His good eye caught sight of her. She looked magnificent. He'd never been prouder. Alright, she looked as though she'd been in a fight, but just how many dragons had she destroyed this night? After she put these two mutts out of their misery, he looked forward to finding out.
Both Crimson Guards were horrified at what had just skidded to a halt in front of them. Neither had experienced nightmares, but if they had it would be hard to imagine anything worse than that which stood before them. Automatically their training took over. Ignoring the wounded enemy on the ground, the first threw all the magic he had at her, while the second instantly erected a makeshift shield to protect them both.
Despite the run down nature of her personal shield, the magic thrown at her only tickled. Both dragons were nothing more than insects to her now, able to bite, scratch and sting, but nothing more than that. With her hair dancing around to its own beat in the wind, and spying her battered and beaten up husband curled up in a ball on the ground, right by the cliff's edge, a despairing madness overwhelmed her. She wanted to punish them for what they'd done, make them pay, torture them for days on end before deliciously removing their still beating hearts. Unfortunately she didn't have the luxury of any of that and so instead decided to get it over with. It can only be described as hell being unleashed. Electricity, primarily, with fire, ice and just a hint of pure poison whooshed from her hands, totally filling the gap between her and the two dragons. It ripped apart the childlike shield one of them had erected and then caught both in the chest, forcing them to stagger back towards the pitch black drop behind them. From the floor, he looked up into her eyes, smiling at the power she wielded, proud that she was his. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see him smiling at how well she was doing. It brought forth memories of their early days together, days that were amazing, like no other. Days that would come again, now that they were reunited, standing together against their common enemy.
Unsurprisingly, a wave of tiredness washed over her; she was, after all, using nearly everything she had to continue the onslaught of magic that was burning from her hands. In an instant, she decided to finish it.
Both Crimson Guards pushed back with all they had, but to little effect. In a sense, they were resigned to their fate, which would be the same as the rest of the team. So when a surge of power from the demonic witch they were fighting pushed them ever closer to the cliff edge, only a blink of an eye from going over, the more experienced of the two switched his focus, knowing that he'd be meeting his doom a few seconds sooner than intended. Reaching out, he clamped onto the injured rogue dragon curled up into a ball on the ground. Despite knowing that death was but a moment or two away, his action was rewarded by the looks on both his opponent's faces, as he, the other member of his team and the injured rogue dragon slipped slowly over the edge of the cliff.
It hadn't seemed possible. One second he was there, the next he was slipping away in slow motion, his look of pride exchanged for one of terror. The magic ceased as she sprang towards the cliff edge. Reaching over, her mind raced for any and all mantras or spells that would save him. But it was too late. With a muffled CRUNCH, the three bodies hit the rocks below all at the same time. Wailing and screaming she punched the ground repeatedly, the craggy rock... herself. But it was no good. He was dead. Gone forever. She lay against the rock for many minutes... who knew how long? A long time. Tears streamed as she screamed herself hoarse, magic crackled and fizzed, sizzled, bubbled and flew. Eventually she passed out, her bloodied body resting against the rock.
A few hours later, dawn broke. Sunlight streamed onto her broken body, the wind having died down. Sitting up, she licked her cracked lips. Everything hurt, but nothing more than her broken heart. It was hard to find the will to go on, but she knew that she had to; it was what he would have wanted. There was also the tiny matter of... REVENGE. That's right, she had to get back at those dragons, repay everything they'd done to her with interest. Deciding to bide her time, she would wait patiently and then rip their world apart, just as they had done to her. A sparkle from only a hand's width away caught her attention. Sun glinted off the broken remains of a bright green bottle. Pulling the massive shard from the sand, she held it up to the light, gazing at her reflection as she did so. Although difficult to tell in the warped green of the bottle, she could just make out her face and see just how badly it had been ruined. Massive, bright purple lines crisscrossed her once perfect complexion, making her face look like one giant spider's web. In that instant she knew that because magic had been used, she'd be stuck with it forever.
'Yet another reason to rain down hell upon those dumb dragons and their oh so perfect world,' she thought, scrambling to her feet. Deciding to head back to the cottage to quickly gather some fresh clothes, she didn't even bother looking over the edge of the cliff to see what lay there. Her future had already been decided.
45
Tortuous Troubling Turn
Even though on some level he'd been half expecting and watching out for it, it still came as something of a surprise when it actually happened. As far as he could ascertain, it had started with a number of different minor calls for the King's Guard to respond to, all within London, all within an hour of each other. Not totally uncommon, there were always enough dragons available to cover almost any eventuality. But on reflection, it had been a huge mistake, because something in the order of half the fighting force assigned to the council building had gone out to assist in one form or another. It didn't take long to realise that something out of the ordinary was going on. It happened so quickly, and could have been no coincidence. Contact was lost, not just with one team (unusual in itself) but with two, three, four, five teams. The list went on. In the end, no more teams were dispatched. Not a single dragon from any of those teams had returned or been heard from.
That had been just over six hours ago. And since then, things had gotten worse. Strange and mysterious mantras were popping into effect throughout the elegant and modern building. Far advanced from anything the humans were capable of creating, the computer system had developed a number of fatal flaws and had been shut down, its power supply having to be destroyed. Throughout the building, emergency seals and doors randomly opened and closed, occasionally cutting off important intersections within the structure itself, making it very difficult to mount a strategic defence against whatever was coming. Last but not least, the council chamber and everything within it could not be accessed. Dragon masters were currently working on a way to negate whatever mantra had taken over the room, but at the moment, with very little luck.
The king, his immediate staff and the councillors that remained had all been asked to withdraw back into the king's private residence, by the highest ranking officer left in charge. Not knowing whether it was a good plan or not, the king could see no alternative, given that they had no idea what was happening around them in the city itself. So, he'd agreed to Captain Amelia Battlehard's request and here they sat, cut off, with no information feeding through to them. King's Guards were scattered throughout the failing council building, guarding the overhanging walkway that joined the king's private residence, clustered around the entrance to the stunning ancient wonder of a building, waiting for what seemed like an inevitable attack. As the guard captain with them issued orders to those in the adjoining building telepathically, the king wondered if there was any way out of this for them all and what other options were available to him. No communications, no tactical information on what they were facing, no defending dragon army, no one coming to their rescue, no real way out, no hope! It all looked rather bleak.