The dragon's rage was ongoing, and Roland felt almost defenseless against it. The creature's black, freezing fire was wreaking havoc, both on the inhabitants of the city and the Fae. He saw the lives of the seemingly immortal beings snuffed out one by one before his eyes.
The obsidian monster thrashed again, throwing Judah's limp form off of the spikes on its tail.
Roland's color-changing friend lay there, dead, as broken as the cobblestones on which his empty body lay.
"NO!" Roland gritted his teeth, knowing he could not afford to look away from the battle. The dragon roared, calling reinforcements to itself. The earth shook with ominous footsteps as Awarnach and Beast closed in, defending their master and wrecking the world around them.
Gargoyles flooded in, apparently drawn by the roar. A collection of griffins, their golden wings gleaming, crashed into them, tearing and clawing at the humanoid evildoers with vicious abandon.
Roland swallowed and reset his fighting stance. Did he try to attack the Dragon again with his meager sword? His voice was not loud enough to reach through the Darkness and drown out the cacophony.
"KILL THE DRAGON!" He cried, refusing to despair. The Sorcerer assured him the battle would be won, but had not revealed the cost. Blood, but how much? His own? All?
He stabbed a gargoyle that hit the ground, thrown down by one of the griffins. The golden creature swooped low, and Roland signaled to it for aid. Its aquiline head turned curiously, the griffin complied and landed, allowing the king to climb onto its back before it took to the skies once more.
As he left the earth, Roland cast one last, brief glance at Judah's body on the ground. He had no time for tears now, but his chest ached with grief. And there would be far more grief to match it when he learned how many died today.
If he was not amongst them, that was.
"Bring me to the Dragon's throat, if you can," Roland leaned forward and asked. The scales covering the thing's heart were impenetrable, and for all he knew, this was just another smoky form of the Void that could dissolve and reform as easily as breathing, but at the very least, he could temporarily cut off the source of black fire obliterating the Fae.
A flash of pale feathers to his right drew his attention, and he saw Riley, heavily battered, on the back of a white winged horse. "Wait!"
"You're alive!" Roland gently tugged the griffin's feathers to signal him to slow down. He wasn't sure whether his voice was joyful, surprised, or merely shocked, but Riley looked vaguely offended.
"The gargoyles had us cornered for a bit, but we're here now. Looks like Beast is, too, and whats-his-name, the big guy." Riley's horse moved back a bit, flapping its wings to keep the men as even as possible while the two conversed.
"It's consolidating," Roland frowned. There was enough light now to see further than before. What was happening? "I don't see Fjorna."
"The giantess fell a few minutes ago. The gargoyles turned on her." Riley smirked. "Your father and Caspian lured her too close to them." He pointed in the middle distance, which was barely visible now, but a hulking, motionless form on the ground appeared to be the fallen giantess. "Did you know they kept the others alive? The former giants, I mean. They were prisoners, apparently going to be a tasty meal for Beast. Crazy stuff going on over there. Jarnsaxa is rallying the creatures from her world."
Roland took stock of the largest enemies left. The Dragon, Beast, and Awarnach now stood in a loose circle, killing indiscriminately as the gargoyles swirled above their heads, swooping down to snatch the bodies of anything female that was slaughtered by the deadly trio.
"Say, I had the weirdest dream a few minutes ago. I think one of those goblins hit me in the head pretty hard… you haven't seen anything weird, have you?" Riley squinted. Roland startled and looked at him strangely.
Roland wanted to make a joke about his friend sleeping during battle, but his mind shifted into medical diagnoses too quickly for that to happen. "Weirder than… things should be?"
"All right, point taken," Riley glanced around at the bizarre war that surrounded them below and above. "I talked to the Sorcerer. Weird enough? I went to a strange place… and I can see by your face that didn't happen to you. All right, no problem, let's fight!"
"Wait!" Roland called before Riley could dash into the fray. "What did the Sorcerer say?"
"Maybe I'll tell you after we win!" Riley taunted, digging his heels into his mount's flanks.
Roland's griffin was not to be left behind, and darted forward so quickly that the cold air blasting into his face made the man's eyes water.
Riley went straight for Beast as if there were a personal grudge involved. Perhaps there was. Roland's griffin stuck to the plan, diving and rolling through the sky, weaving their way through the flying battlefield towards the Dragon.
Light and dark tumbled across the land in broken pieces, as if the battle was fracturing the shadows and leaving the shards to scatter through the city, never resting.
A goblin's spear flew up at them, nicking the griffin's wing, and Roland knew their time was running out. The poison acted quickly and had no cure.
"Go!" He urged, as they ducked just below a blast of the dragon's icy fire.
A Fae attacked the dragon's other side, making it roar in fury and thrash its mighty leg. The distraction was just what Roland needed. As the maw of the obsidian monster turned to snap at the brave Fae, Roland stabbed its throat through the center.
The tip of his sword met heavy resistance even at the tenderest scales, and scraped across several before it slid between two of them and into the tough flesh of the dragon's neck. A thrill of victory ran through Roland's body for the briefest moment.
Then the dragon's enormous claw dragged across its neck as if swatting at a biting fly.
The griffin was blindsided, and fell in barely-controlled descent before it rolled across the ground, Roland still clinging to its back.
A sharp, blinding pain shot up the man's leg and into his spine. He was sure the bone was broken even without looking down.
"Roland!"
He heard the familiar voice of his father through the chaotic spray of thoughts that wound through his mind. He must have hit the ground near where Duncan had been fighting.
"Father, help–" He said, as the Dragon inhaled deeply.
"Duncan!" Caspian's voice shouted from nearby.
The icy black fire turned towards the pair, and Roland covered his face and head as he braced to die in the freezing blaze. Duncan threw himself across his son, shielding the younger man with his own body just before it hit.
It seemed father and son would die together today.
A cold wind whipped at Roland's clothes, but it was nothing like the blistering hyperborean blow he'd been anticipating. He dared to open his eyes, mere slits at first, but then they widened.
Between him and the dragon's fury were three figures clad completely in white, shields raised and pressed together at an angle to deflect the fatal attack. Who were they? Not Fae, not anyone who had come into battle with him initially; there were many creatures he'd never seen before, but these were clearly humans.
And none of his forces had armor that shone like sunlight reflecting off the sea. He could not stand with his leg so badly injured, but he pulled himself to a sitting position to see his defenders better.
In the center was a tall man, flanked by two women, each of similar height and appearance. Roland blinked. There was something familiar about looking up at them, and it nagged at the corner of his mind.
It was surreal here, surrounded by the channel of black fire and darkness. He could see nothing outside of the narrow tunnel, the space created by the three warriors and their shields. After several sustained seconds of the Dragon's breath, the monster stopped to survey the lifeless corpse of one of its most irritating human enemies.
The enormous creature's eyes widened, then narrowed as it surveyed the five humans, three standing, two lying on the ground. Caspian ran up from outside the fire's trail to join them, holding up a shield over his uncle and cousin.
"What magic have you learned, little…" The Void paused. "I know you."
"I should think so," Roland looked at the Void's corporeal form strangely for a moment before he realized it was not talking to him, nor his father, nor Caspian.
"Your time in the world is complete." One of the women spoke firmly to the Dragon. "Your evil will be snuffed out like the flames you spew."
That voice. Roland's head began to ache as memories he couldn't quite reach pulled at his consciousness.
"You cannot be here," Snarled the dragon. "I killed you long ago."
"All things are possible," The second woman answered, her tone and cadence much like the other's. Like sisters. The man in the center turned to smile at Roland as a gasp escaped his lips.