(Path of the Dragon Mage: Nomad) 40. Alleyway Rescue 2 of 2 (Patreon)

There were several issues.

First, building a series of handholds became more complex the higher he went. Soon, Corvus was climbing the handholds of his own making while trying to remain steady enough to carve new ones. His ambidextrous skill made it so he could carve out a rune equally well with his right or left hand, but mistakes were made. Some runes exploded too deep, carving out entire chunks of the wall and peppering him with bits of mortar. Some were too shallow, and he was forced to re-carve them again.

Hanging on the edge of a wall by white-knuckled fingers and the toes of his boots was not his forte. Given the choice, Corvus would rather read, experiment with runes, and research rather than be out in the field.

He had been pouring attribute points into his physical stats recently. But there was still a range within each stat. A level twenty in strength was near the peak of natural human strength. Someone like Roan would be able to push that further. Corvus, who could be generously described as lanky... couldn't match up.

This was all to say that by the time he was a few body lengths up on the wall, his stamina bar had fallen nearly to half, and he had taken twenty hit points from rogue blasts.

He clung on, determined to see this through. That left the other two flaws in his plan.

The constant explosions were generating interest from the ratkin. More and more paused to sniff at the barrier across the alleyway. As the sun sank, the ratkin's sensitive eyes weren't stung by the light. They became bolder. They started to climb the barrier instead of gnawing through.

Some were even climbing the walls of the building. None had reached the roof, but it was only a matter of time.

Roan and several of the men were hard-pressed to keep the alleyway clear. The barrier was disintegrating. Women and children ran back and forth to stop up new holes with pieces of trash and other debris they found. It was a losing battle.

The third and most pressing problem was that Charm and Starella's battle to stop the onrushing tide of ratkin was not going to plan.

Charm had released the Wild Garden dagger. Deadly meat-eating vines had exploded outward to literally chew through the mass of ratkin.

Charm was readying to add the infusion of mana with a mana reservoir rune when she leveled up. Again.

Ding!

Congratulations! You have gained a level!

New Level: 8. XP to next level: 10/900. Mana has increased by 50. Health has increased by 50.

Congratulations! You have been awarded 2 skill points.

She had been leveling rapidly over the last few days. Each instance granted an instant growth spurt followed by several weeks of additional accelerated growth. Normally, Charm had the reserves to handle a level-up. However, over the last week, she had been snatching meals on the fly, leveling up, and growing at an accelerated pace without sparing the time to replenish what was lost.

She had become long and lanky — not unlike Corvus himself. But each level up grew new bone, muscle, and scales.

Charm's reserve was extinguished.

Corvus heard the notification ding in the back of his mind.

In the next moment, he was slammed with her agony. Bones lengthening, muscles and tendon stretching, and a sudden onslaught of hunger so intense he was ready to chew his own arm off.

He hung off the side of the building, wavering, nearly about to fall. Waves of mutual dizziness, sudden starvation, and pain snapped back and forth along their connection.

Still screaming aloud and in his head, Charm launched herself from the side of the building, past the growing Wild Garden vines, and into the ratkin beyond.

There were several small queens. She dived on one to rip and claw into its back. Her muzzle tore into flesh to rend and eat while the creature was still alive.

Ratkin immediately swarmed up the dying queen to overtake the still-growing dragon. Charm turned her head and scooped up ratkin by the gullet full, swallowing the smaller ones down alive. What she ate immediately turned to mass for herself, but it wasn't enough—

"Corvus!"

He looked up to see Starella peering down at him from the top of the roof. Looking up while his mind was half caught in Charm's madness made him sway. He couldn't tell up from down, and for a moment the world tilted so that he felt as if the wall he clung to was actually the floor, and he... he had to stand up. He had to go help her...

His fingers slipped and he didn't realize he was falling until he landed hard on his back.

Pain — his own pain this time — ripped through him, from his wrist all the way up his arm.

The pain was enough to shock Charm as her ravenous hunger had overtaken him. Half caught in their connection, he felt her wrench away from the dead queen and the ratkin which were trying to overtake her. Her scales had thickened, the recent influx of meat allowed her growing body to catch up a little. Not as many small ratkin had crawled under her scales to chew and bite.

Charm wrenched away with strength she hadn't had before she leveled. Her great wings, which were wider, the membrane thicker, flapped hard to gain altitude. She wallowed awkwardly into the air, shedding clinging ratkin like raindrops back to the earth.

The Wild Garden vines had reached their limit and were now turning brown and withering. The moment to infuse more mana to make them blossom had passed. The onrushing ratkin plowed through them, over their dead and breaking off thorns as they went.

"My lord?"

"He's not answering."

"He's not unconscious, either. The eyes are open..."

Corvus blinked and realized the commoners were standing around him. The woman who'd spoken earlier pressed down on his shoulder when he tried to rise.

"You've taken a fall, my grace."

"I'm fine..." Or he would be.

Ding!

You have fallen from a large height. You have taken 50 HP worth of damage.

Your left wrist is broken. (Simple fracture).

No notices of internal bleeding. One of the benefits he received when he reached the Witch Doctor class was he was able to self-assess his own physical injuries, though he still needed diagnostic runes to assess others.

He was glad that had stayed with him in his new class.

A gust of wind breezed past his ears. With it came Starella's voice.

“It's all gone wrong! I didn't see any motes. Your dragon left without a word, but she’s coming back now — Corvus, I don't know what to do!”

Damn it. She was panicking.

Corvus would have liked to as well, but there wasn't time.

Ignoring the woman's gentle admonishments to lay back he sat up and used his good arm to search his pockets. Thankfully, the Knit Bone rune was within easy reach.

He verified the bone was still set — no point to heal it wrong. He might lose mobility in the hand. Then he pressed the wound over his swelling wrist and activated it.

There was an intense flash of pain followed by blessed relief so intense he gasped aloud.

So did the watchers. Several drew back.

Corvus distinctly heard the word 'witch' whispered among them. Some with reverence, some with fear.

"My grace..." the woman began hesitantly. Corvus shook his head and stood. He looked up to see Starella peering down.

Well, no point in saving her elemental strength to spread the Wild Garden motes through the air.

"Cousin," he called, knowing the wind would carry his voice to her. "Can you finish what I've begun? These people need a way to get up."

"I... I don't know," she called back. "But I'll try."

Charm? Corvus mentally touched the bond between them.

He got back a wave of deep embarrassment and shame as well as lingering hunger. She'd only blunted the edge and her body needed more fuel.

It will be fine, he told her.

And that was when the ratkin broke through the barrier at the mouth of the alleyway.

Enough ratkin had pushed by the dying vines that they added more pressure on the crumbling barrier. It broke, and Corvus heard CloudStrike’s neighing scream.

"Barrier's falling! Get back!" Roan roared.

They had run out of time. Corvus turned to the commoners. "Climb! Get up the wall!" he looked up. "Charm!"

I will get them. Go help Roan!

He felt a wrench deep inside as his tired dragon reached for one of her new spells.

A moment later, an unearthly beautiful silver-haired woman stood next to Starella, calling down to the people. "Climb up! Our wind will carry you the rest of the way!”

Of course, it wasn't the wind. The moment the scrambling commoners reached the top, an invisible force scooped them up and deposited them atop the building.

If one looked hard enough, the “wind” looked a lot like the shimmering outline of a dragon’s talons.

People did not trust a dragon to scoop them up to safety, but most were at least passingly familiar with the noble’s brand of elemental magic.

Corvus turned away and reached for his dagger. He had one Wild Garden, two of his Deadly Bouquet, and his three mana needles. All would kill more people than they would save.

He had a depressingly short amount of his bladed darts, too.

So, he picked up a snapped sliver of timber and swung to strike one scuttling ratkin after another.

The barrier had fallen out at the mouth of the alleyway, and the ratkin were pouring in. This was only a temporary measure. Buying time for the rest to escape.

Roan, who was swinging his hammer back and forth like a scythe, threw one desperate look over his shoulder. "I'm not leaving CloudStrike!"

Corvus cursed. This was a canyon situation all over again, but this time… There was no escape for Roan and CloudStrike. They couldn't simply ride out.

Roan would never leave his horse. He had to find a way to get CloudStrike to the roof. Charm might be able to destroy the next building over and scramble down to grab the horse. But it would take too long, and any falling debris may crush them.

If only the horse could gallop through the air, like NightShade. If only she had a single spell to her name. If only she could teleport…

… Or Corvus could teleport her.

He had a teleport rune in his private dictionary. Or at least half of one. It still needed an anchor rune to work.

He had no idea what an anchor rune looked like. But mana fuses transferred magic from one point to another. Could it do the same with rune spells?

Could he afford not to try?

"I need a rope!" Corvus snapped. "Or a wire!" he looked around frantically among the trash and debris littering the alley.

"Here, my Lord." The woman who had helped him had stayed behind to help usher others the ladder. She pulled from her pocket some rolled-up twine. "Will this do? What are you trying to bind?"

"A horse," he said shortly.

This idea was ridiculous, and twine was hardly an acceptable medium for mana. But it only needed to work once…

As Roan and the other men were pushed back by the oncoming swarm of ratkin, as the last of the commoners scrambled up the ladder, as Starella screamed at him that rat queens had broken through the vines and were headed their way… Corvus pricked his finger, took out a sheet of parchment from his pocket, and began to draw the new rune out in his own blood.

This was insanity. Rune magic did not react well to sloppiness and improvisation, and he was doing both.

Worse, he only partly understood the original transportation charm. It had been focused on transporting ratkin to a holding location where they would be absorbed into one of Daffodil’s larger swarms.

He drew out the basic shape in blood, only instead of the stylized image of a rat, he drew out a horse.

Corvus shut out the noise and panic around him and poured every ounce of energy into the rune, filtering it through the skills he had been cultivating over the last couple of years.

It was done.

Finally, he knotted one end of the twine, stuck it through the middle of the rune, and pulled it tight. On the other end, he drew out a quick rune reservoir — a full reservoir with no stops in the spiral to limit the energy. This would need as much mana as he could pour into it.

Then, he pierced the reservoir rune with one of his last bladed darts and threw it where it landed, point first on top of the building. It trailed the twine all the way down.

He looked around, wildly, to see the onrushing ratkin had nearly reached the end of the alleyway where he stood.

Roan threw him an agonized look. "Get up the ladder! Me and Cloudy will hold them back!"

“CloudStrike's coming, too," Corvus said, showing him the rune.

Roan looked at it. "What is that?"

"Her only chance."

Roan hesitated for a moment. "What do I do?"

“Have her grip it in her teeth. Then meet me up at the top. Go!"

Corvus sprinted for the wall of handholds. A ratkin lunged for his leg. He kicked it off, but not without suffering a few scratches.

Two more followed right behind it, and one of the men who had been trying to hold the swarm back yelled and ripped a gnawing ratkin away from his ear. It came off in a spray of blood.

Somehow all of them, even Roan, scrambled up the handholds. Charm reached down and plucked him and Roan early when they were halfway up the wall.

The moment her ghostly, illusion-hidden form placed them on the top of the building, Corvus scrambled to where he’d thrown the rune. He could hear CloudStrike’s whinnying screams as the ratkin overtook her, the last living creature left in the alleyway.

Roan fell to his knees, clutching his head. Corvus reached for the anchor point and poured mana into it.

The twine he used as a rune fuse lit on fire.

Twine really was not a good medium for mana. The horse’s scream cut off from below and abruptly, the air erupted as the mare appeared right beside him.

The horse immediately collapsed. She was marked by hundreds of bites and scratches.

Worse, far, far worse was that a quarter of one of her back hoofs and leg up to the forelock was sheered right off.

Corvus did not need to know what had gone wrong. The moment the rune activated, it had flashed in his mind. In his haste, he had drawn out the picture of the horse… One of the legs was thinner than the others.