H - 119: Whoever Can Be Saved (Patreon)

The entire world shifted around her with an abrupt wrench, but Queen Henrietta was left unable to even try to process the change by the sheer agony of it.

She buckled to the ground, managing by sheer force of well-hardened will to catch herself upon her outstretched arms; as much as her entire body wanted to collapse and curl in on itself like a pillbug, a Queen did not show such weakness. Even faltering to this extent was shameful. But…no one could endure this unaffected.

Every muscle screamed as if each had just been overextended; her bones were throbbing from what felt like impacts all over. Her stomach roiled and skull pounded in a way that was reminiscent of a particularly brutal hangover, and most worrying of all was the stabbing pain directly in her heart.

This was clearly a different environment—all she could see before her blurry eyes was a dusty stone floor, but the air was fresher, and filled with sounds which only served to exacerbate the agony pounding in her head. Henrietta only processed that some of those noises were alarmed voices calling her by title when they abruptly vanished.

Her neck screamed in protest as she raised her head.

She was on one of the Palace’s wall towers—roofed, but the roof supported only by columns, leaving the battlements open to the elements. The soldiers who should be here, who had exclaimed in alarm at her sudden arrival, were now absent.

And the tower was effectively sealed off, with huge boulders which had assuredly never been here before blocking both the wall exits and the trapdoor stairwell into the tower below. Well, sealed was the wrong word, the entire thing was still open, but Henrietta was in no shape or attire to go clambering around on the walls even at the best of times. Right now she was certain her body would fail her if she even considered it too closely.

And with the shouting soldiers gone, she could hear the roaring of dragons.

“You see?” Cora’s voice said from nearby. “You see what they’re like? We can never trust them!”

Henrietta blinked, painfully, and began trying to straighten up. Trust…dragons? Why would that have ever been on the table? What in the world was her Court Mage even talking about?

Through the haze of pain and disorientation, she was by now well aware that something was wrong with Cora. She was acting irrational to the point of complete malfunction.

She managed to raise herself enough to see green and red shapes swoop past her field of view…raking the streets of Boisverd with fire.

So here it was, then.

Was this what they had done to that godling? No wonder the priestess of the Flock had been so aghast. Henrietta found herself begrudgingly impressed by the poise Ar-Kaln Zelekhir had shown; likely godlings were more resilient than mortals, but if it had felt at all like this to him, he had recovered and composed himself most admirably. More to the point… Now that his “family” was here, if they learned what happened to him, they were going to go utterly berserk.

Finally gaining her feet, Henrietta stumbled to the battlements, catching herself against it with both hands…

And stared.

The dragons were not burning down the city. In fact, as she watched, Vadaralshi executed a tight turn in midair, dived down, and blew a tight stream of fire to clear a broad avenue of a skittering horde of…

“What are those things?”

***

Everything was screaming. Marie was screaming as she huddled behind him, the multilegged monstrosity was hissing constantly at a pitch that sounded like screaming as it lashed out at Claude with its front limbs, and his own blood was howling so fiercely in his ears that he could barely hear any of it. All he could do was keep his body between it and his wife, desperately trying to fend it off with the chair which was the closest thing to a weapon he’d found at hand when they had scrambled into their attic and locked the stairwell door, only to find that another of the creatures rampaging about below had climbed the building and smashed its way in through the big picture window at the front which Marie loved so much.

Married for all of two months—the happiest time of his life. It was the Evervales and life was terribly uncertain, but he’d hoped to have years with her yet.

The monster hissed and surged forward, Claude gritted his teeth and raised the chair to intercept it, and suddenly a new monster intervened.

Faster than he could even process what was happening, a bounding shape ricocheted off the sloping attic ceiling, slamming into the giant spider and knocking it against the opposite wall, then dived under it in a whirl of steel. In seconds the beast collapsed as multiple legs were severed, and then its infernal hissing was silenced by a stab up through its body.

The interloper rolled nimbly out of the way as it fell to the floor.

Claude found himself staring down at a furry person half his height with a long bushy tail, wearing a bloodstained apron and brandishing a Rhiva khopesh which seemed like it ought to have been too big for her.

“What is this thing now?” Marie squealed, peeking out from behind him.

“I’m gonna let that pass because I can clearly see what a hell of a time you guys are having,” said the intruder. “Now c’mon, you can’t stay in here. Those things can climb like nobody’s business and they seem to be attracted to openings; I give it two minutes, tops, before another one comes in through that busted window. Let’s getcha to the shelter.”

“W-we can’t go down,” Claude stammered, finally lowering the chair. “We locked—they’re in the stairwell!”

Indeed, he could still hear scuttling behind him; as if on cue, the stairway door thumped hard, its hinges rattling ominously.

“Yeah, I didn’t come here alone,” their furry rescuer said. “C’mon to the front, my friend outside can get you to the ground.”

What did that mean? A…mage? Claude and Marie exchanged a look, communicating silently. Neither of them knew exactly what species this person was, but both could tell when they were being rescued by an adventurer. All sorts of odd folk took up that lifestyle, and they were exactly who would be running around the city helping people during a disaster.

“Thank you, friend,” he said with more aplomb, setting aside the chair. “We were seconds from… Well, thank you. C’mon, love, let’s not waste time.”

She nodded, squeezing his hand, and they both dashed forward, their rescuer loping alongside them. Actually, hopping. What an odd creature; this person had a fox’s snout, but the long ears and hind legs of a rabbit. Wait, hadn’t he read about the desert folk down near the Empire…

Momentarily distracted, Claude failed to react speedily enough to save his wife when they reached the smashed open window at the front and a huge claw reached in and snatched her out.

Once again, Marie was screaming in terror, and he lunged after her, barely catching himself against the broken window frame, watching in horror the very spectacle that haunted the nightmares of all Valefolk: the one he loved most in this world held in the grasp of a dragon.

“Marie!” he screamed, his voice cracking in anguish. “Don’t—don’t eat her!”

The dragon twisted its neck to give him a scathing look, and in the next second Claude himself was snatched out into space, the iron-hard claw pinning his arms to his side.

“Why do all you people seem to think you’re some manner of delectable delicacy?” the dragon rumbled as it lowered them to the ground. “I cannot imagine being hungry enough to eat anything that can talk. There you go. You live in this neighborhood, yes? I assume you know where the shelters are? It’s a run of about two blocks, but we’ve cleared the spiders from this area; you should be able to make it before they start coming back. The region outside the shelter access is being held by city guards and some adventurers, you’ll be safe as soon as you’re within sight.”

Released, they clutched each other, staring up at the dragon in utter stupefaction.

“Or you can stand there in the street and wait for death, I guess,” he said with clear annoyance. “I’m tempted to leave you to it, but my friend just risked her life saving your ungrateful butts. Move.”

It took brave and intrepid souls indeed to stand defiant in the face of an order shouted by a dragon. Claude and Marie were shoemakers. They turned and fled.

“We gotta work on your people skills, Max,” said Zhiiji, emerging from the attic in a flying leap and landing on his back between the wings. “Rio! Spooky! You guys clear over on that side?”

***

“The dragons…are helping?” a soldier said aloud in the numbly befuddled tone of someone trying to process a square circle.

“No, that’s…no,” another said, shaking his head. “Dragons don’t help. They…they must’ve just gotten distracted by all the…the other monsters. They’re predators, they chase stuff. Like a dog going after rabbits. They can’t help it.”

A few helmeted heads nodded.

“The blue one is putting out fires,” someone else pointed out tonelessly.

All the Palace soldiers holding this tower watched in silence as Pheneraxa made another sweep, casting torrents of conjured water and ice to douse flames left behind by her siblings as they cleared streets one by one.

“I’m seeing the same pattern over and over,” narrated one of the spyglass-wielding scouts with far more composed delivery. “The dragons will land and take people out of attics and rooftops where they’ve been stranded, then place them near shelter access points. With the buildings in the way I can’t see exactly what they’re doing to the people there, but the guards and adventurers defending the shelters are not interfering with them, which suggests it’s not harmful. It’s…I think it’s exactly what it looks like.”

“The dragons are helping?” the first speaker repeated, now sounding outright plaintive.

Another soldier gasped. “Th—wait. Did they come here to help? All that roaring and swooping around—they never attacked anybody but they scared everyone. The alarms rang, people ran to shelter, and… Countless hells, that must’ve saved hundreds of lives. Thousands!”

“Stay frosty,” Princess-Consort Etienne ordered in her drill sergeant voice, cutting through the chatter. “Speculation is way above your pay grade, lasses and lads. While this could still be some manner of trick, I’m making the call. If the dragons aren’t actually attacking, we don’t need this many warm bodies holding the Palace while there’s a need for troops on the streets. I’m diverting—”

“Your Highness!” interrupted another scout who was too well-disciplined to do such a thing and therefore commanded Etienne’s immediate undivided attention. “There’s weird activity in the courtyard! Looks like a whole squad of our people down there—injured or incapacitated. I can’t tell what happened, but they’re not right.”

Etienne turned and strode to the opposite battlements, leaning over to glare down into the courtyard. Indeed, a full squad of ten of the Palace guard were strewn across the flagstones as if they’d just been flung there by a dragon, all but a few having dropped their weapons. Most were moving, but slowly and feebly, making little progress at getting upright.

“You, Private, get the hells down there and get me a report!” she barked, pointing. “You, summon medics, those soldiers clearly need help. Scouts, sweep the walls! None of our people should even be in the courtyard, I want to know where they came from.”

“Got it!” shouted another scout, staring through her spyglass. “West-northwest tower, your Highness! No sign of any of the troops who should be there, but there’s a huge boulder blocking the wall access! No damage to the wall or tower, I don’t know how it got there. It’s almost as if it was…”

“Conjured,” Etienne whispered. “I want every active battlemage diverted! Converge on that tower!”

***

“What in the last hell?” Kaln demanded, staring around in shock. Anessima had brought them to exactly the point from which they’d left the city, the flat top of a watchtower whose bell had now fallen ominously silent. “We were just here! It can’t have been half an hour ago! What is happening?”

“Mass summoning,” Shadrach said curtly, narrowing his eyes. “No…mass conjuration. Of course, of course. Spiders Gorge is the ass-end of nowhere, you could take a week and basically carpet the place in summoning circles and nobody would ever know. The bugs would let you, too, they’re usually docile.”

“Unless they’ve been conjured,” Kaln whispered. “Oh, man. I know what that feels like. To live through that with the brain of a big crab and then be in a strange place…”

Shadrach audibly ground his teeth, nodding. “This might be the biggest case of mass animal cruelty in history. When I get my hands on that fucking conjurer I’m gonna stomp her face in until I can kick her ass from the inside!”

“Can you get rid of them?” Kaln asked urgently. “Send them home?”

“From here to Spiders Gorge? Critters that size? Sure, maybe…three at a time. And after about fifty I’d be keeling over—I’m not sure that’s even enough to make a difference. This has to be almost all the colossus spiders in that entire place!”

“Shit. Is there…anywhere else nearby we can move them?”

The mage shook his head. “There’s nowhere outside their very limited habitat they won’t be causing some kind of disaster. Teleporting them properly won’t hurt them any further, but it sure as hells won’t do anything to calm them down. I could move them outside the city walls, where there are fewer people…but also fewer defenses for those people, and it’ll be that much harder to round them up when—”

“Peace,” urged the goddess with them, and as if her word were natural law, both men relaxed slightly as calm settled over them. Hii-Amat had not joined them, but they stood now with Anessima the Shepherd towering over them both on the rooftop. “Young mage, if you will lend your aid, there is indeed good you can do here, even if you cannot send all these poor creatures home.”

“I’m listening,” Shadrach said warily.

The goddess made a gesture with one hand, incongruously languid for the scene unfolding around them, and a scintillating vortex of light manifested in the air right in front of Shadrach, an interlocking construct of wheels and gears made of multifaceted luminescence.

“Focus your spells through that,” she ordered, serene but implacable. “You have used scrying equipment as a targeting aid before; you know well the method. It will direct you to the individual colossus spider most imminently about to inflict lethal harm, and provide the safest possible location within the city to send it without taxing your energy.”

“Oh, an incarnated sorting algorithm? Neat. Can I keep it?”

“No.”

“Never hurts to ask,” he said equably, raising his staff and focusing his stare upon the whirling construct of light.

“What can I do to help?” Kaln asked.

Anessima smiled down at him, gently placing her hand against his upper back. “In moments, when the immediate has been dealt with, we will discuss how a godling may aid the people of this city. First, you must address how a leader can. The undead converging upon us answer to you.”

“Undead? Wh—wait, you can’t mean—”

The bluish green shade of the swirls of mist which rose out of the nearby streets and streaked toward their perch was very familiar—as was the sight of this form of transportation. What emerged when the spectral streams coalesced around them was a novel sight, however.

They were translucent, faintly glowing, but complete. Their faces were fully flushed, fully normal, fully visible… And, to the last, relieved and happy to see him. As one, the two dozen or so ghosts halted in a loose formation ringing the top of of the tower and saluted in the manner of the Amaar-Darash Hegemony.

“Glad to see you, sir!” said the ghost who had materialized directly in front of Kaln. “Are you well? Watching you disappear like that was alarming.”

“I am at fault,” Anessima said gravely. “You have my apologies, faithful spirits. I am here to make amends.”

Kaln, meanwhile, was squinting at the ghosts. He had never seen these refined, pointed features before, though he had to respect the impeccably styled hair and tightly trimmed little mustache. After a second, however, he realized that he recognized that uniform, right down to the insignia pinned to its sleeves and collar.

“Commander? You talk now? And…you have a face!”

“A lot’s happened, sir! I’ll have a full report for you once we’re not in the midst of a situation; the short version is that Dragonvale is secure, we neutralized the attack with no losses on either side, and then the Young Mistresses and Young Master came here in search of you—whereupon they immediately became distracted trying to help the people of this city during this disaster.”

Pride swelled in Kaln, and as much as he wanted to bask in it, there wasn’t time. Hells yeah, though. Those are my kids!

“Most of the Legion is occupied keeping Dragonvale secure,” the Commander continued, “but I brought two squads to assist in the search for you. What are your orders?”

“Help people!” Kaln said without hesitation. “Fight the spiders if you have to, but prioritize saving lives!”

“Yes, sir! You heard him, Legionaries! Weapons free, spread out, and save whoever can be saved. Innocents do not perish under the eyes of Amaar-Darash!”

“FORWARD THE FLAME!” two dozen voices chorused, and then the Legionaries rushed away in all directions as streaks of mist, back into the embattled streets of Boisverd.

“Command suits you, little brother,” Anessima said quietly, touching Kaln’s back again. “Now, let me show you how we shepherd the mortal souls who depend on us through such times as these.”