Caltyr swirled a droplet of water into existence behind one of the demons’ backs, and then broke it up into thousands of light, floaty pieces. Being so versed in casting speedily in his light magic classes helped him with this. He was becoming used to forcing his mind to move beyond its capacity. He swiftly repeated the process, and the fog spread dramatically, covering the ground in a moody haze that extended high enough to obscure the demons’ bodies.

They were short, smaller even than the humans were from head-to-toe, so engulfing them proved to be the easy part.

Some of them began to whirl their heads back and forth in confusion.

The next steps happened all within the same split second. Three pillars popped diagonally out of the earth and a pinpoint of yellow energy propelled them through the air like bullets from a gun. Fellithe returned the ground to its former flatness before the demons could even say ‘huh?’.

Caltyr wasn’t sure if the demons spoke, actually.

But the three specimens Fellithe had selected soared through the sky with their limbs tucked anxiously to their sides, as if they had been fired from a cannon.

The water dragon watched as they swooshed past the five of them. If he let them keep going, he had no idea where they would end up; the trajectory they were on was powerful and far. He created a cascading set of sheets of water that slowed them and caught them wetly in a pool of water as they slowed and dropped to the grass.

They seemed confused. They took several moments to seemingly even remember they had limbs, at which point they disorientedly shambled to their feet.

“We did it,” Caltyr puffed in disbelief. He hadn’t realized until now how hard his core and heart had been thrumming against his ribcage, and the thumping kept going as the demons found their collective footing.

“Aaaaaa, ok, ok, you two. You have electricity mana, and they’re in the water. Go now! See if you can shock them to death.”

Vermonysis and Vallath obeyed without question. They co-casted a fierce bolt of lightning that discharged into the remnants of the water pool, and followed it up with a second and third that left the earth scorched and blackened.

The air flickered with light. When the colors returned, the demons were no worse for wear.

Three powerful blasts, shrugged off like they were nothing. Actually, it would be an exaggeration to even say ‘shrugged off’. Was Caltyr shrugging off the wind as it passed him?

“That’s… They’re just standing there like it’s doing nothing to them,” Fellithe said through the tiny space left in her throat after it sealed itself shut in fear.

“I don’t think our mana is going to work,” Caltyr reasoned, but he didn’t like the reality of his own words, “in any element. Shriken, can you try and hit them with your bow and arrow?”

The demons were done being disoriented now. And without the strikes of light shimmering around them, he could see the details of them. They were horned, bipedal little beasts with a hide that shone like a beetle’s, with an iridescent sheen. But it laid right up against the thing’s flesh and bones, like a human’s skin.

Their hands were tipped with claws, like a dragon’s hands, and they looked needley and lethal, built to rip and tear. If he didn’t know any better, he’d say they were formed to fit underneath and tear up scales, but he didn’t like thinking that way. Not one bit, and not with the enemies beginning to scuttle in their direction.

They shambled like spiders with fewer legs, like a cheetah that didn’t know how to use its own limbs. Or like one that simply moved too quickly to care where its limbs were.

Caltyr realized Shriken hadn’t answered him. He chanced a nervous glance backward just in time to see the arrow he had knocked being loosed. He heard its whistle as it passed him, and then another two followed quickly after, thwooing through the air.

Shriken seemed practiced with the weapon, from how confidently he held it.

The first arrow sailed into the demon’s eye, and the thing tripped into a somersault, holding its face. The other two arrowtips hit where he assumed Shriken had been aiming, but they bounced uselessly away, leaving no wound behind.

The creature with the arrow in its eye shrieked; an awful, feral sound. Then, something interesting happened.

Its body caught fire.

An angry blue flame began to move across its body like a virus, and any part of it that was touched turned to dust immediately. The flame mixed with the remnants of the orange fire in the grass and set the tiny plants aflame, and it spread with abandon, like it wanted to be alive. Like it wanted to eat and was starving for something to fuel it, and now it was getting it, so it didn’t stop.

The creatures hurtling toward him suddenly didn’t seem so intimidating anymore.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

“What’s it doing? What are they doing? Should we start flying?” Vermonysis blurted nervously, as the two remaining shamblers started getting within tail-swinging distance.

“Try putting the fire out with your water,” Shriken suggested in a monotone that seemed impossibly flat for the situation they were in. “And you had better start flying if you want to live, yes. I don’t think they can get us up here.”

Caltyr scanned the sky, and Shriken was already in it. He must have wanted some height for his arrows.

He pulled himself upward with his wings, and tried what Shriken had suggested. Moving and casting his water at the same time was difficult, especially when it felt like his ribcage was on fire with seeping dread. It felt like his water resisted being summoned when he wasn’t calling upon it with a calm mind.

Or, like what happened this time; it burst out of nowhere like a waterfall and washed up all in its path. He was glad the others had taken to the skies, because the pillar of water pushed past them like a leaden wall and smacked the two remaining demons comically backward.

They screeched as they were washed away, back hundreds of meters before the pillar calmed and merged with the ground.

The fire moved on, unimpeded by his mana. But it didn’t stick to the grass anymore, so its ability to spread was harmed. It surged on in the pocket of space around the demon, and when the body had been reduced completely to ash, it disappeared for good.

“Let’s get going,” Caltyr suggested to the rest of them. The sun had been setting when they had arrived, and now a darkness was moving through the sky. “I don’t think we’re going to get any other answers out of these ones, and it’s getting dark.”

“I like that idea,” Vermonysis agreed.

“You two always like what the other one says,” Fellithe observed with her nose wrinkled upward. Caltyr noticed that she didn’t sound like her observation pleased her, but why?

“Caltyr just says what I’m thinking a lot of the time. He’s got some good ideas,” Vermonysis said with a shrug and an uneasy, toothy grin. He flicked his gaze over to Caltyr’s for a split second as if they were trapped in a hostage situation.

“Is this really what we want to be talking about right now?” Shriken asked, but he flapped upward like he didn’t need to hear the answer.

The earth dragon crossed her arms, but ultimately followed.

It was a good thing they’d started ascending when they had, because when Caltyr looked down, he saw that a portion of the demon horde had broken away and was galloping towards their fallen comrade.

But then the demons did something that made it so no matter where they were or how high up in the sky they flew they were a problem.

They co-casted too.

The two demons looked at their fallen friend and shrieked as they conjured a whip-like rope of mana that curled around Vermonysis’ ankle. He yelped and flapped wildly, confused about why he wasn’t gaining altitude until he looked down and saw he was ensnared.

The rope was made of yellow and red mana, and varied other types, and it glowed and flickered wildly. It was unstable, which made Caltyr think he might be able to break it if they pulled hard enough. Maybe this was why Miss Tavren had disliked casting with multiple types of mana so strongly; this magic looked confused and wild, and it flickered like its existence was a mistake.

Vermonysis flapped so hard he sounded like a confused bird, and the rope became taught. Uncomfortably so. It quaked, and Vermonysis winced. His scales puffed up with smoke at the point of contact. The demons shrieked angrily, but more began to show up and raised their hands. Somehow, this seemed to bolster and stabilize the trappings.

“If we’re going to free him, it needs to be now!” Caltyr shouted. He grabbed the lightning-and-fire dragon’s hand with his foot and began to pull him upward with strong, decisive movements. “Vallath, grab my hands and flap up as hard as you can!”

Vallath was high up because of his kite-like wings, but he descended and grabbed on immediately like a true bro. “Hold on, and uh, tuck your head in,” the lightning dragon warned.

When the three of them started flying at full tilt all at once, the air around them stirred so much Caltyr swore he could see swirls forming, like in the eye of a storm. But it could have just been his imagination, because he wanted so badly for their efforts to not be for naught.

Fellithe groaned. “I’m going to have to help you, aren’t I? If I get trapped too, you better get me free, or else.”

She stalled where she was and turned to face the growing swarm of purple bodies below. Even more were sprinting out, abandoning the human city– or maybe they were just moving out toward the next one. The one that used to be some kind of school for babies.

Fellithe thought that if the demons were distracted, they might not be able to keep pulling. She concentrated in spite of the growing tension in her temples, and coaxed a sheet of rock upward in the shape of a waterfall. It hugged the demons and cut them off from being able to see Caltyr, Vermonysis and Vallath, and as an added bonus it bowed the magical string tying them together.

She was casting blind now, but she loosened the dirt under their feet and pulled it downward, creating unstable footing to throw them off further.

“That’s it, you’re doing it! We’re doing it!” Vallath roared excitedly. He pushed himself to flap even more furiously.

Vermonysis could feel a hot wetness soak his trapped foot; the mana had broken through his ankle and into the soft flesh waiting underneath. He bit back a whimper.

Through their combined effort, the line snapped with a resounding twang, like when a guitar string snapped. A mini technicolor explosion went off that pushed the five of them further upward, and the demons fully downward. They mushed into the loamy earth Fellithe had created, and the curved rock crumbled entirely, falling on their heads and burying them.

“We did it!” Vallath roared, laughing uproariously as he caught himself. The others did, too. Even Fellithe was grinning a bit too, but her joy faded when she saw Shriken was soaring so high above them.

“What are you doing up there?” She asked with her scaled, scraggly brows pushed together.

Shriken paused where he was, and unloaded one of the five bags from around his neck. “I’m making sure we don’t leave without our stuff. Everyone forgot it when the demons started running over.”

“Oh.” Fellithe ran out of steam quickly. Shadows were on her scales now and the sun had ducked under the horizon line during their battle, and she knew she wouldn’t want to be without her tent and bedroll.

“Thanks.”