Whill of Agora woa-1

by Michael Ploof

  Whill used his mind-sight once again. His deduction of the situation was confirmed when he saw above and all around the surrounding ships dozens of Eagle Riders.

  “There are at least fifty,” Zerafin said.

  Abram and Rhunis did not wonder how he knew this. They knew. “What can I do?” Rhuis asked. “I cannot see them as you can.”

  Avriel shot an arrow into the night and turned to him. “We cannot see them against the great aura of the ocean, Rhunis; those we can see are far off, out of the reach of an arrow.”

  “Surely not the arrows of the elves.”

  “Surely not, no, but we will not expend that kind of energy. We will wait them out. If they wish to try and overpower the dragon, it is their funeral.”

  “Heh, the dragon, indeed. Why is he helping, anyway? Never in our history has a man ever befriended a dragon. Whill, do you know him?”

  “I have seen him before, I think. Yes, I have.”

  “Why did you never tell us of this before?” asked Zerafin.

  Whill was surprised. “I don’t know. It was when I had first used my powers. It didn’t seem important.”

  “Not important! And when we told you that the sword had been given to a dragon, to be kept safe until Whill of Agora came for it-did it seem important then?”

  Whill was dumbstruck. “Do you think he could be the one?”

  Avriel put her hand to Whill’s cheek. “Either this dragon is the first in history to meddle with the affairs of men, or this is the dragon of elven bedtime tales.”

  It had been an hour since the battle in the chamber of trading, and Roakore and his unit were making good time. Over fifty such units, most of them a hundredth of this size, now waited for the appointed minute to blow the many tunnels. That minute would soon be at hand, Roakore thought, as he stopped at the subtunnel entrance to the exit chamber, the one that needed to be destroyed if they were to ensure that Whill’s dream did not come to be. He motioned for the five explosives carriers, and together with them he started down the tunnel. Scouts had been here already and had reported it deserted, and Roakore believed them. There was not a dwarf in the unit who could not hear the snarls, pounding feet, and shouts of the Draggard. Murmured and inaudible the sounds might be to men, but a dwarf with his ear to a rock could hear the heartbeat of a nearby rat. The Draggard were in the main chamber, the cavern that had first been settled by Ro’Sar. It acted as the kingdom’s largest city, housing over twenty thousand dwarves in Roakore’s youth. It was the biggest natural cavern of all the mountain kingdoms. Menacing stalactites hung from the ceiling, so mammoth that it would take fifty dwarves to reach around it. The massive stalagmites had been incorporated into the city, hollowed and polished, adding to the unique dwarven architecture.

  Within that cavern, Roakore knew, Draggard awaited the order to charge out from the mountain and destroy every form of life that opposed them. The Draggards’ mouths drooled in anticipation of flesh, their claws ached with the want to tear, to gouge, to crush. They lived for one purpose: destruction. And for that reason, Roakore knew, they would never win, never be victorious. Life and love and light would always hold death and hate and darkness at a stalemate. The battle would rage on forever, but neither side could ever win lest they, as two parts of one, be destroyed also. None could ever dominate, for they were one. That was what Roakore’s father had told him at an early age, and that is what Roakore had told all of his children since before they could understand. The idea of good and evil was a stone in the religious foundation. They believed that, like love and hate, the world, the moon, the animals, even they themselves possessed two battling spirits.

  Roakore came to the entrance of the exit chamber from the subchamber. As he had been told, not a Draggard could be seen. He thought of Ro’Quon’s heroic flight and how the kings of old were cheering him now, Ro’Quon among them.

  The small battle raged on for almost an hour, but the ship did not stop nor change course. Relentlessly the riders came, swooping down out of the night, trying to capture their prize. Then suddenly and to Whill’s surprise they stopped, and every eagle he could see with his mind-sight turned and headed east and eventually out of view. The dragon circled still, sending rings of smoke from its nose every once in a while as if scoffing.

  “What do you make of their retreat?” Whill asked.

  “The dragon does not follow,” Rhunis said.

  “And it is focused on the west. The opposite direction of the Eagle Riders,” Avriel said through closed eyes.

  “Whatever it is, I doubt it is an ally,” added Abram from the wheel.

  The Celestra was literally at the center of the great fleet of the many hundreds of ships. Looking west with his mind-sight, Whill began to see something, not an object, but a disturbance along the water. He began to relay this information when Avriel spoke.

  “I see it also. What do you make of it, brother?”

  Zerafin moved closer to the side of the ship and put his hand to the hilt of his sword. After a moment he spoke, unsheathing his sword. “Whatever it is, it is big, and moving with great speed.”

  Like the elves, Whill could see through the surrounding ships, and unlike Abram or Rhunis, he saw as entire ships far off were bombarded with great waves as the disturbance in the ocean’s aura came close to them. Arrows were strung and feet planted as the disturbance came closer and closer still. The object was within two hundred yards when it disappeared. The silence that followed was disturbed only by the faint shouting of the crew on nearby ships. Suddenly off the starboard side of the ship came a huge wave as something of great size came out of the ocean. There was an ear-piercing shriek, and Whill could make out the water-covered silhouette of a huge red dragon and, to his surprise, an eagle dragon with a rider. As soon as the beast had come out of the water, he, Avriel, and Zerafin had shot an arrow each almost in unison. The circling red dragon also had attacked at that very moment, sending a huge sheet of flame at its fellow. The arrows flew true, as did the flame, but instead of hitting their target, each turned in flight and rocketed towards their sources. Before Whill could take in what had happened, his arrow came at him with blinding speed, only to be stopped by Avriel and Zerafin. The arrows were diverted to the ocean, but the flame found its mark, curving back even as the red dragon spat it, hitting the creature in the face and enveloping it in flames.

  The red dragon immediately dove into the ocean, the fires going out with a weak hiss. The attacking eagle dragon was invisible to the naked eye, but with mind-sight Whill could still see its steadily fading outline as the seawater receded and fell from it.

  “There has never been a dragon in the known history of this world that can become camouflaged as this one does,” Zerafin said.

  “What!” Rhunis cried. “Another dragon-is that what that thing was? How in the name of the gods did it send back your arrows, and the fire?”

  “It was not the dragon who did it,” said Abram, turning the wheel into a wave. “Its rider is a Dark elf.”

  Roakore looked to his timepiece: less than five minutes until the explosives would go off. The explosives carriers had set the bombs in place and given the signal that they were ready. Roakore motioned for the remaining force to enter the cavern. The troops filed into the cavern with a silent stealth one wouldn’t expect from thousands of dwarves.

  Two minutes until the many bombs would go off, and still his army was filing into the room. Mostly young dwarves they were, most under one hundred years old, hardly parents. Though it might seem that dwarves who could live to see a thousand years would have a hundred children by their middle age, in dwarf society one did not reproduce until he has proven that he has contributed his share to the kingdom, lest overpopulation plague the mountains. The dwarves could not have a child without the blessing of a dwarven monk. This was where the epic dwarven folk song “Leranna’s Curse” came from. It told the story of a young dwarf wife who went to the monk with her husband and asked to be blessed with a birth. As the monk g
azed on her radiantly beautiful face, he was stricken on the spot. If he lived to be two thousand years old, he knew, he would not see such beauty again. He was a good dwarf, but he could not bring himself to allow the birth, and turned them away. A year passed and they returned with the same request. Again his heart stopped as he looked upon her; again he could not allow it. As long as he refused the birth, she would have to come back, and then he could gaze on her again. For one hundred years this went on, until finally, when Leranna’s husband’s grandfather and father, along with four brothers, had died, Leranna’s husband faced the end of his father’s line. So in love with Leranna was he, that he refused the advice to take another wife in order to produce an offspring. That year, on the day when the couple always visited the monk, only Leranna arrived. Without a word she stabbed him through the heart. The last thing he saw was her golden face, not weeping but smiling the most beautiful smile. It was then put into law that if a birth was repeatedly denied by the monks, the couple would go to the king, and if the king also denied it, they would ask the dwarves, a gathering of at least a hundred. The one day a year when most voted on this affair was called Leranna’s Day.

  Though most dwarves Roakore’s age would not have had any children yet, he had two hundred. His clan having been diminished so, the monks, the king, and the people had ordained that any couple could have as many children as they wished, until the clans were strong again. This included allowing every male dwarf of the clan to take as many wives as he wished from the other two clans. All marriages were blessed by the monks, of course, and even the other wives, for every dwarf, male and female, lived by the same code: live for love, family, kingdom, and self, and die for them as well.

  Roakore and each of his soldiers were ready for victory, and if that meant that death would be required, so be it.

  At the appointed minute there came a great rumble as the hundreds of explosives went off within the mountain. Behind him the team had just imploded the door of the mountain. They had succeeded in the first mission. Each now rose and faced the second task: the thousands of hissing Draggard, just beyond the great door.

  From the port side of the ship, the red dragon exploded from the sea. Fire belched from its maw as it collided with the eagle dragon and rider, both of whom now became visible.

  “By the gods!” shouted Rhunis as he saw for the first time the dragon and rider. “They change like the eagles of the northern kingdom! My eyes behold black elf witchcraft.”

  The red dragon’s fire circled the eagle dragon and its Dark elf rider. Protected by some invisible force, they both were untouched by the flames. The red dragon tried in vain to bite and claw the other, a four-legged, thick-winged species, covered in scales and feathers of the most radiant silver. The elf rider drew his sword and in one fell swoop sliced the red dragon across the chest. Blood fell like rain on the deck below. The red dragon recoiled in howling pain and once again belched flames that did not hit the other dragon nor rider. The rider, to everyone’s surprise, leaped from his dragon and fell more than one hundred feet to land on the deck of Celestra.

  Whill, Abram, Rhunis, and the elves all shot arrows in unison as the Dark elf landed. Falling to one knee on impact, the Dark elf lifted an arm and with out-stretched fingers stopped the arrows in midair.

  Even as he let loose his first arrow, Whill knew they were all doomed. For as the Dark elf landed, Avriel gasped, and Zerafin uttered one word before firing.

  “Eadon!”

  All of the arrows flew true, but they burst into flames and only ashes blew into the wind. Eadon was an imposing figure. He stood over six feet-not a giant, not much taller than Rhunis or Zerafin, but possessed of an air that made him seem to Whill like a god. His armor was as black as the starless sky but reflected like ice. Upon his shoulders he wore a long cloak of eagle-dragon feathers, long and thick and like polished silver. His long hair was at the moment a brilliant silver grey, turning black at the temples. Two elven blades hung at his sides, but he did not draw them. He leered at Whill.

  “When the day comes that I have to draw my blades, then, Whill, you will be strong indeed.”

  Everyone knew they could not defeat Eadon, no one seemed to care. Even as Eadon finished speaking, Zerafin flung an arm in Whill’s direction. Whill was instantly thrown through the air, high and fast, then suddenly stopped as Eadon lifted his own hand. He floated, frozen, two hundred feet above the ship, helpless as he watched the battle below. He could feel a strong pressure on his entire body and feared he would be crushed. Zerafin pushed while Eadon pulled, each getting progressively stronger as they battled over him.

  Whill was on the verge of passing out when finally he felt a release. One of them had ceased; only one now held him. Zerafin lunged forward in a flash, his sword cutting through the air as Avriel screamed a spell and white light jumped from her hand and was absorbed by Zerafin’s passing blade. The glowing blade of Nifarez came straight down at Eadon’s head; in an instant Eadon produced his twin blades in a crossed block. His blades glowed black against Zerafin’s white-hot sword. Then Rhunis foolishly lunged forward with his blade. Eadon did not make a move, but yelled so loudly that it was deafening to Whill, who remained in the invisible grasp. The power of that yell was like an explosion in the air around him. Rhunis was blown off his feet and over the side of the ship, as was Abram. Avriel held strong her white energy that flowed into her brother’s blade, Zerafin held fast his sword, and Eadon held Whill in place, keeping the force of the two elves at bay.

  Avriel’s and Zerafin’s faces were twisted in concentration. Eadon wore a grin, the look of a predator. Then he closed his eyes and began to shudder. Avriel screamed. The white light that emanated from her and into Zerafin’s blade grew brighter and more intense. Zerafin growled as he tried to pull his blade away from Eadon. Whill did not want to believe what he was seeing, but he knew that Eadon was somehow absorbing all of their power.

  I love you, Whill. The words came into his mind as the tears came to his eyes.

  The deafening spell that ripped through the night and through Whill’s very being was the same spell his father had used to save him nineteen years before. Avriel brought down her blade into Whill’s ship, and the resounding explosion was blinding. A flash of the purest white light was followed by a fireball of flame that had been the Celestra, followed by a wave as the ocean quickly refilled the hole that had been made.

  Throughout the destruction, Whill was untouched by the fire, but he felt a shift in the energy that gripped him. The Celestra exploded around him and the flames and debris shot toward him, but he was unscathed. As the flames receded and the waters took their place, whatever held him let go. He fell through the air, screaming in despair not at his own fate, but of Avriel’s.

  Suddenly he was caught by a huge claw.

  The rumbling that shook the mountain subsided and every dwarf stood at attention. A horn blew from within the old ghost city of the dwarves and the great doors opened. Before them waited a group of no more than ten thousand, when they had expected ten times that many. No one waited for an explanation. As one they charged into the ranks of the Draggard army. Axes met spears, hammers met scales. The two armies came together, but the dwarves would not be slowed. The front line did not falter. A dwarf force the likes of which no army had ever seen plowed through the Draggard like a scythe through wheat. The Draggard lost their momentum altogether as their forces began to unravel. Those close to the back caves tried to run in retreat, while those unfortunate beasts at the front fell one after another. Hatchets rained down into the ranks, four for every dwarf not in direct battle. Draggard groans and screams of anguish echoed sickeningly throughout the cavern. Within a half an hour the army had been routed, and dwarf troops had already begun flushing the tunnels.

  Roakore raised his arm and with a triumphant roar shouted the name of his father. The victory cry was taken up by the thousands of dwarves around him. He yelled the name again, his arm pumping the air.

  “Hail, K
ing Roakore!” shouted someone from the crowd, and the cry was taken up by all.

  Roakore waited until the cheering had subsided, and then lifted his hands. “My good dwarves, the fight has just begun. He who brings me the head of the Draggard queen will be a dwarf of legend.”

  A cheer rose up in response. But it died and all heads turned as a slow but powerful clapping echoed throughout the chamber. Roakore turned with the others towards the destroyed mountain door. There, sitting upon a boulder, was a smiling, clapping, armor-clad Dark elf.

  Whill let out a scream of anguish as he was carried into the dawn sky. The red dragon’s grip was firm, but not crushing. He looked down upon the sight of his destroyed ship and the dark waters, now home to his dead friends. He screamed in anguish once again, his outstretched hand clawing at the air.

  “Let me down, damn you, I have to go back! They need me!” Whill beat pointlessly upon the thick scales. “Goddamn you, beast, let me go!”

  The dragon responded with a growl, low and guttural, and continued to fly higher.

  Below him Whill could see that both the human and elven armies had begun storming the beaches, and beyond them, shadowed by the Ebony Mountains, burned the town of Drindale. The landscape was that of his dream, in vivid, terrifying clarity. What remained of the Isladon army fought hopelessly against the tides of Draggard that had emptied from the mountain. Thousands upon thousands stormed the beaches, but thousands more Draggard waited, a black army in the morning sunrise.

  “Roakore, is it not?” the Dark elf inquired as his clapping ended and echoed throughout the great chamber. “This is the part where I tell you to surrender peacefully, you spit in my face and say something valiant, and then we fight. Am I right?”

  Roakore remembered the Dark elf they had encountered in the forest, how he had sent his own weapon flying back at him with only a thought. Many o’ me men’ll fall to this one.

  “I am Roakore, son o’ the fallen king o’ the Ro’Sar mountains. I reclaim these halls, as is my birthright. And you, Dark elf, are trespassing.”