“I’ve made up my mind,” Saerith insisted. He chanted his words of magic, once again returning the lightning to his blade. “Let’s end this.”
Kellar limped over to stand beside Patrick and Saerith, a gash on his forehead leaking blood. Patrick sickened at the sight of the injured boy. He was too young to be fighting.
Patrick pointed at him. “Saerith is one thing. But you, boy, need to leave. You’ve got no real stake in this. I won’t have you dying on our behalf.”
“I agree,” Saerith said. “Take my horse and return to wherever it is you’ve come from. Your kingdom is in the sky, is it not? Do whatever it is your kind does and return to that place. I’d rather not see you become another corpse in this one.”
Kellar shook his head. “Forget it. I’m no coward either, and we don’t have time to argue. I’m too exhausted to use any more magic. If I’m gonna go down then I’m going down like a Drashian, not a mage.” Patrick could visibly see him grip the hilt of his blade tighter. “Before I was taken by the Order of Magic, my dad told me that my Drashian kind only flees from two things—drunk women and food that isn’t meat.” He raised his blade. “And I don’t see any breasts on this guy or a bowl of salad.”
Patrick sighed and then laughed. “I’m exhausted, far too exhausted to argue. Saerith?”
“I’m ready,” the Elf said.
“Mage?”
“Same here,” Kellar answered. “Let’s kill this guy.”
The Champion’s face was still blank. “Come, then,” he whispered. He held out his sword arm in a defensive position.
Patrick bent his knees. He would attack first. He inhaled and held the breath in his lungs. He was positive that he’d be cut down in an instant, but anything was better than dying without a fight, without at least trying.
He let go of his breath and charged forward, shouting at the top of his lungs. He raised his sword high above his head while he ran at the Champion. This was for his Kingdom. This was for his people. This was for—
The earth rumbled, and Patrick fell face forward into the ground. A loud rumbling came from the mountains, and even Saerith and Kellar had trouble keeping their balance. The rumbling increased in volume, and the shaking became nauseating. Kellar wobbled on his feet and Saerith held him in place. Was this an earthquake?
In the distance, a large piece of rock fell off of one of the valley’s mountains. It crashed into the earth, causing smoke to raise high into the air like the aftermath of an explosion. The sound of men fighting quieted, and then died down entirely. Once again, people all over the battlefield looked around in confusion.
Patrick didn’t think it was possible, but somehow the rumbling grew even louder and the shaking more violent. The noise didn’t just grow in sound, but in rhythm, too, like it was approaching them.
Patrick was certain of it. It was in fact coming closer. What exactly it was, Patrick didn’t know. But whatever approached, Patrick feared it as much as he feared the Champion. What could make such a horrifying noise and cause the earth to rock?
Then, he saw it Dust. There was a screen of it so high that it nearly reached clouds, coming from just off of the horizon. Patrick trembled. He covered his mouth to prevent himself from vomiting. This was something only spoken about in fairytales, in children’s stories, something that shouldn’t have been possible. The Kingdom had solved this problem hundreds of years ago.
No!
Patrick screamed in his mind
. Gods, no! Please, Helena, if you care about any of us, do not let this be a…not a…Both the Kingdom and Black-armored soldiers cried the words that Patrick feared the most, the one thing he never in his life wanted to hear.
“COCKALITH RAID!” the men screamed, terror in every voice. “COCKALITH RAID!”
Patrick could just see them as they came closer. It was more than a mere raid—it was a stampede. The first of their yellow feathers emerged from the tremendous wall of dust they kicked up. And then, as the first came into view, Patrick choked on his own breath.
“It’s them,” he moaned. “They’re back on Kingdom land. But how?”
Even Saerith trembled at the sight. “My mother told me tales of this as a child to frighten me. About the stampedes that years ago killed so many Elves and Humans alike. How, Patrick? How?”
The first Cockalith came into view, and to say it looked miffed would be an understatement. The giant chicken was at least twice the size of a horse, if not more. A sharp horn, sturdier than even diamond, stuck out nearly five feet from the tip of its forehead. The Wibbledom. It was a horn capable of piercing the mightiest stone. As more rode into view, Patrick could see there were nearly a hundred of the humongous beasts.
And on top of the centermost beast, riding the creature as if it were nothing more than a docile horse, an Elf stood with a burning blade held in one hand and a brass tube to his lips in the other. The rumbling, earthquake-like sound, as well as the shouts from the soldiers’ voices, all of them were drowned out by a familiar voice.
“SUCK MY FUCKING COCKALITH!”
Patrick froze. His heart seemed to stop beating—his eyes felt like they had lost all moisture, and with his mouth gaping, his tongue dried. It couldn’t be. Some things were too farfetched to be possible. This was one of them. And yet, as the beasts came closer, the voice, amplified by what Patrick could only assume to be Dwarven technology, challenged the very nature of reality.
“MAY I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION. YOUR GOD-KING AND COMMANDER AND RULER OF ALL THINGS HAS ARRIVED. PLEASE FORM AN ORDERLY LINE, AND YOU WILL EACH BE GIVEN THE CHANCE TO SACRIFICE ONE ORGAN OF YOUR CHOOSING IN MY NAME. NO KIDNEYS, THOUGH.”
There was no doubt about it. The Elf riding the centermost Cockalith was Sehn, and by the looks of things, he had done something ridiculous again. Only, Patrick didn’t have a clue what.
“Finally,” the Champion whispered. Patrick didn’t realize the champion had stepped beside him until the fabric of the man’s tunic brushed against his arm.
The Cockaliths crashed into the Black-armored soldiers who tried their best to flee from the wild, stampeding monsters. They weren’t fast enough, and even mounted they would be too slow. The Cockaliths whipped their heads from side to side, flinging the soldiers several feet and mowing them down like they were grass. Somehow, none were impaled on the Wibbledoms—not even the thickest of armor could protect them from the frightening sharpness of a
Cockalith’s
Wibbledom. Instead, the horrifying creatures flung the soldiers in every direction, wounding and incapacitating them.How is any of this happening?
Patrick wondered.Saerith moaned. “What has he done? Gods, will someone please tell me what Sehn did this time.”
Saerith took two steps forward and his eyes widened. “Doth mine eyes deceive me?” he whispered, apparently shocked into formality. “Hath the Gods cast curse upon thy land?” He raised his voice and trembled. “Is it so that they spit on us now? They dare! Where art thou kindness, Gods? For along with the death of a nation, so too do Cockaliths now roam civilized land. Damn you, Sehn! What did you do? Why would you release them from the mountains?”
Sehn’s beast veered off from the stampeding, raging animals, and he headed straight towards Patrick, Saerith, Kellar, and the Champion. The sound of an object slicing through air caused Patrick to duck and place his hands protectively on his head. Several dozen shadows darkened the ground, and Patrick looked up.
The Champion smiled and took two steps backwards. Seconds later, a body encased by lightning slammed into the ground and sent dirt and grass scattering, leaving a small crater in the grassy floor. Patrick remembered her—Shina, her name was.
“Oh, Kellar!” she cried. “Did this ugly, stupid man do this to you?”
Kellar laughed while the Elven girl embraced him. “I’m okay, Shina. Calm down. I’m all right. Don’t cry.”
Shina stepped away from Kellar. There were tears in her eyes, tears which evaporated and turned to steam the moment they tried to run down her face. She growled. Not the growl of a Human, but of an enraged lioness. The electricity increased in intensity until not even her eyes were visible behind the surging blue sparks of energy. “My brother is going to deal with you,” she said, snarling. The Champion didn’t respond.
Patrick jumped at the sound of a high pitched squawk from directly above him. Two gryphons landed on the grass next to Kellar. One was rider-less, probably the one Shina had jumped from. Patrick recognized the rider of the other. She’d been called Mistress Orellia.
The red-haired woman scooped up the mage-boy and carried him to the back of her gryphon. When she eyed the Champion, she lowered the right corner of her lip. She looked revolted. “Shina, mount Pancake and get away from this monster. You’re authorized to use lethal magic only as a last resort. We’re putting as many of them to sleep as we can. Kill only if directly threatened.”
“Yes, Mistress Orellia,” Shina said.
Orellia patted the girl on the shoulder. “Good. And besides, I don’t think there’s anything either of us can do against an Item. Let the Elf handle this.”
At her words, Patrick ran over to the woman and grabbed her shoulder. “Hey! What did you just say? Did you just say ‘item’?”
Orellia nodded. “That…thing,” she said, pointing to the man with the catlike eyes. “He’s neither Human, Elf, nor Dwarf. He’s not even a ‘he’, really. In actuality, this ‘champion’ is nothing more than one of the cursed items of power. They don’t always come in the form of objects. At least, from the little I know. Like I said, let the Elf handle this.”
As if on cue, a voice boomed from Sehn on top of the charging Cockalith. “I SEE LIPS MOVING OVER THERE, AND I KNOW YOUR LIPS SAID MY NAME. HOW DARE ANYONE SPEAK BEHIND THE GREAT SEHN’S BACK. PATRICK, I DEMAND YOU PUNCH YOURSELF IN THE FACE AND BALLS FOR HAVING THE AUDACITY TO UTTER MY NAME WITHOUT SIGNING THE APPROPRIATE DOCUMENTS AND PAYING THE PROPER NAME-REFERENCE TAX. NERO! HAND ME MY...OH, FUCK, HE’S NOT HERE, THAT’S RIGHT. WELL THEN, I SHALL DEAL WITH THIS LATER.”
“Is this really happening?” Saerith asked.
Patrick looked at the Elf mounted atop the most feared creature known to the civilized world and then back at the…the Item?
This is what we’ve been fighting for all along,
Patrick realized.
If we kill this…thing. Then he’ll be weakened. The hawk will be weakened.“So you know now,” the Item said.
Chills and bumps ran down Patrick’s skin. “But you breathe and talk,” Patrick whispered. “What are you?”
“I am the same thing I have always been. I am a servant.”
The sky lit up in a grand display of color. Swirling mists of red, green, and blue left the hands of the mages riding on top of the gryphons and spiraled downward into the ground, making contact with several of the black-armored soldiers. Each time, the magic would explode in a shower of sparks and the soldiers would fall on their backs, but Patrick didn’t think they died.
The Mages of the Order only kill as a last resort,
Patrick remembered. It was something he recalled learning as a child.Patrick shook in fear when Sehn pulled up on top of the Cockalith. He leapt off the thing and landed in a crouch. The creature, which by all accounts should have been rampaging through the city, remained passive and awaited further instruction.
Sehn didn’t look very happy. He and the Champion walked towards each other, and Patrick wondered if he should do something. Saerith grabbed him and pulled him back.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” the Champion whispered. “Sehn…son of Suhn. The time of all times has come. The dawn of all dawns has arrived, and so with it, you will come to find the truth in my words. Listen carefully to what I have to say. You see, I have come from—”
Both Saerith and Patrick looked at each other in astonishment as Sehn slapped the Champion across his face, silencing him.