Chapter 302 - Second Task (3)
Chapter 302 - Second Task (3)
Dawn stood on the ground with her feet fixed firmly. The sky, which had turned dark, streaked silver lights across Ixoviya's landscape. Her eyes narrowed and they flickered a golden yellow. Everything became slow motion. She looked at Dolgra whose face was contorted into a horrible expression with her fangs bared and lengthened, her wings flapping behind her horizontal body and her horns straight as ramrod. She was like a bull charging at the red cloth. Dawn waited with her dagger with extreme focus. As soon as Dolgra came near her, she whirled and moved from her place elegantly. As she did that she sliced her left wing with jambīya right from top to the bottom in a neat stroke. The dagger slashed it and burnt the length of the cut. But the claw at the top of her wing had grazed Dawn's upper arm.
Dolgra cried loudly in pain as her burnt and sliced wing fluttered in the air uselessly. The pain was so intense that she fell on the ground with a thud and bellowed to the sky. Her grey skin turned paler.
Dawn only looked at her with rage. Dizziness started and she staggered a little. The poison of the claw of the wing.
Somehow Dolgra managed to get up and then she charged at Dawn once again with her horns facing her stomach.
Dawn waited for her with élan, ready to kill her. Suddenly her vision changed and instead of Dolgra, she saw a small girl charging towards her with laughter. She jerked her head. The small girl with grey skin and dark hair looked so cute in those tiny wings and her motherly instincts rose. In a second, the vision blurred and she saw Dolgra again.
No remorse.
Illusion. Was Sedora creating the illusion or it was Dolgra? Who was that little girl? Dawn's entire disposition changed and her heart softened when she saw the little girl coming to her with a beautiful smile. She had two small buds instead of horns. The vision changed again the next second.
She remembered what Brantley had meant. There should be no remorse in killing Dolgra because it was her who was creating this visage in order to bring her motherly instincts out, so that she dropped her guard. Dawn turned to the side before Dolgra could hit her stomach and in an arc brought down the dagger on her horns. "No remorse!" she said loudly as she cut the horns.
For a winged demon, cutting the horns was like amputation. Aíma spurted like a fountain from her head and Dawn moved away from her as fast as possible.
Dolgra shouted in pain. It was unbearable. She fell on the ground and tried to get up on her haunches, but failed. She lay in her blood on the ground.
The demons who were fighting with Brenda and Volara immediately came to the rescue of their princess and to avenge her. Their bodies were battered and aíma was flowing in streams over their skin. Touching them meant invitation to death. Five demons surround Dawn. They started circling her.
Dawn closed her eyes to shove another spell of dizziness that came over her. She looked above at the sky. Lightning forked out from it in intervals. Even if she wanted, she felt her limbs becoming weaker.
Volara and Brenda were still fighting with Pia who was proving to be quite a strong woman for them.
With a loud cry the demons attacked her simultaneously. She ducked and sliced their legs by turning in a circle. More blood splashed and few drops of it sprayed on her. Her mind became disoriented, as she began losing consciousness.
"Kill her!" she heard Dolgra's voice from a distance. But why was her voice so low? She looked at her but the flapping wings blocked her vision. Dawn had lost it. This was the end. Her eyes began to close. She hoped to see Daryn one last time, but her limbs failed her. She raised the dagger to scare the demons away but they knew that she was about to fall. Dawn clutched her hands in the air as if trying to hold on to it and then fell to the ground, in the blood of the winged demons.
"Dawn!" she heard his voice in the background. Perhaps, she was dreaming. Before her eyes shut, she saw the demons exploding into fragments. These fragments floated in the air and then blew away with a strong gust of wind. Lightning struck the ground around her. Dawn lost consciousness.
Darkness engulfed her and nightmares emerged. The demons surrounded her. Dolgra's eerie eyes haunted her. The little Dolgra laughed all the way to her lap. Then she sliced the small buds on her head. The baby cried and died in front of her eyes. "No!" she cried but her voice was stifled. Like a horse, the nightmare rode her through dark lands where it squelched over aíma. It splattered over her marking her with darkness. She thrashed her head around to stop it, to rein it and then fell back into a deep abyss.
"Come back love…" a comforting voice called her again and again.
Dawn fluttered her eyes open.
"Baby!" he called her.
When her vision stabilized, she turned her head to look at him.
Daryn stared at her and then held her tightly in his arms. He kissed her all over the face. "You are back! Dawn! My love! Baby!" He couldn't speak more and started kissing her as tears dropped from his eyes. "I had never been so nervous in my life."
Feeling weak, Dawn just let her go when he picked her up in his lap and cradled her. She rested her head in his chest. She was in his room.
Lavender scent in the room calmed her nerves.
"I think she is better now," said Brenda.
Dawn craned her neck from her place to see her doctor. What she saw surprised her all the more. Brenda, Ileus and Brantley—they were all standing in her tent. She was relieved to see Ileus all hale and hearty.
"How come you all are here?" asked Dawn in a low voice. "And how long was I unconscious?" She tried to get up, but he held her tightly, not allowing her to move an inch. "How come Sedora allowed you to come to my tent?"
Ileus shook his head with a chuckle. He motioned Brenda to go out with him. Brenda smiled. "Keep feeding her every one hour and if her temperature rises, let me know immediately. I am just one tent away."
"I will," said Daryn.
"You were too good Dawn, but your husband, he stole the show!" said Brantley with a grin.
Dawn rested her hand on his chest and kissed his chin. "Please fill me with details because all I remember is falling down and waiting for my d—"
Daryn pressed his hand on her mouth. "No one is dying!"
She chuckled in his hand.
"Daryn just blasted those demons away with his mental power!" Brantley filled her with concise details.
"What?" Dawn got up in his lap with a bolt. She looked at him with wide eyes. "H— how is this p— possible?"
"I don't know darling," he replied. "Since yesterday I had been practicing my powers on smaller things like you said. I noticed that I had success. I really don't know what triggered when I saw you surrounded with so many demons. It just blew my rage and I wished that this vision blasted—except it wasn't a vision… It was reality…"