Chapter 272: Chapter 271: Rescuing the Princess

As Syd fell from the boughs of the tree with all the grace of a dead goose, Jadis contemplated the likelihood of her survival. Looking at her status sheet wasn’t a great deal of comfort.

She had lost more than a thousand health points since the battle against the dragon had started. A thousand health points. The average person would have died ten times over from the amount of damage she’d taken from the dragon, yet she was still kicking. Well, she was also fighting demons and a possessed wind mage, lying in a crumpled heap somewhere in the forest, and falling from a very tall tree. She wasn’t just healthier than the average person, she was a lot more diversified.

The seventy or so feet she was falling was going to hurt. A lot. She could jump to incredible heights with her increased Strength and Agility, but that didn’t mean the landing would be any gentler for her. Still, with her armor and Fortitude, Jadis was fairly certain that she could survive the fall. Probably. But how much health would she have left after the landing? Not much, by her estimate. In the best-case scenario, if she had a hundred health left after hitting the ground, she would still land directly next to the ice dragon.

The ice dragon that exuded a constant aura of freezing cold that had already proven more than enough to sap her health in a very short amount of time.

Jadis rapidly went over possibilities, her mind working overtime as she plummeted in slow motion. She needed to find a way to lessen the impact of her fall. Dys was too far away to get to Syd in time to catch her. Jay… Jay was in a sorry state. Jadis wasn’t even sure if that self could stand, much less run. The pine branches rushing by her were either just out of reach, or too small to hold her armored weight.

Well, fuck. She was just going to have to stick the landing and hope she could sprint away from the knocked-out dragon in time to not die from its radiating cold.

As Jadis girded her resolve for what was likely going to be the most dangerous five seconds of her life to date, she felt a presence nearing Syd. It wasn’t the dragon. She was still trying to right her descent and was staring at the quickly approaching beast lying on the forest floor. She didn’t sense the malicious blood thirst of a demon, either. No, the thing nearing her felt… familiar. Familiar and decidedly grumpy.

Noll’s thick arms wrapped around Syd’s waist and under the back of her legs, catching her as she was about thirty feet from the ground. The force of their collision made both of them grunt as his trajectory brought her away from the dragon. In a moment of mental dissonance, Jadis found herself, for the first time in her life, being princess carried by someone who wasn’t her own self.

With an audible crunch, Noll landed on the ground some twenty or so feet away from the dragon’s collapsed form with Syd held in his arms.

“Uh—” Syd breathed out, still taken off guard.

Noll let out a tired huff, his breath misting in the frozen air.

“I’m too old for this shit,” he grumbled before abruptly dropping Syd onto the ground.

Syd scrambled up to her feet with a lot of mixed feelings. She settled on the most important one. Gratitude.

“Thanks, Noll,” she said sincerely, turning to face the grizzled veteran. “You really saved me there. Truly, thank you.”

“It’s fine,” he grunted, visibly taking some effort to pull his feet out of the ground where they had sunk six inches deep into the frozen dirt. “You’re my student.”

“…Yeah. I wasn’t expecting my first princess carry to come from you, but I guess I shouldn’t complain, huh.”

Noll stared at Syd, his yellow eyes narrowing slightly.

“…Aren’t there more important things to think about right now, like how your team and the rest of your bodies are doing?”

“Right!” Syd said, awkwardness raising the octave of her voice. “My Jay self is kind of fucked up at the moment, but as long as one of me gets to Eir, she should be able to heal me up. Also, that wind elf wizard over there is really screwing things up for us. Need to deal with that little shit.”

Syd paused for a moment, looking around.

“Also, where’s Bridget?”

“Other side of the dragon,” Noll hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “I’ll go get her and meet you by the fighting.”

“Okay, sounds good,” Syd nodded. “Let’s clean this mess up before the rest of those demons Jack is distracting right now figure out we’re here.”

With no more to say between them, Syd and Noll rushed off, each heading for their own respective targets.

Jay really was messed up. She definitely had some broken bones and probably a concussion, Jadis realized. She was also a fair distance away from the rest of her bodies, which was putting a small but noticeable strain on her mental connection. Ideally, she’d get her injured self up and running closer to the other two, but Jay was too wounded to move. Instead, Syd ran for Dys and her companions so she could make sure everyone was safe as well as get some healing from Eir. Since she wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon anyway, Jadis transferred all the various injuries that Dys and Syd had sustained to Jay, giving both bodies some relief.

Approaching the horde at a dead sprint, Syd remembered she had no weapon, her lance having been shattered by the downed dragon. The loss stung; she’d really liked that lance. But ultimately Syd didn’t need the steel weapon. She was a weapon unto herself.

Barreling down on the demons with her Knight’s Daring Charge, Syd crashed through the unsuspecting abominations with the full force of her many-time-multiplied stats.

There was a blur of crushed bones, trampled vines, and devastated flesh. For a brief instant, a whirling cyclone passed by on Syd’s left. In the next moment, Syd was through to the other side of the mob of monsters, sliding to a halt in front of surprised Jockel. The fat man had his spiked chain wrapped around the neck of a boar-like wretch and was in the process of choking the flailing creature. At her sudden appearance, his grip loosened and the demon slipped free, whirling around to slash at the Reaver with its protruding bone claws.

Syd slapped her hands together, making sure the wretch’s head was positioned squarely between them. The hapless demon’s head popped like an overripened tomato before collapsing to the ground in a twitching heap.

“The dragon is demon free,” Syd announced. “Get ready to pull back.”

Jockel wiped the demon blood from his eyes, grimacing at the stinking liquid that had just been splattered all over his face.

“Yeah, sure, I’ll get right on that.”

Syd batted away another couple of demons that had charged up behind her, crushing them with powerful blows from her gauntleted fists before dashing away from the man. She didn’t feel the need to spend more time talking to the repugnant smuggler than necessary. At least he hadn’t tried to run, though, which she supposed was at least one point in the guy’s favor. Sweeping a glance over the line of soldiers and Reavers mixed among the boulders, it didn’t look like any of the Reavers had tried to flee. Not yet, anyway. A good decision on their part. She’d hate to have to waste time chasing any of them down once the fight was over.

Thea looked to be doing well, as did Willa and the rest of her soldiers. All were fighting as a team, putting down any demons that strayed from the chaos of Dys and the cyclone following her. They were doing a good job of keeping the demons away from the slopes of the hill, using the craggy boulders as a kind of wall defense as well as cover. Still, Jadis hoped to end the fight soon. They couldn’t keep fighting so many demons forever.

Dashing up the hill, Syd found where Aila and Nora were. It was easy enough to spot them, especially when they were casting their spells. She expected to find Eir with them, but the priestess wasn’t there.

“Is the dragon dead?” Aila asked without preamble before launching another force bolt into the horde. “I saw it collapse.”

“Just knocked out cold, I think,” Syd answered. “The demon is definitely dead though. Where’s Eir?”

“Up the hill,” Aila motioned with one hand before going for her enchanted canteen. “Something happened.”

Syd frowned, but didn’t bother peppering Aila with questions, not when she was focused on clearing the battlefield of demons. Instead, Syd made her way to the wagon with all the speed she had to find out the answer for herself. What she found did not please her.

“What the fuck!?” Syd cried out, seeing Eir kneeling on the ground next to a motionless Gunnar.

The elf had her eyes closed and was muttering a prayer, her hand on the blue elf’s chest. Healing power glowed between them, but the soldier’s condition remained unchanging. His arm had been cut off; the limb was pressed up against his shoulder but the cut was obvious. Next to the two of them sat Sabina, cradling a pale Sorcha. The goblin was clearly in a lot of pain, but more than that, Syd could see that where her left foot should have been was nothing but a freshly healed but still raw-looking stump.

“I’m sorry Jadis,” Sabina said quietly, looking up at Syd with sad eyes as she hugged the goblin to her chest. “Alex is gone.”

“What!?” Syd cried out again, Sabina’s sentence making no sense to her whatsoever. “Did—did Alex do this!?”

“No, no!” Sabina said, twitching like she was going to stand. The movement made Sorcha groan pitifully, though, so she immediately settled back down. “Alex saved us! That prisoner, the one with the scythe—”

“Eike,” Sorcha clarified weakly.

“Right! Eike,” Sabina nodded. “She broke free of her restraints. She killed Gunnar. Or, I think she killed Gunnar, maybe not? Eir would know better. She cut off Sorcha’s leg though and she would have killed me too, but Alex stopped her and—”

“Wait, wait,” Syd cut her babbling friend off. “Alex stopped Eike? How? Where are they?”

“Oh, ah, I don’t know,” Sabina said, looking around the wagon. “I’m not sure how, but Alex got out of the cage and got, uh, bigger, I guess. Last I saw it was wrapped around Eike’s head while she stumbled off into the woods over that way. I’m not sure where either are now.”

That… that was a lot to process. Jadis didn’t even know where to start. Well, looking at Eir and Gunnar, she did know where to start. As much as she wanted to ask Sabina for more information about exactly what had gone down, she couldn’t waste time on that. She needed to get healing from Eir as quickly as possible and then get back into the fight. But first, she needed to let her elf lover do what she had to do for Gunnar.

“Is he going to make it?” Syd asked, kneeling down next to Eir and the unmoving soldier.

The priestess made no response, only continuing to chant under her breath as she channeled healing energy into Gunnar. Syd watched and waited, not pressing her lover further while she worked, but the sounds of battle made her tense, never mind the issues she was dealing with from her other bodies.

A loud roar made Syd turn her head to look back down the hill. She saw Noll was there now, as was Bridget. She could see the orc’s blue flame shining brightly in the growing gloom of the twilight shadows. Noll had leapt into the air to cut at the annoying wind mage, but a strange beast had appeared in the sky and attacked him before he could get to the possessed elf.

The creature was large, maybe half-again as large as a frost drake, but with long, thin, batlike wings instead of front legs. Its neck was long and its head was shaped oddly. Its long jaws looked oddly too wide for its body, but when it opened its mouth to snap at Noll, she saw that a second pair of inner jaws lashed out from within, trying to grasp at the mercenary with hooked teeth. The beast’s scales were a shade of olive green and a row of long black spikes jutted out from its spine, going all the way down the length of its sinewy tail.

That had to be one of the possessed black-spined wyverns Jack had warned them about. The Fetch had said there were two of them, though where the second was Jadis couldn’t see.

“Ah, praise Lyssandria,” Eir said with a relieved tone, drawing Syd’s attention back to the elf.

Looking back down, Syd saw that Gunnar was breathing again, albeit shallowly. He was still very pale and his eyes were closed. Worse, it didn’t look like his arm had reattached. Jadis wasn’t even sure how that worked with magical healing, but she’d have to ask Eir about it later.

“He’ll live?” Syd asked, drawing Eir’s eyes up to hers.

“Yes, he should,” the elf nodded, her voice strained. “A miracle, truly.”

“That’s my Eir, the miracle worker,” Syd said, a lot of feeling burning behind those words. She raised the visor on her helmet and gave her lover a quick kiss on the cheek. “Can you work more wonders for me, please? I’m nearly out of health right now.”

“Of course,” Eir said, already putting her hands on Syd, their healing magic washing through her. “How goes the fight?”

“The demon possessing the dragon is dead. A lot of the demons down the hill are dead, too. Maybe a fourth of them are left, but I’m worried more might be coming. We need to start pulling back to our fallback position soon.”

Eir nodded, her face a mask of concentration as she pumped healing magic into Syd. Without even looking at her status sheet, Jadis could feel the difference the priestess’ healing was making on her other two bodies, especially Jay. Soon, she’d be back to full health and then all three of her selves would work with the others to clear the last of the demons attacking them off the face of Oros. Then they could all fall back to the prearranged defensive spot and—

A terrible yet familiar sensation ran up Dys’ spine as she dodged around the battlefield, still grappling with the tornado effect blinding her. Juking out from one way to another, she left the cyclone behind for a moment. Long enough to see a sickly yellow-green glow emanating from the bodies of dead demons lying at her feet. In fact, that horribly familiar glow was emanating from all the demon corpses scattered across the forest floor around her in a large radius.

“Everyone, DOWN!” Dys screamed as she dashed out of the killing field.

Two seconds later and the world exploded, the bodies of the hundreds of dead demons rupturing in a noxious cloud of blood, meat, and bone shrapnel. Dys stumbled from the blast, most of it hitting her back as she leapt clear of the bloody explosion, landing somewhere to the north of the battlefield. As she caught herself, armored boots skidding in the snow, she raised her head to see an old enemy emerging from the forest shadows, its awful face greeting her with a wide rictus that had haunted her nightmares for months.

“You…” Dys snarled, her eyes meeting the dead orbs of the Twisted Wretch Matriarch. “I’ve been hoping I’d run into you one last time.”

The matriarch only grinned in response.

308