He didn’t feel it coming when Helethshan attacked Orthos.
There was no way he could have. The attack used virtually no madra, as the dragon hadn’t Enforced himself, and he had been right next to Orthos. When his tail flicked Orthos into the wall, Ziel heard an echoing crack of impact and then another crash as Orthos hit the wall.
The turtle wasn’t gravely injured, only dazed. Ziel knew that.
But for a moment, something in his spirit thrummed along with the distant tone. Like a string had been plucked in his soul.
Maybe he had felt something in himself that was approaching a Sage’s authority.
That deserves some more consideration, Ziel thought, as he pulled his hammer away from the wall.
The wall through which he’d just launched the dragon Archlord.
The sheer impact had blown back the other dragons, but Ziel didn’t even remember delivering the blow.
He didn’t regret it, though.
Ziel turned to Orthos, whose head was just peeking out of his shell. “How long will it take you to shrink?”
“Whuh?”
“Too long.”
Ziel grabbed Orthos by the edge of the shell and used his Stone Anchor Enforcer technique, binding his feet to the ground and increasing his weight. So he wouldn’t go flying when he tossed Orthos, as hard as he could, down the hall.
Black fire streaked down on him in a dark rain, and he caught most of it on his shield. Then he Forged scripts to launch him away.
Red-streaked black madra erupted out of the hole in the wall, and Ziel’s spirit screamed danger. He turned and blocked the attack with his shield, even activating the shield’s binding to project a huge wall of Forged madra in front of him.
The dragon’s breath had been refined in Archlord soulfire, and the technique melted his Forged wall like a bonfire melted ice, but even that was long enough.
The script around Ziel’s torso finished Forging, and he launched himself down the hall like a thrown spear.
If Orthos weren’t here, Ziel could fight. He and the dragon had been somewhat evenly matched before, and while the other Lord-level dragons could potentially tip the scales, Ziel still might be able to win.
With Orthos, he had too much of a vulnerability. He couldn’t be sure the dragons would threaten Orthos for an advantage against Ziel—though he’d bet his hammer they would—but even if they didn’t, the battle itself would put Orthos in danger.
So they had to run.
The problem was, the dragons knew this place better than they did.
Ziel caught up to Orthos in a moment, and he stopped his own momentum with a quick ring of script. He pointed into a hallway, to where he heard louder music in his soul. “That way!”
Orthos didn’t question him, for which he was grateful. The turtle ignited the Burning Cloak and ran.
Not fast enough, of course.
Even that brief stop was enough for Helethshan to catch up to them, and the hallway filled with roaring flames.
These had been conjured with aura. Real fire, augmented by destruction aura so it could threaten even Ziel. Fortunately, scripts were great at blocking the effects of aura.
A circle warding against fire specifically took Ziel a moment of concentration, but when he Forged it around him, it pushed the blaze away.
Sparks landed on his cloak and went out almost immediately. He wasn’t concerned about it. If his cloak could be damaged by that little, it wouldn’t have lasted all this time.
But the fire was just a distraction, and a moment later Helethshan arrived. He slashed down with his foreclaws, powered by the volatile movement of his own Burning Cloak.
The Stone Anchor held Ziel down, and he struck at the claws with his hammer.
Explosive force quenched the fire, but Helethshan kept Ziel on the defensive with a barrage of Striker techniques. He blocked some with his shield, some with his hammer, and slipped aside from others.
When the dragon Archlord hit him with his claws again, Ziel was prepared for it.
He angled his shield, catching the blow and releasing his Stone Anchor at the same time. The hit launched him through the hallway, where he supplemented the speed of his flight with scripts.
Orthos was waiting for him at the end of the hall. Next to a shining arc of silver runes that had emerged from the wall.
Ziel frantically gestured as he flew, but Orthos only figured out what he meant and ran to the side at the last second.
Frantically, Ziel’s eyes moved over the script as he landed and skidded to a halt. He had studied enough of these scripts now to understand their structure, even if he didn’t understand all the principles involved. He needed to find a particular sequence.