LEO
Leo took point, for what reason he didn’t know. It just felt right. Tern was not fully recovered and Nym was too small. Wyrhgon was not to be trusted, the green scaled dragon’s silvery tongue and manipulative words were better to stay away from.
The corridor was well lit, giving little opportunity for hiding, if someone would turn into it and look for them. It ended in another hallway. It didn’t look like the dragon’s hall. He stepped forward, but something grabbed him from behind and pulled him back.
“Quiet,” Wyrhgon snapped at him. “Watch your feet. Your shadow. Look how it falls. When the light is behind you, your shadow falls forward.”
Leo looked down, yes, the green dragon was correct. His body threw a shadow in front of them. “So, what?”
“There are golems in that chamber.” Wyrhgon. “I can smell their foulness.”
Tern floated forward, having a sneak peek. “Wyrhgon is correct, There are gangs of them. They are sacking the place.”
“Sacking? What does that mean? Are they putting themselves into sacks? Why?” Nym asked.
“Not really,” Leo said. “They are stealing some of your stuff and destroying the rest. But Saif attacked, why would he not wipe the invading force out as well?”
“He did. These must be eluding his senses,” Tern said.
Wyrhgon set him down again. “We will have to go around. I know another passage that puts us on the other side of the chamber and from that we will just have to sneak past them. We are in no shape or form ready for open conflict. Follow me.”
They backtracked almost all the way back to the first chamber, before Wyrhgon turned them into a branching corridor.
Leo had not noticed it before, maybe because he had so hastily taken the lead of this ragtag group of misfits. Wyrhgon knew these corridors already, and moved silently. His paws didn’t crunch against the loose rocks and pebbles which were scattered through the corridors. His motions were not disturbing anything that lay in their path. There would be no way to tell that a giant dragon had walked through here. Was Wyrhgon a master of stealth and sneakiness? An assassin. An assassin dragon. What a weird thought, but if Leo went by the evidence presented before him, this was the truth.
“Calm your mind, Leopold,” Wyrhgon. “You are thinking so hard, it’s leaking into the mental channel.”
“What?” Leo asked.
Tern brushed by his side. “It’s the truth. You humans think so hard. It has to be exhausting.”
“Why did you not te…,” Leo said.
“Halt. Quiet,” Wyrhgon said. “Back up, silently, but quickly. Into that side chamber.”
Leo grabbed Nym, the young dragon was not protesting and they went into the side chamber. Two dragon corpses were lying on the floor, they had not yet begun rotting. Tern followed him tightly, and Wyrhgon back into the chamber. The side chamber’s door was in pieces.
Wyrhgon pressed against the wall by the opening. “Two golems are walking down his corridor. They will pass this chamber. They will see us.”
“I only have a low yield laser, the one I used to cauterize your paw with. All my weaponry is offline,” Tern said. “I would need to consume another corpse to get more things online and without the proper amount of radiation all repairs will be undone in a few hours.”
“Consume a corpse?” Wyrhgon asked.
“Ahh. We didn’t really tell you the truth before,” Leo said.
Wyrhgon snapped at him. “Your omf consumed a dead dragon? Tern, you ate the corpse of a dragon? That is illegal. Did you eat Ozier’s body? His body was meant for the mountain!”
“Oh, wait a moment,” Leo said.
“We don’t have time for this bickering,” Tern said. “The golems are approaching. Yes, I consumed Ozier. But he was dead. His soul was long gone, the corpse was just a hunk of flesh. Dead all the way through. If I had not used him to regain some of my strength, I would not have been able to save you, Wyrhgon. You would have bled out right there besides Ozier.”
“Please, don’t argue,” Nym said, still snuggled in Leo’s arms. “Adults like to argue, and I don’t like it.”
Wyrhgon raised his upper lip, revealing rows of impressively sharp fangs. “We will deal with this afterwards. Human, you and the ball, will have to handle the golem on the left. I will take the one on the right. I cannot take on both of them in my current state. We need to be fast and silent. We cannot have them raise the alarm. When I say go, go.”
“I don’t have any weapons,” Leo said.
“I am trying to tune up my low yield laser, I might be able to cut the connective tissue between the golem’s boulders,” Tern said.
“Okay,” Leo said, putting down Nym. “You, hide behind those bodies. Stay still and quiet,” Leo said and Nym followed his order. “Tern, what do you want me to do?”
“Keep its attention trained on you, so I can get into position,” Tern said.
Leo nodded and swallowed. If one of their stony arms hit him, he would be turned into a pancake.
“Be ready now,” Wyrhgon said. “Three. Two. One. Go.”
Wyrhgon was already on top of his target before Leo even managed to get out of the chamber. He stepped forward and tackled the golem, but the boulder strung creature was way too heavy and barely moved.
The golem’s arm came fast and in an overhead smash. Leo sidestepped, feeling the rock surface brush by his face with just an inch to spare. Alright, they were slow, he could use that. The other stone arm came from the side instead and he threw himself down to the floor. The stone arm struck his shoulder and he whimpered. A shadow grew above him, as the golem prepared to slammed down on his back. Leo tried rolling away, but his shoulder hurt too much.
A laser beam seared at the golem’s joints. Tern floated by its neck. The golem turned sharply around and struck the omf, who crashed into the wall, sending torrents of dust and pebbled into the air. The golem turned to him again, it was wounded by the neck joint, but the laser beam had not been able to burn through the connective tissue.
Leo grunted and rolled underneath the golem, its overhead smash missed him.
Instead of going for a powerful strike yet again, the golem simply grabbed him and lifted him up.
“Fuck,” Leo said, unable to struggle out from the hold.
The golem placed a hand on Leo’s head, it was about to crack his skull open like an egg.
“No!” Nym jumped on top of the golem and sprayed liquid fire at the golem’s neck joint.
There was a moment of confusion on the golem’s face, but then its head boulder rolled off and landed on the floor. Leo landed on his side on the floor as the remains of the golem collapsed into a heap.
“Thanks, Nym. I had forgotten about that fire thing,” Leo said. “Tern, my shoulder is hurting.”
Nym nodded, obviously feeling proud of herself. “That is one of the first things that develops in us dragons, we use the fire to burst open the very egg we are born in. ‘Baptized in fire,’ as the older dragons say. Whatever that means.”
“Why not use your claws instead? Bird-like creatures are known to peck out through their shells. It seems a bit more effective,” Tern said.
“Claws or liquid fire,” Nym said. “I know what I would have picked.”
“Tern, my shoulder is hurting!” Leo said.
“You are bruised, you will be fine,” Tern said.
Wyrhgon lumbered back to them, the anger in his arrow-like snout was directed at them. “You, ball. If you want some corpses to eat. Use these golems. If I ever see you touch my kin again, I will shatter you.”
Actually a good idea. But Leo didn’t want to give Wyrhgon the credit, they could be boosting that egotistical dragon even more.
Tern floated over the two shattered golems. “It will have to do.”
Tern started vibrating and moved closer, touching the boulder pieces with the surface of his shell. After a tense moment, the boulders started sinking into him, as if they were melting into his shell. “This will do well.”
“Wyrhgon, I still hold the same opinion. Why not use the corpses? They are wasting away anyway,” Leo said.
“Are all humans this inconsiderate?” Wyrhgon said. “This has been our tradition for millions of years. You cannot come here and tell us to behave any differently. You have no say in it. None at all.”
Leo put up his hands. “I am sorry, please don’t burn me.”
Nym leaped up into his arms and snuggled tightly against him. “Not to my best friend.”
“Alright, alright.” Wyrhgon snapped at them. “But if he doesn’t learn to walk stealthy, I am leaving him behind. I cannot understand how someone so light is able to create as much noise and disturbance in its wake. Leo, if you had the size of a dragon, you would have broken this mountain apart with your carelessness.”
“I can be stealthy. You should have seen the maneuvers I can do with a starship,” Leo said. “Hiding perfectly behind asteroids, using gravity wells to slingshot myself around instead of using the drive cone and thus not revealing myself. You would never see me coming.”
Nym looked up at him. “I would like to see that. A real starship.”
“The Final Sight is not the prettiest, but she is packed to the brim with practicality. There is some beauty to that too,” Leo said.
Wyrhgon stepped forward and put his paw down in front of them. “Like this. Heel or the back of your foot first, then lean it forward. Slowly. Slowly, until the entire foot is grounded. Then raise the heel or the back of the foot, until you stand on the toe. Then lift the foot and start over. It’s simple. Try it.”
Leo put Nym down and tried the sequence Wyrhgon described. It was easy to remember, it felt natural somehow, it almost felt like a flight pattern but for his feet and he was the ship and the pilot at the same time.
“Good,” Wyrhgon said. “And try not to touch anything except the floor as we make our way. We barely handled two of those. And there are at least twenty or thirty of them in the dragon hall.”
“Correct. My regenerated sensors can confirm this,” Tern said, floating above the floor again. The two golem bodies were gone. “I spent much of this new energy into the sensors and weaponry, I will be able to fight next time. But all that healing will be for nothing if I cannot saturate the cells with radiation. To confirm the regenerative tissue we need to make it to space.”
“We will make it,” Leo said, hoping that he was not lying.
“Move out,” Wyrhgon said.
-
Walking in the manner which Wyrhgon had shown him was utterly boring. It was slow and tedious. With a starship you could always put a bit more acceleration into it or test some new maneuvers. But this, there was only one way of doing it correctly.
“You can try to sit on my shell, if you like. I cannot activate the bubble shield, but I could protrude a module or two for you to hold onto,” Tern said.
Riding Tern would be like to fly a starship which flew itself already, without having the capabilities of sending inputs to it. Of course, Tern would listen to him, but ultimately it would not be Leo with the sticks. He would probably fall off, trying to hold onto modules was not a great idea.
“Sorry, Tern, I am declining your offer,” Leo said.
“I understand, but take this at least.” One of Tern’s modules came online and protruded. A laser pistol was lying inside it. “I made this for Beth, a long time ago. But she never had any use for it. Please, take it. I was able to restore it to a certain degree after my last consumption.”
Leo grabbed the laser pistol and shoved it into a pocket of his pants. He had never cared for guns, but he would keep this one close. “Thank you.”
“Halt.” Wyrhgon turned its head towards them, from the lead. “That hall we talked about with all those golems. We have arrived. And to get to the mountain’s blessing we need to sneak past them.”
“But those pillars are thick. Just keep them between us and them, and we will be golden. It’s just like when I try to hide the Final Sight. Exactly, the same thing,” Leo said.
“Not exactly the same thing,” Tern and Wyrghon said at the same time. The two aliens looked at each other, as if this had been a bonding moment for them and nodded.
“I will go first, since I am easily the biggest and I will chart a path for us, through their ranks,” Wyrhgon said. “You three can go at the same time. Always stay one move away. Don’t fall behind and don’t alert them. Are you all ready?”
Leo nodded. “Prince Three-Paw.”
“Always, ready, prince Wyrhgon,” Nym said.
“I am too,” Tern said.
“After me,” Wyrhgon said.
Wyrhgon stepped out into the hall and moved silently over the closest pillar. Leo held Nym in his arms and as the tension rose, he unknowingly squeezed.
“Not that hard,” Nym said.
Leo relaxed his arms. “I am sorry, little one.”
Wyrhgon made his move, timing it in between two patrolling golems and halted at the second pillar. He turned to them. “Go.”
Leo walked the way Wyrhgon had shown him, but his body was in a tantrum. The adrenaline levels spiked and he pushed forward too fast and carelessly. He just needed to get to the next pillar and all would be good.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
Leo placed his hand on the stone pillar and sighed, he had made it. “Good work.”
Wyrhgon stared at them. “Don’t stress the next one. You will sneak tightly by them golems and they might hear you. Soft, silent feet are better than hasty, loud feet.”
It felt like an eternity, waiting for the golems to move out of the way. Wyrhgon gave the go ahead and Leo set his destination and started to move. He rolled from heels to toes, just the way Wyrhgon had described, his foot placements were calculated. He was a ghost in the wind.
A ghost in the wind.
Leo put his hand on the next pillar, he made it!
“Great,” Nym said, sitting inside the hug he held.
The party managed to move another three pillars before Wyrhgon suddenly stopped them. The dragon’s anger seeped into the mental channel.
“Of course,” Wyrhgon said, and raised his hurt paw, it had started bleeding again.
“Tern, we need to fix that,” Leo said.
He tried getting Wyrhgon’s attention, but the dragon had locked his eyes away from them. Oh no. The dragon king and his throne. The king’s head was rotated in the wrong direction, his neck had been snapped.
“I should melt you all,” Wyrhgon said. “You damn stones.”
This was a Diego thing, but Leo had seen these signs before. The blood loss was making Wyrhgon delirious again and his growing anger a direct result of it.
“Wyrhgon, calm down,” Leo said, pressing tightly against the pillar, since another golem almost saw him. “Tern, can you make your way over to him?”
“Yes,” Tern said, three pillars away.
Nym struggled in his arms. “I can fix this. My turn to fix.”
Wyrhgon stepped out into the open.
“Don’t,” Leo said.
“Yes.” Nym bit his arm and he let go.
Nym landed on the floor and scurried across it, by sheer luck or by trained skill, the purple dragon was not seen.
Leo stayed back, not having Nym’s small body or quick paws. He bit down hard.
The golems reacted, turning to Nym’s direction. They must have glimpsed her tail or something. They screamed, sounding the alarm.
Wyrhgon roared.
Tern’s weapon modules activated.
Liquid fire dripped from Nym’s nostrils.
But Leo knew it was not going to be enough. His newly found alien friends would die. And he would die. It had all been for nothing. If Beth had seen him now and the bond he had made, his friends. The old Leo wouldn’t have cared about alien lifeforms. But the new and improved Leo, he was making a difference and he liked his new self.
No.
“Get Wyrhgon into working order,” Leo said. “Don’t follow me.”
Leo drew the laser pistol, it warmed up as his hand made contact with the grip. An inherent sense grabbed his own ability for targeting acquisition and guided his hand, the pistol wanted to strike true. He stepped out from his cover and pulled the trigger three times, the superheated beams struck the ceiling, sending a rain of stones over the golems.
They noticed him, but they wanted the small dragon.
“Assholes! Over here!” Leo yelled and pulled the trigger again.
The laser beams melted and cracked the golem’s strung up boulder bodies.
All thirty plus of them turned to him at once, some brandishing their heavy arms and some drawing Branches of Companionship.
Leo turned tail and ran.
Physical exercise had never been his thing, thus his breath turned frantic and desperate quickly. His legs felt sore after the first half minute of his dash. But he needed to help his friends, but at the same time, he was not an action hero. The golems’ twigs’ fiery beams erupted and struck the floor and pillars surrounding him, displacing the very atoms of the materials.
Leo dashed between the pillars, using them as cover. If any of the incoming beams hit him, he would be done. Something impacted the pillar in front him and to his sides, sending a rain of jagged and strangely warm stones at him. He powered through it. He held his laser pistol behind him, pulling the trigger at random, his newfound ability for target acquisition needed his eyes to work, but the golems might not have observed that yet. Thus his own shots went wide, most of them.
Breathing grew too difficult, his lungs were on fire and his legs grew heavy.
Leo threw himself behind the last row of pillars, skidding to a halt. Too tired to move any further. Opposite him, connected to the wall, it was Elzrig’s pillar, what an amusing thing to observe in this chaos.
A golem came around the pillar. Leo’s two shots struck the thing’s boulder head, but at the third pull of the trigger, the laser pistol clicked and smoke billowed out from it, cracks shot across its muzzle. The pistol was wasted.
The golem still moved on the floor.
Leo threw the laser pistol at the golem, but the action had little effect in hindering it from getting up. Jagged rocks from its boulder head were lying on the floor in front of him. He picked one up and threw it at the golem.
But no effect.
Beth would have known what to do.
Leo had no weapons. To achieve stealth he would first have to break line of sight.
More golems were incoming, the pillar he pressed against his back was crumbling from their repeated attacks.
The golem was on its feet.
Leo inhaled deeply and dove forward, and the golem reached for him. But he rolled underneath it and came up to his boots running on the other side of it. And he kept running. Both his legs and lungs were burning from the effort, but he kept running. Putting one foot in front of the other.
Right foot.
Left foot.
Breathe.
The corridor felt infinitely long. By some luck the overhead light had stopped working and the darkness provided some cover. A row of opened chambers came up and he went into the third one. The corpse of a dragon was lying in the corner. He dove behind it.
Some safety, and his breathing started to calm down. But his leg muscles were still burning and his lungs, they were in pain.
Three golems came inside the chamber, their stony arms looked heavy and dangerous, and the twigs in their weird hands looked lethal. They aligned their twigs and started blasting. There was no need for them to search the chamber, if they could just shoot it up until he popped out.
Leo kept a hand over his mouth. But the fiery beams crept closer and closer.
The whole mountain shuddered.
The three golems hesitated and stared at the chamber’s walls and ceiling.
The mountain shook again.
They exchanged weird clicking sounds and turned to the door.
Tern flew in, crashing into the three golems, and his weapon modules were protruding. “Ahh!”
But the golems gave no fight, instead they scrambled out of the chamber and ran.
Leo left his hiding spot. “Where are they going?”
The mountain shuddered again.
“Earthquake?” Tern said. “I have the same information as you.”
Cracks shot out across the chamber’s walls and ceiling. They saw other chambers through the cracks. The cracks were several meters deep. This chamber’s private passageway to the mountain’s blessing shattered and fell onto itself. Leo had to sidestep in order to avoid the falling rocks.
“Can an earthquake do that?” Leo asked.
Wyrhgon stepped into the chamber with Nym on his head. “Thank you for leading them golems away, you dispersed them, making it possible for us to dwindle their numbers down. But when the mountain started shaking, they broke off. We need to leave.”
“What is happening?” Leo said.
“The mountain is cracking apart,” Wyrhgon said. “It will all come down on our heads. Move out! To the mountain’s blessing. It will be the only way out that has not collapsed yet.”
With Wyrhgon taking the lead and Nym on his his head, Leo and Tern followed.
-
The mountain shook again, sending rubble from the ceiling over them. But they moved to the side, avoiding certain death.
“It really is coming down!” Leo said.
They entered the dragon’s hall and all its nicely carved pillars came into view again. Several of the pillars were cracked or had fallen on its side, several were even shattered through and through. Elzrig’s pillar was among the destroyed ones, the blue dragon was not going to be happy about that.
“Move!” Tern said. “We don’t want to be here when too many pillars have collapsed.”
Wyrhgon took the lead, the blood stains the dragon left in his wake were evident. The sliced off paw was bleeding again, and his condition deteriorated fast. But if they didn’t make it outside, everyone would die. Wyrhgon moved along without concern, he knew the stakes and he knew they didn’t have time to stop and patch him up again.
Golems rushed in every direction. They screamed in panic. One came a bit too close and Wyrhgon swiped it from the side with his non-damaged paw.
“This way,” Wyrhgon said.
They passed the king’s corpse and throne, but now it was littered with rubble.
Leo saw a shadow grow on the floor, but he wasn’t coming to the correct conclusion.
“Move!” Tern yelled, crashing into Leo’s back and pushed him forward.
The falling pillar slammed into the floor, sending torrents of dust and pebbles into the air.
“Thank you,” Leo said. “If you had not pushed me out of the way, I would have been pancaked.”
“Don’t think about it. Keep moving,” Tern said.
Leo picked himself up and struggled forward, his legs were heavy and his lungs burned from the effort. He was definitely too old for this kind of exercise.
In the distance, Leo recognized the entrance to the mountain’s blessing.
Leo poined. “There!”
But how would they fly up through it? They had no ship. And they couldn’t cling to Tern’s surface. And Nym was too small to carry them. And Wyrhgon was hurt.
Their salvation, a tunnel through the entire mountain. The exit. The mountain’s blessing stared down at them, as they reached its base, as it was a giant’s eyes. Or asshole. It definitely looked more like an asshole than an eye.
“What do we do?” Leo said. “I can try clinging onto Tern and carrying Nym in my arms. But it will be a risky business.”
Tern floated over to Wyrhgon and cauterized the paw once more, and this time he cranked up the power, and really seared the flesh through. “That will not work.” Tern looked at Wyrhgon. “You know what we need to do.”
“Yes. I cannot have my new friends die here,” Wyrhgon said. “Leo and Nym, jump up on my back and hang on. You too, Tern. Give my paw a final burn, I cannot start bleeding on the way up, we don’t have the luxury of stopping.”
Leo shook his head. “What?”
“Climb up Wyrhgon’s back!” Tern said. “Now.”
“Tern, is this part of the whole Tern-experience?” Leo said.
“Maybe,” Tern said.
Leo grabbed Nym and climbed up the green scaled dragon’s back. Carefully avoiding all the sharper protrusions. The scales were rougher than he had expected and sharper, if he fell on one he was sure it could impale him. He climbed up to the base of the neck. Wyrhgon’s swirled to the side and a larger piece of ceiling crashed down where he had just been.
“Tern, finalize!” Wyrhgon said. “Grab on!”
Leo sat with his leg on either side of Wyrhgon’s shoulders and neck, and grabbed onto the best scales, while keeping Nym in his lap. “You will have to hold on, too, Nym.”
“I will be fine.” Nym buried herself deeper inside his crew overall.
Another piece of rubble crashed on the floor and its fragments were sent straight at them. Leo ducked down and held Nym out of the way.
Wyrhgon’s scream of agony echoed through the hall and sent a chill down Leo’s spine.
“My eye!” Wyrhgon said.
The green dragon moved frantically underneath Leo’s legs and was obviously in pain, the dragon’s head came around. A jagged rock with the width of two human fingers had penetrated Wyrhgon’s left eyeball.
“Done,” Tern said.
Wyrhgon wailed in pain. “I can barely see. Leo, you are a pilot? Steer me through the blessing. Tern, flood the tunnel with lights, help Leopold. And hold on, now we are moving!”
“What?” Leo said.
Wyrhgon flapped his wings three times before taking airborne, right into the tunnel. Tern flooded the mountain’s blessing with lights and a whole new world opened up in front of them. The tunnel was in a worse condition than Leo had thought, it was practically coming down on them already.
“Leo, tell me how to fly!” Wyrhgon yelled.
A larger piece of rubble fell straight at them.
“A big piece is coming at us,” Leo said.
“Tell me how to maneuver! Pilot me!” Wyrhgon said.
Leo inhaled deeply and let his shoulders relax. “Spin to the right, a full lap and a half.”
Wyrhgon spun, their world spun with him, and ended the spin after one and a half lap. The falling rubble fell past them, passing by their side by a few hand widths.
“Good work, pilot!” Wyrhgon said. “I felt the rubble’s drag when it passed us. Onto the next obstacle!”
Wyrhgon flapped his wings and accelerated them upwards through the mountain’s blessing.
“Left bank, hold for half a second and then spin to the right, a full lap,” Leo said.
He was piloting a dragon.
Wyrhgon executed the flight pattern, avoiding all the falling debris.
He was piloting a real, living dragon. The smile widened on his face. This was better than flying a starship, even better than flying with the omf’s jacking in technology.
“Accelerate straight up with two flaps, pull your wings tight together, really tight for a full half a second. On my mark. Three, two, one. Mark!” Leo yelled.
Wyrhgon flapped harder than before, accelerating them upwards, then pulled his wings together, shaping his body as a needle. They flew through the falling debris, through a narrow tunnel. As they emerged from the rubble, Wyrhgon opened his body and flapped his wings again.
“Yeah!” Leo yelled, brandishing a fist in the air and almost lost his balance.
They dodged and weaved their way up through the mountain’s blessing. But as the cracks shot up the sides of the tunnel, the whole thing risked collapsing, and that was impossible to dodge.
Leo noticed the growing cracks. “We need to go faster. Unless we want to be buried underneath all this rock.”
“I am trying!” Wyrhgon yelled, flapping his wings even harder.
“Debris!” Tern said.
“Spin left, half a lap. Now,” Leo said. “Accelerate.”
Wyrhgon performed the command, but there was a delay to his movements and the falling rock clipped his right side. The green dragon yelped and was not able to accelerate as hard.
“My paw is bleeding again,” Wyrhgon. “It’s hindering my motions. I will toughen it out.”
“Tern, help him!” Leo said.
“I cannot do all the things at the same time, not properly at least. Do you want flood lights or medical aid for Wyrhgon? Call it, Leo,” Tern said.
Leo scratched his head, then he noticed the new set of debris. “Bank right, then bank left. Wait. Now.”
He felt the drag of the falling piece fly past his head.
“Help Wyrhgon, but try to shine your lights too,” Leo said.
The floodlights diminished as Tern moved over to Wyrhgon’s paw, but it was not totally dark. Leo just had to stay on top of the falling debris.
A contour of a rock hide in the darkness.
“Roll forward!” Leo said. “Tuck in everything. Now.”
Wyrhgon executed the pattern, avoiding the most jagged parts of the falling debris. But something crashed into Leo’s shoulder, a pain shot through his body and he screamed. His vision fogged as the pain gripped him. The shoulder was dislocated or crushed or something, he tried poking at it with his good hand, wet and throbbing, probably not a good sign.
“I can help,” Nym said.
Leo struggled to look up and forward, they couldn’t afford another hit like that, not him at least. If it had struck his head instead, a few centimeters to the side was all that was required, then his head would have blown off.
“I don’t know.” Leo focused his vision at the danger. “Bank right! Now.”
Wyrhgon banked to the right and successfully avoided the rock.
It was too dark. And Tern’s flashing lights did little to aid him.
Nym jumped up on Wyrhgon’s head and aligned her nostrils up. She inhaled and exhaled, a torrent of wild, liquid fire sprayed upwards. Lighting the tunnel with her flames. No debris would hide in that light, it even looked as the rocks weakened by the fire.
“Nym, you are a genius!” Leo said.
Nym sent out another torrent of fire. “I know.”
Leo spurted out commands and Wyrhgon executed with the finest precision that was allowed with his hurt body.
The exit.
A light shone through from the top. Daylight, but only through thin cracks. Something was covering the exit.
“Nym, burn it,” Leo said. “Tern, wait. Now, blast it.”
Nym’s torrent of liquid fire struck the rock and Tern’s energy blast followed, shattering the rock into a millions pieces, sending them down over them. There was no dodging through that.
“Fuck,” Leo said. “Wyrhgon, go faster. Go faster!”
Wyrhgon flapped his wings and roared out into the dark. They picked up speed and the rain of rocks closed in.
“Come on, come on. Shield yourselves!” Leo said, covering his head with his arms.
The smaller pieces of rocks crashed with them, but Wyrhgon’s velocity carried them. Leo felt how his body was hit, several times over. Something clipped the side of his head and blood ran down his face and into his eyes.
Light.
Air.
Wyrhgon flapped slow and heavy.
Leo opened his eyes, wiping the blood from his face. “We made it!”
“Great work,” Tern said. “Wyrhgon need proper medical aid. We have to land.”
“I don’t think we can land on that planet again,” Leo said.
A fissure, the width of several hundred meters was stretched out across the surface, and stopped at the base of the mountain, with thousands of smaller cracks going through it.
It shook. The entire planet shook. The mountain range cracked apart, the fissure grew into and through it. The mountain collapsed into it. They had escaped just in time.
“Is the planet coming apart?” Leo said, barely believing what he was seeing.
“Stop thinking about that. We need to get away. There is a battle in space. One ship against a whole fleet. But what my sensors can tell me, the larger fleet is blowing up from within,” Tern said.
“Is that the Final Sight?” Leo asked.
“Too much background noise,” Tern said.
“Could be. Only one way of finding out. Tern, reach out. I have no suit, do you think you can get a thinner version of your bubble online?” Leo said. “We just need the atmosphere, not the weight carrying.”
“If I disengage my weaponry, maybe,” Tern said.
“Do it,” Leo said.