Path of Dragons

Book 5: Chapter 20: Dangling

Desperately hanging by his fingertips, Elijah looked down, where he saw Kurik and Dat dangling in the air. The rope barely held, swaying back and forth as a giant, golden-feathered eagle swooped in, raking its talons across Dat’s hastily upraised arm. The Witch Hunter let out a scream as the razor-sharp claws tore through his leather sleeve, biting deep into his forearm and sending a spray of blood misting into the air. Elijah clenched his free hand into a fist, casting Storm’s Fury. Lightning lanced down from a cloudless sky, hitting the bird directly in its feathered back. The thing convulsed, its every muscle locking up as it dropped like a rock.

But there were so many more to take its place.

For the first time in a while, Elijah used Nature’s Rebuke. The spell was quick-casting and very efficient, but he often neglected it for one simple reason. The damage it could do was extremely limited, except in very specific circumstances.

Nature’s Rebuke

Curse an entity to endure the power of nature, doing damage over time. Triple damage against unnatural creatures. Lasts two minutes.

As it turned out, very few creatures qualified as unnatural, and to date, the only ones he’d found that met whatever criteria the system had assigned to the label were the vampires back in the Magister’s Estate. He’d harbored some hope that the wraiths would count as unnatural, but he had been disappointed to find that they assuredly did not.

Perhaps there was a lesson there about the scope of the natural world, but Elijah was far too distracted by his and his allies’ precarious position to give the thought its due. Instead, he focused on the fight at hand.

Normally, the unenhanced version of Nature’s Rebuke was nearly useless against natural creatures. However, there were two things working in its favor. The first was the effect of his twice-evolved Dragon Core, which nearly tripled its normal effectiveness. That was enough to give it at least a little kick. But the real reason Elijah had bothered to cast it at all was the fact that the birds – not unlike his own Shape of the Sky – were quite fragile. Certainly, they were dangerous and deadly, largely because of their mobility and the superiority of being able to maneuver in three dimensions. In addition, there were so many of them that even if a couple didn’t make it, the flock were more than capable of ripping their prey to shreds.

Elijah couldn’t let that happen. So, he cast Nature’s Rebuke, over and over again, hitting as many of the eagles with the spell as he could manage. At the same time, he utilized another facet of his mind to maintain Soothe on his allies. And finally, he applied Shield of Brambles – another oft-neglected ability – so that when the birds did attack, they would feel the quick reprisal of Elijah’s thorns.

At the same time, he fended off any birds that chose to target him rather than the other, more vulnerable members of his party. It wasn’t easy while holding onto the ledge, but with his attributes, he managed to make do. Still, in his human form, he was far less capable in a melee, especially one suspended thousands of feet above the ground. Making matters even more difficult was the fact that he was unarmed, having secured his staff to his back via a bit of rope so that he could free his hands for climbing.

One eagle swooped in, ready to take advantage of his seeming vulnerability. But Elijah reacted far more quickly than it could have expected, and when it drew near, he lashed out with a fist that crushed one of its fragile wings. Like the ones he’d electrocuted with Storm’s Fury, the latest avian assailant fell, twirling and lopsided until it passed out of the radius of One with Nature.

Just then, a particularly clever eagle recognized the party’s true vulnerability – the tenuous connection provided by the already-frayed rope. It darted in, raking its unfathomably sharp claws through the mundane material, slicing it apart with ease.

It felt like time had stopped as Elijah felt the weight of his allies suddenly disappear from the rope. He watched as the severed end snapped back, and more importantly, he saw Dat’s shocked face as he and Kurik began the long plummet to the earth far, far below.

Elijah didn’t hesitate.

He cast Shape of the Predator, snapping out his claws before he even finished the transformation. The rope connecting him to Sadie parted even more easily beneath his efforts than it had from the bird’s. And in only a moment, he too was plummeting toward the ground. However, there was one key difference between him and his companions.

He could fly.

Even as he used Shape of the Sky, Elijah felt another bird swoop in, raking its claws across his back. Caught mid-transformation, he didn’t have the natural protection of his draconid scales, but the Breastplate of the Boar King held up remarkably well.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

And then, his arms grew into wings, his body slimmed out, and his neck elongated into the familiar serpentine shape. He snapped out his wings turning his fall into a dive as he zeroed in on Dat and Kurik. For his part, the Witch Hunter had kept his wits about him, throwing his own arms out wide to increase his air resistance. Meanwhile, Kurik flailed in terror, paying no attention to the continuing attacks from opportunistic eagles.

Elijah dove, extending his own massive-in-comparison talons. They ripped through one eagle, while he snapped out with his jaws. Two more birds fell, but there were many more to take their place, and he felt more claws raking across his vulnerable wings and biting into his back.

He ignored them, gaining on Dat and Kurik until, after another thousand feet, he clamped one claw around Dat’s middle. But he didn’t stop there. Instead, he kept going, and only a hundred feet later, found his jaws closing around Kurik’s leather jerkin. The dwarf panicked, stabbing out with a hunting knife that glanced off Elijah’s scales. But it was the distraction the flock of birds had been waiting on. The creatures struck en masse, ripping into Elijah’s most fragile places. His scales tore free beneath their beaks and talons, but he didn’t cry out. Nor did he try to fight back.

He couldn’t afford to panic. Not with Dat in his talons and Kurik hanging from his mouth. Knowing he had no chance of winning the lopsided fight, Elijah beat his wings and, out of the side of his mouth, growled, “Keep them off me!”

To his credit, that got through to the panicked dwarf. Dat, presumably, was already on the same page. And together, the pair brought their weapons to bear on the fight. Dat had somehow managed to hold onto his crossbow as well as his quiver of bolts. Kurik hadn’t had the chance to unlimber his bow, but he did have a pair of hatchets with which he could do quite a lot of damage.

More importantly, he managed to vault himself to the top of Elijah’s head, then climb onto his back. With his clearly high Dexterity, Kurik was able to balance just fine, even as Elijah climbed. And from there, the trapper showed the eagles a prime example dwarven fury, lashing out with those hatchets with reckless abandon. The dwarf took plenty of hits along the way, but that only seemed to fuel his rage.

Meanwhile, Dat, dangling from Elijah’s talons, loaded and shot his crossbow with ruthless efficiency, taking out an eagle with every loosed bolt. The slain creatures fell, presumably to litter the ground with their corpses far below. Elijah couldn’t spare any attention for that, though. He had all he could handle simply remaining aloft, much less fighting back. However, he did manage to snap out at an eagle or two, though it was clear that the Shape of the Sky was not meant for combat.

Perhaps if he ever had the opportunity to evolve it, he would take it in that direction. Though, at the moment, he would trade any amount of combat ability if he could simply move faster and fly more smoothly. He didn’t get his wish, and eventually, the sheer weight of the eagles’ numbers overwhelmed him and his companions. And when they did, it was all Elijah could manage to aim them at one of the many caves hosted by the cliffs.

They crashed into it, and Elijah felt delicate bones breaking as he, Kurik, and Dat tumbled deep within the shelter of the cave. A few eagles followed, but Dat and Kurik quickly recovered, sprang to their feet, and made easy work of the birds. It was amazing what having their feet planted on solid ground could do for their combat ability.

Elijah wasn’t so quick to recover, though.

When he shifted back into his human form, he was horrified to see that one of his shoulders had been dislocated and that his arm and both his legs had been broken. And that was saying nothing about the myriad lacerations decorating his body. The only thing that had saved his life was the Armor of the Boar King, the defensive properties of which had translated to the durability of his scales.

“You okay, bro?”

“Huh?” Elijah asked, realizing that he’d been staring at his misshapen leg for a little too long. It was odd, how detached he’d grown from pain. He felt it, but he automatically shunted the results of his injuries into their own facet of his Mind. He wasn’t even sure how he did it, but quarantining the pain was possible.

Mostly.

“It’s just that your leg’s probably not supposed to go that way,” Dat helpfully supplied.

“Yeah. Kind of figured that out on my own,” Elijah muttered sarcastically. Just because he’d pushed that pain into its own little corner of his mind didn’t mean he could completely ignore it. He took hold of his shoulder, then wrenched it back into socket. Before Dat or Kurik could say anything else, grabbed of the shattered pieces of his leg and set the first break.

“Bro. That’s hardcore,” Dat said in awe.

“I break a lot of bones,” Elijah replied through gritted teeth. “I had to get used to this kind of thing.”

Then, he did the same to the other leg before casting Nature’s Bloom. As the spell washed over him, he used Soothe on himself, Dat, and Kurik before, at last, casting Healing Rain.

“What about Sadie?” he asked after his wounds had begun to heal. It would take a few hours at least until his bones had mended, and that was an optimistic estimate. There was every chance that they would heal wrong, and he’d be forced to break them again and put himself back together properly. It had happened before, and he suspected that it would happen again.

If he kept going as he was, it wouldn’t be long before he became as proficient at setting bones as an actual doctor.

“We passed her, bro.”

“What?” Elijah asked.

“She’s below us. Maybe a few hundred feet,” Kurik said.

Alarmed, Elijah tried to push himself upright, but the moment he put any weight on his leg, it collapsed beneath him. He hissed in pain.

“I’ll go, bro. Don’t worry. We’ll get her,” Dat said. He glanced at Kurik. “Right?”

Kurik swallowed hard, but said, “Right. Ain’t gonna let one of my teammates fight those demon birds alone, am I? Course not.”

Satisfied with that, Elijah cast a couple more heals on the pair before they climbed free of the cave. Outside, the steady cry of the circling flock of eagles sounded, overwhelming even the whistling wind.

It had all been going so well before they crossed some ephemeral line into the eagles’ territory. Up until that point, Dat’s whistling had kept the wind spirits at bay, but the moment they drew within a thousand feet of the summit, they’d drawn the ire of the birds. After that, it had been one long battle until, at last, Dat and Kurik had been torn free of the tether.

And now Elijah was alone and feeling useless while the rest of his team went to assist Sadie. It was not a great feeling, so to distract himself, he focused on healing himself. It didn’t really work, but being as how he was incapable of walking, he had little choice in the matter.

Finally, after almost twenty minutes, he saw someone crawl into the cave. Then, a second figure followed. And at last, Sadie brought up the rear.

She marched toward Elijah, and he braced for one of her disdainful tirades. So, when she knelt beside him and put her hand on his shoulder, he couldn’t help but flinch a little. She ignored it as she locked her eyes on his and said, “Thank you. I can’t tell you how much Dat means to me. If I’d lost him…” Her eyes went glassy. “I just can’t. I won’t lose anyone again. Thank you for saving him.”

“Uh…you’re welcome,” was all Elijah could think to say.