Path of Dragons

Book 5: Chapter 35: Yeti Patrol

Elijah loped through the halls without even attempting to conceal his presence. With the restrictions upon Guise of the Unseen, it wouldn’t have done any good, which meant that he had no choice but to meet the challenge head-on. However, that didn’t mean he intended to rampage through the lower levels of the Ice Fortress like some mad beast. No – his goal was simple. He needed to escape through the gate, and once he was outside the fortress, reestablish his stealth before returning to his companions.

Because as strong as he thought he was, Elijah’s situation made him well aware of his own limitations. He’d fought – and lost – enough battles to recognize that he couldn’t face off against an army of armored yetis. He could make a good showing, and he’d definitely take his pound of flesh along the way. But he would eventually lose.

That was one of his issues. He was self-sustaining enough for most situations, and if he was free to use all of his abilities, he could accomplish miraculous things. However, he couldn’t do everything at once. For instance, he could take quite a lot of damage – and dish it out – in his lamellar ape form, but outside of Guardian’s Renewal, with its oppressive cooldown, he was completely incapable of healing himself. Similar limitations plagued his other forms, like the draconid’s inability to take a hit or the Shape of the Sky’s general lack of combat ability. Ironically, his most well-rounded form was his natural one. As a human, he could cast damaging spells, heal, and help control the battlefield. Yet, it lacked the punch of more focused purpose.

All of that was a long way of saying that, with proper preparation, Elijah could meet a wide variety of needs. However, that didn’t make him invincible – a fact of which he had become very much aware. So, as he stomped through the halls in his lamellar ape form, his intentions were not to fight. Rather, his plan came down to the simple strategy of rushing his enemies and relying on surprise, ferocity, and his immense durability so he could burst through their lines and escape.

If his plan failed, he would readjust and adapt to whatever situation presented itself.

With that in mind, he ran down the wide hall, barely noticing the ice gathered where wall met ceiling. There wasn’t much to say about the architecture. It was square and brutal, with little attention paid to artistic flourish. It was fitting for a facility with the word fortress in its name.

Even though Elijah made no further attempts at stealth, he didn’t run headlong into danger. Instead, he kept an eye on One with Nature, hoping that he would get a small warning before he clashed with the enemy. That caution played out well when he sensed the patrol coming from around a corner hundreds of feet away.

Elijah stopped, shifted back into his human form, then cast Swarm. One thing he’d discovered over the years was that One with Nature gave him a distinct advantage when it came to casting. He didn’t need to see his enemies in order to aim, instead relying on the sense granted by that ability to guide his spells. Even as Swarm manifested a horde of small, glittering insects that looked like wasps, Elijah cast Calamity.

Wind rushed down the hall, howling like a freight train. The yetis braced for impact, but their footing was entirely spoiled by the shaking earth. They clashed and clanged against one another, and Elijah added to that confusion by casting a couple of instances of Storm’s Fury. He didn’t channel it through his staff, which was impossible from his position of concealment, so it lacked the punch it usually did. However, with the creatures all wearing silvery metal – which turned out to be a great conductor – the lightning pushed the yetis’ panic to new levels.

That was when Elijah cast Soothe before returning to his lamellar ape form. The moment the transformation completed, he bunched his legs, extended his long arms, then sprang into an easy, four-limbed lope. As soon as he turned the corner, he employed every point of Strength he had at his disposal, charging forward with all the speed he could muster.

Distracted by Elijah’s other spells, the yetis never had a chance to prepare for the collision. He crashed into the first, hitting it with a shoulder tackle that slammed it against a wall. It was a great start, and Elijah followed it up with a vicious overhand blow that managed to dent the creature’s silver helmet.

But that was when his luck ran out.

The second he made contact, the creature sprouted a thousand jagged ridges of ice that were sharp enough to cut through even Elijah’s durable scales. The resultant lacerations were shallow, and they certainly wouldn’t slow Elijah down. But the implications were clear.

The yetis were powerful enough to hurt him, even in his lamellar ape form.

That fact became even more apparent when something – he belatedly realized it was a club – crashed into his ribs. More, he felt something else digging into him. Something that spread numbing cold wherever it touched.

And given that Elijah had made sure to keep Ward of the Elements active, the fact that he could feel that much of an effect told him just how powerful his opponents were. If he had lacked that increased resistance, he had no doubts that it would have been crippling. Even with it, the numbing cold made him feel lethargic and slow, which was far more concerning than a couple of bruised ribs.

He lashed out with a backhand that smashed into the ice-covered club that had hit him, sending it wide and knocking its owner off-balance. Elijah used that momentum to whip around and throw himself into the line of yetis that had recovered enough to surround him.

They howled as one, closing in for an attack. A second later, ice erupted from the ground, slamming into Elijah’s feet and lower legs. However, his lamellar ape form was far more durable than the draconid shape, so the jagged shards of ice only scratched his scales. He was more concerned with the series of clubs screaming at him from every direction.

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Elijah’s mind cleared. He’d once again let his bestial instincts take over, and because of that, he’d almost forgotten his plan, abandoning it in favor of battling it out with the yeti patrol.

It was a losing strategy, even with Guardian’s Renewal.

Making that absolutely clear was the fact that, despite his first attack harnessing every ounce of power he could muster, he’d done little more than stun the armored yeti. Even after only a second, it had already begun to recover.

That, coupled with the fact that there were five other creatures howling for his blood, and Elijah knew he’d worn out his welcome. More, he’d lost the element of surprise, which would make his escape that much more difficult. Pushing his boiling rage to its own facet, Elijah focused on what mattered.

And that wasn’t the fury that came from being challenged. Quarantined in that facet, his anger mounted, railing against the audacity of any creature who challenged his dominance. Elijah ignored it.

Instead, he let loose a mighty roar, then leaped toward the ceiling, avoiding the clubs coming his way. Thirty feet up, he slammed his claw into the icy stone, carving a tenuous handhold. It wouldn’t last for very long. Instantly, the stone beneath his grip had begun to crumble. Yet, that was enough.

Elijah used Shape of the Sky.

The hall was only barely wide enough to accommodate his wingspan, but that was all he needed. The idea was simple, and it was based on the lesson in air superiority he’d learned from those nasty birds who lived around the Singing Cliffs. Besides, the Shape of the Sky was his fastest form, and he needed to beat a quick retreat if he intended to survive.

With that in mind, he felt his body shift its shape, and just before the transformation completed, he let go of his precarious handhold. He dropped only a couple of inches before he let loose a powerful beat of his wings, keeping him aloft. The yetis were too stunned to react quickly, and so, Elijah had a moment to slam his talons into the wall and launch himself down the hall.

It was close.

But the hall was just wide and tall enough to let him use flight to his advantage, and he screamed down the corridor, quickly leaving the stunned yeti patrol behind. When he reached a corner, the only way he could turn without losing too much speed was to slam into the wall, talons-first, then use it to redirect. The maneuver was painful, but no more so than landing.

Over the next few minutes, he sped through the halls, passing three more patrols along the way. But thanks to his studious mapping of his route, which he’d pushed into one facet of his mind, Elijah had no issues finding the right path. And the last thing any of the patrols expected was an enormous dragon-bird flying through their halls. So, Elijah soon found himself approaching the gate.

But that presented its own problem, chiefly that the aforementioned dragon-bird probably wouldn’t be able to open a gate the normal way. And indeed, there were assuredly guards in place to prevent him from simply walking up and leaving the fortress behind.

So, in characteristically bombastic fashion, Elijah pushed himself to speeds that, if his body wasn’t perfectly equipped for the stress, would have turned his stomach. Fortunately, the final stretch of hall featured a long straightaway, which allowed Elijah to reach something approaching his top velocity.

And as he’d expected, there were guards there.

He’d noticed a few on his way in, but it seemed that they’d increased the number to an even dozen. Two squads. Fortunately, they weren’t the heavily armored yetis that comprised the patrols. Instead, they were the chainmail-wearing variants, which suggested that they were both lower level and far less durable. Elijah meant to put that to the test.

Mid-air, and moving faster than he wanted to consider, Elijah initiated the transformation into his lamellar ape form. He lost a bit of speed, but that was to be expected. Regardless, inertia existed even on an excised world, and Elijah’s velocity only dipped a little before he hit the gate with all the force a couple thousands pounds of dragon-ape-lizard moving at more than a hundred miles an hour could bring to bear.

One of the guards was unlucky enough to find himself in Elijah’s path, and its eyes widened only slightly before it was crushed. Bones shattered, and blood spurted from a hundred spontaneously appearing wounds. But Elijah didn’t have any time to notice that. Instead, the whole of his attention was occupied by the horrendous pain of slamming into the gate.

A cacophonous sound erupted from the point of impact as the heavy stone doors were wrenched from their hinges. But it was a testament to their construction that they didn’t shatter. Nor did they explode into a million shards of stone. Instead, they only moved a few feet, and even that was like shoving against a mountain.

Elijah, by comparison, was in much worse shape.

Perhaps he’d been going much faster than he’d thought. Or maybe his lamellar ape from wasn’t quite as durable as he’d been led to believe. Whatever the case, even with Iron Scales active, he felt his shoulder wrench out of socket and his collar bone shatter.

More importantly, he felt a couple of his internal organs rupture under the immense impact. But that should have been the expectation, given that he’d just turned himself into a living wrecking ball. That had also resulted in quite the concussion, and his mind struggled to catch up to the situation.

Even as Elijah rolled to a stop outside the gate, the yetis recovered their wits and closed in on him. And there were even more outside. Knowing that there was no chance of outrunning them if he didn’t take advantage of the brief surprise of his exit, Elijah used Guardian’s Renewal.

It wasn’t ideal. As his body repaired itself, he knew that much. However, he just didn’t have time to shift into his human form and wait for his healing spells to take effect. Even Nature’s Bloom wouldn’t be instant, and anything less than that would probably get him killed.

Hammering that home was another eruption of icy spikes that managed to pierce his scales from below. The slight injuries they left behind were quickly taken care of by the ongoing healing from Guardian’s Renewal, and a moment later, Elijah was as good as new. He used that to fuel a great leap that took him over the yetis’ heads and saw him landing a dozen feet behind the closing ring of guards.

He hit the ground running, and given that he only had to go in a straight line, the incredibly strong guardian form could propel him to great speeds. Not as fast as the Shape of the Sky, which moved even more quickly than its attributes would suggest, but still very fast.

Elijah left the yetis behind, racing through the tunnels and caverns as he made his way back to where he’d left his companions. Once he was out of sight, he shifted into his draconid form and adopted Guise of the Unseen. It had worked perfectly well outside of the fortress, so he had every reason to once again rely upon it.

And his faith in the skill was well-founded, because he remained undetected as he crossed miles of tunnels until, at last, he reached their campsite.

So, even though he appeared unharmed, Elijah returned with his tail tucked between his legs. He’d made a fool of himself. He’d been far too confident, and that had nearly gotten him killed. What’s worse, he’d been forced to use the ace up his sleeve, and as a result, Guardian’s Renewal wouldn’t be available again for almost a week.

But he was alive.

And he’d learned a lesson about humility. Hopefully, it would stick.