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Book 3: Chapter 6: The Ally

He had just enough presence of mind to grab Brixaby off his shoulder and throw him into his Personal Space. As long as Arthur stayed alive and his card unharvested, Brixaby would be safe in there.

Sudden darkness surrounded him, and for a moment Arthur feared he had somehow thrown himself into his Personal Space as well. But the darkness had a velvety quality that was familiar: This wasn’t extra-spatial storage. Shadow had teleported.

In the next moment, they burst into light and chaos again, an explosion so close that Arthur felt it more than heard it.

Then a return to darkness as Shadow once again teleported with Arthur aboard.

They popped back into light, this time in the dappled shadows of the treeline across the field.

Shadow staggered in place, and Arthur had to clutch at the sharp ridges of the dragon's neck to keep from flopping to the side. The world was spinning around him in a nauseating, swooping way that didn't make sense because his eyes told him that everything was stable.

Instinctively, Arthur reached up to touch his right ear, and his hand came back slick and wet with blood. Weren't inner ear problems supposed to cause dizziness?

"What just happened?" he croaked, and though he knew his voice was working, he couldn't hear anything.

Shadow regained his feet and Arthur felt him reply through the rumble in his body, but he couldn't hear a thing.

One of the lectures that Arthur had attended in basic dragon class came back to him: always look to the health of the beast first. Though his mind was screaming with questions like ‘What happened?’ ‘Where is the rest of the class?’ ‘Where is Cressida?’ ‘Is the combat trio dead?’ ‘Was this a scourge attack or a heinous booby trap?’ He pushed them all aside and focused on preforming a quick visual assessment of Shadow.

The dragon had stopped staggering and had his head up high in an alert posture. Arthur couldn't see any blood. While Arthur's inner-ears had somehow been injured by the blast, he suspected that Shadow's weren't. From an offhand comment during one of the other lectures he’d learned – dragons' inner ears were more durable than a human being’s as they were flying creatures and naturally had to compensate for quick altitude changes.

Speaking of his ears, Arthur heard a sudden pop in his head that followed a brief flash of pain. He worked his jaw open and closed, and noise filtered back into his brain, distorted and dim at first but rapidly growing in clarity as if something inside was focusing it.

Or, more accurately, his internal healing card was going to work. He would have to swallow his pride and thank Valentina once again for that fortuitous card.

"Where is he?" Shadow asked with the exasperated tone of someone who had already repeated himself.

"Who?" Arthur croaked.

Shadow's voice was sharp. "Your dragon, fool!”

A part of Arthur was amused that the real Shadow was coming out under stress.

"He's in my spatial storage space. What happened?" He kept his sentences short because his ears were still adjusting with painful crackles and pops, though hearing was getting clearer. For example, he could now pick out continuing explosions from the direction of the castle.

"Those idiots set a powerful trap card," Shadow said. "They died like they lived, like looters."

Arthur glanced back to the castle, just in time to see one of the towers fall into what was left of the courtyard. This caused a cascade of other mini explosions which set up more debris flying in all directions. There wasn't much left. The formerly grand castle was now a pile of rubble with occasional walls and two towers sticking out.

"I meant what happened back there with your transportation," Arthur said. “You transported us twice in a row?”

"You try to teleport out of an explosion with shadows dancing everywhere," Shadow sniped then added almost bitterly. "I only hope that castle was trapped against anyone in general from stepping in the courtyard and not dragons specifically.”

That hadn't occurred to Arthur, and it should have. In fact, he needed to get over his shock, stop reacting and try to take control of the situation.

His first step was to remove Brixaby from his Personal Space.

The moment he was free, the little dragon flew immediately upward, looking annoyed. "If you're going to throw me somewhere safe, at least follow me so I know you’re safe too."

"That's not how it works," Arthur reminded him, though he was mildly surprised that Brixaby even knew he was in the Personal Space... until he remembered that Brixaby's nullify magic interacted oddly with the timeless nature of the card. "My mind can visit, but my body stays out here."

"We need to fix that! And... you're bleeding..."

Arthur touched at his forehead where Brixaby was looking, and it too came away with blood.

"It's nothing, already healing.” He straightened. “We need to gather up the others. Shadow, can you fly?"

In answer, Shadow took immediately to the air.

Brixaby flew ahead of the other dragon, booming out, "Form up. Diamond formation! Gather up!"

It didn’t take long to get everyone airborne again. By the looks of things, the entire class had been scattered, with most knocked to the ground or fled there to escape the unsafe skies. Somehow, aside from minor injuries and a little deafening, all were well.

Cressida had Joy fly up next to Shadow. She looked pale with more than simple shock. “I had to use my shield to save us, and I'm almost completely out of mana.”

That wasn't good. Cressida had one of the most effective offensive powers. But as much as it pained Arthur, he couldn't keep her around. The health of his riders came first.

“Then go back to the hive,” he said, “and send word to Valentina what happened here. Whitaker, too, if you can find him--.”

Brixaby broke in. “Do you hear that?”

Arthur hesitated—his hearing wasn't fully back to normal but as he sat still except for the sounds of flapping dragon wings and rumbles from still-collapsing debris, he caught it: Whistling. The calls from excited, hunting Scourgelings.

They were coming. Likely, they had been alerted to their location by the explosion.

Arthur glanced around to take in the state of his class. Though they had formed up in a very loose diamond formation, most of the pairs were already ranging out with dragons and riders searching the littered ground. No doubt searching for body parts of the combat trio – the telltale glow that they could harvest cards from.

No one else but he and Cressida, from the dawning horror on her face, noticed the Scourgelings yet.

“Also,” Brixaby said, “we still have our quest.”

Joy perked up. “You do? Ugh, that's not fair. Cressida and I failed ours.”

Arthur swiftly checked the status of his quest, and sure enough... the quest to aid an ally was still active.

He again at the remains of the castle. There was no way anybody had survived and no indication that anybody had been there at all. Only dense rubble existed where the building had once stood.

“The library would be well-shielded. Shadow, fly us over the top of the castle."

Occasional stones were still falling from the remains of high towers and parapets, causing miniature explosions secondary explosions. The dragon gave him a baleful look, but Brixaby immediately buzzed ahead, and Joy followed.

Meanwhile without immediate orders, the others took the opportunity to range a little further out and keep searching for harvestable materials.

Let them, Arthur thought wearily. If they could glean combat cards from the arrogant trio, then all the better. Arthur planned on doing the same if circumstances allowed it.

“Gain altitude,” Shadow barked to Brixaby and angled upward to be high over its apex of any lingering explosions.

As they flew over, Arthur realized what he thought was a great mound of debris was actually a wall of surrounding a crater. And at the bottom of that crater glinted a dome of energy. He had seen something like this in Buck Moon Hive. That had been a semi-transparent shield meant to keep the powers of dueling combatants away from the watching audience.

Arthur had no doubt what this particular shield was protecting. “The card library has to be down there,” he said, then looked back the direction of the whistles. They had grown loud enough that even the scavenging dragons had taken notice. Squinting, Arthur thought he caught dark movement along the tree line that stood right before the far east field. The scourgings were massing—perhaps they sensed the card library.

"We can’t let them have it,” he muttered. Though he silently wondered if it was worth putting his rider’s lives on the line for. If the shield had protected against that explosion, it had a good chance of standing against scourgelings.

But if he was wrong…

Brixaby, of course, had another idea. “We just have to get to the cards before they do, then shovel them into your Personal space. I just checked. There’s plenty of room.”

“And if a couple go missing, that's carrying tax,” Cressida said lightly.

Arthur gave her a look, and she shrugged.

“Joy is almost old enough to gain a secondary deck, and she needs some combat cards.”

'I'll be the best combatant ever,'” Joy confirmed.

Arthur didn’t see a point in arguing. Especially since he half-agreed. “Okay, but only if we can figure out how to get past that shield. Hey Shadow, do you think you could teleport in there? It should be nice and dark…”

Shadow stared down for a moment, considering. “There are shadows down there, but... they're moving.”

“Moving?” Arthur repeated.

The scales around Shadow’s snout crinkled in a dragon version of a frown. “It’s more like there are solid objects moving to create shadows. I believe someone is down there. Multiple beings.”

“Scourgelings?” Arthur asked.

Below them, the energy dome flickered. Then, abruptly, it died all together.

Dozens of full-grown dragons burst up and out from where the dome had been. They were in all colors, and roaring so fiercely that Shadow, Joy, and Brixaby all flinched back in surprise.

“Hive dragons!” came the call from below.

“Kill!

“Flee! Open the portal!”

“Wait!” Arthur called, looking around wildly. None of the dragons had riders aboard. They didn’t even have saddles. “We aren’t here to hurt you!”

Had they been trapped down there? Captured? Were they fleeing for their lives?

One of the dragons, a menacing red with yellow eyes, was carrying something in its claws. A net glowing with glowing rune marks and sigils woven it.

With practiced ease, it threw the net at Cressida and Joy, who squealed in surprise.

Joy tried to duck, but the net expanded in the air, twice as large as the smallish pink. It closed around them both. The dragon pulled the net taut, and the two simply disappeared.

“Joy!” Brixaby roared and would have shot after them, but Shadow turned, his claws reaching out to snatch the little dragon from the air. In the next second, velvet darkness engulfed them.

They erupted in the shadow of a large unbroken wall, right underneath the dragons.

“What are you doing?” Arthur yelled.

“Keeping you safe. But Arthur, the dragons were already escaping.”

To Arthur's horror, he saw one of the wild riderless dragon was a green which was trying to rip open a portal in the sky. Unlike the hive dragons, the process was laborious. The green was already panting with the stress.

Meanwhile, the other young dragon pairs in the class were scattering, and the unridden, wild dragons were paying them no heed. They flew around the green, urging him on.

A dark rip split the sky. They were going to escape, and if Cressida and Joy were somehow with them...

But there was more, because Arthur had recognized the Red that had taken them. He'd seen it once when he was twelve years old.

Arthur didn't think. He didn’t have time to even fight with the buckles and straps that held him in his saddle. The moment Shadow realized what was going on, he’d just teleport again.

So Arthur grabbed a his sharpest knife from his Personal Space and slashed it across the straps holding himself to his saddle. He had a very high Knifework Skill and the leather parted instantly.

Leaping from Shadow’s neck, he ran with Brixaby bellowing rage right over his head.

Shadow called out to them, but Arthur ignored dragon.

Arthur yelled toward the Red, using every voice projection trick that his skills would give him. "Hey, Red, remember this!" Then he projected his Master of Skills card into the sky.

The red stopped halfway to the opening portal. Its yellow eyes focused on him.

"Take them," he said.

That was probably a bad idea. Arthur held up his hands. “Wait, we can talk—”

Other rune-nets were cast from above.

Shadow reached Arthur in time to close wings around him and Brixaby as if to shield them both.

Through the gap in the wings, Arthur saw the net fall and surround them all.

Then for what felt like a long moment that somehow felt like the time between one breath and another, there was nothing.