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Anna
“It’s so small. I’d forgotten just how tiny it was,” she said as Damien set them down nearby the portal.
The little oblong shape measured no more than six inches across at any one spot, its silvery-purple shining light easy to spot from a distance, however, making it appear larger than it actually was.
Four large stakes had been erected around it before the snowstorm, cordoning off the area so nobody accidentally wandered into it.
Her boots crunched into the fresh layer of snow, sinking halfway up her shins before finding solid footing underneath. The storm really had dropped a layer of snow on everything in the valley.
“What I don’t understand, is how it managed to remain open,” Damien said. “The dragons that opened it needed to focus in unison, all concentrating their powers together.”
Anna nodded. He’d told her of the process, of how it had taken twenty-four dragons working in concert to open it up and stabilize it. To the best of her knowledge, any spell that operated that way would collapse when one link was taken out.
Yet somehow, the dragon portal hadn’t collapsed. Not completely. Of course, it was unlike any spell she’d ever heard of before. Travelling to other words? Preposterous. Even the Abyss was but a parallel world of Earth itself, existing in the same region of space, but on a different plane, one made from magic.
This though...this was something else entirely. It screamed more of technology than magic. Of course, dragon magic was innate.
So is ours, I suppose. We’re born with it, latent talent that we must train. But we have to actively learn it, whereas the dragons just seem to...to know it.
Anna didn’t understand it.
“You’re back.”
They both turned to see Rane and Altair standing in front of one of the buildings.
“Yeah,” Damien said, speaking up. “We are. We need to find a way to close this. It’s our only hope to get us out of trouble.”
Altair nodded, while Rane looked bothered by the statement.
“Do you want us to deal with the others?” Rane asked cautiously. “To give you time to work.”
Anna scoffed. “No, of course not. The others aren’t going to fight us. They just want to stay out of it entirely, I’m sure. No, we should be fine to do this on our own.” She sighed, pacing along the front of the portal. “If I could just feel this thing, get a sense of it, then maybe I could close it. But it’s invisible to me.”
“Invisible?” Damien asked.
Anna shrugged helplessly. “I can feel earthly magic. Like this,” she said, holding up her staff. “Here.” She chucked it to Damien, who caught it smoothly. “Now, if I feel with my magic, I can sense that, I know it’s there, and even if I were blindfolded, I’d be able to tell you that something magical is over there. But with that—” She spun to point directly at the little hovering portal, “—well that just doesn’t exist to me. So, I can’t get a sense of it, can’t learn its patterns. I can’t unravel it if I can’t feel it. Do you understand?”
She glanced at the other two dragons first. Both of them nodded. Then she turned to Damien, looking for final confirmation that what she’d said made sense. But the storm dragon wasn’t staring at her. He was staring at the portal itself.
“Damien? I asked you if you understood,” she said.
The storm dragon didn’t respond at first. When he did, he spun to face Altair. “You put the posts in around it, correct?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Yesterday, before the storm hit.” Altair shrugged. “Why?”
Damien began backing away from the portal. “So why are there tracks in the snow?” he said quietly. “Tracks that only lead away.”
Anna’s gaze swung down to the snow, and she saw them there too. Partially obscured by the snow, but still visible if one looked for them. They led past her and the others.
“Toward the outpost,” she said quietly. “Something came through during the storm.”
“And it never went back,” Damien confirmed, reaching her side, handing her staff over.
They linked up with Altair and Rane, the quartet slowly approaching the outpost. It was several hundred feet back from the portal, the witches wisely having decided to keep some distance from the unknown magic. But that meant it would take them some time to close the distance.
“We need to warn them,” Anna said quietly, speaking of the other four witches that had come with her. “So that they can prepare themselves.” She was scared. One of her best friends was up at the outpost, unaware. Vulnerable.
“If we do that, then the Infected will know that we’re alerted to its presence, and strike at once. The closer we can get before that happens, the better,” Damien said cautiously. “We can stop one of them. Between the four of us, that shouldn’t be an issue.”
What Anna noticed Damien carefully avoid saying, was whether only one of them had come through. She steeled her nerves as best as possible, determined not to fall behind the dragons as they advanced, following the tracks as best they could.
This is what you’ve trained for. What you’ve been working toward for your entire life. Something has come through to harm humanity. You are one of the few who stand between them and the unknowing masses. This is your duty. Now do it.
She inhaled sharply, spine straightening. Magic came easier and she gripped her staff, ready to put its deadly spells to good use if she had to. Anna had never struck in anger before, with intent to harm, but this time...this time she would.
“Anna,” Damien said quietly. “I want you to—”
The first attack came without warning, exploding among their midst.
