We crouched inside Alcatraz, around the corner and near a cellblock adjacent to my own. The lights were off and the place was dark. I wanted to stop and explain to them what was going on, but before I had a chance I heard a familiar voice in my head.
Oh, how I’ve missed seeing your ugly mug, Greggdroule!
Froggy tossed me the Bloodletter, as the ax continued to rant.
Those slightly crooked, dirty-mud-colored eyes. Those yellowing and haphazardly arranged teeth! Your stringy hair! The smell, oh, and the smell! Never before have I missed a smell like that.
My heart leaped at the sight of it.
As the handle hit my palms, a spark of power surged through me. Whatever aches and pains I’d had were gone. And also, oddly enough, I now wanted more than anything to run back out there and lay waste to everyone and everything. To both sides of the battling armies. For putting me and my friends in danger.
Yeah, the Bloodletter added. And also they held you prisoner! I mean, who does that? They kept you captive with a smile on their faces! Like they were doing you a favor!
The ax was right: Why had I been so accepting of being a prisoner anyway? I should have been furious the whole time. Whether they’d treated me relatively well or not was irrelevant. I had been their prisoner—they’d taken my freedom. And the Verumque Genus, well, they deserved to be destroyed for obvious reasons. All I saw ahead of me was vengeance and fury.
My teeth were grinding together so hard I thought I might have chipped one of them. How had I been so blind to my situation before? It had to have been Elven manipulation and powers of persuasion.
No Elf will be left standing, the Bloodletter said.
Well, I’m not quite sure about that . . . I thought back.
You’re not angrier only because they fooled you with their Elven charm, Greggdroule, the Bloodletter said. But now that we’re reunited, nothing will stop us from saving the world from the Elves. All of them.
Okay, let’s do this, I thought back. Let’s go destroy!
Heck, yes! Rock and roll!
I started to get up, to go charging outside to unleash the chaos of the Bloodletter on both groups of Elves. But Eagan put a hand on my shoulder and stopped me.
“Whoa, wait just a second,” he said. “What’s going on here?”
In the heat of the moment, I forgot I hadn’t filled everyone in. So I explained to them very quickly who the Verumque Genus were. And what their plan was. And why they were fighting Edwin, and what his plan was.
“We’ve got to stop them,” I said at the end. “All of them. Edwin wants to strip the world of magic and the VG want to use magic to control an army of monsters to wreak havoc. Clearly, we can’t let either happen.”
“These are good points,” Eagan said. “But I wonder what the Council—”
Tell him that the torpid Council can go eat a drungy borrloonger, the Bloodletter said. We can handle this our-purbogging-selves.
“Forget the Council,” I interrupted Eagan, choosing not to be quite as harsh as Carl suggested. “What I want to know is, how did you know I was here? And why didn’t you come sooner?”
“The Bloodletter led us here, actually,” Eagan said.
“Really?”
“Aye!” Lake declared. “Tis powers nary be underestimated henceforth!”
That’s right, I’m a boss, the ax boasted. Don’t ever mess with me or my Dwarf.
“We didn’t want to wait so long, really,” Ari said, and I knew she meant it. “After the ax led us here, which was a long process itself, involving it glowing in different shades of blue and purple—almost like a compass—we had to send word back to the Council. They told us to wait and observe and only go in if we thought your life was in immediate danger. They didn’t want to risk prematurely starting a war with the Elves.”
I nodded, then stood up again.
“Okay, either way, enough chitchat, let’s go end this,” I said.
“Now you’re talking!” Glam said excitedly. “It’s Elf-smashing time.”
“Wait, guys,” Eagan commanded. “Greg, have you actually seen the size of the armies out there? I don’t think we can take them. There are only ten of us, with Stoney, and likely close to a thousand of them all totaled. I think we’re better off just trying to escape unnoticed. We can take this new information to the Council and let them decide how to handle the Verumque Genus. We don’t have to save the day on our own.”
“Guys, I hate to interrupt,” Ari said. “But I don’t think it matters. We don’t really have a choice anymore, from the look of it.”
We all stood up and looked around. On either side of us in the cellblock were two masses of monsters and Elves, cutting off both possible escape routes. On one side was a legion of Goblins armed with tiny hatchets and swords. Though only three feet tall at most, Goblins made up for it with speed, light use of magic, and ferocious relentlessness. There were likely a hundred of them in the cellblock in front of us, their shiny green heads bobbing up and down hastily like waves, and so the relatively small size of their weapons was not very comforting.
On the other side were at least twenty-five huge, vicious-looking beasts that I immediately recognized as Manticores. They were easy enough to identify from their unique appearance, which was exactly how they’d been described in our Monsterology texts. They had a massive body similar to a lion’s (but spikier—and I knew from my studies that the spikes were laced with venom), with dark, leathery wings folded up on their shoulders like a Dragon, and long spindly tails with poisonous barbs on the end like a scorpion.
But the worst part was their head. A Manticore had an almost Human-like head. Had it just been a Human face on a creature’s body, it maybe wouldn’t have been quite so terrifying. But it was the almost part that made them especially, unnaturally Ghoulish. The face was structured like a Human’s, complete with teeth that were surprisingly rounded for such a savage beast, and a pointed nose with two nostrils. But the face was stretched wider, distorted and waxy, like bad special effects in an old movie. And the mouth, framed by a wild lion-like mane, was always twisted into an ugly smile.
The venomous Manticores were flanked by about a dozen Elves wearing black enchanted armor with glowing green-and-gold runes on it. VG soldiers: all armed to the teeth with swords, bows and arrows, and wicked spears called halberds. The VG Elves smiled, knowing as well as we did just how trapped, outnumbered, and likely doomed we all were. And then one of them spoke, his voice familiar and chilling to the bone.
“Well, well, if it isn’t Roly-McBowly Fatmont!” Perry Sharpe said.
By far the biggest bully at the PEE, Perry was a vicious tormenter of pretty much everyone, but especially of kids like me and Froggy. I quickly noticed now that his armor was different from the other VG Elves’. It was fancier. So I already suspected that he was the very same “adolescent” leader Stoney had heard about.
Perry confirmed this a second later.
“Like my new army?” he sneered. “Somehow I should have known you and Edwin would still be working together! That kid always has been such a disgrace to the Elves—having such a soft spot for Dwarves. I mean, even when Dr. Yelwarin reported back to me that you were here, I didn’t believe her! Oh! Oh my, and look, it’s also little Froggy! The half-breed! Two for one!”
Froggy scowled and raised his throwing axes.
“Well, I’m just so happy we’re outside the PEE now,” Perry said. “So I can finally do to you both what I’ve always wanted to!”
A short silence followed as we stared up at Perry and he looked down at us. And the Goblins on the other flank shuffled their feet restlessly. After a time the silence actually got a little uncomfortable.
“Um, well, now what?” one of the VG Elves next to Perry asked.
“What do you mean now what?” Perry screeched at him. “Attack! Attack! Wasn’t that clear? Attac
k and kill them all!”
And so it seemed we now had to join the battle, if there was going to be any chance of getting off this island alive.
CHAPTER 39
Carl Is Finally in His Element
We drew our weapons and formed ourselves into a tight circle as the two armies closed in slowly on either side of us.
Glam’s fists turned into boulders. Stoney roared and several of the Goblins took an uncertain step backward, their beady eyes actually displaying fear.
“Come on, guys!” Glam shouted with a huge grin. “Let’s go have some fun! Glam SMASH!”
She charged into the sea of Goblins, her boulder fists swinging wildly from side to side, sending little green bodies flying up into the second level of prison cells. Something about it was oddly intoxicating to watch: little green limbs flailing as the Goblins soared into the air. Or maybe it was just the Bloodletter’s ecstatic screaming in my head making me think that way: WooooooOooOOOOo! Come on, Greg, join the fun!
He was right, I didn’t have time to watch it rain Goblins.
The VG Elves and Manticores were already charging toward us on the other side. I readied the Bloodletter. It vibrated with glee.
Finally! I’ve been waiting a long time for this moment, Greggdroule.
His words kicked my adrenaline into overdrive. Magic surged through me. I suddenly felt like the most powerful being in the universe.
I easily dispatched a Manticore right away—after all, this wasn’t an MPM, it was a real battle. Plus, I didn’t even have time to think about it—the Bloodletter nearly moved on its own as I twirled around and lopped off another’s poisonous tail just as it was soaring toward Froggy’s back. Almost as an afterthought, like I was on autopilot, I used a Dwarven wind spell to deflect three arrows heading toward my friends.
The arrows clattered onto the concrete harmlessly.
In a way, it felt like the Bloodletter was doing most of the work as I jumped and spun and swung my ax. It felt even lighter than weightless—as if it was pulling me along. Like the Bloodletter and I were the same being, like my brain was switched off. Decisions didn’t need to be made—they didn’t even have a place in this battle.
Every limb moved on its own.
As I took out three Goblins surrounding an unaware Giggles Bitterspine, already tangled up in a sword fight with two other Goblins.
As I fended off two VG Elves charging at me with glowing swords.
As I smashed a Manticore to the ground just before it was about stomp on Yoley.
I figured it was only a matter of time before an unseen arrow pierced my back or a blade found its way past my many stone defensive spells. But I didn’t care—all I could see before me were my enemies and the Bloodletter.
Find Perry, the Bloodletter taunted me. Let’s make him eat his words. Let’s pay him back for all the times he stuffed you headfirst into the Souper Bowl.
How do you even know about that?
Because we’re one and the same now, he said. When you fully embraced me as my owner at the start of this battle, when you accepted my power, we became one. Well, at least in a magically symbolic way, of course. You’re still flesh-and-blood Dwarf and I’m still cold, merciless metal.
I spun around, looking for Perry as the Bloodletter suggested.
But as I searched the chaos for him, a different realization hit me: Beyond the power of the Bloodletter’s magic, our side should have been losing. We were outnumbered in this cellblock twenty to one. Then I recognized the main reason we were holding our own: Stoney.
He was a beast.
The Rock Troll rampaged through the crowd of Manticores, flattening everything in his path. He picked up two of them—even though they were nearly as large as he was—and used them as living battering rams as he took out a dozen more in less than five seconds. The VG Elves were furiously casting spells at Stoney, but they seemed to be having little effect.
At least at first.
I watched as their bolts of lightning and colorful balls of energy simply evaporated into Stoney’s rock-like skin with weak sizzles. But after several dozen spells and thousands of blows from the Goblins’ tiny axes and swords, and dozens of stings from the Manticores’ venomous spikes and barbed tails, Stoney finally began to stumble, looking weak and tired.
He swayed backward and then crashed through a row of prison cells. He obliterated them instantly and continued falling right through the outer prison wall. I stood powerless as a massive section of the old building collapsed onto Stoney (and half of the Goblin army), burying them all in rubble.
A scream of rage and panic erupted from my lungs as the Bloodletter dispatched two more Goblins.
I ran toward the pile of rubble, trying to summon any magic I could think of that would help unearth my fallen friend. But the collapsed wall had opened up our cellblock to the rest of the battle. Two Wyverns were already soaring toward me, screeching like Dragons (despite being a lot smaller) as they bared their sharp teeth. Unlike many different Dragon breeds we’d read about, Wyverns did not breathe fire, but I knew their bites were poisonous—they had a temporary but instantaneous paralyzing effect.
I dodged the first Wyvern, swinging the Bloodletter up toward its belly as I rolled.
The second one clipped my shoulder with a talon and blood spurted out onto the pavement. But I didn’t have time to worry about a mere flesh wound. I jumped back to my feet and conjured up another bolt of lightning. It zapped across the sky and connected with the Wyvern in a bright flash.
The winged creature fell silently toward the ground.
I spun around, back toward the rubble pile, but it was too late. The larger battle had spilled inside now and my path was blocked by dozens of Edwin’s Elves fighting an array of monsters and VG Elves. It would have been hard to tell the two sides apart if not for the VG Elves’ matching combat armor. Whereas Edwin’s army looked more ragtag, most not wearing any armor at all—which made sense considering this had likely been a surprise attack.
Then I somehow saw two things all at once, very clearly, amid the chaos:
Lixi was among the fighting Elves, battling three Orcs. Overwhelmed and outnumbered, her Elven blade was knocked from her hand by an Orc wielding a huge iron-and-bone mace. The force of the blow threw her backward and she slammed into a pile of bricks. The three Orcs lunged toward her as she struggled to sit up.
I heard Eagan screaming for help. My head spun as I looked back the other way and saw him being carried up into the sky by two Harpies (ugly creatures that were basically half woman, half bird, and all nasty—known to frequently carry away their victims for a slow and torturous death later), seemingly fighting over which one got to have (and later eat) their spoils of war.
And I knew right then and there that I only had time to save one of them.
CHAPTER 40
For Once, Greed Is Good (Sort Of)
The blind vengeance the Bloodletter had infected me with when I’d taken hold of its cold handle evaporated in an instant.
At the beginning of the battle, this would have been an easy choice: Save Eagan, let the Elf die. But now my thoughts flashed back to how kind Lixi had been during my time here. To how much fun I’d had hanging out and talking with her in spite of technically being a prisoner. And most of all, to how I knew she was a good person deep down, regardless of what any Dwarf would ever tell me.
How could I make a choice like this?
It’s easy! the Bloodletter hissed. Save your real, true friend. Not the lying Pointer that helped hold you hostage. Eagan wouldn’t even be here if she hadn’t made you a prisoner. Let the Elf die, she deserves it.
My insides melted with dread.
The two Harpies were still greedily fighting over Eagan as they ascended higher and higher into the sky, and his cries for help started to fade. Lixi, however, was furiously kicking at the Orcs
as they grabbed her limbs, seconds from possibly pulling her apart.
I knew now there was no real choice—circumstances saved me from the torture. Lixi would be the first to perish and so that made my decision clear. I didn’t care in that moment that I was supposed to hate Elves forever and was foretold (as the Bloodletter’s “Chosen One”) to rise up and lead the Dwarves to glory. None of that mattered to me. What mattered to me was that I had a friend in trouble and couldn’t just do nothing.
Besides: this was also precisely what Eagan would do.
I sprinted toward Lexi.
Greggdroule, no! the enraged Bloodletter howled into my brain.
I dodged two arrows and a Goblin swinging a sword on the way. I tried to summon a spell to help Lixi as I ran, but nothing was happening. Was she too far away, or was the Galdervatn fading? Perhaps this wasn’t the final return of it after all. Or had my magic run out? Did it have limits?
Either way, it meant I’d have to do this the hard way.
Lixi had just managed to free herself from the grip of one Orc when another grabbed her neck and lifted her off the ground. She had maybe seconds left, and I was still ten yards away.
Before I even realized what I was doing, my shoe (of all things) was in my hand. And then it was soaring through the air a split second later. It connected with the back of the Orc’s head. He grunted in surprise and turned around, still holding Lixi by the neck. The two other Orcs also spun around, their eyes glowing.
My shoe may not have been deadly, but it bought me the extra second I needed.
I was nearly there now, running full speed, and I leaped into the air, twirling my ax across my body, drawing a perfect half circle with it around my chest. The Bloodletter finished it, the three Orcs dropping to the ground half a second after I landed in the center of them.
I can’t believe you made me save an Elf, the Bloodletter moaned.
Lixi landed on top of an Orc’s body and then rolled off it in disgust. She kicked at his lifeless calf and then turned to face me. Her tear-filled eyes overflowed with affection and gratitude. But I didn’t have time to respond.
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