Of Ashes and Wind

Black Underworld Flame

"Ready the next volley!" Rollin roared.

But a frosted blade nearly took his head off, the King of Tetran maneuvered around, he saw the charging onslaught of Eostrun behind him.

He smiled when he saw who it was that led the charge.

They were coming to a head now, high above the Narrows – the aerial slaughter going from the low lands of the earth to the clouds high above now. He nearly had Ryosuke earlier, but that damned dragon proved to be too strong for the enchanted harpoons they had repurposed.

The commoner proved to be good bait.

Eiriell squinted, she could feel Rollin's leer from where she was.

"The gryphon mounts are the ones that have that weapon." One of the elven riders reported.

"Twenty of you get higher and see if you can snuff out Brilux's mounts," Eiriell was watching the battle earlier between Ryosuke and Rollin, her fellow elven warriors advised her to not jump in.

But her heart clenched to see Phoenix in that bloodied state.

It clenched more when she saw Tsuuki plummet to earth.

But she did learn something from it – which was Rollin's tactics.

His gryphon minions would go high into the sky and then bolt down with their harpoons readied, from the looks of it – it took a lot of magic to launch the harpoons at the flying target.

Eiriell could also guess who the targets were.

She instructed half of her forces to support the men and women on the ground, the Blessed Rain had faded away and a few of Brilux's flying forces were casting the black flame onto the ground as much as they could.

They flew through a dense cloud, twenty of the elven riders turned sharply upward to get above it while Eiriell lead the rest through it. Her elven riders conjured up a great serpent of ice that shot out the break of the clouds and slithered through the air towards the initial onslaught of human winged-mounts, the serpent froze solid anything that touched it and the human mounts began to fall from the sky and onto the Narrows below them.

"Now!" Rollin roared.

A whistle came from above, but Eiriell only had to dodge two of the incoming harpoons.

Rollin was confused and looked up, Eiriell's men and women had managed to subdue the gryphon mounts before they could fire more harpoons down on the winged-mounts.

A flurry of fire and lightning spells surged from Eiriell's winged-mounts, their magic hitting true. The rest of the Brilux aerial forces converged together with the elves and soon the sky was a mess as the battle raged on throughout the sky.

Eiriell came level with Rollin, her saber at the ready.

"You could have avoided so much of this if you'd just taken my hand." Rollin said plainly, "Be my Queen for my comparable short-life and then be Queen of the Elves."

"You forget, that in order to be Queen you need to marry someone fit to be King." Eiriell narrowed her eyes, "Which I see none worthy of such a title before me."

Rollin sighed, his grey eyes burned with something.

But he smiled.

His wyvern let go of a barely conscious Phoenix.

Eiriell went wide eyed, Liona dove after the falling Phoenix.

Just as Eiriell was close enough to reach out, a ball of fire cut her off.