Book 6 - Epilogue
Drakonis had lived through worse.
….
Actually he hadn’t.
This was the worst. Lionheart’s training regiment had been far more brutal than any mortal soldiers would go through, but it hadn’t been arm-shatteringly brutal. And followed up by a life or death struggle against a fucking drake with a glorified fucking butter knife.
The distant ceiling of the underground loomed in his view as he calmed his breath. “Get the fuck up, you rat bastard.” He hissed to himself, closing his eyes for a moment to muster up the effort. A beat passed. He stayed on the ground.
The arm was binding itself back together, the blessing of the goddess doing wonders. But the process was slow. And his armor had already drained its limited medical supplies.
The HUD showed Keith was still alive out there, and still in combat. He couldn’t just wait on the ground here staring up at nothing. Drakonis closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. “Come on you miserable piece of shit, get up.”
All at once, he rolled over and clawed his way back up on his feet, groaning as his arm moved and the bone shards inside cut him further up. Already he could tell it hurt far less than it had any right to as his healing factors kicked in. Shields had taken a few hits from wayward claws, and he’d nearly gotten bit at one point. But in front of him, the Drake lay dead, lights dead across the chassis. Sparks still came from deep within, battle damage from wayward strikes and bullets. Some rocks had been pulverized in the process. A small landslide had happened nearby when they’d rolled downslope after he’d hacked one of the critical leg joints off and it lost balance. Cooled off melted rock lay further off, marking where the Drake had tried a blind shot from the maw.
He’d battled dozens of drakes before when he’d been mortal. The difficult part was getting close enough to deal damage. They only approached into melee range when they believed they would overwhelmingly win.