(Path of the Dragon Mage: Nomad) The Cache - 1 of 3 (Patreon)

Note: We'll split the difference and have 3 medium size chapters this week! Next one is tomorrow with the third on Saturday. 

To his relief, Starella was waiting for his arrival on the rooftop. He had been concerned that her bravery would fail her and that he would have to fetch her and convince her to do the right thing.

Though… she didn’t look happy at the prospect of fighting. "I don't think I can do this," she said, as he came up. She clutched her dragon egg tight against her chest, like she used to do when she was a child. "I've never done anything like this before. The wind will not answer my call as it used to— Corvus, what if I do something wrong?" Anxiety was written plain on her face. And despite their… Complicated relationship, his heart went out to her.

He put his hands on her shoulders, stilling her. "You do what you can. We need to stop the ratkin from routing us completely and buy us some time. As for your elemental talents — you have your dragon to aid you. Just as Charm aided me while in the shell."

"She did… He will?” She looked down in wonder at her egg, not even noticing that she had called it a ‘he’.

She was growing closer to the little dragonet inside the egg. Was he doing the right thing?

Corvus pushed his doubts aside. They were important, but he didn’t have time. “They seem to know when they’re in the greatest need.”

“It’s easy: You humans are always in need of assistance.” Charm agreed, striding over to them. She bent her head and sniffed at the egg in Starella’s grasp. Starella stood stock still, aware that each one of Charm's nostrils was now as large as her spread hand.

Though she stood stiffly, she looked in wonder at Charm. "Has… has she grown in size? She wasn’t this large last night…"

Corvus neither had the desire or the time to tell her about levels. Instead, he looked to Charm. "Can you carry us both? We need to drop Starella on one of the tops of the buildings. Somewhere safe, but where she can see where her Talents will be useful."

"Yes. We must hurry. I can smell the ratkin on the breeze."

Corvus nodded, glanced at his cousin, and then gestured to the dragon. "After you."

After taking a deep breath to fortify herself, Starella scrambled up on the dragons neck. Corvus sat himself behind her. Thankfully, Charm’s scales provided many handholds because the moment they were seated, Charm walked to the edge and dropped off the edge like a stone.

Starella's scream was cut off, and she held her dragon egg tight to her chest with one hand, her other white knuckled digging between the scales.

“Why doesn't she have a saddle?" Starella yelled.

Why don't you have a decent dragon riding skill? Charm silently grumbled to Corvus.

All amusement between them fled as they overflew the outer part of the noble Towers district. Several different streets fed into the main boulevards that made the district. These streets were choked with panicking people.

Below, several horse warriors directed evacuees away behind hastily put up barriers. The bulk of the evacuees were crowded and banging against closed tower doors.

Corvus swore. Word of the incursion had spread, and the nobles in the towers were not allowing anyone else in.

This wouldn't do.

He saw no ratkin among this bunch, but that changed as Charm flew further out. In ones and twos, in dribs and drabs that were slowly collecting to become more— like water seeping from a crack in a dam — came the ratkin. Most were the smallest types: Levels ones and twos with a scattering of threes. They ran down the street, chasing evacuees who had been slow to reach the towers. Some stopped to fight them. The wiser ones tried to outrun them.

Corvus saw a pair of sheep who’d been abandoned by their owners brought down by a small swarm of ratkin. A few were manageable, but with a swarming-type demon, a few quickly became many.

The streets beyond, in the outer districts, looked brown to Corvus’s with thousands of rat bodies, and they were drawing closer. They were like a flooded muddy river, drawing ever closer.

"I see Gwen!" Charm tilted her wings and dipped towards one of the major intersections that stood before the entrance to the noble districts.

Gwen and NightShade were there, out in front of a small platoon of guards in a calm fighting retreat. The men battered ratkin with clubs and bludgeons while NightShade squash them to death with his hooves. Gwen was busy shooting arrows from his back, steady and unconcerned as the horse danced and twisted underneath her.

The ratkin they were facing were leveled to threes and fours and were running down the street in a steady stream – the bare vanguard of what was to come.

Charm and Corvus paused long enough to drop Starella off on one of the shorter, squatter towers inside the district. It was positioned to give her a view but kept her well out of the way… at least, for now.

He knew he was placing a lot of trust in someone who had not been shy of being untrustworthy.

As she slid off of Charm's neck, Corvus gripped her wrist and said, "This is your time, Starella. You have to prove yourself to be the rider of your dragon."

He watched his cousin's eyes widen, a question forming on her lips. But Charm jerked away to tip off the edge of the roof and glide  down to the street.

Implying that the dragon will be impressed enough to come out on his own… That was underhanded of you.

“The city can't afford to have her playing political games," Corvus said.

He didn't have time to go on. They had swooped down to the street level between Gwen and the guards, and the ratkin.

Charm landed with a skipping gallop, took a deep breath, and breathed burning light over the oncoming wave of ratkin. At full breath and pouring mana into it, the light exploded outward to bathe the entire street until it curved around the corner, dropping ratkin where they stood and leaving only their skeletons behind.

Corvus kept an eye on her mana well and watched it sink down a full forty percent in that one breath. The wide beam was expensive, but effective.

He touched her neck. “That’s enough.”

Charm snapped her jaws shut and the light cut off, as did the drain on her mana. More ratkin immediately scuttled from around the far corner but she had bought them a few moments of rest.

Corvus slid from her neck in time to meet Gwen who galloped up on NightShade.

"Took you long enough," she said. "How bad is it from the sky?"

"Bad. We’re going to be overwhelmed soon.” He turned and beckoned to the captain who, along with his men, had stayed well back.

"Captain?"

"Gerald. At your convenience, my liege." He dipped into quite the courtly bow.

Corvus didn't have time for niceties. "When my Dragon and I over flew the towers, we saw the doors shut against the evacuees. I need them open, and people let inside immediately. No more filtering. No more delay. When we fly back and find people waiting outside closed doors, Charm and I will open them ourselves. Is that clear?”

The man, who looked tired and sweaty from holding back the line, made a face as if he desperately wanted to argue, but didn't dare speak up to royalty.

That was fine by Corvus as long as he followed his orders. He was getting depressingly used to delegating to guard captains.

Gerald’s second in command had more spine.

"Begging your pardon, my prince, but it won't do a lick of good if you kill all them demons here. This is one street out of many leading into the district."

He was right. They needed a barrier to stall the ratkin and give Corvus, Charm, and Gwen more leeway to head to other streets clear out other streets.

He looked around for inspiration and his eyes lit on crumbling building crumbling two-story building.

"What is this building?"

The guards exchanged wary looks and it was the Sargent who answered. "Why, it's one of the blight orphanages, sir."

Corvus had not expected that answer. According to the map, there were three ringing the district, straddling the edges of the wealthy districts from the poorer districts.

"Can you verify it's been evacuated?" he asked.

"Begging your pardon, but it don't rightly matter."

Because the kids were as good as dead, the Sargent didn’t say, but it hung in the air anyway.

Corvus did not think much of that attitude. He scowled. "Go carry out my orders, Captain," he said and turned his back on the men. "Gwen, can you and NightShade help Charm keep the street clear? I'm going to verify that the orphanage is empty. If it is, Charm can bring it down the building across the street. That should be enough to stop them… For a little bit, at least." The smaller leveled ratkin might be able to squeeze past, but the rubble might delay the larger ones.

She nodded, looking worried. "I haven't seen Roan. Nightshade and I last saw him across the district. I was trying to fight my way back to him but got stalled by the damn demons."

And because Roan wasn’t a Path user, they couldn’t message him.

"We'll find him right after this," Corvus said. "He knows how to take care of himself."

"I wish he had the party feature—" she started.

"More coming,” Charm said.

They both snapped around to look. Around the corner, a new wave of ratkin came scuttling down the street. These were larger, the size of small to medium dogs.

Immediately, Charm breathed out, but she had to conserve her mana. The beam was not quite as wide and quite a few got through.

"Go," Gwen said, and turned, her bow raised to start shooting.

Corvus nodded and sprinted to the orphanage’s door.

The words ‘Blight Infirmary’ were sketched out in golden peeling paint over the door. He supposed this had been at a point when there had been hope the children inside could be saved.

The door wasn't locked which was a bad sign. It seemed as if it were abandoned or evacuated, someone would have tried to bar it from squatters.

As he stepped inside and saw a dusty warehouse laid out in front of him, Corvus remembered the city folk said this place was haunted. He could see why. Although his eyes pierced the gloom with his night vision, and there was nothing but empty cribs and small cots free of bedding, the dust so thick it looked like brown snow… The air somehow tasted of desperation and death.

A primal part of his being knew that something terrible had happened here.

But there was no doubt that it was empty. It had been for decades.

The best thing that could happen was for the whole building to be brought down and serve the city as it had not served the children inside.

Corvus started to turn, then paused as he caught a flash of blue and green out of the corner of his eye.

He whipped his head around and stared. There, visible only due to his rune sight and night vision, was the dim glow of a room. It was mostly obscured under the layers and layers of dust.

Hesitating, he glanced out the door and saw that while Charm and Gwen were fighting ratkin, they were not overwhelmed. He could spare a few moments.

He jogged in, the half-rotten floorboards creaking under his footsteps.

The glow came from the middle of the room, and when he reached it, he swept dust aside with his foot to reveal linked runes in a square pattern on the floor.

The runes were mostly unfamiliar to him, though he saw Stay and a glyph for Camouflage that he had identified once but never got to work on its own.

None of the runes were stamped with a name, indicating that they were free to take… Or activate.

I was brought here for a reason, he thought. The Path system wanted me to come here to become a Witch Professor.

It was too much of a coincidence that he find runes immediately.

He knew what he had to do.

Kneeling, Corvus placed the tips of his fingers on the outside of the ruins and sent a pulse of manna through them.

The outline of a trap door glowed into existence with a ghostly green handle in the middle. Corvus lifted it and stared down at the room below.