(Path of the Dragon Mage: Nomad) 14. Breakout (Patreon)

Though it irked both of them, Corvus and Charm were forced to wait for Daffodil to leave the bowl with most of his mega-swarm. He was too strong alone. Surrounded by the swarm, they could not fight against him.

As the sounds of crumbling rock fell away outside, and some of the chattering ratkin diminished, Charm paced the inside perimeter of their tree-made cage, growling under her breath. Corvus sat in the middle of the area, his legs crossed, sorting through his collection of runes.

The branches were weaved together so thickly overhead that no light came through, but his Night Vision still allowed him to read the small squares of parchment.

He had long ago gotten into the habit of bringing in entire first-aid kit’s worth of medical runes in his pockets. Yes, he had used a few Knit Flesh runes for CloudStrike, but there were many other varieties to spare.

Most of these, he transferred over to impale on the tip of his tiny blade darts. He had teased Roan about making a death hammer, but Corvus had experimented with weaponized runes before. Each one of his ten darts was carefully engraved with a fuse-linked mana reservoir. Enough to hold a hundred points each to feed into the rune.

Still, this was an inaccurate way to deliver the rune. The paper could flatter off while being thrown, or tear in the wrong place to break the barrier circle. With testing, he learned that less than half of them activated when struck at a target. But half was better than zero.

The runes he attached were varied and medically destructive. One had to be very careful when applying medical runes to patients. Suppressing a cough could prevent the body from clearing out the lungs so that the patient accidentally drowned in their own fluids. Reducing a fever could plunge the body’s temperature too far, too fast. Purging infection when there was none sometimes attacked the body’s own defenses.

Corvus had also learned that to heal a body, sometimes he had to injure them, first. Bones occasionally needed to be re-broken to reset properly. Through experimentation on dead mice, and adjusting the Knit Bone rune, he had created a Break Bone rune. This was medical-grade, used to break one bone at a very specific point in which it was placed. Not something used for a large area of effect.

Still, he attached several Break Bone runes to his darts. If he hit a Rat Queen correctly, he could easily break a rib, a leg, or if he was especially lucky, a spine.

Give half your darts to me, Charm said. I can throw them from above. A skull is better broken than a leg or a rib.

She shared his Throwing Accuracy skill, and he trusted her above all else. A dragon’s shoulder wasn’t made for throwing long distances like a human’s, but Charm had become adept at using her elbow and wrist to flick a blade down with shocking accuracy. Since she often threw from the air, this was effective.

“Take these, too,” he said, giving her some Thin Blood runes. Very good for strokes or heart attacks, and deadly if one was already suffering from cuts or internal bleeding.

He might be dissatisfied with his progress while being a clan healer, but he had certainly learned gruesome ways to kill his enemies.

The runes sorted, Corvus pulled out his remaining specialized daggers. He had lost one mana needle while throwing it at Daffodil. For the remaining two, he added additional charge using his considerable mana well.

He also had two of the Deadly Bouquet which emitted poison gas, and three Wild Garden daggers.

Charm took one of each.

I need pockets, she commented absently, juggling them all within her claws.

They had not heard the sound of rocks shifting for some minutes, though there was plenty of skittering and ratkin shrieks from outside. Daffodil might have taken nine-tenths of his swarm with him, and still left more than enough to overwhelm Corvus and Charm.

It didn’t matter. They had to get out, find Gwen and Roan, and warn Meadow city — the kingdom — what was heading their way.

How fast could a ratkin swarm travel?

Setting that question aside for later, Corvus walked to the entrapping ring of trees. The trunks had grown so thickly together that they were practically one organism. He scuffed the toe of his boot where one of the trunks sank into the earth. Then he frowned, bent, and dug at the soil.

What are you doing? Charm asked.

He continued digging. “Remember the Ten Elements of Life rune?”

The one you still can’t get to work right?

“It works. It just force grows plants and animals so fast that they need an enormous amount of nutrients. They die within seconds when they can’t get enough.”

So?

He gestured to the living wall. “How did Daffodil force grow mature trees?”

Charm cocked her head, considering. Gwen and Roan rolled their eyes whenever he got technical about magic, but Charm found it almost as fascinating as he did. Especially when they were gearing up for a battle.

Daffodil didn't use runes to do it. His natural magic? He is named for a flower, she added in derision

“Maybe to help it along, but I don’t think it explains everything.” The soil under his fingers had been recently broken up by the roots growing through them, making it easy for him to dig deep. He found his answer buried close to a foot down. “Charm, help me with this.”

Curious, she stuck her muzzle into the hole to get a closer look. Then she recoiled as if she had touched something disgusting. Is that what I think it is?

“One of his scales, yes,” he said, tapping the edge of one of his knives on the plate-like yellow scale he had just uncovered. “That’s how he did it. He buried his own scales, maybe hundreds of them, under the dirt around here. He’s using them to power his plant magic and whatever spells he got from the ratkin essences.”

Charm snorted, and, using her greater strength, reached into heave the scale out. It was easily two feet long, half that wide, and several inches thick. When she handed it to Corvus, he could feel the other dragon’s magic buzzing against his fingers.

What do you want one of his scales for? Charm asked. I would give you one of mine anytime you asked.

“Your magic is different from Daffodil’s.”

She flared up, annoyed. I will grow much more powerful than him. Stupid flower magic," she grunted. He is not so handsome as he thinks he is.

Corvus’s eyebrows rose, but he let that last comment go.

He turned to the tree. “I’m sure I can burn through these with an Ever-Flame rune, but it’s going to cost a lot of manna.” And he would need every iota that he could get for the battle ahead.

Daffodil’s magic is inside these trees, Charm admitted. It will resist your magic… And mine.

Corvus smiled. “But it won’t resist his own magic.” He glanced at the scale in his hands meaningfully.

Charm made a pleased, rumbling sound in the back of her throat. I like it when you're being clever about destroying things.

* * *

Corvus spent the next few minutes carefully carving runes into tree trunks. They chose a spread of five trees to make a doorway big enough for Charm to get through. On the first and fifth tree, he carved an Ever-Flame rune.

The three trees in the middle were more specialized.

Back when he first discovered that several noble house insignias were actually runes in disguise, he had drawn them out to see what they would do. The Ever-Flame rune — a fire of heat intense enough to melt metal — had come from one of these.

The noble Miller house had provided a utilitarian rune made to pulverize wheat into flour. Through experimentation, Corvus learned that the rune worked just fine for all plant matter.

These three Milling runes, he placed in between the Ever-Flame runes. Then, he nicked his thumb and dripped his blood to act as a bridge to his own will. His last step was to place the large yellow scale over the rune, sandwiching his blood in between. He pulsed manna through to provide the activating spark.

The first rune, and Ever-Flame, immediately burst into searing fire. After Corvus’s initial spark of mana, pure magic rushed from the scale into the rune without any drain of his reserves. That was useful.

He worked quickly, setting the two outside trees alight before activating the milling runes. Daffodil’s magic must have been potent, because the living trees caught like candlesticks with such heat and force that he had to step back quickly to avoid being burned. The Milling runes worked just as instantly. The tough tree fibers collapsed in on themselves as if ground by invisible metal teeth. The trees began to bend and break, but the pulverization expanded upward and outward, turning the tree into the finest grade sawdust which was quickly taken up into the growing fire.

Ding!

You have increased your Rune Magic skill.

New Level: Intermediate 33

Backing away, Corvus yelled, “Charm!”

One benefit of their mental connection was that Charm instantly knew what he wanted her to do. Rising to her hind legs, she flapped her great wings, throwing the newly made sawdust into the fire.

The ratkin had not been idle on the other side of the living wall. They had massed at the noise, chattering and scratching at the wall with excitement.

The ones directly on the other side of the wall were the first to burn.

There was a deep whoomph and air rushed past Corvus, sucked in by the greedy fire which then exploded outward into the waiting ratkin.

Charm led out a roar and rushed through the hole in the wall the moment the fire died down. Flames licked at her scales, but she didn’t seem to feel them. Within moments, she was out of their enclosure and flying into the sunshine where she could use her solar breath.

Corvus stayed back, his Wild Garden dagger at the ready.

The first ratkin who poked its nose in was a huge, horse-sized, level ten. It received a dagger straight to the eye. It squealed, and thorny vines corrupted out of its face to attach themselves to more ratkin who were closing in on the right and left.

Corvus backed away to be well out of range. The Wild Garden jumped from one ratkin to the next and the next. Soon the entranceway was choked and closed off again. Nothing was coming in without getting tangled up in thorny vines and sucked dry.

Outside, he heard a deep boom and knew that Charm had released one of her primed mana needles.

Notifications of ratkin deaths rolled past his vision, XP stacking up so fast he had no chance to count it.

With the hole closed, there wasn’t much he could do from inside the enclosure. The rest was up to Charm. He closed his eyes and sank briefly into her mind to see how the battle went.

Next chapter: Battle from a dragon's POV