“Incoming!” Zed shouted. Gastropé twisted to the rear to see rapidly approaching icicles coming at them from the lich. “Idire tres firatus aerus!” Gastropé shouted and pointed towards the icicle barrage with his wand, releasing a superheated blast of fire to melt the missiles.
Zed cursed and started patting his curly hair. “You nearly fried my locks!”
“You prefer singes or ice daggers to the heart?” Gastropé asked.
ZZzzssstttt! A silent lightning bolt from the ship struck the dragon.
Wow, those things are huge compared to the ones I can create, Gastropé thought to himself as he saw it up close.
Penelope was busy concentrating on her next spell. He wished he could think of something big and nasty that would work, but he really did not have much ready other than fire and lightning. That was usually fine for most combat magic. Clearly, his training had not considered beings immune to such things. Gastropé frowned. Given that besides the Oorstemothians, most of the opposing forces he had gone up against had been either demons, ice dragons or liches, none of whom were that bothered by fire, he really needed to get some new spells.
As they banked for the next round, Peter called back, “Gastropé, aim for the dragon’s face this time. See if you can melt its eyebrows, get water in its eyes, blind it, and distract it. Penelope’s about to try to hit it hard with a giant gravity suck to try to pull it to the ground. We are so high, I’m not sure how well it will work, but it’s worth a shot, and the more disoriented it is, the better.”
“Got it!” Gastropé yelled back. Actually, he did not need to yell with the com circlet, but his ears were so plugged from the altitude that it was hard to hear. At least the wind was not that bad, given that there was very little air.
Gastropé chanted quickly to start upping the mana level for his next wand blast. He was going to try to do a sustained cone of fire. The carpet spun and started heading straight for the lich and dragon. “Idire tres firatus aerus mesapus!” Gastropé shouted, aiming. The fire from his wand expanded outward in a cone as expected; what was unexpected was the return of the dragon’s icy-cold breath! The cone of flame and somewhat conical ice blast met between the two parties, sending blasts of fire, ice and water in all directions, including back to the carpet. Gastropé wanted to curse, but he needed to keep his concentration on the cone of fire. He muttered the incantations to up the power and replenish the flow, but this was going to be hard.
Suddenly Penelope shoved both her arms out towards the dragon and swept them downward. The dragon lurched hard and began plunging towards the ground. The lich screeched, an absolutely terrifying sound, and seemed to rise off its saddle as it scrambled to hang on, its ride suddenly hurtling towards the ground. The two dropped from sight even as the carpet moved over the area where they had been.
“Wow, that must have been one loud screech if we could hear it!” Zed laughed.
The four on the carpet cheered; glancing at the other carpet, they saw several thumbs up. Gastropé was thrilled. That was exciting! He glanced over at the other battles; there had been five dragons and liches aft of the ship. There were ten carpets behind the ship, two per dragon and lich pair.
As he turned his eyes back to their partner carpet, he saw it lurch dramatically as an enormous lightning bolt from the lich struck the pilot. The carpet began quickly spinning, twisting and losing altitude. It somersaulted a couple of times and then the rear pilot managed to regain control; however, on the last roll the wounded front pilot was wrenched from the carpet and began free falling through the air. There was smoke from the front of the carpet; the pilot’s straps had probably been burnt off.
Crap! Gastropé was appalled to see how fast the pilot was falling. He peered over the edge to see a catcher carpet moving through the air at an amazing speed, trying to position itself under the falling pilot. Gastropé could not see if the pilot was caught, as Peter banked the carpet, causing the catcher carpet and pilot to go below Gastropé’s line of sight.
“Problem, folks!” Peter called. “Our friend is coming back up!” He pointed down, into the bank. Sure enough, the lich and dragon they had sent speeding downward were returning quickly, climbing almost straight up. “Penelope, if we dive bomb them, can you gravity blast them back?”
“I will try!” Penelope yelled and began preparing a spell.
“Hang on, everyone!” Peter called as he spun the carpet in a tight circle and then directed it almost straight down in a collision course with the lich and dragon.
Gastropé shook his head; he had no real idea what to do other than repeat his last attack. As they got into close range, Gastropé pointed his wand and chanted the key phrase for another extended cone of fire. The fire leapt from the wand and Gastropé worked hard to adjust his aim. At such long distances it was tricky, as every movement caused the tower of flame to wave in arcs from side to side or up and down as he adjusted his aim.
Penelope yelled something and their carpet lurched hard as if in recoil. There was a roar as the ice dragon fell back and began plummeting again. Peter righted the carpet; they were now below the catcher carpet. Gastropé hoped they had caught the plunging pilot.
Suddenly the carpet’s edge frosted over and Gastropé’s butt got extremely cold.
“Crap! The bastard hit us directly from below!” Zed shouted from behind Gastropé.
Peter wrestled for control of the carpet; it had suddenly become hard to maneuver, as the carpet’s flexibility was lost due to ice on the bottom of the carpet.
Gastropé frowned. This is not going well, he thought.
Elrose was finally within range of the dragon and lich he had selected. On foot, he was slower than the carpets heading for the other dragons and liches, but he was able to use that time and his Sight to study his opponent. Things looked as expected.
The ice dragon was made out of ice, frozen water, and while the lich’s cold aura along with the dragon’s own made it very hard for fire to get close, there were other ways to induce a phase change. This was one melee in which combat sorcery trounced the showier pyromancy.
With his staff, he could bypass the normal material and somatic components; he need only chant the verbal components and point. Time for the first phase change spell. Actually, time to hurry — the dragon was within range and appeared ready to blast him.
“...eratos notros morphum!” Elrose finished his chant and directed his staff directly at the ice dragon. The dragon shook hard and was suddenly quite a bit smaller. Argh! That was annoying. Once more! Elrose blasted a second phase change spell at the dragon.
The dragon screeched loudly as it turned completely to water. “Now!” Elrose shouted and followed with a third, yet different phase change spell. Water could easily become ice once again; steam would take more work! Elrose chanted and released the spell.
Even as small crystals of ice began reforming above the now-falling lich, those crystals suddenly turned to steam. Now for his second area of study: enchantment. Using his staff instead of the material components, Elrose cast a spell to create a high-pressure region in the middle of the dragon steam and let it dissipate into the surrounding low-pressure region, sending dragon steam far and wide! The ice dragon would eventually reform, but it would be a while. Quite a while. For now, it was just the lich.
Elrose glanced down at the lich, which had regained its composure and was now flying on its own, heading towards Elrose. Elrose grinned — he loved sorcery.
He chanted a quick spell of true aim, relying on sorcery’s seeing powers, and quickly lobbed a vial at the lich. The potion bottle arced perfectly through the air. As it reached the lich, Elrose gestured with his staff, exploding the bottle, which contained only simple water. The staff’s spell simply used the water as a material component to open a portal to the Elemental Plane of Water.