45 loop 1, Part 25

“I always wanted to use that spell,” Thane said, mostly to himself. I barely heard him, and I was kicking myself for not having [Subtitle] active.

Above the broken roof, through the ceiling, Eirkedross opened its mouth. I watched the darkness gather between its teeth, thick and oily. Just like when it had taken Finn apart. I’d hoped to never see it again. But I had [Wideview] active, because of course I did, so I saw the whole thing from every angle at once.

The breath came down over Thane. It took him apart patiently, bit by bit, like it had all the time in the world. The wand rolled out of his hand and clicked against the ground. He had been the professor my uncle had asked to force me to meditate for the first time.

I had hated every second of it and called it the worst day of my life. Four hours of sitting still while he hummed and told me to listen to what the system wanted, as if the system had anything useful to say about naps. But as I watched him die in front of me, with dawning horror, I didn’t think I’d say that ever again.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. “Everyone, we need to move faster.”

We were practically crawling. The whole column moved at the pace of the slowest people we were pushing forward, and those were the four wounded. There was a first-year with a shredded shoulder. Two third-years, both with broken feet. And a girl being carried by Finn that had a leg bending the wrong way at the knee.

I wondered why Finn hadn’t healed them yet, but one look at him answered the question. His face had gone pale under the blood and soot. His wand hand shook every few steps. His mana had been spent. These were not the people he had forgotten to heal. These were the least damaged people left after he had already done everything he could.

Fuck my timing. Because every second they spent fighting their own ruined bodies was a second the dragon had to catch up.

I pointed my wand at them and stopped caring about my mana, which was easier than I thought it would be. “[Move].” I cast it on the first-year’s robes, and he lifted off the ground with a gasp, one hand clutching his shoulder like gravity might remember him any second.

A small block of mana vanished. Nope. Wasn’t going to look at that. I did my best to ignore my mana and kept casting.

“[Move].” I cast on the girl with the dislocated knee. Another block vanished, a little less than the first. “[Move].” “[Move].” The two third-years floated up together, wobbling badly until I pictured them steadier. And the fourth cast tripped [Cascade]. The bar in the corner of my vision had gone deep into the red.

Fuck.

But when I looked at the dragon, I knew I was making the right choice.

Flag had been helping the two third-years, herding them towards the library, with that patient determination and excitement. He still had a look of wonder on his golem face. The moment [Move] took the four injured off their feet, he turned and came back to me. Flag walked the way he always did—slamming each foot down, then overcorrecting. But he was learning how to walk faster. So I wasn’t going to complain.

“Okay,” he said. “The wounded ones are flying now. That’s very good. Can I fly, too?”

“Not right now. Probably later.”

“Oh,” Flag said. “Later is good. I didn’t have any later before. What can I help with next?” I sent Flag to hang out with the other golems until I inevitably needed his help again.

We finally picked up the pace, which meant it was time for the next problem. Frost’s plates were in ruin. My golems did a good job of holding them up, looking like broken peacock’s feathers. And it hadn’t helped that Eirkedross had hammered them again and again with shadowfire and claws. There were maybe a third of what we had started with. And they looked about ready to crumble. But defense was defense.

As if reading my thoughts, Frost flicked her wand behind her, and while she ran, she cast [Mass Plating]. Fresh glass snapped into the air around us. Dozens of new discs caught the late morning light. They were the same clear ash color. And they warped the Green as if I was looking through a dirty window.

She wasn’t done. She cast [Redirect]. zAnd the discs began to move on their own. Each one bending and tilting against the next, climbing and stacking up in a long, curving arc that cast a weird shadow over all of us. Where the gaps had been, she cast again, creating new glass and slipping it in to fill the cracks. There were dozens of plates, each one leaning on the next. Each one depending on its neighbor not to fail.

A metaphor, probably. I hated those when they applied to me.

The only problem with a shell that size was the weight. I wasn’t sure my golems could distribute it without dropping it.

“Flag, grab the shell at the front,” I said. “Carefully.”

“Oh, yes,” Flag said. “I can hold things. I’m very good at holding things.”

That was true. He had been a floor. Holding things was essentially his entire professional history.

I sent the same order to the other golems and pictured them spreading themselves out beneath the shell. They obeyed, arms raised, stone feet thudding across the grass as they took the weight. It worked, and soon we were running across the Green under a ridiculous turtle shell of stacked glass. All of us were crammed beneath it like… well, like a group of people trying to avoid a fucking dragon.

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Every blast of Eirkedross’s flame that struck the dome would bounce off the plates in a long, descending waterfall. I’m sure we looked absurd to other people, but it wasn’t even the most absurd thing I had done that day.

Out past our shell, the people who’d run early had no glass over their heads. They’d scattered across the open Green in a loose, panicking spread, and Eirkedross worked them like a predator that had already won. It dropped onto a knot of them near the fountain, claws first. I tried hard to ignore it, but the image was ghastly.

It came up with two of them and decided it only wanted one. The other, it let fall. The screams echoed against the shell.

A boy maybe my age broke off from the group and sprinted for the library doors, arms pumping in a fruitless panic. Eirkedross caught him in three wingbeats. There wasn’t even a struggle.

I kept my wand on the wounded and my eyes forward, and told myself the math was sound. Every person under our shell was a person it couldn’t reach. And for now, it seemed to be avoiding us for easier prey.

Eirkedross wailed overhead, deciding which of us looked softest. Ahead of our shell, the people who had fled earlier were screaming like maniacs, trying to figure out where to go. We were gaining on them, but not fast enough. The dragon swooped down and grabbed the old professor who had led them out. His robes snapped in the wind as Eirkedross lifted him clear off the ground.

Then it ripped him in half.