Chapter 196: Cold as the Grave

Chapter 196: Cold as the Grave

“Protect the horses, don’t let them break away!” Captain Willa shouted out her commands somewhere behind Jadis’ wagon. “West side, keep close, don’t drift! Nora, fire at will!”

Jay glanced back at the soldiers to see them fighting back against two or three more drakes. The ten of them were keeping together in a close formation, protecting their pack horses from being attacked directly, but the icy breath of the frost drakes was proving to be difficult to defend against. Even in just the brief moment she spared to check on them, one of the riders, Ada, went down as her horse was caught by a stream of razor-sharp icicles.

Jadis couldn’t focus on the soldiers, however. She had her own problems to deal with.

Syd pulled Dys to her feet as the recently skewered drake flopped off of her. A layer of ice coated her armor and she was having trouble feeling her extremities as the cold sapped the strength from her arms and legs. Even though it had only been for seconds, her hands had gone almost entirely numb from tackling the monster and holding onto it.

Needing to get back into the fight, Dys took Syd’s lance in her sensationless hand and staggered closer to Eir so the cleric could heal her more efficiently by touching her directly. Syd, in the meanwhile, took Dys’ axe from Jay as she moved to the fore of the wagon.

To both the left and right of the road Jadis spotted movement in the brush. More ice drakes were circling, looking for opportunities to pounce. She couldn’t get a read on how many there were left, but there had to be more than three. In fact, definitely more than three, since ahead of her, further down the road, she saw the two forward scouts riding their horses at a full sprint back towards the wagons, two frost drakes hot on their tails.

“Aila!” Dys shouted as her other two selves moved slightly forward. “Ahead!”

“On it!” the arcanist shouted as she leaned forward.

The two scouts, Gerd and Lutz, rode hard towards them, aiming to pass by on the right side of the wagon, where Jay, Thea, and Bridget were. The drakes were keeping up with their horses, only a couple of paces behind, so the timing was going to be close.

“Thea! Bridget!” Jay commanded, “Out of the way!”

Like the trained soldier she was, Thea immediately fell back from the side of the road, pressing herself up against the wagon with her shield facing outward. Bridget, however, did not move as Jadis had expected. Leaping forward, she dove off the road and into the underbrush. Right into the sights of a circling drake.

“No!” Jay shouted, but it was too late to dash towards Bridget. The horses had reached the wagon.

In the moment the horses passed by, Aila cast her Dart Spray spell, altering it with her Snare Trap modification. A large rune circle, twenty feet in diameter, appeared on the road milliseconds after the horses passed, appearing at just the right moment for the pursuing frost drakes to trigger it. As the runes flashed with their activation, hundreds of small, spectral vines shot out of the ground to ensnare the drakes who’d entered the circle. Individually, the vines were weak and the first few dozen snapped as they failed to stop the forward momentum of the two drakes they’d latched onto. But dozens more were there to snake around the next foot to touch down, hindering and tripping the monsters as they tried to pass through.

The right-most drake was slightly ahead of the other and, as its clawed feet caught on the snares, it tripped and crashed headfirst into the cobblestones. As its head slid forward, it suddenly ceased to exist as Jay’s hammer smashed down on top if it, crushing it into a cold red paste.

The second drake Syd swung at, aiming to chop its head off at the neck as it stumbled in the snare. However, in a surprising display of agility, the drake twisted out of the way of her attack by dropping low and sliding on its back across the ground. The move was so unexpected that Syd missed completely and stumbled slightly herself, having put too much force into the swing and overreaching as a result.

The drake spun out of its slide and turned on Jay and Syd. With a hiss and crackle, it exhaled a blast of ice breath at them both, enveloping them in the freezing magic.

Jadis could feel her bodies locking up as her flesh literally froze under the icy assault. Her feet slid on the suddenly unstable terrain as the ice daggers pierced upwards out of the ground. Even if they weren’t able to puncture her plate armor boots, they still worked against her as they proved to be almost impossible to stand on. As Jay and Syd struggled to stay on their feet and withstand the frost drake’s breath attack, the stream of frost was abruptly cut off as Thea charged the monster from the side.

At the same time, Syd had reached the wagon carrying Bridget’s unmoving form. Despite picking her up and carrying her, she remained completely stiff, her body as rigid and cold as stone. A terrible fear was clawing at the back of Jadis’ mind as she brought her new friend to Eir’s side, but she kept that rising dread out of her mind. They were still all in danger and she needed to focus on keeping everyone safe. Besides, Eir was an amazing healer, maybe the best healer on the whole damn continent. She’d cast her magic and Bridget would be fine.

She had to be.

“Let me take her,” Eir said with a calm but urgent tone.

Following Eir’s instruction, Syd laid Bridget down on the open portion of the wagon floor. Eir knelt beside her, immediately putting her hands to the orc’s cold face, a warm and suffusing glow permeating her as she concentrated on her healing magic. The battle continued on around them, but Eir paid none of it any mind as she focused her whole will upon Bridget.

Jadis knew she should turn Syd away to go help her other selves and the rest of her companions, but she found herself unable to do so. She watched the two intently, waiting for some sign of life, holding her breath as she looked to see Bridget take her own. Seconds passed as she stared at Eir’s hands on Bridget’s face. As the moment lengthened, the dark fear that Jadis was struggling to hold back crept over closer to the fore.

Syd nearly jumped out of her skin as Bridget abruptly took a deep breath, then began coughing and gasping like she’d been half drowned.

“Oh fuck,” Syd let out her own breathless gasp as she fell forward slightly. “Oh thank D, thank Lyssandria. Fucking thank you.”

Relief flooded through Jadis, mixing with her adrenaline high to make her bodies shake. Letting out twin shouts of righteous fury, both Jay and Dys charged at the remaining frost drakes she could see still present. Both caught up to and killed another drake each as the beasts were entangled with the soldiers, but as those two drakes were slaughtered, the other few drakes still surrounding the wagons retreated, disappearing into the darkening forest as they fled from prey that had proven too tough for them to take.

As the battlefield quieted, the sound of panting men and frightened horses echoed in the cold air. Looking around, Jadis could see several of the soldiers lying on the ground, some looking grievously injured but all of them still alive, from what she could tell. She herself felt like she’d been turned into a frozen meat patty and wanted nothing more in that moment than to sit down by a fire, close her eyes, and sleep for about a year.

“Hey,” Kerr broke through Jadis’ thoughts as she approached Dys. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Dys said with a nod, leaning on her lance. “Are you?”

“Yeah,” Kerr said back with a shaky breath of her own. “Killed a frost drake with two shots. All on my own.”

“Nice,” Dys commented, still keeping her eyes on the forest to make sure the fled drakes weren’t doubling back for another round.

There was a short pause of silence between the two of them.

“My boots are completely fucked though,” Kerr said, raising one foot up to reveal it had been shredded by the frost drake’s ice breath attack.

“...Good thing you brought an extra pair, huh.”

“...Fuck.”