Dragon Hunter

Chapter 31: Denizens of the Ether

Arrows were launched into the air with the soft thrum of releasing bowstrings. Then each arrow was exploding into golden light as it arched away from the small group of determined elves, the flash of light flattening their arcs and tripling their outbound speed.

Cooper had recovered just enough by that point that he caught sight of the arrows exploding with light before they streaked away into the distance. Then Ellis stepped close to etch five more runes into his skin with a glowing fingertip and Cooper sagged to one knee as the sensation of his body and mind instantly learning five more skills rocked him to the core.

"C'mon, man," he groaned painfully. "That's ten in a row. I can't absorb that much at the same time!"

"No choice, Cooper," Ellis replied, stepping forward to pull his bow into view before firing off an arrow. "We need to put twenty years of close combat training into you to bring you up to speed. Or you are dead!"

Head swimming, Cooper leaned over and vomited his travel rations onto the ground. Where they glowed neon yellow before being completely absorbed into the ground, like water being sucked into a giant purple sponge. Then he was being hauled back to his feet by two of Ellis's teammates.

"The enemy is upon us!" the one on the right exclaimed. "Defend yourself!"

Cooper groaned as he fought to bring his sword up. These frickin' guys could've timed this shit better! Then there was blurred motion all around him, forcing him to swing his sword or die.

Newly forged instincts had him snap his sword up and to his left. And he felt his wrists jar as his dragonsteel blade intercepted a cut at his head from an unseen weapon. Then he was twisting to his right barely in time to stop a chest high cut from slicing him in half. 'Damnit!' he silently snarled, heart pounding and head swimming. 'What they should've zapped me with was a shot of adrenaline! I'm too battered from absorbing those runes to get ahead on my own!!'

Two more instinctual blocks and he was staggering back in an attempt to put some space between him and these Trigons that were attacking. And it was there that he finally got a good look at the aliens attacking them.

Just over the height of a tall man, each trigon individual was armored in chitinous plating in shades of rust and brown, with a ridge along the back of the lower body. Overlapping plates protected the joints, and an elongated head with a vaguely humanoid face sat atop the upright portion of the centaur-like creature. In all, it looked like a giant praying mantis, with six legs instead of four.

Cooper stared at the nearest one, which was engaged with some kind of polearm against Ellis's hand and a half sword. How the hell were they supposed to defeat these things??

"Cooper!" Kaisea gasped as she stepped close, surrounded by an aura of purple light.

"What's happening? Who are these strange elves?? And who, or what are they fighting?"

"Short version? We were jumped by enemy agents from the ether looking to stop us from stopping the Empire. They would've killed us if these other elves didn't intervene. And now we're fighting more agents who attacked before we could withdraw."

"So, new elves friends, bug things enemies," the noriquien asked tautly as the light around her brightened.

"Correct."

"Understood." Then she was drawing a sinuous shape in the air in front of her before a snarled word in a language Cooper didn't understand coalesced a wall of purple-tinted fire rolling outward.

The wall rushed forward to wash over the combatants. The elves it left untouched. The trigon, however, burst into flames with hoarse screams.

As the mantis-like aliens staggered back, Kaisea cast again, this time sketching an almost jagged looking shape before barking a word in that strange language. And with a snarl of discharge, a ball of lightning appeared in the space between her clenched fists before it lashed out with a scintillating tendril of blue-white destruction, the bolt slamming into the nearest trigon with a percussive pulse even as it burned clean through the alien's body.