Once the two were strapped in, he launched Leshava straight up into the air with Darius riding passenger.
An hour later, and now forty miles to the southeast flying at an altitude of two thousand feet, he continued to cautiously steer the hawk around the smoky, stinky, and poisonous clouds that rose from the areas where there once had been beautifully lush plants and trees.
Minimally, that smoke enshrouded half the skies … typically it was seven-eighths of the way filled with smoke!
Nearly thirty-five minutes later, filled with tons of loop-da-loops, Humonus just happened to glance to the front-left of the hawk, which was to the east.
Spanning from the north to the south—in between dozens of smoke-rising clouds—millions and millions of dead tree stumps lined the landscape. However, there wasn’t an ounce of smoke strangely rising up from that area, in which his deductive mind approximated to be thirty to forty miles away!
Only a split-second later, Humonus had already begun to veer the hawk that direction.
Approximately twenty minutes and twenty miles closer, he saw that these dead tree stumps spanned across at least three horizons…
About twenty minutes later with the same amount of distance being passed, Humonus could only now tell—with shock—that these tree stumps were actually moving about, resembling tiny black ants. Looking back over his shoulder at Darius, Humonus ordered, “Scope.”
“Yes, sir,” Darius said, just before his right hand reached to the right, opened up the rear-right saddlebag, pulled out an unadorned black scope, and extended it out in front for Humonus to take.
Once Humonus had the scope in his right hand and put it up to his eye—he observed that these were not black ants at all, but millions upon millions of dark gnomes engaged in some chaotic type of combat training!!
After handing the scope to Darius, who not only took it but put it up to his own eye, Humonus informed, “Darius—it seems that we have finally located the enemy army. Let’s get back and report our findings as soon as possible.”
Without waiting for a reply, Humonus had already begun to pull the reins hard to the right, in order to get the hawk to pull a U-turn and go back to his army’s encampment.
“Yes, sir,” Darius replied only a moment later, while holding tight onto the scope as he hadn’t enough time to put it away.
Out of the very corner of Humonus’s left eye halfway through the turn, he unexpectedly saw a much larger black speck leap off the ground from in the very middle of all the gnomes!
He turned his head that direction, and observed that the speck was not only gaining altitude, yet was flying directly toward them…
Realizing that this speck must be the dragon, even without having used the scope to identify for sure, Humonus lowered the reins so that the hawk would begin to descend, and at the same time, they could pick up a whole lot more speed!
Only a second later, Darius—who was looking through the scope—gulped out, “Sir—it’s the dragon! Oh my God! Let’s get the hell out of here!”
Humonus mumbled, “Doing the best I can… I promise you that…”
Perhaps ten minutes later, Humonus finally dared to look back, grimly noticing that the dragon had miraculously quartered the distance. It was then that he realized that they wouldn’t make it back to their own army … not even close!
While pulling the reins hard to the left in order to another U-turn, he informed, “It looks like we’re going to have to fight this beast alone—it’s flying much faster than we are.”
By this time, the hawk now faced directly toward the dragon, and so Humonus relaxed his grip on the reins and allowed his mount to fly straight ahead.
With fear etched onto Darius’s face as well in his voice, he asked, “Fight it? Alone? Are you freaking crazy?”
Humonus breathed out, “Maybe…”
“You’re kidding me, sir! Please tell me you are…right??” Darius asked with utter terror in his voice.
“Nope, no kidding,” Humonus said evenly, just before he turned his head around so he could look directly into Darius’s eyes.
Once so, his voice sounded as solid as steel as he stated, “Darius, you really need to settle down and control your fears, and not just for yourself as I am frightened too…okay?
Without waiting for an answer, he added, “After all, Darius, your main mission is to ensure that Leshava stays alive and well—I shall do the actual battling with the dragon. So please, while you calm yourself down, undo the rear strap holding the lance in place, hold onto your end of the lance until I’m ready to mount it, and, thank you.”
“Yes, sir,” Darius gulped, while trying to tame down his fears and undo the rear strap.
At the same time that Humonus undid the saddle’s front strap that held the fifteen-foot-long steel lance, Darius undid the rear strap and then held his end of the lance.
Humonus said, “Okay…pass up that lance now, carefully.”
It was then that Darius apologized, “Yes sir, and by the way sir, I apologize for two reasons. One, I’m sorry for letting my fears take a hold of me. Two, I’m sorry for not having a weapon—though I don’t know how to fight at all, as I am just a hawk master.”
By this time, the lance’s handle securely rested within the circular wooden post that extended out the side of the saddle.
With his left hand, Humonus first gripped the wood handle of the lance, and then said, “No problem. I’m a highly skilled warrior who knows how to use weapons of any type, including lances. Hopefully I’m good enough to kill this…thing!” He had grumbled aloud his final word.
About five minutes later, both he and Darius could both see the whites of the hatred-filled eyes as the monstrous dragon continued to zoom directly toward them at an uncanny speed, especially for something so freaking huge! It was perhaps a quarter of a mile away now.
In Darius’s unspoken opinion, it seemed that both Humonus and this dragon were playing the popular gambling game that was held monthly in a large arena back in his home city—a game called “chicken.”
In this dangerous-and-deadly game that had only two contestants, each contestant rides upon a horse-drawn chariot moving at full-throttle toward the other contestant; that is, until one of the contestants chickens out by pulling his or her reins sharply to the right or the left, in order to avoid the impact.
From the dozen-or-so times Darius had witnessed the games, he oftentimes more-than-not discovered horses, chariots, and contestants brutally smashing into each other, and both contestants getting majorly injured if not killed in the huge pileup. In fact, the only real winners to this game, in his opinion, were the hundreds of viewers doing the betting and cheering—they could even bet that a collision would occur in the next round, in which they called that round “a draw.” In Darius’s case, however, he never had good luck in most of his predictions, and as he didn’t like to lose hard-earned pay, it was but a rare occasion that he ever went.
Only moments seemed to pass before Humonus pointed at his target and steadied the lance … only dozens of feet separated the two contestants at this point.
Just at the last possible second before contact, Humonus tugged hard twice to the left on the reins, back to back, which caused Leshava to immediately roll to the left, and those two forces to miss each other by mere inches!
A split-second later, the lance contacted, punctured, and ripped through the dragon’s right wing, but only a second after contact, the wooden base of the lance suddenly cracked completely off, just before the handle was ripped out of Humonus’s right hand!
Out of the corner of his right eye, Humonus saw that the dragon had no choice but start slowly circling its way down to the ground—thankfully with the lance still stuck in its right wing.
Humonus’s right hand drew out his sword, while his left hand pulled the reins down and to the left … until Leshava was flying about a hundred feet directly over the dragon.
Once so, he yanked twice down on the reins, back to back, whic
h yanking caused the hawk’s wings to collapse, and for the three of them to plummet straight down toward the dragon!
Less than five seconds later, upon drawing close to striking range of the dragon’s neck, Humonus pulled up on the reins, so that the hawk would level out in altitude—she did.
Humonus, once in that range two seconds later, swung his sword with all of his might! Right away it bounced off the thick armor on the dragon’s neck, which didn’t surprise the man. What did surprise him was the fact that the dragon had unexpectedly flipped around in midair, and was now clutching tightly around his torso with its front-right paw! Even worse, one of those claws had ruptured through his body armor and into his abdominal flesh … he couldn’t help but scream out in horrific pain!
Because Humonus was strapped into the saddle, all four—dragon, two humans, and hawk—began to plummet for the ground! They were currently a little over eight hundred feet in the air.
Through the pain, he realized that everyone aboard would die if he didn’t immediately do something about it, and so he did!
Instantly he located and released the quick-release straps holding him into the saddle … he and the hawk were now separated.
Within the next two seconds, Leshava had already recommenced to level out in altitude, even though her reins were still wildly flapping around in the wind. Meanwhile, Darius continued to desperately reach out and grab them, so that he could regain control over the hawk’s flight!
As for Humonus and the dragon, they continued to plummet straight for the ground!
Only five seconds later, the dragon unexpectedly flipped back around in midair yet again and spread out her wings as best she could, in order to slowly descend! Once on the ground, it was her fullest intentions to yank the lance out of her wing, heal up, and then eat this “most-troublesome human” that was still in her clutches.
Although everything seemed hopeless for Humonus, his fighting spirit never gave up—with the tip of his sword, he began to try and pry the sharp blade between two of the scales, in order to pierce the dragon’s flesh and do some damage!
The dragon, upon feeling the very first ounce of sharp pain caused by the sword, became quite irritated with this pest-like human, and so she purposefully released her grip!
In turn, Humonus’s body instantly plummeted five hundred feet through the sky and toward the earth—the very second before making impact with the ground, he instinctively relaxed every muscle in his body!
When the dragon—now at an altitude of four hundred feet—threw her head back and saw the human bounce off the ground and fly ten feet back up into the air, she began to laugh menacingly. Not only did her forked tongue dart in and out like a hissing snake, yet thousands of jaggedly sharp teeth instantly became revealed like a shark’s maw!
Still, it took her nearly a minute before she able to finally land on the ground, due to her broken wing with the lance still stuck through it, perhaps two thousand feet away from the unmoving human. Once there, she next began to use both of her front paws, in order to carefully yank out the lance.
Upon removal, about thirty seconds later, her wing began to heal itself, magically—two seconds later, it was once again “undamaged and unscarred!”
In the very next moment, she cast her fuming gaze to the human who still hadn’t moved a single inch, ever since having landed on the ground the second time. She was just about to stomp her way over to this human and eat him, but she heard a deep, masculine voice inside her head call out, Hail, Your Unholy Greatness!
Ever since the day that she had first became conscious in the egg did she recognize her super-consciousness’s voice, as well respected it, and so for these two reasons alone did she ignore those hungry-growling sounds inside her stomach, and close her eyes.
Inside her mind’s eye, she saw a duplicate dragon to herself flying in the middle of darkness, except that this dragon was male—true enough, it was Mitanium. Just like a five-star chef, Mitanium would arrive shortly before any and every “special meal” she had or would come across, so as to wet her appetite … he was also very useful as a trusted advisor or companion.
Dreeak said not a word, but listened—even though her stomach continued to get hungrier with each passing second…
Mitanium began, Your Unholy Greatness, as always, that was a most-excellent battle! Your opponent now lies mortally wounded on the ground in front of you, thanks to your mighty claws. He will not be going anywhere, as he is paralyzed from the neck down, but will live at least for thirty minutes longer—I will be done reading off this menu in the next minute or so…
Just so you know, tonight’s dinner should be extra delicious, as its name and rank is Ruling-General Humonus—Baltor Elysian’s #1.
Dreeak’s throat growled deeply upon hearing that information. She not only hated Baltor with a passion, yet even more, his master Trendon Harrn, because this man had killed her mother when Dreeak was but a baby!
Once that growl had subsided, a few seconds later, Mitanium continued, Your Unholy Greatness, what you will hear next will make your taste buds really drool, and your stomach growl with eager anticipation, I guarantee! Though Humonus’s body is completely broken, it still lives by willpower alone…this is but a taste of the magic that runs through your dinner’s veins—it is not only a fierce warrior, yet it’s even Baltor’s instructor and mentor, and tastiest of all, best friend! Oh, might I add that this meal has as a powerful soul?
Dreeak’s mouth uttered out the word, “Yummy…”
Mitanium was not done, however, as he added, Dinner will not end there, but will become a three-course meal, which is that hawk and that human rider flying about a thousand feet away to your southwest—both of these meals possess tasty souls that will multiply your powers. I believe you will have enough power then that you can best Baltor tonight—even without “The Plan!” Bon appetite, Your Unholy Greatness…
The inner dragon immediately disappeared.
Though Dreeak’s mouth had long ago been slobbering and her stomach growling fiercely, she opened her physical eyes and began to stomp her way toward the human—every forty-foot step caused the earth around her to shake, violently!
Only seconds before arriving at her meal, which meal was now a hundred feet away, yet another voice popped inside her mind—this time, it was her “Vompareus Creator.” Again, she had to stop and listen, but this time, she had no choice in the matter—her entire body had just become paralyzed from the neck down!
He and she howled angrily, Dreeak, so sorry to interrupt your dinner, but did you know that Baltor is only a couple minutes away from arriving at your location? No, of course you didn’t because you were thinking with your stomach. Now listen up!
You must stick with “The Plan” we earlier arranged and go back to your Army immediately after we unfreeze you—wait until the morning after the two new moons, which is only in three nights from now. That is when your two armies will fight on the battlefield and the rest of “The Plan,” which you know all-too-well, will be engaged and concluded! We will win… then!
For a mysterious reason we cannot identify, Baltor is too powerful for you to fight on your own right now, as his aura is glowing so brightly that it is the size of a mountain… You will lose this battle even if you eat this meal lying on the ground before you, so don’t be stupid and go back to your army!
Finally, know that this is a direct order from us to you, Dreeak, or we will be forced to destroy you, even from the Realm of Darkness. You didn’t know, prior to now, that we could freeze you at all, did you? Well, we can. We can also destroy you back to oblivion just as easily… don’t test us! Huhuhuhahahahaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!
They unfroze her.
With a hell of a lot of anger, and hunger pains, Dreeak launched high into the air, just before she began to fly at top speed back to her army ... as well her Chao-chu-sha-maen prisoners, of which there were fifty-eight savory treats left! She would eat ten of them tonight.
Once the dragon was no long
er in sight, nor could the sounds of her wings be heard, Darius landed the hawk ten feet away from Humonus’s position. Hurriedly, he undid his straps, ran on over, and collapsed onto his knees.
As the ruling-general was laying on his back and unmoving, except for the ever-so-slight moving of his chest, Darius had already observed that he was still unconscious and still alive, at least for the moment.
As Darius looked closer at the wound itself, he noted that a small portion of Humonus’s guts were now hanging outside his body armor through a circular wound that was a good foot in diameter! Even though he was well trained in first aid, he wasn’t even close to being a surgeon, which is exactly what this man needed, and soon. Humonus’s blood was fast pumping out the sides of the wound in all directions, spilling off the sides of his armor, and splashing onto the ground!
Darius ran over to the hawk. Quickly, he pulled out the medical kit stored inside the left-rear saddlebag. With kit in both hands, he ran back over to Humonus, and dropped back onto his knees.
After unsealing the sterilized medical kit and opening it, he saw four bottles filled with various colors of fluids inside. There were also a dozen bandages, a long roll of gauze tape, a pair of scissors, a scalpel, a pair of pliers, a pair of sanitary gloves, and a sewing needle attached to a large spool of thread.
Once he had put on the gloves, he pulled out the bottle with the clear fluid that was the antiseptic, and opened it. He slowly poured a bit of the fluid directly onto the wound, which caused a foamy substance. Not surprising to anyone, Humonus hadn’t felt an ounce of pain.
Upon completion of this three-part step, perhaps thirty seconds later, Baltor gently laid the first bandage right over the small intestines, as well all the rest of the bandages. He then took the gauze tape and began wrapping it around Humonus’s waist until half of it was gone.
Though the bleeding had slowed down, it did not stop—most likely, he dismally reasoned that Humonus would not survive, as there was nothing more he could do. He began looking all around the jungles for anything around him that might help, but there was nothing.
BOOK II OF III: The Reign of the Sultan Page 28