Chapter 174 - Soaring Darkness

We made quick work of gathering up all of the crystals we could find. I didn't want to linger; the risk of Peter returning far outweighed the reward of finding one or two more stones. If he returned while we were still there, I wasn't at all sure how things would turn out. He wouldn't have the horde of Orcs at his back, but his dragon was still far stronger than mine. It wasn't a fight I was sure I could win. Quite the opposite, really.

If I was going to beat Peter, it was going to require some serious planning.

When I'd gathered up all the crystals I could easily find, there were still enough to fill a small sack I picked up off the ground. It turned out I had killed a lot of Orcs out there! We would put those crystals to good use.

I approached Tenebris."You ready to get going?"

My wings are yours to command. Where shall we go from here?

I scooped Hope into my arms and flew us both onto the dragon's back. There was no saddle, something I missed immediately. Unfortunately, even if I could find Sue's saddle somewhere out there on the battlefield, it wouldn't fit. Tenebris wasn't shaped the same. The dragon's body had been deeply altered when I cast the spell.

Building a new saddle was something I'd have to look into as soon as possible. I could always fly, if I somehow fell off, but if I was going to be fighting from dragon back in the air, I needed a hands-free arrangement.

In the meantime, I'd have to just hold on as best I could. I looped one arm around Hope's ribcage, then grabbed on to one of the dragon's vertebrae with both hands. That was as good as we were going to get, for the time being.

Shoot, I still had orc zombies out there. Should I release them, or keep them? I certainly couldn't have them fly with me, but maybe I didn't have to.

I cast Animate Dead a few more times, filling up their numbers. I focused on the tier four orcs, because I’d be able to raise more of them. By the time I'd run out of points, I had a total of eight zombie orcs again. Most of the initial batch I'd Animated were killed during the fighting, but eight was a decent number to play with. It wasn't anything close to an army, but it was a start. With Tenebris using up most of my Animate Dead ability, I’d have to make do with what I had. I ordered them to march their way up to the mall and meet me there.

Then I turned back to Tenebris. "Okay, I'm ready. Let's do this. We need to fly east."

How far east? The dragon flexed his wings, opening them to their full span as he prepared to take off.

"We're looking for my friends and allies. They were hiding out over there." I pointed toward the gutted remains of the mall.

"But I don't know where they would be by now. We'll have to just go looking for them and hope we are better at playing hide and seek than Peter is."

The dragon took off, his wings carrying us skyward. As the ground dropped away below us, I stared down at the damage the invasion had done to my home. I knew it had been bad. Really bad. That was easy to tell, even from the ground. But the view from above tossed everything into starker relief. The inner walls were still up, but they were badly damaged. The orcs had knocked down almost half of the north wall.

My explosion wreaked some serious carnage on the rest. The buildings inside were even worse. Where the walls were still mostly intact, the inner structures were in shambles. The main farmhouse was just gone, of course. But none of the others had escaped catastrophic damage. Two of the barns collapsed completely. Most of the others were almost as bad.

It broke my heart, seeing our home like that. Everything we had been working to build was broken, shattered, and burning. It was a lot to take in.

I turned my gaze east toward the mall instead. We crossed the short distance quickly, and the dragon set down in the parking lot, just outside where the Target store had been.

Are they still here? Tenebris asked.

The mall was still well inside the limits of my Domain, so I reached out with my senses to see if I could detect my friends. But as I expected, they were long gone.

I shook my head. "They've already moved on. That was the plan, though. They were only going to wait there until darkness fell. Then they would move on,"

And where are we supposed to go to meet them?

"Good question," I replied. "They didn't tell me. There was a good chance I'd be captured by Peter, so I didn't want to know where they might be going. If I didn't know, then I couldn't spill the beans. But I'm hoping maybe they left some sort of message hidden inside. Something I would understand, but Peter might not get. I'm going to go look."

Be cautious and swift.

I jumped into the air, using my Flight to glide over the shattered walls of the mall. We'd really done a number on this place, stripping it for parts. The walls around the Farm had been built by breaking up chunks of the mall, and we'd pulled a lot of materials out.

There were gaps in the roof, including one large hole directly over the exit from Lyonius's cavern. The undead who'd controlled this place had built an underground base of his own, where he could hide from daylight and slowly build his armies. That same space was where the other end of our escape tunnel led. My friends had hidden themselves there while I struggled to delay the enemy long enough for them to escape.

The fact it worked was nothing less than a miracle. I was honestly stunned I'd survived, or at least that I'd avoided capture. I still didn't think Peter wanted me dead. He'd much rather have me than have me killed. Somehow, I had to turn that into a weakness, use it to my advantage.

Tromping boots caught my attention just as the zombie orcs I'd send this way marched through one of the many holes in the walls. I directed them all into the pit, the hole in the ground where Lyonius had lived. From there, I sent them down into the escape tunnel we'd crafted, and they knocked in part of the roof, hiding the entrance.

Now the tunnel was hidden on both sides. If I was lucky and Peter never found the escape tunnel, then I'd have a small force of zombies waiting here for when I needed them. If he did, which was honestly more likely, then at least he'd have a surprise waiting for him when he got to the far end of the tunnel! Twenty zombies wasn't going to be enough to kill Peter, but it would remind him to stay on his toes.

I looked about the interior of the space. My people had clearly been there. Their footprints were still evident in the dirt. There was even evidence of their passage out, because all those people carrying heavy packs left a trail. But the trail ended once they hit the tiled floors of the main mall level, vanishing almost immediately.

I couldn't find any signals to tell me where they might have gone, so I figured it was time to become a symbol. I headed back outside to Tenebris.

Any luck?

"Nope. They were there, they're gone now, and I still don't know where. But I do have an idea," I replied. "With Peter's dragon being a major threat, my friends will be watching the sky. They'll want to know if he flies overhead. But if they see a skeleton dragon instead of a gigantic red one, well..."

You believe they'll know that it's you with the dragon, since I am undead?

"That's my hope, yeah. It's not a flawless strategy, but it's a place to start."

We took off, and Tenebris did a lazy circle over the mall before setting off at a slow pace toward the east. Even moving lazily, the ground shot past far too quickly for me to see much. The houses, yards, and blocks glided by beneath us so fast I barely had time to notice them before they were behind us. If they were down there, somewhere, I was going to have to rely entirely on them letting me know where they were. They'd have to see me, realize it was me, and then find a way to reach out to me.

I felt sure they wouldn't go due east. That would lead them to the southern end of the airport runways, and that whole region was basically enemy territory at this point. My guess was they'd probably follow Williston Road, or travel in roughly that direction, anyway. They'd probably stay off the main road itself, but follow something parallel to it.

Tenebris turned in a slightly southern direction, so we were gliding more east-southeast, angling to avoid the Air Guard base and all the problems that represented. I watched as the runway slid by off to my left. Turner was up there. Sooner or later, there had to be a reckoning with that man, too. Peter wasn't the only guilty one. I felt certain Turner had either ordered or been complicit in Delores's murder.

We pressed on, soaring past more houses, more neighborhoods.

How far could they have gone? Tenebris asked.

"I wish I knew. How far have we flown?"

Several miles.

"We're probably approaching the furthest distance they could have made it, then," I said. "Hey, how do you know what a mile is, anyway?"

The same way I know what words to use to speak with you. Our minds are connected, Selena.

I wasn't sure if that was creepy or not, but I figured I'd deal with it. "You can read my mind?"

Tenebris's chuckle echoed in my head. Not precisely, no. Nor would I want to. But I have a general understanding of things you know. For example, I have an extensive knowledge of human anatomy, and even some information about basic medicine. You were a healer, before you were a mage?

"I was training to be, yeah."

I think you would have been excellent at it. Your knowledge of the subject seems very comprehensive.

"Thanks." That made me feel good. Even if I couldn't be a doctor anymore for real, it was nice to hear that someone thought I'd have been good at it. Once upon a time, that had been my deepest passion. It felt like all that was so far behind me now, but it hadn't been that long. Would I ever be able to get back to something that simple again?

It would be nice to think so, but my gut told me it was unlikely.

We pushed on into the night, looking for any sign that my friends were out there. We didn't catch sight of any clues until we were out into what was basically overgrown farmland. The fields were thick with brush, the forests beginning to expand and close in on the cleared lands, but it was land that certainly had been farmed not long ago. I was about to suggest we turn around and try another route when a bright spark flashed through the air behind us.

Tenebris banked and wheeled, giving me a good look at the object. It was a flaming arrow, fired directly up. It winked out after blazing for just a few seconds, but the message was clear.

"I think we've found our friends," I said. "Let's look for a place to set down."