My eyes adjusted to being back here with the boys and Vreek. I saw Turk facing toward me and shooting arrows toward my back. I noticed the wall of fire was still burning blue in the doorway.

“Behind you!” Turk shouted as I realized there were sounds of fighting coming from the other side of the room

I spun around and saw Vreek and Dirk cutting through a horde of dwarves who were streaming through the doorway I had come through earlier. Vreek cut through these dwarves like they were new goblin recruits. I could tell they were not weak or untrained, yet with Vreek being powered by Naydras’s heart. He was like a whirlwind of death. Dirk was striking down Dwarves somewhere in the tunnel behind the door. I could hear the shouts and cries of these warriors echoing through the room and hallway.

“Let’s go the way they came!” I shouted as I took off to join the fray. As I started to move, I felt something in my hand. Looking down in it I saw a red seed. The gift from Bob for Vreek. Tucking it into my pouch, I made a mental note to remember to give it to him later.

Light Drinker felt so light in my hand. As if it was nothing more than a bamboo stick, it flicked so easily as I cut two dwarves down the moment I reached them.

For the first time since coming back from meeting with Bob, I noticed the power of the dragon’s heart inside me. My heart was pounding, slow and strong. Each beat of it surged power through me. My stomach felt like a furnace of energy, breaking down the massive meal I had just consumed into something I wished I could feel every day.

Moments after joining the skirmish, there were at least fifty dead dwarven troops at our feet. Blood, corpses, severed limbs, and more decorated the floor and walls of this side of the room.

“We need to hurry!” I heard Dirk shout from inside the hall, “More are coming!”

I motioned to Turk, who started running toward us.

“How long can you keep that wall going?”

Laughing, Turk smiled and I knew he was about to brag.

“Right now, it feels like I could leave it going forever. Look at this!” he said as he pointed to his hand.

I glanced and noticed the lines of his body were glowing with a dark red tint. The black lines that were normally there now had a red shade to them if that was possible. It was as if some tattoo artist had come along and overlaid a red sheen to it.

“Whatever that heart gives, my firepower is bursting, so we can run and I’ll leave it going as long as you want!”

I nodded, and we started running into the hallway.

“Turk, I’ll lead!, Vreek, you Take the back line! Dirk, you cover me from the shadows!”

We started sprinting down the hallway, jumping over the stocky, armored corpses Dirk had created from behind when I noticed a new doorway was off to the side halfway through the hall. Two bodies lay on the ground in the doorway that had appeared from nowhere.

Crap! I thought as we ran past it to the stairway that would lead to Naydras’s body. There must be hidden tunnels and hallways all over. We were in the dwarves' home, and they would have the advantage of knowing how to reach us. Getting out and not getting surrounded would be a concern, yet with all of us being supercharged right now, I doubted any but their best champions would do anything to us.

We made it down the stairway so easily that I would have wondered if the dwarves had somehow cut the number of steps in half. Only the door, that I kicked open, which gave me another look at Naydras’s lifeless body, verified that we were in the same room.

“That thing is huge,” I heard Dirk mumble under his breath as we slowed down just a little bit.

“This is Naydras, the dragon that offered his heart for you and for us,” I informed them all as we jogged quickly past his corpse. “I promised him we would bring retribution to the dwarves for what they did to him!”

I heard a few grunts from them as I saw the doorway on the other side of the room.

“I’m not sure what is behind those doors, but we need to find a way out!”

As we ran and almost reached the door, I heard Turk call out.

“Stop a moment! I want to see something!”

I quickly stopped a few yards from the door and saw Turk running to the wall that was parallel to the doors.

“This entire wall over here is newer than the rest of the room.”

I glanced at Dirk and Vreek, and both of them shrugged at me.

“What do you mean it’s newer?”

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Turk pointed at the wall and motioned to a section closest to the body of Naydras.

“Can’t you three see the color difference in the walls? The grout and the stone are slightly different in color, and the edges are not as worn.”

I chuckled and shook my head.

“Son, we are running for our lives, and you are telling me you stopped to notice the color of the wall?”

Turk shrugged and motioned to Naydras.

“How could they get a dragon in here through these doors? Unless there is a shrinking spell we don’t know of, they had to lure him in here somehow.”

I realized Turk was right as I glanced back and forth in the room. I could not remember if I had even considered that when I first found Naydras.

“I want to try something,” Turk said as he pulled his bow back, and I saw an arrow appear between the string and his hand. He held it there and breathed deeply a few times. The red flame of the arrow started to flicker and then slowly changed blue. He held it a few more seconds, and it turned into a torrent of blue and black fire, dancing between his hands and the bow. I half expected it or his hands to burst into flame at any moment.

The arrow leaped from the bow with a roar. I knew I had never heard his bow make a sound like that when he fired off an arrow. It blasted into the wall, and bricks flew in all different directions. Dust and debris scattered everywhere, but we all saw the same thing the moment his arrow struck the wall.

Light!

“There is a tunnel it looks like that opens up to the outside!” Turk shouted as he peered through the cloud of dust. “Do we want to take it or run through that door?”

“The door,” Vreek interrupted. “If a dragon came in here, it probably flew, and we might find ourselves on a cliff with no way down.”

Vreek was right. We had no idea what was down that tunnel, and getting stuck down, there could be a bad thing. Realizing Vreek was right, I remembered the seed in my pouch. I quickly dug it out with two fingers and moved to him.

“This is from our god. He gave this to me to have you eat as a reward for keeping the three of us alive. He wants you to know that you have served him well and this boon will allow you to serve him even more.”

Vreek’s eyes went wide as he glanced at the seed I held. That small red seed stood in such a stark contrast to my dirty green skin hand.

“My god sent something with you for me?” Vreek said, his voice wavering as he spoke.

I nodded and held my hand out to him.

“He and I thank you for what you have done for us," I told him with a smile. "Now hurry up and eat it so we can make him proud and get out of here.”

Vreek glanced once more at the seed and then at me. I noticed Dirk moving up to see what I was giving to Vreek. Vreek noticed Dirk also, quickly snatched it out of my hand, and held it between his two fingers as he looked at it for a second.

A huge smile appeared on his face and he opened his mouth and swallowed it whole.

“What’s it supposed to do?” Dirk asked.

I shrugged and turned back toward the door we were near.

“Beats me, but maybe Vreek will grow a tail or something!” I called out as I strode toward the door.

“WHAT?” Vreek shouted as he heard me.

Both boys laughed momentarily as they ran past Vreek and patted him on the back.

“It’s a family joke. Let’s go!”

The next hour was a massacre of dwarves. We ran through doorways, upstairs, down hallways, and through great rooms. Everywhere we went, there were dwarves. We cut them down no matter who they were or what they were wearing. I had made a promise to Naydras and would honor it. As much as I would have preferred not to cause this much bloodshed, Dirk was alive, and I owed Naydras for that.

Servants, guards, magic casters, healers, and even some younger dwarves all found their end at our hands and weapons.

“That’s at least three hundred,” Turk informed me as we descended some stairs. “I have no idea where we are headed, but we need to find an exit soon.”

I nodded. We could hear drums beating louder as we ran upwards. We were obviously down below the castle in some part of it. How they cut out so much of it was a testament to their work for thousands of years. It reminded me of all the shows and movies we watched depicting the lives of dwarves as they toiled in mountains in search of gold and treasure.

“What is your goal!” Vreek shouted from the rear. “We are killing them but there are tens of thousands of dwarves out there. How many more will we kill before we consider it enough, or we find ourselves overwhelmed?”

I grunted and kept running up the steps. I knew Vreek was right, but I also knew we were gifted with this chance to strike a blow. A blow that would let all three of the races know we were serious.

“We find the exit first, or we find their champions. If we come across them, we will kill them and then leave!” I answered. “Our god did not give you the boon he has given and expect us to hide or run away!”

Vreek said nothing yet I knew he was not happy with that comment. It was a low blow but I felt rage in my chest. As if Naydras was living out his fury through me. Every life I ended felt like a small part of that rage disappeared even though there was still so much inside me.

We found ourselves in a servants' section of the castle after two more long tunnels and three great rooms. We were killing unarmed dwarves now. They had knives, and they were alerted to the danger but none of them stood a chance.

“Dad! Let me handle this next room!”

I glanced at Dirk and nodded.

We broke into the doorway and found ourselves in the kitchen. Thirty-plus dwarves were toiling over pots, pans, grills, spits, and more. The second my green-skinned son with his blackened eyes appeared in the doorway, the dwarves started shouting, and some took off running in fear.

“Get two or three alive!” Dirk shouted as he blinked to the other side of the room.

I almost stood there shocked momentarily as I realized that Dirk had jumped from one shadow that was no bigger than a few inches to another one on the other side of the room. The power of Naydras must be allowing him to do this as well.

Screams erupted, and shouting arose as male and female dwarves picked up cleavers and knives and ran toward us, prepared to die.

Just a minute later, only four remained. Disarmed, bleeding from the backhands and kicks they received, they were on their knees, surrounded by the bodies of their dead brothers and sisters.

Dirk came over with a hot pan he had just pulled off one of the fires and held it out before the faces of those we had subdued.

“Talk to them,” Dirk told Turk. “Tell them I’m in the mood for freshly cooked dwarf if they don’t tell us where the throne room is!”