A Benevolent Evil Dragon

I jump upright, eyes focusing in the distance… but the woods are dense. Edith stirs next to me, but I keep focusing on where I heard th- I jump back as I hear another thunder strike. The sky is still empty of clouds. That's magic. I feel my heart pumping, chaos mana stirring in me, whispers clawing at my ears, all telling me to go the other way. To escape "the hunt" whatever that means. But I couldn't. They were with me for barely a week, I know little about them and they know little about me. We're not exactly friends, we're barely acquaintances, but that doesn't mean I will leave behind people I ate, slept, studied, laughed, hunted and partied with just to escape some ambiguous hunt.

I look over and Edith is already changing into her armor, clearly getting what was going on. I on the other hand go over to the wagon and open the floor, taking away a fire and a lightning gem, then eating them together with a mouthful of gold without bothering to chew. With that done I took to the sky, my entire body being full of mana for once. I spread my wings, take a running start, then go into the sky in a flash of speed. Edith runs after me on the ground, but she clearly will take a while to join any fighting.

I try to think while following the sound of combat, the constant thunders helping me pinpoint my target easily. They started far but they're much closer now. I try to see anything in the sky, but there's no sign of Meruk. I try to focus through the treeline, especially after hearing another thunder strike, when I finally notice light shooting out in unnatural beams, flames roaring over a few of the trees in the distance. Some are struck by lightning, some scorched by light, none of those are things either of the freefolk could do.

I close my wings slightly and let the air guide me down through the branches, almost crashing into the ground but managing to save myself by using a burst of nature to grow a moss carpet into a veritable soft overgrowth with a single breath. I took a moment to breathe, then I saw armored, mounted warriors running after the unmistakable frame of Verah, weaving through the trees to the best of their abilities. There's distance between us already and I don't think I can hit anyone from my position, so I push earth mana towards my feet, using the elk's insight to give myself better grip and an easier time through the wild terrain.

Despite them having a headstart, I slowly gain ground… and then lose it all as something jumps from my side, hitting me into a tree, causing it to fall on top of myself as its trunk shatters. I groan, feeling heavy bruising in my chest, but thankfully I have no open wounds. My barrier simply failed to block the entire hit, and it's no wonder it did that… A witchbeast, one far too strong for a middle of nowhere area like this, looks down at me, acid dripping from its bear-like maw and melting the ground below. It roars in anger and I see its side… damage from cuts, electric burns and some frostbite… There's even a broken sword in there stuck almost to the hilt… and a hand still gripping the handle… Must have been from the riders that were going after Verah…

I get up as it roars again and swipes at me, I use magic to protect myself from the blow, then strike back with my bone blades but they fail to go into its skull. It roars a third time and I feel the scents of acid, bone, flesh and sound mana just as I finally feel the effect of its apparent sonic attacks.

I don't have time for this...

Edith was running towards danger. Sure, she was getting better, stronger, more jaded to violence as a whole, but she was still running headfirst into danger. She was thinking that she could just leave this to Heart… but she couldn't. From the way he acted, he clearly had a bad feeling about this, and even before when Heart was confident he ended up getting hurt, so she couldn't let him go and die while she sat on her ass.

She had her jewelry, the sword, the sling and a pouch of good round stones… this was far from enough to deal with most things that would threaten Heart, but it should be enough to make her a distraction… at least. She ran thinking about this, letting the adrenaline pump through her blood, making her deaf to fear and self preservation…

And to her surprise, she came upon a scene devoid of a dragon. Lightning struck the ground and from behind a tree she saw Verah, panting on the ground, trying to cover a small, wounded Meruk as well equipped mages approached. They began to circle Verah, but the woman let out a warcry and the earth under one man collapsed, then spikes shot out from the ground to crush his foot, eliciting a scream of pain, making the rest wary to approach.

"Fuck, first that bear, now this… Is she that earth mage, then? The other's a bird and uses air magic so it could be the sound mage… Roland?" A familiar voice made her blood run cold just as another of the men took down his helmet, revealing a face she loathed already.

"No second element in that one, so it's not the sound mage. And the woman's magic is weak, short ranged, it lacks refinement, precision, and while it seems strong enough to go through metal, it's nowhere near great enough to make that tunnel… Shit… does that mean there's more..?" The man, Roland, looked over at the knight that got his foot crushed as he was rescued by one of the older sorcerers.

"Doesn't matter, let's kill these monsters and go find the others. You saw that chaos fire, Edith and her sorcerers have to be close. These two must have been there just to help steal, maybe slaves they took?" A feminine voice she also remembered made her prepare her sling. They came back. Verah and Meruk were now hurt because of people that came to hunt her and Heart, which only made her more angry at herself.

Peace was never an option for her or her only friend… so she let mana flow through her right hand as she began spinning the sling in her hand, pushing power and anger into it. She didn't know where Heart was, but it was clear she needed to do something about this. As the woman nudged a man next to her who began chanting something, air gathering around him, she let loose the rock, using it to hit the armored man right in the head, a flaming rainbow eating his upper half… but sadly not killing him. Instead the man rolled on the ground, leaving behind pieces of his armor which seemed to rust and flake off until he was down to his birthday suit from his waist, up.

Shouts began and ended as she tried to shoot another rock, only for the tree next to her to be hit by a beam of light, setting it on fire, which caused her to startle away, in plain view of everyone. She was panting as all the attackers began showing their faces. Three of them she didn't recognize, but Roland, his group and even Fredrik she did recognize, eyeing them with obvious hate before having to roll away from a stone and an icicle being sent her way. She tried to get up and run off, but the grass grew and began wrapping around her.

She let out a burst of chaos fire and pushed to her feet, only for a beam of light to almost take her head. She dropped back down, gasping for air as she tried to think through on what to do… Her eyes moved over to Verah, but her legs were a mess. She had burn marks and gaping wounds all along her thighs and back, though she was slowly mending herself, but the look she returned clearly showed she wasn't able to do anything at the moment… not without having to abandon her beloved.

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Her eyes turned to look at the attackers, panic starting to grip her heart, but she saw infighting instead of the coordinated attack she expected.

"Let me go!" Screamed the woman as she was held back by her naked brother and Fredrik. She was confused, until she saw the two older sorcerers clearly having their magic aimed right at her, ready to kill her… but not doing it…

"The Count asked for her alive! He may not care about the barbarians, but he will care if we don't at least bring her in." Said Roland, clearly annoyed at the situation… A count?

"Hah.." She began, laughing in disdain. "Did Zielenec's lord put a bounty on me? For cleaning up his city?" It was a wild guess, but she didn't particularly remember angering a Count. If it was a Baron, she would have guessed that Glozko got mad at the theft, it would make sense since his son was here too, but otherwise…

"No, the lord and the guard captain of Zielenec wanted nothing to do with us. They were happy at getting rid of the smugglers, though annoyed at the hit to their image. And the people you saved… they're doing fine it seems. The church is renovating to help them long term thanks to your contributions." Fredrik spoke… strangely warmly towards her, drawing an annoyed look from Kasia.

"Why are you telling her all that?! Isn't she the thief that robbed your whole mansion? Isn't she the reason your family is in shambles?!" That made him frown, but at Kasia, not Edith.

That made her more worried, though. Who else had any reason… the memory of the merchant caravan flowed through her mind, as did the mention of some noble being there too.. Might have been this Count.

"Shut your mouth! All of you!" Roland seemed stressed, panicked, almost as much as Edith herself. "Edith, for your crimes of impersonating, attacking and robbing nobility as well as many other crimes I am sure, you are to be imprisoned and taken into the custody of Count Bajor! If you will take any sort of hostile action we will be forced to make sure you can't harm anyone ever again. Come quietly and tell your sorcerer friends to come out too and we might even spare those barbarians." Despite his words pretending at peace, Edith could see his hand tremble and his eyes shine, clearly being ready to invoke magic at a moment's notice.

A roar echoed through the forest, birds flying in the distance. Everyone aside from the two older sorcerers looked towards where the sound came from, a heavy silence dragging on. It was the wounded knight, who had just finished forcing his leg to work who broke the silence.

"The bear sounds angrier than before… or closer. It and its mate already killed Herman, get done with this fast before it shows up again. Fighting those things, the barbarians and the cursed witch doesn't seem like a smart thing here, sir." He eyed Roland, who just cursed about nothing going right before looking over at Edith.

"You heard it, right? Come quietly, lead us to your friends and nobody needs to die." He began approaching, taking out some familiar black cuffs from his belt, causing her to shudder just from their sight alone. She looked over at the older mages, seeing them still ready to kill her in a moment, and then she looked around trying to see where Heart was. Unlike this group, she knew the roar was not a bear's but Heart's and yet she still couldn't see him anywhere.

She feared she'd be captured for a while… Then her attention moved back to the older sorcerers and at Jan's son as he stepped behind them, whispering something before shocking both of them with lightning. Everyone's attention swiftly moved to him, giving Edith time to put another rock in her sling and hit Roland to the back of his head as he screamed about treason. She then ran up to Verah, grabbed Meruk and began running, letting the wounded woman put her whole strength into escaping. They even split up, Edith making the path behind her more dangerous by setting fire to everything she could, then she ran with all her power.

She wasn't Heart. She couldn't fight multiple strong sorcerers and live to tell the tale, but she didn't need to. She needed to get back to the wagon with Meruk and Verah, then escape this whole place. She just hoped that Verah managed to escape.

Verah did not escape. She ran just enough for Edith to see her running, then she stopped, leaning against a tree and looking back at the situation. She didn't understand the talks, only Meruk managed to learn these tongues so quickly and easily. She was good at using her body more than her mind, so it was time for her to put her body to work.

These men wanted to kill her and her beloved. These men wanted to kill or capture Edith and probably Heart too, as far as she could tell. Then, one of the men betrayed the rest, helping Edith escape with her beloved… And that was fine. All she needed now was to buy time. If that meant allying herself with one of the attackers… Actually, now that she thought about it, this man's attacks had never struck her or her beloved so far. She thought him useless, but if he was a betrayer, or maybe even someone on their side for reasons she did not know… Well, it would make sense, at least. It meant she could at least have one temporary ally in the coming fight.

She cursed at herself for mentioning to Meruk that she couldn't stop thinking about her brothers and sisters… She cursed at herself for thinking just knowing how to handle metal was enough to overpower the slavers and save her family. And then she cursed at herself for being too daft to notice the attacks coming until it was too late and he had to take it all to keep her from dying…

And yet, after all those curses, she pulled on a prayer. A blessing from her guardian spirit. She begged for a last stand. For a second wind that would help her crush at least another man. Images of the horned spirit passed through her mind and a warsong began to drum in her ears. She let out a bellow and felt the earth shake as she rushed into the fight, goring a sorcerer as ice and water began to gather into a spell. He didn't die, the armor, though weaker than the full plate of the knight, still took on most of the harm, but the man's lung was pierced by her horn, so his seconds were numbered. Still, his magic took form and she felt her back scream in pain as it frosted over,freezing even the blood in her wounds into sharp crystals that just stabbed at her flesh more.

She knocked him down and pummeled him, single-mindedly trying to at least kill one more enemy if only to make Edith's escape easier. She felt a sword stab at her side and she turned towards it, punching the knight in the face, denting his helmet and breaking her knuckles more. Through the corner of her eye she saw as the boy that attacked the rest weaved through attacks and stabbed with his sword at any weak point he could, but it was clear he would get tired.

She let out a puff of air as she felt the mild tingle of mana pouring out of the knight in front of her, clearly this was her final fight… She hoped her guardian would welcome her into his fold as she died for her family. She shook away her dying thoughts, then stomped on the earth, preparing to kill the man in front of her, until light scorched her left eye, causing her to lose her balance and fall, clutching at it. Through her remaining eye she saw the one surviving old sorcerer looking panicked as he split his magic between herself and the traitor boy…

She had hoped to at least take two…

A roar echoes, this one wasn't distant like the others. She had seen how her mate used the witchbeasts to buy some time against the attackers, she had heard the surviving bear coming after them with a vengeance, and yet the roar just now wasn't of the bear, but of the Godling.

The battle halted as a bear's head, mutated by mana fell in the middle of the clearing. An unnatural sound, a mix between raspy panting, clicks and gruff chuffing combined in one, filled the air as five glowing eyes approached from magical darkness.

"I believe you were looking for me." Nobody moved as only the eyes were visible from inside that cloud of roiling shadows.

The old sorcerer began channeling his magic, shooting the beam of light towards the darkness… only for it to get absorbed. The eyes then focused on him for an unnerving moment.

"You are right. There is no use talking to dead men."

The darkness flowed forward, much to everyone's dread.