Ten minutes were left on Arthur's copied portal spells. It would have to be enough.

Arthur looked down at the dragons arrayed below him in the air, and gulped.

Brixaby had taken him high up in altitude, to a point where he had to rapidly beat his wings to stay steady against high winds. A constant whistle of air blew past his ears, and he was in danger of not feeling his nose soon. That meant his conversation would remain relatively private. At least to anybody who didn't have an eavesdropping card.

Arthur leaned over his dragon’s neck and asked, "Are we doing the right thing?"

Brixaby's answer was dismissive. "As opposed to what? Letting the Mind Singer win?"

"No." He shook his head. "We could return to Wolf Moon hive quietly. Send the message to them. Let them know that we're alive, and that there is danger out here."

"We are sending a message to them," Brixaby said. "And that message is we’re a Legendary pair with an army of dragons behind us, and they better listen."

Arthur couldn't explain his reticence to his dragon — that until Brixaby had cracked his shell, he had lived his life in the shadows. That he didn't mind facing his enemies, but he'd always done it as sneakily as possible.

It was easy to be bold when facing down Chablis and the rest of the Council. Arthur had known that if he let any weakness show — that if he even hesitated and didn't put their plan into action right away — things would fall apart.

But they were small fry compared to what he faced in the hive.

Though… he supposed he had come too far to back down now.

At his request, Brixaby had used his ability to send messages straight into others' minds to pass the word along: those who wanted to keep their combat cards would fight with Arthur and Brixaby. Those who didn't would relinquish their cards, or have Brixaby forcefully remove them.

That message being transmitted straight into people's minds had a nice effect. Many had relinquished their cards. But many others had joined with Arthur, under the assumption they were there to fight and not join the kingdom hives. The real surprise came when other dragons asked to join up, too. Most of those who hadn't been given combat cards had received the ones that had been given up by those staying behind.

A large portion of the newcomers were female dragons, enraged at the thought of scourgeling farming dragon eggs.

In hindsight, Arthur should have asked Joy to keep that little theory to herself.

But the moment the meeting had broken up, they found a gathering of worried people waiting below the mesa.

Joy, still spitting fury, had flapped down to speak to a few of the other waiting dragons.

The word had spread, and they soon had more volunteers than combat cards.

Arthur was just glad for the visible show of support. They kept the Council from delaying and undermining their plans. That was reinforced by Cressida coming to him in a quiet moment and telling him to move fast. The more time they dawdled, the more time he gave for people to think twice.

Like it or not, the lives of a small army of dragons and people were now his.

I'm not ready for this, Arthur thought for perhaps the hundredth time.

Then he shoved that thought down, straightened, and nodded to his core retinue.

Joy and Cressida flew at his flank on the right side. Joy had recovered her good mood now they were on the move, though she flexed her green venom arm as if readying it for war.

Laird was a steady presence on his left, though somewhat behind. Joy flew beside Digger and the mana silver, Tannai. His rider had stayed behind, but Tannai had not been hard to convince to join this fight.If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

The Tannai had two clutches of eggs with two uncommon females back at his home hive. While he wasn't as crazed about the eggs as a clutching mother dragon, he was fond of his mates and didn't want to see them under the sway of a scourgeling.

Arthur nodded back to him, and both rider and dragon flew forward.

It was time.

When the silver got within a dozen feet of Arthur, he cast simultaneous spells.

Mana Springwell

Mana Redoubling