They had secured the gate house after much fighting and Aldrin only had 33 mana left, the fighting up the stairs had been bloody. And he had to use a lot of low level spells that had eaten up his mana pool. He was now standing on top the gate house looking down on the walls, the left side would soon be won with the reinforcements he had brought. But the other side was lost if he did not interfere, the question was if he dared to use a level ten spell. It would seriously drain his remaining mana but it would turn the battle. Then he saw one more soldier die at the hands of a dark elven fighter, that made the decision for him.

Star fall

Spell level: 10

Mana cost: 10

Casting time: 5 sec

Range: 20 ft + (10ft * caster int modifier)

Area: select (2 * caster int modifier) targets in a 50 ft circle.

Damage: 20 * (caster int modifier)

He pointed his staff to the sky and chanted. And magical energy started to gather into brightly shining stars.

"Star fall!"

He shouted out the spell name, and it released the stars that shot down from the sky hitting 36 enemy combatants, instantly killing them. The soldiers quickly used the opportunity and ganged up on the few elves that were left of the wall. Outnumbered they fell quickly or tried to retreat down the ropes they had used to climb the walls. A minute later the officer joined him on the roof of the gate house.

"Sir, the walls are ours again."

"Good work lieutenant! You and the men stay here, keep a lookout for more dark elves. I will check on the tunnel."

Aldrin started to make his way down to the ground, when he came over to the tunnel he saw his dwarves friend sitting on a nasty brute of an orc. With a tankard in hand and a keg beside him, he was joking with the soldiers.

"You seem to be in a finne mood, and I see you still carry your battle medicine in your inventory."

"Aye, just what the healer ordered, a good fight to get my old bones moving. And don't tell Elric about my medicine, Helga might find out. Where is he, was he back before the fighting?"

"No, he is still out there with the ranger."

"I should go looking for him, with the forest crawling with dark elves and only the lady knows what."

" No, if they have hidden, we won't find them any time soon. And we need to know how the dark elves came to be in the forest. The whole point of this fortification is to keep them in the maze."

"And how will we find out? Go down there?"

"Exactly, we have about seven dwarfs serving as soldiers. I will send them to search, and you will be leading them. Meanwhile I will search the forest with the rest of the rangers, we will keep a lookout for Elric at the same time."

" Be sure to keep an eye out for the boy and I will need maps, never went down into the maze using this entrance."

Aldrin got a soldier to fetch the maps, and he sent a runner to the dawn order, asking for healers. The holy order was located between the three crossroads and the garrison. The order members were mostly knights and paladins fighting in Shyann's name, but some of her clerics joined as well.

After he asked for healers, he let the rangers know that they were to gather at the break of dawn. No sane person goes hunting dark elves in the night, that's just begging for death. Now he needed to rest and restore his mana, he had a feeling that he was going to need it.

-Elric-

Me and the dragon had moved over to the small hill, there I found that she had dug out a small lair. Or maybe it was not the lair that was small, but the dragon that was big. Well I would not be the one to tell her that she was big, Helga had warned me that girls didn't like being told how big they were.

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" I believed silver dragons lived in the mountains?"

I asked, trying to break the silence. I felt more than a bit nervous now that the battle was over, she must have killed over a hundred orcs and hobgoblins. My young brain had a hard time understanding the slaughter that had happened.

"That is true, this place is temporary. Me and my neighbor, let's call him Zarx, are not on good terms and would attack if he knew about my situation. So I moved here until things changed, I never would have guessed that instead of Zarx, I get attacked by dark elves."

"Zarx must be really powerful if he made a dragon leave it's home."

We had proof here in the clearing that she could protect herself. The only one I could think of that was stronger was Thorgrim. Aldrin had told me that father had killed two dragons 50 years ago, and since then no dragon tried to steal from the dwarven clans.

" He's a red dragon and not stronger than me, but I will not risk my egg. So he would have a big advantage in a fight, since I would need to protect it."

" An egg? Wait, you are going to be a mother? Awesome can I see?"

" If you promise to be careful?"

Her telepathic voice sounded amused, I nodded all thoughts of the battle gone, she moved to the side and with her tail she brushed some earth away, and there it lay buried. It was smaller than I thought it would be maybe 3ft long, and had a dull silver metallic hue. I stared at it in wonder, until a big yawn escaped me. With all the activities I've been through and the interrupted sleep, I was dead tired now that the adrenaline had left me.

" Go to sleep, I will keep watch."

I nodded and settled down on the ground, pulling my green wool cape around me. I was fast asleep dreaming of small dragons. My dreams were interrupted and I was woken by the dragon's voice.

"Boy wake up, someone is coming."

I hid in the entrance of the lair and looked out over the clearing, she must have worked all night because all the corpses were gone. But you could still see evidence of the fight that had happened.

As I scanned the clearing, a man in dark brown leather armor and a green cape, was about to walk in to the clearing when he stopped at the edge.

"I think it's okay, he looks like one of the rangers I told you about."

"Are you sure?"

I could see her body was tense, ready to spring to action at a moment's notice.

" Yeah, you stay here. I will go and talk to him."

"You be careful, run back here if he does something."

She didn't relax, but was at least willing to let me try. I gathered my courage and walked out, holding my hands up.

"Are Wyninn with you?"

The man turned his head to me and I could see his hand go to his sword, before it relaxed.

"Elric is that you lad? What happened here?"

It was Rychell the leader of the rangers, a great archer and excellent woodsman. He pointed to all the blood that was left on the high grass. I didn't know what to tell him, the dragon was still hiding in her nest so I should probably not mention her.

"Yes, it's me. I was hiding over there, when this great battle happened so I didn't get a good look but there were lots of orcs and hobgoblins."

" Well your uncle is looking for you, so you should come with me."

He motions for me to follow, giving the clearing one last look before turning.

"Wait, I need to get my stuff."

I turned and ran to the lair, when I got there I picked my bow and cape up. Then I looked at the dragon.

" I need to go…"

"Yes I heard."

"Can I know your name before I leave?

"Of course, how can I not give my name to my savior. My name is Ermidairth."

"By the…"

I turned and saw Rychell had come into the lair, he stared at the dragon with his mouth open.

With a startled jerk he started to draw his sword, then looked at me and back towards the dragon. He gave us a thoughtful look then slammed his sword back in the scabbard and bowed to Ermidairth.

" Sorry to interrupt, take all the time you need Eric. I will make myself scarce. "

He turned and almost ran out of the lair.

I stared after him, then I started to laugh.

"Did you see him run Emi? He looked like he had a dragon on his tail."

" I most say I agree, he looked kinda funny."

Well the smile she gave me with all those sharp teeth almost made me run.

"Well I need to leave, or my father might come here and we don't want that. He has this thing about dragons."

"Oh, and who might your father be?"

Damn, I realized that talking about him might not be a good thing. So with a really small voice.

"Thorgrim Silveraxe, King of the dwarves, Orcsbane, Dragonslayer."

I whispered the last title, but dragons have awfully good hearing.

"So you are the son of that Thorgrim, can't say I can see the resemblance."

" I'm adopted, But Aldrin is my real uncle... so you are not going to eat me?"

"Elric, you must understand that the metallic dragons and chromatic dragons are enemies. The dragons that your father killed were black dragons and they belong to the chromatic dragons."

" I didn't know, sorry for doubting you.

"It's no problem you are just a child. But I wanted to ask you something, you know how I have been wounded?"

I nodded not seeing where she was going with her words.

"Well I will have to leave my lair, a wounded dragon is a good target for many people, so I need to find a new place to hide and nurse my wounds. The problem is I can't take my egg with me, it can only leave a nest for a short time. Then it needs to be buried again for at least a month.

I didn't think to ask you at first, since you can't protect it. But your father can and if he was here I would ask him. So Eric will you protect my egg to the best of your abilities."

I looked at her in disbelief, how was I to care for the egg, how would I even carry the egg. It was almost as big as me.

" How do I even get it out of here and when will it hatch?"

" You know the dark elf warrior I killed, well he had some items on him that will help you carry the egg out of here. And it should hatch around three years from now. Hopefully I will be back before then. If you do this for me I will even give you one item from my hoard within reason of course"

"Okay, I will do it."

She first gave me the items from the elf she killed, a ring, a belt and his longsword. She had to describe what the items did and what stats they had.

The ring gave a boost to regeneration +1 hp/hour, and the belt made me stronger +4 strength.

And the sword was made to penetrate armor and had good damage, I would have to check the stats later since it was too big for me to use anyway.

After I had equipped the belt and luckily it magicly resized to fit me. She showed me a big backpack that some orc most have used. It was made of skin from some hairy creature and it smelled awful. She helped me get the egg into the backpack, it must have weighed 50 pounds. Then I hefted the backpack and actually didn't fall over.

So there I stood with my smelly backpack three sizes too big, the longsword I could not use slung over my shoulder. I was ready to take on the world. Who am I kidding, I felt more like some beast of burden ready to puke from the stench.

I told her my goodbyes, and out of the lair I went.