The Shining Wyrm

2.4

The boar snorted at Jewel’s outburst before fixing her brother with those beady eyes.

It was still for a moment longer, Jewel began pulling on her Wyrmflame, trying to drag the annihilating power into alignment in her neck.

But was it even going to be enough time?

There was a solid two hundred paces between the beast and them.

That should be enough space right?

Just in case, she took a step forward to begin interposing herself between the Boar and Alexander, but the monstrously huge beast burst into action as soon as she even shifted!

As if launched from its own bow, one moment it was still quite a ways into the brush of the wood. The next it was already most of the way out!

Jewel’s throat clenched and her grasp of the Wyrmfire sputtered and scattered, failing to hold the proper shape to do more than maybe blind it?

She wasn't in position to protect her brother OR unleash her flame!

Alexander’s face had only just started to show something other than blockheaded determination.

In the time it took him to finish registering what a monumental mistake he had made the boar was already crossing the border of the meadow. Half her assumed safety buffer was gone in an instant!

Jewel could hear the rest of their party rushing through the meadow.

But they were even farther away than the Boar had been!

And Alexander, had only barely realized how dangerous and foolish this was and turned to run, dropping his bow as he did.

Of course, NOW her brother started trying to flee. After he had spoiled any chance that the animal might actually let them be!

Jewel was not in position, her Wyrmfire was just barely being pulled back together after the shock of the thing’s speed had scattered it through her scales.

Her brother was definitely not going to be anywhere near fast enough. For how utterly absurdly massive the boar was its speed was the most terrifying thing Jewel had ever seen.

She could imagine it playing out, her brother would be gored in the back, possibly even the side while he tried to turn. Shattered and skewered by those tusks, trampled by those cloven hooves and probably stamped into a pulp for his foolishness.

He might scream as the rabbits had, He might go still in terror and pain.

She could feel the flames building in her throat, but not enough! her wings started to flare in panic.

Her lips pulled back to reveal teeth.

There was no time!

She let loose with the malformed and ineffective flame, the Wyrmflame bursting incoherently just in front of her snout to flash the air blinding white.

Hoping to at least STUN the behemoth long enough she could get in position to cover her brother.

The boar stumbled hard but not enough to avoid the inevitability of crushing Alexander. Jewel was out of options! She did the only thing she could and lunged hard into the beast with everything she could muster. Leaping the intervening distance between them in a single bound.

She felt herself slammed by a skull like stone, blood hot and slick from the arrow graze, she was hurled up and over before she could do anything else, her wing was caught and pinched sharp, soft soil suddenly pushing into her face, Jagged line of pressure, catching in the join of wing fingers, pain.

PAIN.

Dizzy, she was looking at a tree trunk.

Things were happening all over her.

Gasping breathless wheezing, Bones feeling bruised, something wet in her mouth.

What?

What happened?

Trampling hooves seemingly everywhere on her sides and neck.

Terrible bellowing shrieking roars of anger from where she was feeling the most battered and trampled.

Sharp lancing gouges, her chest, her throat, something wrenched very wrongly in her fore left shoulder and then choking, can’t breath, teeth strong, bones grinding together, scales flexing hard, can’t breath, can't swallow, Where? What?!

And then shaking, tugging on both her torso and her head like she was a loose rag.

Everything a whirl of senses, sight never holding still as she tried and failed to keep her eyes stable.

Then by happenstance, the shaking tossed her about enough to give some slack on either side of the pained crushing on her throat.

It was violently worrying at her mid throat and putting the greatest effort to crush the life out of her neck.

For a moment with the extra slack Jewel could start to try and figure out what in all the damnations had just happened?!

She was bruising all over, both her wings were agonies that felt like something wrong and would not bend right.

Nothing had broken her scales though, she did not think any of her spine was hurt and besides not being able to breath Jewel was mostly just disoriented.

Jewel tried to get a census of the parts of her not being tossed about by the raging boar. She was all together too long to be lifted entirely by that first blow. But the front half of her was thrown clear into the air before she even had the chance to react.

And then as if by military drill the boar had caught one of her flailing wings with a tusk sliding up the membrane, wrenched it between the fingers and then spun itself around to... body slam her down maybe?

That had pulled wing joints out of the socket, and the shoulder and elbow too maybe. Nothing wanted to move there.

Then was the trampling, Jewel was unclear exactly how or where but hoof prints and concerning dents littered everything from her ribcage forward.

Her right foreleg was a mess, crumpled and wrenched apart at her wrist and shoulder. Flopping about painfully as the boar continued trying to work her neck deeper into its jaws where the grinding teeth were.

But it seemed to be noticing the futility there and-

Uh Oh.

Jewel met eyes with the boar and the beady glare rolled before it spun its entire body around to square with her head, already digging and kicking up dirt as it scrabbled for traction to hurl itself at her face. The mouth wide and tusks already angling to try and gore her through something softer than it had found so far. One point seeming disconcertingly aimed right at her eye!

naturally, she yanked her face back and whipped it around and away. Not with any grace but in sheer blind panic. Hurling her head more like the tip of a whip then anything particularly natural or with any intent.

The joints of her neck popping up and down as she smacks her own head into the dirt of the meadow, blinded by the plume of dirt.

Shake the dirt off, don’t lose track of the maelstrom of angry boar that moved like a lightning strike.

There was the noise and scent of Alexander, Muriel, the four hunters, screams and yells.

But Jewel’s eyes were on only one thing. Making sure she did not lose track of the ferocity that was still barreling down on her.

The Boar’s own momentum gave her barely the time to actually move backwards.

Barely able to rear back in a pathetic heap. Only three workable legs. One wing.

Her Wyrmfire all scrambled and roiled without intent or focus, like a disturbed coop of chickens panicked and running through Jewel’s flesh with no coordination.

The thing was upon Jewel before she could even begin to try and clear her crushed throat enough to unleash the chaotic sputter of Wyrmfire she could drive in even a semblance of a guide.

Slammed under her screaming, again flipping her over in a spine-twisting joust, dragging tusks with an almost musical buzz as it tried to scour the flesh from her ribs. Down her chest and then to the marginally softer flesh of her belly. Scales being dragged painfully, but still not breaking.

Her still-collapsed lungs flinched and flopped uselessly around in her chest, her throat whistling sharply as it barely was able to pull any air through her crushed windpipe.

And then even that minute air was shocked loose and her chest failed to even flex enough to manage that feeble whistling gasp.

Her Wyrmfire was like embers tossed loose of a shattered hearth.

Her tail snapped about and her hind legs pedaled in the air before the wet touch of a mouth closed down hard on her right thigh and then wrenched hard. Tossing her lower half over the boar’s shoulder, slamming her in the face with her own hips!

Jewel tried to clear her throat and get the rhythm of her lungs back in order.

She could feel the Wyrmfire in disarray, sputtering in shock and unable to find anything to catch on and burn.

Jewel thought she heard noises but they were muffling under the roaring, stuffy silence rushing like rivers through her head. Blood empty and starved galloped in her ears. Heart pounding like a drum announcing a parade of guests.

She reflexively tried to lift herself up, but a great weight dropped on her like a fallen tree. Like her crashes when first learning to fly. Like the time she had knocked the leg out from under one of the feast tables and the whole thing had tilted and fell on her.

Her ribs caved in their joints to her spine and sternum, soft spongy cracks echoing with the blows of cloven hooves.

She did not break - her ribs remained solidly whole - but they were not even, they had been pummeled out of alignment, pressing uncomfortably on her lungs, splaying a few of them loose from her sternum.

It hurt.

It hurt more than anything ever had but Jewel could barely even pay attention to the pain so awash in the sea of it.

A twitch from one of her legs was attacked with sudden furious tugs and bites, shaking its head in a frenzy, slamming her hips and lower section into the ground until a wet snap announced that her last functional limb popped from its socket.

There were voices, there were people over there but Jewel could barely even get her eyes to focus against the waves of pain and her nearly guttered flame.

The boar snorted with satisfaction and shook its hide free of the strange sticks of wood that had embedded themselves in its back.

A tusk gored at her neck and flipped her limp body over.

Jewel did not move.

And only then with her limp and trembling, struggling to even breath, feeling her heart start to stutter did the Boar turn from the Wyrmling.

Towards the vague shapes that had drawn its ire.

Jewel could barely focus but.

There was something important.

She pulled on her barely burning sparks and embers, pulling them to the one eye.

Bringing the burning Wyrmfire to the lens and little flexures inside, pulling her eye this way and that, opening and closing and straining.

Finding the image coming clearer.

They were brandishing spears.

The sticks shaken loose had been arrows.

The boar was undeterred.

It bled but rallied on the six figures ahead of itself anyway.

Jewel could not focus on all their faces, her lack of breath stalled her nose.

But she pulled her one clear eye to focus.

One of the shortest of the six figures was being held back by the rest. But yet it struggled to pull away, a long spear gripped in its hands, screaming words Jewel could no longer hear against the raging silence in her head.

Alexander.

It was still after Alexander.

Jewel felt her Wyrmflame all but guttered out at the thought.

No!