But not all of them. And those on the ground were blasted too, this time with streams that blew them back—right into us.
Curses and screams rang out and my stomach churned violently as several dragons now partially transmuted to glass crashed into the ground, parts of them shattering to pieces, and their ear-piercing screams of agony sending a shockwave through our troops.
It was absolutely gut-wrenching.
Dad and Flame sent in troops, ordering them to move with rushes of dragon speed toward the wounded, then get clear to the Medical Hub immediately.
The moment the brutally wounded were off the battlefield, Dad called out for me and several other Vortimer dragons to execute a collective Thunderstep “with acute ground damage”.
I shifted into dragon form in seconds, Dad doing the same, and the two of us led the way. We knifed out, him going with troops to the left of the enemy, me to the right, several dozen taking position on each side.
Dad lifted his snout at me.
I growled back.
Then we both signaled our people.
We shot forward, speed and might colliding, violent pops and cracks in the air erupting at the instantaneous brutal displacement, a moment before we drove our feet into the ground, frost pulsing, cracks of thunder sounding as we tore into the earth, carving out craters and trenches and flash-freezing them in the process.
Collective relief went through our ranks as something finally made an impact against the assholes, and they went flying, others destabilized and crashing into the trenches, slipping all over the place.
Dad gave the order for House Lavadon to move in, and they burst forward and flooded the trenches with violent streams of water.
“Move back!” Flame ordered in the next moment so we were out of harm’s way. After what had happened to House Athyras, yeah, it was a needed call.
As I made it back to the line, catching the relief all over Zayn briefly as I did, I shifted back into human form. I went to clothe myself with my magic, but then I felt Zayn’s familiar power roll over me, and I was already back in my outfit from earlier. I turned and found him smiling sweetly at me.
Dad burst back between me and Grandma, but stayed in dragon form.
I heard her beckoning his ear in Dragon Tongue.
“Mom?”he asked back, grunts and growls sounding, which was all most non-dragons could make out, not the actual meaning behind it.
Except Zayn now with the spell I’d performed on him earlier.
And Vaxan. He’d learned it all by himself, something exceedingly difficult to do.
Fuck.I wished he was here with me and Zayn right now.
Zayn had the holoscreen we’d been monitoring him with in his pocket, and it would alert us if Vaxan woke up. I mean, we hadn’t just left him there alone while he was healing and defenseless, I’d called River over. He’d been able to get there immediately, while Octana had been in class, phone off.
My chest started to ache as I thought of who else wasn’t right here with us.
Winter.
My lovely.
Our gentle sweetheart.
I blinked. I guess experiencing something so caring and tender—and a little territorial—from Zayn right in the middle of battle had kind of thrown me, allowed emotion to bleed through in a way I wasn’t used to, or prepared for, in this sort of situation.
“My thoughts exactly,”I heard Dad telling Grandma in Dragon Tongue.“Let’s light it up.”
He signaled Flame, who gave a chin lift, and then Dad and Grandma were headed for the hostiles.
They possessed a special ability that went beyond regular Ice Dragon stuff of being able to send out a shot of lightning, sending thunder cracking through the sky, snow squalls, that sort of thing. The two of them could also send out highly-targeted spidering lightning at multiple hostiles at once without diluting the potency. They could deliver it through the sky and via the ground. And right now as Grandma soared powerfullyinto the air and Dad went for the ground, it was clear they were going to do both.
It happened, Grandma sending spidering veins of blindingly-bright lightning down upon the enemy like a massive encompassing web sparking viciously. Just what was needed.
