A Dragon's Tale Ch. 44

Selene looked behind them to see five more soldiers run up behind them from another street.

They were trapped.

That wasn't good.

All the ladies stopped, looking wary.

*Ethan, we're about to be ambushed by some Ivernian guards.* Alana thought to the group chat.

*Fuck!* Ethan nearly roared over the bond. *I can't fly directly there because of the trees. God Damnit! I'll make for open ground and get there as fast as I can.*

The wood elf looked at the man who seemed to be commanding the others, as he had white shoulder markings on his surcoat which the others didn't. "What can I help you with?"

"Are you the wives of Ethan Ejder." The man said.

It wasn't a question.

"Yes." Alana replied simply. Selene supposed that it didn't make much sense to lie; it was rather obvious and the news was all over town.

"Surrender your weapons; you're under arrest." The commander barked.

"For what crime?" The wood elf asked.

"Aiding and abetting that Fey--" He pointed at Taloni. "--who accompanied your husband while he attacked a Reeve."

"From what I understand, that Reeve was cheating people out of their money by taking more than he should have." The brunette countered. "Shouldn't you be arresting him?"

"No one messes with a Reeve in Ivernia. No one." The commander replied, clearly not interested in discussing the matter. "Drop your weapons or we'll take them off your corpses."

"You sure you want to make adragon angry by attacking his wives?" Selene asked.

The commander scoffed. "Everyone knows that dragons don't give a shit about the bitches they bed; he'll replace you within a month. Last chance; drop your weapons."

*Ladies.* Alana though to all of them. *Surrender or no?*

Selene considered. The men were wearing almost full chainmail, though their faces were exposed. Their elven swords could pierce the chainmail on a good reinforced thrust, but cuts would be entirely ineffective. On the other hand, none of the ladies were wearing armor and Selene didn't have her shield either. Sure she'd practiced without it, but she was far better with it.

"Kill them." The commander said, apparently thinking that three seconds of hesitation was too long.

Selene drew her sword.

Behind her, she heard Kendra do the same and then the dragon huntress thought to everyone. *Taloni, fly back to the Argo and get Serif and Raklan. Now!*

The Fey nodded, then her wings became a blur as she started flying away.

*Rachel, behind us!* Kendra though to everyone.

The men at the rear had charged.

Rachel spun around and let off two successive air-rams, knocking them back and stunning them somewhat. But for a few seconds, she hadn't been looking forwards.

She hadn't been watching the enemy archer.

Twang!

Taloni screamed.

Selene looked up to see the most wonderful, sweetest girl she'd ever met tumble out of the sky with an arrow sticking out of her chest. She couldn't even see where she'd gone or how injured she was because she'd tumbled out of sight, behind another building.

"Taloni!" Kendra yelled.

*Selene, incoming!* Rachel thought to the group chat, a blazing inferno in her tone.

The Brazilian woman looked forward in time to see an incredibly powerful air-ram hit the archer from behind, blasting him forwards and towards her. She extended her blade, activating her strength enhancing vambraces just before the archer was literally thrown onto her sword. Her blade easily punctured the chainmail and buried itself up to the hilt in the man's chest, piercing his heart through. She barely had time to recover and remove her sword because the other guards from the front started closing.

Fast.

* * *

Ethan tore through the forest as fast as he possibly could, making for open ground so he could fly.

Then he felt it.

Taloni!

He felt their bond erupt in pain, then he felt her blackout. She wasn't dead, but she must be injured. Badly injured.

*Taloni!* He called to her telepathically, but she didn't answer. He could still feel her so she was alive, but she didn't answer.

The dragon within him roared in rage and he made no attempt to suppress it. Someone had hurt Taloni. He didn't know who, but he was a dead man. Absolutely fucking dead! He gave his dragon instincts free reign as he strained his muscles running on all fours, seeing open ground just ahead.

* * *

Selene narrowly dodged a thrust that would've ended all possibility of her having children, then riposted with her arming sword. The soldier in front of her blocked it though. Another soldier next to him hacked at her, but was blown backwards by an air-ram from Rachel.

*Thanks Rachel.* She thought to everyone.

They were in trouble.

Kendra was holding off the five men to their rear while Selene held off the ones in front, and only alternating support from Rachel was even making that much possible. Alana had her sword out, but clearly didn't have much experience with it so she was wisely staying back and only attacking targets of opportunity. That didn't happen very often and she hadn't scored a good hit yet.

Really, Selene wanted to finish this fast so they could find Taloni, but there was no way to escape.

If only Alana had her bow.

*Some fireballs would be really nice right now Rachel.* Selene though to everyone.

*Then I'd have to stop--* An air ram hit a soldier in front of Selene. *--doing that.*

That's when Selene remembered.

She wasn't fighting at full strength.

She had an ace up her sleeve.

Telepathy.

She took a fraction of a second to open a window in her mental defenses so she could try to figure out what the man in front on her was going to-- half a dozen sword moves came to her mind at once. She instantly shut the window into her mind to block out the chaos, which she assumed was from multiple men. It had been a lot easier to predict Raklan when it was only one person.

She had been distracted for barely a moment while trying to do use telepathy, so Rachel had to save her skin. Thankfully, the air-ram she used made the soldier stumble into one of his comrades, making them off balance enough that Selene managed to get the point of her sword into one's neck. It didn't go deep, but hitting the throat meant you didn't need to.

He went down...

But there were four more behind him.

"Fuck!" Kendra hissed from behind her, and Selene chanced a glance. The dragon huntress had also downed one of the soldiers, but was fighting for all she was worth to keep the remaining four at bay. She was just too heavily outnumbered even with Rachel's help.

Selene had the same problem.

The other soldiers apparently had underestimated her, probably because of her looks which happened a lot. But now that she'd killed one of them, they were being a lot more cautious. Rachel kept throwing them back but wasn't using full power air-rams -- probably for lack of time -- so they weren't going very far and got back into the fray quickly. She dearly wished that Alana had her bow; half of them would've been dead right now.

Maybe all.

They were barely fighting to a standstill as it was, and the soldiers could afford to make a few mistakes with their chainmail armor. The ladies couldn't since they didn't have any.

It was looking grim...

...then Selene noticed a dark shadow flying low and fast towards them.

Ethan.

She felt her heart soar slightly as she parried another attack.

"I'm going to have some fun with y--" The soldier she'd been fighting started to say, but he never got a chance to finish the sentence.

Ethan's javelin suddenly burst through his chest.

The man directly in front of Selene hadn't noticed the oncoming dragon yet and aimed a slice at the Brazilian woman that she barely parried. The man next to him took advantage of the opening to try to run her through. However, he never got the chance.

The dragon landed on him.

It wasn't a tackle either. The dragon had dived from at least a hundred feet up and landed on him feet first, his claws digging into the chainmail. The man crumpled like someone stomping on a soda can, and the crunch was sickening.

There was a soldier on either side of him and neither out-lived the crumpled man by more than a second. At the same moment that the dragon's feet made contact, the tip of Ethan's dragon steel sword burst through one man's chest, and the other man--

CRACK!!!

The sonic boom from the lightning coming from the war hammer was nearly deafening. The electricity arced over the second soldier's chainmail, though oddly it didn't seem to affect him. Instead, it arced over the chainmail and disappeared into the ground.

The hammer strike did affect him though.

The man's back had probably been broken by the impact, and Selene took the opportunity to make sure he was dead by thrusting into his prostrate form.

The dragon kept moving.

He didn't even slow down.

One moment he was landing on the soldier, the next he was pushing off to jump into the air over his other wives. He left his sword behind, embedded up to the hilt in the solider it had killed. Then Rachel -- probably having been told to do so by him -- sent out an air-ram that pushed all of the soldiers back a few feet, but fell far short of knocking them down.

The dragon landed in the newly cleared space, extending his shield as he went. The men swung at him as one, but the large kite shield blocked their attacks. Then the dragon crouched and spun, his long tail acting like a longer third leg and sweeping two of them off their feet.

Still the dragon was moving.

He leapt forward out of his crouch, bringing his hammer down into the face of one of the soldiers he'd knocked down before he had even hit the ground. The dragon then shield-bashed one of the two still-standing soldiers, knocking one into the other. Then he brought his tail down hard on the soldier who'd just been knocked down but still had his face. The man exhaled in such a way that Selene was sure he'd just had the wind knocked out of him.

The dragon kept moving, using his shield like a battering ram he slammed into the two remaining soldiers with magically enhanced strength. He whipped his hammer out from behind the shield, hitting one man in the head.

He dropped like a ton of bricks.

The remaining man dropped his sword and might've been about to surrender... but he never got the chance. The dragon whipped his shield out, striking him in the throat. That was followed by a hammer strike to the side of the head. On earth, he would've had a closed-casket funeral.

Only then did the dragon stop.

From beginning to end, the whole thing had been one long, fluid attack. Each motion had flown from the previous and into the next with seemingly no break in flow or motion. It had taken less than ten seconds from start to finish. It had been like watching a deadly ballet. Despite the situation, she felt a slight itch in her loins at the fearsome and awe-inspiring demonstration of martial skill...

...then she remembered Taloni.

"Ethan, Taloni needs help!" Selene called. "She was hit by an arrow as she tried to fly to the Argo, that way." She pointed in the direction Taloni had fallen and Ethan instantly leapt into the air, flapping his wings to get over the buildings and dropping out of sight.

He was gone as suddenly as he'd appeared.

Selene took a deep breath.

Wow.

She could barely believe the carnage he had wrought in only a few seconds. There were ten dead men around them, only three of which had been killed by the ladies in a protracted and desperate fight for survival. The dragon had arrived and killed the remaining seven in about that many seconds. The one remaining living soldier who Ethan had smacked with his tail was still alive but gasping for breath, likely from having the wind knocked out of him.

Alana walked up to him and put a sword point to his neck.

He froze.

Selene simply couldn't believe how much devastation Ethan had wrought. Suddenly, it made a little more sense why everyone on this world feared dragons. Of course, Ethan had weapons and armor other dragons wouldn't have, plus the element of surprise which probably made him five times more effective than he otherwise might have been, but still.

"Rachel, Kendra, split up and go try to find Ethan and Taloni and see if you can heal her." Alana said. "Selene and I will make sure this Saidow spawn doesn't move an inch..." She leaned forward with a look of cold fury on her face, sword point still at his throat. "...unless he wants to meet Saidow personally."

Kendra and Rachel took off running in opposite directions.

The man gulped.

* * *

It didn't take long for Ethan to find Taloni. She hadn't fallen very far, and it looked like she'd hit a roof before tumbling into the street below. His blood ran cold when he saw the broken shaft of an arrow sticking out of her chest, but someone had beat him there.

A man was wrapping what looked like a hand towel around the arrow shaft that was sticking out of her chest. The Fey teen was propped up against a woman. Ethan vaguely recognized her as one of the two women who'd gasped when Taloni had sworn in the Fey language at the dawn service just a couple hours ago. He didn't recognize the man at all.

"Where's a healer when you need--" The man started to say.

The man and woman both jumped as Ethan dropped down next them.

"Is she okay!" He asked urgently, dropping his hammer and rushing over to his wife.

The couple was staring at him wide-eyed, and that's when Ethan realized that he was a dragon that was probably covered in blood. His war hammer especially almost looked like he dipped it in red paint.

"That's my wife." He said urgently. "How is she?"

"Um..." The woman swallowed. "The arrow missed her heart by a fair margin, but it punctured a lung."

Now that he was looking at the wound, it looked bad. The arrow had fortunately missed her wings, but it had punched through her chest on her right side and was still embedded there. The entry wound was on her back just below her right shoulder blade. The arrow was poking through her dress in the front, about two inches above the nipple of her right breast. Thankfully the arrowhead was of the slim, anti-armor bodkin type and not the wide-bladed hunting type. The former mostly poked holes, the latter might've caused enough bleeding to kill her by now. The back of the arrow shaft had snapped off right near the entry wound, probably when she'd fallen.

She was still breathing, but it was labored and she was unconscious.

*Ethan, I just sent Kendra and Rachel to find you, but they could probably use some help.* Alana thought to him.

"Kendra! Rachel! I'm over here!" He called loudly.

"I don't know what to do except keep pressure on the wound." The man said. He had wrapped a towel around the wound and pushed it up tight against her chest. Although his hands were near the Fey's breast to hold the towel, he wasn't touching it.

"I've got people coming." Ethan replied, then called loudly again. "Kendra! Rachel!"

A few moments later, Kendra and then Rachel appeared at opposite ends of the street. The moment his wives saw him, they sprinted towards him, Kendra dropping her sword in her haste.

"How is she?" Rachel asked, arriving first with the dragon huntress only moments behind.

"You tell me." Ethan said, feeling his hands start to shake slightly. He didn't know what to do, but there was nothing he wanted more than to save his wife.

"Move, let me see." Kendra said.

He moved, remembering that she would probably know first aid given her former occupation.

Kendra put her hand on Taloni, closed her eyes for several seconds, and then sighed in relief. "Okay, I think she'll be fine but we need to get this arrow out. Rachel, how good are you at healing others?"

The mage grimaced. "Not terrible, but I'm not Taloni either."

Kendra gave her a pained smile. "No one is."

Ethan swallowed hard.

"We'll do it together." Rachel replied, worry on her face.

Kendra looked at Ethan and the other man. "We need to lay her down on something clean, then pull the arrow out the front. Rachel and I will start healing as soon as possible, and hopefully she won't get too much blood in her lungs if we work fast."

"Something to set her on?" Ethan looked around wildly for a moment before he thought of something. He disengaged the back plate of his armor and dropped with the inside facing up. The outside was covered in blood, but the inside was pretty clean. It was the cleanest thing he had anyway.

Since Taloni was propped up against the woman, she helped lower the Fey onto the armor plate. The honey-blonde teen looked so small and frail to him right now. His wonderful wife. He took a deep breath and tried to remember that Kendra had said that she should be fine.

"Okay, you pull and we'll heal." Kendra said first to Ethan and then Rachel.

Ethan put one hand flat on Taloni's upper chest around the slightly bloody towel and wrapped his other hand around the arrow's shaft.

"Pull." Kendra said after both she and Rachel had their hands on the Fey teen.

He did.

With his strength-enhancing armor nearly doubling his strength, he pulled the arrow out with one hand, then used the towel to cover the wound and hopefully soak up as much blood as possible so as little blood as possible got into her chest cavity, and especially her lung.

Kendra and Rachel both had their eyes closed and Ethan could almost feel the magic at work, knitting the Fey's seemingly frail body back together.

After about a minute, they both stopped.

"She should be fine." Kendra breathed a sigh of relief, then hesitated. "Well, eventually. She'll need to take it easy for the next couple days, and she'll probably also need to monitor it for infections since we can't. But she should be fine in a few days."

Ethan breathed a huge sigh of relief. *She'll be fine ladies.* He thought to everyone.

The rush of relief from all his other wives was almost palpable.

*She'll need to rest a few days, but should make a full recovery.* He added.

Ethan looked down and realized that his hand was shaking slightly. He was still holding the bloody arrow. He dropped it like it was a venomous snake. His whole body suddenly felt very warm and his breath got a bit shaky.

"Ethan, calm down." Kendra said in a soothing voice. "She'll be okay, and the last thing we need is for you to go into shock. It's just adrenaline; it'll pass. She'll be okay."

He took a few deep breaths and nodded, then looked down at his third wife.

Taloni.

He could feel himself tearing up at the merethought of losing her. He blinked several times, trying to get himself under control. His hands were still shaking. It felt like his heart was pounding in his chest. He reached down and touched her cheek with the back of his fingers, gently stroking it while his hands shook slightly. Even in her unconscious state, he could've sworn that she inclined her head toward his hand fractionally.

He sniffled and blinked several times, and the liquid that he hadn't realized had been threatening to escape his eyes finally did so. He took a long shuddering breath as he realized how close he'd come to... to losing...

He swallowed hard.

It was too much.

"Hey, hey she'll be okay." He heard Kendra's voice from beside him, and moments later the dragon huntress had wrapped her arms around him. "She's fine, we saved her."

He broke down.

He could feel himself beginning to nearly sob and he clung to his fifth wife, and Rachel too when she added her slender arms to Kendra's.

"It'll be okay." Rachel said, though her voice cracked a bit. "She'll be okay."

"But she almost wasn't." He swallowed.

"But she is." Kendra replied. "Let it out, but she'll be okay."

"Masser?" He heard a faint voice mumble.