabeth. Helias blocked it and Elizabeth fired. The harpy was already lofting away, though, and yelling orders at her escort. They soared up, gaining altitude before flying for the king.
“I can’t believe there are still those willing to fight for them,” said Elizabeth. She glanced at Helias, expecting her longtime foe to say something.
The tauroll merely shrugged. “Don’t look at me. I didn’t recruit them and I’m done with their madness.”
“Touche,” said Elizabeth
“Touche?”
Tapping her head, Elizabeth sighed. “Nevermind. Helias, are you surrendering now?”
“I think I will surrender once we deal with that,” said Helias, pointing at the exchange of magic in the distance.
Elizabeth narrowed her eyes at the tauroll. His expression was carefully neutral, but his reasoning, especially given what had happened made perfect sense.
She just had to fight the tension in her being that urged her to stab the general in front of her and she forced herself to nod.
***
Timur had peeled away from Martin the moment he’d seen Frances and Edana go flying. He’d weaved between formations of soldiers and leapt over cannon-craters so quickly that he wasn’t sure how he hadn’t crashed into someone or fell into some hole.
When he reached Frances and Edana, he could see her standing, mirror open. Goldilora was seeing Edana and muttering something to the woman.
“Timur!” Frances closed her hand mirror as the prince practically leapt off his horse. In seconds his arms had wrapped around her. She was alive. Battered, shivering with exhaustion, but alive.
“Are you alright? Is Edana alright? What do you need?” he stammered.
“You. I need you.”
“Frances, I love you, but perhaps you—”
Frances kissed him gently on the chin, before touching her forehead to his lips. “No, I really do need you. I was about to call you to ask if you can give me a ride.”
Timur blinked. “Oh! Well of course.” As he offered Frances his hand to help her onto his horse, he asked, “Where to my dear?”
“To the battle with your father. I have a plan to defeat him, but we’ll need Morgan,” said Frances as Timur mounted his stallion.
“Alright, though, may I ask why? I thought you wanted to keep her from danger?” Timur asked. He found himself smiling slightly as his fiance wrapped her arms around him.
“I’m nearly out of magic. I’ll need her help to finish the spell, and yours too,” said Frances.
“Got it. Mom! I’m going now. Is Edana—”
“She’s going to be fine, but quite bruised. Thorgoth hit her with a nasty spell, but her shields absorbed most of the impact.” Goldilora looked up from her patient with gritted teeth. “Go! And make sure to come back!”
Timur, his eyes locked with his mother’s, steeled his resolve, and nodded. “Yes mom.” Touching his heels to his horse, he rode on.
“You don’t think that all the other mages are going to be able to defeat my father?” Timur asked.
Frances squeezed her prince, drawing reassurance from his mere presence. “No. With mom needing to disengage and me out of magic, I don’t think there is anybody else. What they can do is prevent him from escaping.”
The prince frowned. “Then how are we going to defeat him?”
Taking a deep breath, Frances closed her eyes and opened her mind to her wand. “I’m going to make it so we can defeat him. I’m not sure I will succeed, but it’s our only hope.”
Nervous as he was, Timur knew that Frances was likely just as if not more worried than he was. He had to reassure her but the words that usually sprang to his lips so easily refused to pass.
“Alright then. Let’s do it.”
“You’re not worried, Timur?”
“I am. I’m very worried. I don’t want to go to Thorgoth I want to take you away from this.” He looked over his shoulder, meeting Frances’ wide amber eyes. They told him what she needed to hear and what he realized he also wanted to say. “I dare not hope. My father terrifies me, but I believe in you Frances. I have faith in you. That will never change.”
Awkward as it was seated behind her prince, Frances pulled herself close to him and almost clambering up over the armor he wore, kissed his cheek. “Oh Timur. Thank you. You always know how to lift me up.”
“It’s the least I can do for the woman who saved me,” said Timur.
“We saved each other,” said Frances firmly, but she squeezed him gently before letting herself sit back down on the saddle.
Thorgoth awaited.
***
Ayax had to dismount before she entered the battle. Fire balls, rocks, blasts of magic, and explosions flew all over the place. The remnants of the Alavari Royal Guard and Allied troops had pulled away and were continuing to fight. Thorgoth’s guard were now down to a pathetically small cluster of soldiers from the large regiment they’d started off with.
The king himself was mid-combat with several mages. Kellyanne and Leila, despite never having worked together before, seemed to almost dance in a deadly duet. Leila was the main source of firepower as she continued to exchange fireballs with Thorgoth. Stepping between and around Leila, Kellyanne would intersperse these attacks with cunningly angled and swooping bolts of magic that sometimes nearly hit the king. Another human mage in armor added off angle magical whips before retreating behind walls of earth that he threw up.
From above, Telkandra and Yolandra continued to circle the Alavari king, diving on Thorgoth at any sign of distraction or weakness. This kept the Alavari king’s single eye occasionally glancing up at the sky, watching for the dragons.
Together, this concert was keeping the Demon King occupied. Maybe Frances had exhausted him, maybe he was still getting the measure of his opponents, but Thorgoth was not lashing out as hard as he had before.
Yet, Ayax could see a problem in the distance, one that made her raise her staff and start charging her cousin’s lightning spell. Straining her throat, going as quickly as she could from note to note, she screamed the final chord and pointed her staff.
Ayax had spotted Queen Berengaria and her harpies diving toward Thorgoth. They were flying fast, weaving between plumes of gunsmoke to obscure their path. In the dim light, the troll had glimpsed them by chance and she wasn’t going to just do nothing.
The rolling crack of lighting precluded a wickedly blue grasp reaching out towards the harpy and her guards. To Ayax’s disappointment, a sphere of golden magic wrapped around the harpy queen and the lightning splashed harmlessly off of it. The spell did cut down quite a few of her flying escorts.
Bracing herself, Ayax prepared to charge into the melee around Thorgoth when—
“**Otherworlders! Let’s kill this son of a bitch!”**Ayax’s head whipped around. George, one of their foremost warriors, was charging in at the head of a group of humans. The original two hundred Otherworlders from Glendale High School had dwindled to seventy. Amidst the allied forces, they all held a variety of roles: mage, ranger, warrior, healer, ranger, and commander.
Not since Freeburg years ago had all the Otherworlders been concentrated into a single force. It was too high risk, there were too many missions to accomplish, and then there had been the split due to the civil war. Yet, in this late hour, they charged in united.
The warriors and the rangers, with unerring speed, hurled themselves into battle with the Alavari Royal Guard. Wielding hammers, axes and swords they cleaved the formation apart. Elizabeth, riding in with the rest of the Lightning Battalion, slammed into the rear of the Royal Guard.
They were accompanied by… Huh? A Tauroll leading Alavari troops with an upside-down banner. This tauroll immediately dismounted to join the mage battle against Thorgoth.
Ignoring Helias for a moment, for he was firing bolts of magic at Thorgoth, Ayax joined the fight. The last remaining leader of the guard was a large ogre with a mace. He was duelling another Otherworlder with an ax. Ayax ducked in behind him and stunned him with a furious blow to the back of his helmet that sent him crumpling to the ground.
Finally, did the final ten members of the Royal Guard surrender, surrounded by a ring of spear and sword points.
“Liz!” Ayax found her Otherworlder who dismounted to embrace her. “Is that Helias?”
“Yes, it’s just Thorgoth now. Where’s Frances?” Elizabeth asked.
Wanda, one of the Otherworlder mages looked up from her communicator. “She and Edana took a hit, but she’s on her way with Timur. In the meantime, let’s see if we can bring him down.”
Ayax looked over to Thorgoth and Berengaria. The harpy queen was circling above Thorgoth’s head, doing her best to shoot back at the pair of dragons that flew even higher. It was allowing the Alavari king to focus on the increasing number of opponents in front of him.
Yet, despite the Otherworlders that were now joining the attack on him, Thorgoth danced. Using both the sword and wand in his hand, he parried or dodged strikes from lunging Otherworlders. Meanwhile, with his wand, he continued to send whips and scything cuts of violet magic at the mages around him.
“That might be a tall order,” said Ayax. Even so, she braced herself and ran into battle.
***