Blast from the Past

by
Tom Haynes

Copyright 1999,2000,2006 - All rights reserved by the author.

I rushed over to him and grabbed him by his cloak. Dead or alive, I was not leaving him for my father to gloat over. Gorgie climbed aboard our lead copter and started laying down a suppressive line over little brother's position. I got the feeling the mana bolts had come from that quarter. I did not want to leave the wand behind, so I grabbed it out of C'gull's hand. I could feel the weight of time and power that the artifact held. I was tempted to drop him and make off with the wand. Somehow, I could feel that he still lived.

With a rush of adrenaline, I hefted him across my shoulder in a fireman's carry. The load almost staggered me, I could now feel the armor I had earlier guessed at, but I headed off to the second copter. The first had taken off and Gorgie was still providing firepower from it.

Bit Brain was waving me on. I could feel the mana bolts behind me as they left the hands of their casters. I was so encumbered, that I would be able to do nothing other than die. Bit Brain would tell me later about how they arced up into the night sky towards the dragon. The first missed narrowly to the right and splattered across the last gunship, and the resulting fireball threw me to my knees. It also buffeted the dragon right back into the path of the last mana bolt.

I don't know if it was the lack of either the white light or the direction from the unconscious C'gull, but the explosion from the zombie dragon knocked me the rest of the way to the ground. Both the wreckage of the copter and the remains of the dragon impacted right were we had last seen little brother. I hoped he was directly under at least one of them.

I staggered back to my feet and stumbled the last few feet into the copter. I dumped C'gull into the cargo bay and climbed in right behind him. Bit Brain and the Kid secured both of us to seats. I could see their lips moving, but I could not hear a thing. I could feel us lift off towards our date with a certain Mr. Johnson.