Path of Dragons 17 - Chapter 63 - Too Late (Patreon)

In a trap of his own making, Elijah railed against the very concept of passing time.  He wasn’t sure how long he’d been traveling through the void, but every instinct in his body told him to hurry.  He couldn’t rush it, though.  For once, the situation was entirely out of his control.

And he hated it.

He knew that ceding control was just part of life, and most of the time, he was willing to accept that and roll with the punches.  But now?  With lives on the line?  He finally understood the drive to transcend the system in a way he never could have felt otherwise. 

It wasn’t just a prison.  It was a representation of a reality that he didn’t want to accept.  Limitations that he couldn’t allow himself to embrace.  Not without trying to exceed them.

Or transcend them.

But the other thing Elijah knew beyond a shadow of a doubt was that he was a long way from reaching that goal.  He wasn’t even certain what it entailed, but there was more than an entire tier to traverse before he could get a glimpse of what transcendence truly meant. 

And that tier would take longer than the entirety of the life he’d thus far led.  Centuries of toil in which to get comfortable with his lack of agency, with his inability to control the world around him.

He refused to surrender to apathy.  Not on that count. 

Was that the dragon in him?  Or just a man who knew he never should have abandoned the people who depended on him? 

Elijah was well aware that he couldn’t singlehandedly save Earth’s expedition into the ancestral world.  Orveth Kaal was still beyond him, both in terms of the wildlife and the other draconic expedition.  He could win some battles, sure.  But he couldn’t take on the entire world and come out on top.

Not yet.

Elijah dwelled on his own inadequacies and failures, knowing good and well that the attack had already begun.  He could feel it, after a fashion.  Sensing the area around his dolmen was like looking through someone else’s eyes, at a scene obscured by a dirty window.  He could get the gist of what was going on, but details were thin on the ground.

But what he did sense told him that the Vengeance – and by virtue of proximity, Fungee’s island – were under attack.  Periodically, the tremors of bombardment reached through the chains and rattled Fungee’s habitat.

The fungal colony searched or intruders.  His tendrils went wild, slithering across the cavern to find enemies.  But he found nothing, which only incited more panic.

If such an emotion could be felt by fungi.

Sometimes, Elijah wasn’t certain whether or not Fungee could.  What he did know was that it certainly felt like the fungi was distraught, and that he had no idea what was going on. 

Fortunately, no dragons descended upon that island.

Maybe they were saving it for later, assuming it was some treasure trove of resources.  Or perhaps some of them knew what was inside, and they wanted nothing to do with such a powerful fungi.  Either way, Fungee was safe – for now.  Elijah suspected that wouldn’t remain the case for long after the Vengeance fell.

Because Fungee was too valuable.

Dangerous, certainly.  But natural treasures weren’t so common that the dragons would ignore something just because it was dangerous.  And even Elijah had no real idea what might be possible if they harvested Fungee.

The very idea sent chills through his mind.

But all he could do was wait.  He couldn’t act, save in the manner he already had. 

Over the next day, Elijah tried to focus on other things.  He attempted to work on his mind cultivation.  He considered Callux’s development and all the plans he wanted to see come to fruition.  He thought about the alliance with the orcs and how he wanted to usher them into multi-versal relevance.  A few hours were dedicated to Fungee’s continued development as well.  He even wondered about Earth’s future and how they might continue to benefit from their time in Orveth Kaal.

Yet, he couldn’t escape the inevitable return to the problem at hand.

So, when he ethera stirred ahead of him, he didn’t miss it.  He was ready when, suddenly, the void spat him out and into Fungee’s cave.  Immediately, the fungal colony reacted, sending tendrils flying all around him.  They waved incomprehensibly, but Elijah got the gist of what Fungee was trying to communicate.

If anything.

The fungal colony wasn’t really capable of speech.  Or communication.  But panic wasn’t really that difficult to convey – even for Fungee.

“It’s going to be okay,” Elijah soothed.

It didn’t work.  If anything, his voice made everything worse.  So, he patted one of the tendrils and said, “I’ll be back soon.  Just keep this island safe.”

With that, Elijah summoned Thorn to hand and leaped into the air.  Before he’d traveled fifteen feet, he had already begun to shift into the Shape of Withering.  He was eager to contribute to the battle and protect his people, but barging out there without getting the lay of the land was monumentally stupid.

The second he had transformed into the venomwing stalker, he used stealth.  It enveloped him like an old friend, and he used Ride the Wind to quickly find one of the hidden exits.  Unsurprisingly, the Earth expedition had closed off the conventional entrances, so the smaller, less conspicuous tunnels were the only way in or out.

Elijah squeezed through one, slithering down the rugged corridor with barely an inch or two to spare.  Then, suddenly, he broke free into open air.

And he saw disaster.

Hundreds of dragons, all swarming the Vengeance.  The ship’s cannons roared, but their issue hit only ethereal shields.  Some of the dragons tossed lazy attacks at the ship, but most just circled.

Then, the world shook.

Elijah jerked his attention to the east and narrowed his reptilian eyes.  He saw nothing but a flash of darkness before a shockwave swept through the area.  It wasn’t particularly strong – more like a hurricane’s winds.  But the fact that it even reached the Vengeance from so far away was a testament to the intensity at ground zero.

Hundreds of miles away, and the shockwave still reached Elijah.

He leaped into the sky, then used Ride the Wind to take him higher.  He wanted a good view of what was going on.  It didn’t take him long to figure it out.  The Vengeance was on its last legs.  From the outside, it looked perfectly fine.  But Elijah had endured enough battles inside that ship to know when it was beginning to reach its limit.

The subtle wobbling.  The energy fluctuations that could scarcely be felt through all that shielding.  The uneven staccato of cannon fire, when it should’ve been steady, rolling thunder.

But more than anything, the lack of aircraft swarming around the ship was the biggest hint that everything had gone very wrong.

The other was the general nonchalance of the dragons’ siege.  They knew they’d already won.  All that was left was the mop-up.

That sight sent a raging fire through Elijah’s heart.  He wanted nothing more than to use Falling Talon and carve a hole right through an enemy’s spine.  He wanted to burst through the other side, covered in blood while his victim fell helplessly toward the core. 

He didn’t, though.

Chances were, it wouldn’t even work.  Those were deities down there.  It would take more than one attack to put them down. 

And besides, one kill wouldn’t help.

He needed something a lot bigger.  Something that would make the dragons hesitate.  He needed a storm.  Not just any storm, though.  He needed the most powerful and widespread storm he’d ever built, and he needed it brimming with conjured hornets and fungal spores. 

Elijah dove, not to attack, but to find somewhere defensible where he could work.

With the Vengeance right there, the choice was obvious. 

He landed just outside the main hangar bay, only to find a truly pitiful sight.  It had mostly collapsed, sealing the entire thing shut.  Though the damage had obviously not come at the claws of a dragon, but rather, the earthlings were responsible.  They’d collapsed the bay in order to seal the gaping entrance.

Smart.

But another sign of desperation.

Elijah crept through one of the gaps, and even that was tight.  Soon enough, he found a mostly empty hangar.  Had they lost so many planes?

Moreover, most of the personnel seemed to have deserted the area.  There were still a few people around, but they were busy toting giant crates or rushing across the hangar on one errand or another.

Elijah finally revealed himself, taking his human form and grabbing one of the workers before he even realized that Elijah was there.

“What the –”

Elijah clamped down on the man’s shoulder.  “Calm down. Do you know who I am?”

The man nodded.

“Then you know I’m on your side.  I’m not going to hurt you,” Elijah promised. “Now, I need to know the situation here.”

That was when Elijah discovered the depths of Earth’s defeat.  The battle he’d seen from a distance was Illska fighting against Masasha, the other expedition’s leader.  They’d been at it for days, and there didn’t seem to be an end in sight.  Meanwhile, the Earth expedition had put up a good fight of their own, taking a few dragons with them.  But in the end, the difference in levels had shown itself.

“What about the Vyrins?”

“Those idiots?  They rushed off to fight individual battles.  They ignored our command structure.  Half of them are already dead.”

“What about the other half?” Elijah asked.

The man shrugged.

“Dammit,” Elijah muttered, looking around.  “Jessup ordered a retreat, didn’t he?”

It had taken Elijah quite a while to realize that he’d met the man before, but now that he remembered that meeting, he was happy with the choice of command.  Jessup had done a good job in the Painted Wastes, and it seemed that he was one the right track in Orveth Kaal.  He’d just been faced with an unwinnable battle.  Retreat was the only real option.

More, it was the correct call.  Or at least it was before Elijah had returned.  It still might be, but that wouldn’t be determined until he had more information.  To that end, he left the airman in the hangar while he searched out the bridge.

It actually took a few minutes for Elijah to find his way, but when he arrived, it was to a scene of controlled chaos.  Half the monitors in the room were blank, and the rest emitted distressing energy signatures.  The people weren’t any better off.  Functional only by the strictest sense, they were all haggard and looked as if they hadn’t eaten or slept in days.

That was probably accurate.

But for whatever reason, there were a lot of smiles on those haggard faces.  And it wasn’t because Elijah had arrived, because none of them even noticed when he walked through the door. 

“I didn’t really expect this,” he admitted, drawing every eye in his direction.  Most of them were wide with surprise once they recognized him.

“Mr. Hart,” said Jessup, who was the first to regain his composure.  “You’re back.”

“Yeah.  I came as soon as I realized what was going on,” Elijah admitted.  “I’m sorry I wasn’t here when things came to a head.”

“Not your fault,” said the Captain.

“Debatable.  So, what’s with the smiles?  On the way in, I heard we’re retreating.  Not the wrong choice, by the way.  But not something to smile about.”

“Because of that,” Jessup said, pointing to one of the screens.

Elijah looked closer, but he had no idea how to interpret the information on the display.  To him, it just looked like a red blob.  “Ah…what am I looking at?”

“Our saviors.  The orcs have arrived,” Jessup said.  “We’re not retreating.  It’s time to attack.”

Elijah nodded.  “That sounds like something I can help with.”

But first, he needed to talk to Ok’tarik and find out about the orcs’ intentions.  They were allies, but orcs were still orcs.  If they saw a wounded animal, they would take advantage of the situation and get an easy supper.  The same could be true of the Vengeance. 

Elijah let Jessup know what he intended, then set off to intersect the fleet.  He could only hope that his reunion with Ok’tarik was a pleasant one.