Dawn of the Last Dragon Rider - Chapter 086 - Fiola's Stand (Patreon)

Dropping the wand with no more charges, Fiola fished for the one she had strapped to her hip.

“HOLD THE LINE!” Corey shouted as a group of fifteen or more creatures rushed at them.

The four warriors held shields out, the middle two with spears pointed at the incoming group with Corey and the other one waving their swords in the air.

“Now!” shouted Fiola as her casters let the lightning bolts stream from their fingers, arching through the group and causing them to thrash from the pain.  “Arrows!”

The two archers behind her loosed arrow after arrow at the pack, killing and injuring them even more as they stood there defenseless from the attack they had just suffered.

Only a few of them survived that combo, and the two warriors with spears stepped forward, finishing off the weakened ones before falling back into position.

She smiled as she held her wand ready.  It had been a gift from her father long ago, and she had saved it, knowing someday would come that she could actually use it.  Three charges.  It had cost more money than most people could imagine for this.  It was a treasure to their people, yet her father had given it to her because he said he knew she would be great.

Glancing across the mountainside, Fiola saw the other group with its six members holding back the advance of monsters who tried to flank them.  She had been unfair in the way she had made groups, but she knew she needed them.  The two gold warriors would match almost anyone other than Hess regarding durability.  Their archers were both almost gold rank and had multi-shot skills.  Their mage was smart, using mana only when required, reminding Fiola of Luca momentarily.  That healer was the weakest link.  Barely a silver, but that group would provide him protection and not need as much healing as her group did.

This section of the mountain was the worst spot.  It had been the first one reported and appeared to have been the longest one here.  There had been initially two hundred creatures outside the camp when she attacked.  Her first two wands had frozen most of them, allowing her to unleash the one shot the other had provided.  It had decimated almost three-fourths of them, allowing them to get close and begin the real assault.  Over one hundred gold in wands had been used.  Kings would have married off children for them, and she had discarded their empty shells as if they were nothing more than a twig.

Even if I survive this, the cost will be worth it. She thought as she watched the creatures continue to pour out of the mouth of the cave that had been widened to a good forty feet or more.  She could see the support beams they had braced it with.

“Barrier!”

A shimmering shield appeared over them as a good fifty arrows rained down upon them from a pack of archers that had moved up the mountainside and out of their spell range.  Corey was a fantastic leader right now.  His reputation as a skilled tactician was proving to be absolutely correct.

“Thirteen more!” shouted the mage behind her on her right.

“Fifteen!” called out the other.

“How close do we need to be for you to reach them?” asked Corey as he pointed at the archers spread out on the mountain.

“Fifty yards or less!”

Grumbling, Fiola twisted the bone wand in her hand. She knew it was foolish to waste all their mana on shields, and the hobgoblins also knew it.  They were content, raining arrows down till they ran out of mana.

“Get me within one hundred yards!” ordered Fiola as she calculated the distance.

Without hesitating, the warriors moved a little further apart.

“On my go, everyone runs behind us!”

Each of them prepared and waited as arrows flew over their heads at the orc or goblin approaching them.

“Go!” Corey shouted as he saw the archers losing their volley.

Each of them sprinted, knowing they could save a spell and get the distance Fiola needed if they moved fast.

The warriors dashed forward, cutting down and spearing those who were surprised to see them pressing the attack.  The archers fired off shots as they ran, not killing but injuring those in the group's path.  One of the mages stopped, casting another lighting bolt before moving forward, barely getting out of the range of arrows that landed behind them, impaling the dirt and ground like a bunch of new shoots growing up.

“Twenty more yards! Keep moving!”

Fiola drew a small amount of mana into the wand.  It didn’t take nearly as much as casting the real spell, and she had more than enough mana once this wand was gone to hold off anything that came for a while.

As they covered the distance needed, the warriors dispatched those injured from the lightning spell and formed up, holding their shields high once they hit the spot Corey knew they needed to reach.

“Now!” he called out as another volley of arrows approached them.

Power flowed through her arm and into the bone wand.  It vibrated and began to glow before unleashing a green bolt that flew toward the middle of the hobgoblin and archer line.  As it hit the ground at the center of them, massive vines and thorns erupted from the ground, grasping at anything close to them, impaling them, and tearing them apart.

The line began to break, but the vines kept growing and following them.

“Barrier!”

The volley of arrows bounced off it as it arrived where they were standing, in the middle of corpses and burnt pieces of flesh.

Everyone wanted to watch in horror and appreciation that Fiola’s spell was not focused on them.

“What in an elf’s tit is that?” asked one of the warriors with a spear, forgetting exactly who was standing behind him.

“An elven weapon of old,” replied Fiola as she scanned the area.  “It is much worse against an army in the forest.”

The man’s head bobbed as he focused on an orc approaching them.  It had two arrows in him already but seemed unphased as it rushed the two with spears.  Both impaled it as it came, finding their spears stuck in its body.

“Disengage it!”

As one of the warriors began to back up, pulling his spear out, an explosion rocked the two of them, sending them both flying as Fiola realized the orc had been wearing an explosive device of some sort on its back.

“Heal!” Corey shouted as he pinched the line close, glancing at the two warriors, bleeding and lying on the ground, barely moving.

“Incoming!” Fiola shouted as she pointed at a group of seven orcs who were all running at them, all wearing the same X-shaped leather straps across their chest and coming from different directions.

When had those appeared?

She knew she couldn’t waste any more time, and three arrows formed next to her and zipped across the battleground, taking each of them in the chest and setting off a chain reaction of explosions, sending body parts and armor flying in all directions.

A fireball roared past her head, taking out another two as their bodies detonated.

Both archers fired and hit the same orc. It somehow shrugged an arrow in one of its eyes and the other in its chest as it shambled toward them.

“Protect Fiola!” shouted Corey as he ran forward, his shield raised and his sword out.

“Wait!” she began to shout, but it was too late. he had already closed the gap, and when he took the head off the orc, it erupted in a ball of flame and gore, catching the last orc near him and setting off his charge as well.

Corey was blown back toward the party.  The other warrior raced to stand near him.  Fiola ran forward, finding his sword arm was gone from the shoulder, and his shield was broken in half, impaled into his body.

“You fool!” she hissed as she began to cast her healing spell on him.

He grunted and tried to shake his head as blood gurgled from his mouth.

“Save it… my…”

He stopped talking, and Fiola glanced at his chest and realized it had a piece of his shield where his heart was.

Screaming, she stood up and looked at the mouth of the tunnel and saw two orcs coming out of it with another fifty or more minions ahead of them.  They were only seventy yards away like the one Luca had taken out.

Anger and frustration gripped her heart, and she held out her wand, channeling the power it required, and let the green bolt go at the massive pack of goblins and orcs, smiling as she watched the plant she summoned once again tear through all the creatures and raced toward the cave entrance.

“To the other group!” she ordered as she pointed at them, almost two hundred yards away.  “We need to go now while we can!”

“What are our options?” asked Hozzut, the golden warrior she was standing behind.  “Your spell took out a lot of them and has clogged up their tunnel, but I can hear them hacking it apart.”

Fiola nodded and spat on the ground as she cursed her luck.

Neither of the orcs had died from that spell, both retreating and feeding it with the lives of their minions.  She hoped they had gotten injured at least, but here on this mountainside, there was not enough life in the ground for the plant to draw from.  If she could have fought them in the woods, bundled up in a single pack, she could have wiped them all out in one blow.

Each of them drank quickly from the water pouch they carried, and a few were taking a small snack as the mages meditated on the ground behind them.

“We have to hold, and we need to press our chance.  I know the three kegs we brought will not close that opening unless we get it deep inside.  Doing that will be a death sentence as I doubt anyone could escape in time.”

“I will volunteer if that is what is required,” Hozzut immediately answered.  “You know I will give everything for the kingdom!”

Bobbing her head, Fiola smiled and touched the dwarf warrior's shoulder.

“I will not ask it right now.  If the time comes and you are our only option, then I know you will do what must be done.  Just as I will do what must be done.”

He looked at her and cocked his head for a moment.

“Permission to speak freely?”

She chuckled and nodded.

“You seem different.  Less…”

“Uptight? A bitch?” she asked as she smiled.

“Your words, Guild Master Fiola, but yes,” he answered, unable to hold the grin that felt unnatural when surrounded by so much death.

“I feel different,” Fiola replied as she motioned to the carnage around them.  “I had forgotten the true cost of being an adventurer, and I have a new respect for those who gladly face it as you have.  The kingdom and I are grateful for adventurers like all of you.”

Turning, she saw them all looking at her.

“Even if I fail to make it through, I will know I stood by the braves our adventurer's guild has ever produced.”

Taking the waterskin Huzzot held out to her, she took a swig and then smiled.

“This water tastes funny,” she stated as she handed the skin back to him.

“That’s because it ain't water,” he replied, taking a long drink from it.  “If I’m going to meet my ancestors, I want to be celebrating beforehand.”

As they stood there laughing for a moment, their attention was quickly returned to the mouth of the cave, where explosions started ringing out over and over from inside.

Rotating his shoulder, Huzzot pointed at the pieces of the giant thorn bush and vines erupting from the cave's mouth.

“Looks like they found volunteers to help clear their way.”

Sighing, Fiola nodded.  It had happened quicker than she had hoped.

The last four minutes had been impossible to withstand as a hundred-plus more orcs and goblins surged from the cave, rushing at them.  Behind them stood three orcs, all a tier three.  One Magus and two warriors forcing their horde at them, even when struck down by spells and weapons from afar.

“I’m out!” shouted the last of the four mages.

“Go,” coughed Fiola as she pointed to the group that had already made it into the trees.  “Both of you go!”

“Sorry, Guild Master, but I won’t leave you,” argued Huzzot as he deflected an arrow and pushed against her back as they ran.  “Even if you threaten me, I won’t leave you alone to fight this fight.”

Fiola nodded, not wasting breath to argue.  She was out of mana almost and had only one trick left up her sleeve.  Five hundred or more were dead on the other side.  They were out of arrows, and only she could still barely fight.  She still had one charge left of her wand.

“To the trees, get inside. I know a spot… we will end it there.”

Grunting, Huzzot nodded as he ran behind her, protecting her backside as the others took off toward the horses as she had commanded.

Please be alive, Kaen.  I pray it is not as bad where you are!