…Hollow Shade…Western Wall…
In the dark hours of the evening, plus of blue flas flickered across the wall. Elzri and Una channeled Yellow and Orange. Currents of wind swirled underneath them as they flew around Oshnyr, blasting the dragonbane with azure flas. The beast swung his spiked tail through the air, trying to strike at them to no avail. He was slowing down, little by little.
Despite the dragonbane’s natural magical resistance and mana absorption, the open wounds given by Holo seed to leave it vulnerable to magical attacks. The sibling archmages did not hold back and focused their firepower on the exposed flesh. Oshnyr’s painful groans were evidence of that. And yet the anger in his black eyes was almost palpable. His hide was mostly lted, the exposed muscles charred, and still, he fought with an almost rabid fury.
Una glanced at her daughter’s battle, a few dozen ters away. She tried to fly over, but Oshnyr jumped in her way, refusing to let her pass. As soon as he drew too close, her wind spell crumbled apart and she fell back onto the battlents.
She cursed under her breath and dashed back towards her brother with an agility spell. Even now, both of them could feel their mana seeping away into the dragonbane, strengthening him. Oshnyr’s shoulders heaved up and down, his ribs opening rapidly as he gulped breaths of air. There was no doubt, he was exhausted, on the brink of collapse, but their mana and his rage kept him standing.
Elzri and Una shared a glance. They needed to finish this fast.
Not far away, Loh held her hands up in strain as if puppeteering several puppets at once. Shadow tendrils stretched out from her fingers and dangled over the inner side of the wall. Unalla, Votum in hand, ran across the wall, battling Eldrak in a dance of steel and fangs. One of Loh’s shadows wrapped around her waist, holding her from falling.
For each strike Unalla gave, Eldrak attacked five more. His spiked wings and barbed tail lashed out in a flurry of deadly strikes, all the while his claws dug into the magestone, slowly scaling the wall. His wounds slowed him, but the sheer onslaught of attacks was overwhelming.
At first, Unalla held the advantage. Her strikes were precise, the strength behind her swings powerful. But as the battle progressed, Votum’s power weighed on her body; her movents grew sluggish.
Unalla slipped and stumbled forward into Eldrak’s stinger. Loh yanked the shadow around Unalla’s waist back, sending her careening backwards. Eldrak thrust his neck and snapped the black tendril in half. Unalla tumbled down with a gasp. Loh commanded the rest of her waiting tendrils with a snap of her wrist and snatched Unalla up.
Instead of trying to reach out and attack Unalla, Eldrak scrambled up the wall. Maximus and the soldiers fired their arrows and javelins at the dragonbane. The tal projectiles broke and bounced off his translucent flesh. The grey muscles underneath tightened with exertion and with a leap, Eldrak landed heavily on the battlents.
“Retreat!” Loh exclaid.
The soldiers fell back on each other panickedly as they ran away. Eldrak’s tail lashed out in a flash, leaving behind only a scattering of bloodstains. Loh froze at the sight. The soldiers were silenced before they had a chance to scream. One mont they had been running, the next they were gone.
“Loh!” Maximus picked her up and threw her onto his back.
“Get her out of here!” Unalla shouted and got between them and Eldrak. She felt exhausted. Pain emanated from her hands and only grew the longer she held the orichalcum sword. Her breath was ragged and her vision was beginning to blur. She could taste the blood on her lips.
Eldrak pulled his lips back in a vicious smile and growled.
Unalla narrowed her eyes. With trembling fingers, she raised Votum and faced the beast. “I won’t let you… take one step closer…” Her vision suddenly darkened and her eyes rolled up. Votum slipped out of her hands in a clatter and she collapsed on the ground.
Eldrak swiped his claw down at her without hesitation.
“No!” Loh scread.
Maximus leaped forward, shield raised. Loh weaved her shadow tendrils into a do above the three of them. Eldrak’s claws ripped through the do and his paw-like hand bashed Maximus and Loh. Their bodies slamd into the battlents with a sharp crack. ȒἈΝò₿ЕⱾ
Loh groaned. She was pinned underneath the centaur. “Get up, Maximus…” she mumbled.
There was no response. He lay limp atop her. Blood flowed down his head and dyed his grey locks red.
Eldrak roared in triumph and moved towards the unconscious Unalla.
Una caught sight of her daughter from across the battlents. Her heart stopped in her chest and her heartbeat thrumd in her ears. “UNALLA!!” a terror-stricken scream escaped her lips.
The scream pulled Elzri’s mind back in ti.
He was a young man once more, standing alone in the city’s coliseum. lted sand burned red-hot at his feet and the surrounding area. Black smoke rose from the scorched ground. The crowd of onlookers were silently staring in shock.
A guttural scream that ripped at his very soul, pulled his attention to the noble boxes above the commoner seats. His little sister, Una, was standing there. Staring down at him in horror at the sight. Elzri felt a painful lump swell in his throat.
He hadn’t ant to. It had all happened so fast. Aiden. Esletha. His siblings. He had taken their lives in an explosion of fla and anger. And there was Una, watching her brother whom she trusted most, with the blood of his family on their hands.
It was the scream, not a word, not a voice, but a hoarse screeching noise born out of sheer horror and pain; it was the scream that had haunted Elzri all these years.
The sa scream echoed across the battlents as the dragonbane reached out for Unalla.
Not again… not ever again! Elzri gritted his teeth and threw his arms out. An explosion of black mana surged through his body, burning his veins irreparably from the sheer volu he demanded all at once. Shadowy tendrils, thick as his waist, shot out from his silhouette in a crashing wave of darkness. Dozens of tendrils wrapped around the two dragonbanes.
The shadows frayed at the edges. Eldrak roared angrily and tried to pull away and reach Unalla, but the tendrils held tight.
Una turned to him, surprised. “Riri!?”
He channeled Yellow. Protective scales ford across his body and a powerful gust coalesced around him. He jumped into the night sky, pulling the dragonbanes up with a long trailing cloak of shadows.
Eldrak and Oshnyr dug their claws into the wall, trying to hold on, but the shadows dragged them into the sky, a hundred paces above the battlents. They raged against their chains, tearing at the tendrils with their claws, fangs, and winged spikes. But for each tendril they ripped apart, Elzri summoned two more.
Una stared in shock at the impossible sight of magical might.
“Now!” Elzri scread with exertion and channeled Orange. Sapphire flas burst from his hands a seed of blinding light.
“Riri…!” Una bit her lip and channeled Orange. She threw the power she could muster into a similar seed of sapphire flas and shot the spell upwards.
The two seeds of flas crashed into the dragonbanes from above and below and blood into infernal petals of azure fire. The dragonbanes shrieked in agony as the flas grew in intensity. They thrashed in the sky, trying to escape their shadowy restraints. They stabbed their winged spikes and barbed tails at Elzri’s small form hanging above them. The razor-sharp bones and stingers scraped across his protective scales, puncturing through several, and ripped through his flesh. Still, Elzri held on, his jaw clenched tight and his grey eyes filled with determination.
The Azure Flowers blossod into their full might, trapping the void monsters in their center. The infernal heat seared their hide and made their way into their wounds, scorching the underlying flesh and organs. Even from the battlents, the sweltering heat was suffocating.
The blue flas burned brightly above the western wall, like a beacon in the night, a symbol of defiance against the enemy at their doorstep. Eldrak and Oshnyr shrieked one last horrifying noise before the flas consud them.
As the Azure Flowers wilted and smoke filled the air, two charred bodies fell from the sky and crashed on the grass outside the city. The dragonbanes’ bodies were little more than bone and bits of charred sinew.
Elzri descended slowly onto the battlents. He collapsed as his feet touched the ground. His white robes had been torn to shreds and were soaked red.
“Riri!” Una scread and rushed to his side.
He glanced up at her feebly, his vision swimming in and out.
“No, no, no!” she cried and gently helped him to sit up, but he couldn’t hold up his own weight and tottered to the side. Carefully, she propped him up on the rlons. His shoulders sagged down and his neck sunk into his chest.
“Riri, stay with !” she cried.
He slowly glanced up at her and his bloody lips ford a faint smile. “...Y-Your daughter… is safe…?”
Una sniffed and smiled weakly. “She is.”
“...Good.”
“Don’t speak, we need to find you a healer.” Una glanced around desperately, searching for soone in sight, anyone, but the battlents were filled with corpses, ruin, and little else.
“Grandfather!” Loh cried out. She had managed to pull herself out from underneath Maximus. Her injured leg seed worse than before. Refusing to give up, she dragged herself across the battlents. Her face was flushed and her eyes were filled with tears. “Grandfather!” she cried out again, straining to pull herself forward.
“...Elohnoir…” Elzri mumbled, blood dripping from his lips.
Una gripped his hand, “I’ll go bring her.”
But he squeezed her hand softly. She turned back and looked at him, confused.
He swallowed the blood in his mouth and whispered, “...Prot-tect…”
Una placed both her hands on top of his own. “I’ll guard Elohnoir with my life, I swear it, I will not leave her,” she said sternly.
“...Mm.” He nodded faintly.
Una glanced down, blood was pooling underneath him. “I’m sorry!” she burst into tears. “I should have never left you alone all this ti. I shouldn’t have left you with all the guilt and responsibility.”
He smiled, “...But… you ca back…”
Una bit her trembling lip. “Hold— hold on, let bring Elohnoir. Just hold on!” She jumped to her feet, sprinted over to Loh, and helped her up.
Elzri stared at them making their way over. Loh was shouting sothing, but their voices had faded away into silence. She was screaming, her eyes glistening. It reminded him of the day she was born; she was covered in blood, crying as he held her tiny body in his hands.
My little Elohnoir…
He wished he had more ti. He wished he hadn’t driven her away all those years ago. He wished… she was happy.
I’m sorry.
Elzri smiled softly and closed his eyes one last ti.
~~~
Isne rode atop a small wave as the water flowed through the battlents. She reached the western wall and found only broken bodies and shattered magestone. Worry grew in her chest like a poison burning through her heart.
She caught sight of the largest centaur she had ever t, Maximus, sitting at the edge of the wall in grim silence. A small sat across from him, sitting next to a giant sword with a blade like black glass.
“Unalla!” Isne shouted, relieved. The wave crumbled underneath her. She grabbed her cane and hobbled towards the young drow. “I saw the azure flas in the sky. I ca as fast as I could. Are you two alright? Are you unhard?”
Unalla sat with her knees to her chest, her head buried between them.
“Unalla…?” Isne said anxiously and touched her shoulder.
She glanced up at the old woman, her eyes were red from crying.
Isne stepped back, startled. “Where is—?” She glanced past Maximus and her voice caught in her throat.
Elzri sat slumped over, his back resting against the rlons. Una knelt next to him, her head bowed. Loh was atop him, her arms wrapped around him tightly. She wailed quietly, her body shaking with each breath.
The cane slipped out of Isne’s numb fingers. “Elz…ri…?” she mumbled, eyes wide.
A flicker of torchlight caught Isne’s attention. In the distance, the valley armies were marching to the western gate, they’d arrive in a matter of minutes. Even from here, Isne could see there were no soldiers left at the gate; slain by the monsters that had breached the wall.
Rage burned in her chest and blue mana surged to life within. Droplets of water spun into existence around the old woman and swirled around her, carrying her into the air in a storm of magic. Lightning crackled through her body as the current swirled faster and faster.
The Tempest Archmage flew over the battlents and headed to the western gate alone.
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