Dragon Hunter

Chapter 52: Vanishing Act

Two steps forward and Cooper felt Alia take her place just off his left hip, her daggers ready. Another step and Theron was on his right, Saddahk directly behind him.

"Let's try not to die here, yes?" the silver Primal growled as Ilya, Beyless, and the rest of the Temple operators fell in behind them.

"That's the idea," Theron tautly replied before glancing at a grim Cooper. "What's the move, Cooper?"

"Hunt the bastard down," the human immediately replied without slowing a step. "He was mocking us with that little stroll, thinking we couldn't do anything about it. I'm going to show him different!"

First to go were the handful of dragonspawn that were moving in the space in between their port in and the structure in the middle, the ones Alia had initially observed. As they got closer, Cooper could see many of them were moving supplies and materials around in some sort of logistics role.

"Alia, ready your archers," he murmured as they smoothly advanced, still undiscovered by the dragonspawn. "Those lizards can't be allowed to sound an alarm. As soon as they look this way ..."

"They'll die before they understand what they saw," the Temple captain quietly vowed even as she flashed hand signals to her operators.

Nodding in satisfaction, Cooper kept Talos at the ready, scanning their forward path through the aiming oculus.

Unlike Eska, here he was seeing dragonspawn up close. To his mundane eyes, the scaly bastards were unique, with their mini dragon heads slammed onto a muscular humanoid upper body. Which was attached at the waist to where a horse had its foreshoulders.

Except this thing had a squat, draconic lower body instead of a horse's, complete with a long, ridge-covered scale. Finishing off the look were taloned claws instead of hooves, the spawn as variable in color and shade as the dragons that bred them.

It was as Cooper finished his evaluation that one in dark and light shades of red looked casually in their direction. It had just enough time to widen slit-pupiled eyes in surprise before one of those eyes sprouted a dark fletched arrow.

"They've made us!" Cooper growled as he opened fire. "Drop 'em before they can sound the alarm!"

The next few moments were filled with a flurry of motion. The rush of arrows and bolts in flight and the hum of releasing bowstrings fought against the actinic crunch of discharging spells, and the heavy sound of big bodies falling limply to the ground. Then, with the shuddering release of a held breath, it was over.

"Double time to the central structure!" Cooper hissed, sprinting forward.

"I'm assuming that means run harder," Theron said as he fell in beside the hard running human. Cooper threw him a quick nod. Then they were in the big building's lee.

Quickly the company pressed their backs against the structure as they arrived, holding position about two thirds the way down the outside wall. Closest to the building's corner, Cooper glanced down the line of dark elves, a sidhe elf and a dragon in wereform. And found them intent and ready.

Nodding in satisfaction, he was about to slide down the wall towards the corner when a sharp hiss caught his attention. Then Saddahk was snarling:

"Everybody down!"

Cooper had just enough time to blink in surprise before the side of the structure was erupting outward with a snarl, the percussive blast wave sending them all flying.

"I'm disappointed," a rough voice hissed in norianic from the resulting smoke-filled hole. "Or should I say impressed?"

A tall, lean figure stepped through the smoke to pause and look over the scattered team.