William warned the knights to dodge the incoming attack from the dragon head. Of course, he also prepared to dodge, though he wasn’t sure exactly what kind of attack it would be. Fire? Lightning? He knew there were several different possibilities, but he didn’t know what this particular chimera was capable of. If only their scales were conveniently color coded… but they weren’t. This one happened to have red scales, which would have let him know it breathed a cone of fire, but none of the literature he’d found, nor the experience that Lila had showed any sort of pattern.

Because he knew this, William was ready for any kind of elemental attack, and perhaps because of that, he was slow in avoiding the attack. He moved a quick hop to the side, anticipating a lightning bolt. He would be able to continue his motion if he needed to dodge a fireball, or something else. However, what he saw next wasn’t any of those things. Instead, it was nothing.

Not that the chimera stopped attacking. Indeed, it had definitely breathed out… something. A wind attack? William understood that it took a significantly larger amount of energy to make wind dangerous than pretty much anything else. “Wind blades” weren’t really something that could be done, at least not with any reasonable amount of mana. William pondered this, while the knights listened to him and dodged.

A soft wind blew over William, though he felt that it was aimed more toward where he had been previously standing. Nonetheless, instantly his eyes started hurting, and he smelled something terrible and pungent. He realized something was wrong, and continued to leave the area he was standing in. As he moved out of the area, his lungs suddenly started burning. Poison! It didn’t have to appear as a stereotypical cloud of purple or green, after all. Many toxic gases were colorless.

William didn’t really have the time to think of the complexities of that, however. He still had to fight the chimera. As he started to talk, he coughed painfully. “Next up is…” he coughed again, “stone spears.” He said that not only to inform the knights of his spell, but also Chris. They had a pretty good method of determining when and where a spell would be fired, based on how William held Chris, but the spell they were using had to be planned out. William was going to fire stone spears in the hope of breaking some of the scales. He would have to hit a moving target, but the chimera would hopefully have to take some more time before its next breath attack, during which it would have to attack with tooth and claw.

As William started to chant, he went into a coughing fit. For any wizard, that would spell the end of their casting. However, since he was only doing it as a cover anyway, it didn’t matter. It did, however, make it hard to focus on what was happening. He tried to keep the timing correct as he watched the knights engage the chimera. It clawed at them, as the dragon and lion head bit at them. The goat head actually rammed into one knight, who barely blocked with his shield, but was thrown back. The knights got in some hits with their spears, but the chimera flew past before they could get into a good formation.

“Four…” *cough* “three” *cough* *cough* “two… one.” The chimera was flying back around, straight toward the group. He thought he saw it look at him, as if laughing at his inability to cast magic anymore. This time, it was the one surprised when some of the rocks on the ground formed into vaguely spearlike shapes and flew toward it. Arrows couldn’t really hurt the chimera because of its scales. It was quite tough, but not invincible. Its wings, for example, were less well armored. It was there that William aimed his attack. The chimera wasn’t ready to react to more magic, and one of the wings was injured. This was enough to force it to land, though it was little more than a crash.

The knights took the opportunity to surround it. William would have helped but he was occupied with coughing. He felt like his lungs would be forced out at this rate. In addition to his lungs, his throat, mouth, nose, and eyes all burned. If only he could get the poison out… He didn’t know what he could do about that though. So, he just coughed. Not that he could stop doing that, but hopefully it would force out whatever it was that was causing the problems.

William vaguely saw the knights come back from fighting the chimera, and start walking up to him. He coughed, a huge wracking cough, and out came… blood. It landed on the ground. That was probably bad, however William felt somewhat better. He wiped his mouth and squinted his pained eyes at the knights. “How… how is everyone?”

Gerald gave William an incredulous look. He said something, but William couldn’t hear him. Oh, his ears hurt too. No wonder.

One of the knights who had some knowledge treating wounds came up to William. William pointed to his ear to let him know he couldn’t hear, but his finger came away a bit bloody. William felt his face with his other hand, and it also had blood on it. That was weird. Didn’t he just cough up some blood? Where did the rest come from?

William sat on the ground heavily. He didn’t feel good. He remembered to tell Chris to create some wind in the area, to get rid of any lingering toxins that might be nearby. He was pretty sure whatever it was had mostly dispersed anyway, since he wasn’t feeling any worse. In fact, he felt pretty good, comparatively. The knights looked worried though, as the knights… George, maybe, looked over William, showing him to open his mouth so he could look inside. He also looked at William’s eyes and ears, wiping up blood with a bandage of some sort. William just sat there focusing on staying conscious, and getting his equilibrium back.

After about fifteen minutes, William realized he could hear again. He said so. “I think I’m probably going to be alright. I feel… better. Less bad, anyway.”

“Better?” Gerald came up close to William and staring intensely at him. “Really?”

“Well, I’m not going to say I’m fine, but I’m not just toughing it out. I’m really quite weak when it comes to pain.” He looked at the bloody bandages. That… probably looked like more blood than it actually was. Probably. As George finished what he thought he could do for William, he moved on to the knight with the broken arm, the one who had blocked the ram’s attack. Then, William passed out.