H - 123: Enough (Patreon)

What had happened to the city was enough to shock anyone and would undoubtedly leave countless traumatized—a mad, inexplicable disaster appearing from seemingly nowhere only to be ended in an even madder and more inexplicable manner—but for the one who considered herself most responsible for this nation, the grief over what had just happened to her capital was heightened by the fact that she had been forced to just stand here and watch it from beginning to end, unable to lift a finger to help.

A situation in which she still remained; the greatest danger to Boisverd may have come and gone, but Queen Henrietta knew she was very much in peril.

“You see? You see?” Cora babbled, actually darting back and forth like a coursing hound whose path had been blocked. She waved her arms erratically about, glaring out across the city at the cathedral of the Shepherd, around which the dragons were still circling in the aftermath of whatever those people atop the central tower had done. Divine intervention? That would be out of character for Anessima… “Look what they did! Just look! They can’t be trusted!”

“From here it looked like they helped,” Henrietta said evenly.

Cora whirled on her, and one look at her bulging eyes made the Queen wince inwardly. Not her finest work; she knew better than to provoke an obviously unstable person. She was still aching all over from being transported by conjuration and stewing in the frustration of being held effectively captive while her people suffered right in front of her. That was no excuse. Excuses were for people with lesser responsibilities; a Queen could not fail, period.

“Cora, what do you know that I don’t?” she asked before the obviously unhinged mage could lash out.

Cora jerked back as if struck—just as she had previously when confronted by an unexpected question. Then she glanced rapidly back and forth, dry-washing her hands and generally looking like a caricature of someone trying to come up with a story.

That was almost as revelatory as what she had actually done here. Cora d’Acron was Valefolk from a noble family; though she was notoriously blunt by the standards of such people, prevarication was still an art she had learned before she could read. She had to be far gone to be visibly struggling like this.

Henrietta had to wonder how much responsibility she bore for letting things get to this point. In hindsight, Cora’s pattern of deteriorating demeanor over the last few weeks was foreshadowing of this. At the time, though, it had seemed understandable, easily explained by the responsibility under which she was struggling. Should Henrietta have looked deeper into this? Even Clarent had been wary enough to start investigating her…

This was definitely a departure, though. Whatever was wrong with her had escalated sharply since they last spoke.

“I just…have to…finish this,” Cora babbled, still looking away. In the brief pause since Henrietta’s question she seemed to have forgotten it and was now talking to herself. “This is…this can still work. I can save Boisverd. I can. What happens to me doesn’t matter. The dragons…they came here, that’s a start.”

Well, she wasn’t betraying the kingdom, that was something. A powerful mage who had lost her grip on reality wasn’t a lot less dangerous than an antagonistic but sane one, and possibly more so.

“What were those creatures, Cora?” Henrietta asked. “Where did they come from?”

Cora flinched again, refusing to meet her eyes. This was…heartbreaking. Aside from the peril of it, Cora had been a loyal and faithful retainer for years; Henrietta considered her a friend. This gibbering creature was a mockery of the diligent woman she knew.

“They…they ruined it,” she hissed. “That should have worked. How did they do that? What kind of magic? I never saw a spell like that…”

Henrietta narrowed her eyes. Had Cora summoned those? She was no expert in magic—that was why she had a Court Mage—but had made a point to be aware of the generalities, and in particular the capabilities of her on chief advisor on the subject, and she was fairly sure conjuring anything on that scale, let alone living things, was beyond Cora’s ability.

Suddenly, that seemed less important.

While the addled mage paced and babbled right in front of her, the three dragons had wheeled away from the cathedral and now were heading straight for the Palace. In fact, straight for—

Oh. Dragons in flight moved fast.

Pheneraxa slammed into the tower with a force that made the building tremble, latching on with all claws, the wind from her spread wings bowling both women bodily over. Before either could get up, she grabbed the tower’s roof with both front claws and lifted as easily as if she were flipping over a plate.

The tower roof was torn free of its support columns and tumbled into the courtyard below with a devastating crash. The Queen still hadn’t gotten as far as producing a response to this when she was bodily seized in a blue claw and swept into the sky.

***

Private Wurnst kept trying valiantly to take the lead and place herself between the Prince and whatever he was running towards, but he was nearly as fit as she and not burdened by armor; he kept dodging ahead any time they had to go through a door or around a corner. It was fine, he figured—he’d snatched a rapier and a pistol from a small armory as they climbed through the Palace. He could handle himself.

Franz burst out into the courtyard just in time to see the roof from one of the wall towers crash to the ground inside. By the blessing of whichever god had bothered to care, no one was under it. What looked like an entire squad of royal soldiers were laid out off to another side of the courtyard, being fussed over by medics, and more troops in the robes and light armor of the Army’s battlemage corps were dashing toward the tower which had been attacked.

All of this Franz took in at a glance as he skidded to a stop, before Wurnst had the audacity to shove rudely in front of him, pushing him back with her free arm and raising her weapon protectively.

He really couldn’t blame her this time.

The huge blue shape of Pheneraxa the dragon spread her wings and launched herself from the shorn-off tower. From this angle he caught only the briefest glimpse of a person sitting astride the beast’s neck, not enough to identify them, but clutched in her claws…

“Mother!” he roared, pushing past Wurnst and charging out into the courtyard. His bodyguard cursed in a most unbecoming fashion as she came pounding after him.

Space warped in the center of the courtyard, and then Cora was there, wild-eyed and snarling.

“NO,” the mage roared, brandishing both hands skyward.

Pheneraxa let out an abortive screech and tumbled mid-flight; a huge band of iron had snapped into place around her neck, clearly tight enough to crush her scales. In the next second a chain of light appeared attached to it, the other end in Cora’s hand.

No measly human had the strength to yank a dragon out of the air, but that chain was obviously more magic than matter. Cora hauled backward and it began to shorten, pulling the already-impaired Pheneraxa down.

Franz’s heart burst up toward his throat at the sight; from that position, she was going to land right on top of the woman in her grasp.

With an obviously heroic effort, the dragon managed to twist herself midair to impact the ground awkwardly on one of her hips. That looked like it would hurt, but it enabled her to curl protectively around the Queen without letting her weight come down on the person astride her neck, either.

Whatever the hells was going on, the dragons obviously didn’t want the Queen harmed. After they’d taken Percy… Heavens and hells uncounted, were they trying to complete their collection or something?

A deafening roar from above prompted everyone in the courtyard to duck and lunge for whatever scant cover they could, just as a red-and-black scaled shape plunged out of the sky, directly at Cora.

The glowing chain vanished as the mage’s attention was diverted. Vanimax would have landed right on top of her, except that an enormous panel of ice appeared in midair, already moving at its moment of conjuration, and slapped into him like the impact of a flyswatter. He was both burlier than his sister and not trying to protect anyone; he landed on all four claws, only pushed aside from his intended destination and seemingly unharmed by the impact or the shards of ice which now sprayed in every direction.

Vanimax blasted a torrent of fire at Cora, only for it to be deflected by a huge curved barrier of iron which snapped into being between them. Spell circles appeared in the air all around him, and giant glowing blades stabbed out from each, jabbing at the dragon. Roaring in outrage, he retreated—

Actually, Franz realized, he was not retreating, but dodging the attacks while repositioning himself. The dragon lunged around the barrier at Cora, who launched a huge boulder directly into his face point blank.

The soldiers scattered throughout the courtyard dithered; the Verdi doctrine and indeed ironclad Valefolk strategy for fighting dragons was don’t. Resistance always brought overwhelming retaliation. Every soldier was trained to grab civilians and run to shelter in a situation like this.

In light of that, it seemed ominously significant to Franz that Cora had clearly prepared a spell arsenal to contend with dragons. The courtyard was already littered with curved iron walls that perfectly deflected fire blasts, as well as shard of the boulders with which she kept hammering him. She was, for the moment, successfully holding Vanimax at bay with this strategy: deflect fire breath, keep him off balance with giant magic blades, and hammer him with boulders.

None of this, of course, was enough to put him down. The dragon was getting visibly angrier, and Franz knew they were now just counting down the seconds until he lost his temper and became a lot less careful of the surroundings. The Palace wouldn’t survive if he really let loose; the city might not.

Pheneraxa had succeeded in tearing the iron collar off her neck. Franz, with Wurnst doggedly in tow, charged toward the blue drake along the side of the courtyard adjacent to the innermost wall. He couldn’t see his mother—wait, there she was. In fact, Pheneraxa appeared to have set the Queen down against the wall and was keeping herself between Henrietta and the brawl.

“Cora, stop!” a familiar voice shouted across the noise, causing Franz’s heart to leap upward again. That was—there she was, sitting astride the dragon’s neck, almost as if it was she who was in control—

“Percy!” he shouted.

“Franz!” his sister called back, waving urgently. “Get Mother inside and hidden! Cora’s sick, she’s not in control of herself!”

That explained…well, some of this. Franz redoubled his speed, taking note of his mother’s position and that of the nearest inner door and plotting a course to escort her inside. Wurnst kept pace, maneuvering herself to an outside track between him and the dueling mage and dragon.

Both fortunately and unfortunately, everyone else in the courtyard had heard their Princess’s shout.

“Battlemages converge!” roared Etienne, charging forward from the wall stairs with her own sword in hand. “Apprehend Lady Cora!”

“NOT THIS TIME!” Cora screeched, turning and holding out a hand toward Queen Henrietta, whom she could just see beneath Pheneraxa’s sheltering wing.

Vadaralshi hit the ground from a dive, landing with a force that cracked flagstones, and snapped her jaws at Cora, hissing. Vanimax charged her again from behind, and the cursing conjurer was forced to retreat, hurling up barriers of stone and wood to impede them.

All three drakes formed a formation centered on Pheneraxa now, pushing forward in unison, while the assembled battlemages got themselves into order, closing in on Cora from the other side, with Etienne anchoring their left flank.

“ENOUGH!” shouted a new voice, one with power. It was not magic, at least not like any Franz knew, but it held…force. No, weight. Something about it seemed to make reality flex in response.

It bore down on every mind present, even the dragons—even the insane. Abruptly, finally, the noise ceased as all halted what they were doing, turning toward the two figures who had definitely not been there a second ago, but now appeared just inside the closed inner gates of the courtyard.

Two figures flanked by misty blue-green shapes aiming ghostly weapons, in a much tighter formation than the Verdi soldiers had managed.

Ar-Kaln Zelekhir had arrived, and he had not come alone.