The Three Minute Window

T-Minus 3 Minutes.
Jerrick’s focus narrowed, canceling the world outside the immediate perimeter. The Troll’s roar didn't shake him; it simply provided a timeline. A creature that large, making that much noise, would draw every secondary threat in the forest. They had to be gone before the sound echoed back.
“Lyra, Kael, ignore the noise,” Jerrick commanded, a silent, ice-cold intrusion into their minds. “Queen is priority. Cover the line of retreat. I take the target.”
He didn't wait for confirmation. Jerrick was already moving before the last sound wave of the Troll's roar dissipated. He didn't run toward the beast; he ran around it. The Dragon-enhanced speed wasn't about raw velocity, but instantaneous vector change. He utilized the massive boulders like pinball bumpers, blurring past them, his obsidian leather gear absorbing the contact without a scrape.
The Troll, a crimson mountain of muscle and scaled armor, was geared for a frontal charge. It lunged, its shadow engulfing the rock where the Queen stood.
Jerrick used the massive, jagged hand reaching for the Queen as his ramp. He ran up the length of the Troll’s forearm, ignoring the smell of damp earth and stale blood, finding purchase on the rough scales. The Troll didn't feel the weight—a small tickle against its bulk—until Jerrick was level with its thick, armored neck.
He drew the two short, wickedly sharp obsidian blades concealed along his wrists. They weren't meant to cut; they were meant to pierce. He found the precise seam where the thick crimson armor plates met the skull's base—the central nerve nexus, a point only a Dragon-aligned nervous system could target at speed.
The blades sank in without resistance, striking the spinal cord like twin hammers.
The colossal body seized. The roar, which was building for a second, deafening wave, became a wet, gurgling gasp. The Mountain Troll pitched forward with a seismic shudder that cracked the shale under Jerrick’s boots. It didn't fall gracefully; it simply became a massive, immovable lump of meat and scale, dead before it hit the ground.
Jerrick pulled his blades free, wiping the pale, corrosive Troll blood on the beast’s own shoulder, and landed lightly ten feet from the Queen.
T-Minus 2 Minutes.
The silence that followed the Troll’s demise was deafening, amplified by the residual dread of the fight.
Jerrick closed the distance to the Queen. She was leaning heavily on the rock, her breath ragged. Her tunic was shredded, showing a purple-black bruise spreading across her ribs, but her eyes—the King’s own sapphire blue—were burning with fierce, unspent energy.
"The children," Jerrick whispered, his voice hoarse.
"They are unharmed," the Queen replied, her voice a dry rasp, yet holding its usual command. She gestured to the two children, silent and clutching her legs, their faces pale masks of shock. "Atlas... I drove him back. He will not return for at least two minutes. Possibly more. I used the final spell."
Jerrick understood. The "final spell" was a devastating, self-destructive ward reserved only for use against Elder God influence. It explained the hateful magical signature he’d felt. She had burned a hole in their timeline, but the cost was clearly physical.
"Lyra will take the boy, Kael takes the girl," Jerrick ordered, now speaking in the mental channel again. "Queen, I carry you."
Lyra was already there, moving from the treeline with the quiet confidence of a seasoned assassin. She knelt, giving a crisp, silent nod, and gently lifted the boy, securing him against her chest. Kael, equally quick, took the girl.
"To the Watchtower," the Queen murmured, her eyes closing briefly. "The final sequence is running."
Jerrick secured his arms around her waist and under her knees. She was surprisingly light, and he felt the profound tremor running through her body. He could not carry her and run at Dragon speed; he needed Lyra's tactical genius and Kael's unassailable defense covering their retreat.
"Ready, Shadow One," Jerrick sent out to the nexus through his wrist unit, confirming the Troll was neutralized.
T-Minus 1 Minute.
"Go!"
They moved in a tightly compressed wedge formation—Jerrick and the Queen in the center, flanked by Lyra and Kael carrying the children. They abandoned the silent, stealthy descent. Now, it was about brute force velocity, scrambling over the broken shale and moss.
Jerrick could feel the magical silence the Queen had enforced beginning to fray. The oppressive weight of the Elder God's presence, the hateful signature of Atlas, was creeping back into the atmosphere like a rising tide.
Sixty seconds.
They hit the treeline again, a blur of dark movement through the pines. The ground began to vibrate, not from their steps, but from the bass thrumming of some external force.
Forty-five seconds.
Kael, trailing slightly, sent a single, terrifying mental snap to Jerrick: Captain. Massive object ascending from the Grove. Too fast.
It was Atlas. The Queen’s delay had been shorter than she predicted. He was moving, and he was enraged.
Jerrick pushed harder, ignoring the burn in his lungs and the protest of the Queen's shattered body in his arms. The Watchtower Ridge peak, with its promise of a magical portal, was just ahead, a single black silhouette against the fading gray sky.
Thirty seconds.
A white-hot line of energy, sharp as a physical blade, tore through the air where Kael had been a split second before, vaporizing a pine tree behind them.
"Spread and push!" Jerrick roared, his voice finally breaking through the mental channel, raw and desperate.
The shadow of the Watchtower was five seconds away. They were running out of time, and they were out of cover. Atlas was back.