A Dire Situation

No sooner had Saga registered the sound than she felt a wave of weakness overtake her body. She sagged in her seat, her muscles drained of energy, and her mind raced with panic and fear. Gem, similarly hunched over next to her, was muttering something under her breath, her face strained. Dapper was pacing nervously across their laps, the beatweaver glancing up at them in concern. He stopped on Saga’s leg and drummed, but she couldn’t make out what he was trying to tell her.

What is going on?

She turned her gaze to the rest of the band, who all seemed to be suffering similarly to her. Some of them were even on the ground, alarmingly still. She tried to stand, to rush to their aid, but fell to her hands and knees. She focused, trying to force herself to her feet, but her legs felt wobbly and numb, as if they’d fallen asleep.

Master Dorrin appeared beside her as if from thin air, saying something to her, but she couldn’t make his words out. The howl was still piercing her very mind, it seemed, drowning out all other noise. Strong hands shook her shoulders, and she lifted her head to look at her Master. His face was creased with worry as he examined her, then Gem.

The other woman was in the same state as Saga, barely able to move and unable to stand. He gestured to her, pointing at his ears, and Gem nodded weakly. Saga watched as she slowly reached into a pouch at her belt and withdrew two small lumps of something before sticking them in her ears.

Earplugs? She tried to focus her thoughts. She could feel the memories of her lessons there, in the fog created by both the howl and the wine in her brain, but she couldn’t seem to dredge them up. This situation felt familiar, but she couldn’t seem to make a connection. How strong was that wine?

Master Dorrin said something she couldn’t make out to Dapper and, to her surprise, the little beatweaver began rolling together a ball of his webbing. When it was about the size of the tip of her thumb, he started on another while her master pushed the wad of webbing into her left ear. Almost immediately she felt some of her strength return, though she wasn’t sure if she could do more than stand in place if she tried. She waited patiently as the two worked on plugging her other ear, breathing a sigh of relief as soon as the unnatural howl was cut off.

She stood, giving her shaky legs a minute to recover and bolster herself. Meanwhile, Gem was tending to the band, going from person to person and putting ear plugs in their ears. Where had she gotten all of them? She turned back to Master Dorrin and, sure enough, he was wearing a pair too. Had everyone but her been prepared for this? She asked Master Dorrin what was going on, but when he didn’t respond, watching Gem, she realized they wouldn’t be able to hear each other. Tapping his shoulder to get his attention, she tried again, speaking carefully and slowly as he watched her mouth. His mouthed response made the memory she’d been fumbling come right to the front of her mind.

“Snarewolf.”

She frowned, recalling her lessons at the Academy. Direwolves were monster wolves, bigger and meaner than their mundane kin. They had two main points that set them apart as monsters: They could rally large numbers of normal wolves in a relatively short amount of time, and their howl could inflict a paralyzing fear on humans. She immediately realized that her being a drake is the reason she’d been able to move at all; one of a drake’s advantages in being an adventurer is their resistance to mental attacks. A quick survey of the band showed her that all of the people who’d fallen completely to the floor had been normal humans, while the ones who’d simply been stunned were drakes like her and Gem. Master Dorrin had probably been partially spared by the whisperwing hide inside the tent, though she was still impressed by his response time.

Saga looked around their campsite at the surrounding tents and wagons. Everywhere she looked people were broken up into the same three groups: Those who’d succumbed to the Snarewolf’s howl, those who had somehow resisted the effect but were still incapacitated, and a minority group of adventurers and Guards who ran to and fro, completely unaffected. This latter group were likely the ones who were quick to react with ear plugs, like her Master.

A tap at her shoulder brought her attention back to her new friends. Gem and Master Dorrin were having a conversation, both of them reading each others’ lips. Nell, who’d apparently been the one to get her attention, was holding up a vial for Saga to see. It was filled with an amber liquid that vaguely resembled honey, and Nell was pantomiming the act of drinking it for Saga’s benefit.

She eyed the vial suspiciously as she accepted it from the platinum girl, but when Nell urgently motioned for her to drink it, she gave in and did. The bitter flavor that filled her mouth had more in common with vinegar than honey, and it made her cough. Nearby, she heard Gem and a couple of the others coughing as well, but it only took a few seconds for Saga to feel the effects of the potion. All of the mental fuzziness and warmth of the wine she’d consumed had vanished, as if she’d been drinking nothing but water. She couldn’t help but give the now-empty vial a begrudgingly appreciative look before handing it back to Nell, who pocketed it and went to stand by her brother.

Saga made eye contact with Gem, who smiled grimly, and joined her in front of Amos and Dorrin. The two men were speaking with each other, though Saga couldn’t read their lips from where she stood, not that she’d been much good at it to begin with. She only waited a few moments before a decision was apparently made, and the two men began pointing to various members of the band. Amos took Nell, Herb, and Tuck with him and ran down the row of tents, stopping to help those who were still paralyzed get to safety, while the remaining band members and Saga remained with Master Dorrin.

He turned to Saga, his face serious, and pointed at his eyes, and then the sky. She nodded her understanding and, taking a few steps away to give herself space, gathered her Will. The wind gathered around her feet like a loyal hound, building up pressure until she thought it might send her flying. Just when she didn’t think she could hold it together anymore, she allowed to it to escape in only a single direction: up. The process of casting the spell took less than a second, but the results were spectacular, at least in Saga’s opinion. The blast of air launched her into the sky, and she spun in midair as she ascended, looking for signs of trouble.

There. She caught a glimpse of a group of armored men near one of the southern entrances to Cristin’s Crossroads, waving torches to hold back what looked like a solid mass of brown, black, and grey fur. More and more humans were running in their direction, but their numbers wouldn’t be enough.

She gathered the wind below her one more time as she fell, softening her landing, and turned back to the group, pointing in the direction she’d seen the commotion. Master Dorrin nodded approvingly, while Gem gave her a thumbs up. The three of them, joined by Copel and Pell, raced off to join in the camp’s defense. A haste spell from Saga, with a little extra effort of Will, enveloped the party, allowing them to move faster, and they arrived at the battle in less than a minute.

“Battle” was the appropriate word for what they found. Guards, wearing the uniform armor of Beacon’s Ridge, held the front line against the pressing horde of wolves, keeping their shields raised and striking out with their swords and spears when an opening presented itself. Behind them, a few men and women in plain travelers’ clothes, either traders or travelers, flung spells and fired arrows over the guards’ heads and shoulders. As Saga and the others arrived, she saw other groups also trickling in in twos and threes, racing to join the defense in the best ways they could.

She almost lost the concentration of her group haste spell as they arrived. The defense was going as well as one could expect despite the lack of audible communication, but the sea of fur and fangs that laid beyond the wall of steel gave her pause. The wolves were more ferocious than Saga had imagined, surging forward and clashing against the defenders. The Guards’ shields and metal grieves and bracers were enough to blunt most of the attacks, but it seemed every few seconds a wolf’s fangs was closing on someone’s relatively unprotected thigh or bicep. As she watched, one Guard overextended himself to lunge at a wolf harassing one of his comrades, only to have another clamp down on his unguarded throat. The man’s scream was almost immediately cut off as he was dragged away from the camp.

Yards away, a drake with curved golden horns, like Saga’s but more prominent, held his hands forward and seemed to be struggling against an unseen force. In front of him, a wall of fire gouted from the ground. It was only a few yards wide, but it was enough to force the wolves to go around it, granting the defenders next to the drake a brief reprieve to catch their breath. A guard in armor was being dragged away from that point, evidently having fallen before the drake stepped in. After a few seconds of maintaining the wall, the drake fell backwards, clearly exhausted, and he was too hauled away while the remaining defenders filled the gap.

Elsewhere, an archer stood atop a tent, the roof evidently reinforced. Saga could see them take aim with a bow, slowly sweep the point of the arrow across the firing line, then release. The arrow flew true, but the wolf it had been meant for happened to leap at its human opponent before the arrow could find its mark. The archer made a sharp gesture to the side with one hand, and the arrow curved sharply in midair, piercing the wolf’s heart with an almost audible thud. The archer’s shoulders sagged slightly, but they rested only a moment before drawing another arrow to repeat the process.

As Saga watched the archer, she saw a shape rise up behind the archer, as if melting out of the ground itself. It resembled a dog crawling out of a hole it’d spent all day digging. Almost like…

“Look out!” she cried out, but she was too far for the archer to hear her warning, even without the earplugs. She could only watch helplessly as the dark figure finished forming behind the archer before leaping at their back, knocking them off the roof in a spray of blood. Master Dorrin, apparently also having seen the attack, had his hand cocked back with a knife ready to throw, but it was already too late; the archer and wolf both had fallen out of view.

That was finally enough to make Saga freeze as the others ran ahead. Only Master Dorrin stopped to look at her, knife still in hand. He took in her face in what seemed to be an instant, grimaced, and gestured for her to remain where she was. She watched him go off to battle with the others, unable to move, wanting more than anything to protest, to join them, but every time her eyes drifted back to the fray all she saw was more death. The defenders’ numbers were constantly being bolstered by reinforcements, but it wasn’t enough. Surely there are more people that can still fight? Maybe they just don’t know where we are?

A beacon. She could manage that much. She knew her dancing saber was poorly suited to the enemy they faced, especially as the battle lines stood, but she could use her magic to help. Please, angels above, let this work this time. She looked around, making she wasn’t near anything flammable, then focused her Will. She pictured what she wanted, and how she wanted it to happen. Fire, a pillar of it, a beacon to guide the camp’s defenders to where they were needed most. Using that mental image as a mold, she poured her Will into it until a small fire formed between her hands and began to grow.

Almost immediately, the spell went wrong. She was a child again, staring into a Redlight in her father’s forge. It was whispering to her, calling to her, but she couldn’t understand it. She needed to make it bigger, make it louder, she needed to hear what it said. The younger Saga did… something , and the Redlight grew. The crystalline red flame fed on whatever she did to it, expanding, its voice becoming more frantic, more urgent. Just when she thought she could begin to make out words, the world went red.

Back in the physical world, the fireball in Saga’s hand erupted into the sky, not as a shining pillar of flame, but as the massive explosion that had replaced it in her mind. For a blessing, it still followed the path she’d projected for it, shooting straight into the sky, but the unexpected shockwave it created sent her to the ground, the breath knocked out of her. Nearby tents, while spared the flames, were knocked to the ground, and several people who’d been passing nearby were sent stumbling away, trying to keep their footing as they rushed to join the defense.

Saga lay on the ground, dazed, and watched the firestorm above her. It burned brightly, filling her vision. Her right eye burned, as if newly injured, and she could feel fire and blood mingling there. She covered the spot with a hand, expecting to find an injury, but her eye felt normal. Even as her fingers grazed unbroken skin, she could feel her eye burning. Dragon’s breath, make it stop.

A small part of her, the part still lucid despite the shock, told her to ignore the eye, to focus on the rest of her body. She heard a strange sound, and in her disoriented state it took her a moment to realize her ears were ringing, and a sharp pain pulsed behind the earplugs. She fumbled at one, pulling it out. Something warm flowed out of her ear as soon as she removed the plug, and it glistened red in the firelight when she observed it.

She stared dumbly at the bloody ball of webbing, turning it over and over in her fingers. Why is there blood? Dragon’s damnation, why is it so hot? Oh, right. Something moved at the edge of her vision, tiny arms waving frantically. “Dapper?” She mumbled, though she still couldn’t hear anything, even with one of the earplugs removed. She forced herself to sit up, looking down at the beatweaver now in her lap. He seemed concerned, tapping away at her leg. Saga barely registered what he was saying, a single word repeated over and over.

“Run? Run from what?”

The spider pointed, and she could swear his expressionless face looked exasperated. She turned her head in the direction he pointed - why was everything moving so slowly? - and struggled to make sense of what she saw. A few yards away, where a tent cast a dark shadow in the light of her beacon, something stirred. She was certain there was nothing there one moment, but the next a wolf had appeared. It was as if it had melted out of the shadows, looking like a dog climbing out of a river but somehow completely dry. It looked at her, its eyes catching the fiery red light, and it was shortly joined by two more of its kind.

The trio of wolves stepped out of the shadow and prowled closer to her. Unlike the wolves attacking the defenders, these were cautious, stealthy. The roaring flames over their heads seemed to make them nervous. Somewhere at the back of her mind Saga knew she was in danger, but she couldn’t bring herself to move, to cry for help. Her body felt numb, and every motion felt like she was moving through water. She watched the wolves, focusing her eyes on them as best she could. They almost seemed kind of cute. She wanted to run her hands through that soft, black fur, bury her face in it. She smiled as they drew closer, holding out a hand as if to a strange dog.

The wolves paused, tilting their heads in confused unison, and she couldn’t stop an “Aww…” from escaping her lips. One of them, the one in the center, stretched his neck forward, sniffing in Saga’s direction from only a few feet away. “It’s okay, it’s okay…” she whispered.

The wolf either didn’t understand her, or didn’t care. Its lips curled back, exposing teeth that already bore flecks of blood, and the other wolves joined it in growling threateningly at her. That finally got through her foggy mind, and she pulled her hand away. “Okay, fine, it’s not okay…” She reached for her sword, but she’d fallen in such a way that it was pinned beneath her. She struggled with it as the wolves stalked closer, finally drawing it and swinging it ineffectually at them. The swing missed them by inches, but it was enough to make them hesitate. The two on either side shifted sideways, preparing to circle her, when the earth erupted at their feet.

A bolt of lightning churned the ground, carving a line between Saga and her attackers and blinding her for a moment. She blinked rapidly, trying to will away the afterimages created by the flash of light. When she succeeded, all that remained of the three wolves were unrecognizable lumps of charred flesh and bone. She looked around, but as the beacon she’d created finally began to fade, couldn’t make much out. She fell onto her back once more, suddenly exhausted.

As her vision began to swim, she saw a face hovering over hers, framed by red hair and copper-colored horns. The beautiful hazel eyes that stared down at her were creased with worry, and Saga was disappointed when they looked away from her. The woman shouted something Saga couldn’t hear, and a moment later another familiar face looked down at her, a man this time. The light reflecting off his platinum horns hurt her eyes. Why was it so bright?

The last thing she saw before darkness came was the red-haired woman staring down at her once more.