The Banishment of the King
Page 30
“Can’t you hear me?” he barked at the soldiers, “I helped you conquer Northang. You owe me!”
At these words the soldiers at once rushed to gather bows and arrows. Within a few moments, the soldiers had lined up on the deck, the strings of their bows pulled and ready to release arrows at command.
“I’ll draw him near the ship,” the fake-Xuhn told the soldiers, “when he is the closest, shoot at him. I want every single arrow to hit him!”
And then once again the fake-Xuhn turned into the black dragon and flew towards Mortugal.
***
Mortugal observed as the dragon told his soldiers to be ready with arrows drawn. Mortugal didn’t care. When the dragon came again, he met it with teeth and claws. They went spiralling out of control and hit the water.
They swam under the water surface, and fought. Blood oozed from countless wounds in both the drago Mortugal got so involved in the fight, that he took a sudden blind turn and hit the hull of the ship.
A great splash occurred, and Mortugal saw that the dragon skull tied to the front of the ship had fallen.
Instinct overcame Mortugal and instead of returning the blows of the black dragon, he swam fast towards the fallen skull. He had a feeling that it was the same one with the map etched on its forehead.
He grabbed the skull just as it was sinking. He was right, it was the same one. An urge took hold of him and he touched the circle on the forehead of the skull.
The face of a female dragon appeared in his vision. “Fly over the ship!” she said.
The black dragon attacked once again, but Mortugal flapped his wings and took to the air. His heart told him to listen to the female dragon. He flew over the ship.
The soldiers.
He had totally forgotten about them! Now, a thousand arrows came at him. There was no escape from this one.
The arrows hit him all at once. They pierced into his flesh, making blood spurt. He was covered in more blood than fur now.
The overwhelming pain hit Mortugal hard and he saw the black dragon one last time, it’s mouth open wide. Black fire came.
Oh boy, he was going to be roasted.
And he fell. His limp, blazing body hit the water. Mortugal blacked out.
***
Mortugal opened his eyes, and they were greeted with the beautiful sight of an ice-land, with great mountains in the distance.
Dragonland.
He pushed himself up, and was surprised that he felt no pain. Hadn’t he been stuffed with a thousand arrows and roasted in black fire? He looked down at his body. There wasn’t one spot of blood on his white fur.
But how was it possible? If he remembered correctly he had fallen into the sea, and there was no way he could have ended up in Dragonland. Unless… this wasn’t Dragonland, Mortugal realised, his heart picking pace.
He was dead. This was whatever came after death.
The scenery was dazzling though.
“Yes, it’s beautiful here,” a voice said, a female one. He turned to look at the speaker.
She was a white dragon. She looked older than him, and was the same dragon that had told him to fly over the ship. He wanted to ask her who she was, but found his jaws glued together.
She answered anyway.
“I am your mother, Mortugal,” she said, so that his heart skipped a beat. His mother? She smiled, “As for your mouth, the living can’t speak here.”
That relaxed him somewhat. Apparently he had yet to die. But he still had a thousand questions to ask her. He frowned hard at her to let her know this.
“I know you have many things to ask me,” his mother continued, understanding him. “Why you were raised by wolves and not me, how I died in the very lake where you came to sleep years later, how the map was etched on the skull of my material body, and so on. But today let those questions rest. I have very little time. You can stay in this realm for only a very short period, and in that I want to tell you about the black dragon.
“The black dragon— a part of you— successfully destroyed the Hatred that the cunning Malthur kept inside you. He burned it with the fire from his mouth. It was wise on his part to gather the soldiers, and ask them to shoot you making you bleed so much that the black fire could reach the Hatred hiding inside you. Your fur otherwise provided too much protection against his black fire.
“Now the black dragon is gone, and so is the egg from which he hatched— yes, the very one the troll king was using to store essence. Mortugal, I am thankful you listened to my advice. You have successfully ended the hatred between the vampires and the werewolves. Already, many battles have stopped, and the soldiers on both sides have realised that what they were doing was pointless. In a few days, normalcy would return to the border areas of the two kingdoms. Within months the two nations would resume their long forgotten friendship.”
For a moment his mother kept smiling at him, like she wanted to make up for not being with him any time in his life.
A strong force developed in the air around Mortugal, as though the very place was rejecting him. And this force kept getting stronger, making Mortugal uneasy.
His mother beamed.
“Go Mortugal, go and live.”
The entire place dissolved. Mortugal knew he was on his way back to the world of the living. Back to Corpsia his love, back to Xuhn the idiot, and back to countless adventures awaiting him.
Back to the living.
***
The End… For now
Author’s Note:
Thanks for reading the story. I hope you enjoyed it. If you didn’t, I am sorry, I tried. Be sure to leave a review on Amazon, as reviews are an indie author’s best friend. Praise me like I am Shakespeare or shoot me down with criticism. I’ll be thankful for both.
If you think I can improve in anyway, please send your suggestions to my email ajauthor@rediffmail.com