The Missing Dragon Ch. 05

"Algra, go to the great hall. Find something more dangerous than that axe to bring with you. Get the Dragons together and lead them in battle until I join you."

"I will not-" she began to protest.

"You will do this, Algra. If I thought I could make a difference there then I would go immediately, but if I'm right then they are already being surrounded even as we speak. I've got no clever tricks up my sleeve to stop that from happening. So I'm going to check on Janette, and then I'm going to join you."

Algra thought to argue again, but she knew him well enough to know when he'd made up his mind. He was now her alpha, after all. She had a duty to obey his commands in battle, and given that his command was to go and save her people, it wasn't one that she could rightfully protest. Instead, she nodded her head and took a kiss from his lips that she knew might be their last.

"Do not die without me, my mate." With that order to him, she then turned and ran for their tent where she knew her destiny awaited her.

She sprinted inside, to the chest that her uncle had given her when she had returned to her people. Reaching down, she unclasped the latch and opened it up to reveal the contents from her past. They would be put to good use once again.

Gregory trusted Algra enough to know that she was likely running to their tent for a reason, and he didn't stop her in that goal but rather turned to address Fiona.

"Take me to them. And you," he turned toward the orc carrying a table leg and pointed to the other Berserker who was now having trouble standing up straight. "Help carry him before he falls over."

"He has been poisoned," Ishka said.

"I know. Valise will see to him. Where's Talina?"

They each turned to look at where the raven-haired girl had been stood, but she had gone and was nowhere to be seen. Knowing that he might have lost another friend brought a bestial noise from within his chest, and made him bare his teeth in frustration. Having no time to go and find her, he turned back to Fiona.

"She knows how to take care of herself, and there's no time to mount a search for her now. Take me to Ja... to Valise." He had been going to ask her to take him to Janette, but the sound of her name made his voice quiver.

Worried about Talina, Fiona only paused to take one last look over the encampment in the hopes that she might spring out of some dark corner. When she did not, the cat-woman instead steeled her heart and turned to lead them through the darkness toward where she knew the escapees had hidden.

Gregory didn't speak whilst they walked; instead keeping his eyes alert for movement in the darkness. The ring had grown hot against the skin of his palm, but he didn't loosen it or the knife in his grip. Fiona led them on until something scratched his cheek.

"Goddess!" a familiar voice cried out with relief.

Soon enough, he found himself face to face with Valise, who was crouched on a low branch and holding an elegantly carved bow drawn in her hands. The arrow nocked in place was what had scratched his cheek, and if she'd loosed it would have likely embedded itself in his brain. He didn't think that he could have been ambushed like that anymore, especially when he was being led around by Fiona's keen senses.

"Valise?" he asked. "Where are the others?"

"We're here!" Emmet hissed through the darkness, and a low light of a dimmed lantern began to glint in the near-distance.

Valise didn't wait to share pleasantries, and immediately jumped from her perch to replace the arrow in a quiver at her hip. She was wearing a thin white gown that he knew she slept in, and nothing else beneath. The sight of her brought a fresh stab of pain through his chest, for she stood as a glimmer of light, and reminded him how far it had receded in so short a time.

Rallying himself by pouring more fuel into his outrage, he burned the sorrow away and fell into step beside her. Moving toward the low light, he eventually saw Emmet crouched between the trees. Janette was lying beside him, once again wearing the dress he had given her on their date. It was now torn by a large arrow jutting out from just above the left side of her hip. The sight of it finally broke his spirit and his despair consumed him.

"Jan!" he cried out her name and his voice cracked as tears filled his eyes.

"Greg? That you?" Her voice was disturbingly weak.

"It's me. I'm here." He crouched on the opposite side of her from where Emmet had taken up his vigil. His hand slipped into hers and squeezed.

"M'sorry." Her eyes flickered until they focused on him.

"Don't be sorry, you dope." He chastised her with a quivering smile on his lips that he hoped might comfort her.

"Shoulda had more time. Wanted you so much more. Orcs. Elves. Dra-" She coughed, making his heart lurch when a black liquid poured from the corner of her mouth. Her lip trembled as her breathing grew strained, but she forced herself to finish what she had begun. "Dragons. Dwarves? I dunno. P-probably dwarves." She glanced over to Emmet, her eyes a little foggy and her voice beginning to fail her. "You're pretty sh-short. You'd m-make a good dwarf."

"He would." Gregory found himself giving a brief laugh that made tears spill from the corners of his eyes.

"All these f-fairytales, Greg. Where's our happy ending?"

She died a few moments later.

"Jan? Come on, Jan. Please? D-don't die. You're the girl of my dreams. Please don't die. Please." He continued pleading with her, and then with anyone or anything that might have been listening whilst still clutching at her hand.

Valise moved beside him and set her hand upon his shoulder, her eyes also glistening with tears.

"I'm so sorry, Gregory. There was nothing I could do."

"C-couldn't you take it out? It looks like it's hurting her so bad." He turned to face the fair elf, and she saw tears now pouring down his face and his eyes growing bloodshot with grief.

"I can now, if you wish. It is a..." she hesitated in describing the thing that had killed his love, for it was no pleasant object. After shutting her eyes tightly for a moment and feeling a swell of frustration rising inside her, she looked upon him again and opted for honesty rather than false comfort. "It is a foul thing, this arrow. The head is made from the hide of a poisonous insect that lives in the northern mountains. Its shell is hard enough to make arrowheads from, and it is covered in poisonous sacs. The sacs break faster if the arrowhead is removed from its victim, and the poison is deadly. The antidote takes days to brew, and they smashed my supplies. I couldn't..." She thought to continue, but speaking grew difficult and instead she wept beside him.

A strange thing happened as she spoke of the weapon that had killed Janette. Tears ceased to fall from Gregory's eyes, and he blinked a few times as if awakening from a dream. Whatever dark thoughts troubled his mind, his features fell into a deadly expression of clarity. With a final sniff, he released Janette's hand and stood up, refusing to look at her further and instead wiping the tears from his face. As he did so, he felt the ring in his palm and opened his hand to look down at it. The idea to place it on her finger flitted through his head, for what harm could it do her now? But no, he wouldn't risk it. It might have burned her body, and he still needed to say goodbye to her. It might have transported her back to Earth, and left him there forever with no hope of return. Darker images clouded his head of other things it might do, such as bring her back into an eternal torture with a horrid poison running through her veins.

No. He closed his fist around the ring again, and felt his anger transform into something cold and deadly.

"Is anyone else hurt?" he asked. His voice no longer quivered.

"No, master." Emmet spoke up when no one else would dare.

"Take care of Ishka and her orcs. Do what you can for them. They saved your lives. I have a fight to join."

"We will come!" Ishka offered, just as her poisoned companion fell to the ground.

"No, you won't. You will stay here and kill anything that comes to this place that isn't friendly. Is that understood?"

She started to argue, but then abruptly remembered her place when he met her gaze.

"Yes, master. We will not fail you."

He didn't say another word as he set back out into the forest, finding the trail to the training glade was easy enough and he sprinted there to pick up some armour. Not having any proper armour of his own forged yet, he would have to rely on the gear he'd used in the provings. It wasn't made for that degree of protection, but it was better than going to war in his trunks.

Bursting out into the training glade, he saw a number of figures there that he immediately deemed to be unfriendly. Even more disturbing, it appeared as if quite a few of them were dead. One of them had one of Valise's arrows sticking out of its forehead, and it knocked over a large weapon stand to look for anyone that might be hiding beneath it.

"Gregory Hopkins," the voice of Rolk called from behind him. In Gregory's rush to get to his armour, he hadn't properly checked the clearing. He thought that the enemy would want all their forces pushing toward the great hall. Clearly, he'd thought wrong.

Quickly taking stock of the situation, he saw at least a half-dozen orcs surrounding him. All had turned their attention to his presence. At least three were shambling around with dead eyes and hanging jaws. The huge figure of Rolk stepped forward from beneath the shadows; a large sword carried in his right hand was forged in the black metal of the Southern Mountains. He was garbed in some pristinely crafted armour that had the same ebon hue, and appeared nothing like the mangled and filthy creatures whose company he now kept. In his left hand, he carried some sort of tree branch that was just about 2 feet long. At one end, it opened up into a number of smaller branches that wrapped intricately around an orb that glowed with pale blue light and smouldered with a strange grey smoke.

He began to approach Gregory, and his new pack of the barely-living and the dead soon fully surrounded the lone human. There was no means of escape. Any fear that he might have felt upon this realisation dissipated when he saw the orc approaching him with a quiver full of blackened arrows. If he was going to die, then he was at least going to take as many of those fuckers with him as he could.

"Why did you come here, Rolk?" he asked; not wanting any of the corrupted orcs to jump the gun and lunge for him too soon.

The big orc laughed at that question, apparently comfortable that Gregory was no threat.

"I wanted to kill you. But I wanted to see true defeat in your eyes when I did. So I stayed here longer than I should have. I wasn't expecting Ishka to betray me, or those other two fools she spreads her legs for. Their last stand was pathetic, but it slowed me down. So I took my new friends here and we slipped past them to find and kill your human slaves. We made a good start at the camp. But I wanted you to know you'd lost everything before you died. Except Algra, of course." Rolk grinned maliciously. "She will prove a fitting mate when I am warchief. Or at least she'll offer some entertainment on a cold night when she's chained to the foot of my bed."

Gregory lifted the knife in his hand into a guard position as they closed in around him, and kept an eye on the archer. Though the orc didn't seem to want to waste any more of his arrows on him, and was closing in with a short sword instead. Good. He would need them in close. Dropping the knife, he instead grasped onto the ring. It was now radiating enough silvery light to illuminate the dark glade. Rolk only paused momentarily when he saw it, then he smiled broadly.

"Ah, the trinket! Father is very interested in it. Thank you for bringing it to me. I wish father had told me about it sooner, for I could have stolen it before I used one of your elf-witch's vile concoctions to free the madman you had bound in your camp. No matter. Soon it will be mine again, along with everything else that once belonged to you."

"You freed Freddie? What the fuck for?"

"To get you exiled, of course. Or cast into the cesspits. It's astonishing how far the fool, Grolfir, allowed human scum to advance. Tonight, it all ends."

With those words, Rolk raised up his enormous sword above his head to cleave down on the human's skull whilst the other orcs began to pounce in to finish off whatever was left. Gregory closed his eyes and muttered a final thought as he held the ring tightly.

"I'm sorry, Algra."

With that, he closed his eyes, slipped the silver band on his ring finger and waited for the flames to consume him and his enemies.

- - - - -

Heat poured through his body, though it did not burn. The aches in his muscles from months of fighting were consumed by that warmth, and his body was soothed into a state of near-sleep. The last of the thoughts that trailed through his mind assumed that it was simply his end. Whatever the ring had done, it had done it so fast that his nerves hadn't been able to bring the pain to his brain and his spirit was now floating into the great beyond.

At least that's what he thought he was doing, until he found that he could open his eyes.

Rolk was still charging toward him, so close that he could see the little green veins in the whites of the orc's eyes. For a moment it seemed as if he was living in a fixed instant. His last moment of life formed around him. It wasn't until he realised the tip of Rolk's sword was moving that he actually realised it wasn't a still image. The orcs were there, but moving much too slowly. As if time itself had stalled around him.

In his dream-like state, he thought how odd the creatures looked up close. How strange it was that he'd thought those withered and wretched things to be dangerous. His attention eventually fell upon the wand that Rolk held in his other hand, and he frowned at the orb of blue light.

No. That was wrong.

Gregory lifted his hand in a minor gesture toward the foul thing that now seemed to offend the very essence of his being. Deep within its core, it began to shatter. The power within was becoming unstable. Wanting it gone as soon as possible, he willed the world to speed up again and, much to his surprise, the world followed orders.

The explosion sent Rolk hurtling backwards from the impact, and his shiny ebon armour was bent out of shape against his left flank. The arm that had held the wand was rendered immediately useless, and it dropped to his side as he fell back into the grass. In that moment, the last of that pale blue light dissipated into nothing and the three undead orcs fell to the ground and moved no more.

There was one behind him, about to bring a heavy club riddled with spikes down on his left shoulder. It was the only orc that hadn't been caught up in the blast, because Gregory had been between it and the wand, and Gregory hadn't moved. Rather than turning around to face his attacker, he instead stepped backward so that the club fell just over his shoulder instead. Then, as if he was swatting away an annoying insect, Gregory reached up with the hand that wore the ring and grasped the club, spikes and all. The screeching sound of metal being crushed against metal rang out through the clearing. He crushed the mace into a warped shape before flinging it away and grasping the arm of the orc that held it. Soon enough, the orc was also flung away across almost the entire length of the clearing until it splatted against the trunk of a tree like a bug hitting a car window.

By that time, its friends had managed to find their feet again and resumed their charge. They seemed unable to comprehend the idea of a mere human with the degree of power that Gregory had just displayed. It simply wasn't possible. So, he engaged them once again, and they found their assumptions fatally flawed.

To them, it seemed as if he were a blur shifting from one to the next and tearing his bare hands through their chests. The armour that they had adorned themselves with didn't seem to hinder the journey of his fists through their ribcages, and he only came to a halt at the last. The archer. By that time, the orc had seen enough to try to flee from whatever magic the human wielded. Catching it by clamping his hand on its shoulder; he dug his fingers into its collar bone with a sickening crunch that made the orc squeal in agony. Then he meticulously settled his other hand beneath its chin and very slowly pulled its head, along with a good portion of its spine, from its shoulders.

Gregory stopped then, and looked down at the head of the creature now held in his grip. Why had he done that? It was... inefficient. For some reason, some distant part of him found it to be entirely necessary.

"Die! Why won't you just die!?" Rolk roared in a mix of pain, frustration and madness.

With one arm still limp at his side, he raised his sword with the other and charged toward Gregory just as he had done time and time again. Unable to comprehend why his strength, his power, and his force of will were simply not enough to crush the human.

Gregory lifted his hand and a beam of white-hot light shot from his palm to tear through Rolk's chest before the orc could even get close. The armour he wore couldn't hope to withstand the blast, and soon enough the once mighty alpha of The Berserkers fell face-first in the dirt for the last time. The gaping hole in his chest smouldered, and Gregory tilted his head questioningly as if wondering just what the hell Rolk's problem was.

He would ask Janette. Janette would tell him. She knew how people worked.

"Christ, I leave you alone for five minutes and you're up to your elbows in orc guts!"

She floated in the air beside him; her hair now flaming with red light, and her body radiating a silvery glow from her pale skin. Upon seeing her, he smiled almost sleepily, but the smile was gone by the time he spoke.

"Hello, Janette." His voice had changed, not only in its deep tone that seemed to reverberate out through the entirety of the glade, but also in its absence of personality.

"Hey, honey. I'm sorry about dying on you back there. Y'know, it's not so bad. I got to talk with Lydia and Torren again. They say hi. They both loved you a lot. Torren asks that you take care of Talina for him. He doesn't think she'll handle his death all that well."

Lydia. Torren. Yes. He remembered. He wanted to speak with them too.

"Don't!" Janette yelled out. "Don't try to call them, Greg. They've been dead too long. It doesn't take long for the spirit to rejoin with the world. There won't be enough left of them to talk with." She pointed down at her feet.

Though she was floating a few inches above the ground, he saw that she too was dissipating as tendrils of her silvery body were held to the world and she seemed to be rejoining the rivers of spiritual energy that ran beneath.

"No." He didn't raise his voice, but the mere imperative shift in the way he spoke was enough.

Those tendrils immediately broke with only a mild hiss of protest before they sank back beneath the earth to leave her untethered.

"Greg, you have to let me go. It's calling to me. It's like nothing I've ever felt." She watched her link to that flow of spiritual energy dissipate with alarm.

"No."

"You know you can be a real butthead sometimes!?"

"Yes."

Janette's spirit stopped her next argument in its tracks at his simple, calm response.

"Oh. Ok then. Just so we got that clear. I guess that thing likes you then, if it's letting you break the laws of life and death." She swooped forward and passed her incorporeal hand through the ring. The attempt made her flinch from it as if she'd been stung. "Jeez! How the hell did that hurt!? I have no fucking central nervous system!"