As Nick was studying the architecture, looking for an entry point that would provide enough cover for the assault while allowing them to effectively use their numbers, a shocking sight at the base of the large tree city grabbed his attention. There, shackled by heavy iron chains around their ankles and wrists, were human captives. Their sunken cheeks and gaunt bodies spoke of prolonged captivity. Their skin stretched taut over their bones, their muscles barely visible as they hunched over a makeshift forge, crafting small pieces of armor.
The captives were cramped together, barely inches apart, each tethered to heavy wooden benches by rusted chains that clinked with every slight movement. Two sciuri patrolled the area, clad in the same type of armor the captives produced. The guards walked back and forth, occasionally striking the captives using a cat o’ nine tails made with vines instead of leather. Each strike was hard enough to draw blood.
Just watching the way the vines dug in, peeling off the skin of the grown men and women, Nick wanted to rush out immediately, but he knew he had to wait a moment. The way they were just lined up in such a visible area and being abused senselessly, almost as if for show, meant this display could easily be a trap. He recalled the way the demonic little goblins in the Apocalypse would strip and torture young women to draw heroes out of their caves and to their deaths before dragging the women to the next part of town to repeat the ploy.
It hadn’t taken more than a month for the invading monsters in his last life to learn human nature, and given how intelligent this opponent had shown themselves to be with their first round of traps, he expected this would be no different.
However, even as he was hesitating, Nick could see movement from the side of his eye as Seo-ah started to arm herself like she was about to charge into battle.
“It’s Taejo!” she whispered fiercely, but before she could move, Spencer had already intercepted her.
Spencer quickly shot Seo-ah a look, reminding her to wait for orders. His pained expression was just as desperate as hers was, but Nick could tell he was doing his best to keep his cool.
Nick didn’t have to look for too long to find the people he was after though, as after Seo-ah pointed out Taejo, he spotted Clarissa right next to him. She was crying on the ground as she was repeatedly being whipped, her winter clothes shredded by the cat o’ nine tails. Taejo was next to her with the other kidnapped guild members, each receiving similar treatment as they were being slowly dragged by their captors up the bridges into the city.
“Allen, tell me right now if there is a trap, something hidden, because we’re moving in the second you give the all clear,” Nick ordered. However, before that order could be executed, there was a violent tremor that shook the tree city. A red rift tore open the sky above the canopy of the trees. From it emerged a floating fortress six hundred feet long. It had black obsidian walls that gleamed in the sunlight. Massive crystalline engines at its base pulsed with energy along its flanks, emitting a low, resonant hum that vibrated through the air.
“It’s one of their scouting forts,” explained the familiar voice of the Black Witch in Nick’s mind. “The dragonkin use them to travel to and from this land. They are the eyes with which the empire watches over the territories the lizards don’t want to venture in. They lack the warmth and blood to deal with the cold and frigid lands of the north.”
A hissing message, guttural and inhuman, reverberated through the air.
"What are they saying?" Rosemary demanded.
Even though Nick had never learned the language, he seemed to know it like it was second nature, another language gift from his connection with the Black Witch, no doubt. “They’ve come for the promised tribute and to receive reports on the situation in the north.”
The group stayed quiet as they watched the proceedings, doing their best to conceal themselves just as the air filled with the beating of leathery wings. A hundred dragonkin warriors descended from the floating fortress.
From his hidden vantage point, Nick watched in horror as the tribute was presented by the armored sciuri guards. Bags of essence shards clinked softly, crates of meat were hefted forward, and then the people were handed over: Clarissa and Taejo chained to the others from his party that had been captured as well as a dozen others he didn’t know who had been equally beaten. The humans were followed by a long line of bound and hobbled vulpes, snow lynxes, and dire wolves snarling and growling at their whip-wielding captors through muzzled snouts.
“If you don’t act now, you will never see them again. They’ll be chopped into pieces and eaten by the dragonkin,” the Black Witch told him.
His instincts from his last life had momentarily taken over after the last trap, pushing upon him the caution that had helped him survive, but he knew better this time. He knew better than to let fear make his decisions.
“Get ready,” Nick told the others, his grip tightening on his spear. His gaze quickly passed over Spencer and the rest of his friends and allies, a plan already formed in his mind. “We’re going to blitz them hard and fast and get our people back. Spencer, you need to open up with heavy magic. Put them on their back foot while we strike them as fast as possible. We’re going to hit them from three sides with three groups.”
As Nick assigned roles, Spencer nodded, his hands already weaving intricate patterns. “On my signal,” Nick whispered.
Topaz fidgeted beside them, her fingers dancing over her grenade launcher. “Just say the word, Nick.”
The rest of the group nodded, weapons readied.
As the dragonkin reached for Clarissa, Nick gave the signal. "Now!"
Spencer's voice boomed with arcane power as lightning erupted from his hands, chaining between a dozen dragonkin warriors. Their bodies convulsed, scales blackening as they fell.
“That’s it! JUST DIE! ALL OF YOU DIE!” Topaz cackled, launching a barrage of alchemical grenades. The projectiles exploded into a viscous mess, gumming up the dragonkin's wings.
Allen began punching holes in the dragonkin's tough armor with his rifle shots, his electric rounds delivering paralyzing shocks to his targets.
A split second later, Nick burst from cover, his spear wreathed in frost. “Kill every single one of them! Don’t let a single one escape justice!” he roared, activating Pep Talk and Cloak of Madness as he charged at the enemy, Seo-ah, Elizabeth, Oliver, Stacy and Amanda right beside him. As he hit the enemy and drove the icy weapon into the nearest dragonkin's chest, he caught glimpses of the others, divided into two groups closing in from the left and right, nearly surrounding the enemy.
Around him, his companions unleashed their own attacks, each careful to take advantage of the dragonkins’ two elemental weaknesses, ice and electricity.
On the left flank, Rosemary conjured illusions to mimic a small army, her rapier shimmering with the energy of some skill. She guided Tabitha, Christina, and Maria into a fierce assault, their weapons cloaked in glistening layers of ice.
On the right, Lou, Noelle, Adele, Darrell, and Reggie hit the dragonkin like a hammer. Lou, leading the group, smashed through the right side of the enemy, chopping through a dragonkin halberd haft with his aura blade and then kicking the dragonkin that held the weapon remnants so hard it caved in the creature’s chestplate and sent it flying backwards into its fellow soldiers. Before the dragonkin even landed, Lou was pushing forward, Noelle, Darrell, and Reggie on his left and right, swinging their weapons and unleashing their own attacks. Adele ran in behind them, her conjured holy lances and impaling multiple targets with their ice-covered tips.
Meanwhile, Spencer, Topaz, and Allen provided cover and ranged damage from the ridge, their elevated position giving them a clear view of the enemy.
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The surprise from their attack quickly faded, and the gold-horned dragonkin leaders, their scales a deeper black than their subordinates, began calling out, “Betrayal. Kill them all!” and hissing orders in their alien tongue.
Nick deflected a powerful thrust of a halberd from a soldier then stabbed the enemy through its stomach as the dragonkin quickly organized into smaller units.
“They’re regrouping!” Nick shouted, parrying an attack from another dragonkin soldier. “We need to—”
His words were cut short as the enemy squads surged forward, laying into his friends, the surrounding forest, and the herbivore creatures. Great gouts of flame burst from two squads, setting the trees around them alight.
The sciuri and lepuses on the lowest levels of the tree city fled as the fire spread along the wooden bridges while some of the sciuri cast ice magic to quench the flames.
A squad of dragonkin soldiers marched toward the tribute they’d been offered, halberds raised to strike down the kidnapped humans while another squad charged towards Nick and his friends.
Nick’s heart leapt into his throat as he saw the sight, but he had no room to act as he fended off three halberds with a wide sweep of his own weapon, Seo-ah besides him protecting his side from another two dragonkin, her spear glowing pink as she fired aura-conjured spears at the incoming group. Oliver’s mace crushed the skull of another dragonkin to his right and Elizabeth, Stacy, and Amanda fought six of the enemy, one a gold horned captain.
Spencer shouted, “Leave them alone!” the strain from rapidly casting his most powerful magic evident in his voice as he fired another bolt of lightning from his outstretched hands, striking three dragonkin.
Nick deflected a halberd with the tip of his spear and then stabbed the dragonkin soldier through the throat and turned just enough to see Clarissa shatter her bonds, her eyes glowing with power. She raised her hands, and a yellow earthen glow enveloped them as the broken metal cuffs that held her hands reformed into thin metal needles that launched into the backs of the sciuri guards, who had raised their cat o’ nine tails to attack the dragonkin that were burning everything around them.
The needles flew at the speed of a flechette cannon, tearing through the closest giant squirrels and covering dragonkin soldiers behind them in blood and viscera, looking like they were some kind of avant garde art of tangled legs, arms, and tails. Clarissa quickly began freeing Taejo and the others.
With a burst of aura, Nick kicked the enemy he’d killed off his spear just as Spencer sprinted past him and called out, “Clarissa!” relief and excitement mingling in his voice.
Clarissa looked up as she finished freeing Taejo and hugged Spencer as he reached her. She sobbed in relief for a moment as Spencer held her, her shoulders shaking. Then she pulled back. “Help me free the others, and then we’ll make those beasts regret ever being born,” she said as she knelt to free another kidnapped guild member.
“I knew you’d come for us,” Taejo said, his eyes darting between Nick and Seo-ah, who had just stabbed a dragonkin soldier through his gut, before immediately turning to help the other captives.
Suddenly, the ground trembled. Nick steadied himself against a tree trunk as a group of frost-horned bison charged into the battle, their icy horns piercing the armor and scales of a squad of dragonkin. The hooves of the bison trampled any fallen dragonkin as their charge broke through the disciplined dragonkin’s formation, opening up their rear as more herbivore fighters attacked.
As Spencer launched another lightning bolt that fried two dragonkin and struck a bison, he called out, “Let them all kill each other as long as we get our people out of here!”
Nick noted a group of dragonkin warriors standing over the broken bodies of sciurus mages, their halberds chopping into the creatures. Seeing the distracted dragonkin, he signaled Seo-ah and Oliver to join him as he used Charge to close the distance to the enemy and strike. His spear drove deep into a dragonkin’s chest, Nick pushing a burst of frost magic into the wound to freeze the creature’s lungs. Oliver caved in the back armor of another soldier, knocking that one into two others. Seo-ah unleashed Hyeonmu's Spiral Dance on the three tightly grouped monsters, a hundred rapid strikes tearing through them.
Another dragonkin swung its halberd at Nick as he struggled to pull his spear from his suffocating foe. The blade might have hit him except that a hundred forearm length razor sharp shards of ice rained down on the creature and its brethren.
As a half dozen of the dragonkin fell, impaled by icicles, Nick looked up and saw a hundred sciuri in the trees above, little clawed paws raised as they chittered angrily and gathered more magic to cast down.The next second, Nick heard a deep croaking growl behind him and looked back to find eight dragonkin inhaling deeply. Seo-ah and Oliver dove one way and Nick dove another, taking cover behind a tree just as the blasts of fire scorched the area. The tree filled with sciuri crackled as it took the brunt of the fire attack and then fell. Nick heard the high-pitched scream of the burning squirrels as they fell into the waiting inferno.
To his left, Nick saw the largest of the dragonkin point at Spencer, shout an order, and then flap his wings as if to take flight and attack, but Elizabeth rushed the monster to hold it off. Her sword came down with enough force to cause sparks as it met the dragonkin captain’s weapon, strike for strike, their blades flashing with aura energy as they fought. Meanwhile, Stacy and Amanda protected Elizabeth’s flanks, stabbing and crushing the dragonkin soldiers that tried to surround them.
On the right, Lou delivered a flurry of blows as he pressed through a dragonkin squad, breaking weapons and bones with every swing. The sigil from Reggie’s armor-enhancing enchantments flared as the rest of Lou’s group protected his back and finished off the fallen dragonkin.
On the left side, Rosemary’s illusionary copies were drawing dozens of soldiers away from the others while Spencer unleashed a hundred razor-sharp ice needles and Maria used Hero’s Gale to turn the projectiles into a torrent of death, shredding the enemies into a bloody mulch.
But their success wasn’t without cost. Tabitha went down with a halberd shattering her shield and cutting into her arm, and Noelle took a blade meant to skewer Maria from behind. Adele was there moments later, uttering prayers. Her healing magic flowed like water, mending wounds of her friends and the kidnapped people as they took up the halberds of the fallen dragonkin and fought.
“There are too many injured!” Nick cursed as he turned to Spencer. “We need to end this quickly!”
Spencer nodded grimly as he ran through the somatic movements of another spell. “I'm working on it! Cover me!”
Nick, Seo-ah, and Oliver planted themselves in front of the mage, fending off attacks as Spencer once more gathered his power. The air crackled with energy, raising the hair on Nick's arms.
“Topaz!” Nick shouted. “Can you give us some crowd control?”
“I’m already shooting all the good stuff I have!” Topaz yelled back as she continued to fire a series of grenades right into the middle of several smaller skirmishes between dragonkin and the frost bison, each one exploding in a blast of sticky foam or disorienting flashes of light and deafening blast of sound.
As the dragonkin faltered, Spencer finished casting his spell, unleashing a blinding arc of lightning that leapt from his outstretched hands, forking and branching to strike multiple targets, including the dragonkin captain that Elizabeth had been fighting. The burned lizard flesh filled the air as the dragonkin leader fell. Spencer staggered as the spell ended, his legs giving way as he was forced to brace himself against a nearby tree just so he didn’t topple over, the effects of mana exhaustion finally sidelining him .
Following their captain’s death, the dragonkin ranks fell into chaos. Their organized formations, struggling to reform after being broken by the bison charge, no longer had a leader to bring them back together, and both the herbivores and Nick and his friends took the utmost advantage of the moment.
The frost bison gored the dragonkin soldiers, scattering what remained of their formations with their ferocious attacks. At the same time, the sciuri and horned lepuses attacked from the trees or zipped in with quick strikes and then retreated when the dragonkin turned their attention their way.
Nick, Seo-ah, and Oliver hit a group of six dragonkin from behind while the soldiers were staring in shock at the corpse of their charred leader, and Lou went from a freight train of destruction to an unimpeded whirlwind of death, his fists and feet flying so so fast that he looked like a neck-snapping, bone-breaking tornado. Meanwhile, Elizabeth, Stacy, and Amanada charged into the dragonkin on their side of the fight, ripping through them with unmitigated savagery and bathing the battlefield with blood and scales.
Between the powerful magic Spencer cast, the chaos caused by Nick and his friends, and the betrayal of the numerically superior herbivore forces, the dragonkin were soon slaughtered to the last one. The forest city burned around them as the herbivores tried to put out the blaze, their focus turned from the humans in their midsts for the moment.
“We did it,” Clarissa said, limping to Spencer's side, the mage barely able to stand from the effects of mana fatigue.
“Taejo!” Seo-ah shouted, grabbing her brother, who had been injured trying to free the other prisoners, Adele already healing him.
Nick nodded solemnly and the triumphant roar of the herbivores echoed across the battlefield, but Nick's relief was short-lived. His eyes darted upward, spotting several airborne dragonkin hurrying to their flying fortress.
“No!” Nick shouted, gripping his spear tighter. “They're escaping!”
He turned to Spencer, hoping the man had one last bit of magic in him. But Spencer shook his head only once before his eyes rolled back and he collapsed into Clarissa’s arms, mana fatigue taking him.
As the winged figures climbed higher, a sudden crackle of energy filled the air. Nick's hair stood on end from the ambient static charge.
A blinding flash erupted from behind him, followed by a deafening thunderclap. Bolts of purple lightning, more potent than anything Nick had ever witnessed, lanced through the sky. The fleeing dragonkin were struck mid-flight before their fried corpses plummeted to the ground.
