Knights of the Grey City

Chapter 32 - BURNED

The pain was unbelievable. It hounded my every movement, every step, every thought. My instincts screamed at me that everything was wrong. My body shouldn't feel like this, my surroundings shouldn't look like this; I shouldn't be here at all. Where was I?

It's not that my senses weren't working, just that my thoughts were so jumbled that I hadn't been able to interpret what I was seeing. In what felt like slow motion, the situation became clearer to me: I was still in the crumbling, grey district partway in between the wastelands and the main city. I was on a street and there was a demon's body dissolving under my feet.

Someone was speaking to me in my head, an ongoing litany I could not interpret. There was a glowing, white creature flying overhead, scattered with wounds. My enemy. I snarled at it, warning it to stay away if it valued its life. I didn't want to fight here for no reason when I was in this state. I wanted to return to the waterfront.

The words in my head rose in pitch, but I paid them no mind. I started to limp away, keeping an eye on my shining enemy up above, my senses spread out to find where my other enemy had gone.

I found it shortly. The firedrake was fighting a demon nearby, and as I drew near, it won the battle and crushed the demon in its jaws. It, too, was damaged, claw marks oozing fiery blood along its hide. It turned to me and let out a low growl.

I snarled back. I was tempted to pass by it and let it be, but I knew that it had already attacked me once with no provocation. Despite the wounds all over my body, it was best to deal with this enemy before I returned to the waterfront, lest it return to bother me in the future. I slowly began to circle around it, muscles tense.

The shining creature landed in between us, wings spread wide. I leapt to swat it out of the way. It danced back and slapped my shoulder with its wing, setting me off balance, then used the opening to leap at my face. I staggered back and clawed at it, but it dug its talon into my left eye.

I twisted and slammed my head—and the shining creature—into the nearest wall. It darted away, seemingly unharmed, and came again for my face. In my wounded state, I just wasn't fast enough to fight it. My left eye was blurred and dark, and the next attack blinded my right eye.

As if I needed eyes to see! With my spatial sense, all was still clear around me, and I traced the movement of my shining enemy until he was close enough to strike. I pounced and tried to bite down on his neck, but he put a wing in the way, and my teeth sank into the armoured feathers. I shook him a few times by the wing and threw him to the ground.

The pain, the pain, the pain. Blinded eyes, cracked scales, strained muscles; everything screamed at me. I tried to go after the shining dragon to follow up with more attacks, but stumbled with my own weakness. Something was failing, something was wrong. I wasn't yet at the end of my strength, but something was taking what remained from me, forcing me into a smaller and weaker form.

I slipped back into unconsciousness.

Time seemed to pass in odd waking dreams, which slid instantly out of my memory. After some time, warm golden light shone through my eyelids. I blinked and woke up in the Sanctuary.

"What the hell?" I asked. Huang as the Gargoyle and Katie as Katie were both peering at me as we stood in the entrance hall of the Sanctuary. The warm afternoon sunlight radiated from the windows, a diffuse glow that didn't cast any shadows.

"Back to normal, I see," Huang said.

"What happened?" I asked quietly.

"We should get you into the atrium to heal up," Huang said, deftly avoiding answering me. "Want to wait in the entrance, Katie?"