All The Skills

Brixaby suddenly dived, and for a terrible moment, Arthur felt his rear lift off the dragon's scaly neck.

"Brix!" he yelled, clutching desperately at the ridge in front of him and used the strength of his legs to pull himself back down.

Arthur couldn't quite catch what Brixaby called back to him, but it sounded something like, "If you fly with me, be prepared for surprises."

He managed to regain a firm seat before the dragon leveled out of his dive.

At least he got another dragon riding skill out of it.

New skill level: Dragon Riding (Animal Husbandry/ Dragon Rider Class)

New level: 18

Once his heart felt like it wasn't trying to leap out of his throat, Arthur snarled, "What was that about?"

In answer, Brixaby pointed ahead.

For a moment, Arthur didn't see what he’d spotted. The ground had become much patchier the closer they came to the deadened lands. There were areas where, for no visible reason, the plants from the grasses all the way to tall, hundred-year-old trees had yellowed and died. And other, inexplicably dry spots as if the water itself had been repelled from the soil. As they went on, these blighted areas became more common than the alive ones — and the spots that were still hanging on for dear life looked more sickly. To Arthur's eye, the deadened lands were encroaching as the scourge blighted soil poisoned the land.

Gazing ahead, he couldn't pick out much in the scraggly, half-dead weeds. This was one of those actively dying patches. That was until he glanced at the ground and saw… Tracks.

Back when he was a child living in the borderland village, Arthur had been much too young to be allowed on the rare hunts when the adults snuck away from the village for a chance to bring home fresh meat. After that, he had lived in a city and so didn't have even the most basic of tracking skills.

But anybody with eyes could pick out the deep imprints in the dusty soil. And they were quite unusual.

"What are those? Birds?" he asked.

The tracks were three-toed, spread out. The smallest Arthur spotted was the size of his spread hand. The largest was the size of Sams’ spread forepaw, which was pretty big, considering he was a full-grown yellow dragon.

And the more he looked, the more he saw. A sea of tracks, all pointed toward the deadened lands instead of away from them.

"What bird lives on the ground?" Brixaby asked, shrugging under Arthur.

A bird that should not be, Arthur thought, which meant only one thing. “Scourgelings.”

Considering that there was a hot, dry wind blowing in from the direction of the deadened lands, and no hint of dust had covered the tracks yet, they seemed fresh.

Arthur and Brixaby flew on, and the vegetation thinned out even more. The soil became rocky and hard, with no plants to help break it up. It took on a sort of bleached gray-white color that signaled there was no life to be found within.

The tracks faded away as even the heaviest of the scourgelings couldn't make an imprint in that soil. But they had all been arrowed in one single direction. Following it, Arthur and Brixaby soon came to the road called the Interstate.

As Lopez had said, it was marked by green flags, which stood about a foot tall and flapped in the dry wind. The green was weirdly visible against the gray-white soil.

The soil between the flags was so packed down that there wasn't a hint of a track, or even wheel ruts from the carts that must have passed by regularly. But the scourgelings' tracks had been headed right for it.

Abruptly, Brixaby started to flap upward again at a sharp angle.

"What are you doing?" Arthur asked.

The dragon glanced at him in a puzzled way, as if he were just about to explain a very basic concept. "The sun is hitting directly on the soil, and it causes the air to lift. Don't you feel it?"

"No," Arthur said, but then shrugged. In the air, Brixaby was the expert.

The dragon blew out an exasperated snort. "Observe," he said, and then positioned both of his wings on either side, close together, with a very slight overlap at the edges so that they provided more surface area. And though they were gliding… They were not falling. In fact, to Arthur's mild amazement, they seemed to be rising.

However, the process was slower than Brixaby liked, because he soon started flapping his four wings again to gain even more altitude. As they climbed, Arthur could see more distantly. The land had flattened out, and Arthur finally spotted dark dots in the distance, right on the edge of the horizon.

"Are those scourgelings?" Arthur asked. "Or is that the oncoming caravan?"

"I think it's both," Brixaby said, and then swung his head around again, glancing at Arthur with a smug look. "You may want to hold on."

"Thanks," Arthur said dryly, then took hold of one of the ridges again and tightened his thighs. His legs were already starting to burn with the beginning of fatigue, and he expected he would be getting some kind bonus soon from his Master of Body Enhancement card. Who would have known that riding a dragon would be a good workout?

Again, Brixaby dived, though this time he wasn't just falling with style. He was going for speed. And there was nothing that wasn't card powered in this world that could beat a purple dragon for speed in flight.

The wind screamed by Arthur’s ears, and his eyes watered. He had to narrow them almost to the point of being shut, taking in the world through a thin bar.

I need goggles, he thought, mentally kicking himself for not taking the time that morning to outfit Brixaby with the basics. He doubted anybody in the city would have a dragon saddle, but he could have easily purchased some soft straps that would have been more appropriate. At least smiths and metal forgers often used eye protection for their craft, so he could start there for goggles. He'd remedy the situation as soon as he got back.

Stolen story; please report.

Through bleary, wind-induced tears, he saw the distant dots start to resolve themselves.

It was indeed a caravan — four wagons by the looks of it — and they were in dire straits. They’d stopped and grouped together in a tight circle, pulling the animals in and taking shelter themselves by using the wagons as a barrier.

A mass of at least thirty scourgelings had circled around and were actively attacking the carts. These had indeed taken on a bird shape, though with strong legs meant to run, tiny flightless wings, and large heads that supported oversized, curved beaks meant to tear and rend meat.

But because they were not truly animals — there was debate whether scourgelings were alive at all — the feathers were displaced, knocked askew, and at a close look, falling off, leaving weeping red welts. And even above the screaming wind, Arthur heard the terrible whistling that was the scourgelings cry.

They were flying in fast, but still too far away to make a difference.

Arthur clenched his jaw when he saw one of the terrible bird scourgelings leap up on top of the carts and lean down to pluck a person out from the center.

Other wagoners attacked the scourgeling with what looked like a spear and a bolt of yellow magic. The scourgeling fell away, but not before the unfortunate person was thrown outside the ring of carts. Arthur was too far away to tell if it had been a man or a woman, or even an adult. But they were dead seconds after they hit the ground as other scourgelings set upon them.

Brixaby swelled beneath him. As they flew forward, faster than an arrow in flight, Brixaby let out his stunning shout. It was something more force than sound, and at this angle, straight on, it likely hit a few people as well.

Arthur saw bits of wood splinter and fly up from one of the carts.

But the stunning shout also knocked down a swath of the scourgelings, including the biggest beast of the group, which stood at least ten feet tall.

"That's the one, the high ranker," Arthur said. "We have to kill that one first. Brixaby, give me some metal — anything I can send at it."

They had slowed only slightly from their long dive, just enough for his voice to be heard over the sound of the wind. But they were less than two seconds from being on top of the wagons, a handful of heartbeats away.

But of course, in Personal Space, time was meaningless.

Arthur didn't even see Brixaby flicker as he entered his Personal Space to gather from his metal horde. In the next moment, he reached back to hand Arthur a handful of metal chips.

Arthur took them in his cupped hands. Activating his 'Nice Shot' card, he became aware of the metal as if it were a second skin. The chips flowed over the tops of his hands, wrists, and forearms, settling there like a thin coat of armor. But it wasn't armor. It was ammunition.

Arthur concentrated on the rows closest to his hand and charged them with as much mana as he could stuff into them. As Brixaby flew screaming fast over the scourgelings, Arthur set the sharp chips flying, using his throwing accuracy skill and his make-shift weaponry card for every bit of advantage.

Anything that didn't hit dead on bounced off the unusually toughened feathers and skin. Only one chip out of the dozen he launched made a difference, striking its eye. The scourgeling staggered back with a whistling cry.

Then Brixaby turned about so fast that Arthur was in very real danger of being flung off his back. It took every bit of strength, as well as his dragon riding skill, to cling on.

But that quick maneuver had dumped his speed, and Brixaby came around for another pass, this time using his stunning shout at close distance.

Now it was Brixaby's turn to shine. He flicked his wings in a neat move that took him right above the scourgeling. As he passed over, a twisted mass of metal seemed to appear out of nowhere and fell straight down on the creature.

The large scourgeling stepped to the side, clipped, but it was still a heavy blow. The twisted ball of metal fell with a thud that shook the earth and did not bounce -- two smaller scourgelings were crushed where they stood.

I need to find out what else he put in his Personal Space, Arthur thought.

Meanwhile, the men and women trying to defend the wagons weren't sitting idle. Arthur heard a shout behind him. Turning, he saw one woman had taken a position on top of one of the wagons. This was a risky spot to be in as she drew the eye of every scourgeling. But she stood strong and straight, completely ignoring scourgelings that were jumping up and trying to snap at her.

Her arms extended, and wind built up out of nowhere. A dust devil came down from the clear blue sky, picked up the scourgelings closest to her, and tossed them away.

Unfortunately, that caused a huge amount of turbulence, which sent Brixaby careening to one side. The next stunning shout that he had been building up went wide.

"Stop trying to be helpful!" Brixaby yelled to her. Then, as an aside to Arthur as he fought to regain control in the sky, he said, "Is it time?"

"Yeah," Arthur said grimly. "Might as well see what happens." Brixaby would not be safe in the air with dust devils spawning out of nowhere. Time for plan B.

With a flick of his wings, Brixaby landed, and Arthur made an emergency dismount. The moment his feet hit the soil, Brixaby produced another object from his Personal Space — it was a bar of metal with crude runes carved up the side. Brixaby's enchanted object. As it had been originally based on Cressida’s flame bear card power, it enhanced fire.

Brixaby activated it, and dark flames grew up and down the length of the metal as well as his spine. Void fire. He closed in with the large scourgeling.

The creature was just as eager to engage. It staggered forward toward him, snapping a beak filled with razor sharp teeth.

At the last second, Brixaby lashed out with the enchanted bar. It was an outwardly sloppy move, a little too wide, and the base of his claws brushed the scourgeling’s chest. This close, Arthur was the only one to see Brixaby yank back, not a card, but a handful of card shards.

The scourgeling acted as if it had been mortally wounded. It lurched backward, staggering, its whistling cry that of a dying animal.

Brixaby pounced on top of the scourgeling and pressed the bar to its feathers.

It turned out, scourgeling feathers caught fire very easily, and the Brixaby’s dark flame was particularly nasty.

Meanwhile, some of the minor scourgelings, having recovered from Brixaby's stunning shout, made greedy lurches towards Arthur. He pelted those with metal shrapnel. Unlike with the larger scourgeling, the sharp metal shrapnel proved fatal.

When he looked back to see how his dragon was doing, he saw that the large scourgeling was completely aflame and had collapsed.

Nearer to the wagons, the dust devil was cheerfully doing its work, flinging the last of the minor scourgelings here and there.

They had won, and the people from the caravan were starting to realize they weren't doomed. They cheered, but Arthur also caught some screams on the wind. A few people had climbed up on the wagon along with the dust-devil women and were waving to get his attention.

He jogged to them. "What's wrong? Is someone hurt?"

More shouts, all overlapping and confused.

Finally, a woman broke out from between the wagons and hurried to him. "Please, dragon rider, what about the others?"

"What others?" Arthur asked.

Turing, she pointed back up the road. "We’d heard this last leg wasn’t safe, so as we was the best fighters, we took the first few wagons ahead of the rest. But when the attack came, the biggest beasts kept going down the road. These were just the small un’s. Please, sir, our children are there!”

Arthur glanced back at the large scourgeling, which was still cheerfully burning. With dread, he realized that while the thing was large, the size of its feet barely fit half of those largest tracks he had seen in the dust.

He looked at Brixaby. "The shards."

Brixaby understood immediately and snorted in disgust. "Uncommon."

The largest had been only an Uncommon, which meant that the minor ones had been Common.

There were Rare scourgelings still up ahead.