Protect your head, my dragon thought-hollered, blasting me with power. The sweet fire filled me up and rushed through my blood. My senses heightened and my thought process sped up as blackness washed over me, cutting out my sight. It was clearly magically induced.
I closed my eyes so it wouldn’t distract me, focusing instead on my other senses and the need to survive. Pungent aromas assaulted me, vomit and piss and decay wrapped in a musty scent like mold. I twisted and bent, making sure my first point of contact would be my side. A moment later, my hip hit a hard corner, half on and half off my sword scabbard. My upper body slammed down on stone steps.
I grunted and tucked, wrapping my hands around my head, forming a shape as close to a ball as I could manage.
Hang on, folks, we’re about to do a little acrobatics, I thought desperately, speaking to my imaginary audience the way I always did under dire circumstances. My dragon must have felt the pressure, because she didn’t call me an idiot.
I slid a little before the momentum lifted my feet and threatened to send me the rest of the way down on my head. My dragon continued to beat power into me, pulling it from Nyfain’s dragon. Even all this distance away, we could still feel each other through the bond. It would play hell on Nyfain’s nerves, knowing I was in trouble and he couldn’t come to my aid, but for now I’d take what I could get.
The added power dulled the ache of the first landing, lessening the feel of stone scraping off skin. I tucked in harder, angling, and my bottom half flipped over the top. My ankle struck a step, and agony shot up my leg as my other foot caught. It was now my upper body’s turn to fly over the lower. I was out of control. Careening.
Metal tinkled beside me and then below. My sword had somehow gotten loose and was now racing me to the bottom. Fantastic. As if I needed one more thing to worry about.
My other ankle smashed into a step. Crack. Incredible pain filled my world, forcing out a cry. Broken ankle, probably. Fractured, at least.
The fall seemed to go on forever, the pain threatening to overwhelm me with each agonizing bounce, each jostling of my newly busted ankle.
A breathless few moments later, my upper body crashed onto something somewhat soft. My legs didn’t fare so well, though, smashing into the stone landing with enough force to send hot sparks of pure anguish racing up my body.
With my eyes still squinted shut, I sucked in a shuddering breath. I allowed one small tear to track across my pounding cheek. At least it didn’t feel like anything was sticking into me. I must’ve missed the sword.
The world stopped spinning, and wet warmth seeped into my hair. I blinked my eyes open, afraid to move lest I jar my ankle, and looked at rough-hewn walls around me, not illuminated but not magically coated in darkness. My dragon’s ability to see in the dark was strong enough for me to make out my miserable surroundings.
“What the fuck was he thinking?” I recognized that deep voice from above. Govam, they’d called him.
He grabbed my arms, unceremoniously hoisting me up. My foot caught on something and dragged over it, my busted ankle screaming at me. My sides ached, my back pounded, and my body was covered in stings from where I’d scraped stone. But I was alive. I’d made it down. “He was worried about her losing a leg, but then he threw her down the fucking steps? He could’ve killed her.”
A tug on my hip registered before I heard the slide of my sword against the scabbard. Govam pushed it down to make sure it was secure. He must’ve grabbed it when it landed, possibly saving me from impalement.
“Not our problem.”
A strong smell drifted from Govam. He had a decent amount of power. More than the other.
I grunted as I spied what I’d landed on. Luru, who hadn’t fared as well as I had. He lay with a cracked skull and a chest glistening with blood. Something must’ve broken internally and punctured his skin.
Govam pulled me back to the wall at the other side of the landing, forcing me to step on my injured leg and nearly dragging a strangled cry from my throat.
“There, see?” Govam said as the second demon, a broad-faced creature with a wide nose, stepped in front of me and looked me over.
Broad Face zeroed in on my ankle, held off the ground and throbbing. “She’s fucked up,” he confirmed.
“Ah, well. She’ll heal. When their magic isn’t suppressed, dragons heal quick.”
“What’s to stop her from shifting? I never had the guts to ask the higher-ups on the way here. Seems stupid to let a dragon shift. They’re enormous and mean.”