Dragon Conjurer 4, page 10
“How’s it going down here?” I asked.
Nala had unearthed her legs and was now closing up the gaping holes and smoothing over the ground that the imps had turned over. While the dark beauty worked her magic on the dirt, I caught sight of Beyblade and mole-Elisabeth chasing a few stragglers out of their underground hiding places.
Then I heard a loud pop that made me jump out of my skin, and one of the imps fell to the ground in a pool of black blood.
“Got him!” Nick shouted from a few yards away. The nymph strode over and clapped a hand on my shoulder. “Well, captain, you did a good job.”
“Wasn’t he just great?” Steffi purred as she fluttered around me and left pixie dust behind her.
“Shush,” I chuckled.
“Almost done here!” Nala shouted.
Mole-Elisabeth made a strange sort of snarling hiss in agreement.
Goldie and Ky each let out a growl behind me, and I turned around to praise the dragons for all the hard work they’d put in today, but when I set eyes on my two monsters, I saw they hadn’t been growling in agreement.
They weren’t even looking in our direction.
I followed the dragons’ gazes, and when my eyes reached the sky, my jaw dropped.
“Uhh… hey, guys?” I choked out. “We’ve got… something incoming.”
Overhead, a huge, black cloud loomed in the eastern sky.
At first, I thought it could be a storm cloud, but it was blacker than any clouds I’d seen, and I grew up in an area of the country that was known for its badass lightning storms.
“What the fuck?” Nick whispered as he walked up next to me.
Steffi touched down on my other side and squeezed my arm. When I glanced over at her, I could see concern in the furrowing of her brow.
“What is that?” the fairy-girl gasped.
“Let me see,” Elisabeth offered.
She was now human again and stood on the other side of Steffi with her hands on her hips. Then our French teammate closed her eyes for a few seconds, and when she opened them, they were the large, pale orbs of an eagle. I waited as Elisabeth surveyed the situation with her new, keen eyesight, and after a moment, she let out a small gasp and raised her hand to her mouth.
“Oh, merde…” she muttered the swear word in her native tongue.
The redhead blinked and returned her eyes to normal. Then she turned to the rest of us just as Nala dusted off her hands and padded over with Beyblade at her side.
“What’s up?” the dark beauty asked with some concern. “No one looks as stoked as I am that we just slaughtered these assholes.”
“It’s an army of gargoyles.” Elisabeth murmured. “They’re headed straight for us.”
Chapter Six
“Are you sure?” I asked Elisabeth.
First, we had the Piasa Bird surprise, and now we were being ambushed by a swarm of gargoyles? Something didn’t add up.
The redhead nodded solemnly.
“What do we do?” Nick asked. “I don’t have much ammo left, and I don’t even know if guns work against gargoyles.”
“I don’t know much about gargoyles, either.” I shook my head and wracked my brain for any shred of information about the monsters. Aside from the comedic trio from The Hunchback of Notre Dame, I drew a blank.
“Well, we can’t just leave,” Steffi said.
“Yeah,” Nala added in agreement. “All the imps are dead, but there’s still a lot of cleanup left.”
The dark cloud drifted toward us and loomed even larger as it came, and I frowned up at it. We didn’t have much time. At this pace, the swarm would be on us in less than a minute.
“What’s the plan, captain?” Nick asked as he clapped a hand on my shoulder.
“I don’t know yet,” I responded. “Elisabeth, how many did you see in the swarm?”
“Dozens,” she murmured. “Maybe a hundred.”
“Shit,” I cursed under my breath. “That’s way too many to take on.”
“Maybe,” Steffi said. “Or maybe not. We did just kill like fifty ground imps, you know.”
“We can take ‘em,” Nala agreed.
“Yeah, you’re right,” I replied and nodded.
I stared at the oncoming cloud, and at first, I thought I could hear the wind against my ears, but then I realized I couldn’t feel any wind on my face. That’s when I caught on that what I was hearing wasn’t wind, but wingbeats.
They were almost on us, and I needed a plan.
“Alright, fliers,” I announced and turned to Steffi, Ky, and Goldie. “Let’s do what we can to keep the horde as low to the ground as possible so they’re easier targets.”
“Got it, Dylan,” Steffi agreed.
“Ground troops.” I motioned to Nick, Nala, Elisabeth, and Beyblade. “You guys throw everything you’ve got at them. I don’t care what it is, I don’t care how crazy the idea is. Give ‘em hell, and don’t let up until they’re dead in the dirt.”
“Always glad to take that approach,” Nala said with a grin.
“Alright, guys!” I called out to my team and mounted Ky. “Hope you’re ready for round two!”
“Godspeed,” Nick sighed.
The nymph reloaded a fresh magazine as Steffi and Goldie rocketed into the air, and Nala rooted herself to the ground nearby. Elisabeth turned into a large wolf and crouched on the ground like she couldn’t wait to pounce on the gargoyles headed our way, and Beyblade assumed a similar pose a few yards away.
Ky and I followed the other fliers up into the sky, and I braced myself for the inevitable impact.
The swarm was almost upon us now. They were soaring headlong for our group, but at the last second, the dark cloud scattered. The gargoyles unfurled, circled in around us, and converged.
“Shiiit!” Nick yelled from the ground.
Then all hell broke loose.
Elisabeth had been right, and the army of gargoyles was at least a hundred strong. As they swarmed, I could see their gray skin and beady black eyes staring hungrily at us, and they flexed their sharp claws and gnashed their chiseled teeth.
I lost sight of my teammates in seconds, and all I could hear was the gargoyles’ wingbeats and angry snarls while their bodies closed in around me. I was relieved I didn’t hear any gunshots from Nick, since there was no way he’d be able to take a safe shot in this mess, but that meant my other teammates could be just as screwed.
We were all locked in with no visuals to gauge where our teammates were.
“Ky, get us out of here!” I commanded my dragon. “We need to get above them so we can press them downward and regain some control of the situation!”
As the ice dragon and I flew up into the warm afternoon sky, I felt sharp fingers clawing at my back, and I hissed in pain as I glanced behind me. Half a dozen of the monsters were clawing Ky’s scaly hindquarters, and I dug my heels into his sides while we attempted to speed out of the fray.
Finally, we broke through, and as we circled over the swarm, I was able to get a good look at the creatures.
Most of the gargoyles were about three feet tall, and I saw a few balls of fairy magic fly out of the masses and off into the desert beyond. I could tell their small size and nimble movement meant they would be tough targets, but they were also incredibly quick when it came to changing the direction of their flight.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Goldie escape the horde and fly up like Ky and I had, and then she let out a blast of air from above the gargoyles’ heads. The gray monsters were shoved a little ways downward, but their dense bodies withstood the pearly-white dragon’s attack pretty damn well when they were in a rocky clump like this. Goldie let out an angry snort and continued her assault, and she seemed to get more and more irritated each time the gargoyles withstood her blasts.
As the swarm ebbed and flowed in the sky, I caught sight of my teammates on the ground below.
Beyblade zoomed around in his ignited ring form, but my heart caught in my throat when I saw his flaming body become engulfed in gargoyles.
Their hungry hands and biting mouths covered every inch of him for several beats, and he couldn’t seem to burn the stone fast enough. The gargoyles kept flitting around faster than he could melt them down, and in a burst of flames, the Chinese dragon managed to at least send the horde flying off of him. Then he rolled away before they could claw back onto him.
Beyblade let off a huge, pissed off spray of smoke as he eyed the masses, and I could almost sense how frazzled he was from way up here.
Nearby, I saw Nala almost get ripped from her grounded position, and then I found Nick being similarly harassed by the little gray beasts.
“Shit,” I murmured to Ky, but then I caught sight of a gargoyle that wasn’t as small as the others.
In fact, it was quite large, and from my vantage point, I estimated it was probably about eight feet tall. This monster had the same gray skin and sharp claws as the others, but its horns were much longer, and they curled up into two spindly spires on its head.
As the large flock of monsters continued to swarm around my teammates, the biggest gargoyle pointed to his left. The swarm doubled back, and the dark cloud of bodies shifted around until the monsters were circling like sharks in the area their leader pointed to.
“Holy shit,” I murmured to Ky. “The big one’s giving directions. He’s their leader.”
I realized our aerial assault wasn’t going to work, especially not if the monsters had a sentient leader who was giving them orders. We had to regroup.
“Team!” I shouted as I zoomed downward so my teammates could hear my voice. “Fall back! I repeat, fall back! Get your asses out of there!”
I caught another glimpse of the gargoyle leader, and he thrusted his arm downward. It only took a second to see the result of his signal, and all at once, the crowd of gargoyles began to move down like a demented version of the fish in Finding Nemo.
Although I fought against the current of bodies, the swarm of gargoyles was able to press Ky and me toward the ground, but I knew my team was still entangled. I couldn’t ditch this scene until I was sure everyone was safe, and I clung to Ky as he let out a thundering roar and rolled through the masses. My arms and back were torn up by the claws and wings thrashing past me, but when I squinted down, it didn’t look like they’d broken through my skin much.
So, I just kept on smacking away the hungry hands of the gargoyles that were hovering above the red Nevada dirt, and Ky’s wings battered them around a bit, too.
“Help!” Steffi’s cry filtered through the din of the gargoyle flock.
“Ky, find her!” I ordered.
The two of us whirled through the horde of gray bodies, and Ky blasted them to keep their claws from doing any more damage. I kept my face shielded from the stragglers that broke through, and when Steffi screamed again, the shrill sound sent a chill up my spine.
I could hear my heartbeat in my ears as I scoured the gray sea for my lover.
The fairy’s pink hair was usually a dead giveaway, but when I eventually spotted her, a mob of gargoyles was clustered around her head. The flying gray monsters screeched and clawed at Steffi’s hair as she yelped and blindly shot balls of fairy energy above her.
“Ky! Freeze them!” I commanded my ice dragon. “Aim carefully, though, and look out for Steffi!”
In a torrent of icicles, the large blue monster blasted the crowd of gargoyles tormenting Steffi. The creatures around her shrieked and fell to the ground, but even from this distance, I could tell they were only stunned.
“Steffi, get out of there fast!” I hollered. “Come over to me!”
Steffi touched down to avoid the rest of the flock, and she breathlessly sprinted over near where Ky and I were flying low. She waved her arms above her head the whole way, and she looked like she was trying to scare away a murder of angry crows.
“Don’t touch me, you ugly jerks!” the fairy-girl huffed, and she planted a fist right in a gargoyle’s face.
The mostly frozen gargoyles started to twitch behind her, and I knew we didn’t have much time before the fallen part of the group would rise and attack again.
“We can’t stay out in the open like this! We have to find cover!” I shouted to my pink-haired lover. “Where are the others?”
“I have no idea!” Steffi yelled back when she reached the dirt below me.
The gargoyles had started to get closer and closer to breaking out of their frozen shells, and the rest were starting to churn in the sky like a giant, stone storm.
We needed to prepare for another imminent attack, but there was just no break in the chaos.
“Steffi, get up here with me,” I told my pink-haired teammate, and I steered Ky lower so I could catch her arm.
“Where are we going?” Steffi gasped and climbed up in front of me.
“I’m going to get us a little protection,” I replied. “Goldie! Goldie, come, girl!”
The white and gold wind dragon swooped in next to me and Ky, and I pulled directly beside her to give both my dragons instructions at the same time.
“I want the two of you to work together,” I explained. “It’s going to be like Frost Breath, but I want you to try to create a sheet of ice between us and the gargoyles above. If we fly a little lower, and Goldie breathes straight up, we should be able to keep the ice flowing in a perfect shield formation. Now, go!”
Exactly as I had directed, Goldie swooped lower and exhaled a giant breath directly toward the sky, and Ky emitted his freezing blast from the sidelines. The result was a six-inch-thick icy barrier that seemed to surf on Goldie’s updraft, and Steffi cheered from her spot in front of me.
“Yeah, Ky and Goldie!” Steffi shouted.
“Now just keep breathing to hold that ice in place until we can get our shit together,” I directed the pearly-white dragon. “Ky, drop us off under the shield, and then you’re on duty maintaining the freeze.”
Ky dove and touched down, and as soon as Steffi and I dismounted, he returned to the air to keep the shield from melting in the desert sun.
Then I saw a large mound of earth crack open to my right, and Nala climbed out and sprinted toward me.
A few yards behind her, a brief flash of blond hair assured me Nick was also heading my way, and from the other direction, Beyblade came galloping out of the swarm and skidded to a stop at my feet.
The horde of gargoyles had followed the dragon in our direction, and as they flew toward us, Ky shot a blizzard attack from above the layer of ice that sent the monsters flying back.
“Follow me!” Elisabeth shouted from my left as the dragons used their icy forcefield to keep the gargoyles at bay.
I whipped my head around and watched as the French girl’s arms suddenly elongated and thickened. I could see the muscles writhing under her skin as they grew, and thick, dark hairs started to sprout out all across her arms. When the metamorphosis was complete, Elisabeth used the giant mole arms she’d just generated to begin digging through one of the freshly covered imp holes.
“Hey!” Nala cried. “I just fixed that!”
Despite her protests, the dark beauty followed the rest of us as we ducked into the tunnel.
Just as I was about to enter with the rest of my team, I glanced back at my dragons, and Beyblade peered skeptically into the hole while Ky and Goldie kept up their defensive barrier from behind him.
“Thanks for the help, guys!” I called up to the dragons just as the gargoyles started to force through the icy forcefield. “Epistrophi! Fanhui! Moduro!”
When all three dragons were safely tucked back beneath my skin, I bolted into the tunnel, and Nala waved her arms as I caught up with her. Then she used her powers to form a thick, stone grate at the cavern entrance, and the last of the rock solidified in place as the gargoyle swarm arrived.
The monsters clawed against the barrier and reached their grubby little hands through the grates, and they snarled and gnashed their ugly teeth.
“Will that hold them?” I asked the dark beauty.
“It’d better hold,” she responded. “Come on, let’s go.”
As I followed my teammates deeper into the ground, I could hear the monsters overhead still screaming and pounding at the entrance. Once we’d reached a safe enough distance, Elisabeth used her mole arms to dig out a cavern that was large enough for all of us to crouch in a circle.
“Okay, let’s regroup.” I frowned and rubbed my forehead. “What do we know about gargoyles?”
“They’re super hard to hit if they swarm,” Nick grumbled.
“Yeah, thanks for not taking any shots out there,” I said with a grimace.
“No problem,” he chuckled. “The second they pulled that scatter routine, my safety was on and all hope was lost.”
I managed to chuckle at the sentiment, and I was glad to see my nymph friend still smirking, too. Nala was making herself a little makeshift seat in the dirt, beside him, and the two exchanged tired smiles and shrugs.
“They can harden their skin into stone,” Steffi added. “At least, that’s what I’ve read in the database back at AIMM. I guess they’re not always stone, but right now, they seemed very rock-like up close.”
“They hurt like rock,” Nick agreed.
“They can fly and have really sharp claws,” Elisabeth added as she finished shifting back into her human form.
“They fight in packs,” Nala sighed and pointed to the ceiling.
I could still hear the pounding from above, and it sounded like the gargoyles were trying to brute force their way into our hiding spot. As long as they didn’t get in, I didn’t mind.
Better they focus on us than take their flock elsewhere and start terrorizing the nearest town.
“Okay.” I nodded. “And what else have you noticed so far about their fighting pattern?”
“They like to all gang up on a single target,” Nick said as he tilted his head toward Steffi.
“And they like to go for the hair.” The fairy-girl grimaced and protectively stroked a thick, wavy strand of her bright-pink locks.
“They seemed to follow a leader,” Elisabeth said.
