Chapter 20

The fight was over. All that mattered was which side won the magical shoving contest. On his own Errrkkkk put up a stiff resistance, but wasn’t strong enough to fend off a dragon alone. When Roden stood beside him and added his Lightning Burst, they gained back some ground. When Roden discharged his cloak they finally were able to stand toe to toe in the contest.

When Errrkkkk saw that, he sensed a moment of weakness. The dragon had faltered as if he had lost concentration or was growing too fatigued to keep up the beam of cold magic. Knowing in his core that was the only chance they had of saving Riakon, Errrkkkk committed his whole aura into his beam.

His golden aura gathered into his hands and was unleashed with a screeching,

“Caaaaaaawwwwwww!!!!!!”

At his urging, all the energy of his aura was absorbed into his beam. His Cacaw Wave surged like a rushing rapid river. It became jagged and lost its uniformity. Everything happened so fast. From the initial collision to Errrkkkk’s final gambit only seconds had passed, but the gravity of the conflict had made it feel like a lifetime.

Errrkkkk final attack overwhelmed the dragon. The tsunami of energy slammed into the monster and pinned it against the wall of the cavern until its energy ran out. When it was done, all the men could see was the monster of a dragon they had been sent to slay, was indeed slain. It was no longer moving and the great eye that stared back at them carried no life.

In their fatigue, the men collapsed in the snow before the foe that had pushed them to their limits. They looked at each other and Roden held up a fist, which Errrkkkk promptly bumped with his own in a silent declaration of victory.

The two men lay on the floor of the cavern unmoving except for their heaving chests. While neither had taken life threatening damage, neither had anything left to give. Had their last effort failed they would have been at the dragon’s mercy and they knew it.

“We should probably get Riakon out of there.” Roden said while staring at the ceiling of the cavern.

“Cacaw.” he said in agreement.

When the men sat up, they saw the dragon had started to shimmer. Flakes of energy began to float off its body as it laid there unmoving.

“Huh…”

“What, cacaw?”

“It looks like snow.”

They watched the snow that wasn’t snow drift off the body and up into the air of the carven before vanishing like snow on warm ground. It was slow and subtle at first, but grew to be larger sections some the size of perfect snowballs.

The majesty of it all was summarily interrupted when the body of Riakon tumbled out of the chest of the magically evaporating dragon. He looked ragged and moist. He was slightly coated in a slimy yellow green liquid. When he dragged himself to his feet Riakon gave his friend a toothy grin.

“Aye we did it!”

Roden looked at Errrkkkk who rolled his eyes and flopped onto his back once more.

Riakon furrowed his brow, “what’s up with him?”

Roden pointed at Riakon’s lower half, barely covered by the remnants of his pants and the nubs that remained of his toes and feet.

“Oh,” was all Riakon could say as he stared at his poor appendages.

Roden dragged himself to his feet, walked over to the big man, and used his Never the Time and Place ability to heal the man. Over the next few seconds, all of Riakon’s injuries healed.

Riakon nodded in approval of his new clawed toes,

“Thanks Roden.”

Roden shook his head, “don’t thank me yet. We have a problem.”

Errrkkkk sat up, “what now, cacaw?”

“I don’t have any magic left to cast the treehouse.”

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All of them groaned at the prospect of a frigid night in the mountains. Errrkkkk worked his way to standing.

“Well better get moving, we sure as hell can’t stay here, cacaw.”

*********

Despite their intense fatigue, the trip down the mountain was a much faster endeavor than climbing it had been. Between Errrkkkk and Roden’s Nimbus, they were able to descend the mountain in a couple hours, although it would be more accurate to say they essentially fell off the mountain repeatedly using limited flying to control their rapid descent as neither of their modes of flight were designed to carry passengers.

By the time they hauled themselves into a rooming house in the city of Rock’s Edge, they were exhausted and famished. Ordering food to be brought up to their room with a generous tip to the hostess was all they could manage before ascending the stairs.

Dinner was a simple thick potato stew with big chunks of bacon and a few other vegetables that Roden didn’t recognize at first. He had quickly grown accustomed to just eating the food of Mir despite rarely knowing what it was.

Roden’s memories were helpful enough to encourage him and sooth any apprehension that what he was eating shouldn’t be eaten or would taste awful. His instincts rarely served him wrong in those moments.

Once their dinners were eaten, Roden was too tired to even lay his wards at their doors. He had pity for anyone who dared interrupt their sleep that night as he couldn’t imagine the rage that would accompany such a disturbance.

Thankfully, no one disturbed their rest or at least none enough to rouse the men out of their complete and utter unconsciousness.

******

Roden woke to a scream. It wasn’t clear where or who it came from until he blinked the sleep from his eyes and saw Riakon bouncing up and down like a child on Christmas morning.

“Riakon, what the fuck are you doing?” Roden’s mood gradually turned from alert to surly the more clear it became that there was no danger.

“I got my powers!”

Errrkkkk perked up, “really, cacaw?”

“Some, not all, but I can touch my magic again.” His toothy grin and voice full of elation.

“At least, he’s got something.” Roden added before dropping back into bed and pulling up the thin covers.

“Oh no we have to get moving.”

Roden groaned. He was still so exhausted. Sure he had superhuman endurance and a mental fortitude greater than most, but even all of that couldn’t combat his love of sleep and a warm bed.

Errrkkkk stretched and let out a chirp for the effort.

“C’mon Roden, we have a conflux to secure and probably another shagrem to fight off, cacaw.”

Roden let out a sigh. He had forgotten about that part of their trip. It wasn’t part of his game back when he was running the show at the table.

“Fuckin hell alright.”

The men got themselves together in various degrees of urgency. It was clear Riakon was completely giddy at the prospect of having some powers returned to him. Errrkkkk seemed a bit less disappointed in his adoptive brother. While Roden was the least enthused, at least until he got some coffee and a spot of breakfast.

The trip back to the cave of their first mission wasn’t terribly far from Rock’s Edge. They purchased Riakon a horse so he could at least keep up with Roden and Errrkkkk who had superior modes of travel to walking.

Based on their best guess, the cave was approximately eighty miles away. At top speed, it would take them one full day of travel with them arriving sometime on their second day of travel. That night they were finally able to enjoy Roden’s treehouse spa thanks to a slightly overcharged casting of the spell.

Roden did his best for Riakon’s horse by opting for his evergreen conifer model that allowed them to walk the horse into an alcove of branches. The horse probably would have been fine just tied up, the air wasn’t nearly as cold on the steppe between Rock’s Edge and the Timber Wilds, but Roden would take any excuse he could get to play around with his treehouse design.

The following day they made haste to reach the cave before any gremlins showed up. When they reach the trees, they made the decision to release Riakon’s horse with the hope it wouldn’t be a casualty when the gremlins showed up.

They trekked through the dense forest, careful to keep the northern ridge in sight as that was their only point of reference for the cave’s location. Whenever they could they would walk along the ridge wall.

When the craggy uneven land made constant travel along that route impossible for Riakon on his own, Roden would hook his cloud to the Dragonkin and use his leaping ability to take to the trees. He hadn’t had much practice swinging through the trees as he had seen in his vision months ago with Mu’tumbo, but he found he was a bit of a natural.

Around midday, Errrkkkk started to see various caverns starting to appear more frequently than before. After a couple hours they started seeing various thin threads dangling from the trees and vegetation. That alone signaled to the men they were getting close.

“Did you see that Roden?”

“The webbing? Yeah of course, why?”

“Do you remember that first fight with the spiders?”

“Yeah I remember.” Roden said, anticipating the shit talk about to come his way.

“Man you froze like a scared deer in torchlight.”

Roden rolled his eyes as he perched on a thick branch.

“Yeah well it was my first real fight.”

Riakon nodded, “we figured as much. I gotta say, I wasn’t sure you had it in you to do the job.”

“Shit me either.”

Errrkkkk clucked, “well there is no doubt now, cacaw.”

Roden beamed, that was the highest praise from Errrkkkk.

“Awe thanks man.”

“No for real, Riakon would be dragon shit right now if it weren’t for Roden helping me slay that dragon.”

And there was the typical sardonic comment Errrkkkk couldn’t help, but include.

“He’s got a point there. You would be dragon shit.”

Riakon shook his head, “no way, I was fighting it from the inside. Besides, I helped, it didn’t die until after I burned it. The thing’s insides practically exploded.”

“Yeah sure, cacaw.” Errrkkkk said dismissively.

“Oh come on, I definitely deserve some credit for helping kill that dragon.”

“What do you think we give him Errrkkkk? I’m thinking we say he’s ten percent responsible.”

“Ten!?”

“I was going to say five, cacaw.”

“Five!?”

“Yeah I mean what all did he do other than be bait and get eaten?”

Riakon was incredulous, “What do you mean?! I helped!”

“Oh yeah? What is the one job of the person being the bait, cacaw?”

Riakon opened his mouth to speak, but stopped himself.

“C’mon, cacaw.”

Riakon hung his head, “to not get eaten.”

“Egg-xactly, cacaw.” The birdman said with finality.

Roden raised an eyebrow, “Errrkkkk did you just say egg-xactly?”

“No, I said egg-xactly.”

Roden looked for Riakon amidst the trees for confirmation.

“You got eggs on the brain there Errrkkkk?”

“He must have seen a particularly fetching seagull up there!” Riakon shouted from the trees.

Roden nearly slipped off his branch as he started laughing uncontrollably.

“Next time, I am going to let the dragon eat both of you, cacaw.”