A Final War

by J D Dench

  Is Silvia still alive? Leif? The Dwarf brothers? Where is Azzaan? And who was that other Demon? And most importantly, why are we still alive?

  “We have to be alive, because we still serve a purpose. And we were called the Elves and Dwarves, not people, so that means our races matter.” He ran his fingers through his beard tenderly, deep in thought. “The big Demon was talking to Azzaan like his boss, so if I have to assume Azzaan is in charge, and since he led us to the trap to be captured and brought here, that would mean Azzaan wants something from us.”

  “But what?” The voice belonged to Leif, who was apparently locked in the cell to Olap’s left. “What could the Demons want with some Elves and Dwarves?”

  “I don’t know,” Olap muttered, sinking down onto the pile of hay. “But whatever it is, I have a feeling it’s not good. And I have a feeling it involves the Sword and Hammer.” He swallowed hard and fell onto his back. “And the world as we know it is in terrible danger, Leif.”

  Chapter Eight

  Liz hadn’t changed much in the Palace. Kayla’s room, now known as the Chamber of Heroes, had been changed dramatically to suit both her and Matias. Before, the room had been nicely decorated, but now it was astounding. One wall was a painting about the story Kayla had lived through, image by image, from one corner of the wall to the end. The wall behind the bed was covered in weapons. Liz explained they were the weapons of the fallen warriors of the final battle against Tony. The wall around the door was glowing from Elven jewels, and the final wall still held the bookcase where Kayla had met Nate.

  Kayla remembered the secret room, and upon entering she came across what had once been Nate’s library. His books still decorated the walls, but battle equipment now filled the room. Liz explained that the room was now Kayla and Matias’ new training room. Matias went toward the door to the bathroom, but Kayla grabbed his hand and stopped him.

  “It’s too soon,” Kayla said quite enough for only him to hear. He gave her a look she couldn’t quite place before nodding his head and returning to the room. The bed sheets were white with a thick black blanket on top with a layer of white fur trimming the edges. The pillows were made from the same designs as the blanket, only with a red tint on the other side of the pillows. Kayla had to admit, she was amazed what they did with the room she had stayed in before.

  Liz left them alone in the room while she went to talk to her guards about what news they brought her. When they were alone, Kayla leaned on Matias’ shoulder.

  To her surprise, he pulled away, letting her fall onto the bed. “Why didn’t you talk to me?” he asked.

  Why is he always in a bad mood these days? “Talk to you about what?”

  “I know about the nightmares, Kayla.” He looked toward the bookcase. Kayla looked up at him and, for the first time, realized how hurt he actually was. “I came home early a few times and heard you screaming. I ran to you and held you through the night. And when you were calm, I left you alone so you didn’t have to feel bad. But I want to know why you never told me.”

  “Matias…” But she didn’t know what to say. She looked toward the door, as if trying to seek an escape from the conversation. She took a few minutes of silence to gather her thoughts.

  “That’s fine, just don’t tell me.” He got up to leave.

  Desperately Kayla grabbed his hand. “No, please stay!” She pulled him hard enough to make him fall on his back. She rolled on top of him and kissed him hard. “I didn’t tell you because it was my problem. Mine.”

  He stared at her with wide eyes, amazed at her strength. He wanted to say something, but she talked over him. “I wanted to tell you. Every day. But you had so much going on and I didn’t want to add to that list. It was my own problem.” She took a deep breath and forced back tears as she poured her heart out to the man she loved so much. “It was that woman. The one that was going to marry Tony. What if she never died? What if she’s been following me and waiting for the time to strike? To ruin my life before ending it, since I took away her husband and her empire? I couldn’t even defeat her on my own last time. I needed your help. What if she attacks me again?”

  “Then we fight her as a team.”

  His voice was firm. He looked straight up into her eyes, and Kayla couldn’t help but melt under his gaze. “We fight her together, just like Hamerst and Lillian. We fight her and we take her down, Kayla, and this time we don’t break her into pieces of shadow. We destroy her.”

  He put both hands behind him and pulled himself out from under Kayla. “But she’s gone, babe. She’s dead. With Tony. We can’t focus on the past right now, because we have the future of a worse threat right at our doorstep. If we don’t focus on that, we are goners.”

  She leaned forward and kissed him hard, wrapping her arms around him. “I love you,” she muttered between their lips. She said it over and over as they sat there holding one another.

  While Kayla and Matias were talking, Liz went down to the basement to the Palace where the secret project was stowed away. Very few knew about the basement, and even fewer had access to it. It was a large room with only one door leading in and out of it and no windows. The only way to the door was to open the trapdoor beside Rizza’s grave, decorated to look like plants, and climb down the Elven-made wooden steps. Once at the door, the individual had to knock four times before Golvannor would open the door and request a password. That is, he asked for the password from all except Liz. He couldn’t ask her, since she created the daily passwords when she came down to visit.

  “Golvannor,” she said grimly, “did we have any intruders recently?”

  The man was thin and pale with a sword on his belt. His small nose made the rest of his facial features appear that much bigger, his large dark eyes always coming across as wide, as if he was always in shock.

  “Intrud’as miss?” His voice had a faint accent that Liz never understood, since he never left the Elven Kingdom and served her family only inside the Kingdom. “I s’pose not. D’pends what you mean?”

  “Golvannor please, you have to tell me something.” She couldn’t mask the desperation in her voice. She wanted nothing more than to defend him from Kayla and Matias. He was a family friend, and blood ran thick in the Elves. “Tell me something. Anything strange that happened recently.”

  “’Ow recent?” he asked with raised eyebrows. “A week? Mont’?”

  She could detect it in his voice. He didn’t know what she was talking about, or if he did it was hidden so far back in his mind that he would never give the information away. She shook her head and looked toward the door. “It’s no use,” she said in that direction. “Thero, take him.”

  “Take ‘im?” Golvannor repeated. “Take me’h whear?”

  Thero came through the door. Right behind him was Ti’a and Lotesta. All three of them had their hands on their sword and walked in with dark expressions. Thero was the one to walk up to Golvannor. “Stand,” he ordered.

  Golvannor didn’t stand right away, so Thero pulled the small man to his feet and tied his hands behind him. “You are to be held here under guard for seven days for questioning, in which time if you do not fully cooperate you are to be executed by command of the Queen Liz, the Sword-Bearer Kayla, and the Elven Blessing Lillian. Do you understand?”

  “Liz?” His face never turned away from her. “Y’u are arrest’n me?”

  She cleared her throat and turned away. “I have no choice,” she said simply before leaving the room She climbed up the stairs, pushed up the door to Rizza’s garden and closed it behind her. And it was there where she allowed a tear to fall before quickly wiping it away.

  If Rizza was here, he would know what to do, she insisted mentally.

  She walked over to the ground where her lover had been buried. She remembered the day they had met. It was strange circumstances to fall in love. She had killed his captain and saved his life, kept him as a hostage, and soon found herself fighting alongside him until something she had not expected had blossomed
in her chest. And he had fought and died bravely fighting in the war against Tony.

  You brave fool. You would have been a much better leader to these people than I am. Why did you have to go and die?

  The tears trickled from her eyes onto the grass where he was buried. She heard somebody approach her from behind and did not dare move. She couldn’t let them see her cry.

  “Liz.” It was a quiet voice, but Liz knew it was Kayla. Her arms wrapped around Liz from behind, and Kayla planted her head on the elf’s back. “It’s okay, you know. To let it out. Nobody else has to know, but if you bottle it inside it’ll eat you up. It’ll spit you out into something evil and toxic and poison. That’s not what Rizza would have wanted.”

  Liz sniffled and wiped away the tears on her cheeks. “No,” she said back, her voice cracking, “that’s not what he wanted for me. He wanted me to live for him.”

  “And that’s what you’re doing right now.”

  They stood in silence for a little while. A breeze blew through, caressing Liz’s skin with tender fingers as it sent all of Rizza’s garden into motion. She looked around in wonder and amazement at what the Elves had created, and what Rizza had allowed to grow in the land she had given in his memory.

  “Why did you do it?” Liz pulled away from Kayla and slowly sank down to the ground, facing her companion. “Why did you leave? Matias said it was because you didn’t want to say goodbye, but I feel like there has to be something more to it than that. So what is it?”

  Kayla fell to the ground, crossing her legs. “Liz, do you remember what I was like when you first met me?”

  The Elf smiled and let out a small laugh. “You were pathetic, sitting in that room by yourself.”

  “I was not!” Kayla shot back, but she was smiling too. “Anyway, I was just a little girl lost in this big world. And my only goal was to find Tony. Remember that?”

  Liz nodded, and Kayla continued, “Remember what I was like before I left? I battled a Demon right here in the Palace to protect the people here and Olap. I faced off against Tony and two others without fear. I walked with you and led a resistance to battle an army of Demons from my nightmares. I was so different, Liz. This world changed me from a little girl to a woman.

  “I wanted to carry that with me forever. I went back to my world to show what I could accomplish for myself there. I helped people and wrote Nate’s books and didn’t make much off of it, but I was doing what I wanted and what I felt I needed to do. But I knew, deep down in my heart, that that world was no longer my world. This one was.

  “I knew Matias wanted to leave here, so I took him there. But I always knew I was going to come back here. I just never told him.” Kayla’s smile grew. The sun bounced off her face, and Liz had never seen the girl look more Elf-like than that very moment. “I didn’t say goodbye because it would feel like a final word. Like it’s in stone that I am gone and never coming back. That was not what I wanted. And I’m sorry that I ever hurt you.”

  Liz sat in silence. Her eyes were fixated on the grass between her and Kayla. “You know,” Kayla continued on, “Lillian has a message for you.”

  Liz’s eyes slowly shifted upward, and her gaze fixed upon the Sword. “She spoke about me?”

  “More than that. She wants me to tell you that she has been keeping an eye on you, and soon she will have something for you. When the moment presents itself.” Kayla laughed and rubbed her eyes hard. “If only I knew what she meant.”

  Before Liz could say anything back, footsteps approached her from behind. They were fast footsteps. Liz leaped to her feet and turned to face Ryo, who was sprinting toward her as fast as he could.

  “Your Highness, we have enemies at the gates! Demons!”

  Demons? How did they get all the way to the gate?

  “Go get Thero and the others from the Project Room. Kayla, go get Matias. If they’re attacking us here, then they are definitely making bold moves. And we will make sure they are the last moves they ever make.”

  Chapter Nine

  Umin led the way to the Elven Kingdom. He and his brother had used the portal hidden there once to go back and hunt down the Hammer. Leading the snake Demon, Igrath, to the portal filled him with confidence.

  This time I won’t fail you Galruman. And I will prove my worth to Lord Azzaan. These thoughts bounced in his head as he charged at the gate, shattering the locks and sending the metal of the gate blasting in every direction.

  Guards jumped out from the bushes and trees. Each guard had their own weapon, but none proved useful against the powerful Demons. Spears and swords snapped and bent against the stone flesh of Umin. Arrows bounced off of him. Throwing knives sparked against him and fell to the side, useless. No matter what weapons the Elven guards used, they could not even slow down the stone Demon Umin. He was nothing short of a walking Demonic shield.

  Umin’s ability to shield made Igrath only more dangerous. Behind him, Igrath lunged out and attacked in precise and deadly strikes that left Elves injured or dead in the blink of an eye. His bites poisoned any it struck, the venom powerful enough to leave them unconscious. For those who dared get close, Igrath struck them with one end of his blades. His blades were made from giant snake fangs, chiseled down to make some of the sharpest weapons in the world and full of all natural toxic. And they were attached to the bones in his arms.

  Left and right, Elves fell to the ground writhing in pain and agony. The doors to the Palace slammed shut, leaving the two Demons outside staring up at the beauty of the Elven made structure. The magnificent metals used to make it seemed to glow in the darkening world.

  “It’s a nice place,” Igrath hissed, his tongue lashing out with a flick. “How did you two get through here before?”

  “Everything is easier when you’re a statue,” Umin explained simply. “If anyone turned their head and saw us move, they would think it’s a trick of the light. Gargoyles are rare, so nobody expects us to even exist.”

  The garden was around the right side of the castle. Umin led Igrath through the metal arch around the side that led to the garden. The Demon duo were greeted by beautiful and exotic plants poking toward them. A path led through them, the blues and reds sticking out to brush against them while the purple and yellow plants hid in the back. In the center of the path was a clearing that led two ways. One way led to the back of the castle while the other took a turn toward Rizza’s grave.

  “How do you intend to blend in among the humans in the other world?” Umin asked as he led the way along the path. “Humans won’t act kindly toward a walking serpent.”

  “They don’t need to,” he hissed with a smile. “I’ll kill whoever is in my way. What could defeat a Demon in a world without magic?”

  Lots of things,

  Umin thought to himself. He kept his thoughts to himself though and led the way toward the clearing. Umin turned the corner and was instantly struck by a blade. The blade shattered against him, but it was strong enough to make even the statue flinch. He growled and looked up at an Elf with a look in her eyes he had never seen in one of them. It took him a while to place the word that fit that look. Ferocity.

  “Leave this place!” Liz commanded, pulling out her other blade. “Leave now!’

  “I can’t do that,” he explained with a smile.

  “I like her,” Igrath hissed. Umin could feel the snake’s mouth salivating behind him as he spoke. “She has a fire to her.”

  “Then she’s all yours.” Umin moved to the side so Igrath could lunge forward and finish her off in a moment.

  He was attacked from the side by a large man, who picked up the snake-Demon and ran at a boulder, tackling him hard. Before the man could strike again, the snake-Demon wrapped him in its neck and threw him away from the Demon. The man struck against the metal of the Palace and slumped to the ground, either dead or unconscious.

  “Thero!” Aega cried out, running up behind Liz. She had her hand around the hilt of her sword, but she didn’t seemed eager to draw it
.

  Umin decided to take advantage of the chaos. He dug his claws into the ground and ran at Liz head on. The girl who had yelled from behind Liz ran out in front of her, grabbing her weapon to fight back. Before she could swing, Umin dug his claws into her chest and dug in deep. With a growl, he pulled apart and nearly ripped the Elf in half, leaving the remains of Aega on the ground to form a puddle for the garden.

  He turned back to Liz and prepared to attack again. Another female Elf attacked him. She wore a bandanna around her mouth, her long hair flowing around her. She struck the Demon with a very different weapon. They were two weighted pieces of metal attached to one another by a chain-like rope, very similar to nunchucks used in martial arts. Her attacks were not meant to cut and kill, but rather to smash and break.

  Umin grunted after every strike, raising his claws to try and defend himself. Every time the metal hit him, his skin-armor cracked a little.

  A weapon that could hurt me? Impossible! He felt his anger rising and finally struck out with his tail, hitting the girl mid-swing. He took a hard hit to the face but struck her hard enough to force her to her knees. He jumped at her and clawed at her face and chest, snarling and laughing as he lost all control. As his control vanished, his eyes glowed to a blood-like red.

  “Umin, control yourself!” Igrath spat, walking to his side. “We have a job to do. Golvannor won’t wait forever.”

  Umin paid him no mind. The girl wiggled under him, raising her hands to try and defend herself. The bandanna was ripped from her face, claw marks covering her arms and cheeks. Blood flowed freely from her wounds, and the Demon smiled at the tears of pain running down her face, flowing into her wounds and hurting her even more.