Path of Dragons 16 - Chapter 31 - Helpless (Patreon)

Elijah was paralyzed, body and soul.  His mind still churned, but his thoughts were sluggish.  He couldn’t move a single muscle, but he still felt the blade sawing through his skin.

“Just get it done!” hissed one of his attackers. 

Elijah could feel that there were four of them, though his senses wouldn’t tell him anything else.  Soul of the Wild refused to respond to his commands, and when he tried to deploy his Mantle of Authority, it felt as if he’d slammed his soul into a wall.  And with every passing second, that barrier contracted. 

Inch by inch, Elijah felt more and more confined.

And if he’d been capable of such thought, he would have recognized that the only reason he remained conscious was his preemptive use of Wild Resurgence, which sent wave after wave of dense vitality coursing through his body.  It had already closed the puncture wounds, but the spell had yet to overcome the poison that had so rapidly infected his body.

Or venom.

Elijah was in no state to make the differentiation.

“I’m trying!” growled the attacker who’d grabbed his hair.  His blade skated across Elijah’s skin, barely cutting through the outermost layer.  “How is it so tough?!”

“He has a silver-tier body,” said one of the others.  Elijah couldn’t see any of them.  Instead, with his head tilted back against his will, he could only see the hall’s ceiling.

“I thought that was just a rumor,” muttered another.

“That doesn’t seem –”

The sentence never completed.  Instead, they only let out a strained gurgle before falling atop Elijah’s body.  He barely felt it. 

“What was –”

Another disturbance of air and ethera cut that attacker off, and Elijah saw an arc of red blood splatter against the ceiling.  A moment later, the former owner of that red spatter thudded against the floor.  The one holding Elijah’s hair released him.  Elijah’s cheek slapped against the ground, and he got a look at a dead-eyed corpse that had once been one of his attackers.

“Who’s there?” hissed one of the two remaining assassins.  “Did you see them?”

“No.  I don’t –”

Once again, the attacker never finished her sentence before enduring an attack.  She managed to fight back, filling the hall with the sound of clinking metal as blade clashed against blade.  However, it didn’t end in her favor, and it wasn’t long before she joined the other two who’d already died.

Elijah watched the light leave her eyes as she bled out.

That left only one.

Even as Elijah’s thoughts recentered and the poison began to lose its battle to the ongoing fight against his regeneration and Wild Resurgence, he discovered the identity of his savior. 

“Why are you protecting him?  This has nothing to do with you,” growled the one who’d attempted to deliver the death blow.

Palikina’s voice came as a near-whisper.  “He’s my friend.”

Then, ethera stirred, and she disappeared.  A moment later, the unmistakable sound of a person being stabbed in the back reached Elijah’s ears.  Still, the attacker didn’t fall.  Elijah couldn’t see the following fight, but it went on for almost thirty seconds until, at last, Palikina won out.  The would-be assassin fell in a tangle of limbs, having incurred dozens of stab wounds along the way.

That was when Elijah felt some degree of feeling return to his body, confirming that the poison had been at least partially comprised of that attacker’s abilities.  Still, there was a physical component as well, which kept him mostly numb.  He pushed through it, finally able to cast his entire suite of healing spells.  At the same time, his Mantle of Authority exploded out from him, shredding the remnants of foreign ethera.

It only took another few seconds for the effects of the poison to flee from his body.  It oozed free of his pores to coat his skin in sizzling goo that smelled faintly of almonds.  Elijah took a deep breath, not realizing that he’d been incapable of doing so since the moment he’d been stabbed.  The air entered his lungs with a distinct sense of stark relief.  Finally, he rose to all fours.

And promptly vomited.

The stuff that came out of his mouth wasn’t just his last meal combined with stomach acid.  There was blood, chunks of meat that had probably been his organs, and poison in there as well. 

“Ugh,” he groaned.

A hand found his arm as Palikina helped him to his feet.  That was when he saw the full breadth of the attack.  Four bodies, each one so bloody that he couldn’t discern the color of their clothing, lay around him.  Meanwhile, each end of the hall showed an additional pair of bodies, making it clear that the attack had featured lookouts on either side. 

“That one is Umbranix,” Palikina said, pointing to the dragon Elijah had taken to be the leader.  His appearance was mostly non-descript, with grey-white scales encircling his neck.  The others were either serpentors or drakes, with a variety of colorations.  Each one felt like shadows, though.

“Where did you come from?” Elijah asked, his throat raw.  Even having purged the poison, he felt weak.  Like he’d just begun to recover from an illness. 

“I was following you,” she answered. 

“Why?” he asked.

“To keep you safe.”

Elijah recognized it as a lie, but he didn’t press it.  He’d long realized that Palikina was a different sort of dragon.  Even when she wasn’t using stealth, she sank into the shadows in an effort to avoid notice.  More than once, he’d felt a ripple that indicated that she was around, but he had chosen to ignore it. 

He trusted her.

Elijah wasn’t certain why, but he did.  As she’d said, they were friends.  Maybe they weren’t as close as he was with Okar, but that was a function of her nature more than their shared trust. 

He squatted beside one of the assassins, but it only took a second to realize that none of them carried any identifying items.  In fact, other than their clothes and weapons, they had nothing on them.

“How do you know they’re Umbranix?”

“I don’t,” she admitted.  “Just that one, because we’ve met before.”

Then, she revealed that they’d tried to recruit her, once upon a time.  “I almost took them up on it, too.  But I don’t want to be an assassin, which was what they would have required of me.”

Elijah nodded, but before he could respond, a pair of dragons turned the corner and rushed into the hall.  What followed was a tense stand-off where Elijah and Palikina tried to explain that they were the victims.  Given that six people lay dead, that wasn’t the easiest argument to make.

In the end, Elijah decided to push past their objections and remind them who he was.  He didn’t enjoy looming over people, but the reality was that he was well past the point where he felt obliged to hold back. 

“I’ve been dealing with distrust since I got here,” he calmly explained.  “I’ve done nothing to deserve it, unless you count saving every person on the Vengeance.  Multiple times.  So here’s the deal – if you want to fight it out, I’m good.  I’ll give you what you want.  But I have no desire to kill anyone else today, so if it comes to that, what happens is on you.”

He hadn’t really killed anyone in the first place.  Palikina had.  But given that she was far more vulnerable than he was, he figured he could take the brunt of the blame.  She didn’t object.

The pair of dragons took a step back, their hands creeping towards their weapons.  But good sense won out, and one of them said, “Fine.  But if we find out you’ve lied, there will be consequences.”

“That’s alright by me,” Elijah said.  “So long as you turn that same resolve onto whoever sent these people after me.”

“If they attacked you without provocation, you can be assured that we will discover any conspiracy against you.  Our goal is the safety of those within the Vengeance and the stability of –”

“You’ve already failed,” said Palikina.

“We’re leaving,” Elijah added, cutting off any additional response.

Then, before any further delay, he led Palikina past the two dragons.  He stepped over the fallen assassins and soon turned the corner.  Only then did Elijah allow himself to feel the consequences of the poison.  He stumbled slightly, and his shoulders slumped.  Palikina stepped in to prop him up, but once he’d regained his balance, he waved her away. 

“I’m fine,” he insisted.  “Just a little less than a hundred percent right now.”

“You should be dead.”

“I’m beginning to grasp that,” Elijah sighed.  The assassination attempt had been well-planned.  The only reason he’d survived was because he had sensed the attackers’ presence a moment before they struck.  That had given him the opportunity to cast Wild Resurgence.  Even then, if his body hadn’t already reached the silver tier of cultivation, he would have fallen.

His pride told him he would’ve found a way to survive – and he probably would have, given his track record – but there was still a needling voice in the back of his mind that insisted otherwise.

Oddly enough, it didn’t frighten him, though. 

Obviously, he didn’t want to die, but he had long since made peace with the possibility.  If he went down, then he was satisfied that he’d lived his life on his terms.  That was enough.

Still, it did throw some things into stark contrast.  Like all the unfinished work he would’ve left behind.  The relationships he should’ve appreciated more.  The people who depended so thoroughly on him.  The planet that needed him to drag humanity into relevance. 

But most of all, he thought of Imal.

So, when he finally found his way back to the rooms they shared, he was happy to see that she had finished at the command center.  In only a moment, he’d wrapped his arms around her, and so tightly that he knew it must’ve been uncomfortable.  He didn’t let up, though.  He couldn’t.

“What’s this all about?” she asked uncertainly.

Palikina was the one to answer, saying, “Assassins tried to kill him.  They failed.”

“What?!” Imal demanded, pulling away to inspect him.  That was when she saw the blood on his clothes.  Most of it was on his back – where the four assassins had stabbed him, but there was a little around his shirt’s collar.  “Are you okay?”

“Yes.”

At the same time, Palikina said, “No.”  Elijah shot a glance in her direction.  “You’re not.  Don’t act like it didn’t affect you.”

“Tell me exactly what happened,” Imal commanded. 

It was Palikina who answered, describing the event in clinical detail.  She didn’t leave anything out, even though she blushed a little when it came to the part she’d played.  She finished by saying, “He barely survived.”

“Is that what happened?” Imal asked Elijah.

He shrugged. “More or less.  I didn’t see most of it, though.”

That was when Imal wrapped Palikina in a hug and thanked her profusely.  Palikina’s blush grew even more vibrant, and she looked like she wanted to disappear.  But she didn’t. 

Not until Imal released her, when she mumbled an excuse and backed away through the door.  In only a moment, she was gone.

“I’m fine,” Elijah insisted.

“You almost died.”

“I almost die all the time,” he pointed out.

Imal shook her head.  “This is different.  After everything you’ve done for these people…”

“It’s not that big of a deal.”

“It is.  Those ungrateful…”

She finished with an expletive Elijah didn’t understand.  He interpreted it similarly to if she’d called them assholes, but with a bit more flair. 

“What do you want to do?” she asked.  “We could take over.  This whole place is a powder keg.”

She went on to describe the situation inside the Vengeance, which was even worse than Elijah had suspected.  Each clan pretended to play nice while undermining everyone else.  A few clans appeared to have negotiated alliances, but Imal believed those would last only so long as they didn’t think they could gain an advantage through betrayal. 

“This is how dragons are,” she stated.  “Especially when the Scales of Peace don’t hold sway.  The emperor keeps everything together, but the second they turn their back, the infighting starts.”

“Are assassinations common?”

“In system spaces? Sure.  I didn’t think anyone would try to kill you, though.”

“Who sent them?” he asked.  Palikina had explained that the Umbranix clan rarely acted alone.  Most of the time, they acted as assassins for hire, which was a good guess for what had happened with the ones who’d attacked Elijah. 

Imal shook her head.  “There’s no telling.  It could’ve been anyone.  Even the Vyrins.”

Elijah frowned.  “So much for everyone working together.”

“Yeah.  But this might dissuade anyone else from trying.  They sent six people after you.  If that wasn’t enough, there might not be anyone else who can manage it.”

“You think I’m safe, then?”

“No.  The attack might just come for a different direction next time.”

Elijah sighed.  Suddenly, he wished he’d just stayed with Fungee.  At least there he didn’t have to worry about assassins.