The Circle of Duty

by Owen Elgie

  They all settled into a circling cone of living matter directly overhead, circling us in a perfectly ordered holding pattern, just waiting on the word from Leatherpants to attack. Looking up at the primed army of horror, I could see expression after expression of pained hatred. Every Tayne which passed by overhead knew what they were doing. They were all acting as puppets rather than under their own control. Checking on as many of them as I could, again and again I saw them seething with anger towards not Em and I, but Leatherpants for making them do yet another task when all they wanted to do was go home.

  They were going to attack me but they were in practically the same position as Maria. Each and every one of them was doing something they didn’t want to and were being dragged through agony by another.

  I could feel the fire building in the pit of my stomach. Blazing rage was kindled and growing.

  Leatherpants’ voice pierced the gloom and brought the fight into focus.

  “My dear clown. The Circle is dying and I will be that which is left when it finally withers from the branch. I will be a worthy owner of that power.” He was smiling again but his sharp teeth were bared and he salivated almost uncontrollably.

  He absent mindedly stroked the jewel on his jacket as he said, “I will enjoy the show of you being ruined at the hands of these weak things.” His smirk continued to show his madness. But it also showed something else. He didn’t know that I’d removed the piece of the Drake Stone from my neck. He thought he was going to be able to control me to inaction as he brought the Tayne down on me.

  “Mr. Ward,” started Em, her face grey under the strain of the waves of power in the cavern. “Please stop what you are doing. You’ve seen what The Circle stands against. You’ve seen the war we're all fighting. Please let us continue to keep the world safe.” Her voice had lost some of its edge but she was still a commanding presence. Leatherpants’ eyes widened at her pleading.

  “War? What war? All The Circle have ever done is conquer. A stolen power and a violent desire to hold control.” He paused before adding, “I think you should see what it means for you to be at the position on the food chain you truly inhabit as a species.”

  He whispered a single phrase under his breath and all of the Tayne just stopped their circling, and hovered above us, each distorted set of eyes trained solely on Em and I. His fingers stroked lazily at that crystal pin on his lapel, an almost unconscious act to soothe and placate.

  “I hold the power to control the Cascade, to control all of The Circle, in my hand. I control everything you could possibly be able to bring to bear on me." His tone crackled with a hideous confidence, unafraid of anything. "Now, these little things," he gestured to the Tayne, "should show exactly why you should be afraid of me.” His eyes bulged with anticipation and more gobs of saliva fell from his withering face, spattering the floor at his feet.

  “I have the ultimate power to be able to make a race do my bidding. They can’t not, even if they so very badly desire to resist me.” The Tayne just flapped above us and all eyes bored down.

  There was nothing else for it. He was going to bring them all down on us and unless we were ready for the attack there was going to be no saving anyone. I couldn’t risk it. Whispering as loudly as I could, I asked Em, “If I take the Tayne, can you handle Leatherpants? Get The Drake Stone out of that frame? I’ll make as much mayhem as I can and keep the Tayne away from him so he can't kick start his Bridging but you need to give that asshole the beating he so richly deserves.”

  Em just nodded quickly once. I didn't wait for anything further.

  My fire blossomed in my head and in seconds, the giant red Guardian of The Circle stood on the field of play. I blasted out a contemptuous shot of smoke from my nostrils and just waited for Leatherpants to acknowledge what he was up against.

  Leatherpants didn’t even react. The Tayne though showed clearly that they were aware of what was before them. Not a single one moved but it was painfully clear to see that they could all recognize that they were about to come into direct contact with a most dangerous foe and they’d all much rather just turn and head back to Mexico. But they couldn’t. Despite that screaming terror, each and every one of them was locked onto the task at hand at the control of someone they’d been betrayed by.

  These were potential allies.

  “TAYNE WARRIORS,” I roared into the cavern. “I know you act at the will of this creature here.” I thrust out an accusing finger at Leatherpants just in case. “I will defend myself against attack but I will also be trying to free you.” Their wings were still beating but there was still no other sound from them.

  “I have promised your Queen that I will return you to her but I will need your help to do this. When you are able, tell me where the piece of crystal is on your body and I’ll do the best I can to free you from his spell.”

  There was no further warning but Leatherpants must have just realized that I’d given the Tayne a vital piece to the puzzle of their freedom. As one, the Tayne just fell from the sky and began to crash down onto me with huge force. Reflexively, I threw my arms up to shield my face and then spread my wings as much as I could to spread that protection as wide as I could. At my feet, Em roared out her own scream of defiance and sensibly dived away from me, doing her best to escape the column of falling bodies as she brought together her own energy into that magical shell of hers and she vanished from site.

  With as much force as I could muster, I heaved my tail through the rapidly growing, seething pile of flesh at my feet and scattered the bulk of the Tayne in a wide arc away from me. Hundreds of bodies were lifted away but they were soon replaced as more and more Tayne fell limply from the sky, almost as if their strings had been cut. Roaring all of the time, making it impossible for Leatherpants to look away for fear of missing my collapse, I brought my tail back through the pile of bodies and began to kick and swipe at the Tayne, doing my best to simply keep them away from me. Avoiding being buried by the weight of numbers was my first priority as images of the ‘sea’ which had been above the ground came to mind.

  Back and forth I slapped my limbs, shoveling away truckloads of the creatures in each movement but, even after mere seconds, I was already up to my knees in the lifeless bodies. I needed to get out from under the flow before I was buried.

  Dropping down onto all fours, I hurled myself forward, bursting through the meat torrent and, still holding my wings in as much of a shroud as I could manage I sailed away from the initial point of attack, again, still roaring. Opening my eyes, which I must have closed on sheer reflex, I had to take in as many details of what was taking place as I could as I was not only expecting the falling Tayne to follow me but I knew I had to give Em the best chance to play her part.

  I’d been turned round in my efforts to defend myself from the Tayne and instead of finding myself soaring over the fallen rock which had been ahead of us, I instead watched in shock as the platform which Leatherpants had been stood with Maria flew past underneath me. By the look on his face, he hadn’t been expecting me to do that either. I considered taking a swat at him with my tail as I passed overhead but he was still standing practically on top of Maria. There was no way I could risk hitting her. Instead, I just sailed over them and unfurled my wings to their full span and glided away, banking around to my right to circle back towards where I’d just come from. I wondered if Em was OK.

  As I turned back to the fight, the previous cascade of Tayne had ceased. Now, rather than them just falling to the ground to swamp me, they had all started to head after me. Quickly. I hadn’t noticed earlier but the giant mutant Tayne that we’d been attacked by in Mexico had been held out of the first assault. I’d been engulfed by hundreds of the smallest and weakest members of the Tayne but now the chase was underway, the bigger, stronger monsters were taking their turn. The first thing for me to do, which was probably going to be the easiest really, was just outrun them. All I had to do was stay ahead of the crowd and hope that Em was going to be able to somehow
overpower Leatherpants and free the Drake Stone and then Maria, which she needed Hairy for at the very least. It may have been the easiest thing for me but it wouldn’t actually achieve anything in terms of freeing everyone else and saving the world.

  Thumping my wings hard I headed further away from Leatherpants, out towards the nearest edge of the blast radius cave which had once been Bress Tal. The Tayne followed behind, fast. There was a deep hooting as they came, feeling akin to the bugle blasts of a fox hunt. Oddly clear that it was me who was the fox. I was red after all. Ahead of me the wall closed rapidly until, with a subtle change of weight, I was banking left and gliding with my belly just feet from the rock. Still, the Tayne followed me in a single column, closing the space between as fast as they’re bodies could allow. I needed to get the crystal shards out of them so I could get down to the real business here. Time was running out for Maria because of the power in her but also for all of us thanks to the impending attack from The Elder. No matter which way you looked at it, I didn’t have time for this.

  Changing tack, I headed up, beating wings hard and lifting myself high up the side of the cavern. As expected, the Tayne adjusted their course to follow. I climbed as hard as I could and hoped what I was planning wasn’t just as stupid as it sounded in my head the second time I ran through it. Nearing the roof of the cavern, I folded my wings back into my body and allowed gravity to do the rest.

  Falling backwards I was quickly aimed nose to nose with the onrushing creatures. None of them even altered their course. They all just continued to soar straight for me, Leatherpants obviously content to just have them smash into me and bring me out of the air by sheer weight of numbers. I narrowed my eyes as we neared impact and picked out the two Tayne I needed.

  When we met, I had my arms outstretched and took a firm hold of two of the Tayne mutants before pulling them in close to my chest as I ploughed through and scattered the cloud of bodies. Opening my mouth as I went, I blasted out as strong a gust of air as I could manage. I knew that fire could only be used as a last resort so instead I wanted to just clear them out of my way. Tayne tumbled and sprawled in all directions and that same hooting filled my ears as I hammered on.

  Smashing through to open space I quickly set off in the opposite direction, leading the Tayne back towards Leatherpants but with some minor surgery to perform on my way. Transferring the Tayne in my left hand to instead be gripped tightly in the claws of my right foot, I raised the other close to my face and roared at it, “Where did he put the crystal on you?” Its face showed it knew what I was after though it was raking and clawing at my hand in an attempt to break free, no doubt being pushed by Leatherpants. It mouthed something but with the air whipping past as I flew on as hard as I could manage, it was lost. Pleading for it to try again I held it closer to my ear and this time, despite the wind, the snapping of its jaws and the risen fear in both of us, I could make out a gentle, single word. “Arm.”

  I manipulated it as carefully as I was able but my need for speed was quickly overtaking the desire to be painless. First one arm, then the other, I searched and watched the reaction of the creatures eyes. Eventually it was clear that it was signaling the inside of its right forearm.

  “I’m sorry about this but I’ll be as careful as I can.”

  It screamed. I’d tried to be gentle but I was still aiming to just scoop out a lump of flesh rather than extract the shard. The tip of my claw had been intended to only take the top layer of flesh at most but with all the other distractions going on, I pushed too hard. Thick blood was quick to appear and begin running down the arm of the Tayne. I could feel the syrupy liquid spattering against my chest and stomach as I flew and could only imagine what the other Tayne must have been thinking from its location in my clawed foot.

  Then the bucking of the Tayne in my hand stopped. It was still making a noise of some kind but it was still now. Was it bleeding out? Taking as drastic a step as I dared, I blasted a column of fire out to my left and held my claw scalpel out into it, superheating it. It glowed with incandescent light and without any warning to my patient of what was going to happen, I did my best to stop the bleeding by placing the heated claw into the wound I’d just made.

  This time it really screamed. Its warped eyes widened to the point of bursting as it just roared in agony. But soon it wasn’t agony in its eyes. It was weeping, as you’d expect, but it was happiness there now.

  “Oh my Lord, thank you, thank you, thank you.” It now had a strong, determined voice which was easy to hear. It was free of Leatherpants.

  “No problem,” I replied needing to get to the next part of the plan.

  “Can you do the same thing to your friend back there?” It flexed its arm where I’d done my work and took stock of what it could do.

  “I can my Lord,” and it just squirmed free of my loosened grip and fell back to my foot, gripping to my leg as it arrived before getting straight to work on its compatriot.

  Looking back as it went about its task, the swarming hoard of Tayne still under the control of Leatherpants were now nearly on top of me, their leading numbers slavering at the effort they had been expending to catch up. My first instinct sent me tumbling down to skim along the ground, hoping that the change would at least give me a chance to come up with what I was going to do next. Down they came after me and immediately it became clear that I wasn’t going to be able to outrun them but now I didn't have to contend with a fall from great height when they did catch up. The hooting and screaming continued but it was now all around me as the living cloud began to draw ever nearer.

  “You done yet?” I roared back to the single Tayne I’d freed. There wasn't any kind of response but when I risked a quick glance in their direction, to my horror, I was in time to see the two of them leap clear of my foot and head straight up as fast as their wings could carry them. They were running. My roar was born of pure frustration but if I made it through all of this, I'm sure I'd be able to understand why they did it. It did, though leave me without the original plan of attack so as I skimmed the ground with the swarming Tayne following almost at touching distance, I knew I needed another way out.

  Ahead of me, the clearing Leatherpants had set his little base up within was now being well lit from something inside. A yellow light was pulsing up and out from within the bowl of rock and the closer I got, it was obvious that it was coming from Maria. Shaking my head against the ever thickening mental fog which was all around me, I powered on over the top of the glow and tried my best to take in any of the details, risking dropping as much of my speed as possible.

  Leatherpants was still stood next to the prone form of Maria and despite the speed I was travelling at, I could see that he was gloating at me. He gripped tightly onto the framework surrounding the Drake Stone and slid the different bars around like he was manipulating a massive combination lock. Maria was still shackled to the stone and her voice was still being suppressed in some way but her agony was clear. The warm yellow blaze of light was blasting in all directions from that poor child but, even with such a snatched glimpse, I could tell far too easily that there was nothing soft and pleasant about it. The light wasn't just glowing from within Maria, it was pushing through her, forcing against that which was binding it. That light had weight, it had mass. Time seemed to slow to almost a standstill as I passed and every stark detail of the pain being inflicted was burned onto my eyes. It was breaking her.

  But it was also breaking the others buried in those stone blocks. Even as I arrowed through the thick air, I could see that Leatherpants was already commencing his own Bridging, despite my running of the Tayne on a little wild goose chase. That yellow glow was coming from Andrea, Mike, Mark and Hairy as well but rather than it pushing against their skin as if it were trying to break free, instead it was being drained from them, being pulled from a place way beyond just the physical, as if their bodies represented a piece of paper between two magnets, just getting in the way to no effect. The freed power swirled and washed throug
hout the small area, practically relishing the freedom beyond the flesh but it was being drawn towards the caged Drake Stone, no doubt to hold it ready for Leatherpants to affect the transfer.

  There was no sign of Em anywhere as I passed overhead.

  In a heartbeat, I'd cleared the site and the Tayne were all still following me, giving no suggestion that Leatherpants had changed their focus.

  I couldn't maintain this kind of action. I wasn't achieving anything just by running away from all those things that were chasing me. All I was doing was running the clock down which was just going to kill Maria. As I flew, all I could see again was the fact that Leatherpants had planned for just this eventuality. He'd correctly predicted exactly how I'd go about trying to slow him down and had made plans to let me think I was doing something all the while he had something totally different in mind.

  The first spindly pressure broke my self-pity as the first Tayne finally reached out and took a grip on my tail. The shock of which caused me to push harder on the speed to get away from what was behind me, purely listening to reflex. As I flew on, I shuffled through as many ideas as I could fit in my head, trying to conjure some clever way of being able to out flank or out think Leatherpants before he could claim the power of a Guardian for himself but nothing was sufficient. Every possible idea I could come up with would no doubt have some kind of elaborate counter move from him which would again leave me defeated. All of the people I'd put in harm's way would be lost. Mike and Mark had followed because that was what they'd been expected to do, Hairy because he was going to become something he'd wanted for years and Andrea ...

  Andrea.

  I could picture her laying lifelessly on that stone altar of his, all of the life pulled from her leaving nothing but a grey and wizened husk and my mind roared. My Dragon self screamed inside my head and thundered its balled fists against the cage of my mind. In all of this, in everything I'd been doing throughout every action within the Circle, I'd been trying to always keep my beast controlled and not go outside the 'proper' way of behaving. All the time, I'd been trying to resist the urge to just go on instinct for fear of doing something wrong or leaving myself open to some kind of attack. My power was manipulated in the realm of the Tayne so it became a liability. All of the time, that preening fool had been keeping me in his arena.