The Darkness of Old; The Ancient Crown; The Winged One

by Hans Bezdek

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” said Cassandra, pointing her blade in the direction of the Greeners flanking further out.

  “What are you talking about?” I asked, keeping an eye out as the Greeners rushed Fulco and past him in an effort to overwhelm him. I was confident they wouldn’t, but some made it past and were coming for our group. “Soeren said he planned on them trying to flank!”

  “Right, but Eluf knew that!”

  “So?”

  “She means he’d have warned Ulrich!” shouted Braun, bringing his Mace down on the back of an unsuspecting troll’s head. “He wouldn’t send so many troops around if he knew the bridges were just gonna blow anyway!”

  I stabbed at a goblin, who hopped back and out of the way. The little creature laughed at me, so I swung again. It continued laughing, taunting me. I gave one more half hearted swing, and it predictably hopped back a third time. The only problem was it ran out of bridge to hop on, instead landing on nothing but air and plummeting down to its death.

  “Who’s laughing now?!” I shouted down at it. I glanced back to see Braun and Dhot giving me a horrified look. “What?”

  “Poor taste,” said Dhot, shaking his head.

  “Whatever,” I said, falling back and letting two Durnskeep fighters take my place. “Whoever has the detonator will take care of those flanking Greeners, we don’t need to worry about them.”

  “Oh, you want me to go ahead and blow the bridges up?” asked Dhot, rummaging in his bag for his trigger.

  “No, I meant the ones the dwarves planted down there,” I said, shaking my head. The goblin was always in such a rush to use his explosives it was like he was never listening.

  “Uh.. but there weren’t any explosives down there,” said Dhot, giving me a confused look. “The guards said someone moved them a few days ago and told them it was King Soeren’s orders.”

  “What?!” gasped Cassandra.

  “But that isn’t true,” I said slowly. “Soeren mentioned planning on using those bombs… Eluf must’ve been the one that told them that!”

  “That’s annoying,” said Dhot. He thought about it for a minute, then shrugged. “It’s not like it matters, does it? My bombs are set up and will work.”

  “If Eluf took the bombs,” reasoned Cassandra, “he must’ve put them somewhere else…”

  “Uh oh... “ said Dhot, his eyes going big. “If someone clicks the detonator, they’ll set those explosives off, wherever they are!”

  I looked back over to the bridges on our flanks. The Greeners were already getting onto the closest ones, which at least had some dwarves fighting them back. Once the other Greeners reached the further out bridges, whoever was detonating the bombs would set them off.

  “We have to hurry!” I shouted, running back towards the stronghold.

  The four of us jumped up and down as we ran, waving our arms frantically and shouting up at the top of the walls as we went. Through the ongoing battle, somehow King Soeren noticed us and waved back.

  “Don’t use the explosives!” we shouted up at him over and over.

  The dwarf leaned forward, trying to hear us. The sounds of both sides shouting commands, metal hitting metal, and arrows cutting through the air were too much, and no one on top of the wall was able to hear us. King Soeren tried cupping his ears towards us, but ultimately shook his head and mouthed that he couldn’t hear us.

  “Don’t activate the bombs!” I said slowly, trying to get him to read my lips and gesturing to the other bridges.

  King Soeren looked confused, then off to the bridges. I looked over to see that the Greeners were now the only ones left on the additional bridges, some of them managing to cross over onto Jiezvall land.

  “Dhot!” screamed Cassandra. “Do it now! If the explosions go off they might not trigger their own!”

  Dhot fumbled with the detonator, then clicked it. At the same time, I saw King Soeren gesture at the flanking bridges to someone nearby.

  A dozen explosions went off all around Jiezvall, each of the extra bridges blowing outward with fire and taking all of the Greeners with them. We looked back up to King Soeren, hoping that whoever else had a detonator hadn’t used their yet.

  We weren’t so lucky.

  Just seconds after the bridges exploded, the top corners of the Jiezvall walls erupted. Stone, wood, and dwarven archers came crashing down all around us. The four of us managed to avoid getting hit by anything, but that wasn’t the case for everyone. Some unlucky warriors were knocked out cold or worse by the debris, and it didn’t look like any of the archers survived the fall.

  King Soeren glanced down at us, a horrified look on his face. While this had gone horribly wrong, at least he was still alive. I looked around at some of the wreckage trying to get a better idea of what just happened. Some of the chunks of wood were connected to one another, and I saw one with a metal basket still attached to one end.

  “The catapults!” I groaned, running a hand over my face. “Eluf must’ve planted the explosives on the bridge on the catapults!”

  “We should’ve known a spy would do something like this,” sighed Cassandra, looking very frustrated with herself.

  Before we could beat ourselves up about it anymore, the sound of dragon roars bounced off the wall next to us. I looked back in the direction of the Dar’Ka.

  The black and red dragons were entering the fight.

  Chapter 17

  “Fall back!” I shouted to the dwarves and the Durnskeep fighters. “Dragons!”

  Those closest to me spun around and hurried back towards the walls, while those still in direct combat with the Greeners slowly retreated. The Greeners on the bridges started to advance, growing in confidence as they saw the black and reds fly over their heads. They also didn’t have to worry about the archers anymore, who were in the process of switching to the Zorikium arrows for the dragons.

  I and the others rushed up to help the front line in their slow retreat, knowing that we couldn’t do much against the dragons at this time. While I could’ve transformed, I was waiting to see if that was going to be absolutely necessary or not.

  With a roar behind us, we heard the blues take to the skies as the black and reds closed in. I risked a glance back to see them hovering above Jiezvall, waiting for the archers to take a few shots before moving in themselves. Looking closer to us, I saw a few of the Dar’Ka dragons circling around, shouting at one another. The black and reds flew back slightly as they came up with a strategy. It looked like our surprise of the blue dragons worked.

  They hadn’t expected this at all.

  We arrived next to Gerard and some of the men I recognized as being from the Shadows. Several of them were injured, but still putting up a fight. Gerard had a few cuts in his clothing, but nothing that looked too serious. The half elf spun about with his two short swords, cutting open a troll’s chest on one side and creating a deep wound in the back of an orc fighting next to him.

  “We need to keep moving back!” I called to him, stabbing at a goblin that was trying to sneak by us. “The black and reds are moving in!”

  “It looks like they’re falling back!” said Gerard, nodding up to the dragons. “They might call this off after seeing they’re outnumbered in the air. The longer we fight down here, the more of the footsoldiers we can kill.”

  “We can’t be sure that they’ll stay away,” warned Cassandra, shaking her head. “It’s too dangerous to stay out here. If they decide to come by and rain fire down on us, there’s nothing you’ll be able to do.”

  Gerard looked conflicted, taking his frustration out on an orc that clearly wasn’t as skilled as he was. After felling the creature, Gerard glanced over to his men.

  “Begin retreating!” he called out to the Shadows. “Hold the line as we move backward!”

  Satisfied that we had done our job at this bridge, we moved over to the bridge we had defended a few minutes earlier. Dwarves on our side of the moat were busy pushing a high number of Greener bodie
s off of the bridge, clearing the space up. Fulco stood in the middle of the carnage, his sai sheathed and his hands resting on his hips. The troll watched as the unending mass of Greeners moved to the remaining bridges, or continued flanking around in hopes of finding a bridge we forgot to blow up. Not a single Greener was approaching his bridge.

  “You scare em all off?” asked Braun, laughing.

  “Seems that way,” shrugged Fulco. Unlike nearly everyone else on the front lines, there wasn’t so much as a scratch on the hulking troll. “I was expecting a bit more out of them, if I’m being honest. Quite the let down.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said, still not able to process the sheer amount destruction the troll was capable of bringing. “The battle isn’t over yet. I’m sure you’ll find more people to kill.”

  “One can hope,” he said, not sounding convinced.

  “We’re falling back now,” explained Cassandra. “We’ll be forming a few lines around the front of the stronghold, the rest waiting to fill their places from inside the wall.”

  “Why just in front?” asked Fulco, tilting his head to the side. “Why not all around the stronghold?”

  He must not have heard all the explosions earlier. I let it slide since he was probably a little distracted taking on multiple enemies at once. Well, that and the fact he could kill me before I knew what was happening.

  “We blew the other bridges up,” I said. “They aren’t able to flank us.”

  Fulco sighed. “I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news, then. They are flanking us.”

  Cassandra and I shared a confused look.

  “W-With all due respect,” stuttered Dhot. “There’s nothing for them to walk across. None of the bridges are there anymore.”

  Fulco nodded off to the side. “Looks like they’re improvising.”

  We turned to see the Greeners pushing one of their siege weapons towards the moat. As it reached the edge, they toppled it over. The top of the large device crashed down to the other side, eliciting a round of cheers from the Greeners.

  “That’s not good,” I mumbled, summoning magic into my hand as we watched the Greeners line up to walk across the unstable makeshift bridge.

  “Want me to go take care of it?” asked Fulco. “They seem to not want to cross where they can see me.”

  “That’s okay,” I said, reaching a hand out towards the siege weapon. “I got this one.”

  A continual gust of wind erupted from my hand, shooting out for the contraption. My wind connected with it, causing it to rattle and the Greeners hold on for dear life. Right as it seemed like I wouldn’t be able to blow it off, the middle of the siege weapon snapped in two. The improvised bridge collapsed inward, falling down into the abyss and taking several orcs and trolls with it.

  “Magic user, eh?” said Fulco, nodding his head. “Not as useless as I figured you were.”

  I didn’t know how to respond to that and chose not to.

  “Good job, but it looks like more of them are going to try that,” said Dhot, pointing down the side of the stronghold. We could see three more siege weapons being drawn towards the side of the moat further down from the first one.

  “Looks like we’re going to be surrounded no matter what,” I mumbled, trying to come up with an idea to keep this from happening. Nothing was coming to me.

  There was another roar from the Dar’Ka side, and we turned to see the black and reds heading for Jiezall again, this time without any hesitation. There was something strange about them that I had noticed earlier, but didn’t pay any attention to. I rubbed my eyes and tried to get a better look at them.

  “Are they… are they wearing armor?” I asked, not even believing myself.

  “Looks that way,” nodded Braun.

  “But why would dragons wear even more armor?” wondered Cassandra. “It’s already hard enough to pierce through their scales.”

  The black and reds came close enough for the archers to shoot at them this time, so they let their arrows fly. Hundreds of black arrows shot out from the top of the walls, meeting the Dar’Ka dragons as the flew closer and closer. Many of the arrows met their targets, and while a few of the dragons faltered slightly, none of them fell to the ground.

  “The Zorikium!” I shouted, an idea finally forming in my small brain. “Eluf must’ve told Ulrich that they were using Zorikium arrows, so the dragons prepared armor that could withstand the shots!”

  “You must be right,” nodded Cassandra, looking concerned. “That’s why they don’t have more dragons with them. They only had so much armor.”

  Another volley of arrows shot at the black and reds, again not doing much against them. The blues, realizing it wasn’t helping any, charged at their opponents. The Dar’Ka flew to meet them, completely ignoring the troops on the ground and the archers on the wall. They must’ve decided that taking out the blues first was their top priority, and then they’d worry about everyone else.

  We watched as the dragons clashes, nearly two blues for every one Dar’Ka. Fire shot out from one dragon to another, claws raked against scales and armor, and each side bit at the other. The black and reds were overpowering the blues, and from what I could see our allies weren’t having any luck against the armor the Dar’Ka were wearing.

  “They’re losing,” observed Fulco grimly. “That doesn’t bode well for us.”

  I could hear the sound of the Greener’s siege weapons clattering down across the moat further down, followed by predictable cheers. Jiezvall would soon be surrounded by goblins, orcs, and trolls. We needed to control what we could.

  “We need to get the dwarves to completely circle the stronghold,” I said to the others, running towards the front of the place.

  “That’ll thin us out a lot,” mentioned Cassandra, shaking her head. “I’m not sure if that’s a good idea.”

  “The alternative is risking the Greeners figuring out how to access the walls, or figuring out a way to get their siege machines to our side,” I argued.

  “Aye,” nodded Braun. “The lad’s got a point.”

  “It is starting to look like a lose-lose situation,” she begrudgingly acknowledged. “Okay. If that’s what you think is best, we can do it.”

  We reached the retreating front line, doing their best to hold off the unending sea of Greeners. Shadows, Tumblers, and dwarves fought bravely against them, occasionally losing someone to an unsuspecting blow. Whenever someone went down on either side, another fighter jumped in to take their place. It seemed like it was never going to end.

  This fight was going to come down to who won it in the air. With the Dar’Ka being stronger than the blues, the armor was giving them an extreme advantage. We needed some way to get it off of them… and I thought I might know how.

  “Braun, Fulco,” I said. “You two should stay here and help hold the front. This’ll be the most important one, since the Greeners will have an easier time making it over the bridges.”

  “Works for me,” shrugged Fulco, heading towards the front. Braun giddily chased after him.

  “You two organize the rest of the troops,” I said to Cassandra and Dhot, running ahead of them and past some waiting dwarven fighters.

  “What about you?” called Dhot after me. “Where are you going?”

  “I… I’ve got an idea,” I shouted, running to the wall to find a spot inside to hide in.

  “What is it?” asked Cassandra.

  I smiled back at them. “Too stupid to share!”

  Chapter 18

  I quickly found a cranny to hide in and transformed into my half dragon form. It was nice getting to change without worrying someone was about to hit me. Maybe there was something to planning things out and not always trying to transform on the fly. I’d try to remember that in the future.

  Eh. Who was I kidding?

  My transformation complete, I ran up the stairs and to the top of the wall. When I reached it, I got more than a handful of shocked stares. In fact, all of the dwarves and Durnskeep archers
up there were staring at me.

  I quickly spotted King Soeren and waved at him.

  “Don’t worry!” I shouted at him. “This is Reimar!”

  “R-Reimar?” he stammered, visibly shaking. “B-But how…?”

  “Don’t really have the time!” I said, spreading my wings out. “I’ll explain later!”

  With a beat of my wings, I took the sky.

  Looking around to get my bearings of how the fight was going, my heart dropped. In the time that it took me to get inside, transform, and come up here, it looked like a few of the blue dragons had been killed. Some of their bodies were scattered on the outskirts of Jiezvall’s territory, and it looked like one had landed right on a collection of Greeners with a siege machine. Even in death, they were doing the best they could to help.

  Ahead of me, the battle between the dragons raged on. Several more of the blues looked badly wounded, but continued to fight. Nearly all of the Dar’Ka looked fine, only a few of the ones without much armor on looked a bit out of it. Knowing my plan relied on speed and surprise, I couldn’t take anymore time to examine the fight. I needed to act.

  I shot right for the closest Dar’Ka, who happened to be a red dragon locked into a fight with two wounded blue dragons. Aiming for the red’s back, I quickly surveyed the armor. As I thought, the strange plate-like armor was thick in the front and back of the dragon, with several straps at his sides that connected the two pieces together. The armor on his head was fastened with another strap, the same with the smaller ones on his arms and legs.

  It would take a long time to try and remove all the armor, plus he would see what I was doing. The key wasn’t to get rid of all of it, just open up some of his vital points to the blues could land some fatal blows. That meant going for the armor on his torso.

  Diving in while he was distracted slashing at a blue, I extended my claws and flew up the side of his body. My claws connected with the straps, tearing through each one cleanly as I flew from beneath him to his head. The armor on the red dragon’s body loosened, then slipped off and fell towards the ground.