Quarterstars Awakening

by David L. McDaniel

  “You are using doublespeak, you say one thing that I have no control and then tell me I have total control. How can this be?”

  “Welcome to the realm of changing prophecies. You can always change fate, with your actions, with cause and effect, but no matter what you do, the humans will always need to be part of the prophecy to help you in your cause.”

  “This is not right. I will not allow humans to be in charge of our fate. Elves must be in charge of elven fate, and I intend to alter this destiny!” Naemyn shouted.

  This was wrong on so many levels. Humans cannot be in charge of elven destiny. He refused to accept this notion. If only the Val elves did not hold so much power and control over the Sor elves, and if the Sor elves were not so passive as to let the Val Elves control their natural being, none of this would be happening. Naemyn wanted to only fix what the Val elves have destroyed and return the elven sanctity back to the ancient ways of the Sor Elves.

  “Val Eahea has already set the path in motion,” the Guardian shook his head. “Go to your king, Naemyn, and let him continue the course of events.”

  “I will not leave without knowing how I can alter this prophecy to make the elven kingdom powerful enough to resist the human prophecy.”

  The Guardian stood motionless for many minutes looking directly into Naemyn’s soul.

  “I have told you all, but I can tell how your king will begin his westward journey.”

  “Tell me! I must know,” Naemyn said with a devious smile of relief, amazed that he found a fissure in the Guardian’s stern prediction of elven demise.

  “Betray your king. Take him as far west as you can, and leave him. Do not kill him, but only take him far away from any elves and humans and leave him there. If you do this, it will set forth a new awakening of the elven legend. However, you must understand that under no circumstances should the king ever have the talisman and the shard in his possession. If these things are done, the human sacrifice will fall into your hands, but what I believe you are most interested in is that after this is done, you will command the Sorae and the Agin-Sorae as one and will have the upper hand over the Val elves. If this is what you intend, then I cannot stop you. Once your decision is made, events will begin to unfold on your trip home. But be warned, there are severe personal consequences to you on this path.” The Guardian paused. “Naemyn, listen carefully. If you choose this path, you may succeed with what you seek, but I assure you, it will mean an unwanted end to all you are!”

  Naemyn shook his head. Betray his lifelong friend, and catapult the elven race to a higher glory as the Sorae has commanded him to do since he was a child. This mandate left Naemyn’s stomach uneasy with both fear and excitement. He was so excited that he had found a chink in the armor that he did not pay attention to the Guardian’s warning. The only thing that mattered was that he had finally found an answer he could work with. Not once did he consider the Guardian’s intentions.

  “Then I will find the talisman and work to join them for myself,” Naemyn muttered out loud.

  “It is time to go,” Paerglae said grabbing Naemyn’s cloak.

  Naemyn looked at Paerglae with shock, as he just realized that he, as well, had just witnessed this whole conversation. There were many truths revealed that no one could know except for himself. Truths about the mission change, truths about Naemyn’s heart, truths about Naemyn’s true intentions. He knew that Paerglae, one of the king’s best warriors, would report to his king in absolute honesty.

  “I’m not finished. What severe consequences...” Naemyn started, now realizing many things all at once. All of the information and worry of his plans rushed through his head as a flash flood after a large rainstorm. As Naemyn spoke, the noise from the river returned and it was so loud that he could not hear anything but the river. Naemyn stood deep in thought as the mist sprayed upon his face.

  Chapter 16

  Aegyn descended, dropping a hundred feet in two seconds. Voll screamed in terror. His fingers gripped the scales of Aegyn’s back, and no matter how tight he held on to her, or which scale he grabbed, he could not feel secure. His stomach flipped and turned, and with every movement, he felt that he would fall off of her back. Aegyn spread out her wings gracefully and turned in a slow arc so that Voll could see below, which only caused him to scream aloud again.

  “Stop that noise,” Aegyn snickered, “or the elves will hear you. Do you see them yet?”

  “I can’t see anything, my eyes are closed.”

  “I thought you were a brave warrior.”

  “I have never been this high before.”

  “Open your eyes or you’ll miss the view.”

  “I don’t care!” he yelled. “Dragons have better eyesight than humans, why can’t you find them?”

  “If you don’t open your eyes, then I will fly upside down and drop you!”

  Voll was silent before answering. “You can’t do that.”

  “Not only can I do it, but I will do it. I will drop you to the earth, end our deal, and no one will know the difference.”

  Voll opened his eyes. He was getting angry with Aegyn and her games. If he was going to die, he didn’t want to die watching her fly away as he fell, but rather with his sword in her throat at the same moment that she roasts him to his death.

  “Ok, ok, they’re open!” but before he could say another word he looked down and saw the entire valley below and saw how open and vast it was all the way up to the Goblin Ridge Mountains just east of them. It was an incredible sight, and he would have enjoyed it even more if he did not feel so nauseated from the height.

  “Better?” Aegyn asked.

  “No!” Voll snapped. Half lying.

  “The elves are at the base of the Goblin Ridge Mountains,” she continued. “They won’t see us because we are flying so high, but soon we will have to swoop in.”

  “Swoop in?” Voll asked.

  “Yes or however you choose to descend. What is your plan?”

  “Land in the forest near them, I need to find out what they are up to.”

  Aegyn leveled her body and slowly flapped her wings, descending.

  Voll began to think of his strategy. He did not expect to be scouting these elves from the back of a dragon. What could he really expect to find out? The elves were in a hurry, but why? His dilemma was to find out why, and without kidnapping an elf, how would he really find out?

  “I have a better idea,” Voll said just as he realized he could share his fear of heights, “Do you think you can snatch an elf in mid-flight? You know, like a hawk would snatch a field mouse?”

  Aegyn laughed. “You should know better than to ask that. I can snatch a crow off of a scarecrow in a farmer’s field without disturbing a single straw.”

  “But can you do it before they pelt you with arrows again?”

  “Yes I can. We’ll wait until they start spreading out, and we’ll just snatch up the poor fellow taking up the rear.”

  “Then do it.”

  “Very well then, relax, and enjoy your flight.”

  Aegyn flew south of the elves, still skirting the edge of the Goblin Ridge Mountains and made a sharp turn west, leaving the mountains behind. As they did so, Voll could see the Rae-om Sea farther south some sixty miles away. He was astonished that he could see so far from this height. It made him feel small, and at the same time realize the perspective of the realm the dragons have. They must know so much, just from simply flying the skies. How powerful a race would be if they could control the dragons to carry them, if for no purpose other than scouting?

  Aegyn leveled her flying pattern and flapped her wings only to keep a steady altitude, gliding gently in the breeze. Voll watc
hed the sun as it began to dip below the horizon in front of them.

  “It is time,” Aegyn said as she turned and began to increase her speed while slowly descending. Within minutes, they were nearing the elven caravan. They had been on the move and were making haste and not bothering to stop due to the coming nightfall.

  Aegyn flew directly over the caravan as they traveled single-file up the rocky road. She spotted her victim and swooped down to snatch the last elf in line. He rode on horseback, and strayed behind alone, protecting the rear flank. Just as Aegyn was about to grab him off of his horse, she and Voll came under the attack of four Hook-feather hawks. They pecked at the dragon’s head knocking her off course and distracting her enough to where she snatched her talons for the elf, but only came up with air.

  Voll also had his hands full of hawks, swatting at them only to have them peck and claw his arms and forehead. Voll managed to grab a hawk by the wing, but the hawk violently fluttered and tried to bite Voll making him unsure of his grip on the dragons back. He attempted to smash the hawk’s head onto Aegyn’s hard scales, but Aegyn turned sideways at that moment in her attempt to escape her attacks. Voll lost his balance and fell twenty feet to the ground hitting the hard ground, knocking him unconscious.

  Realizing she had lost her rider, she flew straight up, reaching the apex, and then turned upside down and did a spinning barrel dive back down. As she spun in a downward spiral, she sent a blast of fire near where Voll lay unmoving. The elves scattered to avoid the blast of fire, all of them escaping the fire, but a few of them only escaped just as the fire licked their horses’ tails.

  Aegyn landed in-between Voll and the elves protecting him from the elves. As soon as she landed, all the elves turned around and spread out, forming a half circle in front of her. All of them had their arrows nocked and ready to turn loose. Naemyn stepped forward from behind the elves that were eagerly awaiting his command. When Naemyn recognized this dragon as the same dragon that terrorized him a few days before, he stopped.

  “So we meet again,” he said under his breath. “Will the surprises on this trip never end?”

  Aegyn lowered her neck to Naemyn’s eye level and growled, barring her sharp, jagged teeth. She then took two steps to her left, revealing Voll.

  Naemyn smiled in relief. “Lower your bows!” he commanded. “The dragon has no quarrel with us. It has its prey, and it looks as if it has caught a human scout. Amazing what is crawling around in these woods. Back away. Slowly and cautiously mount your horses, and let’s get away from this vile beast!”

  With that command, the elves mounted their horses and rode away, leaving Aegyn alone with Voll.

  “Vile beast,” Aegyn snorted as she stretched her neck out and nudged Voll’s torso with her nose turning him on his side. At first, he did not move, but then he groaned and turned over on his back grabbing his head. When he opened his eyes, he saw Aegyn’s nose and teeth only inches from his face. Startled, he rolled away and scrambled on his hands and knees crawling off of the road and behind a tree.

  Aegyn watched as he scrambled away only to watch him realize a few moments later where he was and who the dragon was. Voll sat up and leaned against the tree looking at her while massaging his head. “What happened?” he asked.

  “You fell.”

  “What?”

  “The hawks attacked me, distracted us both, and you fell. Don’t you remember?” Aegyn said.

  Voll sat and stared blankly at the dragon and collected his thoughts. His memory began to come back to him, but only a few seconds at a time, but then he began to remember bigger chunks, until finally, he remembered where he was and what his mission was.

  “Ok, now what?” he asked.

  “Well, same strategy. While you were out, I made them think that you were my prey and that I was protecting my next meal.”

  “How convenient. What stopped you from eating me then?” Voll said as he stood up, rubbed his neck, and walked back to Aegyn to climb on her back.

  “I don’t know, I did consider it though. I think the truth of the matter is that I am actually having a good time.”

  “Well let me on, and let’s get it over with, because, unlike you, I am NOT having a good time.”

  “No. Not on my back this time,” she said as she jerked her leg away from him.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, since they already think that you’re my prey, I will have to carry you with my talon, make a fly by to assure them that I am not after them, then when they don’t suspect anything more, I will snatch one of them and fly away so that you can question him.”

  “You are going to carry me as if I was your prey?”

  Aegyn let out a deep rumbling growl as if she was pleased with herself. Voll turned his head, paused, and shook off the feeling that the dragon was actually purring like a kitten.

  “This is more than I bargained for,” he said, almost in a whine.

  Aegyn lifted her left wing and leg allowing him to walk underneath her.

  He began to walk toward her, but then stopped. “No. I will not do this. In fact, just take me back to my unit. I think I have gathered enough -” Voll stopped in mid sentence when Aegyn jumped up in flight, grabbed Voll with her left Talon, and was up in flight before he could protest any further.

  Voll cursed as he felt the wind from her flapping wings push him downward as they ascended. Aegyn’s grip was so tight that he knew he would not fall, but his shoulders hurt from her talons pinching him underneath his arms.

  “Sorry Voll,” Aegyn apologized. “You may be done with these elves, but I have a score to settle still. ‘Vile beast,’ he says, and I can still feel the pain from those arrows you pulled out.”

  “What? I hate dragons!” Voll yelled as Aegyn continued to beat her wings and rise higher and higher into the sky.

  “No, you don’t. In fact, I can tell you are beginning to grow very fond of me.”

  Voll looked down and saw that the ground was becoming increasingly smaller and smaller with each beat of her wings. Once again, he could see the tops of the trees below and the Dragon Cross Mountains far away to the west. He still had not become entirely comfortable travelling on the dragon’s back, and now he was dangling from her talon with no control of his situation at all. Sensing the only thing he could control, he closed his eyes, but just before he crimped them shut, he saw the road that the elves were on and could feel Aegyn head straight for them.

  She made her first pass and then he felt his stomach jump into his throat caused by Aegyn’s sudden drop in elevation after she banked and turned back towards them. She picked up speed as she stretched out her neck and pointed her nose downward. With her wings outstretched and fixed, she honed in on the elves. Voll could not handle the speed and the rate of drop and lost consciousness.

  He was awoken by a scream. He looked to his right and saw an elven warrior within the grasp of Aegyn’s other talon. “Shut up you fool!” Voll yelled.

  “I don’t want to die like this! I don’t want to be fed to young dragons!” he kept yelling repeatedly.

  “Shut up!” Voll yelled at him again. “What happened to the brave and mighty elven warrior you’re supposed to be?”

  The elf finally stopped his yelling, looked over to Voll and spoke. “We aren’t after the dragons, why are we being tormented?”

  “You pelted this dragon with arrows,” Voll countered.

  “In self defense. And who are you, human?”

  “Her prey.”

  “Why?”

  “Don’t you know? Dragons love human flesh.”

  “Then why is she getting her revenge on you if she wants us so badly?”

 
“No idea. Maybe she wants a good meal with her revenge. All I know is that I was in the woods hunting a deer when she snatched me. Kind of ironic, the hunter becomes the hunted.”

  “You’re no hunter. You’re the scout that has been following us since before the dragon attack.”

  Voll paused and was shocked that they have known the whole time he has been following them. “You knew. How?”

  The elf wiggled attempting to free himself of Aegyn’s grip. After a few moments of some painful contorted twists, he gave up and gasped. “We don’t care about one human scout. We are not here for anything that has to do with you. We just want to get home.”

  “Home? Is that where you were going in such a hurry?”

  “Yes. Where else would we be going? We completed our quick and so called simple mission and now we just need to report back to our king.”

  “Quick and simple?”

  “Shut up human. I have told you too much already. But it doesn’t matter, because you are going to die too.”

  “No, I’m not. Aegyn, put us down, I want to ride on top now.”

  “What do I do with your flying companion?”

  “I don’t care, let him go.”

  “Ok” She said as she released the elf, dropping him to fall to his death. Voll watched the elf flail his arms and legs attempting to grab the empty air.

  “That’s not exactly what I meant Aegyn, and you know it,” Voll said as the elf disappeared in the trees below. He heard the elf scream all the way down as he fell into the evergreens breaking branches before slamming into the ground.

  “Isn’t he your enemy?”

  “He was, but I don’t need to kill every elf I see.”