Chapter 30 - Rescue (Part 2)

Upon the demise of two of their kind, the giant lizards only grew more enraged, their eyes flickering with a red color as their tongues belched out small clouds of a sickly green mist. Powerful muscles rippled under their grey scales as they pounded the ground furiously in their mad rush to reach Leon and avenge their fallen.

Still, the three beasts seemed to have opened quite a distance gap between themselves and the first beast Leon had slain. As they drew closer, he finally understood why. The shaft of several arrows could be seen protruding from the bodies of each beast, and Leon sent a mental nod of acknowledgement to his friend. However, he also had to wonder at just how tough these beasts were if several of Skyle’s arrows had only managed to marginally slow down their advance. After all, Leon knew first hand how formidable Moonshadow's power was.

Still, Leon’s eyes didn’t show any hint of fear as he lifted his left hand above his head and squeezed it into a fist. Arcs of fiery red energy swiftly converged upon his hand until a small ball of roiling crimson fire hovered within his fist.

The three lizards howled in fury as they advanced upon Leon, their movement so swift that they were barely blurs of grey as they closed the remaining twenty five meters to Leon. The foremost beast pounced towards Leon in a straight line while the two remaining lizards moved to either side to flank him.

With a loud cry, Leon swung his fist down toward the beast rushing headlong in his direction, flinging a fire bolt at it. Even as he felt the release of power from his hand, however, Leon’s eyes widened when he saw that the lizard he had targeted had firmly dug its claws into the soil the moment Leon moved to attack and pivoted away from the fire bolt’s trajectory, twisting its body in an impossibly fast evasive maneuver.

Leon watched in shock at the beast’s incredible reflexes, instantly knowing that his fire blast would miss its target, but it was too late to change its course now. Fire blasts were concentrated vortexes of fire elemental energy that were primed to explode upon impact, releasing all the energy within in one devastating blow. However, because of the unstable nature of the fire vortex, once released its course could not be easily altered.

The fire summoner could only watch as the fiery missile flew wide, missing the beast by a good couple meters. The beast’s lips curled into a vicious snarl and in its eyes a cunning look surfaced from behind the mad bloodlust Leon had seen earlier.

This shocked Leon even more than the previous maneuver. After all, at a mere glance it might have been nothing but a display of superb reflexes. That light in its eyes, however, was deeply unsettling and sent chills down his spine. Could these beasts be so smart as to bait their enemy into an attack, only to exploit his weakness and avoid the straight path of the fire blast after only seeing it once?

Leon firmly pushed down his shock as he lifted his hand once more, and more currents of red energy arced up his arm, quickly gathering into another ball of fire. This time, however, the beasts didn’t hesitate at all and instead pounced upon him from all three sides, holding nothing back.

They must have realized that he needed to charge his fire bolts prior to releasing them. Just how cunning could these beasts be?

As the beasts roared exultantly, lunging forward from 3 directions at once, Leon’s lips curled into a vicious snarl of his own.

“Underestimate me at your own peril, foolish beasts,” Leon growled to himself, abruptly twisting his body and throwing down his uplifted hand towards his left, while his right hand gripped his sword in a white-knuckled grip.

The fire essence gathered in his fist did not finish converging into a full fire blast. Instead, as Leon spread the fingers of his left hand, the translucent semi-sphere of the energy barrier he had cast earlier shifted positions to cover his left side, and quickly absorbed the extra essence channeled into it from the caster's left hand.

This further strengthening made the barrier glow briefly with a powerful red glow, dozens of strands of fire energy pulsing with power. Then Leon lifted a foot as though he were bracing it against the back of the barrier, and leapt in that direction.

Initially, the beasts had shown their remarkable intelligence by timing their attacks so they would strike at Leon from three sides all at the same time. However, Leon disrupted the timing of the attacks by leaping to his left, effectively drawing a few paces closer to the beast launching itself from that side.

As the beast opened its ferocious maw and lunged toward Leon, the energy barrier exploded violently as it released a thunderous boom and a blinding flash of crimson light. Elemental energy shields not only protected the caster from harm, absorbing most of the force of an attack, but they also reflected part of it back towards the attacker. This particular shield had been further strengthened by Leon with an added charge of fire essence, for even deadlier results.

The lizard howled in agony as a few of its teeth immediately shattered from the physical impact alone, and the flesh of its mouth was shredded by the ensuing blast of elemental energy. Gouts of fire spread from the shield to envelop the terrified beast, and as it was violently propelled backward, its eyes were turned into smoking ruins by the excessive heat.

As for Leon, he had expertly placed his foot upon the inner layer of the barrier. Upon impact, he used the force of the explosion to push himself off the barrier and propel his body towards the opposite direction.

The startled lizard approaching from his rear tried to twist its head in mid air in order to snap at Leon, but could only nip at the edges of Leon’s clothes before the youth slipped under the pouncing beast, so swift was his movement after the recoil from the energy shield.

Leon’s hands weren’t idle during this maneuver. Instead, he had braced the red hot edge of his blade against his shoulder as he used his momentum to dive under the pouncing lizard. Leon felt the fetid breath of the lizard brush past his face, but then felt the feedback from his right hand as the glowing tip of his fire enhanced sword bit deeply into the underbelly of the beast passing above him.

The jarring shock of resistance against the blade bumped its weight against his shoulder, but he had been prepared for the impact. After the initial shock, the sword flowed more smoothly in his hand, cleaving scales and flesh with a hissing sound of scorched meat and entrails.

Then he was past the beast, and Leon instantly rolled forward upon landing, shifting the remaining power from his energy shield to his back. The move was perfectly timed, as he felt a slight feedback from the shield and heard a scratching sound, not unlike that of nails scraping across metal. Ignoring both, he collected himself from the ground and regained his feet, sword poised in front of him in a defensive stance as he turned around to face any further threats.

The lizard he had just dived under landed well enough, but afterward it tottered on its claws unsteadily, letting out a weak mewling sound. Small droplets of blood dripped steadily from the middle of its belly, but they quickly grew in volume until they became thick streams of red. Finally, with a tearing sound like old sackcloth, the skin of its underbelly parted oped and spilled a steaming mass of entrails and blood onto the ground. The eviscerated beast gave out one last keening cry, before slowly tilting to one side and collapsing bonelessly onto the growing sea of red underneath its claws.

The final beast still on its feet seemed to regard Leon with narrowed eyes, seemingly hesitating as it crouched low upon its thickly muscled legs. Its eyes glanced towards the first of the trio, the one that had been repelled by the energy shield’s impact and following blast, being knocked to the ground. That beast was no longer moving, as sometime during Leon’s disemboweling strike and his evasive maneuver, three arrows had struck the beast, two in the throat and one in its eye.

Thus, Leon was content to stand his ground, making no further moves and focusing on maintaining his defense while he waited for the inevitable.

Alas, the last reptile was not nearly as wise, as it continued to crouch in a moment of indecision.

Such undecisiveness cost it dearly, as a mere instant later a barely registrable blur flashed down from the sky, and an arrow materialized itself within the final lizard’s left eye with a bone-jarring impact. A great gout of blood spurted from the terrible blow, and the beast’s head was violently jerked down from the power of the shot as the shaft buried itself deeply into sensitive flesh.

From the angle, however, it had failed to reach its brain and the beast howled in agony, twisting and squirming in agony as it wrenched at the arrow with one of its claws. Leon briefly glanced back over his shoulder, and shrugged helplessly, as though to say, “must I really do all the work here?”

The answer arrived in the shape of three more arrows, arriving one after the other in quick succession. The first one hit the creature’s skull with a loud thudding sound, but somehow bounced off and clattered onto the ground. However, the impact seemed to shock the lizard for a moment, and that one opening was all it took for the second arrow to find its neck. That shaft penetrated deeply and produced another great fountain of blood.

However, the killing shot was the final one, as it caught the lizard when it lay on the floor in a brief moment of stunned stillness. Skyle didn’t miss the opportunity, and the last arrow found its mark in the beast’s remaining eye. This time, the arrow seemed to find purchase on the brain, because the lizard gave one final twitch, then lay still while the final arrow continued to quiver briefly. Then the only motion was that of the fletchings on the arrow shifting in the breeze.

Leon couldn’t help but turn his head towards the tree Skyle had climbed earlier. It must be a least some hundred and thirty meters, and the little monster apparently hadn’t missed a single shot. Not only that, but the speed at which he had released the arrows was simply astonishing. Just thinking of how terrifying such an archer would be if he imbued his arrows with elemental force, Leon shuddered. It was simply unfortunate Skyle seemed to have a problem with his elemental powers.

“Perhaps the gods were fair, after all”, he reflected. “Abyss take me, but I’ve paid dearly for my own powers.”

Shaking his head, Leon turned his gaze to study the two people they had risked their lives to save. They still lay huddled in each other’s embrace, small sobs of relief wracking the chest of the smaller boy while the older girl tried in vain to comfort him.

“Not that I’d be feeling any differently, were I in his shoes,” Leon reflected, as he approached the strangers.

The sound, or lack of it perhaps, seemed to finally urge the boy to stop his plaintive cries as he finally lifted his gaze. As for the girl, however, even with the tears brimming in her eyes, she had never once stopped watching the battle, even through its most gruesome parts.

Now that the battle was over, Leon had time to study the girl more closely. Long locks of silver hair fell to the middle of her back and shone in spite of the dirt and grass that matted it, ignoble signs of her desperate flight. Her features were fine and delicate, but there was a strength of will in that brow and a determined line to her full lips that told Leon this girl was no stranger to hardship, and overcoming it, for that matter. Her most striking feature, however, were her eyes. Hidden underneath long, delicate lashes, they shone with a violet hue, like glittering jewels whose brilliance couldn’t be smothered, not even under the panic that had gripped them just moments ago, nor the complete exhaustion that flooded them now.

“Thank you,” the girl whispered, and though her voice trembled slightly at first, just a layer below it carried a steady note to it that was truly startling, given the circumstances. “With the dracolings on our tail, I feared we were doomed.”

Leon nodded gravely, “Dracolings?”

“Yes, the scaled beasts you just slew,” the girl replied, sounding a little confused. Her eyes grew a bit wider as she finally took a moment to truly study her saviour.

“You, are you a rifter?” she murmured, looking Leon up and down with a wondering look, but then stopped herself with a start.

“Rifter?” Leon repeated, puzzled.

The girl shook her head slowly, as though confirming her suspicions, but the boy in her bosom lifted his face to look at Leon in shock.

“You’re a rifter?” the boy cried out.

“Hush, Emil,” the girl chided gently, covering his mouth.

“Rifter?” Leon muttered, furrowing his brow. “No, wait. Before that, you need to tell me who you are and what you’re doing here.”

“Of course,” the girl replied, putting a hand to her chest. “I’m Leena and this is Emil. We’re both from a small scav’er clan in Dalorn. Our caravan was headed to New Seras when we were ambushed by raiders. Most of our clan members were.. Murdered.”

Leon’s eyes softened slightly at that, but he nodded for the girl to continue her tale.

“Emil’s parents and the other adults tried to buy the children enough time to get away, but the raiders were just so fast, so brutal. They were almost upon us, so I had no choice but to take the children with me and flee into the red zone.”

A haunted look came to Leena’s face as her lips began to tremble, and she continued to speak in a low voice, “The raiders gave up the chase, and we didn’t understand but we were so relieved. But soon after the children began to disappear one by one. No sounds, no warning, they just vanished.”

“The dracolings had come and they, they began to target the children.. I couldn’t..” Leena’s shoulders shook as sobs began to rack her shoulders. “I had no weapons, not even a knife. By the time I saw them, there were only three of us left. I could only take Emil and run, even while knowing it was for nothing.”

Leon winced as he heard the tale, growling under his breath. Emil squeezed his eyes shut as more tears flowed down his cheeks, but surprisingly it was Leena who gathered herself first.

“I know I have no right to ask this of you,” she pleaded with earnest eyes. “But I need to go back. If there’s at least one survivor, if we can save at least one more..”

Leena reached out with a trembling hand toward Leon, her tear-filled eyes shining with a tragic light.

“Please,” Leena pleaded, bowing her head. “I will do anything to repay you.”

Leon closed his eyes for a moment while he considered his options. It wasn’t that he did not want to help. However, after facing these beasts he had come to realize just how dangerous and deadly they were. Their scales were very tough on the exterior, and their speed was shocking. However, the most unsettling quality about these beasts was their insidious cunning!

Not only would they be exposing themselves to potentially deadly harm, but what chance of survival could defenseless children have against such terrifying beasts? Leon knew that it was almost a certainty that even should they safely arrive at the location, they would only find the gory remains of the beasts’ gruesome feast.

It would be a waste of time and resources, all for nothing but more heartache and trauma in the end.

Leon was just about to open his mouth to state as much, when his eyes caught movement behind Leena’s back. It was a figure hastily approaching from the distance, though it could be seen that he was still limping badly. Leon’s eyebrows drew together as he recalled his partner’s disposition, and a long, helpless sigh escaped his lips.

“Leena,” Leon said.

“Lord?”

“Burn all naive, foolhardy farmboys with a death wish, and toss in beautiful damsels in distress for good measure,” Leon sighed inwardly, but unbeknownst to him, his fingers had already been curling around the hilt of his sword for a long time, as though all they needed was an excuse.

Now he had one.

“How many did you see, and where?”