He hoped this worked.
Suddenly, Drakis fell from the sky.
In a swift motion, Drakis grabbed the sharp chin of the elf beneath him and, using the Iblisi’s shoulders as leverage, swung his knees down his victim’s back. The tip of his sword connected at the base of the throat just above the collarbone and slid with satisfactory force into the rib cage and tore through the creature’s heart.
In the next moment, Drakis lay on the ground surrounded by the dense ground cover of the jungle with the dead elf lying on top of him.
That’s one, Drakis thought. But it’s not enough. They’re moving too fast.
In the next moment, he was yanked skyward by the dwarf’s magic once again.
“Wait! Look!” Ethis shouted.
The Lyric ran across the line of Iblisi, diving at the last moment behind a tree. The trunk exploded into a thousand splitters, toppling the tree-but she was no longer there.
The Iblisi saw her at once, their Matei staffs shifting to strike her with their full force. Blue and red rods of light arced toward her, waves of flame and sound engulfed her. .
. . But never reached her.
“She is the Wind-princess!” Belag said with shock.
“Wind-princess or not,” Ethis said with a smile as he pointed, “look what she’s doing!”
The Iblisi continued to train their power against her as she darted about the village ruins, drawing them inward and away from the beach.
“There’s your flank, Belag,” Ethis said. “But I’ve got something I have to tell you before you go. . something you have to do that can mean all the difference in the world to us all.”
The manticore looked quizzically at the chimerian.
“You must do this for Drakis,” he said, reaching into his pocket.
Drakis once again floated over the landscape. They were moving too fast, and this was taking far too long. Good plan or not, the end result would be the same.
Another of the Iblisi was below him now. He needed the dwarf to move him just a little more to the left.
The fires below were unbearable. The heat was making it hard for him to concentrate, and his eyes stung.
He opened his left hand again and drew back his sword.
The dwarf was moving him slowly, carefully. .
A gust of wind drifted over the fires, carrying with it a wave of smoke just as Drakis drew in his breath.