The Beginning After The End novel Chapter 455

Chapter 455

Chapter 453: Amongst the Fallen II

My heart fluttered inside my chest, hardly daring to beat as I reached for the mana necessary to cast a spell. It didn’t have to be complicated, or even strong. A jet of water, condensed to burst like a firework—just enough to get the dragons’ attention. If they flew away…

Even though I couldn’t feel his manifested intent, I knew the monster named Raest was barely a dozen feet away. He’ll sense what I’m doing, I thought hopelessly. There was no way I could hide the spell from someone as powerful as him…even if I suppressed my mana, he would see right through me. Despite his missing arm and cracked skin, he could cross the distance and break my neck without revealing even a blip of his mana. Read at

Although I wasn’t looking at it, I could feel Jarrod’s lifeless body next to me, and I knew it didn’t matter if Raest managed to reach me. Not if I could fire of the spell first—

I jumped with fright as the air crackled with power, and a voice like thunder boomed across the mountainside. “Agents of Agrona,” the voice said, resounding as if projected by every bare stone. “We know you’re here, so-called Wraiths, and that you have the Sovereign, Oludari of the Vritra clan. Guardian Charon Indrath is offering you this one opportunity to turn yourselves over to our authority and release your prisoner to us.”

The black dragon swept low, flying past our caravan of wagons beside the road, its bright yellow eyes scouring us in search of the hidden Wraiths. The wind of its passage made my hair fly back, and his aura at such a close range stole my breath. The spell I’d been stealthily attempting to form died on my fingertips.

Awe and relief overwhelmed me. I leaned against Jarrod’s body, still clutching his arm with one hand, and wept silently.

“Consider yourself fortunate, dragon,” the harsh, bittersweet voice of Perhata answered. Her words were disembodied, emanating from everywhere and nowhere at once, giving no clue of her physical location. “We aren’t here for you, not today. But that won’t stop us from delivering your wings to Agrona if you interfere.”

The black dragon wheeled high above, reconvening with the two white dragons, their wings beating slowly to keep their enormous bodies in the air. “Don’t be absurd,” it said, its tone thick with disbelief. “Your flight is over, your incursion into Dicathen failed. You can no longer run, nor can you hide from us. You insult yourselves by not accepting reality.”

Someone farther up the caravan cheered, exalting in the dragons’ presence. Several people quickly joined them, and my relief took on a tinge of fear. Be quiet, I pleaded, not wanting them to draw attention to themselves.

Perhata’s disembodied laughter echoed across the mountainside, drowning out all other noise. “You have yet to mention that we hold not one hostage, but a couple hundred, yes? I have been trained since birth to kill your kind, asura, but know that in the process of fighting this losing battle, you would be condemning all these people—the very people you claim to protect—to a grisly death. You know as well as I that, if this mountain becomes a battlefield, you cannot save them, not even from your own powers.”

I swallowed hard, my swollen eyes instinctively tracking across the nearby wagons and carts, and the faces of those who rode in them.

The dragon was silent for only a beat before answering. “You are cowards. Claim to be our equals all you wish, but the fact that you hide behind magicless lessers to save yourselves tells us everything we need to know.” It twisted its long neck, giving the other two dragons a meaningful look.

As if reacting to a command, they both descended, transforming as they did so. The gleaming white scales melded together and formed shining plate armor, the reptilian features flattening and becoming humanoid. By the time their feet touched the ground, both dragons wore the forms of severe but beautiful women, long blonde hair streaming down their backs from beneath scaled helmets. Each bore an identical tower shield and longspear.

“See how heartless your saviors are?” Perhata’s voice oozed from the air. “We were prepared to let you live, only desiring the return of one of our own. But these asuras, they think of you only as a flock of wogarts to be tended and maintained. If a few here and there need to be slaughtered for the good of the herd, though, they won’t hesitate. You all should have bowed to High Sovereign Agrona when you had the chance.” Read at

The two asuran women landed on a flat outcropping above the caravan. They remained there only a moment, searching the wagons below, before one of them leapt off, carving a graceful arc through the air and landing light as a feather near the end of the train, only a few wagons down from where I knelt—and the Wraith, Raest, hid.

“Although unlikely, if any of you manage to survive this, tell your kin,” Perhata continued, her words an intrusion I couldn’t block out or escape. “Share with everyone you encounter the cruelty of the Indrath clan and the kindness of the Vritra.”

Lying, manipulative witch, I thought bitterly, but at the same time, I knew she was right about the dragons’ willingness to sacrifice us. Squeezing my eyes shut tight, I pressed outward against my despair until my ears rang and my face burned red. These refugees—most women and children—need me to have hope, to care if they live or die. Because I might be the only one here who does.

My mind went inexplicably to Kacheri, the little girl who vanished in an instant of spellfire, collateral damage as the Wraiths exterminated our mages and guards.

I couldn’t save her. And I knew I wouldn’t be able to save everyone now cowering in fear on this mountainside, either. My gaze dragged down to Jarrod. My fingers slid off his strangely still flesh, then curled into white-knuckled fists. One. Just help one person. That’s all it takes.

The asuran woman was approaching, walking along the inside of the carts as she searched them one by one. The men, women, and children occupying them seemed frozen and slightly unreal, like the blurry figures in the background of a painting. Their eyes followed along with the asura’s progress, but they otherwise remained unnervingly still.

Raest was ever so slowly shifting around the cart as the asura approached. Even though I knew he was there and could see him with my own eyes, my attention wanted to slip off him, to look anywhere else.

My breath caught as the Wraith and the asura maneuvered to opposite sides of the same cart, Raest’s steps falling in time with the dragon’s to hide even the whisper-quiet sound of his slow shifting. Everything seemed to be happening so slowly. Where are the other Wraiths? The second dragon? What are they waiting for—

Suddenly the longspear was carving downward, leaving a blurred silver crescent in its wake. Read at

The weapon shattered the heavy cart, sending shards of broken wood and personal belongings flying in every direction. At the front of the cart, a man and woman were propelled off as if they’d been fired from a catapult, so sudden and violent they didn’t even have a chance to scream.

On the other side of the cart, Raest threw himself to the side, so fast I could hardly see his movements, and still that wasn’t fast enough. The longspear sliced down the side of his leg with a spray of blood even as he breathed out a cloud of noxious green poison.

Conjuring an orb of water, I caught the pair of farmers who had been tossed from the wagon, but there was nothing I could do as their two aurochsen were inundated by the cloud, which dissolved both the long shaggy fur and the flesh beneath, so that their pockmarked bones splashed into the muck beneath them.

Silver light radiated out of the dragon’s shield, wrapping her in a moving barrier that repulsed the fog, but the cloud was spreading quickly.

“Run!” I screamed even as I scrambled back from the expanding mist.

In a moment of hesitation, I reached for Jarrod’s arm, wildly thinking I could save his body for a proper burial.

That moment of hesitation nearly cost me my life.

As I slowed and my hand reached out, the fog caught up with me, oozing around my fingers. I was already moving again, hurling myself away, before I registered the pain. The skin of my right hand cracked and blistered in an instant, entire patches sloughing away like shed snake skin as it melted.

Biting back a scream, I cradled the wounded limb to my stomach and sprinted away, lacking even the chance to honor Jarrod’s sacrifice by watching as the flesh-decaying fumes subsumed him.

The two farmers and I bolted past the next wagon in line just as the large feline mana beasts pulling it lunged away from the noise and flaring mana, screeching as they jumped off the road and tried to sprint down the mountain in panic. And perhaps they could have, if not for the wagon connected to their harness, which crashed down on top of them, mana beasts and riders alike vanishing into the wreckage.

Then the noise hit me. The screams were first and loudest, then the explosion of spellfire farther up the caravan. All the mana beasts were the worst though, terrified senseless and shrill enough in their panicked howling to cut through the rest.

Still running, I looked over my shoulder at the fight. Read at

Beyond the thick green cloud, I could just make out the shadows of others sprinting away down the mountain road, abandoning their wagons and carts.

The asura’s shield continued to repulse the spells as the Wraith launched attack after attack, pounding the silver spell with condensed spikes of foul, poisonous magic.

The longspear thrust outward, but at the same time, the entire road fell.

The sudden jarring motion pulled the asura off balance, and the thrust went wide, then I saw no more as I toppled forward, the solid ground I’d been running across vanishing from underneath me.

I landed hard, crashing forward onto my elbows and the side of my face. I sucked in an agonized breath as dirt and gravel was embedded into the ruined flesh of my hand, and would have screamed if something heavy hadn’t landed on me a second after. Even as I turned to see the panicking man I’d saved flailing to get off me, a boulder as large as he was crashed to the road beside us, bounced, and struck him directly, missing me by inches. Boulder and man alike sailed over the edge of the road and vanished into the cloud of dust that now obscured everything in all directions.

Unsure what had happened, I blearily stared around from my back. A small chariot beside me was overturned. A large lupine mana beast was snarling and tearing at the leather straps connecting it to the wreckage in an attempt to be free. There was no sign of the driver.

A woman’s shouts pulled my attention away. It was the dead man’s wife. She was crawling toward the road’s edge, repeating a name I couldn’t make out through the ringing in my skull.

“Stop, don’t go close to the—”

A sudden burst of wind blasted away the dust for a hundred feet in every direction, revealing Raest pinned to the ground with a dragon longspear embedded in his chest. His one remaining arm was clutching the spear as he gaped up at the asura.

The mountain shook from the force of the blow, and the edge of the road crumbled yet further.

The woman’s shouting turned into a scream as the rock gave way beneath her, and she was pulled into the dust-choked void beyond. The scream cut out a second later as I heard the wet impact of her body striking rock and tumbling down the steep slope.

The ground trembled again, and I realized the entire mountain was quaking. Rocks were raining down from above and bouncing over the path, and entire sections of the road were caving in and spilling down the mountainside.

Get up, I told myself, reaching for the strength to do so. You have to keep going…

Shaking violently, I used my injured hand to push myself to my feet, then froze when I realized the asura was striding toward me. All around her, the wreckage of her brief battle against the Wraith painted a dire portrait. The hairs rose up on my arms and neck as her bright yellow eyes moved straight through me.

“You’re supposed to protect us,” I said, my voice a wheezing gasp, no thought of what I was saying. “Help us!”

She barely took notice, her searching gaze skating over me as she strode past, leaving the few survivors of the surrounding carts to fend for themselves.

There weren’t many, only those whose mana beasts had stayed within their control or who had abandoned their vehicles. I could still hear the sounds of battle from farther up, but the asura moved with unrushed purpose, her gaze sure and confident.

Another survivor grabbed me, and suddenly I was being dragged along even as the road shook and threatened to give way beneath our feet. Over my shoulder, though, I was watching the dragon.

Gritting my teeth, I pulled free of the hands holding me up. I recognized faces, but names escaped my frazzled thoughts. Questions, pleading, but too much fear to force me or to stand and wait. Because, even as the survivors sprinted headlong down the road and away from the battlefield, I turned and followed the asura. Read at

She must have sensed me, because she glanced back. “Go. I won’t be responsible for you, and there is nothing one of your kind can do here.”

I wiped blood from my eyes as I kept stumbling after her. “I’m responsible for these people. I need to help whoever I can. Not to fight, just…”

She shrugged. “You are free to choose your own death.” _{freeweɓnovēl.coɱ}

Her steady strides carried her ahead of me even as I jogged to try and reach a crushed wagon that she passed by without a second glance. Each jarring step was pure torture on my hand. Conjuring a sort of gauntlet of cold water to ease the flesh, I firmly put the pain out of my mind—or I tried, at the very least.

Beside the wagon, which had been cracked open like an egg when the road collapsed, an older woman lay with a man pulled into her lap. Tears spilled down the crags in her aged face, and for a moment I feared the old man was dead. As I approached, his hand patted hers, and I realized he was speaking, but the words were too soft for me to hear.

Behind the elders’ broken cart, another man, brawny with deeply tanned skin, was attempting to get his family over the edge of the road and down the steep incline.

“Hey,” I said loudly, waving my uninjured hand to get his attention. “There are more people over here, they need—”

The brawny man looked right at me, shook his head, and began climbing down after his family.

Taking a steadying breath and trying not to blame the man, I instead kneeled down beside the elders. “Nevermind then. Let me help you up, we need to move—”

“He can’t walk,” the old woman said plainly. “Got a bad back. I think something broke when the road jumped…”

I flinched as mana burst somewhere ahead of us, shaking the ground again. I was afraid the mountain would come down around us. “Perhaps your mana beasts—” I cut myself off, realizing the moon ox connected to the wagon was lying broken in its harness, having been struck by a large stone. “Someone else’s then, there are so many…”

The woman was looking at me with such a heartbreaking combination of appreciation, understanding, and acceptance that I couldn’t continue.

“We’re not getting out of this, child,” she said, her tears now dry. “But you can. And don’t go trying anything silly. I’d rather not leave this life knowing there is blood on my hands, understand?”

I shook my head vehemently. “I’m a mage, I can…” I trailed off, biting my bottom lip hard enough to draw blood. I didn’t want to admit it, even to myself, but I knew there was nothing I could do for them.

The old woman tried to give me a fierce and determined sort of look, but she couldn’t manage it. Instead, she looked away, leaned down, and kissed her husband on the forehead.

You are free to choose your own death, the dragon’s words echoed in my head, accompanied by the taste of blood. Read at

Running footsteps were approaching, and so I stood, giving them a small bow as I prepared to address more survivors.

The mountainside behind me shattered in a burst of mana. A shard of stone cut the air so close that I felt my hair move with its passage, and I jerked and fell again, slamming my wounded hand hard on the ground.

One of the adventurers, a quiet boy younger than me, had just appeared out of the thick wall of dust, pelting as fast as he could down the treacherous path, a few others behind him. The force of the explosion lifted their bodies off the ground, a spray of stone shrapnel ripping them to tatters.

I stared at the bodies, my breath coming faster and faster. What am I supposed to do?

One small figure moved, shuffling and moaning in pain. I sprinted forward and scooped up a small boy into my arms. His face was covered with dust and blood, and he pulled back from my touch as I put pressure on his shoulder, which I thought might be dislocated. His eyes moved to me, his thin brows pinching together, but his expression was vacant.

I could recognize the signs of shock well enough, but my own mind was a disordered blur. Standing, I turned in a slow circle, searching for a way to help this poor child.

Ahead of us, a wide, flat cart had overturned, blocking my view of the road. When it exploded, I jumped so hard I nearly let the child slip out of my hands. So wholly was I startled that I barely registered the figure smashing through the cart, passing by a few feet in front of me, and slamming into the ground.

The impact shook the mountain, and the road beneath my feet slid away.Read at

Gasping, I half ran, half jumped across the sliding rock and dirt, scrambling for solid ground. For a moment, every other sound was lost beneath tons of rock crashing down the mountainside. Unsure what else to do, I threw myself behind the elderly couple’s cart, which had miraculously remained on the road.

My stomach turned as the figure rose from the sinkhole, a wicked blade of black ice held in each hand. Varg, I remembered, the Wraith who had argued with Perhata. Gravel crunched behind me, and I spun: the asura. She advanced with her shield out in front of her, the longspear extended out over top.

“You went to all the trouble of hiding among this lot just for a scratch?” the dragon asked, and I noticed the faintest cut beneath her eye, barely more than a red line drawn across her pale skin. “If you are the best Agrona has managed in all these years, I find myself in wonder that this war still continues.”

Varg did not bother with a retort but flew out into the open air, keeping well back from solid ground. The dragon wasn’t bothered, of course, lifting up and floating out into the dusty void after him.

And as she did, I got a closer look at her face, her wound. Something was wrong with it. Already, green tendrils were expanding outward from the scratch, discoloring the flesh around it.

Moving with such sudden speed that I could not follow, she flashed across the space between them, her longspear a blur in the air as she lashed out in several entwined strikes. The Wraith didn’t attempt to fight, instead retreating and dodging so that her strikes always just barely missed. The speed of their conflict kicked up a wind that pushed back the dust, and I squinted down at the cloud’s edge. Beneath them, nothing more than a silhouette, a second figure waited, hidden.

I stared at her for a long time, unable to process what was going on around me. Read at