Path of The Dragon Mage (book 3) 11. (Temporary) Defeat (Patreon)

Note: I feel like these last few chapters have been downers. That changes soon!

Corvus tumbled through the air, ripping at his burning overtunic and then the shirt underneath it. His fingers stung from the flames, but it was nothing compared to his arms and his back.

He was burned. Maybe horribly, he couldn't tell.

It was the work of moments to rid himself of the shirt... and then he only needed to contend with the fact that he was falling to his death.

The ocean lay underneath him, gray and choppy from the windstorm overhead. It loomed closer and closer.

Through streaming eyes, he looked up. Charm yelled incoherently, both inside his mind and aloud. But she couldn't dive faster than he was falling.

And Daffodil -- or whatever Daffodil had become thanks to his father -- was putting his bulk to good use blocking every attempt for her reach him.

He was going to die.

Charm would live, he was certain. If Daffodil wanted to kill her, than he would have already. It would be hard for her, but she was strong... she'd find a way to go on.

His second thoughts were for Gwen, and those were tinged with a deeper regret. They would never discover what they could be to one another.

Gwen had to be warned that some of the horsemen was working with Daffodil. They knew how to help empower his runes.

Swiftly, Corvus opened his private messaging system... though he knew there was little hope. Even if Gwen, Roan, and Starella were out of the dungeon, he and Charm were too far away to reach them.

He had to try.

In his haste, his message to her was slightly incomprehensible.

Ferrick is a traitor!

The moment he tried to send it to Gwen, he received a prompt.

Error: Contact Gwen Horseman is out of range. Would you like to set this message to be automatically sent when contact is back within range?

Will it count if my body floats close enough on the currents? he thought acidly.

Charm, meanwhile, had gone into a complete rage while trying to reach him. Every time she broke free around Daffodil's bulk, a gust of wind plucked her higher.

Mentally, Corvus reached out to her.

It's going to be okay--

He received back a frustrated snarl.

You will NOT die!

The words were accompanied by a surge of Charm's mana so intense if was as if Corvus had plunged his arm into a mana reservoir rune. Even in her denial, she sent one last gift.

The error message disappeared and the message to Gwen showed as 'sent'.

If he didn't have literal seconds to live, he would have been astounded. Mana could compensate for message’s range?! That had so many uses!

The Paths were so full of mysteries... it was unfair that he wouldn't be able to uncover more of them. He was about to die, and that piss-ant Farrick would likely try to comfort Gwen, and Charm would be left all alone, and Meadow City would now be without a dragon defender and--

Something hit Corvus hard, sending him tumbling through the air. But his tumble only lasted a moment as strong arms wrapped around him.

He looked over his shoulder and saw... Hattie?

The demon girl must have fallen off Charm shortly after he had. Now she was holding onto him like a drowning person. Not like it would help.

But her expression was of calm concentration, eerie green eyes focused on the ocean below.

Lines along her arms where they hooked around Corvus's middle. Green swoops lines connected by loops sprung to life... and he realized that the girl had an extensive tattoo up and down both arms. A rune collection that had been invisible until it had activated. One he could not hope to read in the time he had left.

"What are you doing?" The words were ripped out of his mouth the moment he said them. She didn't look like she was listening anyway.

Suddenly, the ocean under them seemed to boil with movement. Then the waves surged upward in a reverse waterspout which grew from the bottom up as if to reach them as they fell.

Several hundred feet above the surface of the ocean, they hit a thick mist that drew more and more dense as they fell. It slowed them down until they slipped into the surface of the ocean.

And they kept sinking down.

The saltwater stung at Corvus’s burns, but only at the edges. That was probably not a good sign.

Also, they continued sinking down, deeper and deeper.

Corvus wasn't the best swimmer, but he'd learned the basics over the last year with the Horse Folk. Not enough to grant him a skill, but enough to keep him afloat if he was ever pushed into a lake.

He kicked upward, waving his arms awkwardly. They didn't work quite right and there were trailing pieces of burned skin...

However, Hattie still had a grip around his middle and pulled him deeper underwater with firm, strong strokes.

Panic seized him. He tried to break her grasp -- elbow her in the face with arms which barely worked. Wiggle free.

The girl was stronger than him. Her green eyes glinted in the dark water.

Why had she gone to the effort of saving him from the fall only to try to drown him? Corvus had no idea, other than the knowledge that he'd made a huge mistake.

His lungs were on fire and his throat worked as he battled against the urge to breathe in... but it was a losing battle. He couldn't take it anymore.

He inhaled...

The salt water stung as it flooded down his throat, but he didn't start choking on it. He exhaled and then breathed again. It wasn't pleasant. Not in the least. The seawater was heavy, and it took much more effort to take in and force out than air. It also burned unpleasantly in his throat, down the tubes to lungs, making his whole chest ache.

But he was breathing underwater.

He looked at Hattie who stared back at him, calm.

She was breathing too. The rune collection tattoos burned bright on her skin.

Her demon was some kind of water horse. She had to be the one responsible for this.

Carefully, never releasing her grip on him for a moment, she transferred her hold from his waist to his hand. Then she started swimming determinedly down.

Corvus sent a message to Charm.

I'm alive. I'll be fine. Run.

And he let the girl pull him down into the dark sea depths.

***

As Corvus fell, Charm's mind was on fire with rage and grief. He was already too far away to reach.

All she could think to do was to kill those who had taken him from her.

"Sister," said creature that had once been Daffodil. "Now you know my pain."

Strong claws reached for her, and she evaded them with a neat barrel roll... only for the wind to blast her back into his path.

The giant dragon's claws encircled her, but she was too large now to be completely encaged. Just held in place.

"What are you?" she spat.

"I am Cataclysm, newly renamed. This is my city now, sister. Come back to me when you are older, when you wish for a new generations of eggs."

Cataclysm's rider spoke: He had to yell to be heard over the wind. "Why do you let her live?"

The mottled dragon swung his head around to hiss at his rider. "We agreed to kill the boy, but she is mine."

The way they spoke to each other was not right.

But Charm knew something that Cataclysm didn't. Corvus lived.

Still, she howled with rage in Cataclysm's face. It wasn't hard to do. She wanted nothing than to rip the scales off hid hide one by one, followed by his wings, then his toes, then his teeth until he was nothing but a wiggling slug on the ground.

But there was nothing she could do against him. She wasn't strong enough.

Cataclysm laughed at her impotent fury and threw her into the sky.

She was picked up and battered by the winds, hunted by lightning that missed her by inches and yet scored her scales, blinked by cold rain that slammed into her.

She saw a patch of darkness below and staggered in air to it. An island. Small, but it would provide some shelter from the driving storm.

There are a few scattered palm trees on the island. They provided no real shelter, but she edged herself between them for a sense of stability.

There was no sign of Cataclysm or his rider in the churning sky above. No doubt they had headed to Meadow City.

She had been defeated.

But not for long, she swore to herself.