All the Dust that Falls

Chapter 217: Bound for Greatness

Chapter 217: Bound for Greatness

The battle lasted for days. Long after both armies had retreated or been annihilated, Archibald, Archimedes, and Daedalus continued to battle the Lieutenant. It wasn't a close fight, exactly. The only reason there was any problem at all was that regeneration. Every single time they thought they had him, he came back faster than they could believe.

Daedalus sent a jet of dragon's breath forth, completely enveloping the demon. The trio stared, panting as they watched the Lieutenant's cinders settle to the earth. Eventually, they sighed, turning around to leave. Archibald barely managed to bring his blade up to catch the sudden slash coming toward his side. The force of the impact sent him flying off into the distance, and the battle began once more. The two dragons had a difficult time pinning the Lieutenant down long enough for the human companion to return.

After such a long and intense experience, they were clearly running out of steam. Daedalus and Archimedes could fight for longer, of course, mighty dragons that they were. But even they wouldn't last forever. Not to mention that Archibald was only human. The Lieutenant didn't seem to have any limits to its energy, however.

At one particular lull in the action, the demon stopped and grinned at them. A dragon stood on either side while Archibald's griffin circled above nervously. After a moment, he spoke.

"I have to thank you all." A raspy voice emerged from the dark figure. It sounded like a rusty cleaver being dragged along jail bars. "After all, you scaled lizards are doing my master's work."

No one knew how to respond. Daedalus looked between his friend and companion in the sky. A frown creased his brow. Doing the demons' work? What did they mean? The demons didn't do anything besides move humans from place to place in herds.

Eventually, he snorted. The thing was probably lying. Probably. Unless there were things that the dragons didn't know.

Archimedes, however, seemed to take greater offense at the insult and used the time to plan something. Webs of golden light spun out from his maw as he roared a challenge to the demon's insolence.

The webs flung forward, and as the center of the net struck the Lieutenant, it began to wrap around him. The Lieutenant grunted, bucking and thrashing, but the webs held tight, binding its legs together and its left arm to its side. Daedalus was about to engulf him in Inferno when Archimedes shouted a warning. "No! Wait.."

He barely bit back the fire. The spell was working. It was merely binding their foe, but still. Daedalus didn't want to risk burning away the magic with his own. Not when Archimedes was still focusing on maintaining it.

The demon managed to get its feet underneath itself but was clearly struggling. After a few seconds, its arm managed to slither up and out of the spell. Daedalus could see the strain written in Archimedes's tail position and how he held his wings. This was costing the dragon, costing him more than was wise. If the demon got out, they might have to run. Archimedes might not be able to fight anymore.

Suddenly plummeting from the sky was Archibald. The man had lept off his griffin, his sword arcing down deep into the shoulder of the Lieutenant. The arm fell to the ground, another one immediately beginning to grow in its place. But that took precious seconds, and the demon roared, swinging at Archibald. He managed to just barely deflect its blow. Daedalus tried to think of something, but his magic wouldn't help here. His wing attacks or bashing with his tail would just as likely hit Archibald as the Lieutenant. So he crept closer, waiting for his opportunity.

Just as Archibald was dipping down to duck a massive haymaker from the newly reformed arm, Daedalus turned his whole body, whipping his tail. It snapped quite painfully as it broke the sound barrier before smashing into the Lieutenant's head, pulverizing it. The body fell limp, and Archibald dove on top of it, driving his sword through the demon's chest and into the ground below. Archimedes reared back, and another set of golden webs wrapped around the Lieutenant.

Slowly, they wound around the Lieutenant, and the sword pierced through. But as Archibald tried to climb off of the demon, he grunted in surprise. One of his hands and one of his feet were stuck. He yanked and pulled, but his limbs were bound to the Lieutenant with a power well beyond his mortal strength. Daedalus looked at Archimedes frantically. "Get him out. Release him!"

Archimedes immediately started to unweave the spell, but Archibald yelled, "No, this is our chance. Bind him more!"

"No, Archibald.We need to get you out. We can't risk it."

"We can! Once you've figured out how to kill him, you can release me. No way we'll get a chance like this again! We need to bind him!" Archibald yelled at his friend.

Archimedes looked sadly toward Daedalus for instructions, as the red was the dominant of the pair. Daedalus felt conflicted. Destroying the Lieutenants was their goal here, but it seemed further and further out of the realm of possibility. This was the closest they'd ever been to actual progress. The dragons were becoming quite frustrated with the issues of their campaign, and they soon would blow past the 10% mark if they didn't have any way of winning. Otherwise, they'd scour the earth of demons and everything else to maintain their pride.

***

"Oh, they're stupid. Stupid pride. Yeah, I suppose I am a bit different than I was back then. I've had a lot of time to think." Daedalus told Spot. The little godling was resting on his own small pile of coins, which Daedalus had shoved toward him for the extended story. The little godling chirped up at the massive dragon as if it were a hatchling. Along with the sound came the picture of the statue of his old companion trapped below.

"Yeah, we were able to bind him, but we never did figure out how to separate him enough to wake him up alone. We managed to physically separate him enough that we were able to put them in different spots, at least. I would not have my companion stuck for so long with that monster. But they were spiritually bound as well. Their states were entwined." Above the godling, a new image appeared of interesting representations of dragons that didn't quite look right. They all had a bit too much of Daedalus himself in them like they were palette-swapped copies of himself instead of anatomically accurate. The dragons flew forth, releasing the human and demon before fighting the demon ten on one until the demon was rebound.

"Yeah, we considered that, but it just wasn't feasible. The risk was too high." Daedalus waved the suggestion off. "Especially not at the start. And these things are wily. If it was able to think while in stasis, well… it would probably be ready to bolt as soon as we let it out. Catching one for a second time would be a hard ask, now that it had felt the spell once. Of course, at the time, we were just happy to get the demon out. But after that, the war changed. Now, we had a purpose. We had a drive, a path to victory. But our enemy also had fear."

***

The demons didn't behave the same after that. If anything, it was harder to get the next one because Archibald couldn't lure Daedalus away from fighting the other dragons. So the dragons walked their thunderous footsteps, following armies across the earth once they got anywhere near a battlefield. The prey drive when they were flying was just too high, and the territory was just too tempting. So the dragons slowly waddled across the land, destroying everything in their wake. As much as they grumbled about it.

The demons were more mobile in some ways, but their armies were not. It only took a few complete annihilations of massive armies to put real fear into them. They were destroyed in such a way that the rank-and-file demons weren't just banished to their other dimension but consumed, their magic repurposed to fuel the dragons' growth. Hatchlings were reared on just the essence of demons, and dragons prospered. But they didn't forget the humans.

At least, Daedalus didn't. His friend was stuck. Trapped with the first Lieutenant, they had bound. And he didn't let any of the other dragons forget it. As one of the most active dragons throughout the entire first half of the skirmishes, he had gained enough power that none opposed him to his face. And he always managed to gather several dragons which he could force into the conflict alongside him. Archimedes didn't feel bad about getting Archibald stuck per se but came as close as possible for a dragon to issue remorse. And that was saying something. It made it easy to recruit his help for further bindings.

While they fought on, each demon was eventually forced to stop and defend their armies and interests, whatever they were on this plane. Slowly, they began to be bound. Individually at first, but then in twos and threes as they tried to work together. But this only forced Daedalus to bring more dragons for support.

Archimedes refined his capture spell and taught it to other dragons. Soon, even human mages would line up in the thousands, circle around their battle, and slowly give their energy and life force to power the spells.

Eventually, the Dragons prevailed. After a final epic battle, the demon lord was banished from this plane, and Daedalus was finally able to return to his hoard. With his dragon's fire, he built Archibald a tomb, carving it deep, deep into the rocks below. The base of the rock was heated so much that it turned to white glass, serving as an altar to his companion. Thus, he rested in his petrified state under the dragon's watchful eyes. Thousands of elves and humans worked to build structures within to further honor the great hero.

Slowly, they covered the first layer and then began to bury it. Above him, they put defenses. Many thousands of the warriors who had fallen in the final battles were entombed there. Powerful wards of defense were placed on their bones so that they could defend their greatest hero. The human martyr. Above that, a few hundred years later. A castle was built to defend the Lieutenant himself and give a place of pilgrimage for those who would come to pay their respects.

After that, Daedalus didn't care much. Apparently, some human order was created, and extra defenses were placed around the demons. But he found a nice cave up in the mountains and migrated his hoard there slowly, piece by piece. Until he was left to watch over the castle, waiting for the demons to come back. After all, the spell wouldn't last forever. They all knew that. But it should last long enough for the dragons to take a nap.

They still had to bury their dead and rear younguns to replace the many dragons they had lost in the conflicts during and after the war. Daedalus didn't stick his nose in. He'd already proven himself to be the greatest. But one day, his human would be back. When the time came… He'd need to catch another griffin so they could go have another adventure.