The sound of squealing pulled Valen and Layne’s attention to the side, ripping their gazes off of Velitarii and Raenelir long enough to see another cage beyond them. Much smaller than the ones outside, it was filled with dozens of younger wyverns – including, Valen realized with a start, Aevra! The little wyvern seemed to have noticed them where they hid, forcing her way through the other hatchlings and whelps to get as close to them as she could before the cage in her panic.

Aevra let out a cry for help, but thankfully it was drowned out by the frightened noises all of the other young wyverns were making. The chaos outside was noisy, so it only made sense that –

Suddenly, the canvas wall of the tent bowed inwards, then was torn apart by claws as a wyvern burst inside. The angry drake let out a roar, scanning the room just long enough to spot the cage off to the side full of the juvenile wyverns before leaping in that direction. Valen assumed she was trying to save her own young ones. He recognized the drake from the third cage he had broken outside, though he couldn’t say for certain.

Regardless, he was sure they were about to have to leap out of the way of the charging wyvern or they would be at risk of being trampled. Just as the wyvern seemed ready to leap through the crates to reach the cage, however, there was a buzz followed by a piercing hum. Suddenly, huge poles of the same dark metal as the cages outside came flying from the dais, shooting through the air to slam into the pouncing wyvern. They pierced straight through her hard, scaled skin and pinned her to the ground in a shocking display of power that had hot blood splattering beneath her.

The cry of pain she let loose was more horrendous than anything Valen had ever heard and he found himself on the verge of tears as he watched the poor mother wyvern squirming on those poles, trying to get loose and yet only hurting herself more in the process.

It did not take long for her struggling to stop as she slumped, dead, on the metal that held her to the ground. There were shrill cries of sorrow from the cage of younger wyverns and Valen felt a surge of hatred so strong it nearly overwhelmed his common sense.

Layne’s hand on his shoulder was what stopped him from leaving cover, pulling him back before he could be spotted by whatever had just killed that wyvern.

“No, Valen. You’ll get us both killed, and then what was the point of all this?” she whispered, and though her words pained him, Valen knew that the ranger was right. They had to focus on what they could actually do. Right now, that meant freeing their friends, Raenelir and, apparently, the younger wyverns. They weren’t just going to leave without Aevra and freeing her meant freeing the others as well.

“So they are here,” a voice said, and immediately Valen and Layne turned their attention back toward the High Lord Velitarii. There was the sound of armored boots on metal as the imposing man strode along the platform upon which Raen was held before he stepped off of it and the clanging lessened.

He and Layne crouched down as low as they could get, making themselves as small as possible. If Velitarii saw them now, they would be dead, there was no doubt about it. Raenelir let out an angry snarl as the man moved away, but the master of the Blackscale Knights placed a hand on a boom hanging from one side of his waist then waved a hand, and suddenly the dark chains that held the Highborn in place tightened. The wyvern’s challenge turned into a panicked whine of pain.

Velitarii kept on walking like nothing had happened at all, but Valen realized now that he was seeing an Oath at work. He could control metal?! How was that, in any way, possible?! Combined with whatever this dark metal was that so easily carved through the scales of a wyvern, the High Lord was beyond dangerous… he was a menace.

That was not an ability that he wanted himself or any of his friends to be in range of, but right now they all were, and if his and Layne’s position were given away the others would probably all end up dead shortly after. Valen stayed as perfectly still as he could, watching the High Lord continue his slow walk across the massive command tent. It felt as if the seconds inched by much slower than they should have been, though he knew that it was just the pressure of the moment.

“You had better let us go, you bastard! I’ll kill you!” Samuel shouted as the man passed the cage where the others were being held, at the tent’s center. Velitarii just ignored them, not even bothering to respond to the Romari’s angry challenge.

“Come, Agrathor!” Velitarii called, never once looking towards the back of the tent, the direction in which the massive dragon Patriarch actually lay. Outside, there was a deep, rumbling growl. Something hit the ground with so much force that Valen and Layne shook where they were, nearly losing their balance. The High Lord continued to the main entrance of the tent, still not even glancing backwards.

“We have rats to catch,” Velitarii finished. Then he was gone, walking into the chaos outside. The earth continued to tremble as the huge dragon stepped around the tent, coming to stand beside his master. Valen started to move, eager to hurry over to his friends and start getting them free, but Layne once again stopped him, shaking her head urgently and moving a finger to her lips to shush him.

Confused, Valen crouched back down, but before he could ask any questions the ranger pointed. He turned to see what she was talking about and watched four of the Blackscale Knights’ Elites, the High Lord’s handpicked warriors, step into view from the back wall of the tent, moving to take up protective positions around the prisoners and Raenelir.

Of course things would not just be that easy.

Samuel immediately took to hurling insults at these four as well, though the Elites never so much as looked his way. Valen could tell that their stoicism bothered Samuel quite a bit. The others looked as though they had grown tired of his constant challenges as well, though they did not say anything. They probably liked that at least someone was showing some spirit in their situation.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“So what do we do?” Valen whispered to Layne. They did not have much time before the chaos outside was brought under control now; though Agrathor would not likely unleash his flames on an encampment full of the members of his master’s own Order, he could easily stamp out any resistance while the other dragon riders were organized.

If they were going to move, they had to do so now.

The Elites were heavily armored; one held a warhammer, another a battleaxe, one a sword and shield and the last a halberd. None of them looked to be easy opponents, though if Layne’s aim were just right she might be able to remove them from the equation fast enough to avoid a head-to-head conflict.

Yet instead, she turned and pointed at the cage of wyvern hatchlings, raising a brow at him as if to ask if he understood her idea.

Which he did, though he was not sure if he liked it; even young wyverns could be dangerous, if provoked enough, and they certainly seemed provoked enough now. But to let them loose would be to seal many of their deaths, as young wyverns were far more vulnerable than their grown counterparts. Not to mention that even if they took down the four guards in here, any that got out would have to make it through the Imperial encampment to survive and that did not seem likely.

Yet, what choice did Valen have? He knew it would be their best bet at making it out of here with all of their friends in tow, and that meant they had to go for it, despite his misgivings.

But still… still… he couldn’t do it.

They would free them, sure, and they would be in harm’s way as a result, but he would not purposely use the poor young wyverns to fight for them when it would result in many of their deaths. He refused to let that happen. Turning his gaze back toward Layne, Valen shook his head.

No. Which meant he had only one real option…

Reaching inside of himself, he searched for the ‘lighting sense’ that he had felt before, that sensation that had allowed him to get out of Trinity alive, or that had allowed him to break open several of the wyvern cages outside this very night. He was already exhausted and he still did not know how it worked, but even if it hurt him… if he could just access it one more time…

Then it struck, all of his senses sparking into overdrive as he felt his body straining. His lips peeled back in a snarl and then he was moving, too quickly for Layne to say anything else. Valen’s sword was in his hands as he leapt from hiding, though he did not really even remember drawing it, and he was on the first of the Elites before anyone even had time to think.

He brought his sword down using two hands, with so much force that it bent as it struck the haft of the first Imperial’s warhammer, knocking the weapon from his hand. Valen let go of the broken sword and brought his free hand up in a fist, going under the man’s helmet to catch him in his neck and quite literally lifting him up with a resounding CRACK.

The Imperial hit the ground, not moving, though Valen did not waste time checking to see if he was just unconscious or dead. The other Elites were reacting now and his weapon was broken from the force of his attack. So he moved next to the man using sword and shield, picking up his own now bent sword and using it to yank his shield out of the way before moving inside his reach, slamming shoulder first into his stomach.

The breath left the man’s lungs as his armor crumpled. Valen felt his shoulder pop from the force, but almost immediately it snapped back into place on its own. He used that arm to pull the Elite’s sword from him and stomped his boot into his head to keep him down.

Tossing his broken sword aside, Valen gripped the new blade with two hands. The sword was much better made, with etchings in the hilt and a ruby at the bottom of the pommel. He brought it up and around with as much speed and force as he could muster, and in the state he was in - with his opponents’ movements seeming much slower than they should have been - he was easily able to avoid the swing of the battleaxe slashing an arc through the air.

He brought his new sword up, driving it through the space between the plate of the man’s stomach and groin, and too late he realized what he was doing, that he was killing a man as surely as any person could kill another. The blade drove up, into his stomach, stopping the battleax wielding warrior in his tracks. His own weapon fell from his grasp as his eyes widened through the slit in his faceplate, and Valen knew the truth as the man began to fall.

He was a dead man.

Immediately his ‘lightning’ sense left him as a feeling of revulsion flooded through his body. As the man hit the ground and his blood began to pool beneath him Valen doubled over, retching the contents of his stomach onto the tent floor.

Too late did he remember the fourth Elite as the man let out a cry of rage. Turning, too slowly, he saw the halberd up in the air, beginning its descent towards his head. The howling warrior who wielded it had the eyes of a man who would care not a bit about killing Valen, or anyone for that matter. They were the eyes of a coldblooded killer, the same kind of eyes that the man Valen had just killed possessed.

Yet… yet still, he stayed there, frozen and doubled over, unable to move as the weight of his first direct, knowing kill tried to crush him into the ground next to the body.

He would have died then and there if not for the arrow that suddenly sprouted from the slit in the man’s faceplate. The Elite froze, his weapon not yet swung forward enough for the momentum to carry him forward. As the warrior’s strength left him his own weapon instead pulled him backwards, even as another arrow hit him between chest plate and helm, finishing him off.

Now exhaustion and his first kill crippled Valen, bringing him to his knees as tears began to slip down his face. He knew that this had to happen eventually on the new path he had decided to walk – if he was going to protect those he cared about, it was obvious that he would have to kill eventually.

But that did not change the way he felt now.

He could only sit there as Layne rushed over to the cage holding their friends, working at the lock that kept them inside. People were calling his name, but he did not hear it, not really. He simply stared at the man he had killed, his mind trying and failing to process what had happened.

The next few minutes passed in a blur. Once the others were free, Layne hurried over to the cage containing all of the younger wyverns with Hera, getting that open as well. Aevra leapt up on Hera, letting out a joyful cry even as Valen’s sister yelled something about ‘saving as many as they could.’

Then there was more chaos as people Valen had never seen before appeared, some dressed in the cloaks of the Iron Watch and others in strange steel armor with iron inlaid atop the steel on the shoulders, stomach and back, and an insignia he did not recognize over their hearts. It was hard to concentrate through the combination of nausea and exhaustion that had him, but he could still tell that these guys were on their side.

Who they were, though, would have to wait until another time.

Suddenly, he was being lifted to his feet and brought to Raenelir’s side, hefted up and over the wyvern’s back followed by someone else who held him steady as the drake let out a roar. Then the Highborn was running towards the wall of the tent, clawing his way to freedom. The night sky whipped at him with the stinging of cinders and stench of smoke, but all he could see were the stars overhead and the clouds that began to cover them, the sound of thunder lulling him to unconsciousness before he could think anything else.