(Path of the Dragon Mage: Nomad) 37. The Cache 3 of 3 (Patreon)

Note:  Thanks for your patience. I legit wrote this chapter 3 times. Between you and me, Patrons, I'm not confident with my action scenes. Hopefully this works for you guys.

Corvus ran flat out to aid his dragon.

He imagined it made for a ridiculous scene. Charm was not a small creature — not for some time now, and she had recently leveled yet again. And she was battling a Rat Queen easily three times her size.

He was only a human, armed with runic daggers. Thankfully, they were potent runes.

Charm roared as she and the rat queen slashed at each other. Her mana bar had nearly bottomed out. Every time it ticked up more than a handful of points, she opened her mouth and spat burning light. The queen had welts and burns covering her head and neck. They were enough to slow and annoy her.

Not stop her.

The Rat Queen made a terrible screeching sound and bit at Charm's neck. Her yellowed teeth scraped against scale, sending sparks behind. Charm had reinforced these with minerals from the roads and the soil — sharpening her claws as well as aiding her natural armor.

The Rat Queen was too large to spin to use her deadly flail tail.

What she had was her retinue. Waves upon waves of smaller leveled ratkin scuttled from behind and ran around her. So many that they looked like a disturbed ant nest rather than animals.

They climbed up Charm's legs and her forelimbs whenever she rested them on the ground. Engaged with the Rat Queen, she couldn't bat them away.

And the smaller ones were able to find the gaps between her scales and begin to chew.

Within a half dozen steps, Corvus saw his dragon swamped from her belly downward. He felt a handful, then a dozen, then more rat bites as if they were in his own skin.

Charm screamed in his head and aloud.

"Get to the sky! Shake them off!" he yelled.

She'll come after you.

"I know." Grimly, he took out of one his tiny darts — one of the few he had inscribed the mana reservoir on. He charged it, took a second to aim carefully and threw.

Charm was his partner in every way and knew his intensions before he asked. She held herself still against the growing, gnawing agony. She even stretched out her neck a little to present a target, her wings held high to keep them out of reach of the clawing ratkin.

The dart struck her between a small gap in her scales and with it came an infusion of mana from the reservoir.

It wasn't enough to beam death into the remaining eye of her opponent. It was enough for her to save herself.

She wrenched away from the rat queen, losing several scales in the process. With a beat of her wings, she took to the air. Ratkin fell from her as she rose. She shed even more as she barrel rolled. But the ones that had found their way under her scales clung on. And they chewed.

She bent her head almost double over herself and breathed out death along her own scales.

Corvus, meanwhile, was the lone figure who stood between the gathering swarm and the evacuating district behind him.

He cast a glance up at the top of the buildings for Starella. She was either well-hidden or had fled completely.

Three choices, he thought.

1) She stays to help.

2) She stays to betray me.

3) She fled.

Not great odds, and considering she came from his family he probably shouldn't count on her help.

But he remembered her as a child. One of the few aside from an occasional servant who he knew was not dangerous.

... That had been because he hadn't had any magic and had posed no threat. But still.

He had hope.

If she betrayed him in his moment, his end would be swift. The gas he was about to release would "somehow" find its way into his throat thanks to rouge air currents. Or she could do nothing and the ratkin would overwhelm him. He didn't have his dragon's fortitude to survive the swarm.

As the Rat Queen turned her remaining eye his way, and her retinue advanced on him like a living tsunami... the thought occurred to him that he could run.

Then the people behind him would surely die. He couldn't do that either.

So Corvus stood in place, waiting patiently for the ratkin to group together and advance. The queen seemed to be badly injured and took a few more moments than necessary to pull her retinue together.

That was fine. The more densely packed together, the better.

It was clear that the queen had some control of her retinue. The bonding essences reflected that.

His few seconds of reprieve ended. The swarm came at him so thick that some of the ratkin crawled on top of the other.

He didn't think he imagined the gleam of intent in the queen's eye. She knew that he and the dragon who had hurt her were connected, and she intended to end him.

Corvus braced himself and threw his deadly bouquet daggers. Not at the oncoming ratkin, but at his own feet.

Each dagger struck an inch away from the toe of his boot. Greenish gas boiled out in a noxious cloud to each side.

The gas of the deadly bouquet was heavier than air and hung at the height of his kneecaps. Not worrisome for him, but deadly for the ground-dwelling ratkin.

Too bad the higher leveled ratkin stood well above his head.

The lower leveled ratkin in the front choked and slowed well before they reached him. The taller, larger ones pushed forward.

Corvus sucked in a breath of clean air, closed his eyes, and bent to grip the two daggers. Then he poured more mana into them.

He did not see it, but he imagined the gas billowing outward in a sudden cloud. So much that it displaced the fresh air and erupted into a cloud.

Something hard and furry rammed against his shoulder. He didn't dare open his eyes while he was within the stinging gas but thought it was a thrashing ratkin. Another struck his legs so hard he lost his balance and fell.

Then there were scrabbling, choking bodies over him — dying and disoriented and not attacking, but in danger of crushing him all the same.

Where are you? Charm demanded.

Corvus caught a flash of the scene overhead. The gas filled the street — every ratkin but the queen like deep green shadows.

He didn't know and he couldn't answer. He struggled to right himself, dropping the daggers as he did. His lungs burned for air, throat working as if to swallow, but he must not breathe... he must not...

The choice was taken from him. A clawed paw struck down on his diaphragm as he struggled to his feet.

His air whooshed out and he choked immediately on the inhale.

Ding!

Alert! You have been severely poisoned.

Ding!

Poison resistance activated. (Level 1)

You will lose 50HP every 30 seconds you are exposed to poison (Deadly Bouquet)

More rats piled on, and more, and more. Now it was hard to breathe at all, and what he got was full of poison.

Notifications – warnings and level alerts – flashed in front of his eyes. He dismissed them all.

Grabbing another dagger — a normal one this time — Corvus began slashing at the bodies over him, growing increasingly frantic. It did little good as the ratkin above and around him were either dead or mostly there.

Corvus! Charm shrieked. Her panic for him was worse than the pain earlier.

Suddenly... the timer stopped.

Guessing what that meant, Corvus sucked in another breath. it wasn't fresh or sweet, surrounded by dying ratkin. But it was free of air.

He opened his eyes. Rat kin bodies pressed in on all sides, but at least he could see up from down. He pushed one body aside after another, shoving and writhing to reach the top of the dead pile.

He was in the middle of a vortex. The gas was still in effect swirling around him in a deadly green whirlpool that was growing out and out — the bubble of clear air expanding.

Above, he could see the sky and the edge of one of the buildings. And on that stood Starella with her hands extended. He was too far to see her face but could imagine it screwed up in concentration.

Corvus climbed clear of the twitching bodies and watched as the gas expanded out and out. Eventually, the giant bulk of the queen was revealed. The gas had reached her. She and the others were dead.

They had stopped the ratkin on this street, at least.

"How many more streets?" he asked Charm. He sensed her high overhead.

Her brief silence was enough of an answer.

Some have barricades.

Corvus swore and spat to the side to get rid of the taste of gas and ratkin fur out of his mouth.

Then he made his way to the building.

"I'll set the fuse-linked charges on this end. You shove the other end. It should be enough to block this way."

The fuse linked charges were not hard to set up: An explosive rune linked to a fuse attached to a mana reservoir on the other end. Corvus drained himself just short of needing his Second Wind ability to fill the small mana reservoirs.

Then he backed away and mentally signaled to Charm. When she was ready, he threw a dart to strike one of the fuses. Not dead on to interrupt it, but just to the side to sort of 'chip' the fuse.

It was enough to cause the explosion, which had an instant cascade effect on the others.

Meanwhile, Charm stood at the other end of the building and shouldered one of the pillars with her great weight.

The entire building sort of slumped to the side, falling across the street, and burying that part of the dead swarm in over twenty feet of additional gravel.

It had the added effect of burying the hidden library. He only hoped he had grabbed the books he needed.

Wearily, Corvus remounted Charm. She was looking worse for wear, too. Her belly scales were blackened where she had to breathe light over them several times. Thankfully, she was impervious to her own magic.

"How are your ratkin bites?"

"Fine. They itch," she complained. "No, you don't need to—"

Too late. He'd already slapped a Knit Flesh rune on her. The bites must have been shallow because he didn't lose too much mana.

Charm sighed in relief.

Within a few wing flaps she topped the building where they'd left Starella. The princess stared at him for a moment, her chin lifted, looking quite regal.

"Thanks," Corvus said lamely.

"We don't need to be enemies, cousin," she said, which was a bit rich all considering.

He kept his reply to a neutral nod and extended his hand down. She grabbed it with one hand, her other still holding her own dragon egg. He pulled her up.

"Where now?" she asked.

"Now," he tried not to sigh. "We hope to the eye-teeth of the first dragon the evacuations are complete. Otherwise, we do this all over again."

Ding!

Message from Party Member: Gwen

Can’t find Roan. Have you seen him?