50. Captain Morgana Silversword
Chapter 50
Captain Morgana Silversword
H uddled behind an overturned table in front of the Adventurers Guild House, the party all wondered if this might be their last fight.
Lord Arnault had retaliated, alright. And now, in the courtyard on the other side of their flimsy wooden barrier, was the sorcerer himself. Plus an air elemental, a fiend…
Oh yeah, and a huge black dragon.
All the Adventurers Guild members in the Capital had come together to fight Arnault off. The elemental wasn’t looking great, as much as they could tell how damaged a whirlwind of air actually was. But no one had touched Arnault himself, and as long as he was alive, he could just summon more threats.
The adventurers put up their best defence. Druids turned to panthers and cave bears and even giant scorpions. Rangers rained down arrows from above, lined up on the roof. Rogues darted in, stabbed, and darted out again so quickly they were barely visible. Spells flew in from every direction: fire spells, acid spells, ice spells, and more. Yorick and a handful of other bards played battle tunes, adding an oomph to the hits that did land. And there were so many weapons being swung that Morgana would have been worried about accidental attacks on allies, had the enemies not been so glaringly obvious.
After a group of adventurers, including Gorlag, piled in on it, the elemental went down, dissipating into the air with a scream that tore through the night air. The fiend, however, was proving more difficult. Not only was it getting off so many attacks that it was hard to pin down, but it could fly, too. It took out half the rangers before focusing on the fighters who had taken down the elemental, and Morgana gasped as Gorlag dropped to the ground unconscious.
The dragon was a problem, too, but anybody with eyes or ears would have known that. It was so frightening that adventurers struggled to even face it, and even when they did, many of them paid for it with their lives. It kept swooping down and sending blazes of acidic breath onto those taking cover. It landed on top of the guild house, and Morgana watched as it used its tail to send a barbarian fighter flying into the middle of the square. They didn’t get up.
The fiend Morgana was wailing on finally went down in a blaze of fire, blipping out of existence suddenly as it fell. Morgana looked over to see Calamity blowing on her hands, which were still smoking. But she was suddenly struck from behind by a bolt of light from Arnault himself, and Morgana cried out as Calamity fell to the ground.
Adventurers lay unmoving all around her, and Arnault stood, largely unhurt, across the square. Morgana made eye contact with him, and he smiled that unnatural smile again. She tightened her grip on her sword and strode towards him.
“Careful,” a voice said, and she turned to see Ser Prize calling to her from where he knelt next to a fallen mage. “You’re just out of his range. Go any closer and you’ll get hit.”
Morgana wasn’t afraid of getting hit. But she was afraid of the fact that Arnault was twitching his fingers again. They needed to finish him off now so they could get clerics in before it was too late. So they could stand a chance against the dragon doing his bidding.
“Then shield me,” Morgana said, nodding at Ser Prize. “Because I’m going in.”
The two of them strode forward together towards Lord Arnault, who fired off what was probably a warning shot; it deflected easily off Ser Prize’s shield. Then they got the main event; a blast of light so strong they had to brace against it. But again, the shield took the brunt, along with a magical extension Ser Prize erected as they pushed forward. Morgana caught Arnault’s eye again over the edge of the shield, and his smile faltered; there was fear there now. Good.
The dragon must have sensed that Arnault was in danger, because the next thing Morgana knew, she was being slashed across the back by its claw, stumbling forward.
“I’ve got you,” Ser Prize said, laying his hand on the spot where the wound had opened. It felt instantly better, and a lump formed in her throat as she thought about Thrormir. She needed to finish this for him.
The dragon cried out, a horrible roar, and dove at them. But just as Morgana saw it open its mouth to breathe acid at them, Ser Prize’s javelin tore through its throat, and it crashed to the ground, taking out an entire building as it did. Morgana hoped there was no one inside, but there wasn’t time to worry about that now. They had one more enemy to vanquish.
By the time Arnault realised what was coming for him, Morgana was on top of him. And though he tried to surrender, though he held up his hands and pleaded for mercy, Morgana had seen enough friends fall for a lifetime. So she lifted her great sword up and swung, taking his head clean off.