Amendments (29 page)

The king ducked to the side and swung his sword in one fluid motion.  Ratt blocked the attack with his light shield enchant, but felt weariness tugging at his consciousness.  He'd rarely used this much of his chakra, and knew he'd almost completely drained the vast resource.

The king sprang to his feet and glowered at Ratt.  “You must be 'Savior of Tier' everyone is talking about.  How do you plan to save Tier by killing me?  I'm one of the few who are still able to stand against Tier's enemies.”

The other nobles had fled to the other side of the room.  Ratt kept an eye on them, but replied to the king.  “You have ruined Tier!  You oppress its people with Din Slaves, forced labor, and soldiers everywhere!”

“You know nothing, boy,” the king spat.  “I constantly barter for the lives of the citizens of Tier!  Only because of me is Tier not a wasteland by now!”

“I'm tired of listening to your lies!” Ratt growled as he raised his axe.

“I speak the truth, boy!  The Lady in Rags wants to destroy everything!  She's the one making the straghs!  She hatches them in a mine in Vosul'ett!”

“Kill him now!” the voices screamed in Ratt's head.  Ratt surged forward and swiped down with his axe, augmenting the blow the majority of his remaining chakra.  The king held his sword high to block the attack, but the strength of the blow wrenched his sword from his hand.  Ratt's axe plunged into the King of Tier's chest.

Ratt's consciousness wavered, but he forced himself to remain alert.  The king coughed blood.  He croaked, “You've doomed us all, kid.”

Ratt removed his axe from the king's chest and the man fell limply to the ground.  Ratt replaced his weapon in the loop on his back and turned to the shocked nobles on the other side of the room.  “I now declare Tier free from the king's tyrannical rule.  Tier will be made beautiful again.”  Ratt lifted the king's body in his arms with the very last of his energy.

              One of the nobles, an elderly man, took a step forward from the others. “And who will rule Tier now, boy?  You?”

              “No.  I am a mere puppet.  Tier will be in the hands of the resistance.  Lord Murik will insure the citizens of Tier are treated with decency and--”

              “We will not serve under Murik!”

              Ratt walked back to the hole he'd made in the floor earlier.  As he jumped through, he said coldly, “Then leave.”

Chapter 28

Legends Reunited

              Noir ran through the corridors of Fort Estelar, the capitol of the Tierian kingdom.  He retraced the steps he'd taken with Ruith less than one day earlier.  He'd found some simple fort servant clothes to wear under his brown traveling cloak, and stole a belt and sword sheath to hold the sword he'd taken from the altar.

              The halls of the fort were remarkably empty compared to before.  Noir worried it had something to do with the repeated explosions he was hearing.

              Noir ran down the hall that led to the foyer he remembered from earlier.  He hoped the front doors would be as devoid of guards as the rest of the fort.  He turned the corner and saw an odd sight.  One stone pillar was broken in two and a large hole had been smashed in the ceiling.  Several guards studying the scene turned to look at Noir as he entered.

              The guards stared at Noir with a mixture of surprise and disgust.  One guard said, “It's one of those dual vigor users!”

              The other guards continued to stare at Noir and he began to realize how big of a change the scars had to be.  He hadn't seen his face very well yet, but his hands were covered with layer after layer of angry red scars.  His face had to be a disturbing sight.

              The large wooden doors were closed.  Noir demanded, “I need to know what's happening outside.  I've been down in the caverns.”

              One guard said, “Nidhoggr is on a rampage.”

              Noir's heart sank.  It was as he'd feared.  Another guard said, “I guess the rumors about Tier keeping him captive were true.  He's getting his revenge.”

              Noir decided half to himself, “Someone's got to talk to him or stop him.”

              “I... don't think there's any chance of that, sir,” another guard said.  “He's the ancient, all-powerful dragon of destruction.  You should simply hide like everyone else.”

              Noir shook his head.  “He'll destroy everything.”

              Noir made for the wooden doors that would lead outside.  One of the guards said to Noir's back, “He'll destroy you too.”

              Noir put his hands on one of the large doors and said, “I'm already destroyed.”

              Noir pushed open the large wooden door and saw the destruction Nidhoggr was causing for the first time.  Black smoke and flames rose into the afternoon sky.  Sections of the wall that surrounded the fort had been blown to pieces.  Many of the tall buildings in the city were ragged, pointed fingers of brick and stone that reached toward the sky and toward their destroyer.

              Noir ran down the front steps of the fort and looked at the destruction with disbelief.  Noir thought about all that had happened.  He understood that Nidhoggr would be angry for how he'd been kept captive, but Noir never imagined this would be the result.  The three dragons were not supposed to destroy!  He'd seemed so rational when Noir had let him out.

              “I let him out,” Noir admitted to himself.  A massive fireball streaked across the sky over Noir's head.  It exploded against an already weakened section of the fort wall.  The top portion of that section of wall toppled into the city and rained down on a two-story house.  The house instantly collapsed and was turned to ruin.  “I did this,” Noir whispered with disbelief.  “All of this is my fault!”

              Noir shook his head as if to fling aside that thought.  “No.  The king... or whoever... captured Nidhoggr and tortured him, not me.  I...” Noir closed his eyes in pain, “didn't help, though.  I was part of his torture.  I knew Ruith wanted me to gain din and I led him straight to the dragon's chamber.”

              Noir looked up as Nidhoggr flew low over his head and let out a massive roar.  “Someone needs to do something.”  Noir watched another house nearby explode into splinters from a huge spear of ice that fell from the sky.  “But what can I do?”

~~~

              Ratt stood holding the king's body underneath the chaos that Nidhoggr was raining down upon the city.  He stood on the far side of a plaza in the center of Tier.  For the first time in a long while, the voices were silent while he wore his enchant armor.

              Citizens of the Tierian capital city ran through the courtyard carrying children, belongings, and valuables.  Many seemed to be fleeing the city, some just ran for shelter, and even more ran or hid in confused terror.  In the chaos, no one had noticed the armored man standing in the plaza and holding their dead king.

              Nidhoggr flew over Fort Estelar once more and relative peace settled on the plaza.  Finally, Ratt watched as an elderly man walked up to him pointing at the king's body in his arms.  “I recognize that man.  I know him.”  Ratt dropped the king's body unceremoniously onto the grass at his feet and took a step back.  The old man continued, “That is the king.  I saw him play when he was a boy in Estelar's inner courtyard.”

              Ratt said, “You are correct.  This is the king of Tier.”

              Several more people had stopped and noticed the strange scene in the plaza during the momentary reprieve from the dragon's attacks.  The elderly man walked to the king's body, feebly knelt down, and put his hand behind the man's head.  He stared into the king's unmoving face for a moment, then looked up at Ratt and said, “Why have you done this?”

              Several people had approached and were now near enough to hear the conversation.  Ratt said to them all, “This is your former king.  This man killed my parents, enslaved my grandparents, and did much worse to many of you.  He has spoiled Tier from its former beauty.”

              “That's the king?” a young mother asked with disbelief.  “I've never seen him before.”

              Ratt replied, “That is indeed the King of Tier.  I have slain him with my own hand.”  Several people gasped.  “Tier is now free from this evil man's oppression.  The resistance has won and occupied Garmak and will now come here and rule with fairness and freedom.  We will rebui--”

              Ratt's speech was interrupted by Nidhoggr soaring overhead and roaring.  The ground nearby shook and splintered upward in rock pillars.  Rocks pelted the small crowd as they ducked for cover.

              After the dragon passed to another section of the city, the elderly man said to Ratt with sadness, “Freedom matters little if we are dead.  Someone has to do something about Nidhoggr or your efforts will be for nothing, Savior of Tier.”             

~~~

              Fafnir thrust her powerful wings down and back, then up and forward as ferociously as possible.  The closer she got to her brother, the stronger she could sense his rage.  For the better part of a day she'd been flying at full speed toward her brother.  She hadn't sensed him for years, but now his rage echoed through the world with thunderous, unseen pulsations that only she and Jotunar would be able to sense.

              “I hope my brother isn't doing anything rash,” Fafnir growled to herself between heavy breaths.  Her question to herself was answered as she finally got sight of black smoke faintly on the horizon.  It rose from several places over what Fafnir could then see was a city—the Tierian capital, she realized.

              Suddenly the situation made sense to Fafnir.  Nidhoggr had to have been a captive of the king for these past years as they'd hypothesized.  Somehow, he'd been freed and was exacting a very foolish revenge on the people who'd been his captor.  Thousands of years prior, he'd been the one who argued against giving their powers to these new, intelligent creatures called humans that showed up in their world.  No doubt he'd want to destroy them for what they did to him.

              Fafnir sighed and pushed herself forward with her wings even harder.  She had to either talk some sense into her brother, or force him to stop.  Fafnir hoped he would listen to sense.  She was very tired from flying all day and wondered if she'd have the energy to stand up to her powerful brother.  “I suppose Nidhoggr was right, in a way,” Fafnir mused to herself sadly.  “He knew giving them our powers would lead to death and destruction eventually.”

~~~

              Noir ran to a child who cried out in terror beside her unconscious, bleeding mother.  Noir skidded to a stop and dropped to the ground beside the woman.  The child looked at Noir with terror and backed away.  “No,” Noir said realizing how hideous his face had to look to a young child.  “Don't be afraid.  I'm going to help your mother.”

              The child kept her frightened eyes on Noir, but slowly crept forward with trepidation and clung to her unconscious mother's clothes.  Noir tried to smile warmly, but felt his scars pull on his face uncomfortably.  The girl stared at him wide-eyed and Noir realized he should just heal her mother.  Then she would understand.

              Noir put a hand to the woman's abdomen where the majority of the blood was and fed lux into her wounds.  Noir felt his lux streaming from a tremendous pool of chakra within him.  This distracted him for a moment as he healed.  The Einlanzer enchant sword was in its scabbard, so its extra well of chakra was not available to him.  Somehow he had more chakra than ever before.  It almost felt like twice the amount he'd ever had.  As Noir mended the woman's flesh, he mused on what that could mean.  Was he suddenly twice as strong from all of his ordeals?  That didn't make sense.  Somehow Nidhoggr's blood had given him more chakra to use with lux.  No, it had given him more chakra in general, he just hadn't realized it before when he used din.  Now, only when he was using lux, a power he was familiar with, did he realize the augmentation to his chakra.

              The woman on the ground coughed a few times, and then suddenly jerked up to a sitting position.  Noir finished healing the last of her injuries, then looked at the woman and smiled.  The woman screamed at the sight of Noir, grabbed her child frantically, and ran away.

              As always, Noir enjoyed helping people, but he couldn't help but feel a sense of dread by the woman's reaction.  Ruith had ruined his body.  He looked like a monster.

              Noir shook his head sadly and stood.  He pulled his brown hood up over his head in an attempt to hide his scars.  Others stared at him as they hastened by.

              Noir started to search the streets for something else he could help when he heard a new sound.  The enraged roars of Nidhoggr were supplemented by a new creature's bellow.  This new one was somehow slightly feminine.

              Noir's eyes tracked the new sound.  He sprinted around a street corner and saw the source.  Far at the end of the long street he could see the outer walls.  On top he saw the massive white and yellow dragon that he'd trained with many long months prior.  She sat on her haunches and towered over the wall and buildings.  Her powerful claws dug into the stone wall, her head was high above her body, and she held her wings outstretched in an impressive display.

              “Fafnir!” Noir blurted out and started to run in her direction.  However, the dragon was oblivious of her former student below.  Instead, her attention was on something high above her.  A shadow passed over Noir and he looked up to see Nidhoggr hovering down and moving toward Fafnir.  He flapped his wings a few more times, and then let his body fall heavily onto the top of one of the tall buildings in front of Fafnir.  Black smoke swirled around Nidhoggr from the burning building beneath him.

              Noir sprinted down the street toward the two massive, awe-inspiring creatures while everyone else ran the opposite direction.  Noir was still too far from the dragons to hear, but he could tell they were talking.

              Noir ran through the frantic, fleeing Tierian citizens and finally made it to the alley between the two dragons' perches.  He stared up at the two legends and listened.

              “...trapped like an animal, Fafnir!” Nidhoggr bellowed.

              “It doesn't mean they deserve
this
!” Fafnir replied while motioning with one of her massive, scaled arms toward the destruction around her.  “The king did this to you, not these people.  I know you are angry, my brother, but be sensible.”

              “Sensible?!” Nidhoggr roared.  “These... creatures had me imprisoned and injured me to gain power!  How is that not pure evil?”

              “But these humans did not do this to you.  It was—”

              “Humans did this to me!” Nidhoggr roared with rage.  “They're all the same!  They abuse the powers we blessed them with, torture us, spoil the land, and kill their savior!  They are not even supposed to be here, sister!  It is time they left!”

              “Them leaving is very different than
destroying
them, Nidhoggr!  Humans crawled out of that cave thousands of years ago lost, confused, and afraid.  We--”

              “As I said those thousands of years ago, they do not belong here!” Nidhoggr growled.  “We should never have aided the helpless fools.  But now that we have,” Nidhoggr's voice rose to a roar once again, “they've done unimaginable evils to one of the very creatures who helped them!  They are evil, Fafnir!  Admit it!”