George was struggling on the ground to get free. I finally got him into position and put my hand on his forehead.
"From darkness, you came, to darkness, you shall return, LUX NEGAT TUUM ESSE!"
Just before I finished the spell, before the mana really took hold and started to work its way through his body, destroying the Shadow Beast from the inside out, I saw George smile a sinister smile. I didn't even have time to consider what it meant before the light shone from behind his eyes and his body writhed on the ground and then went limp.
"We did it!" Tristan yelled.
Vokin and Rutherford came over clapping me on the back, but I just stared down at the ground. Something was wrong. This wasn't right. Normally when we completed the spell and the Shadow Beast was destroyed the whole feeling of oppression went away. And that smile. It was really unsettling.
"Something isn't right," I said low and with concern in my voice.
Aeolith caught on to it immediately because of our mental connection, but the others were still reveling in the supposed victory.
"It's OK, Callan. We won here. We can relax and go back now," Vokin said.
Then he looked at my face.
"Callan? What is it?"
"George...smiled right before the Shadow Beast was vaporized. We didn't even have to fight the shadow form. Why would the Shadow Beast just stay inside George and not try to fight us off? It was all too easy. And the oppressed feeling is still here. Normally in a town this size, the people would be coming to us thanking us for helping set them free, but...nothing. Something isn't right, we've missed something."
Everyone started looking around now. Suddenly laughter could be heard coming from around the warehouse. It was a single low chuckle at first. Then it grew to multiple voices giggling. Then full-on cackling laughter came from all around us. The laughter was maniacal and triumphant.
"Ready your weapons, this fight is not over," I said drawing my sword.
Everyone got their weapons ready and we formed up to see what would happen next.
"Silly little Dragonrider." A voice almost sang from behind me, the words drawn out to almost a sentence a piece as they were said.
Turning I saw a much taller man standing on top of the boxes piled up behind us. He was slender and lithe and radiated danger. His eyes were glowing red.
"You thought that we would not find out about you and find a way to lure you in? You are foolish for not doing more of your research before coming here. You see, we know about your little banishment spell. We also know it must have a bit of a cooldown. How long is it? It's gotta be at least six hours right?" The man said, grinning malevolently.
I frowned at this and the tall man's grin turned almost manic.
"So, we had poor George here, come to be the perfect businessman to be the bait for you. A low-level Shadow Beast who was willing to make the sacrifice so that you would be destroyed before you reached your potential. And he played his role almost perfectly. Brilliant move, by the way, playing to his ego at the end. But by that point, the trap was ready to be sprung and it was too late for you."
"That isn't my only way of getting rid of Shadow Beasts," I somewhat lied. It likely wasn't, but I hadn't done it any other way so far. I would just have to kill him outright now.
"Oh? And you think that without it you can destroy little old me? I think you have another thing coming if you think that is the case."
He began to walk down the boxes very slowly, as though he flowed down the boxes, each movement smooth and fluid.
"You see I can sense that you are new here. You aren't really familiar with this world as others have been, and even if you aren't new here, you are human. Looking at you I would have to judge you to be under forty years old. Not even close to old enough to remember the actual Shadow Beasts. Not to mention the Shadow Beasts should have wiped out all the Dragonriders last time."
"So what. I don't have to be hundreds of years old to kill you."
"No...I supposed you don't. But it would help you to know what you were up against. You see, there are levels of Shadow Beast, similar to an army. There are the lowest-ranked members, such as some of the ones you first encountered at a few of the villages outside your little town of Jewleston. We call them tier-one beasts. Then there are the more advanced beasts like old Gregory who was actually in Jewelston. Those are tier-two beasts. That was an amazing feat. I truly think he underestimated you and thought you were so weak as to pose no threat at all."
He reached a certain spot on the boxes and had begun pacing back and forth like a cat sitting on a ledge looking down at its prey.
"And then there are creatures like me. We are tier-three beasts, generals in the armies that we are amassing. We report directly to the big guy himself. And I'm not sure that you could handle someone like me, even if you had your spell off cooldown."
My eyes went wide. I wasn't aware that their power would matter, but as he spoke I could feel the room become chokingly filled with shadows. It felt heavier by the minute and I was beginning to worry. Looking around I saw that we were surrounded now. But we did still have a dragon.
"Look, this is all well and good, but I feel like you might be stalling for something. If you are, then please, by all means, keep stalling. If you can continue your wonderful soliloquy for quite a while longer, then my spell won't be on cool down and we can end this a lot faster. I mean we'd have to listen to you blather on and on and on and on about something for a good while, but it would mean less work in the long run." I tried to fake the bravado in my voice while I spoke this.
"Ahhhh...aren't you the brave one. Or at least you want me to believe that. But I won't be so easily brought into the same pride trap that poor George fell into. You see I'm above all that. I know for a fact that this whole scene will end with you dead."
He lifted one hand in the air and snapped his fingers.
"Kill them."
And with that, the suspense ended and the men rushed over the boxes. Hundreds of men this time were here rushing at us all at once. They swarmed down like a colony of ants over the boxes towards us.
"Standard formation, attack strategy one. Tristan, start raising them as soon as we give you some bodies!"
And with that, we met the enemy. Aeolith was a blur of fury, killing with every strike and the enemy could hardly touch her. She was large and covered in hardened scales that their weapons just seemed to bounce off of and she used her teeth and claws to deadly effectiveness lashing out with her tail to keep them from totally overwhelming us as well. Rutherford and Vokin took the front to attack with their heavy weapons and take the brunt of the force with their heavy armor and shield while I stayed behind and slung a few spells while reaching out with my blade to attack in between the two tanks. We had practiced this formation a few times and I had learned the movements of Vokin and Rutherford, so I could see when they would split or bend and I could reach through to stab or slice at an enemy to help whittle the numbers down. Almost every time one of the enemies fell, Tristan was there to raise another zombie. His zombies were not extremely powerful, but they were bodies for the fodder. They would rush into the fray and do as much damage as they could before they were hacked down, usually resulting in one or two more deaths for another raising. It was a revolving door of zombies. Tristan had to take a mana potion here and there to keep feeding the machine, but we had enough to keep him going for a while.
After just a few minutes of fighting, we were seeing that the fight was going to easily go our way. Dozens of zombies were now joined in the fight as well, while Aeolith was ripping through the men like a scythe through wheat. Rutherford and Vokin were still machines blocking, attacking, and killing men as they came, and I had had used a fair bit of my mana reserves to slow down the advance of the biggest pockets of the enemy, so I downed a mana potion as well, boosting my regeneration and giving me more than half my mana back, and was turning to look at the tall man again. He looked displeased but still unconcerned, as though he knew it wouldn't work but was still unhappy with how easily they were being killed. Which unsettled me again.
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Just as we were about to finish off the last of the men he had sent at us, a wave of shadow swept over us. We looked back to see that the tall man was now floating, suspended in a huge inky dark cloud of shadow that was forming into a creature. It looked like the first creature that Al'Doran had us fight in the island arena, only this creature had two glowing red eyes instead of one giant eye. Tentacles sprouted from the main body giving it that too-many-armed octopus look again and it had teeth in a mouth across its giant head.
We formed up again and readied ourselves for battle.
"This is where you die, Dragonrider. You put up a brave and valiant fight, but it was all for not." The voice now sounded hollow, deep, and distant.
"All for not? We thinned the herd, we won't be attacked from all sides while we kill you. You could have played this differently you know?" I taunted back.
"I didn't need them at all, I simply wanted to see how you handled them," the man...beast...hell, I didn't know anymore, but one of them said it. "I could have killed you the moment you appeared here, but I always did like to play with my prey before I killed them. It's so much more satisfying to watch you struggle."
The creature seemed to solidify, or at least as solid as a shadow could be in what could be considered a more definite form, but shadows seemed to run off of it like water or slime and billowed then disappeared as it hit the ground making me think of when you put dry ice in water. It struck out with its tentacles. Vokin held up his shield to block the attack but was flung back into the boxes behind him. The rest of us dodged the tentacles, except Aeolith who was too large to get out of the way, so she bit and clawed at them as they came at her. She was wrapped up in tentacles as she continued to fight. Rutherford, Tristan, and I had managed to dodge the attacks, but seeing Aeolith getting tangled in tentacles awoke something savage inside me.
I screamed as I rushed towards the tentacles holding Aeolith. I cut at tentacles in my way and advanced to her. There seemed to be far more tentacles than any creature had a right to have. Rutherford was bashing tentacles back, and Tristan was sending his zombie army at them as well. Nothing seemed to be very effective against them. I decided to pull out a big gun to see if I could free Aeolith. I focused on the tentacles holding her and aimed at their base. Charging my mana into my hand I let loose a Sun Beam at it. The energy gathered into my palm until I released it and all at once a blinding beam of light shot from my hand about the width of a volleyball and shot toward the Shadow Beast. The tentacles offered about as much resistance to the Sun Beam as a piece of gauze trying to stop a semi-truck. It ripped through them like paper and the Shadow Beast screamed for the first time. Aeolith dropped down and was free and then went on the offensive shooting a dragon breath at the Shadow Beast. She had seen what had just happened and used the light version of the breath attack. It also harmed the beast more than the other attacks. It hissed at the new-found weakness.
Rutherford also saw all this and cast Radiance. Specks of light shot out from his hand and surrounded the Shadow Beast like thousands of stars in the sky. They began to fall and hit the Shadow Beast from all angles at once. The Beast growled low again.
"ENOUGH OF THIS!" It yelled.
Then a vortex appeared and sucked up all the little white stars into a single point and shot them out the window. It again wrapped up Aeolith in its tentacles, and this time grabbed me at the same time so I couldn't help her. It shot out a tentacle at Rutherford so fast and so hard he didn't have time to block or dodge and it hit him square in the stomach. He was sent flying backward over the boxes and into a wall at the far end of the warehouse, then he fell to the ground and stayed laying in a crumpled heap amongst the splintered wood of a box he landed on, leaving a huge indention in the wall where he had struck it. The zombies had been almost ineffective against the beast, but it swept them aside now like a broom and smothered them against one wall of the warehouse. Suddenly the beast hissed as I saw an axe embedded in the tentacle that was holding me. It used one more tentacle to smash Vokin one last time into a large box that apparently held a large stone statue of some kind. The statue crumbled when he hit it and he lay in a pile of rubble not getting back up as well. Tristan had been caught with his zombies and was laying on the floor against the far wall unmoving.
"It is now just us, Dragonrider. I hope you are prepared to die."
It began to squeeze tighter and I could see the excited almost open-mouth smile on its face as it watched my pain grow with the tightening of its grip. I could feel the pain that Aeolith was in as well as the grip tightened.
Suddenly I heard a sound like wind rustling outside. A beating sound from overhead sounded through the roof. A couple of yells from outside sounded and then a thunderous crash and the roof collapsed on top of the Shadow Beast. I stabbed my sword down into the tentacle during the distraction, the black fire erupting from my sword as I drove it down almost to the hilt, and was released from the tentacle and thrown to the side. I crawled away from the debris and rubbed my eyes to get the dirt and dust out and turned to see what had happened. My eyes widened in shock as I saw Al'Doran clawing and biting furiously at the Shadow Beast.
The Shadow Beast roared in fury and lashed out as well, wrapping Al'Doran in tentacles of shadow. It looked like a fight from an old monster movie. A battle between giants. Al'Doran unleashed a light breath attack and severed some of the tentacles, but the Shadow Beast kept attacking. He was clawing and biting and both beasts were taking severe wounds. Some of the tentacles grew claws on the end and raked against Al'Doran's skin opening large wounds. This just seemed to infuriate the dragon more though as he fought like a possessed animal. Suddenly there was an orb of light between the two of them and it expanded rapidly until it popped and sent both creatures flying apart. Al'Doran managed to land on his feet, but the Shadow Beast was sent sprawling. That must have been a spell from Al'Doran.
Al'Doran rushed to attack the beast biting its head and scraping his claws down its sides. The beast wrapped its tentacles around Al'Doran and managed to get one around his neck. They fought back and forth to be the beast on top, and finally, it looked like the Shadow Beast was getting the upper hand. It pulled Al'Doran off of it and pinned him to the floor. It looked down at him with anger.
"I see that not all of the dragons had been destroyed. Well, we should change that!"
Then Aeolith was on top of the creature biting and scratching as well. The Shadow beast screamed in anger and pain and lashed out tossing Aeolith aside like a toy where she hit a stone wall with her head and lay still as well. This was not going well. I had to do something. My Light spell was still on cooldown. My body was going to be ineffective against the creature, but I had to do something!
I cast a grease spell and then a fireball at it and the creature lit up, but hardly seemed to notice. Then I cast a windblast sending every trick I had learned against it all at once. The tornado lit up and there was now a firey tornado beating at the creature's back. This it couldn't ignore and it howled in pain. I also sent my own light breath attack at it while it flinched in pain and received another satisfying scream as a small hole was torn in its side. It turned to look at me and when it did, Al'Doran used the moment to strike. They began fighting back and forth again neither being able to get the upper hand and each dealing massive amounts of damage. The Shadow Beast clawed at Al'Doran with its tentacles, and Al'Doran used a combination of claws, teeth, and spells to continue to do damage to the Shadow Beast.
One more ball of light appeared between the two and sent them apart. This time though, both creatures took a lot longer to get up. Al'Doran was bleeding from a multitude of wounds on his body, and the Shadow Beast was looking like a torn garment flapping in the wind. They stood there squaring off for a moment. Then the Shadow Beast lunged at Al'Doran and as the beast lunged he stood up on his hind legs, opened his mouth, and extended his hands. From out of his mouth came a light breath attack, and from each of his hands came what looked like a Sun Beam spell. All three sources of light hit the Shadow Beast and stopped its advance. It screamed in pain, but Al'Droan didn't let up. He continued to breathe light and began to bring his hands together. As he did the lights began to spark and resist being brought together, crackling with angry energy. With one final push, Al'Doran combined the two Sun Beams into one, pushing the base of his hands together and a firey new explosion erupted from his hands shining out in all directions. The light was so bright it temporarily blinded me.
When the spots finally started fading from my eyes and I could see again, the Shadow Beast was no more. Only an ashen spot was on the ground where it had been. I looked over to Al'Doran, and he took a half step forward before falling down on his stomach, unable to keep his weight up any longer. I rushed over to him as quickly as I could.
"Al'Doran! AL'DORAN!" I yelled, desperation starting to creep into my voice.
I reached him and knelt next to his massive head. He was still breathing. So there was time to help. I cast my pathetic minor heal on him. He stirred slightly.
"Callan. You are ok. Thank the gods."
"Yes, I'm fine, but you are bleeding. Can't you heal yourself?"
"I cannot. I used every last bit of my mana on that last attack, and combining them took up most of my mana regeneration for a time as well."
"What do you mean? How can something take up your regeneration?"
"Something I was going to teach you later, but you can cast multiple spells using multiple hands, and after you master multi-casting you can combine the cast spells using spell combination. Doing this makes a spell that is four times greater than the original spell, but it costs you about ninety-five percent of your mana regeneration for about two hours in order to use it. All power comes with a price, young rider."
"But I can't heal you fast enough. And Rutherford is unconscious."
"It is fine. Let me just lie here a while."
Rain began to fall from the sky as we sat here, matching my mood as tears began to fall from my eyes.
"You know, you did well so far. Your training has come a long way." Al'Doran said, trying to keep the conversation going.
"Thanks," I said, just sitting next to him in letting the rain fall over me.
I leaned over and hugged him quietly and he lay there as well. His wounds were deep. They were still bleeding. I cast my minor healing on him a few more times and did what I could for him. But the healing I was doing was never going to be enough to heal his wounds.
"Callan, always remember that you will need to take those breaks that I told you about. And I'm sorry I couldn't teach you more."
"What are you talking about...you are going to be fine. We just need to have you rest and you will be back up in no time."
I cast another minor healing on him to just do something.
"You are the very best of all of us. You really are the hope for the future. Never lose sight of the power that hope can have for the future. You will be great."
He laid down and rested. His breathing continued but it was labored. I continued to cast minor heal on him every chance I got. Praying that it would be enough to bring him back to me as I desperately hoped someone would come with better healing than mine.
The story will continue in book two.