Chapter 43: Rescue Team From White Tower
"Hm?"
The frown on Davos’s face deepened the moment he caught the warship’s outline against the sky above the horde, and deepened further the moment he recognized the figure standing at its helm.
He knew that presence.
He had carried the memory of that fight in his body since it happened, the kind of memory that didn’t fade the way other things did, that stayed accessible at the surface of his attention no matter how much time passed. Cold settled into his eyes as he looked from the warship to the two youngsters standing in the wreck of his certainty below.
He had thought himself clever. He had thought he’d taken the wyvern’s treasure right out from under two human prisoners and walked away with the entire exchange in his favor, the lesson delivered, the matter closed.
He had been the one being played.
The entire time.
Arian gave him no window to process the realization further.
She and two others left the helm of the warship together, dropping from the height in a controlled plummet that carried the kind of speed that shouldn’t have looked controlled and somehow did. Around them as they fell, giant beasts took shape from the air itself, materializing in formation and matching their descent stride for stride, converging on the demi-god waiting below.
"When this is over." Davos’s voice carried across the distance, casual in delivery and absolute in intent. "And I kill you punny rescue team. I’ll take my time with the both of you."
He turned to the two beasts flanking him.
"Let’s go!!"
They moved.
Lightning fast, closing the gap between Davos’s position and the descending warship contingent with the kind of speed that made distance feel like an illusion they’d simply decided not to respect.
,,,,,,,,,,,,,
In the open field of the moving horde, the collision happened.
A massive explosion tore across the mass of beasts as the demi-human maqaue met Arian head on, the flash of it briefly outshining the torchlight scattered across the distant turtle’s surface. The shockwave rolled outward through the surrounding creatures, scattering anything not anchored to its own will.
Arian didn’t waste the opening.
All five of her summons released at once, the air around her filling with presence that pressed outward in every direction simultaneously.
Dragons.
All five.
Arian carried a title beyond High Regent in the Kingdom of Bark, one earned rather than inherited, one that didn’t require explanation to anyone who had seen what she could field.
The Dragon Mancer.
Without hesitation, without anything resembling restraint, the kings of beasts tore into the surrounding horde, their roars deafening enough to register as a physical pressure against the chest of anyone caught beneath them. They moved through the mass of lesser creatures tearing limb from limb, clearing space with a violence that made the wyvern’s earlier rampage look almost restrained by comparison.
Ethan had already witnessed what a tier 6 beast was capable of when provoked.
A tier 5 summon, five of them, released without prejudice, was something else entirely. The category gap that had separated him from the wyvern existed again here, stacked further, the dragons operating at a level that made his earlier panic feel almost quaint in retrospect.
"Hold on tight."
Hela’s voice cut through his focus and the light creature carrying them shot forward, weaving between scattering beasts with a precision that didn’t slow for the chaos unfolding around them. Their direction was set, aimed straight for the giant turtle still carrying the compound on its back.
They covered the distance fast.
,,,,,,,,,,,,,
They arrived to find the compound already in ruin.
The structures that had stood organized and deliberate when Ethan first arrived were broken open now, sections collapsed, the order of the place dismantled by something that had moved through it with purpose. A man in a white suit stood in front of the wreckage, his posture composed despite the destruction framing him.
The coordination here was a different category than what had happened back at the wilderness stronghold.
That rescue had been chaotic, improvised, people doing what they could with what little warning they’d had. This was something else. The personnel here had been selected, the operation planned with the resources of an institution that took this kind of thing seriously when the stakes justified it.
"Lady Hela." The man bowed, the gesture carrying genuine relief rather than formality alone. "Glad to see that you’re safe."
He meant it.
Without her signal, without her resourcefulness finding a way through the jamming twice, this entire operation would have arrived too late or not at all. Someone with her capabilities being present here had made the difference between a successful rescue and a search that never closed.
His gaze moved to Ethan.
The frown that followed was immediate and unguarded.
Who was this. And why did the lady stand close enough to him that the proximity itself read as something worth noting.
"Is Fin ready?" Hela asked, her attention already moving past the question in the man’s expression and onto the next piece of the operation. "When are we heading to the camp?"
The mission wasn’t finished. The camp holding the rest of the human captives still sat to the west, untouched by anything happening here. A rescue that pulled two people out while leaving everyone else behind wasn’t a rescue worth the name, and she wasn’t going to treat it as complete until the rest of them were accounted for.
"Oh, do not worry about that."
The man in the white hat smiled, gesturing toward a caravan that had gone still in the distance, its forward motion stopped entirely.
"Lady Banshee is already there. Giving them a ride."
—Skriiiiiiiii!!!!!
A screech tore through the air from the direction of the caravan, the volume of it enough to make even Ethan and Hela flinch and close their eyes against the force of it, the sound carrying a quality that scraped against more than just hearing.
"We came very prepared." The man’s smile didn’t waver, the sound apparently familiar enough to him that it no longer registered as alarming. "All you have to do is relax."
He turned and led them into the ruined complex, toward the section where Servos had been bound and left, his movements unhurried despite everything still unresolved overhead.
In the sky, the fight raged on.
Comments