“The battle you wage with me, child, will not be fought with muscle nor blade. You see, your mind is the battlefield. I can take your very sanity if I choose-if
With Eadon’s last word the pain vanished and was replaced with a mental pleasure just as intense. His body shook with spasms as his very skin, hair, and insides jolted in rapture. His mind was filled with energy, pleasure, hope, and willpower. Then Eadon released him. Whill caught his breath and raised his head. The elf lifted his hand, and in his palm sat a beautiful, swirling ball of light. Whill was mesmerized as he watched.
“Did you think her dead?”
Her? Whom did he speak of, what riddle was this? Then his breath shuddered. “What have you done?”
Eadon pocketed the swirling ball. “I have simply evened the scales. You have something I want, and now I have something-or should I say someone-you want.”
“Avriel? It isn’t possible! What have you done?”
“Her body is alive, though it is but an empty shell. You really should thank me, Whill. She meant to die with that spell. A waste, really. She did have such a way about her walk, did she not?”
Whill seethed, He wanted nothing more than to bathe in the blood of his enemy. His helplessness only fueled his rage. “I don’t believe you!”
Eadon laughed. “You will soon enough-that is, if I allow you to see within the orb. But if you defy me you will see firsthand as I transfer your beloved’s soul into a Draggard, or better yet, a Draggard queen. Tell me, how do you think Avriel would like that existence? She, an elf princess, birthing my army.”
What Eadon had said was repulsive, unimaginable, but, Whill knew, possible for this sick being. He had to do what he must to save Avriel’s soul. He hung his head in defeat.
“I will do what you ask of me.”
“Fret not, my friend, I repay loyalty and service. I am not such a monster as you think. Say the word and your parents’ murderer will die this day.”
With his elf sight, Zerafin told Abram and Rhunis, he saw clearly the battle at the mouth of the mountain, watched as Whill and Eadon mounted the dragons and flew into the sky. He saw also the dwarves fighting through the mass of Draggard.
“Eadon has taken Whill. The boy cannot resist one such as he-few can. He is lost to us.”
Abram’s heart stopped cold for many beats as he registered Zerafin’s words. This was all wrong-this was not part of the plan. Surely it hadn’t been foreseen by Adimorda.
“I’m sorry” was all he could say, all he could think.
As they came to the mountain they spotted Roakore’s men fighting a mass of Draggard. Zerafin steered them towards the dwarves. Whill was gone, Avriel was lost to them, but a war still needed warriors. It was time to fight.
Roakore saw too as Eadon and Whill mounted the dragons and flew off into the morning sky. The old dwarf knew better than to think him a traitor; he knew all too well the great power of the Dark elves, and he knew Whill’s peril.
“May the gods be with you lad,” he said with a tear in his eye.
His heart quickened as he saw the approach of Abram, Zerafin, and Rhunis, and the many skilled elf warriors. “Allies arrive, elves and men. Treat them as brethren, me boys! They fight with us against the Draggard.”
A cheer erupted around Roakore. This would be a day to remember, he thought.
Whill flew on the back of the red dragon as it followed Eadon and the eagle dragon through the sky, to what destination he did not know.
They flew well into the afternoon. Whill knew now their destination: they were headed in the direction of his family’s castle, the center of the Uthen-Arden empire. The home he had never seen. Home. That word had little meaning for Whill. His home had been taken from him, his family, his kingdom-all of it taken. Addakon would pay.
The eagle dragon led them to the northern tower of a great castle. So immense was it that the dragons themselves were dwarfed in its presence. They landed in the tower with ample room. Eadon dismounted as two robed figures approached.
“See to it that the red dragon-Zhola, is it not? — see to it that Zhola is given proper lodging befitting a guest. Great dragon, I trust that you will find everything as comfortable as can be managed. You shall have a bull to eat, you must be famished after such a long flight.” Zhola growled and Eadon smirked. “I trust that was your stomach, my friend, because you would be ill-advised to refuse my will.”
Whill dismounted, and Zhola and the eagle dragon were led down a great winding ramp. Without a word Eadon turned and exited down a hall to his right. Whill followed.
Eadon stopped to face him. “You seek the blood of your parents’ murderer, do you not? What have you imagined doing to him?” He closed his eyes and shuddered. “Your rage is that which even one as old as I rarely see. It pulses from you. To my mind-sight it is a supernova of energy. Dark energy.” They went on to a torchlit room.
Whill barely heard Eadon, so focused was he on the face of his uncle, his father’s twin. The face of his father. But he did register the words “dark energy,” and the context thereof.
Into the room he went, as if floating upon a dream cloud. Time slowed as Eadon stepped aside to reveal the figure before them.
Roakore’s men roared triumphantly as the elves’ flaming arrows cut into the backs of the retreating Draggard. To be a Draggard upon that shore that day meant doom. The battle had raged into the afternoon and evening, and the casualties for all armies had been devastating. Of the thousands of dwarves, fewer than five hundred remained, and those were mostly Roakore’s hardiest men. Of the Eldalonian army, only five battalions of fifty still breathed. The elves had lost many to the Dark elf force of seven warriors. Many dwarves wondered at the battle they had witnessed of the elves, and most shuddered at the memory of the awesome power. Lightning had been pulled from the sky, tornadoes had tossed hundreds of Draggard miles into the air, the ground itself had pulsed and fought as a mammoth monster of dirt and stone. Trees had been torn from their roots and rained down on the battle. Living flames had devoured hundreds. The dwarves had witnessed the true power of gods that day.
In the end it was Zerafin who had claimed the final Dark elf kill with a stone monster from the very side of the mountain. It pounded the kneeling Dark elf into the ground, its boulder fists hammering the elf’s protective energy shield. With a final ground-shaking blast, the stone behemoth punched through the earth up to his shoulder and froze, and there it stayed, and all knew that the Dark elf was dead.
At the end of it all Roakore stood with Abram, Rhunis, and Zerafin, staring out over the bloody battle-field. They awaited reports from their respective commanders. One such commander, a dwarf, ran up to them and slammed his chest.
“Me king. Our scouts hear tell that the beasts that retreated south have been hunted down an’ slain.” He paused. “The Draggard queen…”
Roakore and the others looked on expectantly. “Well? Out with it, laddie!”
The dwarf straightened. “We have found her, Sire, in the lowest reaches o’ the mountain.”
“Alive?” The dwarf nodded. “Then together let us end this bloody battle and call the day a victory. If you will, I would have ye accompany us in this last fight. Ye have all earned it.”
Zerafin looked to the mountain. “A Draggard queen is not to be underestimated. They are not the mindless beasts you might think. They are highly intelligent, they speak, and they are skilled in the ways of the Dark arts. You must allow the elves to deal with her, my good dwarf.”
Roakore stumbled over his words. “Let the elves handle it-the elves! If you had a chance to take back yer home land, would ye let the dwarves take care of it? No, my good elf, you would not! Am I to rob me fellows o’ the chance to take back their own mountain with their own might?” He slammed his axe hilt onto a large stone at his
