Dawn of Hope
Book II: Wrath of the Dragon King
Copyright © 2017 by Irden Forrest. All rights reserved.
No part of this publication or the information in it may be quoted from or reproduced in any form by means such as printing, scanning, photocopying or otherwise without prior written permission of the copyright holder except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Contents
PART ONE
Alliance
ONE
Truths
TWO
Riot
THREE
The Hidden
FOUR
Betrayer
FIVE
Agreements
PART TWO
Ignited
SIX
Teachings
SEVEN
Blood of my Blood
EIGHT
Burning
Part One:
Alliance
Chapter 1
Truths
Captivity had been the last thing the Linus brothers had been expecting to find in this new world.
The room was very dimly lit, its rough walls drowning into the shadows the further you stepped into the cell. It was mostly clean, with a semi-private bathroom area and two bunk beds attached to each other, but the feeling was still there. Whatever praises you may have for Elven architecture, this is still a prison, Samantha thought.
She still felt ashamed about the way she had treated Faye on that fateful day when they met. Right now the girl was resting on her shoulder with a sad look on her face. Zack was pacing along the cell bars like a lion in a cage. It had been a few hours since they’d been escorted into the prison at spearpoint — as if they were criminals.
“I can’t believe this.” Zack shook his head and grimaced. His fury was clear to the eye. Samantha had been watching him closely for a while, praying that he didn’t attempt to blow his way out with his newfound powers.
“Please, don’t do anything silly…” She didn’t even see him react. He probably won’t wait much longer. It might be time to bring a subject up that can help us pass our time. “Faye?”
The little girl looked up and her eyes widened. Sammy had avoided bothering her with questions since their arrival, but sooner or later Faye had to tell her tale.
“Yes, Samantha?” Her eyes were still moist and she looked terrified and defenseless.
Here goes nothing. “Well, the most obvious question is the following: how did you end up here and why are you alone? Where did Shinji and Julia go?” Samantha studied the kid’s reaction and noticed how much it frightened her when she mentioned Shinji and Julia.
“I…I…” Faye couldn’t form the words and Sammy began to wonder what exactly had happened.
“Speak.” Zack had stopped walking around and was looking at the glaring at the girl impatiently.
“Something happened to Shinji as we escaped. At first he was acting normal, but then it was as if a switch had flicked. He stopped, and Julia turned to get him. ‘I don’t belong with you’, he said. ‘I belong with them’. And then he shot flames up into the sky from his hand. Julia tried to stop him from announcing our location but it was too late, the Dragons were already coming straight toward us.”
“What happened next?” Zack seemed shocked to hear of what had occurred.
“I grabbed Julia and tried to pull her away before it was too late. She thought that somehow she could convince Shinji that he was wrong. Even I could see that something strange had taken control of him and…” Faye shook her head with sorrow. “Well, then the Dragons arrived.” It clearly was painful for her to remember the events in the forest.
“If that’s the case, how did you get away?” Zack narrowed his eyes at the girl and she flinched slightly, backing away from him and Sammy.
The sound of soft footsteps interrupted the trio’s conversation and they turned to the entrance to the cell. An armored Elven guard stood there and began to fumble for some keys in his belt.
“Ancients, it is time to come with me. I will explain life in the prison to you while we walk. It’s lunchtime and food is awaiting you elsewhere. Follow me and be quick about it. I don’t want you mixing with the other prisoners.” The tall guard looked friendly despite his tone and Zack nodded, throwing a final suspicious glance at Faye before stepping out of the room. The guard was a broader Elf than the ones they had seen before, padded armor covering him from head to toe. A baton-like weapon sat on his belt and he called for another guard to follow them when they exited the corridor.
“Why are you walking so quickly past the cells?” Samantha asked.
“You don’t understand, do you? We already have trouble keeping the peace between the different races here. Ancients are a long-extinct kind, what do you think will happen if we throw you in with the rest? The Orcs and Trolls will surely want to tear you apart and see what you’re made of.” Nobody asked any more questions after that, and they headed towards a separate area of the prison. Climbing up a flight of stairs, the group was amazed at how everything in this part of the jail was more elegant without losing its defensive, impenetrable nature.
A thick crystal door awaited them ahead and the guard called for it to be opened. Somewhere, somebody gave an order and the door began to swing outward. Off-duty guards turned and looked at the new arrivals.
“Let them in and be quick,” he said in his own language. “Kallen the Wise will have us hanged if they’re hurt.”
The massive door shut behind them and Zack realized they were in the guard’s barracks. There were some already eating, their eyes switching between the food on their plates and the dark window on the far wall in front of them. Samantha stepped closer and looked through it; it allowed the Elves to keep watch over the prisoners in the main areas without being seen.
“It’s strange that we’re being allowed in here,” Zack muttered.
“It is. I am Sergeant Niassen, head of the Crystal Fortress Guard Force. We understand that you are high-value captives. You are to be released within the next days, so we are making sure to take good care of you.”
Samantha bristled.
“Days? Surely, something can be done so that by tomorrow at most we can be free once again?”
Niassen shook his head.
“We have come to talk to you about life in the city; our Lord’s commands are not up for discussion.” He ignored Samantha’s disgusted mutters. “You will be assigned your own residence while our kin decide what to do with you. I recommend that you watch out for each other and do not speak to strangers on the city’s streets. Not all Elves possess good intentions.” Food — mostly vegetables, though a bit of meat was included — was brought to them in glass plates and they were given chairs. The sergeant continued to talk while they ate. “We are proud to have encountered you. Your kind has not been seen for a long time in this world and our enemies would have truly used you as an advantage in their destructive plans if they had come across your group beforehand. Elves are a race of peace; Dragons seek only to cause pain.”
“Sergeant,” Zack said with a dark expression. “There are more of us out there. At least one or two of them have been captured by the Dragons.”
The room went silent.
“Captured?” Niassen looked away and sighed, before translating to his fellow guards. There were reac
tions of shock. “This is worse than we thought, then.” He turned to Faye. “You were there with the rest of your people, correct? Is that all of them? You three and two others?”
Zack didn’t need to make any signals, Faye was a good liar.
“Yes. Just us.” She then proceeded to explain what had happened, without including the part where they had acquired powers. There was a chance that the scout who had seen them had not relayed that particular piece of information, after all, none of the other Elves had mentioned it since.
“I see. I must talk to our Lord. It is past time that you return to your cells and we find out what the next move is. The Dragon King has just obtained an important ally.” Sergeant Niassen spoke to his guards, before turning back to them. “Let’s go.”
Samantha looked through the windows one final time before leaving. None of the prisoners were in the main areas anymore. Probably back to their cells, she thought. Is lunch already over?
The large door opened, and Faye stepped out beside the sergeant. Samantha felt something was wrong.
“What are you doing? Come with us,” Zack said. Sammy shook her head slightly. Her sixth sense was never wrong.
“Something is happening outside.”
Zack turned away from her and back toward Faye and Niassen, who were reaching the bottom of the flight of steps leading back to their cells. That was when he saw the looks on their faces as they spotted what was expecting them at the very bottom.
Niassen cried out and Faye screamed in fear.
“Go back, go bac—” The crude, hand-made blade rammed into the Elven officer’s chest and he fell to the ground. Faye stumbled up the stairs as Zack ran down to meet her. The corridor at the bottom of the stairs became visible.
The entire prison population had made its way there. A massive Troll stepped forward, his misshapen head carrying a smile and his blade sticky with blood. The mob behind him shifted and prepared to attack.
“There they are, boys. Remember the reward we’re getting for these Ancients. Dead or alive, they told us. Get them!”
Chapter 2
Riot
“Bow!” Samantha screamed, watching her brother and the little girl running up the steps that led back to the guarded room. Though she did not speak the Elvish tongue, the guards behind her understood. An Elven crossbow was thrown at her with a quiver of bolts. The guards themselves picked up swords and sprinted towards the door. It began to close. “No! Stop!” Samantha pulled a guard away from the gate’s mechanism and began to fire down at the advancing monsters. A Troll was hit several times, needing five of the bolts to its chest to fall. Goblins were harder to hit, but Sammy was just too accurate.
She saw Faye trip and fall near the top of the steps and her heart stopped. An Orc grabbed her by the leg and lifted his axe with his other hand. It grinned from ear to ear.
“Get away!” Zack roared. Samantha saw him smash his hands together. The time had come.
Bright green light flashed from his palms and he swung the long blade that formed from it. The Orc cried out in pain and fell back onto a line of prisoners chasing closely behind. He threw Faye over his back and threw himself through the doorway before Samantha reactivated the mechanism and it slammed shut.
The Elven guards were fighting among them when Zack lifted himself from the ground and dusted Faye off from their fall.
“What’s going on?! How did this happen?”
One of the guards stepped away from his fellows and spoke with a strong accent.
“Big trouble,” he managed to say. Ancient isn’t a very easy language for them, it seems. “They has weapons. Prisoners enter arm…armory. Some enemy is helping.”
Samantha understood.
“The enemy knows we’re in here. They infiltrated the prison somehow and set the prisoners on us.” Her heart pounded in her chest. How had things gotten so bad all of a sudden? “Is the city under attack?”
The Elf who had spoken to them suddenly digested the thought.
“I do not know…”
Crack. Something hard hit the massive door all of a sudden and broke part of the outside layer. The guards yelled in shock. The shadow of the huge Troll on the other side lifted its weapon once more.
“That Troll, it’s going to smash through. We have to be ready.” Zack looked determined. Faye was sitting on a table, grabbing her head. She didn’t look well.
“There is other way.” The Elf that had spoken before pointed at the observation windows and his fellow guards grabbed heavy hammers.
“Is that the only way?” Faye asked fearfully. Jumping from the windows meant landing in the middle of the prison’s unguarded facilities. Where are the guards anyway? There was only one chilling thought that crossed through their minds as they wondered.
“Yes!” The guard made a slicing signal and his companions began to smash their hammers into the windows. Outside, others had joined the Troll in their attempts to smash down the door. Zack and Samantha stood by; ready to fight anything that came through. Faye continued to tremble on the table, her eyes shifting from one group to another.
“We are going to die in here,” she breathed.
Samantha turned for a moment, long enough to put a hand on the girl’s shoulder and squeeze it.
“Enough of that.” Another loud crack meant more bad news. The prisoners were going to smash the gate before the guards could bust open the windows, it was clear.
Zack formed a shining blade in his hands and shook his head.
“Get ready.”
SMASH
One of the windows blew outwards with the force of a powerful hammer blow, and the Elven guards threw ropes out onto the main hall. It was time to go.
Zack grabbed onto a rope and wrapped it around Faye, before jumping down on a rope of his own. Samantha threw Faye down to him and leaped off the window right after. The guards came slowly, the dozen Elves having to share the three ropes among them.
“Hurry!” Samantha cried, but it was too late.
SMAAAASH
They all knew what that meant.
The guards threw themselves down, some landing heavily amongst tables and other objects. The group ran as fast as they could as bloodthirsty Orcs, Trolls and even Dwarves ran into the guard room and realized that their targets had escaped.
The Elves sprinted to the main entrance of the prison and tore the gates open. Light flooded into the prison and the city became visible. It wasn’t under attack, fortunately. The shimmering field surrounding the jail was flickering on and off.
“The field seems to be faulty; someone must have tampered with it!” Zack cried.
“We have to stay and fight enemy. City in danger. You go.” The Elven guard was strict in his order.
Zack shook his head.
“I’m sick of running. That’s all we’ve done since we arrived. That’s all we’ve ever done, even in our own world. Run, flee from all the danger and live to fight another day.” He lifted his fists and prepared himself for the coming battle. “Today we fight.”
Samantha and Faye stepped forward beside him as scores of prisoners charged out of the barrel-shaped building, roaring with fury and cursing at the guards in front of them.
An axe flew toward him and Zack lifted his hand to catch it. With a swift movement he slammed the axehead into the ground and released a powerful shockwave from his hands. The earth ahead of the group shattered and tore as a powerful seism ripped through it. Some of the prisoners were swallowed whole by the collapsing earth.
The Troll leader pounced forward into the Elves and began to smash each of them aside ruthlessly with its club. He took powerful hammer blows to his arms and chest and shrugged them off like a battle tank. Orcs and other Trolls gathered around him while many of the other prisoners attempted to escape.
Samantha fired at the escapees with her powers, putting each of them down with a single shot. A broad smile appeared on her face.
“Stop fleeing, cowards!”
A Dwarf
caught her by surprise, sweeping her off her feet with a hard tackle. The crossbow flew out of her hands and she struggled to squirm away from the prisoner.
“Cowards? We’re no such thing, Ancient. Oh, I’m going to turn you in and make myself rich…But first, you’re going to pay for that insult!” Powerful blows rained down on her as he and other Dwarves punched and kicked at her frame.
Zack…Her brother was too far away, and she could see him locked in single combat with the massive Troll. The guards, too, were struggling to hold on.
“Faye! Help me!” The girl stood there staring in terror at what was going on. She couldn’t even move. “Faye!” A hard kick knocked Samantha dizzy, and she felt herself losing consciousness.
Faye heard the screams and the thing inside her stirred once more. Enough of your ridiculous fears, girl, it spat. It had been fighting hard to take control ever since the shrine, but Faye had kept it locked up. You have to release me now, or you’ll all die…
Wrath of the Dragon King (Dawn of Hope, Book 2) Page 1