Crowned in Black: Ch 13

Double post today!

The door swung out into a massacre. The remains of the clergy of Liric were sprayed across the floor, which itself had been churned up by the Sangehti'tak that had pasted them. The hall of the church had been trashed. Outside, heavy metal feet could be heard crunching against flagstones.

"Fuck... they figured something was up." I adjusted Ignas' weight in my arms, adrenaline thrumming through my body. "Or they coincidentally started the purge of known royalists tonight. If Lucien killed Eevi at a specific time... I guess he could have had a hit squad ready to go."

"That's what they did in Ilia, isn't it?" Karalti asked the room. "Remember what Rutha said? They invaded the city and killed all the important people in the same day."

"The fact the door to the tunnels remained sealed speaks to the latter," Ebisa said, pacing forward. She bent down to pick up the remains of the Hierophant’s holy symbol. "My creator told me that even the strongest human will break when they see a Sangheti'tak process someone feet-first."

Vash's face twisted into a mask of disgust. He made a symbol of warding ahead of himself. "Let's get out of here, and hold to the shadows. Be brave, princess."

Sohvi looked to me. She had the look of a petrified rabbit, too shocked to even cry. Her gaze slid down to the ruin of Ignas in my arms.

"Don't worry. We'll make it," I said firmly. Not just to her: to all of them. "We get that cart, wait for the right moment, and haul ass out of here. I hear two suits of powered armor out there. They took out their target and are doing the final sweep before they head back to report. All we have to do is avoid their notice."

"Right!" Karalti pumped a fist.

We headed for the side door the priest had used to show us in. Unlike the doors at the front of the cathedral, it hadn't been torn off its hinges, or disturbed at all. Outside, we heard the stomp and whine of the sangheti'tak, getting fainter. It wouldn't stay that way. Casper would have respawned by now. They knew the tunnels under the palace led somewhere, and that we'd taken them, and as soon as those soldiers on our tail figured out that we'd ended up in the cathedral, Lucien wouldn't just send troops. He'd send dragons, and dragon knights. Either were capable of spotting a single cart making its way toward the city walls. While I knew it was my job to keep the team motivated, I honestly had no idea how we were going to get away clean.

The cart was still there, the pair of draft hookwings still hitched. They were struggling against their harness, honking and pawing in agitation, but the Phaedra hitsquad had missed them. Ebisa bounded into the back, cradling Ignas in her arms, and then moved to half-hide him among sacks and baskets. Sohvi went up next, then Karalti.

"Vash, can you drive?" I looked to him.

"It's about all I can do with my leg," he replied. "Your turn to defend us, dog."

I saluted him, hopped up lightly to the edge of the wagon seat, and gave him a hand up. A few months ago, I would have cracked some whiny joke about how much I hated extractions. As missions went, extractions were up there with field recon and foot patrols in terms of 'how much does this suck?'. But I caught the grimace of pain on Vash's mouth, looked back at Karalti - determined, fierce, stroking Sohvi's hair to comfort her - and the slump of Ebisa's shoulders as her masked face bent over Ignas. They didn't need to hear it. They needed a leader.

"Alright, everyone, let's get this dog and pony show on the road. Disguises on." I made a go-around motion, and equipped the dark cloaks that Torquist had given us for this step of the operation - clothing that was hard to see from the air.

"Hyahh!" Vash reined the pair of hookwings in, then slapped their sides and urged them forward. They tossed their heads, cheek rings jingling, and we lurched off into the night: out the side gate, onto the road, and into the wailing, grief-stricken city.

The global announcement had lit Lovi like a powderkeg. None of the street lamps were on, but the markets were on fire, lighting the streets with a sickly red glow. We were far from the only ones trying to flee. Airships roared overhead, suppressing entire neighbourhoods, while soldiers blockaded streets and butchered the agitated townsfolk trying to break through their lines. Dragons wheeled in the sky near the front gates, bellowing and spitting bolts of lightning to the ground.

"We're not going that way. Hold on, everyone." Vash turned the cart down a rough, winding alley. The warehouse to one side of us was burning, sending blasts of heat and flame over the screeching hookwings. There was a crumpling sound, and Ebisa bent around Ignas as a window burst over us. Not for the first time, I was grateful that hookwings weren't like horses. They didn't spook and freak out like prey animals. They just ran faster.

Vash's scowled with concentration as he whipped the hookwings through the streets, then burst out into a main road near the shattered city wall - the rendezvous point for the evacuation. The remains of the Sol Invictus were still merged with the wall, Ilia’s capital ship sending a plume of white smoke and orange light high into the sky. There were barricades there, and far more soldiers than we'd been expecting. Worse, a dragon was perched on the remains of the wall, wings mantling over the gap Torquist had scouted for us.

"I hope you're all ready to party!" Vash hollered. "We're about to crash right into them!"

My eyes narrowed. "Karalti... get ready to shift back to size. We're going to have to break through and warp out."

Karalti closed her eyes, reading my intent through the Bond. She gave Sohvi one last pat on the shoulder, rose, and dexterously picked her way to the front of the cart to catch my hand. As she did, energy passed between us in a heartstopping wave of love and trust. I met her fierce, inhuman gaze with my own. She smiled at me… and suddenly, I knew we were going to be alright.

"Dog, if you've got any bright ideas, now's the time to share them!" Vash was gunning for the barricades. We had no other options - it was one dragon and a platoon versus five dragons and a company's worth of Ilians at every other exit to the city.

"Everyone! Grab the side of the wagon and DO. NOT. LET. GO." I got to my feet, surfing the edge of the cart, and steadied Karalti by the waist as she unequipped her armor and weapons, balancing on nude bare feet against my chest. "One, two... THREE!"

I wrapped my arms around Karalti and kicked off with Jump VI: Sixty feet straight into the air. As we hit the peak of the jump, my dragon transformed. Her body split with seams of light and color: I waited until the moment she began to expand, let go, and Shadow Danced the maximum distance up and away from her, toward the barricade. Once, twice, as the enemy dragon roared in warning... and then I was freefalling toward the crowd of soldiers below.

Karalti's roar drowned the lesser dragon's as her wings erupted into the air, stroking down with enough force to send people flying into the barbed wire fences thrown up to close the gap in Lovi's city walls. The young adult Queen was already a third again the size of her kin, and clashed with the screeching white dragon with enough force to ram mount and rider off the wall. They backwinged up, flapping desperately, but Karalti sunk her jaws onto his throat, her hooked sickle claws tearing at its belly. As they rolled into the air, I focused down at the rapidly approaching ground.

"NIGHT FALLS, MOTHERFUCKERS!" I raised the Spear, power roiling like a Tesla coil as I oriented in the air and plummeted right toward a rifleman sighting up his weapon at me.

He took the shot; and hit, blowing pieces of armor and a cloud of my blood behind me as I roared and slammed onto him with Jump. The Spear drove though him and out, then ripped him apart as the shockwave hit. Night Falls sent a web of pure black energy snapping out into the formation surrounding him, blasting men to the ground with a mix of boiling plasma and frigid lightning.

[Ilian Soldier takes 1233 reduced Dark damage!]

[You have killed Ilian Soldier!]

[You have killed Ilian Soldier!]

[You have killed Ilian Soldier!]

There was a shuddering WHUMP as Karalti flung the white dragon into the remains of the burning airship. The creature smashed into the stone, exploding it in toward the city.

[Karalti has killed Knight of St. Grigori!]

The dragon wailed as its rider perished and the Bond between them broke, flopping to the ground and lashing its head from side to side.

"Leave it, Karalti! Grab the cart!" I used the Spear to circle and push away an oncoming pike, side-stepped, and rammed the hilt of the weapon up under the soldier's jaw, dropping him. As he fell, I looked wildly toward the sky. Multiple dragons were winging toward us. Six, seven... too many, even for us.

Karalti had been about to dive at her brother and finish him, but veered away, wings straining. She turned in the air like a swallow, supernaturally nimble for a creature her size, and instead made a beeline for the stricken cart. I ran for it, closing as her talons reached out to grasp the wood at one end, and the pair of terrified hookwings at the other. I caught sight of Sohvi screaming as I vaulted into the back, threw myself on top of her, and grabbed whatever I could to hold myself down.

The queen dragon roared in defiance at the squadron of dragons gaining on us as she flapped her wings, driving up huge cloud of dirt into the air. The silvery winged shapes were nearly a quarter of a mile off - until suddenly, they weren't. The dragons of Usta's brood had a unique ability from their mother, Burst Flight, that Karalti did not. The entire wing seemed to warp into the air and then suddenly appear right behind us, jaws gaping with blue-white electricity.

"ARRRRGH! Almost there!"Karalti snarled with effort, leveling out as the first bolt of lightning seared across her scales. The cart swung wildly, and it was all any of us could do to hang on as we shot past the limits of the city and its failing magical protections. Dragons swooped in to either side of us, above and below... but the lightning bolt that should have blown Karalti's head off her neck only struck empty space as she cast Teleport and vanished into the void between spaces.

Crushing, weightless cold engulfed us, sucking the feeling out of our bodies and the breath out of our lungs. We reappeared over Lord Torquist's fort. Karalti's wings snapped out taut as the frigid, thin mountain wind caught the membranes, wheeling up high over the ruined castle.

"That was teleport number one!"the dragon panted. "How's Ignas?"

As the cart leveled out, I got my bearings and scrambled over to Ebisa. The Volod was stricken, throat clicking as he struggled for breath.

"He's dying!" For the first time since I'd met her, Ebisa sounded panicked - her raspy voice was discordant with fear. "You have to do something!"

"I am." I took another potion, but there was no way to feed it to him - his throat was obstructed. Quickly, I turned him to the side, used my fingers to clear his mouth, then covered it with mine and exhaled firmly and deeply. Ignas shuddered as oxygen finally reached his lungs, but the twitches in his hands told me he was reaching the end of his physical endurance. "Karalti, he's looking bad. Get u to Kalla Sahasi now!"

Karalti's scales flared with light as she drew on her body's supply of mana a second time. I'd never teleported twice within quick succession before, and as we entered limbo, the cold seemed to drive nails into my body before I lost all sensation in it. Through it all, I kept focused on Ignas, even though I couldn't feel him - trying to continue to resuscitate him, and probably just kind of wheezing into his mouth until the point where we burst out into the air over our castle.

Gar's airship, Strelitzia,was parked in the triangular courtyard separating the buildings of the inner ward. One of the swift battlecruisers that had accompanied the dredging ships south to Dakhdir was also moored: the Campbell, the ship that had carried Suri. I was in PM with her even as Karalti's mournful, keening cry rang out over the grounds, alerting those within. "Suri, incoming! Ignas is in bad shape!"

"Roger that; medical team and support is on standby." Suri had the best radio voice of anyone I'd ever worked with: cool, calm, professional, even under fire or other duress. "You got him out of there. Good work, all."

Sure enough, the doors to the hospital flung open. Masha and two of her senior healers rushed out with a stretcher, Captain Vilmos and Suri right behind them. Karalti had to wheel around to hover, stretching her leg out to gently deposit the cart and dead hookwings to the ground. Vash helped her free a talon from the punctured dinosaurs so she could strive for enough altitude to turn back and land beside the Strelitzia. She stumbled as she touched down, panting with exhaustion.

Ignas went into convulsions underneath my hands. Cursing, I began chest pumps on the spot, grimacing as I felt his broken ribs shift under the heels of my hands. I got in another round of resuscitation before the healers arrived. Four pairs of hands helped bear Ignas to the stretcher, Masha clapped a manual hand-pumped respirator to his face… it was all turning to a dim blur as I took the end of the stretcher to free up one of the other healers. We rushed him into the surgery, and my hands and feet moved as I barked orders and prepared potions and handed Masha needles and tubes, but my mind was a million miles away. I was very familiar with the sensation: it was the same well-trained emptiness that I'd relied on in the battlefield. The field of white noise that had saved my life and others countless times.

Ignas was gray on the table, lips bloodless and bluish. His HP ring looked empty, throbbing rapidly with warning. There was the barest sliver of life there now, not even quite one HP.

"He needs blood, and he needs it now," Masha spat with frustration. She was administering fluids. "But I don't have the tools to check and see if anyone here is compatible."

"I am." I replied without hesitation. I'd unequipped my cuirass and was already rolling up my sleeve. "I'm O-negative. I'm a universal donor."

"You're sure?" Masha glanced at me.

I took a roll of bandages, and used my other hand and my teeth to tie a rough tourniquet around my left bicep. "Yep."

The Masterhealer didn't argue. She began to prep the tools she needed, the same kind of setup I used to draw Karalti's blood for the weekly Bond potion. I slumped into a chair and thumped my arm down, clenching and unclenching my fist to make the veins in my elbow lift.

"He needs a lot. And YOU are a dhampir," Masha said, worriedly. "I don't know if it will heal him or harm him."

"It's what we've got. If he doesn't get blood, he's going to die."

Masha let out a tense breath. "Indeed."

I tuned into Ignas with my healing skills, and multiple injury and conditional markers appeared in my HUD. He'd lost a terrible amount of blood: his heart was racing. He had internal damage to his abdomen, and the hollow sockets of his eyes were burning with inflammation and infection. Broken teeth, a fractured skull...

Bile rose in my throat. I tore my eyes away, watching as Masha swabbed the inside of my elbow and slid the needle under my skin. Dark red blood began to wind through the rubber tubing, then flowed into the collection vial. Masha drew back on a small plunger, and the pace of the draw accelerated.

"How's it going in there?" Suri's voice, worried, broke through on our party chat.

"Later." I closed my eyes and loosened the torniquet, trying to relax as the first hint of dizziness broke through. Masha was drawing a full half-pint, slowly and carefully. About halfway through, my HP began to drop, and I got one, then two status markers appeared in my HUD. One of them was familiar, the teardrop shaped Bleeding icon. The other was new: an open fanged mouth.

[Primal Hunger: You have lost too much blood. You must consume blood or risk entering a vampiric frenzy.]

Shit. My pulse sped to near-human levels. I looked down at Masha, frowning. She was about two-thirds of the way done.

"Easy now, Tuun," she murmured. "Nearly there."

Behind us, Ignas gasped, a small breath that rattled in his throat. His bare HP ring began to flash faster. "Masha, I think he's going into arrest."

"He is. But we can't save him without this. He needs alchemical treatment, but if he doesn't have blood for his heart to pump, he'll die." The Masterhealer was sweating, but focused on the task at hand. Her hands were steady, her beady dark eyes intense as she continued to fill the vial.

As Ignas gasped again and my Frenzy icon began to flash faster, a spike of anger flashed through my belly. Anger at Ilia, anger at Ignas for stupidly leading his armada into Ororgael's trap, Lucien for brutalizing him, at the game designers and the AI and myself. Myself most of all.

"There." Masha only shook as she removed the needle. "Go, breathe for him while I do the transfusion."

Nostrils flaring, I pushed myself up to my feet, ignoring the waves of dizziness and hunger that washed over me. I stumbled over to Ignas and began CPR as Masha switched the needle she'd used for me for a clean one. There was no time to filter the blood, no way to clean the vampiric taint from it. It went straight into the vein.

Karalti silently reached for me across the Bond as my world narrowed down to chest compressions and breathing. I was unnaturally attuned to Ignas' pulse. It was barely there, thready and fast, but the sound of it thundered in my ears - or maybe through my fingers, which were tipped with hollow, metallic claws for drawing blood. It was my dragon's presence that steadied me - her willpower overlaid mine as Masha moved around me.

"It's okay," Karalti whispered. "He's alive."

Barely. I felt Ignas jolt under my hands as Masha gave him the alchemical potion he desperately needed, the one that might kill him, if he was too weak or simply unlucky. I pulled back as he convulsed, chest heaving... then drew in a deep, whooping breath.

"Burna will not claim his majesty today," Masha said firmly. "Go, Tuun. Treat thyself. You’re a mess."

"No. I'm not leaving him." Anger rose again, climbing up behind my eyes and into my jaws. My voice was guttural. I had an almost uncontrollable urge to bite down on something.

"Hector, you need to go to Suri." Karalti's sweet voice filtered through the red haze. "I've told her you need blood already. She's waiting in her bedroom."

The red fanged mouth began blinking harder, burning with a deep red-orange light. I pulled away from Ignas with a bestial snarl that caused Masha to jump, and stalked for the door. The dizziness was getting worse.

"Karalti. Help me. Keep me from hurting Suri." I stumbled into the doorway on my way out, bounced off it, and reeled down the corridor to the courtyard.

"I will." My dragon's voice was firm and clear. “Don’t worry. None of us will let you go.”