The Consequences of Meeting a Dragon

Namyis was tired.

Raids two nights in a row, with a full day of nonstop stasis magic use in between, plus being hit with a poison lullaby.... It was really too much, even for a high-ranker. She'd managed fairly well up to this point, but these weird soldier things that the crazy guy named Ebihan had pulled out were giving her a real headache.

She was definitely going to need a few days off after this.

Would she be able to persuade Ariom to let her come to his house to play with the dragons again? She hoped so. That had been a lot of fun.

She'd probably be able to see Tava again, at least. She and Seyli had exchanged message book pages, and they'd talked about going shopping together sometime soon.

But Iggy and Humerus were also fun to play with. And watching Ariom's grouchy reactions was endlessly entertaining....

While a part of Namyis' tired mind wandered off to think about more pleasant things, the rest was still focused on the job in front of her. She waved her staff, freezing another three golems in place, even while she listened to the cracking sounds of the ones she'd frozen a moment before already breaking free from the ice surrounding them.

They never stopped, these pests....

As she let out a sigh of irritation, one of Ariom's arrows flew past her and hit a golem that was lifting its staff to throw fire at its companions who had just been frozen. The arrow was obviously an earth-enchanted one, because the golem was immediately encased in hardened dirt up to its chest.

Another arrow followed soon after, heading for the golem's head. But it was blocked by one of Ebihan's barriers and fell to the ground with a light clatter.

"Idiot," Ebihan scoffed. "Haven't I already shown that I can block your arrows whenever I want? Are you really the same enchanter who was brilliant enough to attract Lord Vehnkir's attention?"

Namyis glanced over at Silverwater's shield. Ariom hadn't responded to the insult because he was too busy enchanting arrows. It didn't look like he'd heard it. And even if he had, it didn't actually apply to him, anyway.

Ebihan couldn't see it from where he was standing, but the person who had been shooting at his soldiers for the past fifteen minutes was actually Ironfish, not Ariom. The metal mage had been alternating between his usual attacks and sending out one or two arrows at a time. He was deliberately using flight paths that made the arrows look like they'd been shot from a bow, and so far Ebihan hadn't noticed the difference.

He was probably a skilled necromancer, and he was quite good at using the fancy golems the Old One had given him. But it was clear that he didn't have a lot of fighting experience. A veteran combat wizard would have made the connection between the metal mage and the void arrows that were slowly accumulating on the floor of the corridor after being blocked by Ebihan's barriers.

But Namyis was an experienced combat wizard. And she'd been raised by one of the best metal mages in the world. She understood exactly what Ironfish was doing.

His main goal was obviously to buy time and to keep Ebihan from figuring out that Ariom was preparing for a large attack. That was more or less what the rest of the team was doing as well. Kathia had instructed all of them, via hand signals, to focus on holding their ground and wearing the enemy down, rather than trying to advance. So she clearly had some hope for whatever Ariom and the twins were putting together.

The ongoing arrow attacks were also a way for Ironfish to feel out Ebihan and the golems, to see what they were capable of and how they were likely to respond to different situations. Ariom seemed to have handed over his entire stock of enchanted arrows, giving Ironfish the opportunity to experiment with various types of attacks.

This was actually giving all of them useful information. It had revealed Ebihan's lack of fighting experience and dependence on the golems, for a start.

And the fact that Ebihan blocked the void arrows but not the other kinds implied a few important things as well.

He was protecting the golems directly, which probably meant that they weren't able to put up barriers themselves. So distracting or disabling him should allow them to attack his soldiers unimpeded.

And letting other attacks hit them showed that he had confidence in their defensive enchantments and their magic power reserves, since he didn't seem to mind them continually using magic to free each other from the various restraints that the rescue team kept putting on them.

On the other hand, it suggested that his own magic power was more limited. He probably wouldn't be much of a threat by himself once they figured out how to disable the golems.

In other words, Ebihan and the golems together were a problem. But separately, they were manageable.

Another useful piece of information was that the golems themselves didn't react to the arrows at all until they were hit, which meant they could only sense active magic use. They didn't seem to recognize the magic stored inside the arrows.

Rockbrawler had taken advantage of that by dropping his stone body reinforcement and taking out a pair of metal knuckles, which he was using to hit the golems instead. These purely physical attacks still didn't do much damage, but the golems didn't avoid them, which made it easier for him to knock them back and keep them away from the rest of the team.

And even that small amount of damage was gradually adding up. Most of the golems now had dents in their armor, and Rockbrawler had managed to crack a few of their staves, which weakened their magic attacks a little.

It wasn't much, but progress was progress.

The final reason for Ironfish's ongoing arrow attacks was actually the arrows themselves. This was where Ebihan's lack of experience really showed. He clearly thought that Ariom was foolishly wasting his arrows on shots that would just get blocked by a barrier and be knocked down to the floor.

He'd directed his golems to pick up the mask that Rockbrawler had taken off the one golem Ariom had managed to hit, so that he could put it back in place. But he wasn't bothering to do anything about the arrows.

No one who was used to fighting against high-level metal mages would make such a careless mistake. Any metal within reach of the twins' magic was a potential weapon. Including the twenty or so arrows now conveniently spread around the corridor, which their enemies were completely ignoring.

Namyis froze a few more of the obnoxiously persistent soldiers. Then with a resigned sigh, she raised her hand to signal that she needed to take a break.

"Ice Queen, fall back!" she heard Kathia call out in response.

Gratefully, Namyis moved to the rear, allowing the mirage mage to take her place. Kathia's water magic couldn't hold the golems back quite as well as Namyis' ice could. But it would do for a few minutes, especially now that Ironfish was helping by shooting the golems with Ariom's earth and ice arrows.

Namyis took out one of her bottles of moondust and drank the entire thing, followed by half a bottle of ambrosia to relieve some of her physical fatigue and help heal the small burns and bruises she'd gotten from the golems' attacks.

It was hard to dodge when they were fighting in such a narrow space, so she'd been hit a few times now. Fortunately, the attacks had just grazed her, and her combat suit had absorbed most of the damage.

They might not be quite as good as the armor made by an Old One, but the Magic Corps' combat suits were still pretty impressive.

Well, her suit was going to need some time in the workshop after this.... But at least it was holding out well enough so far.

As she waited for the medicines to do their job, Namyis took a cube of frozen fruit juice out of her stasis pocket and popped it into her mouth. She closed her eyes for a moment, first to savor the cold, refreshing sweetness and then to focus on steadying the magic power that was rapidly regenerating throughout her body.

Magic circulation exercises weren't strictly necessary with a high-quality medicine like moondust, but it would help prevent any side effects.

Namyis' brief meditation was cut short by a pained yelp coming from somewhere down the corridor.

She opened her eyes in time to see Sala leaping up to the ceiling, crossing over the heads of Ebihan's soldiers, and lifting a small figure wearing a dark purple combat suit up out of the middle of them.

Kathia sprayed a sheet of water out of the end of her halberd to protect the pair as they floated back toward the rest of the team. Rockbrawler, Ironfish, and Kino all joined in, attacking any golems who tried to target them.

"Medic!" Kathia shouted as Sala moved the injured Ziryi around the end of the corridor and out of the line of fire.

Red had already left the shelter of Silverwater's barrier and was hurrying over to them. Sala waited until he reached them before she lowered Ziryi gently to the ground. Then she jumped down herself and stood guard while he checked Ziryi's wounds.

Namyis frowned. She hadn't seen exactly what happened, but Ziryi must have taken a pretty bad hit to need to be pulled out like that. It looked like she was still conscious, so it shouldn't be anything life-threatening. But she might have some broken bones or internal bleeding.

Combat suits could block most magic attacks, but they could only do so much against physical force. Getting hit with something like a head-on earth magic attack was still going to do some damage, especially with a petite woman like Ziryi. It was the same reason that Rockbrawler was able to do the most damage to Ebihan's soldiers out of all of them so far.

Poor Ziryi's lightning magic had been mostly ineffective, on the other hand. Even her stronger attacks only threw the golems back a little. And sneak attacks against Ebihan hadn't worked either. As a necromancer, he was sensitive to magic power and had been able to avoid the dark-colored lightning easily.

Ziryi had resorted to using her small size and agility to dart around between the golems, distracting them and drawing their fire away from the rest of the team.

It had helped. But it looked like she'd finally pushed her luck a little too far.

Namyis shook her head and lifted her staff again. Obviously she cared about her friend and colleague. But she couldn't afford to spend time worrying right now.

Red was one of the best combat medics in Kafron. He'd take good care of Ziryi. The best way for Namyis to help her was by going back to work.

But if Ariom and Ironfish managed to get the masks off those stupid golems, she was definitely going to stab a few of them in the face, on Ziryi's behalf.

Ariom was exhausted.

He slumped down onto the floor, dizzy and panting. He'd just finished draining out the last of his magic power. Again.

He'd experienced magic exhaustion plenty of times before, but never three times in the same night.

At least he'd had enough sense to take out a bottle of moondust before his magic got too low to use his space pocket properly. He removed the lid with trembling fingers and took a sip.

He'd actually already drunk half the bottle just to have enough power to finish working on the arrows, so he was starting to have symptoms of recovery sickness. But they weren't too bad yet—just a headache and a little nausea. It was worth making them a bit worse to get rid of the magic exhaustion.

And Red had gone to take care of Ziryi and wasn't here to scold him. So it was fine.

"I think I'm done for this fight," he said weakly, looking up at the twins. "You can handle the rest, can't you?"

Ironfish nodded. "Don't worry, I've got it worked out. You've done enough. Just rest until Red comes back."

"I'll make you another chair if you want," Silverwater said with a grin.

"I'm fine. Save your magic." Ariom shook his head, though he immediately regretted it, since the movement brought on a fresh wave of vertigo.

Ironfish turned and signaled to Aunt Kat. The two of them had been exchanging gestures for a while now. Ariom didn't know exactly what they were saying, but he assumed they were working out the details of the impending attack.

Aunt Kat nodded and looked around, apparently checking the status of the other team members.

Ariom also looked at the others. He'd been focused on his work and hadn't really been paying attention to what everyone else was doing.

It was more or less the same as it had been before. Rockbrawler had removed his stone reinforcement for some reason but was still punching and shoving the golems away from the rest of the team, and Aunt Kat and Namyis were using water and ice to hold them in place after they'd been knocked back. Sala and Kino were helping out here and there when they saw an opportunity.

Ziryi was on her feet again, but she was hanging back behind the others and wasn't attacking again yet. She looked a little unsteady and seemed to be favoring her right leg. Red was sticking close to her, protecting her with his usual red mist while he monitored her condition.

He kept giving Ariom concerned looks, but he didn't come back over to them. Ziryi was apparently still the more pressing case.

Aunt Kat must have decided that everyone was sufficiently prepared, because she suddenly pointed her halberd at Ebihan and shouted, "Team, attack the leader!"

They all stopped what they were doing and turned to attack Ebihan.

Aunt Kat sent a couple of water tigers running through the air toward him. Rockbrawler stopped punching things for once and started creating large stone slabs that he hurled in Ebihan's direction. Ziryi shot an enormous purple lightning bolt at him. Ironfish threw out a swarm of metal shards. And Namyis formed a large number of sharp ice blades in the air that all flew toward Ebihan with startling speed.

Wasn't that one of Sword Queen's signature moves? Namyis must have copied it from her trainer, using ice rather than metal.

It was a little scary....

Ebihan dodged one of the stone slabs and directed a couple of nearby golems to intercept the tigers.

He just barely managed to create a barrier before Ziryi's attack reached him, but it was weak, and the lightning shattered it, allowing several of Namyis' blades to slice into his skin and clothing before he could make another one.

"You filthy battlemages!" he howled as blood started running down his face from a cut on his temple. "Using such cheap tricks!"

Ariom raised an eyebrow. How was concentrating attacks on the enemy leader a cheap trick? Wasn't it a standard fighting tactic? Even Seyli knew that one.

This Ebihan guy just liked to whine whenever things didn't go his way, didn't he...?

But of course that wasn't the end of it. Silverwater was holding an armful of arrows ready, and at a nod from his brother, he threw them into the air. Ironfish took control of the bunch and sent them flying through the corridor like a school of sea serpents.

Straight at the temporarily defenseless golems.

"No!" Ebihan shrieked.

He quickly diverted some of the power he was using to strengthen his own barrier and tried to protect the golems' heads. But he only managed to cover about half of them in time. The rest were hit squarely by the arrows, knocking their masks loose.

The battlemages didn't waste any time. Rockbrawler immediately tore the mask off a nearby golem with one hand and punched the weak spot on its face hard with the other. The golem collapsed and started convulsing on the floor.

As expected, the main control matrix was inside the head.

Namyis had switched from her staff to a sword with a slender, light blue blade. She wielded it with graceful, well-practiced ease, using the tip to flick one of the loosened masks aside before stabbing into the soft flesh underneath.

Aunt Kat did something very similar to another golem using the blade of her halberd. Then she paused briefly to send a few more water tigers over to harass Ebihan before directing her weapon toward another vulnerable golem.

Kino was helping by using his wind magic to pull off as many masks as he could. He also collected the masks that the others had taken off, making them all fly over and land in a pile on the floor near Ariom, where the golems wouldn't be able to pick them up again.

Sala jumped on one of the golems whose mask he'd removed, sinking her large white teeth into its head.

...but whatever was inside must have tasted terrible, because as soon as the golem dropped to the floor, the tigress created a floating ball of water, which she used to rinse out her mouth. And when she attacked the next golem, she used her claws to slash its head open instead.

Silly cat. What did she expect, biting into strange things like that...?

"You military scum! Vandals! Savages! How dare you do that to the beautiful children that Lord Vehnkir made!" Ebihan was still shouting insults at them. But there was only so much he could do to protect the golems, since he was also still fending off a large amount of purple lightning, several water tigers, and the occasional ice blade or metal shard.

Ziryi was the only one still attacking him directly. She hadn't recovered enough to run around and attack the golems along with the others. And she seemed to be feeling some extra resentment toward Ebihan due to her injury. She was shooting wave after wave of electricity at him.

It was to the point that even with her special, low-heat lightning bolts, the air around Ebihan had gotten hot enough to start melting Namyis' ice blades when they came close. His face was shining with a mixture of sweat and blood from his cut.

Still, he determinedly kept his barriers up on the remaining golems. Seven or eight of them were still standing, and they had regrouped and started attacking the rescue team again.

It was time to send out the rest of Ariom's handiwork.

Silverwater took out another boxful of void arrows. But these ones were slightly different from the last batch. The others had grey fletching, but these ones were colored black to make it easier to tell them apart.

Ariom had spent most of his preparation time on these arrows, including time spent observing the golems as Ironfish had been shooting at them.

The twins exchanged looks, and Silverwater threw the arrows into the air.

This time, Ironfish didn't send the arrows at the golems right away. Instead, they flew up close to the ceiling and circled overhead like vultures, waiting for the right moment.

"Are you waiting for me to lower the barriers? Foolish vermin," Ebihan taunted. "I'll never let you harm these precious children! These precious gifts that Lord Vehnkir himself—"

He suddenly broke off, his eyes widening and his mouth falling open in horror.

Ironfish had just dropped all the black arrows, straight down onto the golems' heads. Or rather, straight down onto the barriers covering their heads.

And as the arrows hit them, the protective barriers all shattered.

Even though he was temporarily unable to use magesight, Ariom could tell that Ebihan was frantically trying to gather his magic power and reform the barriers before the next wave of arrows came to take their masks off. But there was no way he would make it in time.

Because there was no next wave. They were already there.

With a slight flick of his hand, Ironfish made each of the 'wasted' arrows that were scattered across the floor suddenly fly up and strike at the closest golem.

All the remaining masks were loosened...and the waiting rescue team members pounced.

Ebihan let out an inarticulate scream of rage as the rest of his soldiers started dropping one by one. He abandoned his own defenses and rushed forward, heedless of any attacks coming toward him, clearly desperate to protect his 'children.'

He managed to save two.

Kino had already taken their masks off, but Ebihan reached them before any of the others were able to destroy their control matrices. He threw up a barrier around himself and the two golems and stood protectively in front of them, breathing hard, his face smeared with blood and his eyes wild.

He looked completely deranged.

"You dare.... You dare!" he roared. "Don't come any closer! Don't touch them!"

He held his arms out in front of him, and with a shimmer of magic particles, a large object appeared in them.

The entire rescue team immediately froze, all staring fixedly at the thing in Ebihan's arms.

Ariom blinked, not quite sure what he was seeing. It looked like a large stasis box, about three feet square. Inside it was.... Was that a magic crystal? It was roughly spherical. And it was huge—at least two feet in diameter. Even Ariom, a grandmaster enchanter, rarely saw magic crystals that large.

And it was a horribly familiar, sickly greenish-purple color....

"Hey..." Ariom said tentatively, looking up at the twins, who were both staring at the box with pale faces, just like the others. "What...is that thing?"

"That...?" Silverwater said weakly, his eyes not leaving the object in Ebihan's arms. "That's a behemoth crystal. A big...unpurified...very poisonous...behemoth crystal...."