Sons of Ironstorm - Book 4: Griffon's Stand

Elemental Fury

The portal was little more than a glowing circle a handspan in diameter, visible in what would be on a man the throat. But, with the amount of martial skill gathered in the Scions, Shawn had little doubt they'd be able to strike through the small opening with high accuracy.

Sure enough, as soon as Lawrence had called for the strike, the Scions opened fire with their ancient weapons, each sending a precision stream of deadly light slashing through the air directly towards the small portal Shawn had managed to open. Hesitating to fire himself, the Wielder of the Star instead focused on keeping that portal, perhaps their only chance to penetrate the dragon's magical defenses, open.

Thus he was the first to feel the dragon's attention abruptly turn away from the field of battle to what should've been an insignificant flash of energy close to its throat.

"What is this?" the dragon rumbled. Despite hearing it speak out loud, Shawn got the impression that it was speaking mostly to itself and only surprise made those words audible.

"Has one of these foolish mortals finally used their intelligence to make this fight more interesting?" Then, with a weight of a thousand mountains collapsing against his senses, Shawn felt Damdalinor close his tiny portal with brute force.

<<No!>> he cried out in desperate dismay and watched as the Scions' magical attack once again deflected harmlessly off of the dragon's restored protection at the very last possible moment. <<Brother!>>

Hearing the Wielder of the Star cry out, the dragon twisted his head back towards him.

"That was your little portal, wasn't it?" Damdalinor hissed. "Impressive. Almost as impressive as what you did to escape me in the keep." Then dark strands of energy were lashing through the shadow fire to hammer at Shawn's hastily-reinforced shielding.

Superficially resembling the black lightning used by both the Kaal Eran and their giant masters, the Abysslords, the strands were more fluid and rope-like. Yet they traveled as fast and, as Shawn watched with a grimace as they quickly ripped through the top layers of his magical protection with a single strike, they were as deadly. 'Perfect! Now the beast decides to use magic!' he thought darkly. Then he was desperately pulling more cosmic energy in to shore up suddenly-weakened shields as a strange runic shape appeared beneath him, carved into the very stone itself with a black so deep, it drank in the light. Light that included the magic in his shielding.

Feeling that shielding refuse to be buttressed, Shawn quickly extended his senses into the shield to see what was wrong with it. And in doing so, he saw that it was being rapidly drained of power. Knowing he only had shades before it collapsed, likely to his detriment, he threw himself bodily through the shield and to the side, hitting the ground with a shoulder before rolling into a ready crouch. Just in time to turn and watch the black rune consume his shield whole in a shimmer of discharge and destruction.

"There is no place you can hide, Wielder," Damdalinor hissed as more black runes appeared in front of Lawrence and the Scions, forcing them to hastily retreat or have their protection also stripped. "Not behind your magic, nor your fate. I will cut you down where you stand!" Then black runes were appearing in the air a heartbeat before fire rained from the sky and razor-sharp shards of obsidian were cutting through the air parallel to the ground away from the dragon and towards the beleaguered Wielders and Scions.

"Master Everstrider, I need you to keep the remainder of our forces beyond the inner wall," Shawn directed as a number of those obsidian shards, long and thick like a highland dagger, punched through his shielding and turned the inside of his protection into a deadly pincushion. His grimace deepened with concern as the rain of fire that had accompanied the scything shards began striking their outer ends and heating them up, turning the space inside his shield into an oven.