Wobbling quickly away from the battlefield he was previously at, Aldrich moved closer to the dragon roost. All around him were burning buildings and debris. There were signs of human knights riding past this point as evident from the trail of hooves.
Also evident were human trails that led off to his battle site which meant that the surrounding human warriors came from this direction, or rather some did at least. He still couldn’t let down his guard, but it gave him some comfort that perhaps many, judging from the number of humans that attacked him, were no longer in front of him, but behind him in the flames.
His own trail was ignorable as the humans probably knew where he was headed anyways. As he was thinking this he came upon a gruesome scene. He didn’t see any bodies before, of villagers or invaders, but he now figured out why. Trailing up to a small plaza were bodies of both villagers and invaders. Quickly set up barricades, filled with tables and furniture, blocked parts of the road. Fierce fighting could be seen from both sides as each step steadily increased with bodies until Aldrich entered the plaza. Within were almost a hundred bodies, all dead. Men, women, and children from the village all laid still.
Aldrich’s heart, though steeled from the trial he faced before the one he faced alone, was not enough to blunt the overwhelming sense of failure he felt. He called out,
“Is anyone still alive? Please answer.”
“This is Dragon Aldrich Elden Agnis of the Dragon Guardians.”
He hobbled through the bodies, listening past the black flames and the sounds of distant fighting.
“Please, anyone. Anyone! Please… answer.”
His voice trails off with every single body he runs across. He could see the eyes and expression of each dead villager. Some were in pain, others in rage. Others in fear and plenty in tears. The ones which broke him into his own tears were the ones huddled together with dead eyes of hope. Even with spears and swords in them, these eyes looked to the sky… for no answer.
He failed. While on some level he knew that his own friends who were at the southern side of the village could not have gathered these villagers on their path back to the dragon roost and he himself held the southwest of the village for a time, he still felt responsible. He was close to the eastern side of the village, where he imagined the majority of the human invaders were coming from considering that was the side closest to the border.
Shedding tears, he moved on. This was no place to stop and even as devastated as he felt, he still needed to get back to the dragon roost. The villagers there still needed him. With a slightly renewed focus, he moved to leave the area before hearing a faint crying. It wasn’t exactly close, but it didn’t matter. Aldrich took off running towards the crying.
The direction was further into the middle of the village. All while more bodies would turn up sporadically. Some around the corner, others along the road. These people were no longer alive. The crying faded and among the flames, he couldn’t pinpoint the location. Aldrich’s mind began to race. He couldn’t let this one disappear too. Putting every single bruised and battered fiber of his being into action, he focused on the fading crying. So focused he was that he momentarily forgot his pain. With another burst of crying, he instantly sprint towards a burning house.
He could hear the crying from within. Surrounding the house was a wall of flames. Opening his mouth to breathe the white flames of cleansing, he quickly found out that his magic power had massively diminished. Instead, he held his magic breath, charging it at slow rate before blowing down the door and cleansing a path to inside.
Entering inside he saw two figures beyond the flames. One was a small one sitting beside the other who was lying down. The wooden part of the building was starting to fall apart, but the earthen made wall and columns still held. This however, was still dangerous to the two inside. Aldrich called out.
“Hey! I’m coming so just hold on.”
A voice responded through the now stifled crying.
“Help.”
“I know. Just hold on.”
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
In his way were fallen logs and planks that burned with cursed flames. Even parts of the floor burned. He didn’t have time to charge up white breaths for every obstacle. Instead, he tried casting a shield type spell with voice magic.
“Shield!”
The shield appeared, but quickly withered away. Good enough he thought before using it to cover his arms. With each voice cast, he proceeded to smash his way through the logs of flames, using the shield spell as temporary armor. Eventually he broke through and reached the ones inside.
Sitting next to a young cat-kin woman was a little cat-kin girl. Her age barely allowed her to speak, but yet she said in broken draconian,
“Help. Mr. Dragon. Please.”
He recognized them from earlier during the day. The little cat-kin’s hands were full of blood, in fact blood pooled all around the adult cat-kin. The adult was cut down from behind and she laid down on her stomach. A massive cut was slashed across her back. She also had received multiple stabs through her torso, most likely when she was downed. Aldrich could only assume the worst, but heard a very very very faint rasp from the woman. He closed in on her instantly. She wasn’t dead. A small, minuscule amount of hope appeared in Aldrich’s hopeless heart. Aldrich’s mind raced. What to do? What to do? He couldn’t move her as she’ll most likely die from it. The house was burning down so he had little time. He could not simply wait to regain his magic. Slowly his thoughts turned to abandonment of the woman and saving just the child. He takes a look at the child. Her cheeks were full of tears, her nose full of snot. Her clothes were dirty with ash and dirt, but when he looked at her eyes he only saw an endless amount of hope. Eyes that believed he, the dragon just the ones in the legends told to every child in the village, would come save the day.
So he racked his head instead. How could he forget just so recently that he had failed. He will not fail this little cat-kin nor her mother. Putting in any of his already exhausted magic power to use, he casted “Little Heal”. He needed to close the wound and prevent her from bleeding out. Her body glowed slightly, it failed. The anti-magic was sucking the spell dry from him. The spell was a single activated spell, meaning he could not sustain the spell after it was casted. Then he must move on. What else did he have? The spell “Regeneration” could work, but it required for the woman to have usable blood in order to speed up her own recovery process. Her blood was currently all over the floor.
Damn it. What else can he do? What else did he have? Have? Potions of course. Casting “User Interface” with a voice cast and then “Storage Box”, he opened up his inventory. He should have something in there. Cure poison, ice resistance, holy water, all of these vials were completely useless right now. He knew he had one in here. While digging through some more with his arm, he kept a watch on the fires and the woman. The rasping was starting to disappear outright and the fires were closing in every second. He was running out of time. Finally he found it. The “Restore Body” potion. He popped out the cork on the potion with his teeth before pouring it on the woman. Her body glowed slightly but stopped, however that’s not what he needed. The liquid had begun bonding to her body, but she was still bleeding out. Immediately he voiced “Regeneration” and focused on it. The magic waned a little but Aldrich’s focus would not be stopped even when the little cat-kin girl screamed when the roof began to collapse around them. He could not be interrupted if he wanted to succeed. Little by little her back and the stab wounds recovered until it all was sealed. The woman herself however stopped breathing.
Aldrich sat there in utter silence. He failed. Again. She died before he was done. He gets up to move on before she coughs and sputters blood. Surprised, Aldrich hesitates before sitting her to help her breath better though in this room it was hard. Smoke filled most of the room and now Aldrich realizes that the fire was on top of them. Getting the little cat-kin behind him, he opened his mouth to charge a white breath and clear his way out only to realize that nothing came out. In fact the initial happiness that he actually saved someone covered for his utter complete exhaustion of his inner magic. He could still move however and that was all he needed. He resolved himself to bash his way out through the earthen walls. As he slammed against it, the building shook violently. He knew he only had several actions left before it all came crumbling down. He would probably survive, but the other two would not.
Picking them out and moving them next to the earth wall, he counted
“1”
Before slamming into the wall. Logs of flames fell all over the house.
“2”
The house was surely going to collapse now.
“3!!!”
With a mighty slam, the wall caved in and with it was the ceiling. He immediately returned from his force that pushed him outside to cover the two cat-kin and spread out his wings and limbs. Cursed flames battered him from above, causing to cry out in pain. He felt each and every burn and acidic melt of his flesh. With a push he sent both him and the cat-kins to the outside. Still on fire, he pulled out his bottle of holy water and doused himself.
The pain was causing him to lose consciousness and he stumbled onto the floor. It was subsiding but it still grounded him. He watched the little cat-kin leave the adult and move over to him. She started crying before touching him, moving her hand from his seared scales, missing flesh, and onto where his wings were supposed to be. He knew. The amount of pain, the lack of weight, he knew his wings were gone, burned away and torn off. Tears flooded out of his eyes, but he stood up slowly. He still had to get the cat-kin back to the dragon roost. He looked to the sky. The darkness of it was illuminated by the cursed flames, but the night was still young and it was not over.