by B. H. Savage
“Enough of this!” Amador yelled angrily as he and Kiya walked towards the defeated pair. “I’m going to what I should have done in Mitus and kill you like the whore you are!” As Amador approached, he raised his lance in the air above Anye’s chest with the flame-shaped blade pointed down, and smiled as if possessed. “Good bye, Anye!”
Time felt like it stood still as Amador and Kiya loomed over them. The glint in his mad eyes, the spear in his hand, the dragon descending towards them from the sky, it all seemed motionless and silent until she realized the dragon above them wasn’t Amador’s, and was much, much larger.
The lancer’s glee turned to befuddlement and then rage again as the shadow being cast from the dragon above them grew in size rapidly. He spun, and as he swung his weapon in time to make a loud clanging sound as it collided with another lance of a design Anye hadn’t seen before.
The dragon overhead roared loudly as it flew towards them, much more loudly than Amador’s beast or any of the others from before. It was the same roar she had heard the night she and Amadi were on the western island. It was a massive creature with a wingspan the width of at least ten horses. Before it got too low, it pulled away, and a man leapt from its back down towards the small group.
Amador couldn’t move out of the way of the descending person fast enough, and he took the brunt of a kick to his chest. He sprawled into the dirt while the new assailant quickly shifted his attention to Kiya. Anye could barely see her savior after the beating she took, coupled with the dust and sweat that had fallen in her eyes, but she could tell he was fast and quite strong. He moved next to the woman before she had a chance to cast any kind of spell and, using some sort of magic, launched her away from them and into the rock wall behind her. His hand reached out without moving his feet or twisting his body, and the lance that Amador deflected away spun through the air, flying into his hand.
“I was wondering when you’d show up, Sturmwind,” Amador coughed as he got to his feet, wiping blood away from his lip.
“Glenn…?” Anye whispered as she struggled to breathe.
“You must have a death wish, Amador,” he answered. His voice was low, and trembled slightly with fury.
“Not today,” Amador replied. He stood squarely against his rival, but kept his distance knowing that if he were to fight him after his battle with Anye he’d likely lose, no matter how powerful he had become. “I think Kiya and I will take our leave of you pests.”
“Glenn dear, it’s so nice of you to visit me,” Kiya commented as she got back up.
“Silence, witch!” Glenn yelled as he pointed his spear at the woman. “You’re lucky I don’t cut you down here and now.”
“Now is that any way to speak to your wife?” she joked.
“You’re no wife of mine, you never were,” he replied quickly. “Leave, both of you. I won’t say it again unless you want Eisenzahn to dine on your corpses tonight.”
The giant dragon that had nosedived towards Amador when he had Anye within his grasp came down from its place in the air beside Glenn and roared. Unlike the dragons commonly found in Delrich’s army, or Amador’s rare colored black dragon, this one had a light blue hint to its scales and stood at least three times the size.
“Have it your way, Sturmwind,” Amador said. “I may have lost here today, but you’ll see that it matters little compared to what’s coming!”
Amador’s dragon flew down and landed next to the beaten knight, allowing him to climb onto its saddle. Kiya used a form of levitation magic to fly over towards them and climbed up as well, wrapping her arms around his torso as she looked seductively at Glenn.
“Goodbye, dear,” she said as the dragon took to the sky. “We’ll be seeing you soon.”
Glenn watched silently with the point of his spear still pointing at them until they flew out of sight, at which point he lowered the weapon and turned to quickly kneel down beside Anye.
Anye managed to focus her vision a little more. She could tell that Glenn wasn’t wearing the same armor he had been issued when he was promoted to captain, but little else was clear. Her blurred vision stung in her eyes and she desperately wanted to clean them or at the least wipe them off.
“Anye?” Glenn called out. He knelt down and lifted her in to his arms to cradle her as he spoke. “Anye, speak to me!”
“Glenn…?” she managed to say. “It really is you.” The pain in her stomach had started to fade but it still hurt to speak, and the cuts on her exposed skin stung from the dust sneaking in.
“Hold on,” he told her as he laid her down. He turned his head to face the blue dragon with him and yelled, “Eisenzahn!"
"Yes, I know," the incredibly deep voice of the creature said as it lowered its head towards the humans.
Anye may have been exhausted, and badly beaten, but that didn't stop the shock of hearing a dragon talk. She closed her eyes from the stinging, but continued to listen as it took in a deep breath of air and slowly exhaled over her. She expected warm, sticky, and most likely very smelly animal breath, but instead she felt cool, refreshing, and rejuvenating magic flow through her. When she inhaled the dragon's breath, she felt the pain in her gut and chest fade away, and the stinging in her cuts ceased.
The magic faded, and Anye was able to sit up and move her arms to wipe the sweat and dirt away from her eyes. She opened them afterwards, finally able to see clearly again. Amadi groaned as he got up from the ground as well, also healed by the dragon's breath. It took a second for her eyes to focus on the image of her old friend and the head of the massive beast beside him.
Anye’s heart raced, but not out of panic anymore. The happiness of seeing Glenn again, regardless of the circumstances, was hard to hide. She jumped from her place in his arms and hugged him tightly.
"I can't believe you’re really here!" she exclaimed.
Glenn lightly moved her away from him and smiled so they could look at each other's faces again. She was shocked to see that he had grown a beard, and his short brown hair was now long and shaggy. The most shocking change of all however, was that he was wearing a patch over his left eye. A scar now ran down his face from his forehead down the side of his cheek, passing underneath the small leather patch.
Now that Anye could fully see clearly again she examined the new armor her friend was wearing. The armor was more of a purple color than the light blue Glenn used to wear, and it was outlined and reinforced by what looked like silver. The main bulk of it looked to be made out of dragon scales that had been dyed to the near-azure hue. It almost looked savage in appearance. The chest plate also had a distinct emblem in its center of a tree growing out of a circle. The helmet on his head was a similar design to the one he used to wear, but was made out of the same materials as the rest of the armor. An old tattered cloak hung from his neck.
"It's good to see you again, Anye," Glenn told her. "But what are you doing here? I was sure you'd fled to Belrun to hide."
"I did," Anye told him. She wanted to explain everything that had happened, but before the woman could begin they were interrupted by the groaning of Amadi still recuperating from his earlier defeat.
"Friend of yours, I assume," Glenn commented.
Anye released Glenn from her grip and placed a hand on Amadi’s shoulder while she examined his face. Judging from the look of his quickly-healing wounds he had taken quite a beating from Glenn's wife while she was fighting Amador.
"Amadi are you alright?" she asked him.
"I am ok," he answered. "The pain has mostly subsided...oh my." Amadi paused mid-sentence when he noticed the dragon standing beside Glenn. "You're..." Amadi quickly bowed his head and kneeled. "I meant no disrespect, Ancient One."
The dragon snorted and lowered its head for a second to examine the boy kneeling before it. "Rise, child of the mother lands," it answered in its deep, booming voice.
Amadi lifted his head high and rose to his feet proudly. "Thank you, Ancient One."
"Glenn, this isn't your dragon from the
castle," Anye commented softly, somewhat awe stricken, as she realized what was going on. "And it can talk…"
"I have a name, human," the dragon sneered at her. "You would do well to show some respect like your friend there."
"Eisenzahn, please don’t get started...Even I didn't know who you were at first," Glenn interrupted exasperatedly.
The dragon huffed at its companion, but eventually grumbled an inaudible apology to Anye and lifted its head up high. "My name is Eisenzahn, guardian of the North Tower, and current monarch of dragon kind."
Anye blinked her eyes in amazement. "Eisenzahn? Monarch of dragon kind?" she asked. "I was unaware dragons could speak, let alone had a king."
"That is because your kind has been enslaving my kin for hundreds of years without regard for the old pacts," Eisenzahn replied angrily.
"My apologies," Anye quickly answered. She turned her attention to Glenn again, even though she was still in a little bit of shock and awe that a dragon of that size was with him and could speak. "Glenn, what happened to you?" she asked.
He walked towards her with his majestic spear in hand and pointed to his eye patch with his thumb. "You mean this? That was Amador," he told her in a low and somewhat angered tone. "He's all but taken over the throne since you escaped. What's worse, I believe his goals reach beyond just Delrich."
"I’ve recently started to suspect the same," Anye replied. “I’ve received word of the changes that have happened back home. None of it seemed to make sense.”
"Oh, it makes sense," Glenn commented. "He needed us out of the way to be able to manipulate His Majesty. After you fled, King Justin lost nearly all trust in me faster than I expected him to, and the situation rapidly degraded from there. You’re right; Amador’s after something bigger than the throne."
"Do you have any idea what it could be? What his plan is?" Anye asked.
"If Amador was simply after the throne he would have taken it by now," Glenn explained. "He wouldn't have come here without a reason. He wanted what’s in that tower for that end…for whom he's working for."
"For whom he’s working for? You think it could be the emperor of Mitus?" Anye inquired. “If he was, that would actually make a lot of sense…”
"Unfortunately no, I do not believe that to be the case. If my suspicions are correct, the person your adversary serves is a being of great evil that has been sealed away for centuries," Eisenzahn explained. "A man I nearly lost my life fighting against with your companions’ ancestors. A dark wizard named Stragus Markal."
"The dark one of legend," Amadi commented. "So, the stories are true then."
"Stragus? You mean the evil wizard from the stories of the ancient war?" Anye inquired. "And Glenn's ancestor..." She paused for a second while she stared at the man and examined his attire. "That armor...and Eisenzahn, you're the same from the stories as well. You fought alongside Doluka Sturmwind?"
"I did."
"Glenn, your name wasn't a coincidence...?"
Glenn laughed a little. "No, it turns out it wasn't. I'm a direct descendent of the Sturmwind bloodline. This was the armor he wore and this..." Glenn stopped as he held the intricately designed tri-bladed lance in front of him. "This was his weapon."
The lance was magnificent looking. A single blade in the center, lined up with the main body, jutted out from the middle of a gold engraved frame that had been adorned with a single round green gem on either side. Two smaller curved blades were attached to small extensions on the left and right of the gold fitting, making the design appear to be similar to that of a trident. The main body of the lance was fashioned out of the same mysterious blue metal as Amadi’s staff, which looked soft to the touch but shimmered like diamonds in the light. The center of the body had a soft looking gray wrapping of some sort held in place by two clips, and the bottom end had a similar, albeit smaller, gold ornamentation that served as the base for another two thin blades that, when viewed from a slight distance, looked like a set of pincers as opposed to the forked design at the bottom of Amador’s new lance.
"Starting to believe in myths and legends now, Anye?" Amadi asked her.
"I'm surprised she didn't already after traveling with someone like you," Eisenzahn commented. "Or have you not told her the origin of the weapon you wield?"
Anye turned to look at Amadi suspiciously. "No, he hasn't," she answered.
"If I may, we don't have a lot of time for idle chat," Glenn commented as he interrupted the scene. "Every second we waste gives Stragus more time to rebuild his strength." He turned to look to Anye, who was looking at him a little shocked. "Anye, why are you here?"
"I took a job," she answered. "I tried to live the life of a mercenary in Belrun and was sent here to recover an artifact for my employer, this boy's uncle, but Amadi believes the artifact holds some sort of power that will stop an evil presence he felt."
"I know of the horrors of the past returning," Amadi answered. "I witnessed firsthand what they were like in The Shroud."
"I imagine you did, boy," Eisenzahn said. "You were much too young to undergo that trial. It is surprising that you survived."
"Glenn, what are they talking about?" Anye asked.
Glenn looked dumbfounded, as if unsure how to answer the question. He eventually answered, though not without the sound of reservation in his voice. "These weapons, the lance and the boy's staff…they’re keys that acted as seals over segments of Stragus' ancient army," Glenn explained. He turned towards the gargoyles lining the dusty area. “These statues aren’t replicas of monsters; they are monsters, the ones that served in that dark legion. The trial Eisenzahn speaks of is for the would-be owner of the weapons. Removing them from their resting places breaks the seal locking demons in time, and the new owner must defeat them. Otherwise, they are killed and the weapon returns to its place to lock the demons away once more."
"Then we should leave this place alone and tell Lord Taggart about this," Anye said towards Amadi.
"No,'" Eisenzahn interjected. "Your foe was here to claim the weapon himself. With Stragus' magic helping him, he would have likely been able to, and he would have taken command of this portion of the demons instead of destroying them. Leaving it here unguarded risks giving the dark one a significant portion of his army back without resistance."
"Then what do you propose we do?" Anye asked.
Eisenzahn snorted as he chuckled. "You are more important to all of this than you realize, child," he told her, but before continuing he walked towards the massive sealed door to the tower. Each footstep he took caused a small tremor beneath their feet. "You three should head inside."
"But the door is sealed," Amadi countered. “I can feel the magic. It is old, very old…”
"Patience, young one," the great dragon said. It turned its gaze towards the tower while its eyes filled with the light of magic. He spoke, but not in words that the three humans had ever heard before; an ancient language with words only the deep vocal chords and tongue a dragon could say. The wind picked up, and a barrier appeared in front of the door; a seal of some sort making the shape that was on the cover of Delilah’s journal, appeared before them while Eisenzahn spoke. Before long, the barrier faded and the doors slowly swung open as the dragon finished his incantation.
"Amadi," Eisenzahn said as he backed away from the now opened structure. "When you return from within, you must tell me how you got inside the tower of The Shroud. A human, let alone a child, should never have been able to break the seal on its doors."
"I will, Ancient One," Amadi replied as he bowed his head.
The trio remained silent. Amadi was humbled, Glenn seemed confident, and Anye was simply confused. First Tao Long had his legends, then Amadi with his ridiculous stories of demons, the woman in the village whose name she had forgotten to ask in her tunnel vision and thirst for revenge, and now Glenn with his talking dragon who claimed to have once fought alongside Doluka Sturmwind.
But Anye’s doubts about everything quickly faded as they walked
within the tower and climbed the stairs. The torches along the walls instantly went ablaze as they approached. She could feel the old magic resonating within the structure, and as they climbed the feeling only became stronger and more concentrated. It was overwhelming, like smelling too much of a fragrance at one time and becoming lightheaded by it.
The walls that surrounded the winding staircase in the center that lead to the tower’s upper chambers were lined with murals depicting battles that had presumably been fought long ago, centuries before present day. Images of armies clashing against one another, dragons ruling over their own land, even murals dedicated to the memory of specific hung in place, forgotten by time. History animated before them, telling the story of how the tower came to be and eventually culminating with the image of an elegant sword and shield shining light from what Anye assumed was supposed to be within the tower they now stood inside. Above each of the murals, Anye noticed a symbol, the same symbol she just saw the magic seal take the shape of, on the ancient diary, on Glenn’s armor, and throughout various portions of the history she’d seen in Lord Taggart’s research; a giant tree growing out of a spherical shape, with its roots wrapping all the way around to the bottom.
The stairs came to an end in the uppermost chamber of the tower, evidenced by the shattered glass along the floor that had once been roof of the structure. A circular rug had once been present, but it had rotted away over the passage of time. At the far end of the circular room stood a massive statue of a man dressed in armor holding the most masterfully designed sword and shield Anye had ever laid her eyes on.
Anye and her companions approached the statue, stepping over the shards of glass while making a distinct crunching sound underfoot. As they got closer, they realized that the room was devoid of anything else. The statue was the only inhabitant until its visitors had arrived. As they got closer, Anye realized that the sculpture was breathtakingly lifelike regardless of its size. The features of a man, tall and handsome with long smooth hair dressed in a fashion of armor that was reminiscent of heavy chain mail. The imperfections of skin, details in eye shape, and even general human frame were amazing. Even more surprising, the sword and shield weren’t a part of the statue at all, but rather real armaments.