Murdon surveilled the battle from above as he slowly descended. The roar had reached him too, although his distance both to the dragon and the Bards had evened out. Beyond that, he possessed a will that went beyond his wisdom or any power. Unphased, he continued to maneuver back to the fight. What he saw was terrible. Those unable to contribute to the volleys had rushed the dragon when the Bards started playing and were dying in clawfuls. He had a choice, go to where the beast was and take its head, or return to his friend. Of the two, he only had one option. Not the one that would demand sacrifice, as here it was needless. Despite the deaths the situation was under some amount of control.
The Beastmasters’ fleeing monsters were a problem, yet something they expected. Bardic music couldn’t affect them while the roar could. Tlara’s remaining monster had resisted, probably due to it being the furthest away and encapsulated in ice. The others had been part of the initial charge, every dominated or tamed creature they had at their disposal. Even domination didn’t confer immunity to other effects. It was up to the mortals now.
He landed with a small spray of ice as his armor scraped against the surface. Lograve glanced at him out of the corner of his eye and thought with mock annoyance, Oh good, you’re finally here. Would you mind taking over? I’m a little busy trying to stop the dragon from ripping everyone apart.
Murdon took a moment to breathe in the music, marveling at how the weight of his armor fell off and his hearts raced without making him feel lightheaded. He had no idea what kind of song this was, the style was completely foreign, but it was both driving and fast as the avianoid Bard responsible for lyrics practically shouted them. “How many have we lost?”
Ask Daniel when he’s done with his nap. Lograve inclined his head and Murdon walked over to the human he thought was just taking cover.
“Commander! Daniel, uh, did not resist the roar,” Tak reported as Thomas continued his attempts at healing.
“Hrmm. William! Mana potion!” He held out a hand, and a few moments later a bottle appeared there. While the Ranger normally threw knives that way, potions could be handily distributed with the ability. Another reason he had the bulk of their stock.
“Focus fire! The head. Damnation, I’m running out of mana,” Alost complained. “How many do we have?”
“Two’s all that’s left, Commander. Had to use one for the Hero. Just gave you the strongest.”
Will someone else need one? One of the healers? Murdon pondered the question as he quickly drank the foul liquid. Potions could be made to be palatable but this was harder and, therefore, more expensive. They’d only had the supplies of the outlying villages to work with. Feeling ephemeral strength returning to him, Murdon replied, “Only if you run out Alost, and then only if we are still volleying.”
“Focus fire! It’s fine then. We’ll shoot all of our arrows before I run out of mana. I told you we should have, er, the head,” the human said distractedly, as he had to each time before his ability worked. “Focus fire, the head, made twice as many!”
“How many are in the target now?”
“Maybe one hundred?”
Murdon’s eyes widened. “Hold fire. PULL BACK!” Murdon fully opened his lungs to cut through both the air and the music. “TAKE DEFENSIVE POSITIONS AT THE MIDLINE!”
Influenced by the Bards as they were, those directly engaged with the dragon weren’t mindless. The music just allowed them greater bravery. They began to pull away, a few wounded in tow whom Lograve had saved from a worse fate through the intercession of ice. At the same time, Murdon spoke quietly to Tlara. “Begin charging the towers closest to the dragon. We can’t rule out that it’s put together how we detonate our ammunition, but it shouldn’t expect this.”
She gave him a hard look for a moment and signed something behind. “If I lose this one too-”
“Then I will repay you with your life. I have not forgotten what you did here last time.” Tlara didn’t have a response for that. Instead, her creature began its work.
The final piece of their strategy with the towers was the silk shocker. It could control its web so long as it had contact with them, which was the reason Lograve had exposed a section for it to sit in before enclosing it in its own ice dome. With it, the mortals could selectively build electrical energy in some of the towers to prime them for what was about to happen. The downside was that if the webs became overloaded, a section would have to be sacrificed or the current would kill Spinner.
Energy trickled from the lightning spines embedded in the silk shocker, through the webs nestled in the ice, to those metallic rods nearest the dragon. As the mortals retreated, a spark flew from them to an arrow lodged in the dragon. A pattern of purple light filled the air as it was redistributed across every piece of ammunition within the dragon, but this quickly faded as the energy dissipated where flesh intercepted the beams.
Seeing this, Murdon called out, “There’s too many there. We’ll have to detonate now before it closes on our forces. LIGHTNING INTO THE RODS, NOW! Tlara, be ready.”
Murdon, I don’t think my ice is going to survive that. They looked at each other with sudden realization. The plan they had all agonized over for days had many flaws and calculated risks, but this was something they hadn’t anticipated. The dragon couldn’t fall into the lake or it would stun itself and sink to the depths. That was fine, except it would survive being submerged and would be unpredictable in its awakening while fatally electrifying its surroundings to everyone else. The dragon regaining consciousness while innocents took the long way around was an unacceptable risk.
It had been going well, despite their losses, but now it had all been unraveled because Alost was too good at his job. “Damn! Can’t you strengthen it?”
Not at the edges, even if it’s over part of the bridge. The same calculations were running in both of them at the same time. Tactical Intuition. The dragon could kill them all now by using its lightning breath, even though it would severely wound itself. Simply by threatening their crossing, forcing them to pull back for the sake of the villagers, it would win. They couldn’t attempt this again, not with what they’d lost.
But, by some miracle or preservative instinct, the dragon did not do this. That still left the task of baiting it towards the center of the ice field. They’d been fortunate that it had crashed on the ice at all, and then opposite of Lograve’s position. Otherwise, the back teams would have to move to a new position which would delay their next move.
Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.
That plan was gone. Instead of staggering their defense, they’d need to yield the central ground entirely. Would the explosions even stun the dragon, or would it continue its charge into their backlines? He’d counted on bleeding the beast at every step. Then again, he’d counted on many things. If something had to go wrong, at least this gave them a chance.
Murdon reassessed the battlefield, ignoring the intoxicating effects of the combined Bardic powers. It was simple enough to do as the enhancing versions required a willing target, and he needed a clear head. “Tlara, keep the current away from the dragon. Focus it in the rear rods for now and prepare for a larger burst later on.” Lightning arced harmlessly towards him as she complied with what might be mistaken for concern, having been party to the previous conversation. “ALL FORCES, RETREAT! FALL BACK TO THIS POSITION!”
There was a ripple across the surviving mortals who had withdrawn from their assault. Each knew the broad strokes of their plan. Giving this much ground was a bad sign. Only a few weren’t quick enough to realize the consequences of grouping their forces in one general location. Still, Murdon was the Commander. Even with this region in ruin, that was important.
At the far side of the battle, the dragon slowly moved its head from side to side. The archers had stopped pelting it, and the rest were running? It did not quite grasp why but also did not unleash its breath against the fleeing mortals. At this distance, it was likely to do little harm in exchange for severe reprisal from the ammunition lodged in it. However, if ground was being ceded to it, then there was only one thing it could do next.
Murdon knew the situation was falling further out of control when the dragon didn’t take the bait. Instead, it quickly and carefully edged around the outskirts of the ice in an attempt to reach the shore. He could let it and defuse their current problem, but then it could get behind them. “Lograve cut the ice out from in front of it and drive it to the center!”
I, I can’t! Expanding my feature over this much distance means I can only effect changes slowly! If we let it circle around, then at least-
“It will go for the villagers and we lose the rods following it.” Murdon’s eyes were fixed on the dragon, no doubt in his mind that it was committed to taking as much life as it could out of pure spite. “I’m going.”
No, you’re- Murdon ignored him and pushed against the flow of people heading for Lograve’s battlement which was slowly forming a second ring around itself. He bellowed orders as he did, confident his foe wouldn’t comprehend them.
“CONTINUE CHARGING THE RODS! TLARA, DETONATE WHEN LOGRAVE INSTRUCTS YOU TO.” Murdon then came to a stop in almost the center of the ice field. The dragon beheld him as it continued to move, rearing its head back slightly when he didn’t complete the charge it was expecting. Instead, the Knight swung his ax down into the ice and used an ability. “FACE ME COWARD!”
Taunt. It was an odd ability that could work even if it didn’t. The basic principle was that it drew aggression from other creatures. When it came to monsters, the use of manipulation powers could drive them into a frenzy even if they failed. Perhaps it was a communal fear of the Beastmasters, or something else entirely.
Either way, the result was the dragon’s nostrils flaring and horn charging. Oh, Murdon thought, as the dragon charged its lightning breath. He moved quickly, hoping to position himself such that the lightning wouldn’t intercept any of the rods. The system might not be able to handle that much direct charge. That wouldn’t change the fact that the blast was aimed at him. It streaked forward, true lightning as fast as the natural phenomenon. Murdon saw it coming and dodged. His heightened Agility, in combination with several movement-enhancing powers others had granted him, was just enough to avoid most of the blast. The glancing shock that did hit neither hurt him nor poured a significant charge into the lightning rods.
What he hadn’t counted on was the lightning bypassing the ammunition in the dragon and curving. His armor absorbed some of the energy and attempted to pull in the entire blast. Instead of this, it simply flowed around him like a river and struck one of the lightning rods behind him and to the side. He heard distant, unintelligible shouting. Tlara. What was she doing? The air burned as the lightning link system tried to balance the energy, but there was too much. Something would explode. He saw the towers closest to the dragon remain dead, Tlara preventing the energy from returning there to spare the ammunition that would destroy the ice. Similarly, the ones at the back of their line were cut off as that much energy could detonate the ammunition the archers carried.
If she wasn’t going for either side, then what? The towers themselves each contained the same amount of heliorite, another job done too well by Daniel. They couldn’t lose all of them, and to her credit, Tlara was doing her best to limit who was affected. Murdon saw the flashes of energy shift over the course of heartbeats, around him, and toward the second line of defenders. Tlara had directed the lightning as well as she could, but she’d had to have made a choice between several of the rods people were near. A cry of fear went out as lightning jumped to one of the groups closest to the dragon. A tremendous sound, the ice shaking with it, and then red mist.
It was the right call. Murdon knew that. If he’d been in Tlara’s position he’d have done the same, right? As it was, he was the only draconic creature here that cared about the moral quandary. Seeing its lightning had not managed to kill its target, the dragon roared once more and charged Murdon. He was alone. In the sky, the small creature had been able to dance around it, but now they were both flightless. It had almost gotten him once, and it would finish the job now.
Gods, Murdon step back! Lograve’s thoughts shouted over the battlefield. Murdon adjusted and prepared to Jump as soon as it was time. Perhaps he shouldn’t have been surprised when the dragon reached him before an explosion.
He’d baited the dragon back into position, and yet the ammunition within it still needed to be set off before the rest of the mortals could approach. “HOW MUCH TIME?” Murdon shouted as he weaved around the dragon’s claws. They were big, electrified, and sharp. His armor could withstand one or two hits but that was it. So, he focused on dodging to buy more time.
Tlara says it’s like trying to start a fire with rocks! Lograve shouted back. Get it to hit a rod or something! But the dragon was holding its lightning breath back. Murdon was too close, and it had used its breath more than a dozen times by now. Enough that it might be starting to reserve its mana. A claw passed within centimeters of Murdon. He was breathing harder now from the effort of constantly avoiding swipes, bites, and the occasional lash of a tail. Despite its size and injuries, the dragon could move unhindered due to its impressive dexterity. He couldn’t keep pace for much longer, so Murdon decided he wasn’t going to.
The move was similar to the time he’d defused a blast of lightning breath. When the next swipe came he sidestepped it as before, then grabbed onto one of the claws. The current running through these was not as potent as the horn that powered the lightning breath but still might have killed Murdon outright if he wasn’t armored. Golden armor blackened from the second direct contact it was forced to endure. The air around him burned. In his peripheral vision, Murdon could see Tlara was keeping the energy focused in the surrounding area. Good, that was good.
What threatened Murdon the most was being unable to know when the ammunition would explode. Ideally, he’d let go of the claw now that the dragon was trying to shake him off. The rapid shaking was making him slightly nauseous. With everything else going on, that seemed a little ridiculous. The light cast off the lightning link grew brighter and brighter. Murdon would have closed his eyes but had to keep watching for the moment when- there! His opponent, seeing that Murdon would not be displaced so easily, reared back on its hind legs and prepared to skewer him with its other foreclaws. He’d have to depart now and hope the other could-
An explosion rocked the ice shelf as the lightning building in the circuit finally reached the critical point. Not every piece of ammunition within the dragon detonated as some were bolts, larger than the metallic arrowheads which went critical. Either way, Murdon and the dragon were separated by the force. The monster stumbled backward towards the rest of the mortals, whereas Murdon flew, struck one of the lightning poles, forcing it out of the ice, and then came to rest near the far edge of the ice shelf.
Everyone watched Murdon with held breath until it was clear he wasn’t getting up.