The first wave of the swarm became incinerated as the first dragon spewed fire from its mouth. The sickly smell of burnt chitin and cooking insect meat saturated the air. The corpses fell hundreds of feet to the ground, upon impact they created large craters in the sand. The three humans on the earth had to take cover from the resulting sand being blasted in their direction.

Rinae snarled, as she watched her swarm get decimated by the hellish fire. The second dragon roared just before passing over the ground, leaving the sand blackened and smoldering with corpses on the ground.

Mateo just barely managed to avoid getting roasted, the heat he felt from the narrow miss was unreal. No amount of fireballs could equate to the destructive power this flying lizard had produced.

He began panting the moment he was able to stand again. “Why exactly are we here again!?”

Elizabeth was busy creating ice barriers as protective canopies. The swarm would hide underneath them like bugs scurrying underneath rocks to escape the gaze of the summer sun. “I kind of know why I am here.” She said wiping sweat from her forehead.

Mateo looked at Amalia; She decapitated a squirming swarmling ending its suffering. Even in this situation she still had the look of determination.

Rinae sent the entire swarm forward; the dragon let out a roar seeing just how outnumbered it was. With one flap of its wings, it ascended further into the sky, much faster than any of their tiny wings could do. She looked up as the creature descended into a dive while breathing fire, the flames coated it in a shield. It essential was now a meteor hurtling towards a massive cloud of burnable objects.

However, the dragon couldn’t stop the moment it went into its dive. After smashing into the cloud, it crashed into the ground, A wave of sand washed over the horde, which took no time in climbing over the fallen dragon. The swarmlings were able to get a few bites in before it woke from its collision. It roared in pain, it bit at the creatures crawling on its wings and body, but there were too many. The secondary dragon heard the cries of its lover and flew low, low enough to knock the sad over in its wake. Roaring the dragon lit the other on fire. Incinerating all the swarm that dared remained on top. The downed dragon flapped its wings once, extinguishing the flames that clung.

Amalia watched attack after attack fail, out of the corner of her eye she saw a small light glint, across the orange horizon. Her attention was fully tuned into finding what that light was. She stared intensely into the massive sand saturated fields.

She began seeing the outline of a structure, a tan tower out in the distance. She looked over to the others. The dragon continued to fly overhead, burning and taunting those underneath its wings. “Elizabeth, Mateo!” She called out, “Follow me!”

Elizabeth was in the middle of freezing some of the corpses to create water when she heard her name being called. She looked over to the source, Amalia was running away from the battle, and Mateo was following a few feet behind her. She sighed and abandoned her support role.

The building was just under a mile away, but the dragons turned that single stretch into a nearly impossible distance. Amalia rolled forward right before the dragon’s carpeting fire glassed the ground, Elizabeth caught up to Mateo and formed a thick layer of ice around the two, replacing any layers that threatened to even allow a single hellish flame through. Sweat heavily dripped from her forehead, the early signs of her exhausting all of her magic.

Mateo looked at her face; she was not going to be okay with the amount of magic she wasted on keeping the swarmlings alive.

“Take it easy, try not to use your magic too often,” He handed her a water-skin, she drank through it vigorously.

“Yeah, I got it. They got like four thousand more anyway.” She jokingly spoke between breaths. They were then gripped by a pair of clawed hands; they began flying skyward. The water-skin was dropped on the ground. She screamed at the sudden altitude change.

“Calm down!” yelled Amalia, “They’re helping.”

Rinae held onto Amalia with her inner claws. The blades curved just enough to allow her to nestle close to her body. The other two were being held onto by Rinae’s elite. Amalia pointed to the structure in the distance, “Down there!”

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Rinae started to descend when a dragon came in for a swipe, seeing the flying bunch as a potentially easy target.

She dropped Amalia to pull up from the incoming monster, The pressure from the wings was enough to throw Rinae a few feet forward. With her back facing the ground she watched as Rinae became a smaller and smaller dot in the sky. She looked forward and felt something wrap around her waist; a giant tentacle came from the ground. The appendage dropped her at a nonlethal height. She turned around to see what the tentacle was connected to but it was too late, it receded into the sand disappearing like there was nothing ever there. Fortunately, she was now just outside the destination. It was an abandoned outpost by a former empire. Nearly every structure was in pristine condition, possibly because the entire place was crawling with desert orcs.

The monstrous dark-skinned horde stared, stunned. It seemed that they were trying to prepare for a fight with the dragons, they carried heavy bolts for the ballistae mounted on the walls, crates of supplies. The two elites dropped Elizabeth and Mateo off next to Amalia.

“I think I prefer this to the dragons.” Mateo joked.

“Likewise,” Elizabeth pulled out her sword. “At least these guys don’t breath fire.” Her vision began to blur. She saw doubles of every orc in the vicinity. She nearly let go of her sword and collapsed from the exhaustion catching up to her. Her resolve to live through this steeled her enough to snap out of her stupor.

Amalia approached the middle of the two. She kept her voice low and spoke, “The objective is the ballista. On the count to three we attack.”

The other two nodded as she started the countdown at one. Although, the orcs weren't going just to sit there and wait kindly. A few of the higher ranked orc war-bosses roared signaling the start of a battle hundreds of orcs came charging at the trio. By the count of two, the orcs were already half the distance they needed to be. On the count of three, Amalia decapitated a war boss. Mateo rolled underneath a lunge and stabbed upward, his sword piercing between the fourth and fifth rib. Its black blood ran down his blade and onto his body.

Elizabeth blocked parried an orcish blade; she cut its shin causing it to roar in pain. However, her strike was non-lethal and earned her the ire of a backhand, landing her face up in the sand. The enraged orc dropped its sword; it reared its claws ready to rip the girl apart. She raised her sword to block the incoming attack. The orc gripped the blade threw it to the side.

Elizabeth began screaming while trying to keep her body as small of a target as possible. She stopped when she noticed that the orc went silent. She opened one of her eyes to see that the skull of the orc was crushed by a single hand, the blind creature that looked like Rinae. She left the orc to fall.

Hera barrelled through several orcs impaling a few on her back spikes. Compared to her the orcs had the strength of a toddler, there was absolutely no competition. She shattered bones nearly in contact with her brute force.

Mateo extended a hand to Elizabeth. She took it getting back to her feet and reclaimed her sword. She patted off the sand, “I’m so glad we’re on the same side right now.” Hera clutched the face of an; its eyes could be seen flying in opposite directions.

Amalia had thrust the sword straight through the abdomen of another war boss, Scarpha climbed over the top and stabbed the dying orc, turning it into her slave. Amalia removed her blade and watched it shamble to another orc group causing chaos. Amalia sheathed her sword and dashed the nearest ballista, under cover of the disorder caused by the sisters.

Amalia climbed the steps up to the ballista; there had been no one around it. The orcs it already seemed to have abandoned it in favor of battle. She ran over to the machinery; the giant crossbow mechanism was mounted on a swivel base, inside the bolt was already at its highest tension and ready to fire. She aligned the crosshairs with the dragon that was currently in combat with Rinae.

She pulled the lever releasing the lock on the string, sending the projectile hurling towards the dragon. Rinae heard the noise and looked over, unfortunately so did the other dragon, it threw itself into the path of the bolt, It pierced through the chest of the creature sending it falling to the earth.

The impact sent a wall of sand into the air. The still flying dragon roared and flew down to the ground ignoring Rinae and her elites. It landed next to its bleeding lover; it cried out trying to nudge it back to its feet. It began to panic as a large amount of the swarm came crawling towards them. The weakened and bleeding dragon let out a light whimper causing the other dragon to take flight leaving behind its mate with a broken heart.

Amalia jumped down from the wall, Elizabeth and Mateo were already close by with their swords drawn.

“Amalia,” Mateo said, “We have a big problem.”

“What is it?” Amalia turned her attention to what the two were looking at. There was an army of infected orcs and swarmlings surrounding the trio. Hera’s face could tell just how pissed off she was. She immediately began charging at them.

Amalia pulled out her sword and was surrounded by a ring of white light, in a second they were no longer in the desert but inside a dark room with a familiar female face.

She exhaled. “I’m glad I finally got it to work!” She put a hand to her wrist. “Blood runes have always been a bit tricky.”