Chapter 17 - Part 8

Delegado was beginning to get annoyed with the horses. The wolves – well, they weren’t exactly wolves, more demons that had wolf shape – would have never gotten this close if he and Thomas hadn’t had to keep the mounts from bolting. As it was he had picked off four of the pack with his arrows, and Thomas had blown another two apart with a conjured lightning bolt, but now the remaining dozen or so were swarming around them.

“Get the horses back!” Delegado yelled, gutting one demon wolf with his adamantine blade. It split open like rotten fruit, spilling black blood that smelled of sulfur. Another wolf tried to bite him on the leg, but he stepped aside.

“Easy to say,” Thomas snorted. The half-daelkyr instead fumbled with a scroll and cast. The earth shuddered, and a ring of thick thorns burst upwards from the ground. Magically summoned to this place, the wall of thorns did not have the appearance of healthy plants, but were instead blackened and partially withered. Nonetheless the wall served its purpose, encircling the horses, keeping the wolves out except for an opening in which Delegado stood.

“Could have done that earlier!” Delegado snapped, swiping at another wolf. This one was trying to bite his ankle and trip him.

“Couldn’t find it!” Thomas yelled, taking his greataxe out. His stormstalk zapped the wolf biting at Delegado’s ankles and the creature stiffened and slowed.

It took Delegado and Thomas about four minutes of swinging sword and axe to kill off another handful of wolves before the rest fled. Delegado fired six arrows after them, and Thomas used scrolls that shot darts of magical force, so that only three wolves lived to get away.

The half-orc and the half-daelkyr took a moment to catch their breath, and then Thomas coughed. “They must be hungry to keep attacking even as we slew them,” Thomas said.

“Or directed by something else,” Delegado said, settling his bow and sword back into place. He looked in the skies for Feather.

“Your hawk is fine,” Thomas said. “You sent him to recon, remember?”

“I’ll feel better when he’s back,” Delegado said. The wall of thorns began to shrivel and dry, and then collapsed into dust. “Good job getting rid of the thorns, it would attract attention.”

“I didn’t,” Thomas said with some trepidation. “Something makes it hard for summoned things to stay here.”

“Yeah, welcome to the Wastes,” Delegado said. He grabbed his horse’s reins. “We need these mounts to get overland, but they’re hard to defend.”

“How far are we going?” Thomas asked. They heard a soft cry overhead and Delegado’s face relaxed as Feather plummeted from the sky and landed on his shoulder.

“Not much farther,” Delegado told him. “Question is what’s between us and it.” He cast his spell and talked to Feather. A half-minute later he disconnected from the bird. “Feather says nothing other than the wolves. There’s a magical alarm that I’m picking up on, but you can dispel that I think, doesn’t seem too strong.”

“Must be nice to have a dragonmark,” Thomas said, mounting his horse.

“Oh yeah,” Delegado grinned, getting on his own horse, and taking the lead rope of the third mount. He was beginning to like the half-daelkyr.