A winged shadow passed over the trees, making Captain Turok hold her breath. Were they on her trail? So soon? She swore her camouflage was perfect! How did they find her?!
She poked her head from beneath the cover of the roots she was hiding under, finding the likely answer as to why the aerial hunter was here - a goblin, covered in mud and branches, plastered to the trunk of the tree he was hiding under with expression of pure dread.
The goblin saw her. As soon as the shadow passed, he took off, sprinting in the direction of her hiding place. No no no no! They will find both of us! Find yourself some other place to hide, you miserable thing! - those were the desperate thoughts running through Turok's head.
Unfortunately, the goblin was no telepath, jumping into the kobold captain's temporary shelter from eyes in the sky.
"LiZarrrrrD." His broken Kodur was tinged with both derision and desperation.
"Goblin." Turok replied with venom that turned stale with the shadow's return. There currently were things more important to focus on than mere centuries of interspecies rivalry.
Such as their rapidly dwindling time. "Attention: five minutes left in the mission! I repeat, five minutes left! Failure will be met with additional exercises~!" The sickly sweet sing-song voice of their liege continued to sound off from above the trees as she repeated her message in Gobri.
Turok's eyes darted to the sun's rays shining from the edge of the forest. She was so close. But five minutes? Sneaking under the silver dragon's watchful eye? Impossible. Unless…
"Goblin. Follow." She said, receiving a harking spit under before feet in response.
"Lizarrrrrd? No." The goblin's tone told Turok exactly what he thought about listening to her. "You follow."
She was the Captain of all kobold warriors. Who did he think he was to command her?! "No. Listen to me!"
"Nu-uh. You listen!" This… this stupid… snotling! How hard was it for him to get through his thick skull that she should be in charge!
Few things happened next in quick succession. Turok took a step forward, her finger aimed at the goblin's chest. The goblin also took a step forward, with a hand reaching for the collar of her tunic. Their bodies met half-way, and the gestures in progress were repurposed into shoves. One thing led to another, and soon Turok's fist met the goblin's nose, whose foot was already sailing towards her knee.
The resultant almost cartoonish cloud of violence came to a stop twenty seconds later, with Turok frozen mid biting the goblin's arm, who in turn tried to strangle her. They stood there, petrified by the disappointed gaze of a silver dragon.
===
"I swear, the mad fey is seriously trying to kill us with these exercises. Am I right, Captn'?"
Turok sighed, scrubbing off the mud covering her scales with sand. "I'm no longer a captain, Ievrek. I'm being demoted. To sergeant." She wanted to jump deeper into the moat in shame.
"What?! Why?! How come I've just heard of it?!"
"Because it's not official yet. Won't be until we clean ourselves for the after action report." She smacked her lips, her mouth filled with bitter taste. "As to why… I got into a fight with a goblin…"
"That's not so bad, we get into fights after almost every exce-"
"Dragonmelter saw me." Turok finished with resignation.
"-Oh... Fuck."
She wanted to reprimand Ievrek for her crass tongue… but she guessed she didn't have the authority anymore. Instead, she indulged herself.
"Indeed. Fuck." She chewed on the word, letting it bounce and linger on her tongue. Despite her military position, she very rarely swore.
"Holy shit, this is bad." Ievrek said in an overblown serious tone. "You heard that Geirk? The goblins made Turok swear." Saying that, they both leveled some very poignant gestures at the goblins cleaning themselves on the other side of the moat. They answered in kind.
It was funny. Ievrek and Geirk have hated each other since nursery. She had had a lot of problems with the discord they brought into the ranks with their constant bickering and fights. And there they were, sister and brother in arms, united in showing the goblins the most offensive hand signs possible.
Turok growled to herself, trying to clean some very persistent spots from her scales, without much success. She felt somebody poking her in her shoulder.
"Need help, Cap?" A kobold soldier asked her while chewing on something, giving her a handle of some strange tool covered in stiff hair.
"What's that Feurok? How do I use it?" Turok examined the thing with a very skeptical gaze.
"Believe gobs call that a 'brush'. Make 'em out of the manes of eohips." Came his answer. "And you use it like this." Saying that, the soldier demonstrated, scrubbing his scales with the stiff hair.
"Appreciated." She wasn't keen on using goblin tools, but neither was she on having mud under her scales. "Quite useful. Got it on the market?"
"Nope, bought it from a goblin last week along with more soap." Feurok answered, showing her a grey, flower-smelling block.
"You trade with the snotlings? Have you lost your mind?!" Ievrek gave Feurok a bewildered stare.
"Get off me, Iev, I ain't the only one. Besides, it's not like I like 'em. I just don't know how to make soap, and it runs out quite fast." Saying that, he bit into the grey block and started chewing again.
It left Turok quite shocked. But not as much as the second kobold woman.
"You moron, you aren't supposed to eat it! It tastes terrible! Why in seven hells would you do that?!"
Feurok gave her a dumbfounded stare. "It does? Tastes good to me. The gob I buy it from even spiced it up with ground earclove for me. Besides, it's almost pure fat, and makes my breath smell nice. Exactly what I need after a round of puking my guts out into a ditch."
"You too, huh?" Ievrek sighed, eager to not dwell on the subject of soap eating. "This dragon of ours is far too fucking cruel. She must be getting her jollies off our suffering."
"You stupid lizarrrrds know so little of drrrragon crrrrruelty." The more than passable Kodur coming from the other side of the moat was not angry, Merely final. "When Drrrrrragonmelterrrrr want something, she asks. Saying 'no' is foolish, but gesturrrre counts. Masterrrr-Maj- Darrrrwion never asked. He took."
Turok finally made out the goblin speaking to them from between the green masses. Middle aged if she were to guess, with a silver scale made into a pendant, with some religious symbols carved on it. Oh. One of those. A few of them cropped up from among both kobolds and goblins after the whole totem fiasco two weeks ago.
"When Drrragonmelterrr hungry, she hunts." He continued. "Darrrrwion never hunted. When she is borrrred, she arrrranges herrrr soldierrrs in shapes, makes them rrrrun, feel miserrrrable. Trrrrrue. Darrrwion didn't do that." The goblin paused for a moment. "He thrrrew goblins on the wall of his chamberrrr, trrrying to make shapes out of them going splat!. Orrrr watched brrrrrotherrr kill brrrotherrr in the arrrrrena. You lizarrrds coverrrred in scales, but still soft. So soft. Not like goblins." Condescension practically dripped from his every word.
"Oh fuck off." Ievrek scoffed. "The fact you knew worse doesn't change the fact we knew better. We were once masterless and free!"
"Free to hide underground in fear every time we saw a fiend or kikimore you mean. Not to mention Red Eye." Geirk added sarcastically.
"Shut up Geirk! You always do this, you prick!" Ievrek turned back to the goblin, whose face now sported a slight smug smile. "We were free dammit! So heap praises on your 'Dragonmelter's' shiny ass all you want, it ain't gonna stop us. And speaking of," she changed the subject, "look who's coming. Everybody's least favourite kobold."
Indeed, Hik was moving towards them. The hunter never had friends; before Tanya Degurechaff, because he never shared his catches, even with the children, hunted in others' territory when he couldn't find anything in his, and was generally unpleasant. Now, on top of the aforementioned, he was also the mouthpiece of their liege. And he rarely carried good news.
"Aight." He began, giving out wooden circlets with a shimmering web making a pattern inside them. "Gonna be quick. This is a test run for the boss's newest idea. Those who get it, simply hang it somewhere over your bed, report the results the next day. Got it?"
"Nope." Feurok shook his head. "Ain't it one of those magic glyphs the fey made to mess with Riek? Why would Dragonmelter want to have anything to do with something like this?"
Hik shrugged. "Don't ask me. Boss was pestering the fey a lot about its magic. Caught little of it, but the word being often thrown around was 'mana solidification'. As I was told, this is a simple repurposing of the 'dream weaver' the spriggan made. It will send you visions in your sleep, but instead of showing you where the snotlings hid their totems, it should show you, to quote, 'a course on weapon handling'. She spent a whole day, making pictures with her illusions for the fey to capture into those things."
He paused, lazily examining one of the circlets with half-absent eyes. "Boss was very excited about the possibility of 'combat sims' and 'work competence courses'. Don't ask me what it means, I have no idea either. I just know that when the boss gets giddy, it means trouble. Most likely for you suckers."
Ievrek was quickest on the uptake, letting out a hopeless groan. "Don't tell me she found a way to haunt us in our dreams! With her 'training' to boot! Is nowhere safe from her?!"
Hik gave her a smug grin. "Dunno. But you better start running, because something is flying towards you." He said, pointing at the distant treeline, rapidly growing dark dot approaching from above it.
"Of course…" Turok sighed. "Another surprise combat exercise." Well, I wasn't dismissed yet. Means I'm in charge for it, she thought. "Company, drop everything! To armory, at once!"
She saw the goblins doing the same thing. Halfway to her destination, a chilling thought entered her brain: on a sunny day, a flying silver dragon should be shining with reflected light. Not be a dark dot.
She looked again. Nevermind many dark dots.
===
Hurgott whistled calmingly to Pufter as he dropped off his passengers. The smell of a dragon was making him nervous. In the distance, the last goblins and kobolds disappeared into a burrow.
"Look at dem go." Genash, a fellow orc warrior, grunted. "Eitha dem gobbos and kobz are very well trained, or dey're just cowardz."
"No matta." Hurgott replied, jumping off his saddle. "We'z got a job to do. Killin' cowardz or propa soldierz, eitha way we'z need to deprive few of dem of deir skullz." As he said that, he took out his beaked headhunter axe, weighing it. "Da boss counts on us."
"Gobbos and kobz make crummy trophies." Another landing orc said.
"You'z expect to come back to da clan?" Hurgott scratched his gray beard questioningly.
"If da shiny dragon turnz out even half as scary as tha gobbos said? Nah. I'z just wanted my last 'ead to be taken from a fiend, or a keythong. Not little tiny warrior babby."
Not all of them needed to die here. He whistled to Pufter. "You'z know where to return." The wyvern made a pitiful noise, resting his muzzle on his shoulder. "Don't worry boy, we'z meet again in tha afterlife."
He watched his trusty mount as it flew away, before turning towards the gathered warriors. "Aight boyz! Letz show dem tiny warriorz da meaning of a propa fight!"
The very earth shook from their roars.
===
I roared, letting out a stream of fire. The wyvern I was aiming at ducked in response, folding its wings and using gravity to escape the white-hot torrent of flames I leveled at it. The figure at its back yelped in an unknown tongue in reaction. Something along the lines of 'Shit!' if I were to guess.
His friends were already on my tail. I created four more illusions of myself, splitting them in all directions as I engaged in evasive maneuvers. One was a bit overeager, throwing a net at my mirror image's wings, which passed through it, distorting the projection.
Vaira, being very resistant to learning the equations necessary for illusion casting, couldn't rely on them for diversion. Add to that her… 'dignified' flying style, and the sum of this equation was a small trench in the ground where she was forced to perform an emergency landing, her left wing completely tied up in a sturdy net.
For the time being, my attache was grounded, occupied with getting the net off her wing while fending off wyverns and their riders with her fiery breath, who in turn harassed her with spears and fly-by claw attacks. That meant I had to deal with the bulk of wyvern riders alone.
They were experienced aerial combatants, I'll give them that. They properly used the position of the sun to their advantage, as well as their superior numbers and maneuverability. They also adapted to my illusions very quickly. Had they had experience fighting dragons, or was this merely a result of training?
No matter. Those questions, along with 'Who are they?', 'Where did they come from?', and 'Why the fuck do they want me dead?!' were swept away by the foaming wave of magical boosters and reflex enhancements. I could already feel the corners of my mouth parting in a savage grin against my will.
Another spear plinked off my passive barrier. I swirled in the air to the direction of the thrower. My reaction time was already getting better, my movements faster, my eyesight sharper. I gave chase, beating my wings as the mana coursing through them intensified. I could smell the fear of my prey. Unhinging my jaws, I-
-rapidly turned around, breathing fire on the wyvern approaching from above, hoping to hide in my blind spot. The rider, showing remarkable reaction time himself, made his mount swivel to the side, dodging the stream of deadly heat.
Fighting those riders was like trying to swat a well coordinated swarm of mosquitoes. And their spears, while not powerful enough to pierce my barrier, were thrown with remarkable strength. If not for it, sooner or later one of them would get lucky and hit a weakpoint, such as a gap in my scales or an eye, seriously wounding me…
A sudden roar of pain rattled inside my skull. I began to move even before my brain had time to process the sound.
===
Hik remembered the day a terrorbeak hen found him in the middle of robbing her nest. He remembered cold dread pouring into his stomach as the already dangerous creature transformed into a two meter avatar of raging death.
The orc before him made the bird look like a chicken with slight anger issues. The greenskin roared like an enraged bull, swinging his axe at a kobold soldier, who foolishly tried to block it with his shield. It shattered, along with the kobold's arm and probably his ribcage. The orc walked over his body with nonchalance, crushing his head under an iron sole while he did so.
The following wet crunch was something that would haunt Hik for years… if he survived.
The haphazardly combined kobold and goblin forces tried as best as they could to fight back. A kobold emerged from the black fog created by Obok's artifact, running towards the orc, dagger in hand. He ducked under the whistling axe, slid over a kick that would crush all his bones into powder, and stabbed his knife into the shin of the green brute, who roared in pain, failed to take his next step, and fell onto his knees.
The kobold assassin didn't dare to approach to finish him off. One tried with another orc, only to be gored by his tusks. No, it was better for the poison and blood loss to finish the work.
More direct attempts at resistance were pretty much getting mulched. Only a shaman could hope to contest an orc's strength; the rest… Hik just saw one of the invaders kick a goblin's head clean off. Coming only to the waist of your enemy might mean you have teeth on the level of their crotch, but it also meant your enemy had their legs on the level of your… well, everything.
Hik turned towards the burrows, feeling the stench coming from them, making his eyes tear up. Boiled and dried wyvern shit, set on fire and thrown into the tunnel openings. There was no way to hide in them, the black smoke would literally choke him to death.
They surrounded the village, cut off all retreats, and made hiding impossible. Fuckers came awfully well prepared.
===
"I will tear you apart, one limb at a time!" Vaira's roar was full of pain and bloodlust. A spear was sticking out from her left hind leg.
Illusions of me, unconstrained by the limits of mass and aerodynamics, darted in the direction of my attache's harassers. It was painfully obvious they were not me, but their job was to merely scare off the wyverns while I landed, not serve as decoys.
"Lady Tanya! I… it hurts. And burns." There was a tremble to the green dragon's voice. "I never hurt like that before. I tried to take it out, but it hurts more!"
I caught a whiff of blood coming from the wound… as well as poison. "Let me see it."
Vaira obediently turned, breathing fire and roaring at the riders who already calmed down their mounts from my ruse and began attacking again. I erected an active barrier to shield both me and her from any spear thrown at us.
The thing thankfully didn't penetrate deep. I put the pole of the spear in my mouth, carefully tugging to measure resistance, and making Vaira whimper in pain. Barbed.
In combination with poison it made for a truly nasty weapon, designed to weaken the prey while it bleeds out. Which in turn made hitting the next weakpoint easier, leading to a lethal snowball effect.
I was no medic, but like any Imperial mage, I received first aid training… designed for creatures less than fifth of my size, with far more dexterous wrists and opposable thumbs instead of eagle-like grasping claws.
I had to improvise. "This won't hurt a little." I said to Vaira, forming a tiny mage blade on top of my claw. I carefully made an incision, slowly working around the spear while my patient cursed, roared and wailed.
I made sure not to touch the spear itself - it could lead to an iron splinter burying itself deeper in the dragon's thick hide, leading to infection.
My incision made and the skin around the tip loosened, I prepared for the final push. "Relax, Miss Vaira. It will only take a moment." Saying that, I turned my reflex enhancements to the max along with dosing myself with another batch of magical stimulants.
The world became painfully sharp, each little sight a shard of glass pricking at my eyes. Time didn't slow down - that was the weirdest part of my sped up thought process. A second still lasted... a second. It just had much more room for my thoughts in it.
I carefully clenched two of my claws over the tip of the spear. Steadily, I began moving it, feeling the barbs unhooking from Vaira's hide.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Last barb unhooked, I removed the iron tip, covered in dark crimson.
The rest of the procedure was easy. Localised anesthetic and weak regenerative formulas should make sure Vaira experienced minimal pain. Now someone who actually knew what they were doing could take it from here.
"Miss Vaira, return to Earthmounds." I commanded, cutting the net covering her wing to pieces. "I provisorically tended your injury, but it should be examined further by someone more medically adept than me."
"I don't think they will let me." Vaira's voice directed towards the wyvern riders currently trying to break my mage shell dripped with venom far more virulent than what struck her.
"I will cover for you." Saying that I began casting illusions, both of myself and Vaira.
We both spread our wings and took off.
===
Surging from the black mist, Hurgott saw a glint of metal aimed at his leg. He swung his axe in a feint, forcing his opponent to slide under it, then pinned him to the ground with a dagger held in his other hand. The orc finished the kobold off with a kick to the head.
"Nasty lil' buggerz." He grunted to himself, retrieving the dagger.
"Ain't dey?" Ganash chipped in, absentmindedly removing a lower half of a goblin from his axe. "Dey go for da shins, or nadz if you'z unlucky. Reckon eight of our boyz got done in already."
"And how'z our headtaking goin'?" Hurgott asked, then roared a challenge to a group of five diminutive warriors. He wanted to give them at least a semblance of fairness.
"Tha magic fog makes it 'ard to give a propa estimation. I'z guess, 'round firty? And dats optimistic."
Their conversation stopped, Hurgott temporarily occupied by a spear in his side. He broke it, then yanked at the part still held by a goblin, making him fall, and letting the orc's boot give him his last kiss. The rest of his opponents kept him at bay, away from a forming line of kobold archers and goblin slingshotters he saw the glimpses of from the fog, peppering his boys with arrows and stones.
Hurgott let the bestial instincts take control, roaring with rage as it rampaged in enemy lines. His mind was free to focus on thinking in the meantime, only occasionally yanking the leash to prevent his body from doing something fatally stupid.
The dragon's warriors were better than they expected. It spoke of a level of care and engagement they did not think possible from a firebreather. What if it got attached to them? They planned to kill many more, but if it cared enough to train them-
Hurgott's mind was yanked back into his body by a cry of pain from one of his boys. Something was on Ganash's head, screeching and clawing at him while firmly lodged onto his face, thinking nothing of the pair of tusks the jostling orc warrior tried to impale it on.
Then, with a final scream, Ganash was down and unmoving. Staring from his corpse was a raptor that couldn't reach above Hurgott's knees.
But its size didn't matter. Not to something with a stare like this.
Inside the creature's eyes the orc saw two gateways to hell.
===
For Hurgott and his boys, it was only the beginning of their problems. The sky fell on them in a twelve meter roaring green chunk, heralding dark times for all orc warriors who bore witness to it. They wouldn't do so for long.
===
During her whole life, Vaira felt it being truly, truly threatened only once before - when she first met Tanya. In hindsight, it was a very well founded feeling.
Yet even the fey dragon never wounded her before; until today, Vaira never experienced true pain. Pain dealt to her by creatures she should be able to easily tear apart in her claws. Yet she was cornered by them, made her feel defenceless - like prey.
Rage, shame, adrenaline, and searing pain spreading through her leg buzzed in her brain, tinting her vision red. Vaira was ready to explode. She just needed a target.
Nearing Earthmounds, she smelled panic, blood… and the riders.
Green, burly, and clad in armor, the ones she saw were definitely not riding any wyverns. They couldn't run. And that's all Vaira needed.
She crashed onto the ground, crushing one of the things under her weight. Roaring, she unleashed a torrent of flames on another; the full swing of her tail resulted in a satisfying splat of yet another body being pulped.
One of the things threw a spear at her. Vaira watched it uselessly bounce off her armored chest, before leveling her bloodshot eyes at the thrower.
He ran, the smell of his fear like a drug to her senses. She charged after him, buckling her head and goring him with her horns, feeling blood and entrails rain down on her.
Most of the invaders' attention was on her now - barring those at the front and a small group frantically trying to catch some shrieking blur.
Claw worked alongside tooth as Vaira lost herself in a murderous frenzy, biting one of the worms before her in half. Her sight was blood; her breath, the fires of hell.
I dove alongside my seven illusions under the treeline, making my opponents lose sight of me for a moment. A second later, eight silver dragons emerged from between the trees again - of which none were me.
I stalked the forest floor, trying to make as little sound as possible. I already chose my target, leading the illusion he followed under my hiding place.
He took the bait. And why wouldn't he; even if all the dragons proved to be illusory, it just meant their target landed, and I grounded myself into becoming easy prey once found. There was no way to spread my wings and quietly take off from between dense branches after all.
No way at all.
As soon as the wyvern was passing over me, I surged back into the sky using a flight formula, rising like a shark from the depths. Neither it nor its rider had enough time to react; I finally, finally felt my claws sink into flesh, before the mage blades extending from them cleaved it in twain. I cackled to myself: finally, some progress!
It was a meager victory, paid for in astronomical mana cost the flight formula charged for propelling my giant body off the ground at speeds necessary for the ambush to be successful. But it was a victory, one abundant in shock value.
I couldn't chase down nine more wyverns, both smaller and faster than me - I had nowhere enough mana necessary for it. But I could make them give up, and the gory display I just treated them to was sure to chip away at their morale.
Especially since it was the first real piece of progress in our confrontation. I couldn't catch them, they couldn't hurt me: until now, we were at an impasse. With me taking the lead, they should become more susceptible to making risky decisions in order to even the score.
A roar of a challenge graced my ears; one of the riders lost the nerve, charging at me head on. I answered with one of my own, dismissing the illusions flying about. They were no longer needed.
===
"We'z makin' no progrees, Agur! Pull da boyz back!" Kegher shouted to his boss. The silver dragon thought nothing of their harpoons, and just massacred Urhast after the poor glob charged it, looking to avenge his friend.
"Tha boss told us 'urt it! We'z hafta show it what we'z got!" Agur shouted back.
"Oh, we'z shown it. And it'z laffin' at us!" The wyrm was indeed giggling to itself, obviously having a time of its life while showering in gore of Kegher's comrades.
They were the clan's old guard, the ones both brutal and cunning enough to live until their hair turned grey and bones grew weak. They flew the skies for decades, slain gryphons, wyverns, and even took down three green dragons. Even if the goblin was right about their target firebreather being some sort of witch, they should be nothing they couldn't prepare for.
Yet they were not. The demonic wyrm pulled one unknown magic trick after another: fake images, impenetrable shields, flight without wings and blades of light effortlessly cutting a seven meter long wyvern in two; Kegher didn't want to wait and see if the final one involved a rabbit. His rational side feared it didn't. The irrational dreaded how it could.
"Look at it, zippin' around, chasin' our boyz like a wolf pup! Doez it look 'urt to ya?! We'z hit tha green one, should be good enough! Boss said: 'wound da dragon'. 'Ere you go, one dragon wounded! Now, tell da boys we'z fucking off!"
"Aight, aight, I'z got it!" Agur relented, then shouted at the top of his lungs. "Boyz, we'z makin' a tacticol retreat!" More quietly, he added. "I'z hope Hurgott and da ground boyz were more lucky."
Kegher doubted it.
===
Around twenty minutes later.
"Mhm, this one also had his face eaten by Bastard." Hik grunted in my direction. "But some of his beard is still left. See that boss? Grey. Like all others. We've been invaded by a bunch of old pricks!"
Indeed, all of the corpses of the invaders belonged to aged individuals. At least the recognizable ones did, the rest reduced by Vaira and Hik's pet raptor into so much mincemeat.
It was strange, but not the most important thing I should focus on now. "Captain Turok, casualty report. Have we taken any prisoners?"
"You mean Sergeant, my liege?" The kobold shrinked a bit, unsure.
"I didn't stutter." I kept my tone neutral, with just a tinge of impatience. "This is not the time to disrupt the estabilished chain of command. Now, report."
"Yes, my liege!" The kobold stood at attention. "Sixteen of my warriors were killed by the orcs, with twice as many crippled or wounded. I don't know about the goblin side though, you'd have to ask the goblin commander for that." She paused to take a breath. "As for prisoners, we have none. Those not massacred by Lady Vaira were either lethally poisoned, stabbed and kicked so many times there was no way they could get up, and in two rare cases, took their own life once approached. Elder Obok thought it wiser to aid our wounded than to waste time, medicine, and magic in vain hopes of finding one of theirs."
"Thank you. You are dismissed." I gave her a curt nod. Now to the second order of business.
"How is she, Elder Obok, Elder Kamik?" I asked, approaching the two kobolds currently dressing Vaira's wound.
"The wound itself is manageable, considering its size compared to Lady Vaira." The old kobold herbalist replied, giving me a respectful nod. "Shallow, thankfully. The poison is worse: a mixture of wyvern feces, bloodletter flower, and some things I couldn't identify. I already washed the wound in a concoction made to fight off gangrene and other infections, and Obok used regenerative magic to speed up the healing process. The rest we'll leave to Lady Vaira's draconic immune system. If necrosis doesn't develop in the wound, she should feel better in less than two days - as long as she doesn't move too much." She gave me a poignant stare.
I understood. "I will make sure she doesn't." I will have to watch her not to sneak out hunting.
"I can't ask for more, My Lady." She sighed. "Maybe the spriggan will be able to do more for her with their fey magic. Now, if you excuse me, Lady Tanya, me and Obok still have many more wounded to tend to."
"Of course."
I spent some more time interrogating the goblin commander and assessing the damage. In total, I've lost thirty seven warriors, sixteen kobold and twenty one goblin, along with twice as many wounded and crippled. In short, the raid consisting of twenty (approximately; courtesy of rampaging Vaira some were in too many pieces to be sure if they belonged to one individual) old orcs managed to paralize nearly all of my armed forces.
I didn't know where they came from, I didn't know their motivations, and I couldn't even begin to speculate why they were all, to quote Hik, 'old bastards'. For all I knew they could just have… appeared from the ground, and been told by Being X to rain on my increasingly miserable parade.
The fact they only attacked Earthmounds, where all my armed forces were post exercise, and not the lightly defended New Grotniks or the spriggan camp (which didn't even know there was a fight taking place) spoke of either very poor scouting, or some unknown motives being at play. They came from the air after all; if they found the kobold village, there was no way they couldn't find the other two, much softer targets.
I felt my nostrils flare in annoyance. Whenever I was approaching some sort of equilibrium, even a semblance of stability, a curveball aimed at my face never failed to appear out of left field! Francois pulling off a Dunkirk, Commies joining the war, that sanctimonious bitch - the list went on and on, a near endless litany of things 'miraculously' getting worse! And now I was a giant lizard, stuck on some backwater fantasy world, full of small creatures holding on to their small grudges, and apparently infested with roving bands of murderous pensioners on steroids!
Speaking of small grudges, I heard them being acted on again, in a screeching and hissing match. I moved, slowly approaching the kobold elders and a group of wounded goblins.
"Elder Obok, what's going on?"
The shaman gave the goblins a contemptuous stare. "We offered to help these… creatures out of the goodness of our hearts, treat their wounds and help move their dead. They refused."
"'Goodness of ourrrr hearrrrts'?! Bah!" One of the goblins shouted back. "Lizarrrds contemptous, condescending, talking about dead and wounded brotherrrrs and sisterrrrs like thrrrrash in his backyarrrrd. We rrrefuse such help!"
"Well, to be fair…"
I half sighed, half growled, the noise not dissimilar to air bubbles forming in a giant water cooler. New problems kept piling up, and the old ones refused to go.
As if hearing my thoughts, the sentries stationed around Earthmounds raised alarm. A wyvern on the horizon. I took to the air, preparing to rip it to shreds and capture its rider to ask him some very poignant questions.
As I was nearing them, the orc shouted in some strange Gobri dialect. "I'z come in peace! Da boss wants to talk! Dere wuz a giant misunderstandin'!"