“It is our honor to carry the two of you into the battle.”
“It is our honor to ride you,” the Fire Prince responded, pressing his fist to his heart and giving a bit of a bow. You always acknowledged the great honor a steed did when they allowed you to right them. “I’m quite sure your talents will be most useful to us.”
He helped Clara into Fleetfoot’s saddle – while the steeds of the Isle normally didn’t accept such signs of bondage, exceptions were made for battle – and then mounted Crimson himself. Clara couldn’t help but smile in approval as they turned to face the army. He looked like a Fire Prince. She couldn’t be prouder of him.
“I’d like to thank all of you for coming here this day, each and every one of you,” he spoke, sounding like a Fire Prince. “I’d shake your hands, but we’re short on time, and there are quite a few of you. We have a battle to fight, and we are ready. You’ve prepared for this moment for years, and while the Water Princess and I have only recently joined you, we are honored to lead you to the victory. We may have been born in another world, but we choose to call this one our home, and we will defend it with our last breath.”
He glanced at Clara and nodded. Her cue to speak.
“You fight to give your children a brighter future, and so do we,” she declared. “There’s a dragon at our gates, disturbing the peace at our hearths. What say we get rid of her?”
A thunderous cheer erupted from the men. Clara felt Fleetfoot tense beneath her, so she tightened her grip on the reins that weren’t attached to a bit – the steeds didn’t accept that under any pretense – leaned forward, and squeezed with her legs. The Rowandas began to run, the army parting before them as they thundered towards the gates that opened before them. However, instead of going through the gates, the pair leaped, practically flew over the wall, and landed just a few feet away from the army gathered to meet them.
Clara recoiled from the hideous crowd. Most of them were beasts, like the snakes and etrinas that she and the Fire Prince had fought through to get back to the Kastle. But there were many that at least resembled humans, though they were all twisted. For half a moment, she wondered why Amber hadn’t actually begun her attack. She could have, easily. Clara decided to save that thought for later. Amber liked to play games, after all. Perhaps Laura could make sense out of it.
Amber herself was perched on the back of a terrible beast, leading the army. She turned to Clara and the Fire Prince with a sickly-sweet smile on her face.
“What, still the fool, Fire Prince?” she asked. Clara saw him tense, but his face betrayed no emotion. “You ride to your death this day. Really, you should have taken my offer. Perhaps I may yet show mercy, but I don’t know.”
“I would not abandon Klarand to your torment,” the Fire Prince growled in reply. “Even less would I allow the Water Princess to fall back into your power.”
“Oh, brave words, Fire Prince,” she replied. “You heroes that Alphego sends are all the same. It really is pitiful.”
A man riding a black horse approached Amber. He said nothing, but nodded to the Fire Prince, then made some sort of signal to Amber.
Clara glanced about her, sighing in relief as she saw that their own army had poured through the gate and was gathered about her. The Dragon’s threats were nothing. The heroes that Alphego sent out against her proved victorious. Klarand was more than ready for this battle.
“That’s Granite, her husband,” the Fire Prince commented. Clara snapped her attention to him. “He’s … not as bad as she is.”
Clara grimaced. “He can’t turn himself into a dragon, I take it?”
“No.”
“Thank Alphego for small miracles.” With one hand, she gripped the reins tighter. She laid the other on the hilt of her sword. Both armies shifted uneasily as they waited for orders from their leaders.
“Are you waiting for me, Fire Prince?” Amber asked.
“I thought that as the attacker and intruder, you might want to make the first move.”
Amber laughed. “But who says I came this day to attack? Perhaps I came only to display my own power, to see yours and to test your courage. Are you afraid of my army, Fire Prince? How about you, Water Princess? I don’t fear yours. If this is to come down to a battle of waiting, I fear you are vastly overpowered there, too. I’ve been waiting for thousands of years. A few hours are nothing.”
The Fire Prince slowly raised a fist over his head. “But doesn’t it burn for us to still not be under your power, even after so long? I think it would for me, but I wouldn’t know. My soul isn’t twisted by so many years of jealousy and envy.” And with that, he let a stream of fire loose into the air and then lowered his hand and drew his sword. Clara drew hers at the same moment.
Kath and Rich saw the flare from the Kastle wall, and the flight wing descended on Amber’s army. Simultaneously, the rest of the army surged forward and began slashing through the invading army. Arrows rained down from the archers left on the walls, striking down oh so many of the terrible creatures.
For half a moment, Amber stared at the attack – particularly at the Fire Prince – with her face twisted in a sort of horror. Then she stood on her beast’s back and began to laugh. Her body twisted, her voice deepened, and seconds later, a large red and black dragon flew over where she had been but seconds before.
Clara raised her fist, bracing herself for the dragon’s first attack. Blue water was best for extinguishing fire. At the same moment, she and the Fire Prince plunged into the fray.
It wasn’t hard for Andrew to plow through beast after beast without thinking about the fact that he was killing them. Even the ones that appeared almost human were so twisted, Andrew didn’t think they deserved to live. Besides that, many of them were Enokles which would explode into black powder the moment a sword pierced them.
He was grateful for the magnificent rowanda that allowed him to ride on his back. Crimson’s speed and agility made sure he was always exactly where he needed to be.
With the Water Princess at his side, Andrew was confident that they would win. She was truly an amazing girl. With one hand, she struck down one after another of Amber’s foul army, with her other, she sent a mighty blast of water towards the Lady Dragon, whenever it was needed. The first few times she’d misjudged Amber’s fire, and Klarand’s army had lost many men, but now … well, he wasn’t sure how she managed to keep track of both Amber and the army at the same time, but she was good at it.
Andrew grimaced as he sent a blast of his own fire towards a pig-headed beast that was sneaking up on the Water Princess. The fire that was normally Amber’s advantage was now being used against her.
The Dragon drew back, seeming annoyed by how things weren’t going exactly to her plan. Then she twisted back into the form of a girl and settled back into place atop the kirat she’d been riding before. She exchanged a few words with Granite, claimed a sword from him, and plunged into the battle. Andrew had been intrigued to note that he hadn’t done a thing to further either side of the battle, though he had chatted with Laura for a while.
Laura herself, save for the moment that she’d spent chatting with Granite, was a ferocious fighter. She wielded a staff … and Andrew truly gained a respect for the weapon, just from watching her.
Andrew quickly discovered that he actually preferred Amber in the form of a dragon. She was the definition of a madwoman as she whirled about, slashing through anyone or anything that got in her way, including her own army.
The Water Princess no longer needed to keep an eye on the Dragon’s fire, allowing her to wield her second sword, but now it was Andrew’s turn. In her left hand, Amber wielded a strange device which was clearly what she used to turn people into ice as that was what it was doing.
Fighting back images of the frozen Water Princess and Essua, Andrew did his best to follow the frozen trail of people and unfreeze them. Since they didn’t have any affiliation with water, the fire was sufficient.
Even on the back of a Rowanda, it was hard to keep up with Amber. Alone, she would have been a formidable enemy, but with her army…
Andrew allowed himself to get distracted by her army. Realizing that he had some time to free his friends and that they weren’t going to die just because they were frozen, he turned his attention to the much more present danger that surrounded and threatened him. This was why he didn’t notice when she transformed back into her dragon form and began melting the ice statues before he could thaw them.
The Water Princess was the one who finally noticed. She instantly resumed her counterblasts of water, even though she still had her second sword in her hand. They had already lost many good soldiers. Moments later, Andrew realized what had happened and refocused his attention back on the frozen people.
On and on the day wore. Sometimes Klarand seemed to be winning, other times Amber had the upper hand. In human or dragon form, she was a vicious foe.
Chapter 8
Night was drawing near and Clara really wasn’t looking forward to fighting in the dark. She was making her way back to the Fire Prince to see if he had any ideas whereby they could call retreat in a fashion that Amber would listen to when a pure white hinequa flew off of the wall and towards Amber, currently in human form.
A Bugslayer rode the hinequa, for as they passed over Amber, the human figure – Clara made a mental note to ask who it was so that he or she might be recognized later – leaned forward and dumped the contents of an entire cage of Ia Beetles onto Amber’s head. She screamed, instantly morphed back into her dragon form, grabbed up her useless husband and flew away.
At Amber’s retreat, all of her army melted away, leaving the men and women of Klarand and Rizkaland standing alone on the field. Clara took a deep breath and lowered her swords. They’d done it. They’d actually done it! Amber was gone, as good as dead, and Klarand was free—
“She’ll be back, you know.”
Clara looked up from the bloodied blades with a start. The Fire Prince and Crimson stood in front of her, his sword still drawn as well. Both horse and prince wore grim expressions, an expression that Clara had formerly not thought a horse-like creature could wear.
“What do you mean?” she slowly asked. Her throat was dry. She needed something to drink. “The poison of the Ia Beetle is the deadliest known to Klarand. Even Amber’s immortality…”
“Won’t stop it, but it will slow it down,” he countered. “They’re not meant to die this day, not until the Tela Du shows up. Think, Clara! She created the Ia Beetles. If a cure exists, she’ll know of it.”
“So…”
His grimness melted away and he suddenly looked very tired. “So, we retreat back to the Kastle and rest, thankful for the respite, hoping that she’ll wait until morning to raise her scaly head again.”
Clara sighed, tightening her grip on the swords. “Wonderful idea,” she said. “Don’t know if I can sleep tonight, but I am exhausted.”
And so they turned their attention to cleaning up the aftermath. The Fire Prince combed the battlefield, looking for any and all of the statues that Amber had left behind. Everyone else gathered the dead and wounded and brought them into the Kastle, either to be treated or taken home and buried. There were many unaccounted for, however, and how many of those were the ones Amber had frozen and managed to melt?
Kath and Rich were among the missing. Not even their gliders could be found. They’d returned home during the thick of the battle, and few had been any the wiser. Clara had been too occupied with Amber to even notice.
Clara wanted to stay down on the field and help, but she was slipping fast, and the battlefield, now that the adrenaline of the battle was gone, was simply terrible. The Fire Prince noticed and sent her and Fleetfoot back to the Kastle in order to help organize in there.
She went.
Kiona met her on the wall where Fleetfoot landed, clearly upset. “What happened down there?”
Clara glanced back down at the ground, too tired to notice how far up she was. “Um, a war, I believe.” She closed her eyes.
“No, I mean, I—” Kiona paused and took a deep breath, leaning against the wall for support. “Have you seen Stephan? I lost track of him in the battle.”
Clara shook her head, her stomach rolling uncomfortably. “I haven’t seen him, living, wounded, frozen, or dead,” she admitted. “I wasn’t paying attention to him. I had a Dragon to keep an eye on. Amber might have melted him.”
Kiona sighed. “Last night he decided that he wanted me shooting from the walls, rather than in the flight wing, as had been the plan. I—” she appeared about to say something, then changed her mind. “I tried to keep track of him, watch him between shots, but he just vanished, and I could never find him again.”
Clara slid down off of Fleetfoot’s back, seeking the wall for support which she found her legs too wobbly to stand on. “As I said, Amber might have frozen him. If so, Andrew can free him in winter.”
Kiona slowly nodded. “I know, but the thought still plagues me. He was so scared of losing me last night, and now…” She took a shaky breath and stared distantly towards the battlefield. “At least the line of Violet will not die out,” she whispered.
Clara blinked. “But…” She was tired. It took her a moment to realize what the young queen meant. “Oh. You mean you’re…”
Kiona bit her lip and nodded, folding her hands over her stomach. “I’d only just told him last night. That’s why he wanted me on the walls. We didn’t tell the Leaf Princess why we made the switch, but, oh! Stephan could be so very persuasive.”
“Hey,” said Clara, stepping forward and placing a hand on Kiona’s arm. “Don’t talk like he’s dead when he’s probably only melted. The Fire Prince will have him back to you as soon as winter is upon us. And congratulations, too. I won’t tell anyone if you don’t want me to…”
“I’ll have to start telling people sooner or later,” Kiona admitted. “Let them know that Violet’s line is secure…”
At that moment, the white hinequa landed a few feet away, still bearing the Bugslayer whose quick thinking had scared Amber away and bought them time. The Bugslayer was a young woman, about Clara’s age, black hair in a braid, her scarred arms bare, and…
“Jill Anna! You…”
Jill Anna turned to Clara, her eyes distant as she slid off the hinequa’s back. “I – she’d just frozen Jakob. I couldn’t let her … you know. Did – did I kill her?”
“Not hardly,” Clara said, grimly, walking over and setting a hand on her friend’s shoulder. “Only the Tela Du has the power to kill her, and you don’t look a thing like her.”
“But…”
“Amber made the Ia Beetles; she probably knows some sort of cure, and she’ll be back to plague us again tomorrow,” Clara pointed out. “But for now, you’ve bought us some time. I don’t know how much, but hopefully, it’ll be enough for us to regroup and rest a bit. And you did save Jakob. I was with the Fire Prince when he was unfrozen.”
“But I…” The implications were clearly bothering the girl, who’d previously never harmed anything larger than a bug.
“You did what you had to do,” said Clara. “This is war, that’s what happens. Klarand will thank you for it, I know—”
At that second, Jill Anna screamed, doubling over in pain. Along the walls and throughout the field, other people screamed at the exact same moment. It passed in a second, and she just stood there, her hands pressed against her knees, trying to get her breath back.
“Bugslayer – your arms!” Kiona breathed.
Jill Anna shot up straight and stared at her arms, wide-eyed. Every single one of her scars was gone. Slowly, a giddy grin spread across her face, and she started to laugh, a carefree laugh that Clara had never heard from her before.
“The – the poison’s gone!” she declared. “I can’t feel it burning through me anymore. I – I’ve never felt so good in my life!”
“Amber must have needed to destroy th
e poison to save her own life,” Clara realized. “I bet that happened to every Bugslayer and Bug Child. You’re all free.”
Jill Anna sobered at that thought. “But if there aren’t any Bugslayers anymore, who will kill the Ia Beetles?”
“I don’t think that’s necessary,” said Clara, thoughtfully. She pointed to a stack of cages, “Weren’t those full a moment ago?”
Jill Anna spun around, a gasp catching in her throat. “They’re – nobody move. Those things—”
“They’re gone,” said Clara. “Totally and completely gone, not just their poison. Klarand is finally free from the Ia beetles.”
“The Bugslayers aren’t needed anymore,” Jill Anna breathed.
“I’m guessing not,” Clara agreed, stepping away. “You’re no longer third in command over the Bugslayers, but you are a hero who has saved the day.” She leaned over the wall to see what the Fire Prince was doing. “I think they’ve figured it out down there, too. I was hoping that it would take Amber longer to enact a cure, but perhaps she’ll still wait until morning before she returns with her attack. At least, this way we know that we can expect her back. We’ve lost an advantage … but so has Amber.”
For indeed, releasing caged Ia Beetles on the field had proved very effective against the raging beasts.
The Fire Prince looked up and noticed her. He leaned over and said something to Phillip, Abraham, and Jakob, whom he’d been talking to, and the next moment he was up on the wall with them. He nodded towards Jill Anna as he dismounted. “I take it you’ve already figured out what Amber’s done about the poison?” he asked, taking a step towards Clara.
“Yep,” she agreed. “I take it you have, too. So, what do we do now?”
“Well, we could wait until morning or until she decides to show up again,” said the Fire Prince, closing the gap between them and taking her hand. “Or we can go now and ferret out the Dragon while she isn’t expecting it.”
“Sounds good, but…”
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