Artefact Hunters: Draikfang

     The good news was, it wasn’t hard to dodge the fireball from such a great distance. The two Unis and the Apis veered off in plenty of time to avoid it slamming into the desert and throwing a plume of super-heated sand several feet into the air. Either its caster was extremely overconfident, or that had just been a warning shot. Hanso could only hope it was the former.

     That was about the only good news.

     “Oh, you have got to be kidding me!” Hanso yelled, watching the fluttering figure take shape as it dove down for the ground. “A Fire Faerie? How did Heksas get a faerie into his legion of doom?!”

     Brynn grimaced. The group had reconvened and started fleeing again, but she hadn’t taken her eyes off the faerie either.

     “The same way he gets anyone to work for him, I’d imagine,” she pointed out. “Not all faeries care about Fyora’s rule. This one probably thinks she’ll get power and prestige from working with Magdi.”

     Well behind them now, the faerie was rapidly approaching the ground. She arced forward, using the momentum of her dive to shoot toward their group. Further back, the blaring of a trumpet signalled that the rest of Magdi’s soldiers had caught on to the chase and were not far behind her.

     Hanso huffed and pulled his knapsack with its prize closer to himself. At least this was better than getting cornered back at Heru’s tomb, he supposed.

     Gamal looked back with a grimace. After a moment, he turned his attention to the others.

     “You four!” he shouted. “Take to the skies and see if you can’t outfly them. We’re going to get caught if you keep this up at Apis pace. I’ll be of much better use splitting off to distract some of the Mentuans.”

     One of the other tombs was coming up fast, forcing the Unis and Apis to angle themselves to get around it. The faerie disappeared from view – for the moment, at least. Beyond the low building, Hanso could see nothing but an expanse of sand. The high dunes might provide some cover, but they’d be more exposed out there than among the tombs.

     “You want us to just let you get caught?” he yelled back.

     Gamal shook his head. “I don’t see a lot of other options! Besides, I’d be more useful to them alive than dead, and I doubt they’re gonna waste too much effort on me anyway. You’re the ones they’re really after.”

     As if to underscore his point, another flaming bolt flew at them from high in the air. This one looked nonlethal, more magic than fire. Even so, as it ploughed into the sand only a few feet from Hanso and Laelia, he could tell something like that would easily be enough to knock one of them out of the chase. The Fire Faerie had risen above the buildings again, and she was getting closer.

     “Whatever we’re doing, we’d better do it fast!” Brynn called out. She twisted in her saddle to look up at the faerie now half a building behind them, then took a fraction of a second to observe the walls and overhangs of the tombs they were about to leave behind.

     “Gamal, use the cover of the tombs as much as you can,” she advised him. “That will confuse Magdi’s forces for longer and give you a better chance of escaping. We’ll have to brave the open desert and hope our speed is enough.”

     Gamal gave a sharp nod and jinked with his Apis under the tomb’s overhang, rounding its corner just as the others shot into open sand. The Unis immediately sped up, nearly doubling their pace before spreading their wings and surging up into the air.

     There was something almost soothing about flying. Despite the desperate chase, despite the fact that they’d had to leave Gamal behind and hope he was right, when Brynn looked back again and saw the faerie falling behind while the heavy pound of hooves on packed sand was replaced by the smooth sensation of cutting through air, she felt somehow liberated.

     The feeling was swiftly cut short by the faerie hurling another flaming bolt at them.

     Rallon banked hard to the right at Brynn’s directed tug of the reins, while off to her side Laelia danced left. The bolt whizzed between them and streaked off to fizzle in the distance.

     “Okay, that’s it!” Hanso cried out when they drew back together. “When we get to Faerieland, I’m learning archery. Or magic. Whichever comes first.”

     Brynn checked behind them again. They were still outpacing the faerie, but just behind her the Mentuan forces were swiftly making themselves apparent. Some appeared to be splitting off to hunt down Gamal, but already she could see Magdi flying his massive Uni at the front of the charge. His eyes were locked firmly on her and Hanso.

     “Pick archery; I’ll train you myself,” she replied, returning her attention forward. “Any magic spells beyond faerie blessings need a certain spark and years of study anyway.”

     At this point, she was really beginning to regret not taking a bow on this trip. As a knight, she was trained to use them, but she’d always been more proficient in melee combat and had wanted to pack light. If they got out of this, she would not be making that mistake again.

     The sand dunes were getting larger as they left the cluster of buildings behind, and the Unis began flying low and weaving around them for as much cover as they could get. They were starting to slow a little, forced to ease up on their breakneck pace lest they run out of energy.

     Hanso glanced back at the image of Magdi flashing in and out of view behind them and made a face. “I swear, if Magdi catches up to us and starts spewing off more of his ‘Khamtef protector’ stuff, I’m going to puke. At least the Werelupes were upfront about wanting to eat us.”

     Brynn couldn’t resist a small snort at that. “At least he isn’t –”

     She cut herself off suddenly when the sharp crackle of another magic bolt reached her ears. She turned to see nothing but sand, but a fraction of a second later, Rallon’s flight path arced around another dune and straight into the path of a streaking firebolt.

     “Rallon!” she yelled, pulling his reins in warning. But it was a split second too late. Searing pain lanced her calf as the bolt clipped her Uni’s side. It tore through the feathers of his outstretched wing, sending the two of them spiralling to the sand below.

     Laelia didn’t need Hanso’s prodding to swing around hard when Rallon and Brynn went down. Hanso was off her back the moment she touched down in the low point of the dune.

     Rallon had crash-landed gracelessly into the sand, but he’d managed to regain just enough control to prevent further injury in the process and was already scrambling back to his hooves. There was a painful looking but surface level burn across his left flank where the fire bolt had grazed him. More worryingly, several of the broad feathers that made up most of his left wing were charred and shredded. Brynn had tumbled from his saddle and come to rest a few feet away, where she was now sitting up and running her hands over a burn on her left leg to check for serious damage.

     With a pained hiss, she looked over at Rallon’s useless wing and then up at Hanso. “I’m guessing I won’t be able to convince you to keep going, will I?”

     “I can still run,” Rallon pointed out. “We might be able to keep ahead of them, but you two should get back into the air. Keeping Draikfang out of Emperor Heksas’ hands is our top priority.”

     Hanso shook his head. “Yeah, I think you both know my answer to that by now. Besides, if we keep running now, it’s only a matter of time before Miss Traitor-Faerie snipes us down too.”

     Brynn got to her feet. The scorch mark on her trouser leg still betrayed where she’d been hit, but she was able to put weight on the leg with little apparent problem.

     “We’ll have to act fast, then,” she said. “This dune won’t shelter us for long, and General Magdi’s forces outnumber us too much to fight them head-on. We need a plan, now.”

     Hanso was just starting to think when, all at once, the solution struck him. It was so obvious, if it hadn’t been equally foolhardy he would have wondered why nobody brought it up already.

     Letting a hand drift toward the pack on his back, he said, “We have a magical artefact of devastating power. That plan enough for you?”

     Brynn’s eyes widened at his implication. “Hanso, no. You heard King Jazan – Draikfang is far too dangerous. We weren’t sent here to use it.”

     Hanso frowned, thinking quickly. “No, we were sent to neutralise it. And breaking the thing in the middle of a show of awesome power is one way to do that.”

     Brynn’s tail lashed in agitation. “I will not have you sacrificing yourself to destroy another artefact. There must be –”

     “Don’t worry, this one won’t be a sacrifice,” Hanso interrupted her. “Xandra’s artefact – it did what it did because it was storing her spells at the time and it was unstable. Don’t you see? Draikfang is neither of those things. It doesn’t even use its own magic, much less store any! Based on how it works, I should be able to knock the bad guys out and shut it down all at once without the magic even touching me.”

     By now, the sounds of the approaching soldiers had started to reach their protective space. Their group was rapidly running out of time, and Rallon and Laelia shuffled uneasily as they waited for their riders to make a decision and act.

     Brynn’s ears twitched as she quickly considered his idea. “Okay, but this isn’t something you’ll be able to pull off alone. We’ll need to trust each other to make it work.”

     She outlined her addendum to the plan as briefly as she could, the sounds of jeering shouts and rushing wingbeats growing closer by the second. At the end of it, Hanso found himself fighting off his more protective side and pulling himself back into Laelia’s saddle.

     “You’re sure this is a good idea?” the Uni asked him.

     Hanso shook his head. “No, but my ideas usually aren’t and I’ve managed so far. Let’s go.”

     Laelia nodded and took off, rounding the next wide dune before surging back into the air. Hanso looked back. Rallon had already taken off by hoof in the opposite direction, while Brynn stood tall in the dip they’d been using for shelter and waited.

     A little further back – seconds away from reaching Brynn, now – were Magdi and his forces. There were fewer of them than he’d feared: Magdi on his Uni, the Scorchio who’d been with him during their first run-in, the Fire Faerie, and an Eyrie and Draik he hadn’t seen before. The rest must have been too slow or else gotten caught up in chasing Gamal.

     Magdi glared at each of the retreating figures in turn, sparing an extra moment to study the riderless Rallon. The Fire Faerie zeroed in on Hanso and turned to pursue him, but her superior held up a hand and motioned for her to remain with him.

     Good. It looked like Brynn was right about him.

     Instead, a quick order from him sent two of the soldiers splitting apart to pursue their fleeing prey while the general, the faerie and the Eyrie remained behind. The Scorchio guard beat her wings furiously to catch up with Hanso and Laelia.

     “Run all you want!” the Scorchio called out mockingly, the harsh glow of dragonfire already starting to build in her throat. “I’m going to enjoy catching you.”

     Hanso returned his attention forward and used a quick tug of the reins to signal Laelia to duck back down among the dunes.

     “Okay,” he said for both of them. “Time to show this chucklehead just how a courier makes it through the Haunted Woods.”

     Brynn was waiting halfway up the next dune, her sword already drawn and tail twitching impatiently, when General Magdi finally appeared at the first one’s crest. She was taking a massive gamble with this, she knew. But it was the best way they could come up with to split the Mentuan soldiers thin and get everyone where they needed to be. As long as Draikfang was kept out of Magdi’s reach, she and her allies were still winning.

     Magdi glowered down at her from the high dune, striking an intimidating figure astride his Uni and with the rogue faerie at his side. If he’d been facing anyone else, it might have been an effective scare tactic. But Brynn had taken on Oblivion itself and won.

     “So, the violent criminal returns,” he boomed out imperiously. “Tell me, did you really think I wouldn’t find out about your shortsighted faerie queen’s little project? That I wouldn’t claim whatever you found for the glory of the Mentu Empire?”

     “They were fleeing King Heru’s tomb when I found them,” the faerie said, eyeing Brynn with a predatory sort of curiosity. “If my guess is right, they have uncovered nothing less than the mythical sword Draikfang.”

     Magdi’s eyes widened. “A mythical sword, eh? I can see why you and your friends were so eager to steal it from me.”

     Dismounting from his Uni, he pulled out his own sword and pointed it at Brynn. “Surrender the Draikfang to its rightful owners, or there will be dire consequences.”

     Brynn returned his glare and held her blade at the ready. “Mentu has no claim to Draikfang, and even if it did, I would never let you abuse it.”

     With a fierce grin that would make Hanso proud, she added, “Besides, I may as well actually commit the crime you arrested me for.”

     The faerie barked out a sharp laugh. “Foolish knight, we outnumber you four to one!” she called out, already warming up her hands with another spell. “Even the famous Wraithslayer can’t hope to fight us all at once!”

     Brynn kept her gaze on Magdi. “I won’t have to. I know your type, General. You need the power, need the control. How can you say you have it if you can’t handle one escaped prisoner on your own?”

     This was what it all came down to. Hanso had good instincts when it came to pushing people’s buttons, but in their last confrontation, he’d been competing directly against Magdi’s desire to stick his trunk into something that might bring him power. If she could just convince him that this was how to get what he wanted…

     The faerie grumbled and drew back her hands, but before she could release the fire spell, Magdi halted her with a gesture. “No, Zahia. I will be happy to indulge this interloper’s last request and deal with her personally.”

     The faerie – Zahia – exchanged a glance with the Eyrie, and Brynn silently let out the breath she’d been holding. She couldn’t relax for more than a second though, as Magdi charged down into the dune with a mighty bellow and his scimitar raised over his head.

     Brynn took two wide strides down her side of the dune and met him right when he was at the bottom. Steel clashed against steel, and she used her height advantage and the heavier blade of her longsword to force her opponent’s blade to the side. She kept to her high ground as she parried and dodged his follow-up blows, and threw him off balance when she could.

     She had to be careful. She was quite strong for her size and knew how to handle larger opponents like the Elephante soldier, but that required quick thinking and quicker feet. The desert sand hampered her mobility, and the twinges of pain from the burn in her leg weren’t helping. She raised her sword for another block, angled her body so his next unblockable swing bit harmlessly into hardened leather armour, and then aimed a swipe at him that she didn’t really expect to connect but was enough to force him back.

     All the while, she kept half an eye on the sky for her signal. She wasn’t planning to win this fight – just keep Magdi busy long enough for Hanso to get back.

     “You’re playing defence!” Magdi yelled, pulling back from yet another blocked strike and moving to try and circle around her. Brynn kept pace, denying his attempts to position himself above her.

     “That’s what separates your northern kingdoms from Mentu,” he went on. “You’re content to leave things as they are, and you only care to make yourselves stronger when someone else forces it. You’d rather seal an artefact like Draikfang away, because you’re too afraid to wield it!”

     A pair of Scarabugs flew overhead; the Uni watched in confusion as they darted off for the Seven Tombs. Brynn pretended not to notice.

     “So that’s what you want, then?” she called out instead. “To wield Draikfang because you think it will somehow prove something? Do you plan on using it against Emperor Heksas and taking control of Mentu?”

     Magdi scoffed. “Please, like I need the trouble of running an empire. Emperor Heksas can take care of that. Of course, I expect he’ll allow me to use the blade in his name, as thanks for all I did to retrieve it.”

     He raised his sword again. “With it, we may finally reach the noble goal of uniting all of the Lost Desert under Mentu’s glorious banner!”

     He looked ready to charge again, but he halted his movement at the sudden sound of retching. Brynn couldn’t keep a tiny amused smile off her face. She and Magdi both looked up just in time to see Hanso appear over the crest of the next dune as he continued to make fake puking noises.

     “What’d I tell you, Brynn? Blah, blah, noble purpose. It almost makes me miss the Haunted Woods, and that’s saying something.”

     Magdi’s eyes widened when he saw the unmistakably magical scimitar in Hanso’s hand. “You! You have Draikfang and you brought it right back to me! What kind of idiot are you?”

     “The kind who manages to save the world with his mad schemes, apparently!” Hanso replied cheerfully. Magdi readied his sword, and Zahia started preparing a spell even before he barked out the order to her. But before either of them could act, Hanso slid down the dune to Brynn, held out the unsheathed Draikfang for her to grab the other half of its pommel, and stabbed it deep into the ground.

     In that last moment when Brynn knelt down with her partner and Magdi broke off his lunge with a startled stumble, she looked back up at him.

     “There’s one thing you got wrong about us,” she said.

     In all honesty, Hanso was a little surprised that his and Brynn’s cobbled-together plan had gotten this far. The guard pursuing him and Laelia had underestimated the speed and stamina of a Uni trained in long distance travel. Unfortunately, they had in turn underestimated the fact that said guard apparently had a bow.

     After outpacing the Scorchio’s fire breath by a wide margin, they’d had to make as much use of the dunes and Laelia’s manoeuvrability as they could to keep their pursuant from getting a good shot at them. Eventually, though, they’d managed to build enough of a lead to obscure themselves properly between dunes. This was enough to keep the guard from noticing right away when Hanso jumped out of the saddle and tumbled back to the ground below. Or that, in the process of “fleeing,” they’d begun to circle back around.

     Releasing the Scarabugs had been one last distraction to keep the Scorchio focused on Laelia while Hanso crept back to the scene of Brynn and Magdi’s big face-off. By now, he figured the guard had most likely caught on and turned around to go after him. But before she could catch up, he slid down the dune and, with Brynn, drove Draikfang point-first into the sand.

     What happened next was… hard to describe. It was a little like what he’d experienced when he used the faerie blessing on the Werelupes, channelling a power that wasn’t really his. But where before he’d used his own energy and a faerie magic that was stored in his body, now he had to reach through Draikfang to find and pull out the magic permeating the lands of the Lost Desert… or something like that.

     Whatever exactly it was he was doing, he was relieved that he only needed to channel a trickle of the artefact’s full power. In an instant, waves of intense heat began to radiate up from the surrounding sand and out from the exposed portion of Draikfang’s blade. In moments the Mentuans, accustomed to the high temperatures of the desert, were sweating profusely and starting to back away.

     To Hanso – and to Brynn, her face screwed in a mask of focus as the two of them kept Draikfang under control – it was hardly any different from the usual heat of the Lost Desert.

     Magdi practically roared, holding his scimitar aloft and fighting the urge to retreat. “Cowards!” he spat. “Even now you use Draikfang as a shield. I will break through your petty heat, and when I have taken it I’ll incinerate you all for – Gah!”

     He dropped the sword in his hand as its pommel overheated under Draikfang’s onslaught. He stumbled back, survival instinct finally overcoming his own stubbornness as his skin reddened dangerously in the heat.

     Brynn smirked at him. “Never underestimate… a good shield,” she said through teeth clenched in concentration.

     Hanso just glared after the hateful Elephante. It would be so easy to use not just heat but fire – to end Magdi’s reign of faux-protector entirely and cleanse the Lost Desert of some small fraction of Heksas’ military power. He and Brynn would be protected, as the wielders of the artefact.

     But the desert would not. He was the faerie queen’s own Master Thief, for better or for worse, and he was going to do the job Queen Fyora had entrusted to him. A tongue of flame was starting to lick the edge of the sword in response to his moment of temptation, and he had to suck in a breath and rein in the magic he was wielding before it spiralled out of his control.

     Brynn placed her free hand on his shoulder, and for a moment he feared his attempt to restrain the magic had failed. But she was looking toward the Fire Faerie, the one Magdi had called Zahia. She continued to glare down at them both even as the two guards beside her retreated, groaning and panting.

     The faerie strode purposefully down into the dune, completely unaffected by the waves of heat rolling around her. She sneered at Magdi, now on his knees and barely maintaining consciousness as close to the spell’s nexus as he could bear.

     “I should have known better than to trust one of Heksas’ generals to have any real sense,” she said, returning her gaze to Hanso and Brynn. “But fire is my element. Draikfang will only protect you from it so long as you keep the enchantment going, and you can’t sit there and channel that power forever.”

     She stopped just a few feet from them and knelt down to their level. “So I guess now the only question is, will I bring the artefact to Emperor Heksas… or perhaps keep it for myself?”

     Hanso smirked. “Actually, I can think of one other question.”

     Zahia raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

     “Yeah. What, exactly, happens when you break an artefact that’s in the middle of channelling an entire region’s magic?”

     He shared a quick nod with Brynn, and together they shoved against Draikfang’s handle at a sharp angle from where it was anchored into the ground. The blade started to slowly bend near its base, Zahia howled in impotent fury, and then –

     Snap.

     Brynn had more than a little reason to be thankful that Draikfang’s power was barely touching her. As it stood, what little extra heat she felt seared against the sensitive burn in her leg, and she and Hanso needed as much focus as they could get to keep its magic from flying out of their control and melting a chunk of the desert.

     When they broke the artefact enough to sever its enchantment, that same protective power put them harmlessly in the eye of a magical shockwave as the fire magic they’d been drawing up and releasing burst out all at once. The force of the shockwave threw Zahia back, knocking her and the soldiers around her unconscious in an instant.

     For just a few seconds after that burst of energy, the air around Brynn and Hanso was cold. So much of the immediate area’s natural fire magic had been expelled that she actually saw her breath fog up in the moment of its absence before the heat of the surrounding air began to seep back in.

     Brynn got shakily to her feet and looked around while Hanso worked to pull Draikfang back out of the ground. The scattered forms of the passed-out Mentuans painted a strange picture. She could see now that General Magdi had begun to blister in his stubborn fight against Draikfang’s heat. The last wave of magic had shaken loose some of the sand in the upper dunes, causing the prone form of an additional guard – the Scorchio who’d gone after Hanso and Laelia – to slide down from where she must have been watching up above. Even she looked almost sunburned, which was impressive for someone with thick, heat-resistant scales.

     Another form that had been circling high overhead, unnoticed in the fray, began to descend as Hanso finally got Draikfang free. The sword hadn’t broken apart completely – just bent until enough metallic bonds had snapped to ruin its enchantments and leave the handle barely attached to the blade. But it was also coated in a thin sheet of gritty glass where the sand that had been against the blade had melted from the intensity of channelling its power.

     The figure above resolved into Laelia as she dropped to land beside Brynn and Hanso. “Well, that was certainly a show,” she said. “Come on, I saw where Rallon went off to and it looks like the guard chasing him got as distracted by Draikfang as mine did.”

     Brynn let out a tired sigh and gingerly got into the Uni’s saddle. Hanso was walking toward her as well, but for the moment he was preoccupied with trying to stuff the damaged Draikfang back into its sheath.

     “Will you be able to fly both of us?” Brynn asked.

     Laelia fluttered her wings. “Eh, I’ve got enough Faerieland magic in me for a boost. I’ll manage for the short flight to catch up with Rallon. Just don’t expect me to carry all three of you.”

     Hanso finished packing away the artefact and swung up onto the saddle behind Brynn. “Aww, and here I was hoping to see a Uni riding another Uni,” he joked.

     Brynn snorted good-naturedly as Laelia took off into the air. She glanced back one last time as they left the bizarre little battlefield behind. It was probably safe to say that Magdi’s forces wouldn’t have the energy to keep chasing them after this, especially for a busted artefact.

     And whatever else became of Draikfang, that would be enough for now.

To be continued…