372. A Kiss Goodbye
Noghis’s words, superficial taunts that they were, lodged in Keri’s mind. Even as the iron-armored wyrm rushed forward, crashing through a wall of ice that Valtteri conjured to block his charge, he could feel the heat of anger, like banked coals, glowing at the back of his mind. Bheuv shaded his vision, like tinted glass, so that when Keri slipped to one side to allow the monster’s body to pass, the glimpse he caught of his wife’s white enamelled armor seemed to be painted a pale blue, like the mountain flowers she loved in the spring.
He set the butt of his spear against his boot, bracing it, so that Noghis’s own momentum, when the outer edge of his great coil made contact with the enchanted blade, dragged the weapon through that new iron armor, through the scales beneath, and into the vulnerable flesh. Noghis flinched, turning away from Keri’s attack, but not before the Næv’bel had torn a long, bloody gash down the length of the wyrm’s body. It took all the strength Keri could muster not to be thrown aside by the gambit, and once the son of Ractia had managed to tear himself free of the weapon, Keri’s arms and shoulders ached with the effort of it.
Still, the results were worth it. He danced back, Bheuv warning him of each thrashing movement that Noghis made in his pain, giving Keri enough time to keep himself from being crushed beneath the great weight of the serpentine body. Blood seeped down from the length of the gash his spear had left, in a great, weeping sheet. As Noghis withdrew to give himself room, he left a smear of blood behind on the floor of the chamber.
“Swallow my head and eat my heart, will you?” Keri shouted back.
Noghis’s long tail, lashing in his pain like a whip, knocked broken pieces of machinery down from atop the piles of scrap and debris that lined the other walls of the room, making a great clamour of scraping metal and clanging, ringing impacts. The wyrm roared and bared its fangs, sending a stream of venom in Keri’s direction.
Once again, Bheuv caught the monster’s tells early enough that Keri was able to dodge easily. The poison spit past him, no more than a few drops at the edge of the spray hitting the surface of Keri’s armor, where it sizzled against the enchanted steel.
The bulk of the attack, Sidonie caught with her discs of mana. At the archmage’s intent, the small shields arranged themselves into an overlapping lattice, almost like the scales of a fish. Four discs at the center, arranged into a square, were surrounded by another eight, so that the entire construction measured nearly four feet wide, and equally high. It didn’t block all of the spray, but it caught enough that Keri’s companions were all able to take shelter. Liv simply sprang straight up into the air, beating her swings to soar off to one side. Keri knew that he shouldn’t worry about her – out of all of them, she’d long since become the single most powerful person on any given battlefield. But the urge to protect her was there, all the same.
Once again, a pulse of healing magic rippled out over Noghis’s body, and the flow of blood from his wound halted. The gash scabbed over in the space of only a few breaths, and Keri’s mind raced as he considered the problem.
Noghis had clearly learned the word of healing from his mother. Any wound that didn’t instantly kill him would, the moment he had any breathing room at all, be at least partially healed. As the son of a Vædic Lady, their opponent likely had access to more extensive mana reserves than anyone here, other than Liv or Ractia herself. Perhaps Aira could have kept up when she was younger, but her reserves would have been dwindling for decades by this point as age finally caught up with her. In short, those healing spells were going to keep coming.
Given how difficult it was to kill a wyrm in the first place, combined with the makeshift scrap metal armor gathered around his body, this fight was going to turn into a test of endurance, more than anything else – and that was the one thing that they could not afford. Clearly, whatever Ractia’s machine was designed to do, she’d sent Noghis to buy her the time she needed. The wyrm didn’t actually need to win – he only needed to slow them down until there was no longer any point in fighting. If he happened to kill any of them along the way, all the better.
Even worse, just fighting their way here had burned through the mana reserves of many of Keri’s friends. If Sidonie exhausted herself against Noghis, the burden of casting that Interdiction spell would fall on Liv. If Arjun was useless by the time they finally found Ractia, he might not be able to keep Liv alive in the event she was wounded. Every spell that was wasted on this meant one less spell to support her in the fight that really mattered.
Keri grimaced as he watched Sidonie disassemble her array of mana discs and send half of them spinning toward Noghis. Two glanced off a half-rusted sheet of iron, but the other four bit into scales, sending blood spraying out in a vibrant arc across the nearest wall. Liv’s cloud of swords followed, swooping down to stab at Noghis’s one remaining eye. That got a response – the wyrm dissolved into a vapor of blood, letting the swords sweep through and then arc back up toward Liv on their return journey. Once they’d passed, however, the wyrm reformed inside his armor.
All of them were holding back, trying to fight without casting any new spells. Aira tär Keria’s terrifying plants advanced on slender green stalks, snapping their leafy maws at Noghis’s tail. The wyrm spun around, coiling about on himself, and sent a gout of fire that first withered the magical foliage brown, and then set it ablaze.
There was no point to any of them remaining here any longer.
Keri dashed across the floor toward where his wife hovered, wings of mana beating to keep her aloft as she rearranged her swarm of swords for another pass. “Liv!” he shouted, to get her attention, and once their eyes met, she nodded and dropped down to stand beside him.
“You’ve got an idea?” she asked, keeping her eyes on Noghis as she sent half a dozen blades back around for another pass.
Valtteri stepped between the two of them and the ongoing battle, raising another wall of ice in order to give them a moment’s respite. Keri nodded in thanks, leaned in close to his wife’s ear, and explained as quickly as he could.
“We’re wasting our time here,” he shouted over the din of battle. “He’s just sent to delay and exhaust everyone. Every spell thrown at Noghis is one that Ractia doesn’t have to deal with herself. Every moment that goes by here is time for her machines to do their work.”
Liv was already nodding. “I could get past him,” she shouted back. “But I don’t want to leave everyone else behind.”
“Leave me,” Keri said.
His wife’s helm turned toward him so quickly they nearly knocked heads together. “What? No.”
Keri nodded. “Leave me to pin Noghis here while the rest of you move on. You need Arjun and Sidonie with you when you face Ractia, but you don’t need me for anything in particular. Let me clear the way for you.”
“He just now threatened to swallow your head and rip your heart out of your chest,” Liv practically growled. “There’s no way I’m leaving you behind with him. You or my father.”
“I’ll keep Aira, then,” Keri proposed. “The two of us can keep him from rejoining his mother easily enough, while you continue on.” A sudden gust of wind rattled the debris all around them, sending dust and clouds of rust into the air. They ducked down and huddled behind Valterri’s wall, and Keri wrapped his arm around his wife’s shoulders out of instinct. Their helmets were pressed against each other, their faces so close that her breath brushed his skin.
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“You remember how you promised you’d leave strategy to me?” Keri asked her, with a grin. “I can do this for you. Let me. The most important thing is getting you to where you can stop Ractia.”
Liv narrowed her eyes, and for a moment Keri remembered the first time he’d ever seen them - blue as a winter sky, and frosted with ice like the glass of a window. At the time there’d been so much pain and loneliness in those beautiful eyes that he’d come out of the vision wanting nothing more than to wrap her in his arms and hold her until it all went away.
“Take your helm off,” Liv said, and reached up to pull her own away, sending tendrils of white hair, come loose from her braids during the chaos of battle, in every direction. Keri glanced at the wall of ice just long enough to be certain that, while it was cracking, the thing wasn’t going to shatter in the next moment, and then followed suit.
Before he could even tuck the helmet under his arm, Liv caught his cheek in one gauntletted hand and leaned in to kiss him. Keri closed his eyes, and though he knew it was the sort of foolishness liable to get him killed, lost himself in the taste of her tongue. Both of them were grimy and sweaty from fighting, but it didn’t matter.
“Don’t die,” Liv whispered, leaning her forehead against his after they broke apart to catch a breath. “You understand, Keri? I need you when all this is done. Our daughter needs you. Your son needs you.”
“And you come back to me,” Keri told her. “I’d rather we have to hunt down Ractia all over again than lose you.”
Liv nodded, and then pushed herself away. They each wrestled their helms on, and then stood up behind the wall. “Do it. Keep Aira and I’ll take everyone else. I love you.”
“I love you,” Keri said, and stepped out from behind the wall, spinning his spear about and settling it into the sweat-stained leather palms of his gauntlets. He had enough mana left for two, perhaps three spells if he was careful. It will be enough. I will make certain it is enough.
““Savelet Aiveh Dvo Fleiam o’Mae,” Keri growled, thrusting both fists forward, using the long shaft of his spear to help him focus his mana as it flowed down through his arms. Two beams of brilliant white light shot out, faster than any of Ractia’s children could react to, and blasted chunks of red-hot, melting iron away from Noghis’s serpentine chest.
The wyrm reared back and then melted away into blood, but it was too late to avoid being wounded. The nauseating smell of burned flesh filled Keri’s mouth and nose, chasing away the last taste of his wife, the last scent of her hair. Blood boiled under the heat of his magic, and thick black smoke drifted through the chamber.
“Everyone but Aira and Keri with me!” Liv shouted, leaping into the air and beating her wings. She soared across the chamber, making for the doorway opposite the shaft by which she’d descended.
Sidonie assembled half of her mana discs into a larger platform, stepped onto it, and sent it skimming across the floor; she crouched down so that she could hold onto one edge with her left hand, her wand at the ready in her right, and the remaining six mana shields arrayed to block her from Noghis’s sight. Arjun followed, opting to use his enchanted boots; with the aid of Vefta, he moved so quickly that Keri’s eyes could hardly follow the blue. Valterri, on the other hand, pulled a charm from the end of one white braid of hair, threw it down, and then leapt onto the back of the conjured ice-bear which froze into existence before him. The bear barreled through the room, Valtteri leaning down close to its back. A wave of the man’s hand froze a sparkling barrier of ice across the doorway, cutting off any pursuit.
“Just the two of us to kill this thing, then?” Aira asked, tapping her walking stick against the floor as she positioned herself between the mist of blood and the doorway. The old woman’s tight braids had half come undone, surrounding her head in a messy corona of gray and white.
Keri nodded. Eight rings, he counted silently. “We can’t afford for Liv to waste any more time here."
“You think that I am a waste of time?” Noghis roared, re-assembling his body. His remaining eye glared at Keri with such hatred and fury that his gaze was almost a physical weight. “An obstacle to be avoided? An afterthought? I am the son of a goddess!”
“Is that all?” Aira shouted back. “Well, I’m the daughter of a goddess, and I’m not impressed.”
“I’ll keep him off while you cast,” Keri offered, and immediately strode forward to close into spear-range with the wyrm. It wasn’t by any means the way he’d have preferred to fight a wyrm, but the old woman needed someone to serve as a front line. She was a stronger caster than he was, by far, but Keri feared what would happen if she ever came within reach of Noghis’s maw.
Keri lunged forward, stabbing the tip of his spear toward wyrm’s eye. You only have one left, and you’re afraid of losing that one too, aren’t you? It was obvious from the way that Noghis had been moving in response to attacks, and just as Keri had expected, Ractia’s son flinched backward, rearing back so that his head was far out of Keri’s reach.
A wind kicked up, blowing past Keri, and he saw that it carried hundreds of seeds with it. The seeds were carried to Nighis, settling in between the gaps in his makeshift iron armor. From behind him, Keri could hear Aira chanting an incantation – but Noghis must have heard it too, because he pushed off against the floor of the chamber and threw himself at the old woman.
Keri saw it coming – every twitch of Noghis’s serpentine body might as well have announced the wyrm’s intent, so long as Keri was relying on Bheuv. He slid in front of the charging monster, set the but of his spear against his boot, and leveled the blade to be in line with where a serpent’s heart would be. The movement forced Noghis to swerve off to the side: Keri’s weapon didn’t connect, but neither did the wyrm get any closer to Elder Aira.
A cackle of glee must have signalled the conclusion of the old woman’s spell casting, because the next thing Keri saw was vines bursting forth out from beneath that black armor. The vines were thick, already the size of a grown man’s thigh, and they were covered in wicked-looking thorns that glistened with venom. They twined about Noghis’s body, forcing plates of armor away, sending the pieces of iron clattering to the floor of the chamber. Then, they began to constrict, trussing the son of Ractia up like a plucked quail ready to be roasted.
Noghis dissolved into vapor again, and it occurred to Keri that they might actually win by exhausting his supply of blood before ever running him out of mana. He tried to think of how many times he’d seen Wren change form over the course of a single fight; not more than a handful. The vapor drifted across the center of the immense chamber, leaving twitching vines behind, along with the scraps of rusted iron which had once served as armor. Keri drifted after him, trying to make certain that he would be positioned between Noghis and Aira no matter what happened.
When Noghis reformed, rather than attempt to spit poison or bite, he swung his tail around to lash at Keri like an immense whip. The motion didn’t leave Keri very many good options – it was hardly the sort of thing that he could parry with his spear, at least not without losing the weapon or even breaking the shaft. Instead, he threw himself down, lying flat on the floor so that the scaled-tail sliced through the air above him.
“Aisent Ad’Mae,” Noghis hissed, sliding to one side in the deadly-quick way that a snake has.
Keri rolled to his feet, bringing his spear up into a guard, ready to intercept the monster’s next strike. For a moment, he couldn’t find what the spell had been meant to do. There was plenty of iron around – all the pieces which had been Noghis’s armor until only moments before were still lying on the floor, after all. But he didn’t actually seen any of the rusted debris which filled the room moving.
Aira let out a gasp, almost a whimper from somewhere behind Keri. He knew it was a mistake to turn to look – taking his eyes off Noghis for even a moment would give the wyrm the opening he needed – but there was something about that sound that made it no longer a choice, only a reaction.
In that moment, Keri understood the purpose of Noghis’s movement. The wyrm had taken advantage of the fact that both Keri and Aira were working to always keep the old woman behind Keri, and shifted the three of them into a position where the discarded fragments of iron armor were behind Aira.
When they’d lifted off the ground and shot forward, neither of the Eld had been in a position to see it.
Aira tär Keria, eyes open wide, dropped her cane, and the length of wood clattered across the ground. A thin stream of blood leaked from her mouth, down her wrinkled chin, and she stumbled, then fell forward onto her face. Nearly a dozen jagged, rusted scraps of iron jutted out of her back, her arms and legs, and even her skull.
“One,” Noghis counted, the wyrm’s foul breath drifting forward into Keri’s face.
With a wordless shout, Keri turned, raised his spear, and charged alone.