The Heavenly Host (Demons of Astlan Book 2) (32 page)

Peter ignored the lightning and laughed, as did Penelope.

“That is an excellent question!” Zed replied in answer to how ice dragons could fly at this altitude.. “One that we carpet warriors have often debated.”

“Fortunately,” Peter said, “we have come up with the only possible explanation!”

“Which is?” Gastropé asked.

“It’s magic!” The other three all shouted in unison before bursting into laughter.
ZZzzssstttt!
Went another quiet lightning.

~

Elrose hurried towards one of the topside portals. As he had gotten to the upper deck, he had been handed a high-altitude com unit for communication, breathing and warmth. That would save him some effort. A satyr had helped dial him into the same link that Maelen and the others on the top of the ship would be using.

It had taken him longer to get here than one might have hoped. He had not yet properly unpacked his baggage and so had been forced to scramble through his trunks and wardrobe to get everything together. Fortunately, he kept his combat robe stocked and mostly ready to go. He’d swapped out a few of his wands for ones he thought be more appropriate, and had a few seconds of debate on the choice of rings. Several of them did not get along with each other, given elemental affiliations and such. However, he had felt that some additional lightning protection would be worthwhile.

He also had to load up on the most relevant potions. He grabbed several vials of plain water as well. One could not store potions in a combat robe; most potions had to be relatively fresh.  He had swapped out his boots and belt and finally grabbed his primary combat staff. He took only one staff, since he would need the other hand for wands.

He noted the pressure spell keeping a barrier between the ship and the ladders leading topside. He stepped through and felt the air pressure drop and temperature decrease quickly. Fortunately, the com circlet was doing its job. He would need to study these units, if he survived.

Elrose awkwardly climbed the ladder; the staff and his long robe made it tricky. He finally made it to the roof of the cloudship. There was Maelen near the front of the ship, looking towards the newest arrivals. As he headed toward the seer, a carpet rose through the roof of the cloud to his left and then quickly spun and headed aft of the ship and down towards the majority of attackers.

“What do we have ahead?” Elrose asked the seer.

“These four liches and dragons are further out, so the carpets have been going aft. We now have two carpets headed to the forward targets, and a third is nearing launch,” Maelen responded.

Elrose nodded. “Trevin?”

Trevin came in over the command channel. “Go ahead, Elrose.”

“Alright if I take one or more of the forward attackers?” Elrose asked.

“By yourself?” Trevin sounded uncertain.

“It’s been a while, but I think I should be able to manage at least one, and do damage to a few of the others,” the wizard responded. Maelen raised an eyebrow, impressed.

“Go for it,” Trevin came back.

Elrose smiled at Maelen. “Never fought a lich, but I wrote a paper on ice dragons once. Have a pretty good idea how to deal with them.”

“Then have fun turning theory to practice,” Maelen chuckled.

Elrose grinned and concentrated on his boots, reciting the keyword to activate his link to them. His robe began to billow as the boots brought up air pressure underneath and around them, allowing Elrose to rise above the ground. He nodded to Maelen with a grin and said, “Gotta run!” Maelen nodded as Elrose took off running very quickly towards the forward dragons.

~

Jenn gulped as the very large carpet they were on began surging downward. It felt like her stomach was going to come up through her mouth. She gritted her teeth and hung on tighter.

The catcher carpets were larger and more complex than the combat carpets. The main carpet was good sized and could, in theory, seat eight. However, some space was reserved for those who were caught, so the crew was only five people: the pilot, a backup pilot, Jenn, an aeromaster named Paulinas who could also do some healing, and a large fellow about whom she knew nothing. The most obvious thing for him to do was probably to reel people in.

The carpet was odd in that the “carpet” part of it, while good sized, was not out of line for a large room carpet. However, around the edges of the carpet, including the corners, were large nets extending another fifteen feet from the carpet. Magical buoys at the inner and outer corners of the netting supported the nets in the air. Apparently, these carpets actually caught falling people.

Their pilot, Talinea, had told her they were fortunate today in that there would be no aetós in the air due to insufficient air to provide lift for their wings. Therefore, they would be concentrating on spotting and catching people knocked off carpets. That and coming alongside carpets to try to heal people.

Jenn took a deep breath. If she had thought healing people on the sailing ship was a task, this was insane! As they plummeted to get below the rear attackers, she noted that the large fellow was paying very close attention to the carpets that were approaching the dragons. She suddenly realized that he must have some form of magical vision to spot people.

That gave her an idea. She had not been sure what she as a thaumaturge could bring to the table, but she could enhance her eyesight with a spell she knew. That would allow her to spot people in trouble. She grabbed the necessary components and began the spell.

As the spell took hold, she blinked to adjust her new high-powered vision. She decided she would also turn on wizard sight, as that might help spot potential issues. She blinked again and looked over towards the liches. Crap! She wished she had not done that. The ice dragons appeared about as she would expect, although what she expected she did not know, but the liches were coiling masses of blackness. Not at all pleasant; in fact, quite disquieting.

Jenn spoke to her carpetmates on her circlet. “I’ve upped my eyesight and wizard sight. Should I keep an eye out across the board, or should I focus on particular carpets?”

The large fellow turned and grinned at her. “Teamwork, good.”

~

Crap! That thing is big!
Gastropé thought to himself, seeing the ice dragon as they swung in closer to the dragon-mounted lich. He really had to focus on the giant ice dragon, which was about one hundred feet long from nose to tail. The reason for his focus on the ice dragon was due to the fact that he had tried to look at the storm lich and had nearly soiled his pants.

For once, he was glad to have faced down Tom in the valley, because while the lich was completely terrifying, it was still less terrifying than a greater demon. Actually, Tom was terrifying, but was not sickening. That was the difference, Gastropé decided in the few moments he had to think about it. A greater demon radiated awe-inspiring power, making one feel feeble and insignificant; the lich sent deep, ancestral chills down one’s spine.

The storm lich was probably about seven feet tall, emaciated and wearing rotting formal clothes with a huge, ragged black cape. But the rotting clothes were nothing compared to the lich’s rotting flesh. His first look at the lich’s eyeless face had revealed what appeared to be maggots crawling from the lich’s eye sockets, as well as holes in its cheeks. Further, the cold near the ice dragon and lich were far worse than the already sub-freezing wind temperature.

“
Idire nox firatus
!” Gastropé shouted, launching a fireball from his wand nearly point-blank at the lich where it was perched on the dragon’s back. He did not want to stare directly at it. The carpet quickly banked, even as the ice dragon stumbled in the air just below them. Penelope’s gravity spell or whatever it was had rocked the dragon.

Gastropé twisted his head to look back at the dragon and lich to see if his spell had done much. Apparently not. Another carpet was coming in on the same trajectory they had just used. Fireballs, lightning bolts and some more weird light disturbances from the gravity wave rolled over the dragon and lich. Gastropé could not see much more of the latest attack, as they were moving quickly away to get lined up again.

“Incoming!” Zed shouted. Gastropé twisted to the rear to see rapidly approaching icicles coming at them from the lich. “
Idire tres firatus aerus!
” Gastropé shouted and pointed towards the icicle barrage with his wand, releasing a superheated blast of fire to melt the missiles.

Zed cursed and started patting his curly hair. “You nearly fried my locks!”

“You prefer singes or ice daggers to the heart?” Gastropé asked.

ZZzzssstttt!
A silent lightning bolt from the ship struck the dragon.

Wow, those things are huge compared to the ones I can create
, Gastropé thought to himself as he saw it up close.

Penelope was busy concentrating on her next spell. He wished he could think of something big and nasty that would work, but he really did not have much ready other than fire and lightning. That was usually fine for most combat magic. Clearly, his training had not considered beings immune to such things. Gastropé frowned. Given that besides the Oorstemothians, most of the opposing forces he had gone up against had been either demons, ice dragons or liches, none of whom were that bothered by fire, he really needed to get some new spells.

As they banked for the next round, Peter called back, “Gastropé, aim for the dragon’s face this time. See if you can melt its eyebrows, get water in its eyes, blind it, and distract it. Penelope’s about to try to hit it hard with a giant gravity suck to try to pull it to the ground. We are so high, I’m not sure how well it will work, but it’s worth a shot, and the more disoriented it is, the better.”

“Got it!” Gastropé yelled back. Actually, he did not need to yell with the com circlet, but his ears were so plugged from the altitude that it was hard to hear. At least the wind was not that bad, given that there was very little air.

Gastropé chanted quickly to start upping the mana level for his next wand blast. He was going to try to do a sustained cone of fire. The carpet spun and started heading straight for the lich and dragon. “
Idire tres firatus aerus mesapus!
” Gastropé shouted, aiming. The fire from his wand expanded outward in a cone as expected; what was unexpected was the return of the dragon’s icy-cold breath! The cone of flame and somewhat conical ice blast met between the two parties, sending blasts of fire, ice and water in all directions, including back to the carpet. Gastropé wanted to curse, but he needed to keep his concentration on the cone of fire. He muttered the incantations to up the power and replenish the flow, but this was going to be hard.

Suddenly Penelope shoved both her arms out towards the dragon and swept them downward. The dragon lurched hard and began plunging towards the ground. The lich screeched, an absolutely terrifying sound, and seemed to rise off its saddle as it scrambled to hang on, its ride suddenly hurtling towards the ground. The two dropped from sight even as the carpet moved over the area where they had been.

“Wow, that must have been one loud screech if we could hear it!” Zed laughed.

The four on the carpet cheered; glancing at the other carpet, they saw several thumbs up. Gastropé was thrilled. That was exciting! He glanced over at the other battles; there had been five dragons and liches aft of the ship. There were ten carpets behind the ship, two per dragon and lich pair.

As he turned his eyes back to their partner carpet, he saw it lurch dramatically as an enormous lightning bolt from the lich struck the pilot. The carpet began quickly spinning, twisting and losing altitude. It somersaulted a couple of times and then the rear pilot managed to regain control; however, on the last roll the wounded front pilot was wrenched from the carpet and began free falling through the air. There was smoke from the front of the carpet; the pilot’s straps had probably been burnt off.

Crap!
Gastropé was appalled to see how fast the pilot was falling. He peered over the edge to see a catcher carpet moving through the air at an amazing speed, trying to position itself under the falling pilot. Gastropé could not see if the pilot was caught, as Peter banked the carpet, causing the catcher carpet and pilot to go below Gastropé’s line of sight.

“Problem, folks!” Peter called. “Our friend is coming back up!” He pointed down, into the bank. Sure enough, the lich and dragon they had sent speeding downward were returning quickly, climbing almost straight up. “Penelope, if we dive bomb them, can you gravity blast them back?”

“I will try!” Penelope yelled and began preparing a spell.

“Hang on, everyone!” Peter called as he spun the carpet in a tight circle and then directed it almost straight down in a collision course with the lich and dragon.

Gastropé shook his head; he had no real idea what to do other than repeat his last attack. As they got into close range, Gastropé pointed his wand and chanted the key phrase for another extended cone of fire. The fire leapt from the wand and Gastropé worked hard to adjust his aim. At such long distances it was tricky, as every movement caused the tower of flame to wave in arcs from side to side or up and down as he adjusted his aim.

Penelope yelled something and their carpet lurched hard as if in recoil. There was a roar as the ice dragon fell back and began plummeting again. Peter righted the carpet; they were now below the catcher carpet. Gastropé hoped they had caught the plunging pilot.