Arc 6: Chapter 9: Sunset
The wind howled. It tore away sound, thought, sensation. I was nothing, just a crumbling fragment of debris in the storm’s grip. Siriks and I drifted further and further apart as we were buffeted by warring currents, slammed by slicing torrents of unsettled air.
It seemed to last forever. And yet, the ancient broken ring of the Coloss and its little gray island, like an abstracted eye from this angle, swiftly grew larger in my vision. Siriks shouted something at me. I couldn’t be sure, but it sounded like “You fool!”
Fair. I ignored him, focusing on the swift encroaching ground. Unfortunately, I possessed no sorceries for flight.
Even as we fell to our deaths, a stray thought wormed through my growing panic. There are ogres in the storm.
A problem for later. My focus went to the clusters of indistinct black shapes scattered beyond the outer ring of the tournament island. Like flocks of birds, only I knew they weren’t birds. Their shapes grew more distinct as we fell, clarifying into stony gray forms with huge wings and gleaming silver eyes.
While I hadn’t exactly expected to need them this way, I felt a surge of relief that Markham had heeded my warnings. I’d told his small council about the Mistwalkers gathering around the city, and he’d released them out in force to guard the tournament.
I focused on the nearest gargoyle, laced my breath with aura, and spoke.
“Catch us.”
My command rang out, audible as any peel of thunder rolling across the storm above. Immediately, the nearest sentinels peeled off from their flocks.
The ground dominated my vision. I could make out the inner ring of statues and spires along the Coloss walls now, the congregated masses on the stands, even the tiny figures of the tourney knights still waiting on the island. I forced myself to relax.
A particularly large beast swiped the air like a diving falcon and caught me, not as gently as I’d have liked. Clawed appendages closed on my shoulders and waist, three separate sets of digits clamping down. If not for my armor, I suspected they would have cut me to ribbons. The gargoyle sported a cherubic face fashioned of gold, like a mask set over its pitted gray flesh, and twin sets of wings carved to evoke the feathered mantle of a seraph. Its body otherwise resembled a chimeric union between a lion and an eagle.