Then, amid the rubble on the ground below, Wataru saw Kutz. She was brandishing her whip, standing guard over two Solebrians. One was lying on the ground, the other hunched over in a ball. They were children.
“Kutz! Up here!”
As they flew by, Wataru fired a few magebullets at the demonkin attacking them. Kutz was dancing on the fallen remains of houses, her whip slashing to all sides, knocking wings and grinning skulls off any demonkin foolish enough to come too close.
Wataru had the dragon fly low and hover next to Kutz’s position. He jumped down to the ground. Behind him, Meena deftly wrapped her tail around the dragon’s wing, swinging down to scoop one of the children up off the ground. Then she repeated the process with the next. “Got ’em!”
Wataru turned back to Kutz. “Hurry!”
“Just a few more of these to clean up!” Kutz shouted, sending her whip keening through the air to strike the demonkin directly in front of her. Her right eye was completely closed now, and her left arm seemed to be moving awkwardly. In fact, she could hardly move it at all. It must have been broken before when Mitsuru’s magic had thrown her across the mirror hall.
“Leave them to me! You have to get on the dragon!” Wataru shouted, grabbing the back of Kutz’s vest.
“What are you doing?!”
“Get on!”
The Brave’s Sword slashed through a demonkin that flew at them with bared fangs. The dragon spat fire, clearing a path.
Kutz held her whip clenched between her teeth. Her left hand was useless, but she managed to lift herself up onto the dragon’s back with only her right. Wataru slashed at demonkin after demonkin, his body drenched in cold sweat.
“Hang on, Kutz. Hang on!” Meena grabbed her arm, when one of the children began to scream. Two demonkin had snuck up from the rear and were climbing onto the dragon’s back, their faces leering above its dully reflective scales.
“Meena, behind you!” Kutz shouted, and the whip fell from her mouth. She stood on the dragon’s back, launching herself at the demonkin with her bare hands. A swift kick knocked one of them off. Immediately, she turned and began to grapple with the other. Though she managed to push it back, its fangs flashed, and the foul creature bit deep into her neck. There was a spray of startlingly bright blood.
“Get your teeth off me!” screamed Kutz in a rage. She reached for the demonkin’s throat with her right hand. Meena kicked at the demonkin’s torso and clawed at its face. Kutz was knocked off balance and fell, and the demonkin came down on top of her.
“In your dreams!” Kutz shouted, twisting the demonkin’s neck with her right hand. She successfully wrenched the head from the body. The decapitated corpse slid off the dragon’s back. Wataru fired a volley of magebullets into the swarm of approaching demonkin, then leaped on top of the dragon. “Fly!”
The dragon lifted into the air. Meena held tightly to the crying children. Wataru crawled over to Kutz, still lying on her back.
She was still grasping the demonkin’s head she had torn off. She took a second to examine it. “Handsome one, aren’t you,” she spat before tossing it aside. “No one kisses my neck on the first date and gets away with it.”
Despite her jests, the cut on Kutz’s neck was gushing blood. Wataru took off his shirt, bunching it up, and held it to the wound. The soiled cotton garment rapidly soaked up the blood. “I’m fine,” she muttered. “Don’t look at me like that.”
She was still smiling when she passed out.
The seven pillars were now reduced to five. Jozo lay on his side, sleeping quietly, save for the occasional pained snore.
Several of the refugees from Solebria were hiding in the forest with them. How many had they saved? Wataru counted only a dozen or two, no more. Maybe some escaped to other places.
A metropolis of one million people reduced to this in merely half a day. It boggled the mind. None among the survivors were unharmed. Some were in such pain it hurt them even to sit up, so they lay on their backs, blank eyes turned toward the sky and unresponsive to questions. Wataru saw a child consoling another child who was crying.
They couldn’t treat the wounds properly—they didn’t even have medicine. The dragons, too, were covered with injuries. Heads lowered, they rested their wings and closed their eyes.
Dusk was already turning into night. The only source of light came from a slender crescent moon that hung like a thread in the sky. Inside the forest was like the bottom of the sea. All was quiet under a heavy current of sadness that slowed their movements and dulled their thoughts.
The coniferous trees of this northern forest bristled with thick needles, standing close to one another against the cold. The forest was not as colorful or as varied as the forests of the south. Yet now, it seemed that the trees were reaching out their branches as far as they could, covering Wataru and the others from sight. They hid those who had escaped under their boughs, and turned silent faces to the sky as though nothing were out of the ordinary in the space between their roots and canopy.
Now and then, they would hear the sounds of demonkin wings beating through the air above the trees. But these were only sporadic, and the attacks had ceased completely. Wataru wondered whether the demonkin could move at night. Did they even need rest? Or would they blend into the darkness, awaiting the chance to strike?
“Once we’ve rested and regained our strength, we will head back to our island,” the dragons announced to Wataru. “The wyrmking is sure to have sensed the broken seal and will be preparing for war. Some of our kin may be coming this way even now.”
“Regardless,” said another, “we cannot hope to face them with the few we have here.”
Meena and Kee Keema wandered among the injured, talking to them. Meena returned to report that she had found one with some knowledge of the local area. “He says there is a spring nearby, and if we pass through the woods to the west, there will be a rocky hill, where there is a cave large enough to hide us. I wonder if we can’t get everyone to the cave before dawn?”
If they were going to move at all, it was best that they did it now during the lull in attacks. This might even be the only chance for the people in the woods here to survive another day.
“Right,” Kee Keema said. “We’ll take them to the cave, then we’ll return to the Isle of Dragon. Then we need to get back to the south. They need to know as soon as possible, so they can get ready to fight the demonkin.”
Wataru nodded, but inside he worried whether they would be in time. Worse, even if they were in time to warn the south, what could they hope to do? Even if they were to gather all the Highlanders and all the Knights of Stengel in the south, would they be able to stand against the demonkin hordes?
It’s over—the words waited behind his trembling lips. I couldn’t stop Mitsuru from breaking the seal on the Mirror of Eternal Shadow. I failed.