Xanum

Chapter 13

I opened my eyes to snow falling softly down from a white sky, and the first sensation I felt was cold. Everything was cold, I was surrounded by it, encased in a tomb of ice. I pushed myself upward and sat up. I pushed a slight layer of snow off my armor with each movement. I felt as if I had to get out of the armor as fast as I could, I didn't know how long I'd been there, but I was surprised that I hadn't developed hypothermia yet. I looked around and located Tony, only a few feet away from me. I wasn't in the spot in which the dragon had sent me, which meant that I'd been moved somehow, he had likely dragged me. He was standing over Fayne's body. I leapt up out of the snow and rushed over to him, ignoring the throbbing pain in my chest.

As I got to Fayne, I felt fatigue in my body, and I felt that I would collapse, but I didn't have a choice, I had to keep moving.

"What happened?" I asked. Tony flinched when he heard my voice.

"I didn't know you were awake," he said.

"What happened to him? Is he dead?" I asked again.

"No, he's fine, he just used all his energy when he tossed that dragon like a rag," Tony said.

"He did what?" I asked. I hadn't seen what had happened, but if Fayne had picked the dragon up with magic and physically thrown it, I would want to learn how he did it. That seemed like a powerful spell.

"He picked it up, and threw it like a used rag. I've been watching over him, Omayre has been trying to find some wood for a fire, but there's a storm coming and I'm not sure she's going to make it back in time," Tony said. If he had sent the old bird on a quest for firewood, then things were worse than I'd thought. I looked around at the surrounding area, noting the devastation caused by the dragon, and the bodies it had left in its ice. I thought back to what the dragon had done, it had raised the dead. Necromancy, not to mention the fact that it had the same powers and influence over the dead that Xanum himself did. That raised some massive questions, and I wanted them answered.

"Tony." I said.

"What?"

"Did you see what it did? It raised the dead, it has the same power as Xanum," I said.

"Yeah, I saw it. We can talk about it later," he said.

"What happened to the soldiers after he attacked us?" I asked. He started a sentence, but in the middle of the first word, he stopped and looked at me.

"You're right," he said. He looked around, I did as well, but there were no reanimated soldiers anywhere. There were still a few left in the shattered pieces of the dragon's ice, but they weren't moving. "They're gone," Tony said. He turned to me, astonished.

"Do you think they're dead?" I asked. It would make sense for the creatures to have disappeared if they had died, but I didn't think anything had attacked them, so it didn't make sense that they were just gone.

"We didn't get anywhere near them. I don't remember Fayne doing anything to them with magic either. I have no idea what happened here. When he wakes up, we need to talk to him about it," Tony said. His remarks reminded me of the current situation.

"Where's Omayre? Maybe I can go help her," I said.

"I am here," Omayre said. She fluttered down from above. I turned to look at her in surprise. Evidently she was capable of flight.

"Did you find anything?" Tony asked. He approached the bird, but he slumped in disappointment when she opened her arms and revealed that she had nothing.

"There are no trees for miles. We must move," Omayre said. That was bad news.

"What kind of storm is this?" I asked.