The Rise of Greg

by Chris Rylander

  Froggy had to simply observe and record what came next.

  You know whose fault this is, the Bloodletter seethed. Now make him pay.

  “You . . .” I said, standing up, looking down at Edwin’s tear-streaked face. “You did this!”

  He shook his head.

  “No . . . I didn’t mean . . . I’m so sorry . . .”

  The Bloodletter hummed in my hand so ferociously, it felt like my shoulder was going to separate from its socket.

  “Why did you have to attack your own allies?” I hissed. “I know they were killing retreating soldiers, but better a retreating enemy than your own allies!”

  “It’s wrong to kill the defenseless,” Edwin said, standing up, drawing the Sword of Anduril. “I’m honestly shocked you’d side with your own men, the ones murdering a retreating army! Shooting them in the back with arrows and axes like bloodthirsty savages!”

  I shook my head in frustration.

  He was twisting my words—of course I wasn’t defending their actions. But they also had a right to be upset, after what the Verumque Genus Elves and their army had done over the past few weeks, rampaging across the Midwest toward Chicago, leaving a trail of destruction and death behind them. How could Edwin be so forgiving of them, retreating or not?

  He doesn’t get it, because he’s an Elf, Greggdroule, the Bloodletter said. Always has been, always will be. They think differently. He’s so quick to defend his own kind, but the moment a Dwarf steps out of line for a second in the heat of battle, you’d think we’d slaughtered a whole village of kids or something! And now, because of his arrogance, his selective morality and self-righteousness, your dad is dead!

  I realized that, as the Bloodletter was speaking to me, I was saying those very same words aloud to Edwin, as if the ax and I had become one. And only when I’d finished speaking did the true heartbreak, pain, and anguish of losing my dad (without even getting a touching and sweet deathbed moment with him) set in.

  Edwin shook his head, his expression changing from sorrow and regret to anger.

  “How could you say these things after everything we’ve—” he started, but I didn’t let him finish.

  Rage and the Bloodletter had simply taken over.

  I launched my first attack, vaguely aware that I was screaming like a lunatic.

  Edwin narrowly dodged the blade of energy that fired from the end of my ax.

  It whipped past him, the blue light slicing across the sky like a lightning bolt. It struck a small house on the edge of a development across the field, hundreds of yards away. The house exploded into a fireless mushroom cloud, leaving behind a scorched crater surrounded by thousands of chunks of wood framing, splinters of drywall, ceramic-tile dust, misshapen lumps of granite, and deformed kitchen appliances.

  Edwin mounted a quick counterattack, lunging forward as if propelled from a cannon, the flaming tip of the Sword of Anduril pointed right at my heart.

  I quickly lifted the Bloodletter and deflected the sword at the last second so that it merely grazed my right arm.

  When the magical blades connected, even for that short moment, a massive concussion ripped apart the air, like someone breaking the sound barrier.

  It momentarily dropped everyone to their knees.

  Edwin and I both stood back up and faced each other.

  His eyes were wide with fear, shock, and rage, and I didn’t doubt that mine probably looked the same.

  Everyone else was watching us now, all other tensions forgotten. It was as if we all understood this was a battle by proxy. Whoever won, Edwin or me, the Rune Bloodletter or the Sword of Anduril, would win the whole war. Would take command of everything.

  I summoned a wind spell that lifted me off the ground.

  I hovered above him.

  “I have the high ground!” I yelled, remembering how we both used to make fun of that same cheesy line from some sci-fi movie franchise we watched at his house once. “Don’t even try to—”

  But his sword was already spewing jets of that swirling, mystical purple fire at me like a flamethrower. The pure force of it blasted me backward and out of the air. I managed to turn to stone just before impacting the ground and skidding thirty feet back across the torn pavement of the gas station’s parking lot.

  By the time I reanimated and was back on my feet, Edwin was already there, standing over me, swinging down his sword.

  I held up the Rune Bloodletter, and the blades clanged together a second time.

  The shock wave from the explosion of energy blew us apart by close to a hundred yards, leaving a massive, stadium-size crater between us, nearly as deep as a lake.

  The crowd of onlookers, tens of thousands of Dwarven and Elven soldiers, kept taking furtive steps back, away from where our epic battle was laying waste to everything around it.

  Edwin and I climbed to our feet again.

  We stood on opposite ends of the newly formed crater and stared at each other. Even from a hundred yards away, I could see the determination and anger in his stance.

  I lifted the Rune Bloodletter and launched a spell across the void.

  Edwin did the same with the Sword of Anduril.

  The powerful bursts of energy met in the middle, and another explosion tore through the edges of Naperville. The burst of light was so bright that anyone looking directly at it was instantly blinded (which ended up being several hundred soldiers from both sides). The ground shook, and all the windows in every building in a two-mile radius exploded and shattered into a gazillion pieces so fine they were like powdered sugar dusting the town.

  The crater split apart, like we had just literally cracked the Earth open like an egg.

  The void was nearly a hundred feet deep, and it pooled with molten lava. The initial burst of heat and steam was so intense it would have killed us both had our powerful weapons not been protecting us.

  Everyone else backed even farther away from the lava crater, the place where Edwin and I had literally broken open the planet with our anger and vengeance.

  Another wind spell lifted me, and I propelled across the small lake of lava, right toward Edwin.

  AAAAAIIIIYYYEEEEEEE! The Rune Bloodletter howled a gleefully unhinged battle cry.

  Edwin’s eyes went wide with fear, likely knowing as well as I did that if our legendarily powerful blades connected another time, it might just destroy us all, and maybe even the whole planet.

  But I didn’t care.

  At least if that happened, the pain of losing my dad, of everything turning out this way in spite of all my best efforts, would finally be over.

  Edwin used magic to quickly roll out of the way, faster than my eyes could track. My ax connected with the ground where he’d stood, leaving a smoking scorch mark like a scar.

  I spun and swung at him again, but he ducked and then swept my feet out from under me; the Rune Bloodletter went flying from my hand.

  Edwin saw his moment and lifted his sword to strike.

  But I hit him in the chest with a quick burst of wind before he could finish me off, and he flew backward fifteen feet and tumbled across the ground, down the gentle slope on the outside of the lava lake crater.

  I stood up and walked toward the Rune Bloodletter, panting, tired, scared, but oddly no longer totally enraged.

  Except that wasn’t odd at all.

  There was a perfectly reasonable, well-established cause for the sudden dissipation of my anger and hatred.

  I was no longer holding the Rune Bloodletter.

  The ax was at my feet, glowing blue, urging me to pick it up and resume the attack. Not with words anymore; we were past that. Now I felt what it felt.

  Who cared what would happen to the people, to the planet. At least I would finally have my revenge. Justice. I would restore Dwarves to all our glory.

  I knew if I picked up t
he ax again, it would all be over. It would take control of me, and I would battle Edwin until either I died, or he died, or we both died, or we all died.

  This was it, my last moment to decide my own fate for myself. (Well, and also everyone else’s fate, too.)

  Edwin was standing just below me, where the edge of the lava crater pushed up from the ground. The Sword of Anduril was in his hand, flaming purple, but he did not attack. He stood there and watched, waiting to see what I would do.

  Would I pick up the ax and take us back to the very brink the Fairies had hoped to prevent by sacrificing themselves? Or would I leave it there, and finally choose the path I had always claimed I wanted, even if it meant Edwin would be free and clear to do what he saw fit with this world? To either rule or destroy it at his whim.

  It was my choice.

  I stood there for a while, looking down at the Rune Bloodletter. For how long is hard to say now. The ax was so beautiful and powerful, crafted with such care and skill, yet created only for destruction. For causing harm. But also for defending the innocent and protecting the right. For keeping order.

  I wasn’t sure when exactly I made my decision, but suddenly it had been made. I knew what I was going to do, whether I wanted to or not.

  I reached down and picked up the Rune Bloodletter.

  CHAPTER 48

  The End of the World? (Or at Least of This Story?)

  I could almost feel the collective gasp from the onlooking Elves, Dwarves, and monsters as I picked up the ax.

  The tension was hotter than the pools of molten lava behind me.

  Edwin’s eyes glowed as he stared at me in shock, reflecting the light from his flaming sword, which was raised and ready for the apocalyptic battle to resume.

  I raised the Rune Bloodletter.

  The blade shimmered in the light and heat from the lava behind me. The immense power of the ax pulsed like it was about to detonate. It sparkled with anticipation, ready for me to deliver a blow so powerful, it might literally kill us all.

  But instead of attacking Edwin, I quickly spun around and threw the Rune Bloodletter out into the middle of the lake of lava.

  As the blade pinwheeled through the air, a wail of tortured agony exploded in my head.

  Greggdroule, NOOOOOOOOOO!

  Those were the desperate, final words the Rune Bloodletter managed to scream before he hit the lava. The ax sat on the surface for several long seconds, as bubbles of molten rock splashed onto it. Then the blade began to bleed at the edges like ink running from the pages of a book left out in the rain. The most powerful ax in Dwarven history melted quickly, fusing back with the very earthly elements that had created it.

  Gone forever.

  I stood on the edge of the crater and faced the thousands of Elves and Dwarves looking up at me in shock.

  Edwin was so stunned the Sword of Anduril had fallen to his side, extinguished. Its tip rested on the ground as the sword dangled limply in his right hand.

  Then a vision struck me. My dad’s vision.

  “I urge all of you to do as I have just done,” I called out to the crowd of soldiers. “Weapons were made for one thing: killing. You can argue they’re for defense. Protection. Upholding law and justice. But I propose this: If no articles of destruction existed in the first place, then what would we need protection from? Why do swords, axes, arrows need to exist at all? They are not tools, but simply articles of devastation!

  “This world can be better than that. Yes, we all have personal freedom. We can choose to have weapons, but why would we? Why would you choose that if your heart and intentions are pure? We can forge a new existence where we simply live for the greater good. Where magic and metals are used for the advancement of humanity, not the propagation of fear. We can work together for a world filled simply with love. It can be achieved. We will live and let live, and harming others will be a distant memory. In time, we won’t even remember what weapons were!

  “So please, come forth, rid yourselves of this burden. Join me in a world without weapons, without violence, without war and murder. Throw your weapons into the fire. Create a new existence filled not with hate and fear, but with peace and harmony!”

  I finished my speech breathing hard and panting, as I looked out across the crowd.

  For an agonizing minute, nobody moved.

  But then a solitary figure emerged from the ranks of the soldiers.

  Ari walked slowly through the crowd, bleeding, dirty, and wounded. She climbed the crater, smiled at me, and threw her ax (which she had crafted herself years ago) into the lava lake. She took off her armor and tossed it in as well. Then she silently walked back down the slope of the crater.

  Lixi climbed up the slope moments later and threw her weapons into the lake. Lake, Eagan, Tiki, and Foxflame followed. Then other soldiers did the same.

  Before long, lines were forming, as everyone, Elf and Dwarf, took turns tossing their tools of destruction into the lake of lava. I even saw Dunmor and other Council Elders in line. Many of the Verumque Genus Elves and Orcs and Goblins had returned, and even they were throwing their weapons into the lake of fire. And nobody was cutting in line or shoving to get to the front. In fact, people and creatures were letting other people and creatures cut in line, and then making jokes about it.

  After everyone had come forward, after tens of thousands of instruments of death and destruction had been melted down into liquid metal, only Edwin remained. Still standing there at the bottom of the crater, the Sword of Anduril in his hand.

  He looked up at me, and then wordlessly climbed the slope.

  Edwin stopped in front me, looked into my eyes, and grinned.

  “I guess you really sold us all on the whole make lava, not war thing, huh?”

  As I laughed at his lame pun, he stepped around me and threw the Sword of Anduril into the lava lake.

  The whole crowd cheered.

  And that was the beginning of the new world.

  One without war or violence or destruction. A place where compassion and peace and kindness reigned supreme.

  Where Dwarves and Elves walked arm in arm with Orcs and Goblins and Trolls and Blobs.

  And we all lived happily ever after, with the smiling sun shining down on us day after day after day.

  THE END.*

  Okay, now here’s where you get to decide what sort of person you are.

  Yes, that’s right, you get to decide. It doesn’t matter where you were born, who your parents are, or what your genetic makeup is. You get to take the path you forge.

  Got it?

  Okay, then.

  If you love the way this ended for me, and Edwin, and all of us, close this book right now and put it down and never pick it up again (unless it’s to gush to a friend about how good (or bad) it was, or to use it as a coaster or something). If you like where things stand, STOP reading.

  It’s entirely your right to choose that path.

  However, if you view life more like the Dwarves in this story, and you want to know the OTHER ending (or the REAL ending depending on how you want to view it), then by all means keep reading. But I must warn you: Things will not be as pretty, as pleasant, or as hopeful. And so that means if you’re the first type of person, and you’re still reading this, then I implore you again to stop and go enjoy the rest of your day in peace.

  But if you’re the type that must continue, if that’s your ultimate decision, then I will see you on the next page.

  Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

  EPILOGUE

  Because Stories Like This Always Have an Epilogue

  Of course that’s not how things ended.

  Life doesn’t usually work that way, does it?

  I mean, I did throw the Bloodletter and the Corurak Rune into the lava lake, where they instantly melted out of existence.

  And I did try
to make an impassioned speech.

  But things played out a bit differently. The way it really went was a lot more . . . well, Dwarven, for lack of a better term.

  Here’s how it all actually happened: After throwing the Rune Bloodletter into the lava lake, I turned and faced the stunned crowd. I took a deep breath and launched into a bold, heroic speech that would change everything:

  “I urge all of you to do as I have just done,” I called out to them. “Weapons were made for one thing: killing. You can argue they’re for defense—”

  “I will argue that!” someone cried out. “I mean, the only reason I have this sword at all is to defend my home and my family from monsters. Which is what I’m doing right now!”

  I sighed.

  “Okay, sure,” I said. “But they were designed to kill, which is—”

  “Yeah, designed to kill someone who’s trying to kill you!” another voice chimed in. “I mean, I hate to say it, kid, but we’d all be dead right now if it weren’t for that weapon you just destroyed.”

  “I know,” I called out, getting frustrated. “But my point is that if no weapons ever existed at all, then I wouldn’t have needed mine to begin with!”

  A brief silence followed. Then a small Dwarven warrior, not much older than me, stepped forward. At first, I thought he was going to walk up and poignantly throw his sword into the fire, which would start the chain reaction I had envisioned.

  But instead he scoffed loudly.

  “If I may,” he said rather politely, considering he began it all with a scoff. “I like your argument, Greggdroule. In theory. But it simply can’t apply here. Because, you see, weapons do exist. We can’t undo that now. You are correct: It would be wonderful to live in a world without them. But that’s simply not possible anymore. They’re here, and there’s no way everyone everywhere will agree to destroy them all. Something like that would take total commitment. What you’re asking is simply not possible. Thank you for listening.”