"HELL PULSE!"
The giant wolf roared his spell at the root house. One of the many root houses in the little village he and his army was now in.
The spell of pure raw magical power slammed into the roots causing a rumbling explosion. And yet, it still could not dig through the damnable tree. This only pissed him off even more.
All around him were the signs of the hasty evacuation of the village occupants. And from the looks of things, dragons they had been chasing had gone with them.
Shadowfang was already pissed off from being caught flatpawed by the explosive counter-attack. He should have been able to feel the magical build-up for it and been ready. Instead, he only escaped serious injury because of his two subordinates.
Shadowfang turned to glare at said subordinates. One, the hind-legged wolf, was standing next to one of the damn trees. Knowing that wolf as he did, Shadowfang figured he was examining the magic within. To what end, the giant wolf had no clue. That wolf was an artifact user, and thus his magic needed intermediaries to be of any use. Shadowfang himself used the magic his species had once been known for, Dark Wolf Magic. A magic that took one's own internal power to twist nature and cast demonic like and/or nature defying spells.
The other subordinate was sitting on a root, staring at the injured assassin. That subordinate, a forsaken as they liked to be called, Shadowfang only trusted it, and it's kind because they'd been working for his Master for almost as long as he had. Their magic was similar yet different to his own. They seemed to have very little internal magic except what they held onto, and they called on actual higher dimensional beings to cast their spells instead of mimicking them as he did.
This difference in magic was why the two of them had been able to snap-cast their shield spells as soon as the ball of magic appeared. If he had been aware, or even paying proper attention instead of salivating over the thought of being able to kill something, Shadowfang could have cast his own counter. Unlike his subordinates or most of the creatures under his command really, Shadow fang did not have true snap-cast spells. All of his spells had some kind of build-up.
It was a weakness, and he knew it. It did mean Dark Wolf Magic was generally more substantial on the other side. In this instance, he still needed to be protected by those he commanded. That was the first part of why he was so pissed off.
The second was the effects of the counter-attack itself. While it had not taken his forces as long to break back into the cave once the magic-infused rock had cooled down, it still took them way too damn long. Even with it taking magic, ape explosives, and dreadwings digging to do it, it had taken them till the mid-afternoon!
This delay had given his targets plenty of time to not only defeat the dreadwings that had already gotten through already. But it had also given them plenty of head start in getting away.
Which led to the third item pissing him off. The damn assassin he had hired. The damn dragon had gotten hit with almost the full force of the counter-attack. Him and easily a quarter of his army. If the dragon had died, he could have cared less (to say nothing of how little he cared about the rest of the military either). But nope, the damn thing survived, injured and beat up but still alive. And more importantly, he was injured enough that he was refusing to come near or let any creature go near him until he could heal himself up. This meant Shadowfang had lost his best tracker.
Shadowfang shifted his glare from his subordinates to his forces. Many of which were still entering the half-concave cave. His attempts to relieve his anger on the root houses were getting him nowhere. Their quarry was escaping, and he needed to act.
His gaze fell across the mound of dead dreadwings. It was quite a pile. He had not seen so many of the dark arm's shock troops die since the start of the Ape Wars. Shadowfange felt no remorse for the dead, though. He was more disappointed they had failed to kill even a single dragon. He was not surprised though; numbers had always been the dark army's strong point. When faced with an equal number of forces, most dragons will dominate any battlefield. Such was their strength. About the only use the mound of dead was giving him right now was a food source for his non-ape or dreadwing forces. Of all of his troops, apes and dreadwings were the pickier eaters. After the dragon anyways, they refused to eat their own for some reason.
Thinking more on the Apes, Shadowfang realized something. Of all of his forces, they were shock troops. They had the most diversity-to-strength-to-ability of his forces and were far better and faster fliers than the wyverns the groublins used. They also had the same level of stupidity and lack of self-preservation hence why they had charged into the cave first, to begin with.
Shadowfang turned and looked back deeper into the Giant's Forest. The closest population center that Shadowfang could think of was on the other side of the forest. More importantly, the forest is downgraded to a "normal" forest and then transitions to plains long before reaching the city.
Shadowfang turned back to his army with a sharp nod and started to walk towards his subordinates aggressively. But he was not about to softly tap on their shoulders!
"DOGSLED! Tell the Apes they're going dragon hunting!" His shouting reached his fellow wolf, who gave Shadowfang what looked like a half-glare before turning away from the tree and walking into the crowd of dark creatures.
Before Shadowfang could yell for his forsaken subordinate, said subordinate was already landing next to him from what Shadowfang could only guess was a magic assisted jump based on the distance. "Scared Eye, Good. I have a job for your creatures as well."
A non-scared eye ridge being raised was his response.
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Marshal had to fight to not collapse in a heap. He, like everyone else, was tired and sore. Not just from the fight but also from how far quickly they had moved to evacuate the village. What kept Marshal from dropping was the same two observations.
One, outside of Spyro, Cynder, Georgia, Cypha, and himself, almost every dragon in the horde was tired, down and through their bones. Most of them had not had to travel as far before encountering the foxes. This meant most of them were not used to hard travel. Granted, if he had been on the ground, he would have been the same probably, but Marshal had been flying relatively high up most of the time. He only generally landed to help out someone who was struggling.
The second observation had more to do with the foxes than the dragons. As tired as he felt, as tired as all of the other dragons looked, for some reason, whenever Marshal looked at the foxes, they always looked even worse than any dragon. And yet, whenever one of the adults, especially the hunters and warriors amongst them, turned and saw one of the other dragons who were up and moving, they would take a breath and get right back into the swing of things. They were drawing strength from the dragons. Well, it was that, or they could not stand to be shown up by them.
Seeing this, Marshal knew he could not let himself drop. He was worried that if he landed and collapsed, then the already drained dragons would follow him into dropping, and then nothing would get done. Yes, he was tired, sore, and bruised. But he had few if any cuts thanks to the monstrosity of leather armor he had on. And for some reason, even with all of the magic he had thrown around in the fight and in keeping track of everyone on the ground (and the few who would occasionally join him in the air even if not as high up as him), he felt like he still had plenty of magic for another fight. His body did not agree, but that did not stop him from using his magic as much as he was.
At this point, the sun was starting to be almost down, and everyone was slowing down. It was getting so bad that movement had all but stopped. Marshal was unsure if they would be able to keep going for much longer. Their biggest problem was that they did not know how far ahead of the swarm they were.
Marshal was also positive that, like most armies, the Dark Army would have to stop at some point to rest. All they needed to know was if they were far enough ahead.
Marshal swung around in flight with that thought in mind and went back the way they had come.
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For the first time in his life, Kean was physically exhausted. He wanted to keep moving. He had to keep moving. And yet, every step was getting harder. It was getting so bad he had taken to taking short gliding hops instead of stepping through everyone.
He would probably be doing better if he did not have one of his younger siblings and their friend on their back. They, like many of the other pre-teens, were starting to pass out. They had stacked as many as they could on the fox's carts and pack animals before tossing them on every dragon big enough. Even the continually grumbling Horhe had several on his back, Kean was also optimistic that the only reason that dragon was still going was sheer spite and trying to show up Marshal.
Kean was watching said wind dragon, who was one of the only ones currently unencumbered. This was because he was also the most mobile and had rarely left his self-imposed overwatch. He had helped carry things a few times, but they were always short distances while working to clear up something that could better bear the item.
The poison dragon was unsure what Marshal was doing. Then again, he had a hard time figuring out what was going on in the younger dragon's head. Even as he watched Marshal flying towards the back and then beyond the rear of the sort-of-convoy they had going on, Kean was more worried that Marshal was going back to try and fight or do something else along those lines. The older dragon knew that Marshal seemed to still have plenty of magic to go around, even if most of them were running out. There was probably a pawful of them who had anywhere enough magic left to try and put up a fight, himself only just this side of being in that number.
The poison dragon had been using his knowledge of first-aid and way too many experiences with potentially poisonous substances during low-budget babysitting situations to help make sure their injured had wounds that, while may not be fully sealed, would at least no longer bleed or have a high chance of infection.
That one healing dragon, 'Cypha' Kean thought his name was, had run out of magic awhile ago healing people. Kean was also sure that the only reason he was still with them and had not run off was because Luanda and Stecra seemed not to leave him alone, or at very least kept trying to get him into some conversation. Granted, Stecra was in the means of near pestering while Luanda was light and straightforward questions.
Kean's attention was brought back to Marshal as he noticed that the wind dragon had stopped right at the edge of sight range. He seemed to hover there for some reason. Kean had to squint, but he could swear it also looked like he was flapping his wings in such a manner so that the most amount of blowback would go back in the direction they had come. Kean blinked a few times, trying to clear what he could have sworn was grey-silvery dust specks almost immediately after noticing this.
By the time he had cleared his eyes, Kean had noticed something else. Not about Marshal, more the tree next to him. The towering tree looked like it was moving.
"Probably a Branch-Sloth."
Kean almost jumped. Thankfully, the weight on his back stopped him as he turned to look at Claw, who had come up next to him.
Claw looked both tired, more mentally than physically strangely. Next to Claw were Spyro and Harild, who seemed to be in similar states; Spyro less so.
Kean, excepting that there were others with him, asked, "Branch-Sloth?"
Claw nodded as they watched the still moving mass of what looked very similar to tree bark moving down, "That's what we call them. They, like the Tree Leapers, look similar to the trees around them. The difference is that the Leapers like to stick near the branches and are smaller, while the Sloths hug the trunks and use their...frankly scarry long arms to reach for their food. You don't normally see one moving that quickly; if you see them at all, they're eating a branch they snapped off the day before."
Harlid motioned his head towards the mass, which looked like it was slowing down as the bottom part of it (which looked like a head for some reason) started to move away from the tree, as he asked, "Then why is that one moving like that?"
Claw scratched his chin before responding, "If I had to guess...I would say because of something Marshal was doing."
None of them thought of responding before something happened again. Specifically, it seemed like Marshal noticed.
They could tell because the speck that was the wind dragon's wings suddenly stopped on their downward stroke.
Marshal looked to hover in the air on the momentum of his last flap as his head appeared to snap to the right. At the angle they were watching from, Kean, Spyro, Harlid, and Claw could barely see an eye staring right at Marshal. An eye big enough to be slightly more significant than the dragon it was looking at.
Kean had to stop himself from laughing as it looked like Marshal yelped as he used the start of his body starting to go down from lack of wing work, to dive out and away from the branch-sloth quickly.
The branch-sloth looked to watch him for a bit before it started to turn around and looked to climb back up the tree.
Spyro chuckled, watching this, "It looked like it lost interest."
Harlid snorted, "It probably also scared a bit of time off of Marshal's life."
Kean smiled lightly, knowing that even as tired as they all were, at least some could still joke, "Why don't we wait for him to come back and tell us."
Harlid shrugged while Spyro sat down, and Claw unhooked his boomerang so that he could use it as a leaning crutch.
They thankfully did not have to wait long as Marshal flew low and fast, back to the convoy. He seemed to zero in on them immediately, almost immediately.
As the wind dragon came into land Kean could stop himself from saying, "Fancy some eye-ball stew?"
Watching Marshal half-stumble his landing and the sideways glasses the others gave him was worth it.
Once Marshal righted himself from his landing, he looked at Kean for a few seconds before shaking his head and looked towards the group as a whole. When he started talking, it was not to any of them in particular, but Kean got the sense that it was mostly to Claw and Spyro. The two of them seemed to be who Marshal wanted to confirm plans with either way.
"I think we got a far enough lead we can stop for the night."
Kean saw Claws eyebrow raise, "How can you be sure about that?"
Spyro's smile was almost subtle as he seemed to realize something, "You used your magic to scout?"
Claw's eyes widened in mild surprise, while Kean and Harlid both became curious as Marshal nodded, "Yes. I've been calling it Wind Sense. I basically just try and feel the shifting of the wind currents as far as I can get my magic to go. Normally I do it in all directions, so it's easier in the open. But just then, I did in...I guess it would a cone shape back the way we came. I don't really want to know how far that went, but it went far. I did not sense a thing."
Claw's paw went back to scratching his chin, "So we aren't in easy striking distance of the army, or we've escaped."
Spyro shook his head in disagreement, "I doubt we lost them already. If there's one thing I've learned about the Dark Army, it's that they never give up. They'll catch up."
Kean let out a stuff hum before voicing his thoughts, "A flying creature will almost always travel further than a landlocked one. I don't know about the rest of you, but I've seen more flyers amongst our enemies than I have ground troops. And we're the exact opposite."
Claw nodded in agreement; Harlid let out a sigh but said nothing. Marshal, however, still had responses, "I'm aware of all of these. But it doesn't change the fact that we can't keep this up. Even if it were just us dragons, it wouldn't be any different. Everyone is starting to falter, and even those who could still fly would not last very long."
Harlid caught on faster than the rest of them, "Better to stop and rest now; whether we have pursuers or not is immaterial."
Marshal nodded, "Correct. The sun is basically down, which means even any pursuing army would be stopping to camp. With the lead we have, we'll have time to not only get a good night of rest but also start some prep for the morning."
Kean was not the only one mildly confused but claws look of realization indicated he figured what marshal meant faster than the rest. "You're not just referring to the breaking of camp."
Marshal nodded again, "Not just camp. We need to start thinking as if we're escorting a refugee convoy with an army." He stopped slightly before motioning around them, and the crowd, which while still moving by, was slowing down as they seemed to be listening in. "Which we kind of are. This means, of course, we'll need to have watches at night, but we also need to need to have scouts ready in the morning, or just before it really."
Spyro smiled in realization, "Find them before they find you."
Marshal pointed to Spyro as he responded, "Not just that, but if we do it right, we can not only ambush them but also distract them."
Claw's smile was predator now, "Lead them in the wrong direction, widen the gap between them and the non-combatants." Seeing Marshal nod and what looked like motions of agreement from Harlid, Spyro, and Kean, Claw continued, "Alright then. I think it's agreed; we stop and make camp for the night."
AN: I hate my muse sometimes. This took me slightly longer to really get moving than I had hoped. And yet, in the end, it still came faster than I have been able to do it in some time.
I thought I would have gotten a bit further along in this chapter, but I hit my standard word count faster than I thought I would and found the ending point to be the right spot.
I don't have much more to say about this. Well, other than I hoped you liked the little bit with the frankly way too giant sloth. Fun Fact, the largest Sloth on earth to have existed was a ground sloth called Megatherium Americanum. It weighed up to 4 t (4.4 short tons) and measured up to 6 m (20 ft) in length from head to tail (as big as modern elephants). The "Branch-Sloth" looks more like a three-toed Sloth, and thus its weight was more spread out, making it a lot bigger even if the weight is probably about the same.
Characters:
As stated, the Forsaken and Scared Eye are my own creation.
Dogsled K. Shepherd (Yes, that is his full name) belongs to Kastilo Shepherd from Fanfiction.
And that's all for this round, so until we meet again, Happy Reading!
PS: Sorry for the delay on this, I've actually had this done for some time, but a mix of distractions and a week-long sinus headache kept stopping me. Sorry about that.