CHAPTER TWO
MAGIC IS A FINE TOOL, but be wary of being too dependent on spellcraft.
Spells and casters are fallible, and there’s usually someone better than you.
Most learn this when it’s least convenient.
From Ozora’s personal journal.
“What luck!” A nasty, lascivious grin split the male elf’s lovely face hovering close to mine.
Pale alabaster skin with jet black hair and eyes that practically glowed red, like blood rubies lit from within, filled my vision, but his breath!
It stank of his last garlicky meal, washing over me as he leaned in to sniff at my neck.
Upswept ears that arced to a graceful point gave away his elvish heritage, but he looked nothing like the Ayduin elves of Athypsos'inar. Even with his startling eyes, his features were divine but oozed lecherous intention.
“I’ll have you first, then let my brothers take you.
” The translation amulet shattered with a palpable pop that caused the pouch on my hip to twitch, ending the spell as if it couldn’t bear to continue.
I didn’t think it mattered much what else my captor had to say.
I was more concerned about what he would do to me, to my town.
Scraping my nails across the elf’s hands where they clutched my hair had no effect, they slid uselessly across his taut muscles and bones, and made no dent.
My scalp burned as if he would yank all of it out by the roots; he even gave a little shake, like I was nothing but a rat.
The elf licked his finely carved lips, and a thick chuckle trickled from them.
“Yur majik.” He lifted me higher until my toes barely scraped the dirt, and spoke in a heavily accented common tongue. “No good ‘gainst Crimssson Birth.” He flicked his fingers and cast a spellbreaker on me.
My body jerked with the energetic blowback as my owl sight spell shattered under his magical assault, and I clamped my teeth against the hiss of pain that wanted to burst forth.
Glad it was just a small spell. The thin thread of numin between me and my spellcraft crackled and snapped, broken by the elf’s more powerful one.
My magical energies dissipated into the surrounding ether, draining from the fragment of the spell still attached to me.
I sagged, hands still loosely clasping the enormous male’s wrist. It hurt, but not too bad. With a swift internal flex, I cut off my numin, stopped the flow. The elf laughed again, and poked me in the stomach, then breast, as if testing for tenderness while he muttered another spell.
My numin vanished; snuffed out like a heavy blanket laid over a fire.
Cold sweat trickled down my back. I couldn’t cast a spell, couldn’t activate any of my remaining amulets or talismans.
That trickle of sweat grew, threatened to douse me with an icy wave of fear.
The warrior had cast a numin-blocking spell that stopped me from using my innate magical energies. I was completely helpless.
With a satisfied nod and a sharp jerk, he dragged me toward the shore; in moments he broke through the tree line to cross the sands.
I kicked my heels and dug in my nails, but his heavily muscled arm was wrapped in hard leather armor.
My struggles had no more effect than a kitten might’ve against his greater strength.
“Snaaaaak!” he roared, and raised the fist that clutched my hair, lifting me as if I were merely a wispy length of cloth for his comrades to see. Even without my translation spell, his meaning was clear.
Panic built. My heart raced. I couldn’t stop fighting, or I’d die. I knew it.
With redoubled efforts, I tried to find some weak spot to target. I struck at his arm, kicked at his legs. He laughed and kept walking, pulling me off balance. My feet stumbled against the grassy tufts.
I hadn’t slowed his march. He crossed into the sands of the beach from the clumps of rocks and grass that led back to the tree line.
His brothers turned at his shout, depraved smiles alight on their beautiful elvish faces.
They laughed and slapped each other on the shoulder before pointing.
Some made gestures with hands and hips that also needed no translation spell.
In an attempt to slack his pace, I sagged, but his sharp tug and the sharper searing pain forced me to stagger after him.
All my instincts screamed ‘fight’ but nothing I’d done made a dent in just one of these mighty warriors.
Now I faced a whole ship of them, cut off from my own spellcraft by his numin blocker spell, so nothing in my belt pouch would work.
Frantic panic built, and my heart jolted like she would leap from my chest as the realization settled in that I could not get away from him. No air would draw past the tightness in my chest, as if cinched bands held me captive from my own breath.
I’m dead.
Sound, heat, and a rolling pressure wave hit, knocking us both back several feet. A deafening roar, like a hundred gongs struck all at once belled out from...
Above?
The concussion smashed into us like a god’s hammer, sending us flying.
I landed with a thump, and rolled to a stop before realizing the blast threw me a good ten feet from my captor.
Free, with the added good fortune of a soft landing on a grass-topped dune.
The elf warrior was not so lucky. He struck his head on a rocky outcropping and did not stir when a shadow darker than the star-spangled sky swept overhead.
What. Was. That? I had my answer immediately.
A thick column of incandescent flame shot from above to incinerate one of the two waiting ships offshore. Like its sister on the sand, it exploded, and scattered timbers, sails, and elves across the water. None of the warrior’s brothers in arms had come to his aid.
They were all dead.
A long, wide, scorched path along the sand marked where the elves had burned and flames fully engulfed the grounded ship. The fighters ashore were crisped husks, killed in the blast that knocked me free and detonated their grounded ship.
Just like the one out in the bay.
Another furious roar raced across the water. It echoed off the cliffs to meet the faint screams carried ashore more slowly on the wind, that also brought the taste of ash and the acrid scent of flame and smoke. The screams cut off when the third ship met the same fate as the others.
There was only one thing capable of that.
And I am not sticking around to be its next victim.
I jumped to my feet and tore across the grassy dunes toward the trees, only to fall again moments later as a blast of wind and pressure knocked me flat.
The ground rocked and trembled with impact.
I managed to raise myself to my hands and knees but paused when I saw what landed in the sand ahead of me.
An unimaginably vast body cut off my path to the forest’s edge, cut off sight of the forest itself. It was leathery, reptilian, with wide semi-transparent wings held high, and a thick, muscular neck topped by a...
That’s...that’s a... My mind floundered.
“Dragon.” I breathed, half-terrified, half-awed.
“Get up, you fool. And hurry! There’s likely more, and we need to stop them!”
I wasn’t sure I could. Who was speaking?
Who would help me in the face of...that?
I held my breath when a reptilian head bigger than me snaked forward, snuffling like a dog on a scent with its wide wings flared high.
They blocked out the stars. The dragon had saved me from a gruesome death, but I was surely still about to die. There was no escaping this beast.
With a slow exhale, I closed my eyes, grateful this way would be swifter than what the elf had planned.
“Get up!” The voice came again, well-used to command from the way she barked. My eyes flew open as the dragon lowered its wings.
A woman perched on the dragon’s back, bent over with her hand outstretched as she beckoned imperiously. “Get your ass over here. Now. Unless you don’t care about saving those friends of yours in Emberglen?”
The thought of my town in peril gave me all the strength and motivation I needed. I lurched to my feet. Threat to them was the only thing that would induce me to run toward a dragon. Plus, if said beast had wanted me dead, I’d already be sipping mead in paradise.
It angled it’s foreleg invitingly, allowed me to run up and grasp the woman’s hand and forearm; obviously this dragon was benevolent. I’d never have been able to climb it otherwise. The helpful beast slowly lifted its leg as I scrambled up its boulder-like shoulder.
“Behind me. Sit!” the woman barked, and pointed to a padded leather seat held in place by thick straps and buckles that encircled the dragon’s neck.
I dropped, looking for anything to hold onto. Nothing. I hoped the dragon was a gentle, level flyer. Fortunately, my rescuer anticipated my need.
“Wrap these around your waist.” She twisted in her saddle to shove two lengths of leather into my hands.
“Tie them off here and here.” She jabbed her fingers at two thick rings set into the leather harness.
“Then hold on! Cassyrra might not be able to double back fast enough to catch you if you fall.” The straps she handed me were secured to the rigging with stitching and buckles.
Relieved, I hurried to do as the woman bid and lashed myself down.
“Let’s go!” the woman shouted, this time at the dragon, who reared up on its back legs. With bunched hindquarters and raised wings, the mighty beast leaped into the night sky.
Flames and smoke fell behind us, dwindling as the dragon mounted toward the clouds.
The woman yelled, but the rushing wind took the words.
Shoulder muscles bunched and flexed beneath me and mighty wings pumped, then flared and tilted as the dragon leveled off and took us on a long, looping turn toward my town.
I screamed. This time from sheer exhilaration. If the rider in front of me heard, she didn’t react, and I wouldn’t have cared if the world heard me.
A long-sought center within my soul awakened in the rush of wind and sweep of wings, burst to life, and expanded with almost painful exuberance.
A part of me, a past life I’d left far behind, awoke as we climbed into the night sky, and cried out in longing.
Whoever this woman was, however she’d partnered with this magical beast, she had to show me how she’d tamed the untamable.
At that moment, I knew my life would never be the same.