Chapter 2: White Dragon

When he awoke, sitting in his quiet office, Clive’s tea was tepid, his original mug of coffee where he left it, stone cold and untouched. His secretary must have come in to place the fresh brew while he dozed. He wondered what he was coming to, did everyone in the office now regard him as a joke? He had put up with everything imposed on him by management because he was powerless to stop it, or was it that he simply did not care what happened here anymore?

He reflected on last night’s parents’ evening. Carole had been angry with him in the car on the way home from the school, barely disguising her lack of respect for him, pointing out how he’d ignored the second teacher’s barely veiled blame for their second eldest’s inept educational progress clearly at the parents’ door and that they needed to take more interest in their child.

“I tried to tell her that we have sick, aged parents ourselves and need to spend our weekends ... And the bitch just cut me off with more criticism and you did absolutely nothing to back me up. Sometimes, I don’t have a clue what’s going through your head!”

That’s when their number one son, ignoring their conversation as he played on his games console in the back seat, chimed in with, “Mum, when’s tea? I’m hungry!”

‘Oh oh,’ thought Clive, as he clenched the steering wheel with both hands, ‘we had our tea before we went out. Carole’s been holding it all in but now she’s going to explode!’

The daylight outside the mountain caves and tunnels exploded on Korwyn’s retinas like twin supernovas. He squinted to see the short line of surprised Orcs immediately in front of him, they were bearing slaughtered beasts gathered from the surrounding hills, antelope and rabbit, hare and badger, plus the odd rustled sheep. They hesitated, squared up face to face, when arrows whizzed past Korwyn’s ears and took out three of them in a blaze of Elf-arrow fire. Korwyn shook off the ancient memories of the burning deep in his own left shoulder, before charging into the remaining two Orcs and hacking them to the ground with economic but effective thrusts with the Dwarf sword.

“Come on, Korwyn, don’t really want to leave you behind, but I have the Princess, and the rewards go with her, remember!” Zyndyr called as she ran past him, nimbly leaping her way down the rocks, her bow in one hand, the Princess with her precious bundle slung over her shoulder and the tiny Elf wings flapping behind helping her glide smoothly over the broken terrain.

Korwyn followed her as rapidly as he could, The Boy still struggling in his arms. When he caught up with the Elf, as he did as soon as they reached level ground, he stopped briefly. Swiftly he bound The Boy’s legs and wrists. Looping them together, he put his sword arm through, slung the boy around his neck, and leaving both his hands free to use his battle axe rather than the delicate little sword.

“Behind you Zyn—” was all Korwyn could yell as a ghostly Undead, mounted on an Undead Horse, bore down on them from behind Zyndyr.

She turned to face the menace, her Elf sword drawn, while all around them, ancient graves opened up to emit more Undead, all newly awake but in various states of decay.

Korwyn swung his heavy axe, cutting through necks and arms and torsos of these fresh Undead as if they were dry twigs. The smell of rotting flesh filled the air as Korwyn slashed back and forth, caring little in his frenzy to worry about blood hitting any of his wounds. In fact, for these unfed Undead, armed with nothing more than tooth and nail, little or no blood was in evidence. When he looked up, the newly Undead were either newly redead or rendered immobile, with Zyndyr watching on bemused.

Zyndyr had despatched her mounted Undead, its head neatly severed, while the Undead Horse was savagely nibbling at the intestines of its former rider.

“Don’t just stand there, ‘Wyn’,” she said, mocking the earlier shortening of her name by the Man, “we need to move fast into the shelter of the trees.”

As they moved, at a jogging pace both could maintain for hours if necessary, Zyndyr spoke to him again.

“So, you decided to bring The Boy rather than simply leave him behind? The reward of gold was stated for the return of the Princess only. Don’t you think that these children of mixed race might prove an embarrassment for the High King as well as her intended princely spouse?”

“They are a family,” grunted Korwyn in reply, “let the grandfather decide if he will acknowledge the grandchildren as part of his family or not. It is not something for us to decide and we cannot deprive Princess Myr of her children.”

“True, well said, Wyn, most non-human of you.” She deflected her pointed barb with a smile.

Korwyn just grunted in reply, but couldn’t help registering a small smile himself. Her smile, he noted made her face look more than just pretty, and he realised that he no longer blamed her for the death of his father or his ancient wound. After all, she could not be responsible for the actions of another Elf, as Myr could not be blamed for her children borne during her imprisonment, nor the love she would naturally feel for her offspring, who were equally blameless of the manner of their birth. No, Korwyn accepted the situation, doing the right thing was simply the right thing to do.

Some distance away from the mountain, they lost sight of their Orc and Undead pursuers and reached a thick wooded area. They had made it more or less in one piece deep into the woods, having fought Orcs all the way out of the cave into daylight and down the side of the mountain and the desolate rocky plain beyond. Hordes of screaming Orcs and lumbering Undead now lay broken in their wake. Onward they marched deep into the gathering gloom of the forest with their carried charges and each dripped lifeblood from a number of wounds.

Korwyn marvelled that in battles with Orcs, the Elf’s silver armour remained passive, yet when faced with the Undead her armour covered her completely or partially as circumstances dictated. Some of the Undead were mounted on Undead Horses who were easily diverted to feast off dead Orcs, to the frustration of their riders. Even a couple of Undead Wolfhounds had been dispatched by sharp axe decapitation or burned to a crisp with Elf lightning.

They splashed through streams under the sheltering canopy, as the Elf declared, “If they have Undead Horses, they may have Undead Bloodhounds. I have already heard the howling of Orchounds. Although savage, their sense of smell is only useful close up for Dwarves and Goblins, although they can smell an Elf from a mile off.”

“I didn’t notice you smell too bad,” Korwyn suggested with a smile, which she returned with a laugh.

“Well thank you, sir. I don’t know if they can smell Human, but I bet they can smell that black Dragonskin. It has a distinctive aroma all its own. Not unpleasant, but uncommon nonetheless and unique garb.”

“Well, I spent an idle month trapped on an island during the late winter storms, so I used my time in tanning it, and thereafter I wanted to make good use of it.”

“Was this the Black Dragon from Hawkshart Plain?”

“Aye, he was hiding on a perpetually freezing island, surrounded by treacherous rocks and fierce undercurrents, a place notorious for fogs and mists. He thought he was safe hiding away in his lonely lair, but I made it to the island on a rowboat that was smashed to kindling upon the rocks. I woke him with a kick so he could see me as I killed him.”

“That Black Dragon killed some of my family and friends too, including my king, so I dare say I would have done much the same.”

Korwyn was noticeably struggling from his wounds and they stopped to rest and lick their wounds by a brackish brook.

The Boy and the Princess were still uncommunicative, The Boy uttering untranslatable screams and grunts, the Princess silent. Zyndyr gagged The Boy’s mouth with a web drawn from her bag, to prevent him calling out and revealing their position, before tying his ankles loosely together, as Korwyn’s overzealous bindings of rough dragonskin leather had left painful weals. She wiped an ointment, squeezed from a hollow tube of several grass stems and rubbed them into the weals which appeared to ease their discomfort. The Princess sat next to The Boy, silently, sullenly, protectively clutching her bundle to her chest. She too, had her ankles bound to prevent her running off, although she showed little inclination to do so, obsessed with the care of her infant child.

“She’s been with the Orcs since she was a child,” explained Zyndyr, “I think she believes she is one of them; her half-Dwarf-half-whatever-he-may-be boy child is as Orc-like in his behaviour as one would expect him to be if that is the only life he has known since his birthing.”

Zyndyr examined Korwyn’s thigh wound, after ripping open the leg of his woven wool trousers, and made a poultice of astringent berries and clay, covered with wildvine leaves, binding it in place with knotted vines, all found near the brook. Then she refreshed him with a fragment of her berrypollen cake and a mouthful of drink from her flask, which tasted better than any wine or water he’d ever tasted. She sat and tended to her own wounds, laying on strips of what looked to Korwyn like spiders’ webs.

“Your thigh wound is as much a freeze burn as a cut, Korwyn. There’s more to your Dwarf sword than a simple weapon, the handle seems curious, too, as if it contains a device that would take time, that we don’t have, to open and examine. It seems too small a weapon for you, Wyn. A broadsword would be more suitable.”

“I had a broadsword once. I broke off the blade, stabbing that Black Dragon up through the soft flesh below its chin into its brain, the tip of the blade breaking on the inside of his thick skull.”

“I see. So where did you get the Dwarf blade?”

“A Dwarf crone gave it to me on my way to the Palace. She addressed me by name, before I had even introduced myself at their court. She pressed this sword and scabbard into my hands and insisted I take it. Her eyes were unlike any other Dwarf I’ve known. I think she cast a spell on me as I accepted the sword and have not allowed it to leave my side these last five days since.”

“A Witch! I thought all the Witches and Sorcerers had left this world after the Hawkshart battle. She must be a half-Witch-half-Dwarf, as the Sorcerers would only take the pure-bred with them.”

“Where did they all go?”

“Back to their world ... also my world. We are not of this earth, Wyn, Man is the only native here among the higher forms, unless you count the Undead.”

“Your world?”

“Our world would no longer support us, in fact nature revolted against our various peoples, earthquakes destroyed our civilisations, even the plants and the rain that fell became poisonous to us. We came here five thousand years ago, through Sorcerer and Witch magic to allow time and the magic we left behind to help our world to recover and repair itself. After Hawkshart we determined our time here was past, but we couldn’t take with us or leave behind the Dragons, not after their treachery on that fateful day. They would have wiped you off the face of your own world.”

“No, Dragons can be killed by man, if one is determined enough...” Korwyn began.

“Your Dragonskin cloak and boots, are testimony to that, Lord of Man. But all the Dragons are gone now.”

Korwyn cleared his throat. He felt he had to ask, the Elf’s state of near-undress had disturbed him more than he would wish while she had ministered to his wounds.

“Tell me, Zyn, your armour covers you completely when you fight the Undead, yet exposes your flesh almost completely when fighting Orcs, it appears to not work as right as it should.”

She smiled, “Living armour is fickle, it is to be admitted. The truth is that once expanded it corrodes in contact with Orc blood, so it remains tightly closed to its basic form which has a thin shell of coating protecting it from harm.”

“But what about you?” Korwyn asked, “you’ve been splashed with Orc blood, I know it burns my skin like acid does.”

“Oh, Orc blood doesn’t hurt my skin, see?”

She peeled back a web from the skin on her thigh and even the Orcblade cut, which he saw her cover up moments before, had disappeared without leaving a scar, her skin, taut across her long well defined thigh muscle, was flawless. He dare not look too long that he was slightly embarrassed and he always went red faced when caught out in something close to guilt. So he looked into her face, framed by her green hair, which somehow no longer seemed strange but had become part of what made her so spectacularly beautiful. They exchanged a long glance eye to eye, before looking away and making themselves busy in cleaning blades or adjusting various fastenings for looseness or anything to keep their eyes and hands occupied. It seems their initial distrust of each other was being replaced with something else, respect, perhaps, thought Korwyn.

As for her healed wounds making her perfect again, it was Elf magic, thought Korwyn, what else could it be?

“So, Korwyn, tell me, why do you so hate Elves?”

Her frankness startled him. Over the last few hours they truly had become companionable, even uncomfortably intimate, their lives recognisably held in each other’s hands. However, he couldn’t escape the fact that he had indeed stated his abhorrence so vehemently at their very first meeting. It required an explanation. He owed her that if only as she was now his tried and tested sister-in -arms.

In reply he simply pulled his shirt over his left shoulder, revealing a terrible scar. Although it was almost twilight, he knew that her Elf eyes would see it clearly for what it was.

“An Elf-arrow wound!” she gasped.

“Aye, I received this almost as soon as the Battle of Hawkshart Plain commenced, and my father was also wounded, maybe killed outright by an Elf shaft at the same time, while riding next to me, as we moved into position as reserves behind our King. We were not regular soldiers, but local militia, nothing but husbandmen, farmers and fishermen, who did part time defence duties. But we were well drilled for all that, my father always insisted. He and I had served our time in the Service of the King, my grandfather. My father had previously served several terms and was free of any further commitment, but I was two years into my second short service to the Crown. Our attention was taken when a Dragon poured fire on us from behind. At the same time the Elves opened fire upon us humans. I was thrown from my horse when the arrow struck me and I rolled away into a ravine, lost and forgotten. Before I lost consciousness, I saw Dragons hit us from the flank. The Dragon doing most of the damage was a dark black one with a missing toe, I will never forget that terrible image. I never saw the rest of the attack. They slaughtered my father and every one of our Militia with Dragonfire, men I had known all my life. We lost the King and Crown Prince, too, only my youngest uncle, unfit after being thrown from his horse days before, survived to be crowned King. I awoke in a field hospital, my wound roughly dressed, the surgeon left my mother this reminder.”

Around his neck, attached to a leather thong, was an arrow-blade. It glowed faintly in the dark, ten years on still retaining some residue of Elf magic.

Zyndyr reached out with a hand to better examine it, saying, “We saw the Black Dragon attack the rear of our enemies and wipe out your reserve force. It was only a single Dragon, black from tip to toe, but the effect was so devastating that you might have thought that there was more than one dragon. We were shocked as we did not expect it, as much as you were. As you know, both sides agreed to meet at Hawkshart Plain for a parley, our single objective to agree a peace between all the higher people’s of the planet. In the centre of the field was a long table presided over by the Sorcerers and Witches, those independent of warring alliances which had cursed us for many years, to arrange a truce between us and make judgement upon our various claims.”

“Yes, Zyn, that is what we understood, too. If we had expected trouble, we Militia would have been at the front to bear the brunt of the first attack, while the Palace Guards would have been held in reserve. They were up front in all their plumed helm glory and light shiny, but rather ineffectual dress armour.”

“Aye, the Elves, Fairies, Dragons, Spirits, and Eagles were ranked up on our side in a show of strength against the Dwarves, Gnomes, Trolls, Goblins, and Mankind upon yours. The Original Treaty of Hawkshart Plain, for possession of the open plains linking the mountains and their ores, the forests and the sea was never signed then. When the assault came, a few of us started cheering and loosening a few arrows at your side’s forward positions. Then suddenly, the Black Dragon, your one with the missing toe, turned and attacked us, the Elves, supposedly their allies—”

She stopped in mid-sentence when they both heard a commotion from the direction of their charges.

The Princess and The Boy were wrestling over some object. Zyndyr leaped to where they were sitting, Korwyn following on more stiffly, his thigh still hurting, although a whole lot less than it previously had, he noticed.

By the time Korwyn reached them, Zyndyr had torn a severed Orc limb from the Boy and flung it to the ground by Korwyn’s feet. He noticed in places the stinking raw flesh had been gnawed almost to the bone. The Boy had chewed through his web gag, in desperation to eat raw Orc flesh, like the savages they had both become under the guardianship of the Orcs.