The Circle of Duty

by Owen Elgie

  "Where is it?" I was going to rip that thing apart now I was back on my feet. I'd show it what it could expect in return for that sucker punch of sucking on my nose. Em rose slowly before my eyes, her vast wingspan outstretched but not moving in any way, as if the sheer presence of the wings was going to be enough to propel her.

  "The last time I saw it my Lord, it was retreating beyond that far ring of stone." She pointed away out ahead of me and I was past her and heading towards the location in a flash. I began marching but as my humanity continued slipping away I dropped to walk on four legs, the animal taking over as I closed on what I was hoping would be a brutally violent end for my quarry. Reaching the point she'd indicated I just clambered all over the stones, employing all of my senses to try and pinpoint our enemy. The stink of it was still fresh on the rocks and I could taste its presence all around me. It was close by and that knowledge just pushed me on with more intensity.

  "I can taste it Em. It's here somewhere," I called over my shoulder as I foraged through the landscape. Em was approaching but I didn't hear any response if she gave one. Instead, the ground began to shift under my feet, lurching one way then another. I gripped tightly to my footing, hunting for the cause of the upheaval while still doing my best to hold the attention on that thing. I wasn't going to lose that oily fiend, not when it was so close.

  The brilliant white blast from Em broke my attention on the hunt for the stain thing. It fizzed past my head before detonating and sending a shower of scorching lightning in all directions. The spinning in my head forced my mind back to the more human as I recognised exactly what my body was telling me but was just too slow to do anything about it. The ground shattered under my feet and tons of rock and stone erupted from beneath me to be flung away in all directions. Em had fired to delay the creature as it had made a move to attack but hadn't been able to stop it. I had begun to turn away from the little thing when I actually glimpsed it. It wasn't the little stain anymore. It had grown.

  Now falling towards me, its spear tipped fingers raised to rake at any part of me it could find, it had become a vast block of warped flesh, still with those same golden eyes alight with venom beyond measure. It was as least as big as I was but it’s blackened skin seemed to warp the very light around it, extending and expanding its appearance in hideous new ways. On its back were what looked like they could have been wings or maybe should have been wings but instead they were horribly malformed. Jagged shards of bone protruded from those bizarre appendages creating nausea in any who would see them.

  The giant slammed into my side and sliced through and down my flank effortlessly, spilling my blood all over the floor of the giant cavern. There was so much strength in the blow that its claws were driven into the stone floor. I yelped in pain and clutched at the tear in my flesh, all the while attempting to back away from it, keeping my wounded side away from further injury. The thing had sprawled on the floor after its attack, relying on brute force and gravity to be able to do the damage. Now, as I retreated, it began to move forward, dragging itself with those mightily muscled arms to reveal that, as those would be wings had been, its legs were a ruined stump, useless and corrupted. I could make out the detail of what should have been feet and claws spaced around the lump of meat it dragged. As it lumbered forwards it felt as if it wasn't finished growing. My hand went reflexively to my snout. Rubbing at the wound made me retch. This thing had not only been eating me but using me to fuel its transformation. It slathered and clacked its jaws as it closed in on me, heaving its breath all the way.

  Em opened up again from behind me, blasting gout after gout of energy which 'whoompfed' into the chest and shoulders of the brute as it advanced. Each impact burned into the blackened mass, cooking off charred lumps of foul muscle and tissue but the thing just kept on coming. I added my own fire to the bombardment, beginning with a wide spray of flame before concentrating it down onto a single rod of white hot death. Even under all that fire, it just kept on moving.

  I was still retreating but it closed the gap quickly and slashed with its right hand, aiming for my head. This time I'd been able to see it coming and reared up on my hind legs, avoiding the downward thrust, but this time it didn't fall totally flat. Bracing itself on its left arm, it wavered before reversing the swipe and driving those claws skywards, hoping to split me across the stomach. I continued to back pedal but the deformed arm was stopped prior to connecting with me, held in mid swing by Em, sending the slap of flesh on flesh through the oppressive air. She'd dispensed with the artillery and switched to hand to hand combat. Gripping tightly with her arms, her skin and suit turned to shiny crystal, her wings came alive as ropes of pure light, shooting around the hand of the creature and crushing it to a pulpy mess, the sound of the bones shattering clear to hear. It didn't react to the injury, as if pain just didn't exist, but began to bludgeon at the ground with that wrecked arm, smashing Em down again and again. After several punishing blows it just raised its arm before it and took in what it had done to Em. Those pure wings of hers were still mostly wrapped around the limb of the bulk but her previous magical armourment of glinting crystal had been cracked and broken in so many places. She was still gripping tightly to what was left of the things arm but she was showing the effects of the fight.

  "Lady Messenger," it drooled at Em. "You do not appear to be yourself today." It brought its arm even closer still to look almost eye to eye with Em.

  "Have you been giving yourself to this young Dragon?" It was a good job I was red or anyone would have seen me blush at the accusation. I had wanted that several times but I'd put that down to the actions of this monster. Em just tilted her head in that usual, disarming fashion but before she spoke it was clear that that gesture was now very different.

  "A little, but as one of the High Guardians of The Circle, he is due anything he should possibly desire. He has power given whereas you just take it." Her voice was as hard as diamond, cutting and slicing an accusation. The bulk angered into an incandescent rage and hammered Em into the ground hard, creating a small crater with the force of the impact, before gouging out a massive handful of rock from the floor and hurling it at me. I tried to catch it, I would never be able to avoid it, but it hit with the force of a high speed train and I was forced to the ground clutching at my chest, gasping to retrieve my breath.

  I was on my knees and could only watch as it began to metronomicaly, deliberately smash at Em's head with its free hand. Crash after crash came down on her and despite the effort she was giving to break free of the stifling hold of the stump of the thing, she was powerless to avoid the attacks. She may have been shrouded in a crystal hard shell but there was no way that it was going to be able to withstand every bludgeon. The splintering sound heralded the fact as a huge crack opened in her armour, directly across her face. I stood up and took a step forwards in anger but the next blow landed. As the hand came back up, I could see the blood smeared across her features, standing out starkly against her pale skin. Her eyes were closed and her previously anchored grip was relinquished. My anger screamed behind my eyes at what that thing had just done to Em and all pain was forgotten.

  My vision turned scarlet as my hatred blossomed and I screeched out my anger. Its eyes darted from Em to me and it drew itself taller whilst freeing itself of the bonds around its hand and sending Em wheeling through the air, away, like a discarded shred of rubbish. I heard her thump into solid surface, more shattering sounds and the barest yelp as she did, then nothing.

  My pain and injuries were forgotten. Bounding on all fours, I covered the distance between us quickly to throw myself into the thing. I smashed it with my shoulder before driving my clawed hands and feet into its fleshy stomach and ripping and clawing for all I was worth. The pain in my hands was terrible but I just didn't care. I could feel warm liquid spilling from it as chunks of meat wore torn free and I was going to rip this thing to pieces. But there was no sign from it that I was even causing any damage. Instead, it just began to flail its
arms at me, attempting to sweep me away from it like nothing more than an annoying hovering insect. The blows were artless but incredibly heavy. I'd risked remaining for as long as I could to continue the attack but I knew that I couldn't weather every blow it rained down.

  Instead of continued raking, I forced my hands and feet against it as hard as I could and drove myself away, blasting it in the face with flame as I left to cover my departure. Its arm came down where I would have been and slammed down to the floor, shaking everywhere with the impact. With as many quick beats of my wings as I could manage, I dragged myself into the air and just held my position above it. Those yellow eyes just stared up at me, their anger almost a physical force capable of pulling me down. My chest felt tight and the pain which had been stabbing at me like needles to my side was now just a hazy memory. The blood was still flowing though.

  "You are a confusing creature boy," it shouted up to me. "So many see you as being the fool, nothing more than a problem to be endured, but I can feel a much greater strength in you." It shuffled itself forwards slightly, the crushed hand leaking all sorts of battered flesh as it did which added to the slick forming as more and more material leaked from its side.

  "Why are you trying to kill me?" It was such a simple question and I couldn't believe it had asked me.

  "Why d'you think? Look what you've done to the Tayne, to The Circle. Look what you did to Em." My snarl bubbled up without aid at the thought of Em being injured. "Are you telling me that you won't try to do the same, or worse, ever again?" I snarled and waited for whatever warped logic was coming.

  "What if I do? Shouldn't I do it?" It still held me with those golden eyes as it sludged its way towards me, its tone one of idle curiosity rather than anger.

  "Why not? You can't just kill or enslave people just for the fun of it. If you can't see that, it's a good thing they locked the rest of you up." It stumped forwards again.

  "I can't kill or enslave, but you can? Don't forget, I've watched for years as The Circle has jealously hoarded its power and done everything it could to keep people in their place. You've just heard what The Messenger of The Circle, a hugely powerful member of your cabal, felt. That you could have whatever you wanted for no other reason than you are you. Unquestioning devotion is not a virtue to build any form of group. The fact that we are having this conversation suggests that you've at least considered what I'm telling you." Onwards again. I shook my head to clear it and remember that this was the bad guy. That thing may be pointing out truths but that didn't make him right. Below me, the words continued.

  "You don't look that well you know and all those people working on your side have done is try to kill everyone here, regardless of affiliation. You'd have hoped they would have been more concerned with your safety."

  I just hung in the air with my wings beating rhythmically. Again, I was face to face with one of the worst of the worst and all it was saying that The Circle were far from being the paragons of virtue that everyone was making out. Was there even the slightest chance that was the truth? I was feeling sick and my body was beginning to shiver.

  I didn't have any further contemplation as simultaneously, my head began to spin and a vice was tightened onto my right ankle. With terrifying speed I was dragged from the air to crash in a heap on the rocky ground next to the Bulk. It had used my consideration of its words to edge closer to me and bring me down. It boomed with laughter as it slammed my head against the ground several times, cracking one of my horns off and I was sure breaking several of the bones in my face. My head was still spinning but I was sure that it was down to concussion rather than warning. It closed its face to mine and spoke with a rotting meat breath.

  "Little one. It's always the young who are the most idealistic." That breath made my eyes water and, with the utmost violence it could muster, it shook me like a rag doll to highlight that it was in control.

  "You must learn the truest fact. Everyone is like that, no matter where they come from or what excuses they give. The strong will always conquer the weak." It was a stark statement but I wouldn't believe that that was all the world was. "Now, I feel ready for a refreshing of the energy inside me," it pondered before dragging me along behind it at a far greater speed than it should have been able to move, back to the ruined altar area.

  37

  I was groggily aware of where I was but I was trapped within a body which was still bleeding, badly. I'd burned through my reserves of energy and was now at the end of any spare power I had set aside for a rainy day. There was just nothing left. I could dimly make out the familiar location where I'd at least freed my friends from the torture of this lunatic but as I was dragged along, I could feel that nauseating power burning like a dying flame. Maria's energy was still aglow like a dying ember but there was just so very little of it left. The fight was gone from her as the energy had been drained into the air. I didn't know if there was any way to save her or reclaim the power but I just couldn't do anything.

  Eventually, I stopped moving and for a blissful second I remained still on the floor and just breathed. It only lasted for that second before I was jerked into the air and smashed into an unforgiving wall of stone. Half opening my eyes, it was all I could muster, I found myself face to face with the suit thing. I'd been locked to the stone in the same way the others had been and looking around, it was clear that I wasn't alone. I could make out Leatherpants, or what was left of him, now sat leaning against a nearby stone, as if resting after a monumental effort. His previously slim frame looked emaciated and pale. There was no muscle tone on him, instead he carried the look of nothing more than a skeleton covered with skin. His eyes bulged as he watched us, that longing envy still burned onto his expression.

  A little further from him, lay Maria. She still had the faintest glow coming from her but she was practically mist on the air she'd come so much apart. The tiniest of breaths escaped from her but nothing else.

  My mind span in warning just before the balled fist of the creature smashed into my face, sending so much pain running through my body that I almost passed out.

  "Now, Guardian. I'm going to take more energy from you," and it slammed a balled fist into my side, and into the huge wound it had opened up. Oddly, the pain was more manageable but when it removed its hand, I could feel something left behind. Trying to look down at what was being done, the booming voice explained for me, to drive my fear again.

  "You can feel it can't you? The Drake Stone burning your flesh from the inside." Despite my agony, I snapped my head up to try and prove to myself that the Bulk was lying. There was no sensation other than the weight of the stone in my side but that didn't mean that it wasn't coming.

  "The stone is a mighty vessel," it continued, its voice becoming more and more cultured, more precise, with every passing syllable, and wholly at odds with the body it was coming from. "It stores the power of magic within it and now, it will be drawing that power out of you." The burning still hadn't started but still. I weakly jerked against the rock I'd been sunken into purely as a show of defiance, to show that although my fire may have been low, it wasn't completely extinguished. The Bulk frowned as if confused by my movements.

  "I do so love the surety that comes with what you all are. The Circle. The Tayne. Any number of other races as well. All of you are so very keen to embrace a saviour. I've been able to do everything I have because I was allowed." It moved in to me and inspected my side, narrowing its eyes at what it saw. "Everyone is so desperately in need, so scared, that they will bow down to anyone stronger than them. You all wanted to have the certainty of knowing what to do." It pressed its own nose to mine, pushing our faces together. "Instinctively, you all want to be ruled."

  All I could do was slam my head into it with as much force as I could, adding a slight twist to slash across the warped features with the jagged piece of my horn on my right side. At the very least I'd been able to open up another wound on my enemy but there had been precious little real force behind what I'd done. It
just held my gaze from a slight distance.

  "What's the matter ugly? Not going the way you'd hoped?" My ability to annoy was my last weapon. "Stone not warming up yet? Maybe you just need to give it a shake, or change the batteries?" The Drake Stone hadn't begun to do any of the things I'd just been told it would and I knew that the Bulk knew too.

  "You know that performance anxiety can do all kinds of things. This ever happened to you before?"

  With terrible speed, it slammed me across the face with and open handed slap, the impact of which filled the whole cave we were within. The shock of which stole any further comment from me. Reaching out to me, I screamed in pain as those needle claws probed into my side, delving into my flesh in search of the Drake Stone. With a sickening, sucking noise, the chunk of crystal was pulled free and the Bulk examined in closely, ignoring my blood, which was smeared all over it.

  I couldn't speak. I could barely gasp in air the pain was that bad in my side. All I was able to do was try not to sag as exhaustion overcame me. The Bulk just turned and examined the Drake Stone with a scientific attention to detail, pouring over every possible fissure or tear on its surface as it tried to understand what had happened. No matter what it did, the stone remained inert.

  The Bulk just growled. A sound which held so little of anything which could be reasoned with, it blew renewed life into my fear. My shoulders tightened and my back straightened purely in response to what that noise was going to mean.

  The Drake Stone fell to the ground, a now useless relic of that thing's journey. The Bulk watched it fall with contempt, as if it were a mere minion to be scalded for failing at a simple task, before slowly turning its eyes to me. The gold seemed to become sharper with each passing second, slowly slicing into me as a precursor to what that thing intended to do next.

  Speaking through clenched muscles in its jaw and with brutality draped over the cordial vocabulary, the Bulk approached me again.