by Ryan Johnson
But even more, Geraldus revealed shocking bad news and said plainly to the hybrid: “Alaric is dead.” This news stunned Vaeludar, his eldest foster brother died in the battle. The eldest son of Geraldus was dead. Geraldus revealed that after recklessly charged into battle Hobgoblins ambushed them after they left Vaeludar’s barrier and Alaric was impaled by spears and swords.
Vaeludar was now feeling guilt that he felt like he was the one who killed Alaric. One of few people Vaeludar considered to be his family and one of few people he could personally trust had died in a matter of seconds. His eyes darken even more by the news of Alaric’s death.
After Teutates’s shouting had ceased, Vaeludar strolled several feet away from the man. Vaeludar wanted to speak to the king himself. “King Uragiru,” said Vaeludar, “Why didn’t you have your soldiers stationed near the top of your city than the lower levels. That is where the most damage had been taken. And I clearly did state something bad was going to happen and it clearly did happen. But did anyone ever listen to me? No! No one ever listened to me. The wedding should have been held as planned and not in the three days. Now look at what has happen. This wedding day has been ruined.”
King Uragiru was showing an apologetic expression. The king was seeing Vaeludar was siding the exiled man instead of the ruler was ruling since his father died years ago. “Forgive the choice I’ve made.”
“It wasn’t you, King Uragiru,” said Vaeludar. Vaeludar turned his eyes to Marina, who was the one who asked the king to change the wedding schedule. “It was my new wife, Marina. She made this day a bad day, and it cost the lives of many innocent lives caught in the evil king’s crossfire.”
Marina blinked at Vaeludar’s calling her name. “Me? What did I do to make this day a bad day?” she asked her new husband.
“You went behind my back about this wedding! And now there has been a horrible shift in my personality and I am starting to being consumed by a sudden dark energy. My body is feeling the effects of such strong negative energy, and this unwanted power has been growing since the Griffin messenger brought me the message of the wedding change. Marina, having this early wedding was such a poor decision; it cost me my time, patience, and it’s delaying my search to seek the second armor artifact.”
Marina was stunned of her husband’s accusation to her that the day’s events were her fault. “How is all of this my fault? You’re the one who asked me to marry you, and I was the one who said yes. You should know leaving a girl on her own in a lonely house in a faraway land. I can get easily scared if someone broke into the house and you weren’t there to protect me. Yes, I wanted an early wedding, but it wasn’t my fault.”
“You made that choice on your own. It goes to show you how unfaithful you are to me. People have to communicate with each other, and it goes to show how faithful they are.”
“I have been faithful to you. I am no child, Vaeludar, and I can…”
Geraldus was having enough the couple’s argument and had to end it now. “Vaeludar! Marina! Enough of this bickering.” Geraldus stepped in the couple’s heating argument. “Your arguments aren’t winning this war. Vaeludar, you left the battle without helping the rest of us out and it cost me the life of my eldest son; we aren’t as powerful as you are, and your reckless personify would get more than a family killed. And Marina, all unwedded people have to agree on the same day as the wedding would take place; going behind someone’s back is proving unfaithful you are to Vaeludar. So you two are having the same share of the blame.”
Vaeludar and Marina signed. They turned their gazes away from each other, feeling the pressure they were having from their big argument.
Geraldus back away from Marina and Vaeludar. “But is done is done. The battle took place an hour ago, and that is now in the past. There is nothing more we can do. Before there is another argument brewing between the both of you, we need a plan before we proceed any further.”
Vaeludar stroke his chin with the claws on his fingers. He knew what his plan was: find the second armor artifact and increase his need to speed. He would stay silent until someone would speak their mind, but the throne room stayed silent. Vaeludar saw no one saying anything and took his chance, “I’m already sticking to my own plan: the armor artifact. I will resume my search for that, and I will not be drawn to any another events. This is not up for negotiation. I’m choosing to go find it and I will go, even if I have search for it on my own. And if anyone wants to come, feel free to join me. Otherwise, leave me alone on my journey.”
Vaeludar grunted and paced to the door. He rudely was dismissing himself out of the throne room and not looking back to say a goodbye. Then Marina ran and got in Vaeludar’s way, thus blocking his exit. “I’m not letting you go on your own.”
Vaeludar used his wings and flew over Marina and headed to the door while in the air. Vaeludar landed behind Marina and placed his hands on the doors. “If you want to come along, I’ll be more than happy to bring you there, but I don’t want any more distractions or obstacles coming in my way.”
“Wait, stop!” said Flavius. Flavius caught up to Vaeludar who was just about to pull the door open. “I’ll also come with you.”
“No, Flavius,” said Geraldus, catching up to the small group. “I need you to take your sisters and your brothers back to the village. I need you to take Alaric’s place as my heir now, Flavius. The responsibilities he held must now be passed onto you.”
Flavius heard his father and nodded his head. With Alaric dead, Flavius would be carrying the mantle of Geraldus’s heir, the first in line of being the Steward of the Western Region. Flavius would no longer be a traveling companion for Vaeludar and less people Vaeludar would have to watch over.
Geraldus banged the door Vaeludar was opening. “I’ll go with you, on your journey, but first we need to talk a bit of how we’re going to settle things?”
Vaeludar was grunting impatiently. His foster father was getting in his way. “What things do we have to settle for? You saw my power today: Lusìvar is still stronger, and I need to become stronger than him.” Vaeludar pulled his hands away from the door and looked angrily at Geraldus. “And any one getting in my way becomes an obstacle.”
“You dare say that to the man who raised you?” asked Geraldus.
“Yes, I do, I choosing to be more dragon than I am human,” said Vaeludar. “And you said to me, it is not wise upsetting a Dragon. And I choose to be more dragon than human.”
Geraldus stood his ground against the hybrid he had raised. He saw Vaeludar going from a son he raised to being a very hostile, dragon-like hybrid, and Vaeludar was backing down from the foster father he was raised by. Both knew each other the longest and both are head-butting each other at the current moment. They were known to be family for years were now becoming drawn into a confrontation of enemies in seconds.
“Everyone in this throne room need to have a plan before we set out into the unknown wilderness,” said Geraldus.
Marina placed his hand on Vaeludar’s shoulders, trying to make him stay just a few minutes longer. “Can’t you wait a little longer, please?”
Vaeludar grunted loudly and walked toward Teutates and the king. “This better not take too long, people. I want to get going as fast as I can. You all know my quest, and I have to find two more armor artifacts if I have a chance to beating Lusìvar as you saw today: not scratching him a bit.”
Teutates silently stood where he was standing. King Uragiru sat on his throne. Flavius, Teutates, and Marina joined Vaeludar. Then Geraldus spoke: “Flavius will head back to my village and stay there until I return with Vaeludar and Marina. We’ll being that Griffin, Flarefur, with us so that the four of us in a small group will find that armor Vaeludar is looking for and be back before Lusìvar tries another attack.”
Vaeludar then looked at Teutates who was standing silently, saying nothing at all. The man was just standing with his arms crossed. “Do you have anything to say, Teutates?”
“Your quest is alrea
dy known to me, but I will not be drawn into this war you all are having,” said Teutates. “My ancestors were exiled to Isla Maeli, remember? I am not a citizen of this island I’m standing on. And I already have my own problems and none of those concern you.”
“Then you shouldn’t concerned with us,” said Vaeludar. “If we are done here, then we should be on our way.”
“Although there is another thing you should know: rumors are spreading. Rumors of his personal elite bodyguards are on the move: the Shadow Men. Rumors say the Shadow Men are coming out of hiding.”
“How do you know all this?” asked King Uragiru.
“It is my own duty to know what is going on that island. Remember your ancestor exiled his brother, my ancestor, to Isla Maeli. On Isla Maeli, I am the king there.”
“How you got this information doesn’t matter to me,” said Vaeludar. “This valuable information is quite nice. Now that just creates more problems for me. The Shadow Men. Men who should their souls for lies and broken promises and doomed to worship the Shadows for all time to come. Now, the Shadow King will become more of a problem if I don’t find that next armor artifact.
“And I gauss that is all the planning we need to do. Okay, we’re done now. I’m getting out of here before I am drawn into another argument or a fight, and seriously I am gone!” The hybrid took no time into flapping his wings and flying toward the throne room door. Vaeludar bashed through the doors and exited the throne room before anyone could call name. “I hate being part of group talks that waste my time.”
The hybrid soared away from the doors and stopped at an overhead of the place where he and Marina sat. The tables and the chairs were all destroyed. Food was tossed if it was garbage. Rubbles of stones were piled around every corner Vaeludar could see. Lots wounded and dead bodies of humans and creatures were aligned in segments of each species.
The entire city had come to a ruin. Vaeludar thought it was impossible for this city to be taken by such a small force, but he was proven wrong when Lusìvar was appeared and suddenly burst out several hundred creatures at once at a great speed. Some three hundred of the Shadow King’s forces attacked the city and destroyed about forty perfect of the city’s best districts.
Then Vaeludar remembered something about Lusìvar mentioning something about a traitor; someone in the castle was on Lusìvar’s side and that is how the Shadow King was able to get into the castle. Vaeludar knew King Uragiru was the king of the island, but there was no way he could be an ally of the Shadow King. And there was the king’s daughter: Stephane. She always was a bratty girl who still wants Vaeludar and likely possible she could be allied with Lusìvar. At any rate, Vaeludar couldn’t tell who the traitor could be; he’s main object was still to find the second armor artifact before anything else happens that he doesn’t know of.
As he went flying toward the city’s cliffs, he found his Griffin companion talking to the Griffin King near to many covered bodies of Griffins covered beneath blankets. Vaeludar could see how the two Griffins looked devastated to see their many of their kin to be killed during the wedding day. He landed several feet away but close enough to at least get their attention.
Then Flarefur saw Vaeludar landing close to them. The Griffin motioned his head to his king that the hybrid was coming. Both the Griffins saw Vaeludar coming to them. “Vaeludar,” said Flarefur, “My greatest symphonies on your glorious day.”
Vaeludar looked at the Griffin bodies covered in blankets and looked at the Griffin King. “I would say the same thing to some of these Griffins, Griffin King.” Vaeludar turned his eyes to see Flarefur. “If you don’t have anything else to do, I’m about to head out on and resume my quest, and I want you to rejoin me.”
Flarefur bowed his head. “I am honored by this offer, but the Griffins lost many lives today. Many Griffins related to the fallen would want the bodies of their deceased loved ones returning back to the place of origin.”
“You don’t have to do that,” said the Griffin King. “You have more experience in the Northern Region and have seen many great unknowns, Flarefur. He will be exploring the unknown, and you have great thrill in exploring unknown land.”
“And I would need extra transportation,” said Vaeludar. “Geraldus and Marina are coming with me, and I don’t want to be carrying them both all the way to my last known destination. And I would feel better if a creature had come to thin the company of humans.”
“I understand your urgency,” said Flarefur. The Griffin turned his head to the long line of dead Griffins. He seemed to have lost family and friends of his own. “I’m not the only Griffin to lose relatives in this… event.” Then the Griffin looked closely at Vaeludar’s eyes; his eyes had changed suddenly, which was highly odd for a person to have his eyes transform in different colors. “If you don’t mind me asking, what happened to your eyes?” asked Flarefur.
Vaeludar signed. “My patience has been wearing thin the last few days. A few people have been making choices without my condolences and my final approval, which is starting to make me lose my faith in my own humanity and embracing my inner dragon. I should have waited until I got my hands on the second armor artifact and then proposed to Marina.”
“I understand that problem as well,” said Flarefur. “I don’t know much about Sirens, but they do have complicated personalities that are similar to humanity.”
Vaeludar signed that the Griffin wasn’t going to be able to come with the hybrid. But as a half dragon, Vaeludar needed to respect the Griffin’s choice. He doesn’t want to wait for Marina and Geraldus to catch up with him, since they didn’t have wings as he did. And if it were be, the hybrid would decide to travel himself. He remembers the dangers he faced during his time in the cave with the two Dragons and the witches and the Piper during his travels to the Northern Region.
If he couldn’t get the Griffin to come with him, Vaeludar would travel alone as he spent his entire life. At least, he would be able to travel faster alone. Traveling with a large group would increase the chances of broken bones, sicknesses, broken wagons, headaches, bloody noses, black eyes, and other natural causes that could harm the human body and the entire would have to stop and wait until the sickly or injured person had fully healed, and this thoughts would irritate Vaeludar since he is a person (or hybrid) of speed.
Vaeludar nodded his head and flew to the sky. Flying higher than the castle’s tallest towers, Vaeludar came high as the clouds. He saw the sun was nearly setting; a red sundown and the day was turning into night. “No way would I be delayed,” said Vaeludar, “If I have to search either by the night or by day, I will find that armor artifact within the next day or the next or the next or the next. I need to find that armor!”
Vaeludar faced the southwestern direction and took off in that direction, and he flew at a great speed that a Dragon or Griffin couldn’t fly fast as.
THE SEARCH CONTINUES
The place Vaeludar tried to remember where he first stood in the vast Greenwood Forest. The forest was vast and wide, with many hundreds of thousands of trees covering the ground with wide, leafy, green leaves. Vaeludar was remembering where he last was: the village that had the Gorgon turning everyone to stone. The village would have been spotted in one spot where a giant gag would he would have seen from the treetops.
Vaeludar browsed around the treetops for several long minutes until he has found the one hole hiding among the large and wide forest. Even going by his memory sense, he could not find the open gag upon the treetops. He should be remembering the large area in the same area he left when he was brought the news of the change date of his good wedding day that turned into a chaotic wedding day. It has taking a longer time to search for the place he was looking for than he wanted to take. By the longer search was thinning his patience further away from his hybrid, conflicted mind.
Vaeludar was becoming frustrated by his long search that the daylight was nearly gone and a few stars were already glittering brightly. Three moons shimmered purple, orange,
and green. These nightly things were given a little light for the hybrid’s eyes.
Although Vaeludar’s eyes could match those of a lion, he eyes were flawed as a human; he wasn’t able to see that well under the night sky. If and when he would find the gag among the treetops, he would down and sleep until it was dawn and then he would continue on his search for the second armor artifact in the following morning.
As the night crept over the last bleaks of a pink cloud dazzling sunset, Vaeludar saw a light coming over a small section of the forest. He found the gag he was looking for he spent the entire evening looking for. He quickly ducked into that area and kept his distance from the village he was saved from the Gorgon.
The village people seemed to be calm and quiet. Dozens of people walked around a lot and the village seemed at ease, considering there was a Gorgon nearby.
Vaeludar kept his distance from the people had decided to sleep elsewhere away from this village. He didn’t know what their reaction when they see him, and he didn’t want to. He didn’t want to get to know those people and didn’t want to be involved with their cultural views of their personal lives. Vaeludar remembered the fire Flavius and his garrison had set up several days ago and bear the Nymphs and Pixies he found annoying.
He flew through near the tree’s roots and found the spot the fire was lit; only wooden ashes remained and no one looked like they brushed the ashes away. This would be the spot he would sleep until the morning arrived. He leaned against the nearest tree and wrapped his wings around his body like a bat would but Vaeludar would sleep on his feet and had fell into a deep slumber.
W
Vaeludar woke up with a water droplet weakly dripped on his ear. His reaction was a flicker like a cat’s sneezing noise. He opened his eyes wide open if he had awoken from a terrible nightmare. He widened his wings and stretched them far and wide as they could reach. He scratched his dragon-scaled, human-skinned chest with his claws very hard; thankfully he can’t feel the pain from the claws that could cut through the trees’ bark.
