Broken by Magic: An Epic Fantasy Adventure (Dragon Gate Book 3), page 52
It flew low between the legs of the nearest creature and tumbled into the hole.
“Down,” she blurted, dropping to her belly and covering her head.
Vinjo was already down. The lightning from the portal was shooting out in all directions as it targeted multiple enemies. They risked being struck simply because they were in the area.
The grenade tumbled into the hole and exploded. Once more, the ground trembled.
One of the creatures pitched sideways, landing with a thud and blocking their view. Sasko didn’t know if it had fallen because of the explosion or because of the lightning, but the portal continued to attack relentlessly.
Uthari continued to attack relentlessly. His eyes were closed as he gripped the portal, his forehead pressed to it.
“Just what he needed,” Sasko said. “More power.”
“King Zaruk will not be happy,” Vinjo said.
“Nobody will.”
Another creature pitched onto its side. The one that had already fallen wasn’t moving and might have been dead.
Even the creatures that were still standing were no longer emitting their shockwaves, so Sasko risked getting to her feet. Her grenade had widened the hole but also partially filled it in. Since she’d never seen the tunnel and couldn’t confirm that it had been there, she didn’t know if she’d succeeded in closing it up. But if any druids were down there, she’d buried them, at least for the moment.
Another creature toppled, this one falling into the hole.
“That’ll plug it up,” she muttered.
The last two fell to the lightning attacks, and Uthari leaned back from the portal, though he kept a hand on it as he looked around at the carnage.
Sasko felt conspicuous standing alone with only Vinjo nearby, still on his stomach beside her, and she fought the urge to quail when Uthari’s gaze landed on them. What if he decided to toss out a few more lightning bolts so that he didn’t have to worry about paying mercenaries?
She’d helped and not done anything he should object to, but he radiated such energy that the air seemed to crackle around him. His eyes gleamed, as if linking to the portal had infused him with even more power.
You did well, he spoke telepathically to her. I will ensure you receive a combat bonus.
Sasko kept herself from thinking anything sarcastic. Thank you, Your Majesty.
Not wanting to hold his unsettling gaze, she bent to help Vinjo to his feet.
“Did he say something to you?” Vinjo asked.
“He said your grass skirt is sexy and wants to know where he can get one.”
“It’s rude of you to lie to your engineer, Lieutenant Sasko.” Vinjo smoothed the skirt, doing his best to cover his bruised and dirty legs.
“Is it? I’ve never had an engineer before. I didn’t know.”
“You’ve got one now. Consider yourself blessed.”
“Oh, I do.”
Uthari barked orders at the mages and mercenaries by the portal, something about cleaning up the mess and searching for druid survivors to take prisoner.
Since he wasn’t addressing Sasko, she opted to decide the orders weren’t for her. She offered Vinjo an arm—he looked like he needed it—and they hobbled off toward the trees.
Later, they could help clean up the camp, and he could try to find his tools and equipment so he could go back to working on a ship, but for now, she wanted to rest. It had been a long day.
Jadora lifted her last explosive, wishing she’d asked Tinder for grenades. They didn’t deter the dragons much, but they distracted them slightly.
A boom erupted behind her, another trap being triggered. The dragon battling Tezi, Tinder, and Rivlen roared, though it sounded more annoyed than hurt.
Jadora, crouching beside Fret in one of the few remaining copses of trees, only glanced back. Though she worried about all of her comrades, it was Jak she most wanted to protect. If only she could.
Fortunately, Malek had risen, and he was fighting the dragon that had been focused on Jak and the hatchling. With his magic, as well as his blades, as far as Jadora could tell. But even with his magic, he wasn’t a match for the pure power of a dragon. No human was.
He’d cut it a dozen times, even driving his sword deep into its neck, but it kept attacking him with magic as well as talon and fang. It was hard for Jadora to sense what he was doing with his power, but he seemed to launch a couple of attacks at its head—maybe at its eyes and mouth, as he’d done with the last dragon they’d battled. This one blocked the strikes with defensive magic, and its eyes never so much as flickered.
As Jadora stood poised with her explosive, hoping for an opportunity to use it to help, the dragon caught Malek by surprise. It had been snapping at him, as he defended with his swords, but now the tail sneaked in, striking him from behind. Malek flew through the air and hammered against the side of the ziggurat not ten feet from Jak.
Though he appeared stunned, Malek managed to get his legs under him and land on his feet. The dragon lunged after him, angling its jaws toward his throat.
Jadora threw her explosive. With the dragon’s back to her, she couldn’t aim for a vital target, and it bounced off its rear leg. It exploded, smoke filling the air, but her target didn’t even look back. The dragon snapped its jaws at Malek.
He thrust his blades up as he created a hasty barrier. The fangs gnashed uselessly at the air five feet above his head. His face twisted with concentration, and Jadora feared he wouldn’t be able to keep his defenses up for long. He’d just undergone surgery. He couldn’t be at his full power. Even if he had been…
“It’s going to kill him,” Fret whispered. “And them.”
She pointed to the rear, where Rivlen, blood staining her shirt and her hair plastering the side of her sweaty face, was in a similar position.
“How can we help?” Jadora pawed uselessly into her backpack, as if she might find a miracle inside.
But she didn’t have anything that could hurt dragons.
Do you know a term that might wake the ziggurat? Jak spoke into her mind from where he squatted, protecting Shikari and looking like he was sharing his power with Malek. Shikari is trying to wake it up, but I don’t think it’s working.
Wake it up to do what?
I don’t know. Help.
Jadora groped for something in Ancient Zeruvian that might convince a ziggurat to stir from sleep, but that wasn’t a dragon language. Why would it work? Can’t the portal give you something to say in dragon?
Uhm, let me see if I can contact it from here.
The dragon kept attacking Malek, relentlessly bashing at his barrier. With his back to the wall, all of his power required for defenses, he was pinned and couldn’t attack back.
His legs wobbled, threatening to give out. Malek could have run off, but he glanced at Jak, and Jadora feared he was suffering this to ensure the dragon focused on him instead of Jak.
The dragon reared back, jaws spreading wide. For a second, as it prepared to strike, it wasn’t looking at Malek. He sprang to the side, rolling to get away from it. When the maw smashed down, fangs flashing, he wasn’t there.
Malek sprang to his feet and hurled his main-gauche before the dragon could protect its head. The blade spun and lodged in one of those reptilian eyes.
The dragon screeched. For the first time, it was a cry of pain. But that didn’t keep it from counterattacking. It blasted so much furious power at Malek that his barrier wasn’t enough to protect him. He flew thirty feet, crashing into a tree. Wood snapped. Or was that one of his bones?
This time, he didn’t land on his feet. He crumpled to the ground.
The dragon stomped after him to take advantage. The main-gauche protruded from its eye, but that didn’t slow it down.
Something smashed into a tree behind Jadora, and she spun, expecting the other dragon. It was Tinder’s axe, lodged in the wood. She lay on the ground nearby, groaning. Hurled there by the dragon?
Jadora grabbed the axe with both hands and ran after Malek’s attacker. She was no trained warrior, but the dragon was a large target. As it prepared to crush him with its jaws, she hefted the axe and brought it down with all of her strength.
The heavy head sliced into the tail, pinning it to the ground.
Another screech sounded, and the dragon whirled toward her. Its tail whipped up, ripping the axe from her grip and flinging it free of its flesh.
The blade flew twenty feet and clattered against the ziggurat. The dragon focused on Jadora and would have killed her—she had no magical defenses to stop it—but Malek recovered enough to leap after it. By now, the tail was toward him, and he drove his sword into the same spot where she’d already laid open scale and flesh.
Again, the dragon screeched, and a wave of power struck Jadora, knocking her all the way back to Jak. She landed hard, her back and head striking the ground.
Another dragon voice sounded in her ear, the small reedy cry of the hatchling. Shikari wasn’t roaring or screeching but issuing something that might have been a word in their language. He repeated it again and again as Jadora pushed herself to her feet, her entire body hurting.
As the dragon spun to attack Malek again, a blue beam lanced out from the top of the ziggurat. It struck the side of the dragon, halting its attack and knocking it twenty feet, just as the dragon had been knocking all of them around.
“It’s doing it,” Jak cried. “It’s doing it!”
Shikari kept repeating the same sound—the same command.
The beam tracked the dragon and kept striking it, burrowing through its scales and toward its heart. It tried to leap into the air to fly away, but the beam hit too hard. It knocked the dragon back to the ground, smashing it against a pile of boulders. Smoke wafted from the hole the beam was charring into its side.
A second beam lanced out, slicing through the carnage of downed trees toward the other dragon. Tinder and Fret yelled triumphant cheers.
Malek rushed toward Jadora’s side, grabbed her, and hugged her close. He glanced at Jak, checking on him, but he and Shikari hadn’t been harmed.
As the beams kept firing relentlessly into the dragons, following them even when they moved, the stench of burning scales and charring meat filled the air. Pained shrieks—dying shrieks—assaulted Jadora’s ears.
Even though she felt nothing for these enemies, she buried her face in Malek’s shoulder, not wanting to watch them die.
Jak staggered over to join them, Shikari back in his sling. Whatever he and the hatchling had started, it must not have needed ongoing input.
Jadora wrapped one of her arms around Jak. Malek patted him on the back, and they all leaned against each other for support.
The last agonizing screams echoed through the valley, and Jadora made herself release Malek and Jak to check on the mercenaries. The hatchling squirmed out of Jak’s sling, plopped to the ground, and meandered off, perhaps to look for insects.
Near one of the dead dragons, Dr. Fret knelt beside Tinder and Tezi. They lay on their backs in the brush. Too injured to rise? Fret had her medical kit open and was already cleaning wounds. A yelp and a curse came from Tinder, the words “That stings!” framed by more base terms, so Jadora assumed those two would survive.
Rivlen slumped against a tree, her face red, her shirt torn and scorched, but she was alive.
The beams disappeared, leaving the smoking husks of the two dead dragons amid the burned foliage. So many trees were upended all around that it looked like a tornado had landed on the valley.
“I will attempt to help with healing.” Malek looked as weary as any of them after his surgery and battle, but he left Jadora’s side to join Dr. Fret and her patients.
“I’m so relieved he got his power back,” Jak whispered.
Jadora’s feelings on the matter were mixed. She couldn’t deny that the return of Malek’s powers was probably the only reason they’d survived long enough for Jak and Shikari to wake the ziggurat, but… now he was a zidarr again. Uthari’s right-hand man. Someone Jadora had to watch her thoughts around.
She couldn’t help but watch Malek sadly, wishing for a world where he was a normal person—and that was all he needed to be. And where they could be… something.
Jak looked at her. “Are you all right? Were you hit?”
Jadora forced a smile. “Fine.” Her back and head ached, and she would wake up hobbling in the morning, but she hadn’t broken anything. “Are you?”
“I think so.” Jak rubbed his back too. He’d also gone flying into the side of the ziggurat. “Nice axe work over there. I never expected to see you running up to a dragon and cleaving a hole in its tail.” He smirked, but his eyes also beamed with approval.
Jadora mostly felt lucky that she hadn’t gotten herself killed doing that. “I ran out of explosives, and dragon scales have proven impervious to my acids.”
“You have to use the right tool for the right job.” He made a chopping motion.
“If we’re going to continue to explore other worlds, we may all need dragon-steel axes.” Jadora couldn’t hold back a grimace. She’d had enough of exploring other worlds. Too bad Uthari would send her to at least one more. What were the odds that they would be able to visit the world with the Jitaruvak, easily find it and snip a sample, and return without trouble?
“Maybe that will be possible if we can take back the right raw materials.” Jak peered toward the cliffs with their veins of ore—they were easier to see now that so many trees had been knocked down. “Oh.” He snapped his fingers. “We need to find the ruler lady. If she’s still alive.”
He turned a slow circle, as if he might have missed noticing her strolling through the trees. When he halted, it was to focus on one of the dead dragons. Or maybe Shikari. He was navigating around logs in his search for bugs.
“I sense something.” Jak frowned at the dragon and raised his voice. “Malek? Rivlen?”
Rivlen was still slumped against a tree, weary and bedraggled, but she managed to lift her chin and call back, “Captain Rivlen,” with suitable indignation. “And Lord Malek.”
Instead of correcting himself, as he usually would if she insisted, Jak jogged toward the hatchling.
Malek had been kneeling beside Tezi, but he must have sensed something too, for he also headed in that direction.
Afraid the dragon had somehow survived the extended attack from the beam, Jadora grabbed her pack and trailed after them.
Jak and Malek halted behind Shikari, shoulder to shoulder as they peered at the downed dragon. It wasn’t moving.
The hatchling poked his snout under a log, oblivious to whatever concerned them.
“You sense it?” Jak asked.
“Yes,” Malek said. “It’s not the dragon.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“Then what is it?”
Malek hesitated. “I do not know.”
“Something magical,” Jak said. “And alive.”
“I agree.”
As Jadora joined them, a cloud of glittery gold motes rose from the dragon’s mouth and nostrils.
She gripped Jak’s arm. “Is that breath?”
“It can’t be.” Jak glanced at Malek. “The dragon isn’t alive.”
“But whatever those are live.” Malek gripped his chin thoughtfully.
At first, the cloud hung in the air over the dragon’s snout, gleaming as if tiny gold flakes of glitter were catching the sunlight. But the valley lay in shadow, no sunlight reaching the ground.
As if stirred by a soft breeze, the cloud moved toward them. Fear charged through Jadora’s veins, and she stepped back. Though she would normally be intrigued by the unknown, and want nothing more than to examine it, an instinct deep within her promised that this was something dangerous and evil.
Jak and Malek must have felt the same, for they also stepped back. Only the hatchling remained oblivious. The cloud descended toward him.
Jak squawked in alarm and lunged forward, snatching Shikari up and springing back. Malek raised his hands, and Jadora thought he might make a barrier to protect them all, but he startled her by launching fire from his fingers. Not a spinning ball that swept through the air, but a large glob of flames that hovered where the cloud was.
Jadora and Jak backed farther away as it burned, foliage wilting underneath the spot. Jak tried to stuff Shikari into his sling, but the hatchling protested, scrambling up to his shoulder.
When the flames faded, the cloud had diminished, with fewer sparkling gold motes visible, but some lingered. After a few seconds, the cloud started moving again. Straight toward Jak. Or Shikari?
“Jak,” Jadora warned, pulling him farther back.
“I know, I know.” He scrambled back with her until his heel caught, and he tripped. Shikari screeched, leaping from his shoulder to the top of his head as he fell.
Malek shifted in front of Jak, as if he could block the cloud’s path. Jadora didn’t know if that would work.
As she bent to help Jak up, Malek sent another ball of fire into the cloud. His face was tight with concentration as he turned it into an inferno, blazing heat in all directions.
Jak stood up, Shikari still on his head, talons digging into his scalp and tail flapping at the back of his neck. With his eyes locked on Malek and the fire, Jak didn’t seem to notice. He lifted a hand.
Channeling his own power into Malek to increase the potency of the flames? Did whatever this was require all that?
Jadora shook her head, scouring her mind for anything similar to these motes that she’d read about before. Nothing came to mind.
The fire grew, a huge orange sun so bright that she had to look away. Only when the flames disappeared did she look back.
“Did we get it all?” Jak asked.
Malek studied the spot. Jadora didn’t see any more motes, but she didn’t know if that meant anything.
“I believe so,” Malek finally said. “I no longer sense anything magical or alive.”
