Dawn of a Dragon Mage, page 9
Everyone got into place, and before long, they were on their way. Garret waved farewell one last time to his parents and brother, and they finally headed out. It was going to be another short journey to the northwest, where the Silver Wolf Academy was located. It was the best center of trade between the four main cities of Fraeldhen and was also the closest academy to Danustre. Sky River was located far to the west, and the Golem Military Academy was on a floating structure that maneuvered around and across the eastern Legatus Marshes—a dangerous, boggy swamp.
Right after leaving the city gates, Null activated his dragon bone and quickly enveloped the caravan with a bright gold curtain of light. It pushed aside the Shroud for a good fifty feet in all directions, giving them a better view of the road ahead. Null sat beside their wagon’s driver and kept his crossbows loaded just in case they ran into bandits or monsters that could push through the Shroud and into their protective umbrella.
Null wasn’t bored sitting at the front; he spent most of his time conversing with the driver. Occasionally, he would move to the merchants’ wagon and talk shop with them. They had been on the road for months, traveling across the Destrahl Empire and the Urthgad Isles before arriving at Fraeldhen. They were interesting folks to spend time with, and Null drilled them with questions to satisfy his curiosity.
Selina, on the other hand, took advantage of the pillows and sheets Null and Hollen provided during their previous wagon journey. She slept for the majority of the ride. In an amusing—and cute—turn of events, she summoned Grael, and the little, cat-sized dragon curled up to nap beside her.
Garret, on the other hand, couldn’t sleep at all. For most of the ride, his gaze was fixed on Selina.
‘Don’t be angry at her,’ Aven told him.
He couldn’t shake the feeling, however. There’s this gut feeling I can’t dismiss, Aven. I know it’s wrong to question her honesty, but it really feels like she’s seen this knight of spiders before… and not just in her dreams.
‘If it bothers you that much, just ask her,’ Aven pointed out. ‘If she tells the truth, you may be able to endure the conflict and work things out. That would be better than holding suspicions over a theory you don’t know is true.’
The dragon was right. Garret sighed as he accepted Aven’s advice. He decided it would be best to wait until they got to the academy. At least there, he and Selina could have some privacy to discuss these matters. They had to make an effort to resolve any disputes or misunderstandings; they were to be wed, after all.
That was a major milestone that he hadn’t had the time to process. He loved Selina, there was no doubt about that, but all the time he had spent with her was in the academy. They spent more time as friends and as classmates—and now as mercenaries—more than they ever had as romantic partners. He never had the chance to take her out for dinner, get to know her in a romantic way, or be a bit more intimate with her.
‘The time will come,’ Aven reminded him. ‘Right now, you are a dragon summoner first and a son of House Vilfort second.’
“Right,” Garret whispered, ever so softly so only he and Aven could hear.
Just as he concluded his discussion with Aven, there was a sudden spark, and the dragon bone umbrella dissipated. Garret immediately got up, hopped out of the wagon, and walked over to Null. He found Null tapping his dragon bone in frustration.
“What’s wrong?” Garret asked.
“I… I don’t know,” Null replied. “My dragon bone just suddenly stopped working.”
Garret drew out his dagger and looked around. The Shroud was quickly sweeping in, covering the road and the spaces between the wagons. It was getting thick—thicker than usual—and he could hear the merchants whispering words of panic and concern.
“Do you think it is what I think it is?” Null asked as he hopped down from the driver’s bench and pulled out his crossbows.
“I do,” Garret replied. “Go wake up Selina. This is bad.”
“Is something amiss, Lord Garret?” asked one of the merchants from their wagon. It was one of the younger men, one bold enough to voice his concerns. The other merchants were already shaking their heads in embarrassment.
Garret glanced at the merchant and nodded back. “Stay inside. Keep the curtains closed. We might be dealing with a Vritter.” He then turned to the drivers. “That warning goes to you guys, too. Stay in the wagons. Don’t come out until we tell you it’s safe to do so.”
The mere mention of the monster made the young merchant’s face go pale. Afraid and nervous, the young man shuffled back into the wagon and quickly shut their wagon’s curtain.
“What’s going on? Is there something—What happened to the umbrella?” Selina’s voice went shrill when she saw their protective umbrella was gone. She hopped down and turned to Null and Garret.
“Vritter,” Gratter said.
“Oh, come on… it can’t be a Vritter.”
“All signs point to it being a Vritter,” Garret lamented.
Null sighed and started to turn around, hoping to catch something lingering in the thickness of the Shroud. “Stop saying that. It could just be wargs or orcs or harpies.”
“None of those sound like good alternatives.” Garret said.
Bang!
Something large smashed against the wagon carrying the merchants’ wares. Selina, Null, and Garret rushed down the line to check it out, and what they saw immediately caused them to gasp and re-think their strategy.
Shredding through the wagon curtain, likely in hopes of accessing the food stored in the vehicle, was a beast at least nine feet tall. It had the body of a great ape, with thick fur and a gorilla-like face, but this beast had three pairs of arms. Each limb looked strong enough to rip a man apart with ease.
“Yep, that’s a Vritter,” Selina concluded.
“That’s trouble,” Null added.
Garret summoned his metal dragon powers and formed a single shield in his left hand and a spear in his right. “Okay, we need to kill this thing fast. Otherwise, more monsters will appear. We can’t handle being exposed in the Shroud like this.”
Right as he said that, however, his own magic fluctuated, and his shield disappeared. His sword flashed with bright light and then vanished as well.
“The Vritter is affecting our dragon magic,” Null concluded. “It’s a good thing I still have these.” He raised his crossbow and opened fire. Both bolts struck the Vritter, with one hitting its right shoulder and the other bolt sticking into the monster’s chest. The beast roared angrily in response and turned its attention to the three dragon summoners.
“Oh, crap,” Selina cursed when she realized just how exposed they were to the beast.
The Vritter came right at them, prepared to smash them down with all six of its fists. Null took a step back and started reloading his crossbows. Garret rolled forward to evade the attack, landing behind the monster, and he quickly turned around with a dagger slash. It struck the monster, but their enemy easily countered with a backhand slap, sending Garret smashing against the merchants’ wagon.
It now stood toe to toe against Selina. She didn’t panic, however, and raised a hand. She whispered something inaudible, so soft that Garret could barely tell her lips were moving, and then suddenly, she fired a lightning bolt right at the monster’s face. The Vritter took a few steps back, stumbled, and had to regain its footing by lowering two pairs of its arms.
We’ve got this. A confident grin grew on Garret’s face.
At that moment, however, the Vritter roared and turned around to kick Garret down. He felt his whole chest cave in for a second, right before he landed on the ground as the wind was knocked out of him. He reached for his chest and wondered if his ribs had completely broken this time. He got lucky from his last injury; another solid hit like that could shatter his ribs, and he’d bleed out in the wild. That was not how Garret imagined himself dying.
“Garret!” Null screamed. He fired his crossbows again, but this time the Vritter caught the bolts with its bare hands… and then crushed them as it curled its fingers into fists. Null attempted to evade by creating small, random portals, but the Vritter’s natural ability to negate dragon magic nullified the maneuver.
“Null, you can’t give up!” Selina shouted as she threw a rock at the Vritter to get its attention away from him and toward her. When it turned around, she fired another trio of lightning bolts—all its face. That was when Null and Garret noticed that her eyes were beginning to glow bright blue-white, and her body was sparking with lightning energy. She raised her hand and steady lightning shot from the sky and into her open palm. “I will not give up!”
Garret’s mouth opened as he watched in awe. “She’s hitting the next stage of power.”
Chapter 11
‘Selina is feeling what you felt down in those caves,’ Aven told Garret. When he heard Aven’s voice in his head, he realized that he could use his dragon powers again. They were still fluctuating, but Aven’s voice was now clearer than earlier. It was all thanks to Selina. She was breaking through the Vritter’s power barrier!
“Now… Grael’venothyr!” Selina shouted as the collected energy in her hand coalesced. She formed a large ball of plasma and lightning and, right beside her, summoned her dragon. Like Aven, Grael had grown to the size of a bear and had a wingspan of at least twelve feet—from tip to tip. The lightning dragon roared as it suddenly stepped forward and smacked the Vritter with a claw attack, followed by a tail sweep and a bite. The Vritter tried to fight off the dragon attack, but none of its counters were landing.
Angered even further, Selina formed a fist and commanded her dragon one more time. “Show it what you’ve got!” In response, Grael opened its jaws and let out a terrifying lightning breath that electrocuted the Vritter in its place…
…Yet it was still standing and ready to fight back.
“Hey, don’t forget about me,” Null said, and the Vritter turned around. “We’re not done yet.”
To everyone’s surprise, Null was also beginning to emit an aura of black and purple energy. The space around him was distorting as the surrounding temporal energy began to grow and shatter. He then raised his arm toward the Vritter and unleashed an unprecedented number of gravity balls, each one twisting the fabric of reality. This caused the Vritter’s flesh to split, and its innards twisted and erupted. One of the gravity balls struck the beast’s face, causing both of its eyeballs to explode out of their sockets.
Null wasn’t done. Feeling a sudden surge of energy, either out of desperation or sheer power of will, he summoned Raeghulus and was shocked to see the dragon now as big as Aven and Grael. Without a word, he launched the dragon forward and it slammed its heavy tail on the monster before ravaging it with several claw swipes. The Vritter roared in anger but couldn’t fight back, having been paralyzed by the temporal orbs.
“Now, Garret!” Null shouted as he dismissed his dragon.
Right, before the Vritter can recover and dismiss our dragon magic again!
Garret rushed toward the Vritter and summoned all his metal powers to forge a giant, two-handed war hammer.
He gripped the weapon with both hands and swung. The blunt end barreled toward the Vritter, but it caught it with all six of its hands and pressed back against Garret. To circumvent this, Garret dismissed his weapon, forcing the Vritter to stumble forward, and he then forged a two-meter spear that he thrust right into the Vritter’s chest. The spear went through the monster’s torso and out the other side.
But it still wasn’t dead. This time, it managed to roar one last time and cause their dragon magic to dissipate yet again.
“No!” Garret screamed in frustration when he could no longer access his metal powers.
It got worse, however, as the Vritter then turned around and suddenly grabbed Selina. It held her with four arms and pounded its chest with the other two. It turned around one last time to look at Null and Garret before it roared in defiance and vanished into the Shroud.
“Princess Selina!” Null screamed.
Garret rushed over to Null and hurriedly instructed him, “You have to stay here. The job is to keep the caravan safe. With the Vritter gone, you should be able to restore the dragon bone umbrella. Keep this place safe. I’ll go chase that thing and save Selina. If we’re not back in an hour, head to the academy.”
“No, I can’t leave you guys behind!”
Garret stared at Null with undying determination in his eyes. “Finish the job.”
He patted Null on the shoulders and headed out into the thickness of the Shroud. Lighting a torch, he ran as fast as he could, but in doing so, he was losing track of the Vritter’s footsteps. Despite the monster’s size and weight, it was light-footed enough to leave only faint tracks on the road. These became even harder to see when Garret entered a downward slope dotted with grassy knolls. He had to slow down and follow where the tracks could be. He hoped to use Selina’s voice as a guide, but she had stopped yelling.
She’s probably being quiet to avoid aggravating the beast.
Garret sighed as he kept on going. Now he was feeling even more guilty for doubting her integrity. Frustrated and alone in the mist, he flicked his left hand and tried to summon Aven, but the Vritter’s anti-magic field effect still lingered in this area. At least I know I’m close enough to the monster. Once I can use my metal powers, it means I’m too far, and Selina might already be dead.
He looked around one more time, swinging his torch to dissipate the Shroud as much as he could so that the sunlight from above could shine down. Despite his best efforts, however, the Shroud was too thick in this area. It had grown wild like some kind of sentient beast and was giving birth to monsters too strong for even dragon summoners to deal with. He pondered for a second if it was wiser to retrace his steps and try hunting again, but that would waste precious time and—
Wait! I heard something!
Garret crouched and shut his eyes. He tried to pay more attention to the sounds around him… and that was when he heard a twig snap about fifty or so feet away from him to the northeast. He threw the torch in that direction and charged.
The torch landed on top of a dead tree, and the wood quickly caught on fire. The flames pushed the Shroud away, and this allowed Garret to better see his surroundings… and he found the Vritter just a few feet away from the fire, just about to enter a small cave that went through one of the mounds.
In its arms was Selina, breathing but unconscious. There was a visible mark on her face, just above her eye, and Garret surmised the beast had punched her to knock her out.
“Despicable creature,” Garret cursed out loud as he unsheathed his dagger and kept it in his right hand. In his left, he grabbed one of the flaming branches off the tree and charged right at the beast.
This time, the monster posed much less of a threat. It was still bigger and stronger than Garret, but the wound on its chest, the damage done to its inner organs and its eyes, and the lightning damage on its face had worn it down. It was now much slower and could only rely on its hearing and sense of smell.
Garret managed to stick his dagger into the monster’s chest, and when it fell to its knees, he drove the flaming branch down its throat and burned it to death. When it perished, he immediately felt the surge of energy as his metal powers returned to him. The anti-magic field had been quelled.
Garret kicked the monster and quickly moved over to check on Selina. “Hey, hey, wake up.”
When she didn’t wake, he checked her pulse and listened to her breathing. She was still alive, at the very least, but he needed to get her back to the caravan before Null decided it was time to leave. If they were left out here in the Shroud, they would have a hard time making it to the academy. In all likelihood, if Null left without them, they would both die out here.
But Garret wasn’t about to give up yet.
Determined, he wrapped his arms around Selina and carried her. He took one more look at the flames that were beginning to devour this section of the hills. To his dismay, the fire was already dying. The cold of the Shroud was killing any hope of the fire growing and potentially scaring off other monsters. He had to move, and he had to move now.
Unfortunately, he didn’t know exactly where to go. He looked down and tried to retrace his steps, but he didn’t have an inkling where he had passed. His whole focus earlier had been to chase the Vritter, and he hadn’t had time to leave markings to follow back to the caravan.
Wait… Aven! Aven, can you hear me?
It took a few seconds before the dragon responded. It felt like the longest ten seconds in Garret’s life. ‘I’m here. What do you need me to do?’
“Some of those merchants had some weapons in their wares, right? Can you sense them? That could help us get out of the Shroud and get back to the caravan before they leave,” Garret pleaded. “Please, Aven, I really need your guidance.”
The dragon materialized and sniffed the air. She then turned and pressed her head gently against Garret. “Don’t worry, I can lead us back. I have the scent. Just follow me.”
“Oh, thank you,” Garret whispered. He continued, now with renewed strength, feeling confident they could make it back in time. As they walked, he felt a shift in his arms, and he looked down to discover the princess was awake.
She offered a weak smile and asked, “Hey… did we beat it?”
“We did. Come, Princess,” Garret said as he beckoned for her to walk with him, “and let’s make our way back to the caravan. I have Null protecting it at the moment, but things could go awry if he gets overwhelmed by monsters pushing through the Shroud.”
Selina agreed, and they both followed Aven through the fog. After ten or so minutes, they eventually came back to the path leading to the wagons. During their trip, Garret couldn’t help but feel a knot in his chest.
He was happy she was now awake; it was a sign she was doing better than she looked. However, he couldn’t shake off the guilt and uncertainty that still plagued his heart and mind.
