The Circle of Duty

by Owen Elgie

  Rebounding from the blockade, they fired away directly at where my four comrades were trapped. I watched them ping through the air and waited for the impact on the shield surrounding my allies. Instead, I was greeted by a startling sight. The rocks drove deeply into the stone above Mike and cracked it perfectly down behind him, breaking him free of his bonds as it did. I hadn't even considered the fact that they wouldn't have been protected and it would appear that Leatherpants hadn't even considered the fact that I might make any kind of attempt to save my friends first before Maria. That said, aside from some very dumb luck, he'd been right.

  In an instant, his limp form slumped away from the others embedded in the stone and fell to the ground in an unordered pile of limbs. Coupled to that, a vast segment of the swirling energies in the air were wrenched away from the whole to return to the donor who'd given it up. That power was absorbed back into Mike, akin to him taking in a mighty restorative breath.

  The effect on the remaining cloud and on what Leatherpants was trying to accomplish was instant. The runes and sigils of the cage structure which had been glowing as they'd been moved all winked out at once bringing to mind so many eyes all blinking closed at once in fear and disgust at what they were seeing. The Drake Stone flared once before losing the building light back to the ether and Maria's scream lessened by a degree as some of her power was restored to her and the energy cloud was quickly returned to the others as well, inflating them all with returned life.

  Leatherpants was driven back in shock at the sudden change from the subject of his attention. He hadn't shown even the barest hint that he was even aware that anything had been happening outside his immediate sphere of attention so the jarring of the power at his fingertips must have been shocking in the extreme. He was fast to regain himself and from behind his wall of energy, which was now crackling through with an energetic ripple, almost warping under an unseen force, his eyes burst alive with a sickening hatred.

  "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" He screamed and screamed out at the one who'd just undone what he saw as being his right. My own anger was still close to the surface but I needed to nudge him over the edge into madness before trying to do anything. I just couldn't risk him having the tactical advantage.

  "Sorry shorty. You really do need to ask permission before taking someone else's toys. If something doesn't belong to you, you can't just take it." I needed him to be so consumed with the desire to hurt me that it would at least give me some time to do something. I still wasn't sure what that something was going to be. In response, Leatherpants growled wildly while dragging his hands through his lank red hair, his eyes rolling back in his skull. When he brought his hands away, they held clumps of his hair which he'd not just pulled out, but had uprooted with ragged lumps of flesh still attached. That made me gasp silently. He stood there shaking, every sinew of his body just tensing to almost breaking point, his eyes still turned inwards as the nausea in the air seemed to grow even further. Was Maria approaching meltdown? She was silent now but her body was still breaking and dissolving.

  I was about to risk a dive for her and the Drake Stone when Leatherpants snapped his glare back down on me. He'd been an arrogant, power mad arse since I'd met him and there had never once been the suggestion that I'd got that assessment wrong but his eyes showed now that he was something so very much worse. Both of his eyes seemed to have been punctured and had dribbled down the lapels of his suit. In the space they'd inhabited, there now appeared the eyes of something else. Two golden orbs, devoid of pupils of any kind, peered out from that degrading face. In that instant, I knew that I was looking at something very different from what he'd been mere moments ago.

  Leatherpants took a purposeful step forwards back to the cage surrounding the Drake Stone, and raised one deliberate hand to brush ever so delicately over the jewel pinned to his lapel.

  "Sorry sunbeam," I called out. "I think the Tayne are all but done with you and your mind games. Hadn't noticed that they haven't come to play since I got here?" My own confidence was building at his apparent oversight. His golden eyes, unblinking and somehow serpentine, remained fixed on me as his long fingers left his lapel to instead perform rudimentary moves on the central arm of the cage surrounding the Drake Stone. As he moved, he spoke, and his retort was unexpected.

  "Tayne? No Tayne." His voice was altered now, as if something had finally been released. It was much deeper, far more confident and much more venomous. Gone was the small man standing up to claim what he wanted. In its place, his voice was angrily confident, intelligent yet bestial. The fingers worked again and I could see what he'd meant when he dismissed the Tayne as his weapon.

  From a point next to him on the rocky platform he'd based himself, one which had been empty a mere second earlier, with a scorching fury ablaze all around and murder etched through every sinew, walked Em.

  35

  She just flowed forward, passing Leatherpants without a glance, all of her attention focused on me. What was she doing? Why hadn't she just slapped him down when she'd got close instead of now aiming her ire at me? Step by step she continued to move towards the edge of the rocky ledge they were standing on, closing on the shield wall that had been brought up. And without breaking step, she passed through as calmly as if it hadn't existed, before jumping down to the floor of the cavern before me.

  That's why she hadn't been able to bring Leatherpants down on her own. That's why I hadn't been able to see her doing anything by way of fighting. Somehow Leatherpants had been able to tap into the chunk of stone in her chest and use the same trick to control her. And she was showing that she was going to tear every inch of me from every other inch of me under the control of a lunatic. Despite the huge size difference between us, I edged back away from her as she slowly, deliberately strode over the pitted floor of the cavern towards me.

  "Em. Can you hear me? You don't want to do this, we're on the same side remember?" My giant taloned hands were raised in as clear a gesture of non-conflict as I could muster but there was no response from Em as she just kept coming closer. Her suit was again more of a crystalline whole that being of fabric or even plates of the stuff. Her skin had a subtle purple hue and looked to be as hard as her clothing but in her eyes, where she had once had so much strength but suffused with a naivety, was now pleading dread. She was going to kill me but she was watching on as it was going to happen, locked away inside her own body. Back on the platform behind her, I could see that Leatherpants was back at work with the Drake Stone and that that diffuse yellow glow was rising again.

  "Help me my Lord." Her voice was stretched thin and pleading, giving me yet another person who was hurting because of the choices I'd made.

  I didn't have time for this.

  All I had to do was make certain that I gummed up Leatherpants' spell, everything after that would just have to be a plus at this point. If I could save everyone else, catch the bad guy and make sure I didn't die along the way, I'd love to know what more was expected of me.

  Em didn't let me consider my options any further. She just blurred into motion and, even before I'd been able to register that she was going to attack, I'd felt an immediate, crushing grip close on my left leg before I was heaved away from where I'd been stood with a strength far beyond anything I was expecting. Em. She's thrown me relatively flat so there was going to be no way I'd be able to right myself and extend my wings before I hit the ground so I'd have to make do with as comfortable a crash landing as I'd be able to fashion.

  My attempt at comfort didn't work. I just skidded through stone outcroppings and towers, all the while trying to keep my fragile wings as tightly clasped to my back as I could. Slamming my right hand at the ground as hard as I could, I was able to pierce the stone surface with my claws and slow my momentum enough to at least get me back on my feet. As quick as I could, I tracked my eyes all over the available landscape and did my best to pinpoint Em as she no doubt closed in on her next attack. Nothing moved. There was no sound for me to lock onto as a cu
e of her whereabouts and the only thing I could smell was the dusty air which was still billowing all around me. And then there she was. She shimmered into being before me, at the zenith of a running leap, no doubt from within her cloaking bubble of energy, and she had her right fist balled ready to pulverize me when she landed.

  I reacted on pure instinct. I'm not a fan of wasps and other buzzing insects, never have been, and I react in the same way whenever I encounter one of them. I bypass rational thought and just start to flail my arms about by way of protection. As such, seeing something much smaller than me suddenly appear on a collision course with my head brought out the old fears and I just struck out with both hands as I tried to protect my face. I managed to swat Em away and she was thrown away from me to land beyond a large mass of fallen rock to my left. She was being controlled by that creature just as we all had but to see her, almost the ultimate innocent in The Circle, was just beyond anything I could allow.

  "I'm Sorry Em," I boomed after her. She had to know that I was going to do everything I could to help and that I wasn't trying to kill her. "I'm going to need your help to be able to stop this. Just answer the questions and I'll do the rest." There was no response to start with, the air remaining charged by tension but that tension was quickly cracked as I heard her reply, "I will. Please help me." The sound was moving ahead of me now, showing just how quickly she'd been able to brush off the landing and get moving again, but her voice also showed me something else. As Leatherpants controlled her actions, she was crying.

  My monster climbed up behind my eyes and the scarlet which swam across my vision became that of righteous violence. He was hurting yet another innocent. The pictures of Maria and the others, of all of the Tayne and now of Em being corrupted because of one madman stoked the fire of my animal perfectly and fire erupted all over my back, my arms, my wings, everywhere, chasing itself around my body as it spread. I just roared and roared and roared at the utter injustice of what was going on and poured all of my fury and hatred into the flame, the raging inferno surrounding me melting the stone at my feet until I was sunk at least a foot into the molten magma.

  I hadn't even registered that Em was even near me before she slammed my jaw with another of her ever so delightful hammer blows. My spinning early warning system was still useless against a foe like Em. My mind blurred as the pain of the impact exploded from the point on my jaw. My knees turned to water and all of the energy being channeled into my display of rage winked out, extinguishing the flame of justice I'd been waving about. I fell hard and slapped into the ground a sprawling mess. I took in a handful of hurried breaths, doing everything I could to keep myself awake and hoped that Em wouldn't just turn and pounce on me in my current position. Blinking my eyes back to focus, I felt sick but needed to get to my feet. The effort that required was almost greater than anything I'd been forced to endure but drunkenly, I brought myself back to my feet, eternally glad for the existence of my tail to aid with my balance.

  Em lay on the floor before me and as my mind continued to fight its way back to full power, it was painfully clear to see that the reason I was still breathing was the effect the fire had had on Em. In Wales, on the night we first met, she'd hit me and sent me to the canvass with little to no effort. Here, she'd had to pass through the wreathing flame which had been dancing all over me. She'd still landed an amazing shot but her tiny form was now blistered and scorched by the effort. My knees gave way and I crashed down over her, dreading what had happened.

  I spoke as gently as I could to her. "Em. Are you awake? Are you OK?" She opened her eyes from within her seared face and the tears continued to flow.

  "I am my Lord. Please forgive me for attacking you. I am trying to fight what is being done to me but I just cannot."

  "Shhhh. No apology needed. How is he doing this? You said you were immune to that kind of attack." I did my best to balance between the need to show I cared for her well being and the need for information. She closed her eyes again, squeezing more tears to tumble across her overly pink flesh. She didn't open them again before her arms spasmed wildly. I jumped at the unexpected movement, thinking that she'd just want to remain still but as I took in more detail of Em I could see that, ever so slowly, the skin on her face and hands was starting to heal. The open wounds were steadily retreating, as un-marred skin grew to take its place. She was healing, no doubt thanks to the energies coming from the Drake Stone. Which meant I didn't have long to be able to speak with her.

  "Em. How is he controlling you? I need to know how to break you free."

  She spasmed again but this time over her whole body.

  "I don't know how he did this. The fragment of the stone I carry is big enough to be able to function on its own, separate from the whole. The only way possible to affect this kind of control would be to return it to the whole but that hasn't happened, look for yourself." Her eyes darted downwards at her burned clothing where the stone, pitted and scratched, was clearly visible through a hole.

  "That was how he did it," I boomed into the air as Em flailed one arm at my face. All of the time, I kept forgetting that Leatherpants had a very set way of doing things. He relied on the same tactics all of the time. "He didn't need the whole stone, he just needed a sliver. The scratch on the surface of the stone was how he did it. He put that into the body of the Drake Stone and that was enough."

  Scrabbling to my feet, I called over my shoulder as I took off and headed back towards the centre of the cavern, "I'm sorry Em. I have to leave you here but I know what needs to be done. I can stop his casting." Em didn't respond but her body kept on twitching and bucking as the link to what Leatherpants had in mind was slowly being repaired. I had a very shaky idea what I could do to stop the spell but there really wasn't any guarantee that it was going to work. Didn't mean I wasn't going to try it.

  In seconds I was closing on Leatherpants again and the sight that greeted me was even worse. Mike had been returned to his bondage on the side of the stone but it looked like now, Leatherpants was beyond trying to remove the power from everyone concerned in any way other than the most brutal. The sickness in the air was making my mind wash away but it was coming from everyone now. Each and every person was just screaming against what that monstrosity was doing to them. Each face was being contorted and the agony washed out in all directions as a twisted greed for power went steadily about killing them all. I struggled against the waves of magic detonating all around the cavern and just aimed myself rather than trying to land. What I had in mind didn't need any kind of finesse. Coming down with as much force as I could muster, I brought my hands swinging down like a mighty hammer, and drove then hard into the rock that my friends were locked to. There was no shielding in place despite the tactical risk. Yet again, I'd been quick to think that Leatherpants was almost all-knowing in how he was fighting but in reality he was still sticking with plan A. He didn't have a plan B.

  The thunderous crack of the tearing stone filled the whole giant cavern as I demolished the would-be prison for my friends. I'd put safety second as I'd come down on top of them, knowing that all I needed to do was disrupt what was taking place to be able to stop Leatherpants taking his prize. Lancing hot pain ripped through my legs and back as I hit the ground too hard and my hands went immediately numb at the impact with the unforgiving stone before me. I tried to stay on my feet but I just couldn't control my legs with the agony through my thighs so all I could do was try to avoid landing on those people I was trying to save. The rock was blown apart under the weight of my impact and the entire cavern reacted like there had been a minor earthquake, walls shuddering and the floor bucking in waves.

  Laying on the ground, I just couldn't move. Sensation below my waist was quickly washing away, I could barely breathe and by the look of my hands, I'd broken all of my fingers as well as most of the bones in my hands. But the shattering crack of stone and what sounded like glass, followed by the scream from behind me was the greatest painkiller.

  The point of my
less than subtle dive bomb was to cause as much movement in the ground as I could and shake the Drake Stone over. Leatherpants had set the thing on what looked like a ceremonial rostrum but it was less than secure. I'd been able to shake it badly when I'd hit his shielding with the boulder so all I needed to do was be more aggressive with the force I used. I laughed to myself at the thought of that freak missing his chance but my revelry was quickly halted by the needles of pain spreading through my chest, causing me to cough at the dry air. Gathering myself again, I became aware of movement from the platform, then I felt slow footsteps passing across my shoulder and then my chest until Leatherpants, his golden eyes so hate filled as to be overflowing, stood on my chest and just stared down, bringing to mind the image of a hunter posing with his fallen prey. In his hand burned a massive chunk of glowing purple crystal, The Drake Stone. He held it without any protection now as it seared away at the flesh to fill the air with a dank foulness.

  "Sorry sweetie," I coughed. "Looks like I'm the fly in your ointment. No Dragon for you today." I closed my eyes mainly out of exhaustion but if it meant I was thumbing my nose at him then so be it. But he just laughed.

  "I have Dragon today soon," he spoke coldly, as if he was unsure how to make the words. My eyes opened slowly and I tried my best to judge what he was saying but he just thrust out his hand and Maria just flew through the air to him. He caught her nonchalantly and held up the Drake Stone piece as well. Hunks of charred meat fell from the bones of his hand as the raw energy within the crystal ate away at him. Maria was as good as gone. He face had been wrenched into a permanent howl of anguish and her eyes just stare, fixed ahead. Tiny motes of glowing energy still drifted away from her showing exactly how much of her tiny human self had been destroyed by the energies warring inside her, giving the sickening impression of her coming apart under the effects of a brutal solvent.