Sons of Ironstorm: Book 5 - Griffon's War

Chapter 9: Tides of Ice and Light

"Following the War of Scales, the drakes of the north

Were driven into the ice and snow of the great ice sheets.

There they plotted with their malevolent intelligence.

Meaning to fly south to make war on the Elves once more.

Before they could gather their strength, however, the War of Shadow had begun.

And a darkness greater than they could imagine, enveloped the world."

 - From the Kata na'Sylvinor, 'Drakes and Demons'

Cajastus grunted as his broken forearm realigned in a surge of druidic magic before the bones fused.

"Perhaps you should duck when a giant, walking lizard swings a mace as big as a cart at you," Peri admonished in that quiet voice of hers as her hands, glowing with powerful healing energies, glided over the newly repaired arm.

"Instead of trying to block it with your sword!"

Then both were pressing close to the boulder they had picked as shelter as a company of dark soldiers ran by, weapons high, including a pair of those massive walking lizards the druid had made mention of. It was many they had seen that day, the remnants of some great force retreating from the relentless pressure of a mystery army that obviously possessed enough strength to finally rout the Dark Tide and send it scurrying into the shadows.

Shadows that, unfortunately, now included the beleaguered island of Caliphra.

"Is there no end to their number?" Cajastus snarled as the rear ranks ran out of sight further up the beach, likely to attack a cluster of his royal guard that somehow managed to survive the wave after wave of attack his nation was now drowning in.

In answer Peri fell silent as she closed her eyes and extended her druidic powers in an attempt to discover the whereabouts of any additional enemy forces nearby. Her eyes, glowing with a golden light brightly enough to be visible through her closed lids, weren't closed long.

"I sense several more companies working their way along the beach," she grimly reported, looking up at the big prince. "They'll be on us in moments."

Cajastus felt a muscle ripple along his jaw with tension as he clenched his teeth against the wave of despair that rushed over him at the grim news. Then he was renewing his grip on his sword.

"Let them come," he growled, straightening up and away from the boulder. "If this is how House Tep-shad comes to an end, I will make it such an end ..."

The sounds of distant screaming that abruptly rose on the chill wind lashing the west-facing beach was enough to make the big prince frown and stop talking. Not because of the screaming; he had heard plenty in his day in the midst of battle and it certainly didn't persuade him to stop swinging his sword then.

No, it was the fact that this particular screaming, hoarse and metallic-sounding, was coming from tjor'riin throats. Exchanging a quick look with a mystified Peri, he edged along the boulder's ice-crusted face to peer around the corner. And nearly dropped his sword at the amazing sight his eyes beheld not twenty lengths down the beach.

Dragons. And big ones, the color of slate and permafrost, dropping out of the sky to lash at the companies Peri had sensed with long, cutting gouts of ice fire. Even as his eyes fell upon the nearest company, a dragon whose wings must've been five or six lengths tip to tip, pulled up from a banking dive to cut apart the dark soldiers driven to their knees by the backwash of its wings with an ice fire blast powerful enough, he felt its chill on his face even at distance.