She looked up and blinked as if just noticing the massing darkness. Her hand flew to her mouth in shock and her eyes went wide as she saw what she had caused.
“Your father’s gifts were great,” said Dirk, watching the dark clouds above slow as she calmed herself. “And your guilt is great also. You cannot live with a storm raging inside you. Shed your tears and bury it, and never look back.”
“You are right,” she said, sniffling and combing back her hair with her fingers. She laughed as she pulled herself together and stood, needing to walk. Dirk followed her to the field he had awakened in. The dark clouds had blown past and the clear sky whispered of twilight. Fyrfrost suddenly appeared, morphing from the color of the blue sky above. He furiously beat his wings to slow down and landed. He ruffled his feathers and dropped a doe at Dirk’s feet.
“I take it you have met Fyrfrost,” said Dirk.
“I have,” she purred as the dragon-hawk offered his head for her to stroke. “He told me the name you gave him. He said you freed him from dark-elf twins.”
“He told you?” Dirk mused. “He never talked to me.”
“His thoughts, you fool man.” She laughed. “I have met and spoken to Chief as well.”
“What?” Dirk exclaimed. “Chief speaks? I don’t believe it.”
She laughed again. “He does.”
“And what does a spirit wolf have to say?”
“He says that you are a great hunter, even though you are small.” She grinned.
“Small?”
“Yes. It seems that he is from the barbarian island of Volnoss. There they grow to nine feet sometimes.”
“Yes, I have met one recently,” said Dirk, thinking of Aurora Snowfell with a smile.
They returned to camp and summoned the timber wolf to guard for the night. From Fyrfrost’s saddle they gathered blankets and made their bed beneath the stars. Long into the night they talked and laughed.
It had been a long time since they lived so many peaceful years on Eldon Island. Dirk had spent many long years in search of Krentz, lonely years in which he had obsessively tracked any clue of her. In the end he had quite stumbled upon her in Del-Oradon.
Dirk held her close and listened to her soft breathing upon his chest. Finally he could rest.
Chapter 41
Strangers in a Strange Land
Whill flew through the rift to Drindellia and came out in the midst of a nightmare. The armies of draggard, draquon, and dwargon that marched toward the portal were innumerable. The landscape was littered with crystal monoliths that rose up into the sky, threatening to reach the heavens themselves. Out of the bases of the crystal towers dark hordes poured. With his mind-sight Whill was able to make out the life-forms within, and he was shocked to see the towers teeming with life.
Miles away and in every direction around him there were other rifts. Whill’s dread grew as he counted eight others beside the one he had come through. The elves could only see six with Queen Araveal’s looking glass, which meant that three of the rifts could not be seen from the air.
“The other rifts are within the mountains of the dwarves,” said the Other, floating next to him.
Whill was too absorbed in the magnitude of the implications of what he said to be annoyed with his split personality. The dwarf mountains were being invaded; all of Agora was being invaded, on a scale that had never been seen.
“This horde will destroy the worlds of men, dwarves, and elves,” said the Other cryptically as he floated around Whill, staring him down. “Give me control and we shall destroy them all.”
Whill was tempted to give in, to let his other side take responsibility. But he did not trust the Other, which was to say that he did not trust himself. He knew that the more he let the Other lead, the more powerful that side of him would become. Whill was reminded of the fact that Eadon likely had tortured him only to create the Other, the side of Whill that would blindly strike, giving the dark elf lord what he wanted.
“No!” he said firmly. “You are not welcome here.”
The Other’s face twitched and his bloodshot eyes bore into Whill’s. Below, the armies of draggard advancing through the rift were suddenly blown back by a multitude of massive explosions as the elves of the sun and the dwarves of both Ro’Sar and Helgar stormed through.
“Not welcome? In my own body?” the Other hissed. “You ungrateful cowa—”
“You were created for this very purpose, don’t you see? You are a pawn in Eadon’s game and nothing more!” screamed Whill.
“You know nothing of my creation; you are too weak to see. Without me you would have died in that dungeon,” the Other snarled, his eyes and nose now bleeding profusely.
“If you want to help, get out of my way,” Whill warned, unsheathing the ancient blade.
Roakore flew through the rift with Avriel and the armies of his allies behind him. He gave a war cry that was matched by the piercing cry of Silverwind as they came out on the other side. Roakore’s gusto temporarily faltered as he laid eyes upon the largest gathering of creatures he had ever seen. He knew that indeed the rift led to Drindellia, where it seemed Eadon had been brewing an invading army. Strange crystal megaliths speckled the barren valley and glowed in the night. The king noticed the other rifts and rage burned within him.
Ahead Whill was floating in midair, the ancient blade in his right hand. Below, a barrage of spells and fireballs flew through the rift and hit the advancing draggard forces with devastating effect. Through the rift the allied armies charged. Roakore spurred Silverwind into a dive and joined into the fray. His hawk came down fast upon two draggard and with crushing claws lifted them into the air to fall down upon their kin. Roakore guided his stone bird off to the side of Silverwind, braining the seething draggard as they flew past.
A horn blew from somewhere within the legions and was answered by many more. From the hovering crystal monoliths came scores of winged draquon, and upon the backs of the largest were dark elf riders. Roakore veered left and flew over the elven forces.
“Hundreds o’ draquon come from the east! To the air, elves, to arms!”
Avriel joined him and circled the Elladrindellian forces. She bellowed a call to arms in Elvish and dozens of Ralliad masters shifted into birds of prey and took to the air. Roakore and Avriel led the group of nearly fifty Ralliad shifters straight at the draquon forces. From below, spells shot into the sky from dozens of dark-elf casters. From behind the flying Ralliad group, counterspells blasted forth to intercept. Roakore squeezed the saddle horn and prepared for evasive maneuvers when the counterspells erupted in an explosion and shower of green and blue sparks. Below the flying elves the dark-elf spells hit the wall of combined energy of the sun-elf counterspells and were absorbed by the wide shield.
The first of the draquon reached the group and Roakore sang a dwarven war chant as he hacked at the passing beast. His axe tore the underbelly of one beast and sent it spinning out of control. Another came at him from the right, but Silverwind quickly banked and caught it in her crushing claws.
All around them the Ralliad elves engaged the charging beasts, and though the shape-shifting masters could make short work of the draquon, the beasts kept coming in droves. The Ralliad masters were able to cast in their animal forms, and where a talon or beak might not kill a draquon every time, their spells could. Broken draquon bodies and elf bodies’ alike fell from the aerial battlefields and crashed upon the warring groups below.
Whill fought the Other for control but quickly found himself losing. Pain and depression, guilt and sorrow plagued his mind in a nefarious orchestra. And while the Other had six months of torturous memories at his disposal, Whill did not know how to attack his own ego. To him pleasure was pain and sorrow joy, and therefore Whill could only try and ward off the mental attack.
He screamed in rage and dove through the air at his doppelganger. Adromida streaked through the air, leaving a streak of blue light in its wake. The glowing blue sword was met by likewise gl
owing red chains. The chains wrapped themselves around the ancient blade several times, and with a maniacal grin the Other yanked the sword from his grasp.
Whill blacked out and found himself once again within the dungeons of Del’Oradon Castle. Burning chains held his arms high as his toes barely scraped against the floor below. The right side of his face was swollen and throbbing, his right eye useless or missing, he could not tell. He looked around at the familiar cell; the dank smell of the slimy walls reminded him of a sewer. The barred door before him offered nothing of the world but the distant cries and sobs of his fellow prisoners. His own maddening cries echoed in his memory as they had so often done within these subterranean chambers. Whill shivered with fear and pain as he watched shadows dance beyond the bars. Distant torchlight caused the phantom dark-elf torturer to loom upon the tunnel wall, and Whill heard himself whimper.
“This isn’t real.”
The shadow on the wall grew bigger.
“This isn’t real.”
A hooded figure came into view in the hall.
“This isn’t real.”
The cell doors flew open and the figure slowly crossed the space between them. His foul breath played on Whill’s face and he turned from it. His torturer brought a dagger to bear upon Whill’s stomach, and with a grin he shoved it in to the hilt.
Whill let out a cry of pain and shuddered. “This isn’t real!”
Avriel steered Zorriaz the White to bear upon Whill. She had tried to contact him mentally but was met by a wall of silence. Something was wrong. Whill hovered high above the land at the center of the aerial battle with arms outstretched. He shuddered violently and arched his back to the heavens as if in great pain. He looked as though he was caught in the throes of a Zionar battle, but she knew better.
As she circled him, trusting the dragon-hawk to fend off any attackers, she yelled his name into the wind. The power from her blade helped amplify her voice, but Whill did not respond. Instead he screamed in rage and threw his arms up toward the stars. From each of his wrists, barbed chains ripped out of his skin and shot outward five feet. Whill bowed his head and the chains fell to his side.
Avriel flew to hover before him and called his name again. “Whill!”
Slowly he raised his head and the bloodshot eyes of the Other fell upon her. The pain she saw in those eyes made hers tear in empathy. “I had thought you dead for so long…,” he said in a hushed whisper of reverie.
Blood trickled down the chains as he reached a trembling hand to her face. Avriel smiled upon him sympathetically.
“I love you, Avriel,” said the Other, barely containing his composure.
“I love you as well, Whill.” She smiled and laid a soft hand upon his. “Come back to me,” she said gently, hoping that, like before, it would help Whill to regain control.
Around them the battle raged. Spells and draquon alike flew at them, but none could penetrate the shield circle the Other had built around them. Tears of blood fell from Whill’s dirty face.
“I have come back to you. It’s me, Avriel, it is Whill. The man you knew, not this cowardly imposter. And it is I who shall wreak vengeance upon our enemies.”
A large fireball exploded against the Other’s shield in a shower of sparks. Debris sent a sun elf in bird form falling broken to the ground below. The Other released Avriel’s hand and with a wicked smile summoned the power of Adromida. Avriel watched on as the bloody chains began to glow until they were too bright to look at. The Other left the shield floating around Avriel and with chains spinning joined the aerial battle.
The glowing chains cut through draggard bodies easily as the nearby elves gave Whill a wide berth. The Other sent butchered pieces of draquon raining down upon the legions below. A mounted dark elf screamed the name of Eadon and put every bit of stored energy it had into a spell meant for Whill. The writhing black tendril was intercepted by a glowing chain and absorbed instantly. The astonished dark elf reared its mount to retreat as the Other raised a hand and the dark elf shot to it until he was held firm in an iron grip.
“I will destroy you all,” said the Other and sucked the very life out of the dark elf.
With a satisfied shudder he discarded the dried husk that had been the dark elf. Then he set his eyes upon the scores of draquon flying toward the allied armies. He flew well ahead of the battles of land and air, and with arms raised to the sky, he conjured a swirling ball of energy. From Adromida he let the energy flow into a dense ball of swirling light until it hummed with tension. With a scream of rage he sent the energy ball flying to the center of the circle of rifts, nearly two miles away. Any draquon that got in the path of the missile were disintegrated as it flew the distance in seconds.
The Other turned back toward the armies of his allies and with outstretched hands summoned a shield to encompass them all. Behind him the energy ball slammed into the ground and swallowed all sound. All heads turned to the spectacle as the Other’s spell flashed and then disappeared. Sound returned to the world and a groan louder than shifting mountain rumbled through the ground for miles. A circle of darkness appeared where the energy ball had vanished, and everything nearby was pulled into it. Draggard and dwargon alike fought each other to get away as the black hole drew more and more beasts and dark elves alike into it. The nearby crystal monoliths too were pulled in and crumbled violently as they mashed with everything else being sucked into the small, dense black hole.
Suddenly the pulling stopped and again it was quiet, and then just as suddenly a deafening explosion ripped through the air as the black hole exploded and a shockwave tore across the land in every direction. Everything for miles was disintegrated as the shockwave and ensuing fireball obliterated any sign of the dark elves or their hellish creations. A mushroom-like cloud of fiery smoke and ash reached up until it flattened against the heavens as the shockwave and fireball rolled harmlessly over Whill’s shield and around the allied armies.
Finally it was over, and a hot wind fell upon the faces of the allies as they stared at Whill in awe as he floated high above the desolation of his spell. The few dark elves who had managed to shield themselves from the blast wasted no time in fleeing. It was a while before anyone noticed that along with the dark-elf armies, the rifts had been destroyed as well.
The day had been won, but now the elven and dwarven armies of Agora were trapped many thousands of miles away in Drindellia. Quickly the cheers of both elves and dwarves were replaced by a foreboding at the realization of their plight. They had no way home.
THE END
Dear Reader,
Thank you for purchasing this book. I hope you have enjoyed the adventures of Whill of Agora. What started twelve years ago as a story for my children has turned into the Legends of Agora universe. I hope that interest in the series allows me to continue the story for a long time to come. If you like the books tell everyone you know on Facebook and Twitter and so on. Its fans like you that make all of this possible.
I would love to hear what you thought of the story, so please feel free to join in the conversation at www.whillofagora.com.
If you would like, feel free to leave a review of books one and two on Amazon.
I am a self-published author and do not have the luxury of a team of promoters at my disposal. You are my team, and I appreciate your efforts and support.
Thanks again, friends, for following Whill this far. I hope to go on many more adventures with you in the future.
I have recently published two children’s books that I think you will find enjoyable. The Sock Gnome Chronicles follow the adventures and exploits of Billy Coatbutton. Billy is a sock gnome living within Sockefeller Castle; book one, Billy Coatbutton and the Wheel of Destiny, follows Billy as he attempts his first test of mastery to see if he will become a treasure hunter like his father.
Adults and children alike will enjoy this satirical romp into the lives of sock gnomes, while at the same time answering the age-old question, where do those missing socks go?
Thank you once again for your support,
With humble appreciation,
Michael James Ploof
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