Arc 6: Chapter 20: Battle of the Fulgurkeep (1)
The leech-headed chimera were waiting on the castle’s side like the gargoyles they’d replaced. They fell like a flock from hell; screeching, clawed things whose blind heads somehow unerringly found their targets.
One of the knights behind me shouted a warning too late. Black claws took Declan at full speed, tearing him off the top of the tower. Three of the creatures flapped around him in a ravenous ball while he screamed over the open air. They tore his armor off like the most efficient squires in the world and ate him alive mid flight. What dropped into the bay after resembled nothing human.
The air filled with the snaps and cracks of leathery wings. I swung on reflex at a blur of movement, cutting the wing off a flyer at the joint. It slammed into the parapet, its neck breaking from the impact.
But there were many more. They filled the fog, turning the previously silent night into a nightmare of noise and movement.
The creatures seemed to have no sense of self preservation. One dove directly into a knight behind Emma, impaling itself on his sword even as they both went over the wall. At a shouted order from Lochwine, the rest of the knights lifted their shields and went low to leave smaller, more solid targets. Their swords crackled with electric aura. When they struck, their targets detonated into smoking meat.
But they didn’t have infinite access to that magic. A few blows, then their swords became mundane steel again with no time to pull out another Art stone.
“Emma!” I barked. “Give me space!”
She had Hyperia down on her knees so none of the creature’s could grab the princess. Emma didn’t even glance my way as she acted. She lifted a closed fist dripping with blood, furrowed her brow in concentration, then hurled those drops out into the air.
Emma’s Art was versatile, more than almost any other I’d seen even across twenty years of travel and warfare. I might have more moves in my arsenal, but each was pre-prescribed in shape and function. Shrike Forest, on the other hand, could be used in a variety of ways — so long as it started with a drop of blood and ended with something sharp.
The droplets of blood Emma flicked into the air flashed, then exploded in a fanning rain of phantasmal shrapnel. Knowing as I did that it took incredible control and concentration for her to direct each sprig that grew from those red seeds, it came as a mild shock that none of the bolts rained down into our group. The chimera shrieked as their membranous wings tore and their flesh peeled apart. They scattered, at least for a few seconds.
Long enough for me to shape an Art myself. I spun my axe above my head in what would look to most as a boisterous display. Pale golden fire swept around me in a growing whirlwind. I collected it with another several sweeps of my axe until the gold-inlayed blade glowed bright. I drew it in close to my chest, blew out a breath that emerged as glowing mist, then swung into the flock.