by Milo Spires
Then as Vrakug fired another huge bolt of energy and it was destined to hit the king, probably killing him, Queen Siarui dived in front of her husband and took its full force in her back.
Not dead, but her energy seriously drained within, she’d held her hand up and cried out ‘No More’.
The king who’d realized that he was defeated, and that his wife’s powers were no match for the creature either, then wearily held his hand up and surrendered. Only as he’d looked down through the mist, Vrakug was leaving.
Then as he’d reached the horizon and was disappearing into it and the darkness beyond, he’d screamed back at them saying that he’d return the following day as another bolt of lightening then blasted down and from it, evil Zamourn death hounds appeared. Vrakug also raised his hand as he was just a dot on the horizon and suddenly a huge wall appeared surrounding the villages, so they wouldn’t be able to escape that night.
These death hounds of his had an unheard off and extremely powerful sense of smell that was instantly tuned to their Changalk odor, and apart from standing eight feet tall from floor to shoulder, and two heads, they were unbelievably vicious too. The fur on these creatures of death was covered in reds and blacks and whites, with splashes of oranges and greens in it that almost looked somewhat like the result of an angry child, who’d been left alone finger painting. Their mouths were huge with several rows of fangs that were bent backwards into a sharp curl, and as if needed, then on the inside row there were even thicker fangs that faced forwards to ensure that whoever and whatever they’d munched on, couldn’t avoid death and would suffer the most extreme pain. Then along their bodies and as if their powerful telegraph pole snapping jaws were not enough, they’d a defensive system to stop side attacks. Their muscle ripped bodies were given hidden spikes underneath their short fur that were full of lethal venom like that of a Lion Fishes, and when attacking their prey they’d thrust out with vicious power, skewering and spraying them with its thick and deadly gunge. Then their eyes were crimson red and slanted, plus their senses whilst running faster than a Cheetah over rocky terrain, were so strong that they could pick up on the slightest movements half a mile away in the dusty wastelands. None in Eldor could beat them, until the following week that is, when strangely new creatures emerged that had a different master. The Parchaka killers and Skylark beasts added to the Zamourn death hounds evil, and in doing so, then turned Eldor into nothing but the most dangerous of places to ever be.
The king realising that he had only one night before Vrakug would return, and unaware of the terms of surrender, but sure that he wouldn’t like them, had one thing in his mind from then on, the safety of his child. The rightful heir to the throne who was but a year old had to escape Vrakug’s evil wrath, and the king with his queen both agreed on how their son would escape too.
Turning around on the castles ramparts, they smiled at each other and then vanished only to reappear deep inside a cave in the base of the mountain.
King Rasviult was now dressed in his royal blue clothes and standing next to him, Queen Siarui was in her long royal red dress, and holding up there naked baby clutching him tightly against her chest.
Then the following day as the darkness that had never left Eldor suddenly poured out more vicious bolts of lightening all around the castle, the evil Vrakug reappeared.
He’d told the king that unless he’d surrendered immediately and gave him all of their magical powers, he’d vaporise the villages and their people too.
King Rasviult had then screamed down over the castle parapets that he and his wife had no powers anymore, and that they’d expelled them from their bodies without anyway that they could get them back either.
Vrakug had then closed his eyes and after sensing that they were telling the truth, through his bitter and extreme rage, he’d turned around and then vaporised one of the two remaining villages.
Tears were streaming down from the kings eyes when he’d seen his people killed in this way, whilst the queen was simply filled with pity, not for them as such even though she was tearful, but for Vrakug having such evil within him to be able to carry out such a callous and pointless act. Then after they’d surrendered and lowered the steps to let the evil bastard enter the castle, and as soon as Vrakug had walked in through the portcullis, he’d blasted them with his energy, and vaporized them where they’d stood.
Then a week later and as Vrakug was casting spells to make the castle into his own home, he’d then cast another over the last remaining village, making them forget anything of their lives before that week, and also that there’d ever been a king and queen too.
Vrakug then told the villagers that from there on he was to be known as their lord.
Only with days passing by Vrakug thinking that he was the most powerful being to exist under his father, had flown up to the witches cave to give them a piece of him too. Only as he’d stood there and they’d approached from the darkness within, he too just like Queen Siarui was grossly and extremely ungraciously received.
Vrakug blasted them with his crimson red rays and when he’d stopped, they were still standing there just laughing at him. Then as he’d tried other magic, they stood looking and wondering how he could be such a fool. After Vrakug then lowered his hands not understanding how they could be so strong, they gave him some of their own magic to think about. Raising their arms up above their heads, with their rags flapping violently even though there was no wind, they threw a blast at him that left him hurtling down hard into the ground half a mile beneath. He’d tried to brace his fall, but his magic had gone, and he’d slammed into the dirt with such impact, his mind swirled in his brain. Then after standing up and looking down at his hands that had failed him, red light slowly appeared again restoring his powers back to him. Only as he’d looked up, the dark clouds of his had vanished from above, leaving the skies clear once more until such times as night fell, and then the savage storms consisting of heavy rocks and lightening, smashed down again.
That night though as Vrakug was asking his orb for the answers to how there were beings stronger than him, suddenly he’d heard the most tremendous roar from up above. Then running to look out his window, he’d been horrified to see that were massive dragons called Skylark beasts, breathing huge fireballs down at the castle.
The orb though had sensed the danger too, and then blasted out thick crimson red beams of energy in all directions that turned the castle invisible, so the beasts couldn’t see it.
These Dragons were over a thousand feet in length, with flames bursting from their massive fanged jaws, and scales so tough that you’d think they were armor plated, and talons that were forty feet in length too.
Vrakug then aware that the orb was protecting him, and as he’d heard wailing screams, then looked across at the witches cave and saw them outside its entrance, with their arms up in the air as if they were controlling the beasts above him.
Every time they’d lowered their hands, the Skylark beasts would fly down towards the invisible castle and breath fire towards it.
Vrakug was furious that they were playing with him and then after concentrating on his evil, and summoning up more powers from the orb, he’d opened his window and tried thick streams of magic against them. Only because of their massive armor plated scales, it simply bounced off with absolutely no effect.
Vrakug was furious and spent many years trying to kill the beasts but everything he’d summoned up and blasted at them did nothing to the dragons at all.
Then his hounds that hunted the wild Boar, Biodorph beasts, or Cryotiercks finding them easy prey unlike the armored knights who’d sometimes succumbed to their vicious tusks and claws, found danger lurked for them too.
The Parchaka killers another creation from the witches, also forty feet tall, roamed the wastelands with the pure intent of finding Vrakug’s death hounds, and fully enjoyed their rich texture when eaten raw on the battlefield.
To look at them and from their faces of many lines, they’d look
ed like the witches in that they also had black veiny heads too. Only they had an eye that was centrally located where a human’s nose would be, and their hair that looked like a pony tail was long and bright orange in color, flowing straight down their backs and finishing near their waists.
When created from the powers they held, the witches gave them intense power to match their heights. Their bodies in that they had two arms and two legs, looked with their massive muscles like they were Trolls from a fantasy tale.
The hounds though would gang up, and often even though they’d charge these Parchaka killers who wandered around on their own, the victor of the fight was undecided. Armed with a tree as it club, the witches Trolls would swing them violently into them and decapitate the hounds before they could get close enough to bite.
The winds from the wastelands though and the dirt that it brought with it at extreme speed, helped the hounds by blinding the Parckaka killers enough so that they could get close enough to rip them to pieces.
The wastelands were full of bones from these two evil creatures, and others too, like wild Boar, Biodorph beasts, or Cryotiercks after the hounds had fed on them.
Only both the Trolls and the Zamourn death hounds had another creature that thrived since the skies had darkened, by eating both of them.
The Ekari beasts were placed their in Eldor by the god Lianor, for a reason that was undisclosed. Maybe she’d seen the future and was aware that the planet needed a protector, who knows. Only these creatures were also unaffected by the Skylark beasts too.
The Changalk people had found them no threat to them either, and when they’d entered the forests to hunt, they could locate them and also know that whilst close by, they were always save from attack if ever the wild Boar, Biodorph beasts, or Cryotiercks tried to charge them.
Only the forests had other creatures within too, that none of the king’s knights ever survived from, and made hunting for food an intensely dangerous experience.
*****
Dracus though as he was growing up in the foreboding forest and the harsh wastelands as a discarded six year old boy, had known none of Vrakug’s entrance into Eldor or the history of the planet either.
Daily Vrakug only allowed ten hunters out of the village walls to hunt, and if they hadn’t returned by an hour before nightfall, his death hounds would find them, and then they’d be dragged back limbless, and dumped outside the main gates of the village.
A lesson to all who may be thinking they could ignore his evil ruling.
One day though and at the age of ten and struggling to survive, Dracus was found by the hunters and then brought back to the village inside the hunters bag covered in the blood of a recent kill. The hounds had sniffed the bag and thinking that it was a dead animal inside, they’d let them enter the gates of the village.
Chapter 3 – Dracus’ Past
When Dracus was fourteen he’d spent many years by then living in caves with the villagers who’d found him all those years before in the wastelands, and in that time he’d met his love Janus.
Janus was a beautiful girl of the same age as him with extremely long to her waist, sandy brown hair that framed her exquisitely beautiful features. Then apart from her skin that was similar to his, but lit up with soft hues of golden brown, she’d the most gorgeous green cat like eyes, and when he’d first seen them, coupled with her shiny teeth and beautiful lips smiling naughtily back at him, he’d been taken by a powerful spell of love that’d washed over him.
Then four years later the evil lord Vrakug had appeared in the cave where they’d slept looking for another woman to pleasure him, and when he’d seen her, he’d tried to grab her wrist and take her up to his castle. Dracus had leapt on Vrakug from behind and tried beating the lord but it hadn’t worked, and then resulted in him being thrown over his shoulder and subsequently crashing down heavily into the rocky floor beneath him.
The lord whilst towering over him had just looked at him laying there and laughed.
Then as his hands were beginning to glow crimson red and he was about to kill Dracus, something came over him and then in response to it, he’d said that rather than kill him for the insult, he’d take him as a cleaner for the castle instead. Dracus had tried to refuse but then as a second had past, suddenly and by the lord’s dark magic, he’d found himself in the pitch black of the castles dungeons, and rolling around in horrible squidgy liquid.
Then two years later and as he was being released by the lord to be a cleaner of the passageway outside the cells, he’d glanced back into the dark cells and only then realized that the squidgy liquid that had stunk so much, and had also made him puke daily, was actually shit.
He’d been imprisoned in those heinous cells for two years, and in that time of being freezing cold with no bed and covered in the excrement of the other prisoners, the only thing that had got him through it all, and kept him sane, was the thought that he might see Janus again.
Then as a couple more years had passed cleaning the outside of the cells, but still locked behind more impenetrable steel doors, when Vrakug had appeared offering him a promotion to clean the castle instead.
He’d wanted to see if he could barter with him first though before accepting it, and if that didn’t work then demand that the lord let him see Janus or he would say no, only sense had reasoned with him and he’d kept his mouth shut. Dracus had realized that if he did do that then the lord would probably laugh and just lock him up again, and he’d loose any chance in the future of seeing Janus too.
So accepting the new position and with the pain of not seeing her for just over four years growing exponentially, Dracus kept his head down and worked tirelessly cleaning the castle. He’d only the distant memory of Janus’ beautiful face to get him through it.
Then as time had passed by he was given more freedom to walk about the place, and one day coupled with a memory from when he was a child in the wastelands, he’d realized that he could do things, powerful things that he was sure his own people couldn’t do.
When he was about seven years old and alone fighting the harsh baron wastelands for survival, he’d been starving hungry from days without food, and knowing that he could find it in the foreboding forest of death he’d entered them.
Only he’d known that by doing, so he was breaking his cardinal rule.
The year before at the age of six his mother had viciously torn apart in front of him, and he’d vowed never to return to the place afterwards.
Only the wastelands had turned out to be far worse than he’d expected, with nothing in them to eat, and vicious winds blasting dirt and debris at him, plus the constant watching and listening past the howling wind, for sounds of the death hounds hunting for prey.
The day that he’d given in though and realized he’d have to return to the forest was when he’d been so hungry, that as a result he’d been consumed with sickness.
Then as he’d headed for them shielding his eyes and face from the winds, with just rocks because he’d had no clothes, finally the sickness became so severe throughout that his little frame couldn’t resist any longer, and he’d past out.
When he’d awoken, apart from the intensely nauseating headache and the desperate need for water, he’d found that his mouth was full of dirt, and he was struggling to breath.
That day he’d literally crawled a mile to reach the dangerous forest.
Then once inside and listening to all the noises that were about him, and as he’d scavenged for food in the undergrowth of the blackness, searching out any bug that he could find, he’d heard a noise. Panicking, Dracus had then desperately tried to wearily immerse himself in cover; only the creature that had made the rustling sound had seen him. Then from twenty feet away and keeping in the cover of the darkness itself, and for the briefest of moments, it had just stood there looking back at him.
The animal was like a large dog and similar in height too, only it had six legs and a rough from the evil life of Eldor, short red coat.
The creature didn’t attack him though as he’d first thought it would, instead it had walked over to him and then with its tongue that was like sand paper, it had started licking him across his dirty and cracked face.
Then as few days had past and with his desperate need to feel loved, and completely unaware that a powerful bond was forming, Dracus and the creature became friends. He’d named it Reizer and from then on they were inseparable, sleeping together, hunting together, and generally watching out for each other in the heinous and foreboding forest of death.
