The Amazing Adventure

by Adam Clark

Magnus, Leo, Ginge and Alex were wading through knee deep snow. The wind whipped snow around their dark green overcoats, which they had pulled up to protect their faces. Throughout the previous night walked for 20 clicks across the wastes in the wake of the massive dark force that had travelled across the tundra en-route to the Capital.

  The combination of wind and snow had reduced visibility to only a few metres, but Leo had checked the maps constantly, and was certain that they were almost exactly where they wanted to be.

  Their attempts at flying to the Capital on the dragons had been short lived. Almost straight away they had been attacked by lightning from large black flying shapeless forms.

  The Dragons fought fiercely, but they weren’t battle dragons, they were transport dragons. Light and nimble, but they still stood no chance against the assailants. After a minute of intense but one sided fighting all of the dragons had fallen from the sky.

  The barbarian rangers had all survived the landings, barbarians are tough, and snow is soft. Some of the dragons had died and the others had limped or flown away into the north, being independent legendary creatures, back to the wild lands.

  As such, the tight knit group had shouldered their gear, prepped their weapons and walked back to the town they’d just left.

  On the silent walk, all of them had been thinking the worst, but they were all still shocked to see what was left of the hold.

  The first sign they came across was a battle-axe, and accompanying arm, lying in the crimson snow. There was no sign of the owner of this battle-axe.

  As they walked down what was the Hold’s main road, they began to see more of the destruction the army had left. Burned out skeletons of buildings, the wood black like charcoal, limply held themselves up out the snow. Some had caved altogether and left only a large pile of black smouldering rubble, steam still rising from the remnants.

  It was like this on each side of the road. Almost all of the buildings were completely destroyed, and the only signs that life had ever existed there were the occasional dashes of bright red spread across the snow.

  “This is horrible” Ginge said, holding back the tears.

  “This is war” Magnus said grimly, “Where were the other dragons kept? We need to see if there’s any that have survived.”

  “It’s at the end of this road, in a cave at the base of the cliff” Ginge managed to say, through the sobs.

  They made their way through the dead town as quickly as they could, eager to escape the dread that sunk deeper with every passing minute.

  “How is this even possible? The barbarians are one of the strongest races in the universe!” Alex shouted at the burnt husks.

  “It’s got to be some terrible magic” Leo replied quietly from behind him, rifle pointing at everything he thought might be dangerous, which was everything.

  “Arrghh” Alex rebutted, firing off rounds into the air in anger.

  Magnus grabbed him and forced the rifle out of his hands “Calm down! We don’t know if there’s any of them left!”

  The town responded to Magnus’ fears with total silence.

  Magnus was worried, he wasn’t sure what to do, they had no orders to follow, and they were rangers, there was nothing they could do in a full scale invasion. His speciality was approaching situations like a crime, finding out as much as he could and striking at the weakest point. Now his only lead was Grigor.

  Magnus had heard of Grigor before, back in the academy he’d been mentioned regularly, and his name was engraved on the Bear Explosion Ball champion Trophy all the way from 6000E to 6006E. Speaking to him seemed to be the next best step.

  “Leo, you still have the network access codes right?” Leo nodded “Ok, make a search for Grigor the Destructionator. Find out where he is, or where he’s going.”

  Leo pulled the radio nav machine out of his bag and started punching in keys while the machine beeped back in response. “It should take me a little while to get a response.”

  “Make it quick, I have a feeling we won’t have much time.”

  They walked through the other side of the town, and soon a giant cliff loomed out of the whiteness that surrounded everything. At first the view in front of them of them darkened, then they came close enough that the sharp, rocky face penetrated through the blizzard.

  The walked along the base of the cliff, where the snow broke as it touched the rocky foot of the sheer wall. Here and there small trees had managed to grow and survive on the rock base, lending droplets of deep green to break up the monotonous grey and white that surrounded everything.

  They stumbled upon the cave mouth as it appeared suddenly out from the gloom. A great gaping mouth of black, dimly lit in depths by the weak aura of orange thrown off by unseen torches. Ginge stopped and motioned for Magnus to come to her side.

  “Look down here” she said, kneeling in the snow, “footprints.” Magnus looked down at the two sets of prints, definitely human, and two of them, one slightly taller than the other. The smaller human was obviously not used to the cold judging by the shuffle pattern of the prints and, no fashion sense judging by the tread pattern, I mean come on, what about effort? Brushing vain prejudices aside, it was obvious that neither had been prepared for travelling in this weather. From the drips of blood that accompanied the prints Magnus deduced that one of them must be injured.

  “It looks like one these people was injured.” He whispered to Ginge.

  “No shit Sherlock” she replied quietly. Magnus took that to be a compliment. He held his hand up to the group, pointed at his eyes and then pointed into the depths of the cave.

  The group shouldered their rifles and crept into the entrance, keeping their sights trained down the passageway.

  They crept forward, solid like moving rocks, unflinching at the murmuring echoes that groaned through the cave system. They transitioned from the white light from outside, into the deep dark where the only light was the flickering from torches further down the tunnel that glistened off the moist walls.

  They treaded carefully over the slippery rocks, Magnus took the point, then Alex and Leo behind him, while Ginge kept a look out behind them. They passed several slowly dying torches held in brackets against the rock walls as they made their way down twists and turns leading down further into the cliff. Suddenly Magnus stopped, and held his left hand up, hand clenched into a fist.

  “Do you guys hear that?” he said so quietly it was barely a whisper. The rest of the team listened, There was definitely a sound of activity further down the tunnel, they caught echoing tones of voices deeper down the cave system, more importantly they could hear the noise of great shuffling, scratching and the occasional hiss of steam echoing up to where they stood.

  “Ok, be ready for anything” Magnus said, starting on again cautiously, soon they could feel a cold wind coming faster down the tunnel, and the noises became much louder. Round the next corner a large pool of more natural light bathed the tunnel from a large cutaway in the left side of the rock. Here the noises were much more obvious, but still not enough to hear the voices clearly. However the other noises were a lot clearer, it sounded like a foundry, with heavy clanging, the hiss of steam, punctuated by heavy scraping.

  Magnus approached the opening slowly, his back flat against the wall. When he was standing next to the opening, he peered round.

  From his viewpoint he saw that a massive bowl-like cavern had been carved out of the rock, so large that he could barely make out the opposite side. Looking up he noted a massive hole in the ceiling, letting in light that dappled softly off the ever falling column of snow entering the cavern from above. The opening he was standing at was at the top of the bowl like floor, which reached its lowest point a few hundred meters from where he was standing.

  In the centre of the room a great wooden stake had been thrust into the rock, the stake was what appeared to be just an upside down tree. For most of its length it was the width of three men across, and as tall as ten ta
ll men. Attached to this tree was a great chain, whose first link had been forged directly through the tree trunk about halfway up, at the strongest point. What was more intriguing however, was the giant sleeping creature attached to the chain.

  A great dragon with black scales and a crimson underbelly lay coiled around the base of the stake, the chain attached to a iron collar around its neck. The Dragon had giant red leathery wings pinned to it’s back, and a long tail that flicked lazily around it’s head while it slept. The dragons long snout framed the sharp form of it’s face, which raised and lowered which each exhale of what appeared to be a sort of dragon snore. Each snore produced a huge plume of steam, along with a great hiss.

  The dragon was curled in the centre of the cavern, directly beneath the column of snow that melted and floated away in steam as soon it landed on the Dragon’s back.

  Magnus quickly scanned the rest of the cavern hold to see several much smaller dragons tied to much smaller posts around the exterior rim of the space. Some of the dragons were obviously restless, a small turquoise blue dragon was attempting to fly away, only to be yanked back to earth as the chain pulled taut. He then shuffled back to where the chain was slacker, snorted, with a bit of added flame, and tried again. Down to Magnus’ left a medium sized red and yellow dragon was scratching irritably at the floor of the cavern, huge grooves were left in the rock floor were left as proof of his frustration.

  Down on the right however, Magnus noted a very un-dragon like movement, around a large selection of crates, harnesses and other dragon riding equipment, sat two humans. One a tall stalwart fellow, and the other smaller, slightly on the chubby side and quite badly dresses, just like Magnus thought ‘Damn I’m good’ he congratulated himself quietly.

  The smaller man was sitting on a crate and had a bandage wrapped round his left thigh, which was propped up on a smaller case.­­­ He looked rather resigned and downtrodden. The taller man was leaning against a collection of wooden boxes, and looked deep in thought.

  Magnus could see no obvious weapons on the pair, and they didn’t seem like too much of a threat, so he leaned back round into the tunnel, and signalled for the other rangers to come up.

  He stepped out quietly and slipped between large red sandy rocks that provided adequate cover and hid him from the sight of the pair. Most of the leashed dragons were looking in their direction curiously, several were becoming rather agitated and clawing at the ground and their restraints, but the only pair of humans in the room seemed too pre-occupied to notice the entrance of the rangers.

  One by one the Rangers took places behind the closest rocks, a move they had well-rehearsed, and waited for Magnus’ signal. He held his closed fist up, and they all froze and took a deep breath. He waited like this for a second, and suddenly opened his fist.

  At that moment, manic pandemonium broke out, the rangers all spun out from their hiding places, rifles held up and trained on the unsuspecting pair. In response the two of them jumped nearly out of their skins, and instantly threw their hands up. Everyone was shouting. Harvey and Indiana were shouting about how they ‘meant no harm’ and ‘don’t kill me please,’ while the rangers were shouting at them to get down.

  In the midst of the action, Alex raised his rifle and stared laughing, a deep barrel laugh. One by one he other rangers sopped to look at him. Ginge whispered a him. “What are you doing?” Indy and Harvey also stopped shouting and looked at him, bemused and scared.

  “Look at them.” Alex said, “they’re the foreigners from the alehouse we saw yesterday!” The other rangers looked and also started laughing, they pulled down the scarves and other clothing items they’d worn to obscure their faces from the blizzard. Magnus stepped forward, a bit sheepishly.

  “Sorry about this guys, you were Indy right? And I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten your name.” He said to Harvey.

  “I’m Harvey,” Harvey replied, with a hint of a wobble in his voice.

  “What happened out there in the village?” Ginge asked them, her usually emotionless voice betrayed a genuine note of concern for the people of the village.

  “We didn’t see much, and it was a real blur” Indy started “We were locked down in the hold when the explosions started, the door was completely smashed in by a huge black monster, like a man but three times the size, with red eyes, horns and black skin. One of your friends decapitated it the minute it broke through though! Soon everywhere around us there was fighting, and bodies everywhere. The enemy were all black knights, they went down easily enough but they just kept coming. Eventually the roof of the hold gave way, and by that point we were in the streets fighting. Everything was on fire, and the black knights formed a tidal wave that just kept coming.” Indy paused for breath.

  “We ran out into the storm and ended up here somehow. I don’t think anyone else survived, they just kept fighting but didn’t stand a chance.” Indy hung his head.

  “That’s the Barbarian way. We fight to the death. At least they’re all kicking ass in Valhalla now.” As he finished this sentence a great boom was heard, and a crack of lightning could be seen though the open hole in the cavern roof.

  After the lightning briefly brightened the cavern it soon became darker than It had been before. And even though the chill of winter was all around them, it also became colder, but they could feel this chill deep within their hearts.

  “Something is wrong” Ginge said looking up at the now darkened sky. The dragons were roaring what seemed to be a solemn chorus, punctuating the dark of the cavern with great towers of sporadic flame. “Very wrong” she continued.

  “Sir!” Leo called out, kneeling over this radio equipped back-pack, a headphone held to one ear. “It’s a message from the he Field Marshall, he Dragon-King… He’s dead,”

  “What?!” Exclaimed Magnus, grabbing the headphones and holding them to his own ears.

  “I repeat, the Dragon-King is dead. He was slain by Volkang and Grigor now holds the ancient spirit. All forces on the ground are to form a resistance against the dark lord’s armies, and all other troops are to assist Grigor. I repeat, the Dragon-King is dead. He was…”

  Magnus let the headphones fall to the floor. “Rarghh!” He screamed, slamming his fist into a rock, shattering it to pieces.

  “I’ve got a lock on Grigor’s position, it looks like he’s heading to the Dagoba system. Ah, now the signal’s gone dead.”

  “The Ice system? What does he want to do there?” Alex inquired.

  “I don’t know, but we’re going to find out.” Magnus replied, grim set.

  “Take us with you!” Said Harvey while Indy looked on expectantly.

  “You know how to use a gun?” They both nodded. “Ever flown a dragon through space?” They looked at each other bemused and shook their heads. “Well, you’re about to change that.” Magnus looked over to the other rangers. “Mount up guys!”

  Alex, Ginge and Leo each ran to the nearest dragons, a deep blue dragon, and green dragon, and a light blue with a yellow bellied dragon respectively. Even with all their gear they vaulted spectacularly on their dragon’s backs, lifted the catches on the great chain necklaces, and sped off, up and out of the cavern through the hole in the ceiling.

  “This is going to be weird, but trust me, there’s a lot of magic in these creatures. Just copy me and stay close in the air.” Magnus told the pair left standing.

  He went to the great red and black dragon in the centre of the room. It sniffed him as he walked close, each movement of air through the massive nostrils acting as a gale, swirling Magnus’ overcoat around his legs, but he showed no sign of it even affecting him. He rested a hand briefly on the Dragon’s snout and it calmed immediately. He then swung himself up between its wings and gripped the great scaly neck tightly.

  “Now you guys grab one each!” He shouted to the two nervous humans. They each picked rather small dragons, a deep emerald one for Harvey, and a rather bland coppery brown coloured one for Indy. Rather ungracefully they clamber
ed onto their dragon’s backs and unclasped he necklaces. Then the dragons began to rise and hover while Magnus un shackled the great dragon, it’s necklace reverberating the cavern with an echoed boom as it hit the floor.

  His dragon turned a grea long neck upward, flapped a few imes and sped straight up and out of the cavern like an arrow, the two smaller dragons, needing no instruction from their riders flew up in a similar fashion. Indy and Harvey lost sight of Magnus, and everything for that matter, immediately outside the cavern in the swirling white of he blizzard. Soon though, the broke through the tops of the clouds. The blackness of space above them, speckled with 4 dots of colour from the other riders, the whirling tumultuous blanket of fluffy white below them and the bright light and glare of the sun sinking over the much curved horizon.

  Very soon they realised they were leaving the barbarian planet behind them at an alarming rate, the curvature of a horizon soon curving into a disc that decreased in size rapidly, until it was just another spot of light that permeated the ever enveloping blackness of space. Up ahead they could just about make out the other dragons, swathes of light representive of the colour of each dragon stretched out far behind them like comets as they flew.

  Travelling along an interstellar rainbow, they were now well on their way to the Dagoba system.

  barack brobama