A Song of Askaldenfirsts and Dragons. Part six: The death
Chapter 2: Arinella

Arinella stood on the city wall, next to her stood Arel. Not far away were Anz Shabo and Khmen Rashp, they were the tukhtaash elders from Itskel-taash. Jasmir Stoyangert, the taraykh of Chumbiksirinish, stood nearby. Erdanellar was bustling about, arranging the arqilunians and the tukhtaashes. Some had already conjured up a protective dome and maintained it, but they did not have the strength to cover the entire city. An army of tukhtaash-outlanders stood outside the city wall, some of them were in the guise of dragons, they were soaring in the sky.

The lake protected the city from attack from the south and from the east, where tukhtaashes came from, but they decided to attack from the north. The dragons, however, could easily attack from any side.

“We’re one people,” Anz Shabo shouted, “and the people of Chumbiksirinish helped us, sheltered our fellow tribesmen, and before that, the arqilunians saved us,” he said uncertainly, “let’s resolve this misunderstanding diplomatically.”

“Yeah, you just have to get out of here! That would be an outstanding diplomatic solution!” taraykh shouted.

Anz Shabo and Khmen Rashp looked at him with undisguised hostility.

“Surrender,” thundered the voice of the black dragon with blue stripes, “become our slaves and we will spare you all, or you will all die!”

Taraykh nodded to Vinlage, who ran up at that moment. Vinlage shouted loudly something unintelligible. Suddenly the sound of machinery was heard all along the length of the city wall. Holes appeared in the city wall, with giant arrows sticking out of them. And after a few seconds, they all flew towards about three hundred tukhtaash-outlanders and six dragons.

One arrow hit a black dragon with blue stripes in the wing, and he lost his balance and crashed, crushing about a dozen tukhtaash-outlanders with his weight. Another dragon, a black with yellow stripes, was hit in the stomach by giant arrow and he fell, killing and injuring several other foreigners. Four other dragons were able to dodge and take off, heading towards the city.

Arinella and Arel decided to flee from the city wall, and at that moment a black dragon with brown stripes spewed out a giant jet of fire, and it incinerated Anz Shabo and Khmen Rashp.

The dwarfs loaded their ballistae and kept throwing huge spear-shaped arrows, killing the outlanders. One such arrow blew the heads off two tukhtaash foreigners running one after another, and then pierced the stomach of a third and pinned him to the ground.

Fireballs and arrows, ice and fire magic spears flew into the city wall. The outlanders created a dozen elementals. But many of them quickly disappeared because their summoners were killed. The ice elemental suddenly began to attack the tukhtaash-outlanders themselves, because its summoner hit a stone and injured his head, and now he did not understand what was happening and control over the creature was lost.

The other elemental, a giant soil elemental, came to the city wall and managed to hit the hole with his huge fist in a leap, where ballistae were located, destroying the wall slightly and completely damaging few ballistae. And then it was as if he was playing around and kept doing so, destroying the ballista-shooters until a couple of arnadacres fired their arrows from a bow and pierced the elemental’s eye, and then he began to swing in all directions and destroyed several groups of tukhtaash-outlanders, running up with ladders to assault.

The arqilunian and the tukhtaashes from Itskel-taash who were sheltered within the walls of the city tried to use more protective spells, covering as much area as possible with the dome, because the foot soldiers of the outlanders were the least dangerous compared to the fire-breathing beasts.

The dragon with the brown stripes flashed its fire several times, eventually breaking through the most powerful protective dome of elves and tukhtaashes, killing a dozen.

Arinella, Arel and Erdanellar ran into the nearest house as another dragon released a jet of flame not far from them, incinerating several wallitarfs and tukhtaashes.

“We can’t win, we’ve got to get out of here!” Arinella shouted.

“I will not abandon my elves, or even tukhtaashes!” Erdanellar said firmly.

“Maybe we should surrender!” Arel suggested.

“The battle is on, idiot,” Arinella shouted angrily, “as soon as you get out of this house the dragon will burn you!”

Erdanellar was just about to run out of the house when Arinella grabbed his arm.

“You will die there!” she said.

“But I will die with honor!” and Erdanellar ran out of the house.

Arinella could see how the dragons were burning everyone in a row. The forest elves, tukhtaashes and a few arnadacres attacking the dragons with arrows and spells of cold and fire, throwing ice and fire spears and frost and fireballs, but the dragons either avoided hits or the spells did them little harm, leaving grayish stains on the black scales as if the dragons were smeared in some kind of dirt. Although well-aimed arnadacres aimed at the eyes of the dragons, they could have hit, but the dragons turned their muzzles away at the moment of the arrival of the arrows, while other arrows bounced off their scales, and those that flew at their wings left thin holes in them that had no effect on their flight.

And then Arinella saw how the jet of fire hit Erdanellar and incinerated him. She looked away sharply. Suddenly she felt something open beside her, it was a trapdoor leading to the basement of the house, it was hidden by a small rug. From the trapdoor peered the head of a wallitarf woman of about forty: a beautiful woman with blond hair and green-brown eyes. Wallitarfs in their forties, despite being dwarfs, looked like snunorfs in their thirties or even younger.

“Come quick!” she shouted. Arinella and Arel followed the woman down into the basement. Arinella was the last to go down, and before she slammed the hatch behind her, she heard the city gates being rammed. This surprised her because she wondered, “Why didn’t the dragon just burn the front gate?” But there was no time to think.

Wallitarf woman took one torch and gave it to a wallitarf teenage girl about fifteen years old. Nearby stood another wallitarf girl, about eight years old, though the wallitarfs, like the arqilunians(forest elves), arnadacres(sand elves) and the tonnebeards(forest dwarfs), always looked younger to any isterses, snunorfs or azdairiks than they could tell. For example, any isters would say that maybe the eldest wallitarf girl may actually be fifteen, but the youngest is five or six years old, not eight. However, Arinella was an arqilunian and could estimate the ages of races more accurately than non-elves and non-dwarfs of Ermir.

“My name is Alaya Emblegert,” the wallitarf woman said, “and this,” she pointed to a wallitarf teenage girl with green eyes, and blond hair, “is my eldest daughter Dreya,” and then she pointed to a little girl, who seemed to have brown eyes, but Arinella could not see well because of the dim light of the torch, “and this is my youngest daughter Bareya.”

“I am Arinella, and this is Arel,” Arinella introduced herself, nodding toward her companion.

“There’s an underground passage here, and there’s only my house in this part of the city that has an underpass, so I need to somehow to get to the elderly neighbor and bring her here. Will you help me?”

“Um, that’s not a good idea,” Arinella said.

“We’ll help you!” Arel suddenly said. Arinella looked at him angrily. She knew she had to make sure Arel lived, otherwise Edelmer’s daughter would hate her even more. Arinella’s love for the northerner still hadn’t gone away.

“All right,” Arinella gritted through her teeth, “but I’ll go alone”

“No, Arinella, I won’t let you go alone!” The elf exclaimed.

“No, Arel,” she smiled, “you will do as I say! Wait here,” and Arinella climbed up.

“Why she always commands, I don’t know,” she heard Arel’s disappointed voice.

Arinella carefully opened the hatch, poked her head out for a few seconds and looked around, then bent down, thinking she’d made it in time. But she was wrong. The tukhtaashes broke into the city. Two soldiers, a man and a woman, ran up to the hatch, Arinella slammed it shut and hung with her whole body, holding on to the handle of the hatch.

“Run, quickly!” she shouted.

“Run!” Arel repeated.

“This concerns you too, Arel!” she said. “Ouch!” The tukhtaashes cast a spell and heated the hatch cover so that Arinella burned her hands a little and fell down the ladder. Alaya, Dreya, and Bareya were already running down the long corridor.

Arel ran up to Arinella. The hatch opened, and someone got inside. Arinella jumped up, and began to cast a fireball spell and released it right into the tukhtaash woman that was about to descend. Arinella and Arel began to move from the hatch down the corridor along which the wallitarfs ran. But before the hatch was out of sight, Arel released a fireball to the hatch and heard someone cursing in an unknown language.

Arinella, while in the corridor, cast a fireball at the remains of the ladder, which was already partially burned at the top, but now it was completely destroyed.

“Run!” Arinella suddenly shouted, and the two of them dashed rushed along a narrow corridor where only a few torches were burning. Arinella ran, grabbing the torches and throwing them back so that she and Arel would be in the shadows and their opponents in the light. Arinella stopped and waited, because the arqilunians were moving too fast, and Arinella wanted to let the tukhtaash foreigners get close. And so she cast a fireball spell, and it flew down the corridor, illuminating the walls and ceiling, and then it hit the tukhtaash man in the chest, and the blast wave of contact with the flesh threw the tukhtaash body back and knocked down several more pursuers. The elves ran on.

Soon the straight corridor split into two paths. Alaya was waiting for the arqilunians here with her daughters.

“Follow me!” she said. Arel picked up the youngest girl in his arms, the girl was crying, and she was wetting her pants. They ran as hard as they could for a very long time, looping through the corridors of the underground maze of the wallitarfs.

Finally, they reached the stairs at the top.

“We’re outside the city, right?” Arinella asked, slightly out of breath. Arel was breathing evenly.

“Yes, we are. We are,” she paused to catch her breath, “in the west.” The wallitarf woman and her eldest daughter were breathing heavily.

Suddenly they heard the sound of running pursuers.

“Hurry!” Arinella said quietly.

Arel climbed in first, opening the hatch, then little Bareya climbed in, followed by Dreya and their mother. Arinella was the last to climb out, and she launched a fireball, destroying the stairs, and then closed the hatch. When she looked around, she saw a rather large rock.

“I need another pair of hands here,” she said and looked at Arel, and he ran up to help, and together they put a rock on the hatch. They were on rocky ground outside the city. There was a lake to the south.

Suddenly they saw a dragon flying toward them from the west side. Arinella and Arel prepared to cast spells, and Alaya took her daughters behind her with her hand.

Someone was sitting on the dragon’s back, but Arinella could not see who.

“Alaya, Arinella?!” a familiar voice shouted, and then the dragon landed.

“Ansellellor!” cried Arinella cheerfully. “I’ve changed my mind, and I can tell you that Malderfir wasn’t so bad!”

Alaya wanted to throw herself on the old man’s neck, and took one step, but then she stopped herself and addressed him respectfully, “Aidgeran Ansell,” and she bowed.

Ansell walked over to Alaya and hugged her and kissed her on the cheek, and then he patted Dreya on the head and walked over to the younger girl.

“You’re frightened, Bareya, come here,” and he took the girl in his arms, “you see the dragon, it’s the mighty Randairtaavagan, he will protect us.”

“Maybe, but It depends from whom,” Randair rumbled, not wanting to play along with the old man’s encouraging speeches.

“What’s going on here?” Ansell asked Arinella, ignoring the dragon.

“The tukhtaash-outlanders attacked us, and there were dragons among them,” the arqulinian replied.

“Yeah, and you escaped through the tunnel, where I have my supply of alanjruon. I see,” he smiled at the girl and put her down.

Suddenly they saw fire from under the rock that was on the hatch and the rock began to move. The hatch lifted slightly from the blast of fire, smoke was coming, but the rock stopped moving.

“El-el, why are you standing there doing nothing?” Arel shouted to Ansell, “I know your strength, you can teleport everyone out of the city!”

“That’s the problem, young elf, my strength is almost exhausted, I need an alanjruon to restore it, I have supplies already mined, and they are right there,” and he pointed to the hatch.

Suddenly, from the south side, where the lake could be seen, they heard stomping. A combat gatakanati was rushing toward them.

“What a wonderful day! Stand behind me!” Ansell ordered. “Randair,” he shouted to the dragon, “when you attack the creature, don’t fly too low.” The First cast a protective dome spell, blocking any physical attack.

The enraged gatakanati swung its tail and knocked a rock off the hatch, then ran towards Ansell. Arinella and Arel released fireballs, and the balls flew through the dome directly at the huge beast, but the gatakanati dodged, though one fireball slightly grazed its side and another flew past. The animal slammed its horns into the dome, but could not break through. Randair unleashed a jet of fire directly at the animal and pierced its shell, partially incinerating the flesh, partially penetrating the dome because this dome protected against physical penetration, allowing magic, fire, and more to pass through. Gatakanati died almost instantly. But then the tukhtaash-outlanders began to get out of the hatch. Seven had already get out and started casting spells. Behind them, two more came out, and they were the same mages who could control the dragon’s mind.

“Randair,” Ansell shouted, “kill the hooded mages!”

Randair followed the advice and flew toward them. The other outlanders cast fireballs, less often frostballs, and launched them at Arinella, Arel and Ansell, the three of them jumping and dodging inside the dome. At this time, Alaya and her daughters stood behind Ansell at the edge of the dome. Wallitarf woman pulled her daughters close to her. Ansell changed the dome’s spell to a universal, powerful four-sloped protective dome that did not let through either magic or physical attacks.

“Randair,” Ansell shouted, “fly away a hundred yards from here! Now! Quickly!” he gave another minute to the dragon. “Sten Sem Eg Mon Fal Hin Forstor!” He cast the spell of the First, summoning a hail of rocks. The giant rocks fell from the sky.

The outlanders screamed as they fell, crushed by the rocks. Some rocks crushed their skulls, others crushed their legs, backs and arms. Rocks bounced off Ansell’s dome, and sometimes split and fell near the magical barrier. One rock flew to the hatch, from which a tukhtaash woman wanted to get out, and the rock pressing down the hole and tore off her legs, sealing the passage permanently. A woman screamed and tried to crawl, but then she lost consciousness.

In the distance Randair flew, not knowing when to stop. Soon the rocks stopped falling from the sky. Ansell removed the dome, and the six of them dodged the falling rocks. Randair was already flying and burning the wounded outlanders who were moaning or screaming.

Ansell sat down from fatigue. He sat for a while, and then moved toward the hatch; he cleared the place with magic.

“Wait for me here,” Ansell said and climbed down. After a couple of minutes he came out, “And though you don’t have to wait for me, I may be gone for a while, but I’ll come back for you later,” and suddenly he disappeared.

“It’s very unpleasant every time! He always leaves us that way!” Arinella was indignant.

“That’s Ansell,” Alaya remarked with sadness in her voice.