Chapter 75

Rain barely had a moment to breathe after Haldir collapsed before the entire hall suddenly became a hurricane windstorm, a tornado of deafening air that picked up everything not nailed down, the plates, cutlery, chairs, benches, and anything else becoming so much horizontal hail.

Rain put his arm over his front protectively even as his fur rippled, whipped around by the howling wind. A small hand poked from his coat and pointed, his eyes followed the pointing finger and quickly found the source of the indoor storm. It was Lixiss, she was floating high above the head councillor, her fan glowing, a tall cylinder of static and unmoving air around them protecting them from the indoor storm. Rain tried to take a step toward her but the wind redoubled and he found himself slowed, having to lean into the wind just to keep from being pushed back, his massive body working against him by giving so much more surface area for the wind to act against.

Lixiss flicked her fan and a bolt of lightning struck from the ceiling to the ground, blowing apart a metal serving dish hurtling by and sending molten metal splashing. Rain tried to cry out as it landed up his leg, burning into him, but just opening his mouth snatched his breath away. He could barely keep his eyes open having to squint into the painful gale as flying objects continued to hammer against his body.

A flicker caught his eye and his brow rose as someone danced by, a person wearing a sharp black suit. It was the butler. The butler danced and leapt through the wind as though it wasn’t even there, every languid motion redirecting the wind across his body allowing him to slip and shift and move in the hurricane, easily dodging any flying debris, really the complete opposite to Rain. The butler darted out of view and Rain gasped silently as a jagged line of agony was cut up his back. He twisted trying to catch the butler in the maelstrom but he slipped away like a leaf in the breeze.

A second bolt of lightning landed, barely missing him and only by chance being redirected into a cluster of steel cutlery sending a flurry of molten metal hail into the air.

This was bad, Lixiss had him cornered, the wind making it difficult to move and the butler slowly cutting him apart. The wound he had taken burned in a way he had never felt before and as he blinked a slow fuzziness crept over his body, a feeling of unnatural numbness. What was this? Poison?

The butler darted forward once more and Rain fell back, trying to use the wind to his advantage, but it was no use, the butler was simply faster, more nimble, more dextrous, and Rain found his reactions sluggish and slow, too slow. The knife slipped by and sliced a path up his arm. He roared in frustration, his paws moving far too unresponsively to catch the nimble butler.

He couldn’t see a way out, he needed something, anything.

Then he saw a head pop out of the side of his coat. Opal glanced up at him, that one look communicating all over her intent. He instantly understood, her thoughts clear to him.

The butler came in for a third cut as brain fog started to descend. This time Rain was not reacting to the butler however so his reaction speed was not a concern. He dove and rolled, his paw snatching at Opal’s waiting hand. Then with a grunt he hauled on the Goblin and with a shriek and a POP! she was ejected from his coat and launched into the air, the wind carrying her, making her go long, her naked legs kicking before she came down with a cry.

Her bare feet landed, landed on the base of Haldir’s ballista and she rode the entire thing as it skid-pivoted around on the chair, the giga crossbow leaning so hard into the chair it went up on two legs as it spun.

Opal didn’t hesitate. She slapped a hand down on the trigger with a grin that stretched cheek to cheek, the light of weaponised madness in her eyes.

The ballista Fired. The entire thing lurching back so hard it knocked Opal into the air once more as the overtaxed arms snapped flat and the titanic bolt exploded forward, the wind and air around it momentarily blasting back in the opposite direction as it carved a line up, up, up.

The bolt struck Lixiss in the throat, ripping her out of the air and slamming her against one of the halls cross beams as the bolt embedded itself deep. Her hands grasped at the bolt momentarily before the light died in her eyes and she fell limp, her body hanging like some macabre butchers slab from where she was pinned.

The wind instantly stopped. Hundreds of objects falling out of the air in a racket of falling metal, rattling against the priestess who had created a layered box around herself made out of her barriers. She glared through the transparency, her eyes furious.

Opal grunted as she landed atop the corpse of Haldir, the jagged shard embedded in his chest sticking up beside her. She wrapped her hands around it and with a heave pulled the long thing free, sending it flipping into the air trailing blood.

“Rain!” she cried out.

Rain stumbled, everything was becoming a poisoned haze, his thoughts slowed. He could see the butler casually dodging around the falling detritus unbothered by the sheer quantity, then Opal’s voice hit his mind like a bell of clarity and he lifted his paw catching the shard. The butler saw this and suddenly wary of what he was about to do ran behind the layered barrier box the Priestess was hiding in, she watched him as he passed her by then returned her gaze to Rain.

Rain lifted his arm, ready to throw, no, wait. He blinked, his mind still fuzzy, but not quite fuzzy enough to consider that he would have very little chance of piercing the priestesses barriers just by throwing the thing.

His gaze drifted over to Opal, she was miming something, lifting her hands to her mouth and ... biting?

Oh. Rain brought the shard to his mouth and tore into it, quickly biting it apart and swallowing it down.

The cherub let out a blood-curdling scream as Rain began to digest and motes of darkness spread across its body, then its outer surface began to bubble and swell.

The priestess grabbed at the cherub and tried to pull it from her shoulder but found it as affixed to her in relative position as the barriers were in the air. The cherub Bulged outward its face distorting into a horrific visage. The priestess screamed, slamming herself against the barriers in a panic, desperate to get away. She could not get away of course. The cherub ballooned, and then it exploded.