33. Rorin
Rorin
“ You were telling the truth .” I say quietly. Vada, whether at the command of Eveera or of her own volition, makes a move and flies us up higher into the cloud cover.
“ Yes, I do that often. What I can’t understand is why the hell they look like my men? ” Her mind a tangled mess.
“ My father’s an Illusionary. He must have been smuggling them along the border, a condition of whatever farce treaty he signed with Baelor. And I’ll bet you he’s been Illusioning them from the moment he caught wind your soldiers were on our territory. ”
I have been such a fool thinking I actually had the upper hand on him for once. I take in Eveera’s profile, her eyes focused on the battle. I’ll have dragged her into this for absolutely nothing; our real armies are miles away. Her men will die. She will die .
“Vada has to end them. ” I say with a finality.
“ No.” She snarks. “I thought I would risk her just for show.” The dragon tilts hard to the right, our bodies sliding with the movement. She slips a little further towards Vada’s wing so I hook my thumb into the loop of her belt - fastening her to me. “ I’m not…gonna..fall. ” She struggles as she tries to right herself.
“ Not taking that chance, Nightmare. ”
“ I hate you. ” She grumbles.
I breathe her in, feeling a little bit of relief that she didn’t betray me. “ So you’ve said. ”
As we fly around circling back around and over to where their base encampment seems to be, I catch her up to speed on what we found in the city. Looking down we can just barely make out what looks to be some apparatus loaded with a large heated stone. The circumference of it almost as wide as the dragon we are sitting on.
So that’s what caused the damage. Wonderful.
I hadn’t realized I said that thought down the seal until I hear her quiet hum of agreement. There is no way that the ten of us; all powerful or not will be able to make it out of this. Vada will, sure. But even dragons can be felled, and by the looks of that weapon…
With a rough landing in the decimated capitol we decide that the quickest way to get out there, to potentially apprehend them, is to have Armond Void each of us to a ridge just south of their encampment that while on Vada we were able to scout out.
Vada takes off with Eveera first.
Armond repeats the process of Voiding us there one by one until we all stand concealed by the trees. Once as comfortable as we could be, Eveera and I clued the rest of our men in on what we found while up in the sky.
“Let me get this right, your father has been Illusioning Baelor’s Guards this entire time to make it look like Obsidian led the attack on Vellar?” Max asks.
Orem perks up his head, suggesting that we burn out their supplies to buy time .
Max doesn’t seem convinced as he shakes his head. “It won’t matter what we delay - there are fucking thousands of them and only ten of us. Nine and a half if you count the fact that you almost already fucking killed Felix.” He yells, shoving a hand towards the councilman. “What do you suppose those odds will be, hmm?” Orem shrugs, arguing that he was just trying to help.
I’m leaned up against a tree watching Eveera pace back and forth. Millie meanwhile is tending to Felix who assures her for the tenth time that he’s fine. A loud whirring noise alerts us that they are loading up another one of those heated stones.
“The city won’t make it much longer.” Will adds, his voice nervous. Eveera stops her pacing and huffs her way over to Vada.
“What are you…” Axel tries to ask, but she’s already climbing up the bony portion of her wing, and before anyone of us can argue she takes off, disappearing out of view again. None of us having a clue as to where she’s gone until a loud roar sounds above us and a wave of heat rolls through the field.
“Well. That was subtle.” I remark.
“Took Orem’s advice. That should set them back a little.” She says casually. Through the trees we can see rushes of men heading towards the burning supplies in attempts to try and save what they can.
Meanwhile, our small group unsheathes our swords and charges out onto the field. Yells of alarm sound from their encampment, signaling to their soldiers to converge on our location. Vada swoops low, releasing another wave of fire at them. Archers loose their arrows towards her causing my heart to sink into my stomach every time one of them gets close enough that I think it’ll make its mark.
My blade meets the flesh of one of the Illusioned Guards slicing clean through their torso. The Wield falling apart as his body dies .
“A soldier conscripted for the wrong cause, who dies while wearing another’s face. It’s wrong. All of this is wrong.” I murmur through the seal to her.
We repeat the process trying to cut down as many soldiers as we can. Orem runs past me, a wound weeping from his side as he charges towards another Guard. This one happens to also be an Evendell Wielder, their nature magic rolling out at Orem. The young brother anticipates it and opens up Oblivion that swallows the Wielder whole. Winking the both of them out of existence. I watch in awe as his magic works, and I hope that he comes out of it alive. A female scream distracts me and looking to my right I see that Millie is clutched in Vada’s claws. Eveera’s magic wrapping around her and hoisting her onto Vada’s back. The shrieks grow louder when Eveera secures her between the scales and then I watch, horrified, as she rolls from Vada’s back and lands directly on top of scorched dirt. She doesn’t skip a beat as she bolts off into the center of the fighting.
“Must you always be so careless and selfish with your life?!” I shout into her mind as cut down the vines an Evendell Wielder is using on me.
Her grunts of effort clamor into my head as she tries to respond, “YES! U nfortunately.” Grunt. “For you.” Ugh! “I am as careless and selfish with my heart as I am my life.”
I hop over the Wielded roots and arc my sword through the air, coming down and cleaving the head of the Wielder clean off his shoulders. “ Shall I take that as an admission, Nightmare?”
“Take it however you damn well please. NOW COULD YOU FOCUS?!” She shrieks. The seal quiets as the roar of battle replaces her voice. From this angle I can see that Max is fighting back to back with his brother while if I turn the other way there Vada is with Millie, laying waste to soldiers who are heading back our way from the wall. Her flames leaving nothing but char behind. For a second everything calms and quiets, until we hear the steady thunder of hundreds of horse hooves.
“Shit. Of course they have reinforcements.” Axel shouts as he finds me.
“Is that more of them?” Armond echoes as he appears on my left.
I shake my head, “I don’t kno—”
“It’s Matthis.” Eveera says into my mind.
“ The real one? ” I ask hesitantly.