Chapter 31
“Yo!” Luna shouted. “What do you mean, nine thousand?”
The drake flying them back to the mountain grunted. “Stop screaming, damn it!”
“Like, seriously, what is this? There were sixteen harpies, those are worth five hundred a piece. That’s eight thousand. There’s no way the caster and the monster were worth just one thousand. Alsen! We need a recount!”
Alsen could only grunt. His entire body radiated with pain, the left arm she held him by sending pain so blinding it made his consciousness slip.
“Shut! Up!” The drake shouted back.
“Oh, no you shut up, or I’ll fix the experience with you.” She kicked him in the loins again, lighter this time. “And land gently.”
“I’m not a mount! I can’t really carry two people.” The drake flew back to the mountain, the dome’s floor approaching.
Way too fast. When they got close Luna let Alsen go, letting him fall and roll on the icy floor. His vision blacked out as he rolled, his consciousness finally leaving him the moment he stopped moving.
The drake crashed more than landed, smashing on the ice. Luna stayed on top of it, holding herself just fine. With the drake’s claws screeching on the ice, they stopped. Luna smiled. “That wasn’t gentle, but good enough. You fly all right.” She slapped it on the ass and jumped off.
The drake glanced after her, but swallowed the retort, and instead, headed to his brethren. The other functioning drake stood by the two half-frozen ones, its body radiating heat in visible waves that made the air shimmer.
Arleria’s group huddled nearby. Kern held Arleria upright, his arm around her shoulder, her body still limp from the harpy screams. Malick and Derell stood close, weapons out, fresh blood freezing on their armor.
Malick had a gash across his forearm, shallow but long. Derell’s main arm hung limp by his side, shoulder plate torn off. He held his sword in his off hand.
The two harpies Alsen had let through apparently weren’t all that easy to handle. Even Kern had marks of his own frozen blood all over his left leg.
Luna picked up Alsen, holding him over her shoulder. He was out cold. She carried him to the drake.
Her ex-mount glowered at them, but he also started radiating heat, joining in thawing his brethren. Luna carried Alsen nearby, sat down, and held him over her lap.
With the sphere gone, the unnatural cold faded, so the drakes’ heat melted ice with ease, each drake hotter than a campfire.
The drake that carried Luna kept glowering at her. “At least you have stopped screaming. You are worse than a cow I carry to eat later.”
Luna smirked. “You make for a fine heater. Maybe I should keep you around as a pet to keep me warm at night.”
The drake drew a sharp breath. “If you ever touch me again, I will eat you, piece by piece, starting with the legs, so you can watch.”
Luna chuckled. “You’re slacking on the heating.” She pointed at the other drake. “He’s heating more.”
“Because I’m exhausted from the flight.”
“That took like two minutes. Stop crying about it.”
The drake huffed out a puff of smoke. He turned and walked a little closer to help thaw his colleagues.
Luna glanced at Kern. “You guys alive?”
“Mostly,” Malick replied for him while Kern motioned wildly with his eyebrows. “Is he all right?” he asked, clearly meaning Alsen.
“Probably.” Luna shrugged. “He’s really bad at estimating the limit of his spells.”
“What was that explosion? That shook the entire mountain.”
She smiled. “One of his bigger spells. He’ll be out for a while, but he should be fine after a bit of sleep.”
Arleria, held up by Kern, met Luna’s gaze. “May I look at him without getting stabbed?”
“Sure.” Luna unclipped her spear from her back, driving it point-first into the ice next to Alsen. A marker. Mine. “He really could use a healer, though. The left arm’s messed up real bad.”
Arleria pulled free from Kern’s support. She staggered, her legs unsteady, the harpy screams’ aftereffects still running through her system. She took two steps, wobbled, but kept walking toward them. “I’ll look at him.”
Luna didn’t go too far from Alsen. But she allowed Arleria to sit opposite from her.
Arleria summoned pink light around her fingers, and started scanning Alsen, starting with the left arm.
She ignored the half-hidden glare from Luna.
“The shoulder is dislocated,” Arleria said.
“So is the elbow. Most of the tendons in the rotator cuff are torn. The muscles along the bicep and the inner forearm are partially separated.” She pressed gently near his elbow, and Alsen’s face twitched even in unconsciousness. “The elbow ligaments are shredded.”
“Can you fix it?” Luna asked.
“Over the next month, probably.” Arleria looked up at her. Their eyes met across Alsen’s body. Whatever complicated arithmetic existed between them, it paused for exactly this moment. “He’s somewhat stable, but also hypothermic. His lips are already blue. Help me out of the coat, please.”
Luna lay Alsen on the floor, got up, and helped Arleria from the coat. She managed to help her without accidentally stabbing her, with great restraint.
Together, they drew the coat over Alsen. Arleria used it as additional wrapping for the arm, binding it against his body to prevent movement. Her fingers moved with a quick certainty, in spite of most of her body trembling. “We need to get off this mountain,” Arleria said.
Luna glanced at the drakes. “Do you four need more babysitting or will you be fine?”
All four drakes now glowered at her. “We are fine,” one of them uttered.
Kern and Malick came to pick Alsen up. After they returned their weapons back into their sheaths, they lifted him in a mostly stable way.
In a few moments, they headed out. Getting too heated up by the drakes would have caused a terrible cold shock once they left, so they couldn’t linger.
The lance holes Alsen had drilled through the mountain during their ascent created an alternate exit from the collapsed cavern, so they used one of them, and headed down the mountain.
The wind didn’t feel nearly as cold anymore, and most of the snow was gone thanks to Alsen’s spell. On the surrounding mountains too, very noticeably.
A couple of hours down the climb, they saw the four drakes fly out from the mountaintop, and head toward Vellhorn. One of them, undoubtedly Luna’s ex-mount, spared them a long glare, promising an extensive amount of future violence.
Luna led them on a goat path down the mountain. It had only a couple of drops, which they got down using ropes. Alsen didn’t wake up even when they were lowering him down a thirty-foot cliff.
When they got low enough to find trees, Kern made an improvised stretcher for Alsen. It wasn’t much, but it allowed Malick to carry him by himself.
A few hours later, as the sun was about to set, they reached a saddle. A wide shelf of rock between two ridges, where the wind dropped to almost nothing. They started setting up camp without anyone saying it.
Luna announced she was going to hunt something, and left. Arleria went to tend to Alsen, and the rest of the group set the camp up.
Alsen woke to the smell of roasting meat.
Exiled from the meat, Luna sat ten feet away while Derell and Malick were roasting the goat. Arleria sat by Alsen’s side, gently leaning against him, running a spell on his left arm.
Oh, yeah, the second his mind thought of the arm, pain fired through him. Not some phantom pain, but very real pain of a very broken arm. He twisted his face, hoping Arleria wouldn’t notice.
Her eyes instantly met his. “Don’t worry. It will be all right.” She brushed hair from his face with a gentle touch.
“Thanks,” Alsen pushed out of himself. “How long was I out?”
“It’s still the day of the fight. It’s been a long day, but we’re down under the mountain, the drakes have flown home, and so it’s all over.
” She put the hand above his left shoulder.
“Don’t move the left arm. I set the shoulder and the elbow, but the tendons and muscles need proper healing.
This will take weeks to heal, even with magic. ”
So, without it, it wouldn’t ever heal. He glanced at Luna. No sign of damage or discomfort, just a mildly annoyed expression, from which she spared him a side glance.
Everyone seemed to be all right. Well, at least the spell worked. He annihilated the being, and everything else. His arm too, indirectly. He really had to ration his power better.
It wasn’t that his shield couldn’t stop the shockwave. It could. It would have if only he had put more power into it before throwing the spell.
That didn’t matter now, though.
“The goat is almost done,” Malick said. His voice carried the gentle matter-of-factness of a man who had decided that focusing on cooking was the healthiest available response to what he’d witnessed. “Luna got it on the way down.”
“We haven’t seen the goat in the entire time we’ve been on the mountains,” Derell added. “That’s her third one, apparently.”
“Want a coat too?” Luna asked pointedly.
“I’m good. But Arleria could use one. Alsen’s is too big for her.”
Luna rolled her eyes.
Kern and Malick chuckled. Even Arleria and Alsen smiled.
Arleria’s thumb traced small circles on the back of Alsen’s hand. Her head leaned against his right shoulder. The touch was casual, possessive, comfortable, as if they’d done this a thousand times.
Malick started serving out the goat, using a long knife to cut large chunks out of it, which he distributed around. Luna got a leg, which she immediately bit into.
Alsen couldn’t wait for the meal, his stomach reminding him he had eaten nothing all day. He sat up with Arleria’s help, his back against a rock she’d arranged behind him. The fur coat was draped over him like a blanket, the goat fur warm and familiar.
Malick handed him a stone with a generous portion of goat. Alsen took it with his functioning hand. The meat was properly cooked, for the first time in this world while not eating at an inn.
He ate. The warmth of the food spread through him, pushing back the magical depletion’s chill.
Arleria leaned into him as she ate. Her body was warm, her weight comfortable against his side. She ate one-handed, the other still intertwined with his, her thumb still tracing those slow circles.
Luna watched this. She didn’t comment. She tore off another piece of goat meat with slightly more force than the previous one. “I’ll go sleep. I’m exhausted.” She got up, picked up her sleeping bag, and vanished beyond the rocks.
The tension in the air slightly released. They ate, still over half of the goat remaining. Derell and Malick put the remains up beyond the rocks, so the wind would chill it overnight.
They slowly set themselves to sleep.
As usual, Alsen acted as if he was going to sleep. He had a bit of a score to settle with Luna.