The Heavenly Host

As the spell took hold, she blinked to adjust her new high-powered vision. She decided she would also turn on wizard sight, as that might help spot potential issues. She blinked again and looked over towards the liches. Crap! She wished she had not done that. The ice dragons appeared about as she would expect, although what she expected she did not know, but the liches were coiling masses of blackness. Not at all pleasant; in fact, quite disquieting.

Jenn spoke to her carpetmates on her circlet. “I’ve upped my eyesight and wizard sight. Should I keep an eye out across the board, or should I focus on particular carpets?”

The large fellow turned and grinned at her. “Teamwork, good.”

∼

Crap! That thing is big! Gastropé thought to himself, seeing the ice dragon as they swung in closer to the dragon-mounted lich. He really had to focus on the giant ice dragon, which was about one hundred feet long from nose to tail. The reason for his focus on the ice dragon was due to the fact that he had tried to look at the storm lich and had nearly soiled his pants.

For once, he was glad to have faced down Tom in the valley, because while the lich was completely terrifying, it was still less terrifying than a greater demon. Actually, Tom was terrifying, but was not sickening. That was the difference, Gastropé decided in the few moments he had to think about it. A greater demon radiated awe-inspiring power, making one feel feeble and insignificant; the lich sent deep, ancestral chills down one’s spine.

The storm lich was probably about seven feet tall, emaciated and wearing rotting formal clothes with a huge, ragged black cape. But the rotting clothes were nothing compared to the lich’s rotting flesh. His first look at the lich’s eyeless face had revealed what appeared to be maggots crawling from the lich’s eye sockets, as well as holes in its cheeks. Further, the cold near the ice dragon and lich were far worse than the already sub-freezing wind temperature.

“Idire nox firatus!” Gastropé shouted, launching a fireball from his wand nearly point-blank at the lich where it was perched on the dragon’s back. He did not want to stare directly at it. The carpet quickly banked, even as the ice dragon stumbled in the air just below them. Penelope’s gravity spell or whatever it was had rocked the dragon.

Gastropé twisted his head to look back at the dragon and lich to see if his spell had done much. Apparently not. Another carpet was coming in on the same trajectory they had just used. Fireballs, lightning bolts and some more weird light disturbances from the gravity wave rolled over the dragon and lich. Gastropé could not see much more of the latest attack, as they were moving quickly away to get lined up again.

“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.