ATS B5 Ch41: The Thick of Battle (Patreon)

Inside his Personal Space, Arthur leaned back against Brixaby and took out the cards. He wasn’t very excited about them.

Brixaby noticed his look. “They were weak and aggressive. A foolish combination.”

“I know, but I still didn’t like killing them.”

“Think of it this way: It was better that they attacked us than any of our winged riders while they were alone.”

That actually helped. A little.

Arthur didn’t straighten. He was tired, and physical contact with his dragon, even with just the side of his arm, kept time from freezing for Brixaby. “Okay. Let’s see what cards they gave us.”

Liquid Inferno

Rare

Elemental

The wielder of this card will generate fire which will then flow and behave much like a blazing-hot liquid. This fire is unusually sticky and may adhere to both enemies and allies. Note that this card does not make the wielder impervious to fire. Liquid Inferno may be smothered by water. This card does not use mana.

This was a very traditional card for a red dragon. Arthur imagined the effects could be easily enhanced by linking with a Rare rider with similar powers.

He remembered the dragon had an orange stomach. The second card reflected that.

Flame Shrapnel

Rare

Elemental

This card contains a spell that, when cast on fire, will transform it into a solid. That solid will then explode at the caster’s will into piercing shards. If these shards fall within the wielder’s sight, they may be transformed again into fire using mana, restarting the process.

That was mildly terrifying. “We were lucky the red didn’t use this spell.”

“We never gave him the chance,” Brixaby said diffidently. “We put him down too fast.”

The last card that came from the red was a standard Uncommon mana card that unlocked mana for the wielder and then stored a portion of it for later use. Arthur had a very similar one himself. He would see if anyone from his wing needed it.

The blue dragon, unsurprisingly, had ice-based cards.

Core of the Permafrost Shield

Rare

Elemental

The wielder of this card will be able to create a nearly indestructible barrier made of ice. Any enemy will risk frostbite damage upon contact with the shield. Allies will be unaffected by frostbite. After its use is completed, the ice barrier may be dismissed at will. This card does not use mana.

“Nearly indestructible,” Brixaby said smugly.

The last card was fairly interesting.

Veil of Ice

Rare

Stealth/Elemental

The wielder of this card will gain the ability to cloak themselves and one chosen companion within a mobile sheet of ice. This ice will reflect light perfectly and allow the wielder and their optional companion to move without visual detection. This veil will be less effective in low-light areas.

“We are not giving that last one away,” Brixaby said.

“No, but I think the Permafrost Shield and Liquid Inferno should go to Soledad and Equinox.”

Brixaby had no issue with that. “But what of the Flame Shrapnel? It has interesting applications.”

“I like it,” Arthur said, “and I’d use it myself, except I have no way to cast fire to start it other than to throw torches at people.” He glanced at his dragon. “You know it has to go to Soledad or Equinox. They’re building a deck that is almost entirely combat based. As soon as Equinox grows a little, they’re going to be powerful.”

“He does not have the heart of a fighter,” Brixaby grumbled.

Equinox was a rather . . . balanced dragon. That likely made him a little too calm for Brixaby’s taste.

“He’s still young,” Arthur said, then sighed. “But there is still an eruption going on out in the real world. Ready to go back?”

Brixaby grumbled a little. “I still think we should focus on combat cards for the future.”

“That would be nice, but . . . Brix, think about it. We’re utility users, and we just defeated two assassins like it was nothing.” Despite the fact that he wasn’t feeling great about killing, Arthur gave him a tight smile. “We have quite the bag of tricks up our sleeves.”

“Sometimes tricks run out,” Brixaby said.

Back in the real world, he remounted Brixaby again, and they took off into the air. Fighting the assassins hadn’t taken too long, but it seemed in that short period of time, the dragons had lost the fight to keep the scourglings out of the forest.

And now that they had cover of the trees, they were advancing quickly.

“Brixaby, can you search for survivors?” Arthur said. He was getting tired, physically and emotionally. And . . . he didn’t want to look.

Brixaby paused for a moment. “None.”

“None?” Then he remembered. Even if there wasn’t the leading wave of scourglings, the Uncommon scouts had been in the trees first.

He suddenly felt a lot less bad about the assassin dragons. If they had not attacked, Arthur and Brixaby probably would have been able to save a couple of people.

He and Brixaby flew back to meet the purples returning from the portal.

Candy Floss and Thackeray were the first to meet them. Thackeray was grim and white-faced.

“I tagged some items, but the scourglings came on so fast, we had to get out of there. I don’t think we’ll be able to collect anything more until the area is cleared out again.”

 Arthur should have thought of that. “It doesn’t matter. Are either of you injured?”

“I keep Thackeray safe,” Candy Floss said, with a slightly reproachful look.

Arthur nodded. “And you need to keep him safe. Go back to the hive. This eruption is moving too fast for you guys right now. I’ll call you two back out once the fighters start to stem the waves.”

Though, by the way things were going, he had no idea when that would happen.

 ****

It was hard, but they had a job to do.

Despite all the grimness around them, many fighting dragons were having a smorgasbord, as whatever card power was cast out resulted in the death of dozens of scourglings.

The problem came when they went to collect those shards.

A dragon that dived too low could be hooked by flailing scourglings and brought down. Unfortunately, some found out the hard way that these scourglings could leap up vertically much higher than what seemed possible.

If a dragon was caught and pulled down, it was quickly overwhelmed by the masses below.

One horrifying time, he saw a scourgling jump up and pull the rider right out of the dragon’s saddle.

The dragon screamed and dived after him, and they were both piled on by scourglings.

Unfortunately, Arthur saw this all play out at a distance and was much too far away to help.

Sometimes, though, downed dragons could be helped by others nearby. If they happened to be in a dedicated wing, like Blood Moon Hive, help was nearly always at hand.

Meanwhile, the leading front wave of scourglings kept expanding out and out. That meant there were far more farmsteads in need of evacuation, and longer traveling time to get there and back to the hive portal.

Arthur’s dragons had been brave and done quite a lot of rescue runs. Some had even managed some limited collecting of light, easy-to-carry valuables, and a few farm animals here and there.

But there was always more help needed than what they could give. The purples were tiring.

Arthur pushed, encouraged, and sometimes outright threatened to get the dragons to give just a little more.

He and Brixaby concentrated on collecting valuables whenever they could. It wasn’t for greed’s sake—his entire wing needed a cover story to explain why they had so many Uncommon shards.

And when there were more people in need of evacuation than there were dragons, he stored them in his Personal Space. At that moment, he had a family of five. All were uncarded, so they was no magical weight to them.

Finally, Arthur had to bow to the inevitable and told half of his tired Commons to go rest for an hour and then come back and switch out with the other half.

He knew that the eruption would still be in full swing. It was like a spreading wildfire, and even the might of all the hives didn’t have enough power to stamp it out.

The dragons were losing ground. Then it got worse.

Arthur wasn’t exactly sure what made him look. Maybe a sound or an absence of sound. He wasn’t the only one. Suddenly, all heads turned toward the eruption.

The eruption cone itself was still obscured in a thick cloud of dusty haze, though scourglings poured out of the top and down the crumbly, near-vertical walls.

The number of colors, like lightning strikes in a cloud, increased almost to a frantic level. Something inside had made the dragons trying to stem the flow pull out all of the stops.

Then scourglings on the cloud spilled out.

Arthur was escorting his purples to one of the outflung farms. He saw them as motes in the air at first, because they were only as large as the ones on the ground. But they were exceedingly fast, and he soon caught the shape of them.

They were, again, a lot like the mantis type, only they had buzzing dragonfly wings, stiff as a board yet delicate-looking. But it was enough to allow them to fly in a single direction very, very fast.

And it seemed there was more than enough to overwhelm the dragons at the cone. Shields of all elements and mana types snapped into place. That gave rider and dragon pairs time to put some distance between themselves and the oncoming flyers.

It was just enough to keep it from becoming a rout, though Arthur did see dragons fall to the ground.

“Brixaby,” he said frantically, “do you see—”

“They’re fine,” Brixaby said, and pointed to a spot just east of the cone. “I have been keeping my eye on them.”

Arthur followed where he was pointing and spotted a large wing of dragons all moving in a disciplined diamond formation. They were well back from the first wave of flyers.

He saw Sams, sparking unusually golden, as if he were powering up a strong spell. And at the very tip of the diamond, right behind the wing captain, he spotted Joy’s bright pink hide.

That wing had gotten free of the chaos before it erupted, almost as if they had been forewarned.

Pinks were meta or knowledge dragons, and they often filled tactician roles. People did say Captain Beryl was a staunch traditionalist. He obviously knew how to use his dragons to their best advantage.

Arthur heaved a sigh of relief. It wasn’t a good situation, but he was glad that Cressida and Horatio seemed to be safe.

Now, Arthur had to get his purples away as soon as possible.

Everybody had stopped midair to stare toward the cone. He signaled for them to move on, and when a few didn’t get the message, Brixaby roared, using a little bit of his Stunning Shout to shock them.

That got their attention.

At least twenty minutes of straight flight later, they dived for the next farm.

From there, the eruption cone looked only as large as Arthur’s spread hand. And yet, they were in immediate danger of being swamped over by the scourglings. He couldn’t imagine the uncountable number that this cone had pumped out.

Arthur also couldn’t help but imagine how many nests had to be under the cone.

If there was good way to sense that this was coming . . . to seek out the proto-nests nests and stop the eruption before it happened, Arthur thought with frustration.

He could with the Call of the Heart, but surely there were more seeker cards out there. Low-level guards had them at the borderlands to look for contraband.

Why weren’t people proactively doing this? Or at the very least, getting the farmers out ahead of time?

He set that frustration aside and started directing his riders on how to best evacuate.

At least these farmers weren’t completely oblivious to what was going on and had been watching the fight the entire day. They seemed resigned, and many had brought basic supplies in packs they slung over their shoulders. Arthur could appreciate prepared people.

On their way back, it became obvious that the hive dragons could no longer contain this eruption. The only time the new waves of scourglings seemed to be knocked back was when a Rare dragon blasted over them.

He and Brixaby were treated to the sight of a silver exhale what looked like glittering dust over a wide swath of scourglings. Whatever the dust touched simply dropped dead where it stood.

And, weirdly enough, the shards all floated up out of the corpses for the silver to collect without them having to dive down for the harvest.

“Arthur! Arthur! Did you see that?”

Hearing Brixaby’s sudden excitement made Arthur realize how tired his dragon was, because this was the most animated he’d been in a couple of hours.

He dredged up a smile from somewhere and laid a hand on the side of his neck. “No, we can’t take their card,” he murmured.

“But I won’t take it,” Brixaby complained. “I will simply use Counterfeit Siphon near him. Then when I have his spell for my own, I will put it to excellent use. This is for the wing, Arthur. Think of all the shards.”

Arthur was tempted by the idea. They would only need to get near the dragon to copy the spell. From the insignia on the saddle, it was from Worm Moon Hive. Weren’t Worm Moon and Blood Moon supposed to be political allies?

The dragons Brixaby was leading hesitated, perhaps sensing their leader was torn by something.

Arthur hardened his heart. “Sorry, Brixaby,” he muttered. “Duty calls.”

Brixaby heaved a sigh and continued flying toward the portal. “Yes, yes,” he muttered, sullen. “But if we get the chance—”

“If we get the chance, we are absolutely using Counterfeit Siphon,” Arthur said.

That seemed to cheer Brixaby up a little.

As they flew away, Arthur twisted back to get another look at the silver dragon. He wouldn’t forget him anytime soon. He had such a useful card.

 ****

They dropped off their evacuees, and Arthur emptied out his Personal Space. Then they went out again.

But their next farm was not too far away. Unfortunately, some of the scourgling flyers had by now flown in their direction, and Brixaby had to cut a few down at a distance using his Stunning Shout.

The scourglings had armored chitin outsides, which made them impervious to Arthur’s shrapnel attacks. Their wings were exactly as delicate as they looked, and Arthur aimed for the joint that connected it to the body. It only took one cut wing to send the scourgling spiraling down to its death.

This next farm was again large and sprawling. Luckily, more waves of purples—many wearing insignia from different hives—joined in.

These had riders on them, and they shouted cheerful acknowledgment to Arthur, who waved back. To keep from being recognized, Arthur pulled out a scarf from his Personal Space and wound it around his head, only keeping a gap open for his eyes.

If anybody asked later, he would claim it was for windburn.

With the additional help from the other hives, there was enough to rescue everyone and the animals from the new farm.

When they lifted off again, the air was thick with more scourgling flyers. Frustrated, Arthur had Brixaby open up a portal straight to Blood Moon Hive.

They dropped off their passengers and returned again. Now the air was even thicker with enemies. It seemed that the cone was erupting just as many flyers as it was ground mantises.

Where are the Legendaries? Arthur thought.

This eruption was only growing larger and larger, and soon it could be completely out of control.

That was when he spotted new movement on the horizon. A distant shout went up, and several dragons from different hives paired up together to start rushing toward the area. It seemed that in this emergency, all rivalries were forgotten.

“What’s going on?” Arthur asked. Dragons had much better long vision than a person without the aid of a specific card.

Brixaby was silent for a few moments, staring off in the distance.

His shoulders sagged. “The mega-scourglings have arrived,” he said in a flat voice. “All Rares.”

Arthur closed his eyes. “How bad is it?”

“They are shaped much like the ground crawlers, only easily four times as tall. They are cutting down anything in their way with those knife arms.” The way Brixaby said it made Arthur aware that by “anything” he meant dragons and their riders.

A mega-scourgling was generally a Rare, which meant that it would take other Rares needed to come together to fight it off.

He clenched his fists and fought the urge to pound his fist on something. The only thing within reach was Brixaby’s neck ridge, and he wasn’t going to do that.

“Aren’t they fighting back? The Rares?” he growled, frustrated.

“Of course they are,” Brixaby said. “It appears that their hides are impervious to spells. They must have some nullification aspects to it.” He paused. “Rares from many hives are coming together to form temporary wings in order to take them down.”

Which was good news, but unfortunately, those Rares were needed to push back the incredible waves of regular Common and Uncommon scourglings.

“The Legendaries have to be coming soon,” Arthur muttered, half to himself and half to Brixaby. “This is . . . I’ve never seen it this bad.”

Except that wasn’t true. One time when he was still a recruit vying for the opportunity to stand before Brixaby’s egg, he had been in the middle of a bad scourge-eruption. It hadn’t been this large, but the subtype had been mind magic, and many had no way to fight against that.

Apparently, in the worst-case scenario, the king’s dragon and only Mythic in the kingdom, Lung Bai would come and . . . wipe the slate clean, as it were.

Arthur did not want that for many reasons. One was that anyone who hadn’t been evacuated yet would die. Including the ones that hadn’t been overrun by scourglings.

For another, he had promised to bring Marion to try to heal the king. He . . . hadn’t gotten around to that yet.

No doubt Lung Bai could see through Brixaby’s Illusion and Knocked Down cards.

If she was coming, Arthur and Brixaby had to be elsewhere.

He was just contemplating his next move—he would have to keep his purples well away from any Rare fights, the Commons especially—when he heard his name being yelled.

He looked up and saw Griff and Squish flying toward them.

Squish barreled in, his eyes wide, mouth open and panting with exertion. He had pushed himself to get there fast.

“The portal dragons are falling back,” Griff said.

“Falling back?” he repeated, stunned.

“There’s too many of those flyers in the sky. The defenders can’t stop them anymore, and the last thing we need is for those things to fly into other parts of the kingdom. Everyone is retreating. It’s time for noncombatants to get out.”

He was right, and Arthur hated it. There were still so many farms to save . . .

He paused to take a good look around his wing. They had all followed him, and would continue to follow him if he asked, but they were clearly exhausted.

Necks were bowed, shoulders hunched, and even the bright nonsensical chittering of the purples had stopped quite a while ago. They couldn’t go on for much longer.

Arthur raised his voice. “Follow Griff. Retreat back to the portal. You all did good today.”

Griff wasn’t an idiot. He looked at Arthur. “And you, sir?”

“We’ll keep going for a while yet.”

After all, they were not noncombatants.