by James Somers
Sadie glared at him, but tried to keep her temper in check. Adolf had a way of infuriating her. My hope that they might also become good friends had never materialized. Sadie found him arrogant to the point of exasperation—which was true—and Adolf felt she made me weak. I hoped that wasn’t true.
“Have you come to distract him from catching the dragon?” Adolf asked, looking toward the emerald serpent perched now before its lair.
“Leave her alone,” I said, warning him for the hundredth time about picking at her. Honestly, their rivalry for my friendship mystified me. Couldn’t we just all get along together?
But it had never been that way between them. From the very first time they had met, there had been palpable tension. I often felt guilty because Sadie seemed to be the most maligned. Adolf was too insensitive to care when she insulted him. And Sadie was far too easily riled by his indifference.
“Cole will catch the beast,” she said, showing more confidence than I was feeling.
“Of course, he will,” Adolf said, snatching me up to my feet by the hand. “But not while his nursemaid coddles him.”
With that, Adolf set his hands on my shoulders, grinned and then heaved me forward off of the branch into the air. I heard Sadie’s angry cry, as I plunged down toward the rocky ground below. The rushing wind snatched the rest of the ensuing argument from my ears. I was thankful for it. Being caught in the middle of two such passionate people often made me feel exhausted.
Of course, I was in no real danger. Adolf had known that when he threw me off of the tree. In the nine years since our battle in London with Black’s automatons, Adolf had become quite a bit stronger than before. He could easily take on ten men without breaking a sweat.
He and I often sparred together. Being older myself, I was able to keep up with him. But neither of us ever seemed to have a clear advantage over the other. Occasionally, I would win. And sometimes he would defeat me. Most of the time, however, we simply wore ourselves out and called it a draw.
Adolf’s demeanor had changed somewhat over the years. He could be difficult on the best of days, obstinate and set upon doing things his way despite what anyone else thought. Often, I found myself giving in, because it was easier than arguing with him. However, this sort of response always infuriated Sadie.
She often criticized the fact that I put up with his overbearing ways without sticking up for myself. I tried to explain that he was my friend, just as she was, and that I felt most things weren’t worth arguing about. But Sadie didn’t buy into it. She wanted to stick up for me, which only made it easier for Adolf to criticize her mothering.
I made the transformation to raven in flight, caught the air with my wings and soared above the valley floor. The dragon, no doubt, was watching all of this transpire. They were used to seeing shape shifters, so I wasn’t fooling the beast into thinking that I was actually a bird. Dragons were said to be quite intelligent, and some Riders had formed close bonds with their beasts that bordered on telepathy.
High above the valley, at least a dozen Dragon Riders were now circling, riding out thermals as they watched my attempts to harness the dragon. Only then could a candidate chosen by the Riders actually be considered. They must harness one of the wild beasts and bring it under control—much like breaking a horse.
These called down from on high, urging me to try again. Apparently, I wasn’t doing as badly as I might had thought. Perhaps, each of these Riders had endured the same humiliation at the hands of the dragons they were now bonded with and flying high upon. Still, even that thought didn’t keep me from feeling a bit ridiculous.
Before I had been asked by the Dragon Riders to make the attempt, I had felt quite confident in my ability. After all, I had been decorated by the Shade King, with Adolf, for our heroics traveling through the Underworld to London. I had since trained hundreds of Leprechauns, elves and Lycans in advanced combat fighting techniques. I had even been chosen by the Shade King to be an emissary during a planned outreach to my mother’s people, the vampires, dwelling currently in Russia. But this green reptile perched upon, possibly, its favorite outcropping of flecked white granite was making me out for a fool.
I flew on directly toward the creature. It remained calmly planted upon the rock. Cliffs of granite spilled away hundreds of feet toward the valley below. The dragon’s leathery wings were wrapped around its body, the head standing out proudly as I approached in raven form.
And then I vanished.
I could imagine the puzzled look on its face, but, of course, I had teleported and could no longer see. I appeared in human form upon the dragon’s back, harness in hand, having pulled it from the ether where I kept my weapons on hand. I slung the bridle harness around the head quick as a flash and cinched up the heavy reinforced leather with the reins. It had been designed by the Dragon Riders and worked well.
The dragon, on the other hand, didn’t think so much of the contraption. I supposed I should sympathize. After all, I wouldn’t have wanted some puny creature coming along and bridling me so that I could be ridden, controlled, broken into servitude.
The beast lurched into the air. At once we were driving down through the trees that grew here and there along the cliffs. Down we went further toward the valley, the dragon fighting to loose me the entire time. Calls from above, rained down cheers of excitement. No doubt, each of the Leprechaun Riders could remember the time when he had made the attempt, the thrill of success, harnessing a dragon, flying through the blue sky.
Suddenly, I realized that there was nothing in this for me. Why did I have to break the spirit of this creature? Indeed, what right did I have? As for thrills, I had experienced plenty already. Flying? Obviously. Then I was angry at myself for becoming such a fool simply because I had been made to feel that I had something to prove.
Vampire claws emerged from my fingers like razors. I grabbed the harness and sliced through it. I ripped the leather gauntlet away from the dragon’s head in my fury. Even the beast seemed surprised to be freed. It had momentarily stopped thrashing. I took that instant to lay my hand upon the side of his head and say, “Be free!”
Leaping into the air, I allowed the wind to catch me. The dragon drove on, leaving me for gravity to manage. A great screeching bellow erupted from the beast as it went on without me, enjoying its independence.
I wished it well, becoming the raven again. I arced away back toward the baobab tree where my friends were still waiting. Sadie was standing near the massive trunk of the tree a good distance away from Adolf. He was now sitting upon the branch where he had, moments ago, thrown me off.
When I landed on the great limb, Adolf was shaking his head. He stood showing me a bewildered grin. “You let it go?” he asked. “I mean you had the beast harnessed and you just let it go. Honestly, I do not understand you.”
I smiled as Sadie approached from behind him. “I just realized what a pointless endeavor this is. I don’t need a dragon to fly. I never aspired to be a Dragon Rider until they came asking us. What right do any of us have, or reason for that matter, to put these poor beasts in bondage for nothing more than trophy status?”
Sadie clapped, grinning at me. “I, for one, am proud of you, Cole. Bravo! Stupidest thing I’ve ever heard of trying to wrestle dragons just to stoke your ego.”
Adolf rolled his eyes. “Bah! What would a girl know of it anyway?”
“I suppose some men are just too insecure with their masculinity,” she replied.
I smiled at her and she at me.
Adolf sighed heavily. “Must we listen to this drivel again?”
The Dragon Riders were already on their way down toward our position. Undoubtedly they would share Adolf’s frustration with my letting the dragon go free. I couldn’t expect that they would agree at all with my reasons. But I didn’t care. They had asked me, not the other way around. Obviously, I had nothing to prove to them in the least, despite Adolf’s grumblings.
However, our debate on ethics, machismo and anim
al rights would have to wait. A terrible tremor was coursing through the baobab, indeed through the entire valley around us. Something was happening and it couldn’t be good.
Dark clouds began to force themselves into being, boiling from almost nothing into terrible purple masses in seconds. Lightning split the atmosphere repeatedly in a variety of colors. Thunder rumbled across the entire valley in a nonstop chorus that shook the very ground.
“What’s happening?” Adolf bellowed.
The Dragon Riders were having great difficulty controlling their beasts. The dragons were in a panic, thrashing, wanting to disobey the intents of their masters in order to flee for safe haven among the rocks and caves. There were no more wild dragons to be seen. Every one of them had resorted to their dens in terror.
We left Adolf’s question hanging in the air. There was no way to answer. I hadn’t a clue what was happening. The Riders were doing their best just to hang on, and Sadie looked just as mystified as I felt.
The dragons circling with their riders above suddenly let out a bloodcurdling cry. Before we could wonder what more had happened, we were all hit by terrible pressure. Without thinking we had all put our hands to our ears—not to keep out the sound of shrieking dragons, but to hold on lest our heads exploded.
Behind me, Sadie cried out and almost fainted. I was there in a moment, catching her before she could fall upon the wide limb. The ground quaked, causing the baobab to do the same. I heard Adolf gasp nearby.
“Look!” he cried.
But we were already gazing in wonder at the events unfolding before us. Where this pocket of creation had been cut off from all other places, except for the secret portal known to the Leprechauns, now something else was encroaching. The sky began to split apart, the clouds and lightning becoming a visual indicator of its moving boundary.
A breach was occurring. As the sky rent, a terrible rush of wind pulled us all out of the baobab tree. For Adolf, the matter was irrelevant. However, Sadie and I both had to assume bird forms in order to keep from being dashed against the rocks below. Still, we tumbled in flight, finally alighting upon lower branches in the same massive tree.
Adolf remained hovering out over the expanse. The Dragon Riders were being sucked away toward the expanding rent in the sky. I knew in moments what must be happening. An equalization of two competing atmospheric pressures was in progress. As expected, the matter resolved itself in seconds. Two distinct places merged into one.
As the process began to settle, the sky calmed. Gradually, thunderheads and lightning gave way to blue sky again. The wind began to die down from a sudden gale to merely a light breezed.
We had been standing in a valley that came to an unseen dimensional barrier only moments ago. Now, that barrier had been demolished. Another place took up where the valley ended. A lush green plain swept away toward the horizon, dotted by small lakes.
I could sense the difference between the new we were looking at and the physical world. It was certainly a spiritual place. However, I had never seen it before. And this convergence we had just experienced was unlike anything I had ever had ever witnessed.
Affront
Brody thrust out with an open palm, striking at the air between himself and the concrete block. He had not touched the stone with his hand. However, the block shattered as surely as if it had been pounded by a sledgehammer. A reverse kick striking at empty air splintered a flat wooden target into kindling.
A crowd was gathered upon the quads today. Brody had been asked by Brian Shade to give an exhibition on one of the training fields in the use of special techniques. His mix of Kalandra and kinesis had become a hot topic among warriors in Rockunder and abroad in other parts of the world where Descendant clans resided among humans.
A series of flips that culminated with another target destroyed by an invisible strike from his foot brought claps from the audience of several hundred which had gathered to learn. Already, Cole was his finest student in this variation of the ancient elf fighting art. He and his friend, Adolf, had taken to training warriors for some time now. In the absence of war, they still trained with the expectation that peace would not last.
With matters worsening in human society and war already erupting among the European countries, it seemed inevitable that the Descendants would remain neutral for long. Invariably, they would be affected by human conflicts and either drawn directly into them, or included as foreign powers encroached upon the human nations where they resided.
Brody had little hope that their current peace would hold. It had been nine years since their ambush of Black’s forces at the Tower of London. The angel’s physical host, Ishbe, had not been found even though someone had shot him on the wall. Brody had watched him fall, but Black had apparently managed to escape anyway.
With no less than three fallen angels yet unaccounted for in the world, he knew they would resurface. True, they could bide their time. However, none of them seemed very willing to let time pass without conflict. Brody already had little doubt that the war in Europe had begun due to the direct influence of one or more of them, Lucifer most likely. Yet, none of them—Southresh, Lucifer, or Black—had manifested to the Descendants recently.
When Brody had finished his routine maneuvers, he turned back to his audience. A general applause led by Brian Shade issued forth across the quads. The Leprechaun King was the first to ask questions about how the kinesis operated to enhance the moves.
“It’s essentially the idea that you are willing each strike to extend toward your target,” Brody explained. “There is a definite point at which you must push outward with the kinetic energy, otherwise you’ll miss. So, it must be very precise or you will create a lot of collateral damage in the process.”
A hand went up near the front, a young man with a question. “What is the sensation that you have while using the kinesis in this way?”
Brody smiled, thinking about it. “It’s a lot like pushing two magnets together with like charges—positive to positive and negative to negative. That invisible force between them is a little flexible, but doesn’t give too much. I feel it in my hands and feet as I strike.”
“Does it ever push against you rather than your target?” Another question down the second row of those seated in the metal bleachers that had been set up for the occasion.
“You mean like pushing against an immovable object?”
“Yes, exactly.”
“Good question,” Brody said. “In that case, you would be correct. If I pushed against an object or person that I had no ability to move otherwise, it would push me instead. Which can be useful, when you think about it. However, the force rendered back at me is far less than that I push with. For instance, I cannot pound concrete blocks with my fists. Yet, the use of kinesis allows me to do many things that would be beyond my ability otherwise, and without harm.”
“But what if you did come up against an immovable object?” the same young man asked. “Is it possible to, for instance, shatter your hand or arm in the process?”
“Think of it like a hammer in your hand,” Brody said. “If I struck an immovable object with the kind of force necessary to shatter my bones, I would drop the hammer first. Same principal works with the kinesis. I’m forced to let the energy slip rather than holding it to the point of injury.”
Liam stood next to his father, the king. More questions about Brody’s techniques followed. Nearly an hour of wasted time in Liam’s opinion. He did not share his father’s love for the man. As far as Liam was concerned, West and the other Descendants were interlopers.
Even after all of these years had passed, he could not forget or forgive the affront to his family when West had threatened his father in his own throne room. Certainly, Brian Shade had all but forgotten the matter. The king had considered it a light thing blamed upon the circumstances of the time and his own threatening stance sending his warriors to meet the refugees when they arrived.
But bygones for his father did not mean Liam would b
e so forgiving. These Descendants had moved in, imposing themselves upon the Leprechauns. Many of these elves and werewolves had relocated from their town of Highmore on the surface to take up residence in Rockunder.
“We should have Brody teaching you some of these techniques,” the king said to him. He smiled and then went to shake his friend’s hand as others gathered around Brody to discuss the more particular details about the style.
Liam remained standing where he was. His anger burned deep within. He could see that West had supplanted him in the place at his father’s right hand. When the king sought council, he went to West or his other advisors—never to him, his own son.
But what to do about it?
He had ideas. Really these were only unrealized fantasies from this youth. Liam had imagined killing West himself on many occasions. However, he had no doubt about his chances of successfully performing the deed. If he hadn’t already been assured of failure then West’s performance here in the quad today certainly settled the matter.
He needed a viable plan and allies who would help him to carry it out. Surely he wasn’t the only Leprechaun who felt the Descendants were a constant hindrance to them. But to ferret them out and make use of them would be difficult.
Still, unyoking his people from these refugee squatters was worth the effort. And it all hinged upon this man. Liam had to find a way to get rid of Brody West.
Entrenched
Wisps of powder smoke drifted across the expanse near the Marne River on the outskirts of Paris, France. Gunfire popped intermittently like corn kernels roasting in a pan. Shouts of anger mingled equally with cries of anguish across the battlefield in French and English and German. Blood was spilled and lives extinguished.
Already, thousands of soldiers had perished. Lucifer smiled as he walked along the corpse-lined ditch. He relished the pained expressions of horror frozen upon the faces of the dead. And this was only the beginning.
