Hi all
Sorry for the late posting. I have been terribly sick since Monday, and haven't been able to stand the glare of my computer screen. I am doing much better now, so I'm getting all my later stories out.
Please enjoy this longer-than-usual update to make up for being late.
“Curious creatures.” Said Aastii as he showed his results of the Wolven corpses to the council. “Complete merger of organic and mechanical parts. Some creatures were more metal than organic.”
“We found one that was completely metal outside but had several organs, which were powering it.” Said Kessa as he touched a cube to show an autopsy that had been performed. “Unlike anything we have ever seen.”
“Are there more?” asked Saasha rubbing at her lower back.
“Well, not all the creatures were killed so I can only assume some remain. Though how many, we do not know.” Said Larden. “The big one that got Saita, he definitely wasn’t among the piles of those creatures which were cleaned up.”
Merz scratched at his head and mumbled under his breath. He was still furious at the fact that his Captain had been injured while he had been forced to protect dignitaries.
“Yes, General Ironhead.” Said Saasha.
“Were they made or bred?” He said a little louder.
“Genetically they are all different, and I have found no familial links to any of the corpses.” Said Kessa.
The General started to scratch at his beard in irritation. “Just why?”
The twins looked at each other, obviously confused by what the man was asking.
“Why make these things?”
“They gather energy for the Fell Dragon.” Said the shackled Edzeeker from his end of the table.
Saasha had insisted that he be present for the meeting to discuss the creatures, and as of yet, he had said nothing of value to say.
“But how?” demanded the Saith.
“How do you gather energy? You eat. The Wolven eat and then are eaten in part.” Edzeeker seemed to be struggling a little with the Saith language, so he switched to human. “Absorbed is likely a better word to use. Organic material is absorbed and replaced by metal.”
“Seems rather over convoluted.”
“Oh, quite.”
“I’m not sure if he is mocking me or not.” Mertz said to Larden who chuckled under his breath.
“Point is. Those you captured contain unabsorbed energy as anybody would until it decays and is used by the things around it.”
Saasha frowned and crossed her arms. “This seems like an absolute horror show. A creature that absorbs other creatures and then forces them to have what? Surgery to replace what was absorbed?”
“That…I never discovered.”
“Will there be more attacks?”
“Very likely.”
“Then we need to warn our allies, and they will need to warn their allies. At least killing these things is as easy as killing any living thing.”
“Don’t touch the metal.” Said Aastii as he touched the cube. “Those that had extensive metal coatings had battery-like objects in place of certain organs.”
“Why would this thing need the energy?” asked Pura.
Edzeeker grinned at Bolx. “You haven’t told them yet, have you?”
Every single set of eyes turned to the Saith, who glared at the Dekai to say. “I don’t understand half the stuff you told me in my time, so what is it that you want me to tell them?”
“Wolven are gatekeepers.” Said Edzeeker. “They don’t want her out, so they power the cage that keeps her locked in. She is strong though, and she pushes and pushes until one day she will escape to wreak havoc.”
“Oh, that.” Bolx rolled his eyes. “That never made sense to me. Although I never understood why you named it she.”
Jethron sat with his fingertips touching while his thumbs were tapping against each other slowly before he stopped and looked up at Edzeeker. “You found a way to destroy the Fell Dragon, didn’t you?”
Edzeeker grinned and slammed his shackled hands on the table. “Yes, I did!”
Bolx frowned. “But then why did you destroy my Saita and let my time fall if the Fell Dragon was destroyed.”
“Did you stupid fools think that the Fell Dragon was an entity? It is a title bestowed to those that defeat it and thus become it.”
Jethron rubbed at his face and pushed his chair back to get to his feet. He went to stand by an open window and seemed to be in deep thought before he said slowly. “How many Edzeeker? How many people have you forced this title on?”
“Enough.”
Myla seemed to be the only one to understand what was going on as she suddenly said. “You made Saita to become the next Fell Dragon.”
“I’m surprised the human got it before anyone else.”
Larden snorted in disgust. “You created the perfect catch-22. You need Saita to destroy your current Fell Dragon, but you have to make her strong enough to achieve this and thus cannot control her.”
“Well done, boy!” cheered the Dekai.
“And we cannot get rid of her because we need her.” Said Brucel as he shook his head. “You painted yourself into a corner though.”
The King looked up to Jethron, who still looked over the forest at the back of the castle. “You ran out of strength before the Fell Dragon did.”
Edzeeker’s grin disappeared and said. “I could have stopped the last Fell Dragon had that idiot there not gotten the Human pregnant. Double the life force. The wasting disease got to her before the Fell Dragon ever did. That time was useless to me, but this time I learned from it.”
The Dekai lifted two fingers and said. “Start earlier and produce a replacement then make sure she can’t have any children.”
The table went dead quiet, and everyone stared at the Dekai in horror.
“So, the fact that the system is failing was a failsafe on your part?” asked Jethron. “That is why you wanted to ‘fix’ the damage with your own life because you knew there wasn’t much of it left. You would then throw the girl to fight the beast you created, and if she replaced it the system would slowly kill her.”
“Yes!” hissed Edzeeker.
He then looked to Bolx. “When I found out you were here, I realised how the girl managed to copy my time-travelling ability. I was hoping you would want to help me, but instead, we have this mess on our hands.”
“How exactly has this changed any of your plans?” demanded Brucel. “You still have a fighter.”
“You just don’t get it, do you? None of you do. She knows, she has been attacked once already and knows what is coming for her. She is sending the Wolven to attack for life force and to kill the only thing that can put her down.” Edzeeker got a crazed look. “The Wolven don’t know that she is tricking them.”
“The Fell Dragon, the one in the cage of which you speak, she isn’t the cause of the wasting disease, is she? It is the Wolven.” Said Jethron.
“In part yes.”
“Then in our time, what was the Fell Dragon?” it was Sedeath that turned back to the table.
Edzeeker immediately cowered when he saw the king of old. “It was a way to maintain the lowlifes and lesser beings while we slept.”
Saasha had never seen a Dekai turn purple with such fury before as Sedeath walked up to Edzeeker and gripped his shirt to raise him. “You created it! It wasn’t a mysterious creature that you happened upon. You created this monster. But why?”
“The lesser species were breeding out of control, and we could not manage to keep their numbers down. It didn’t matter that they were enslaved, they always escaped to other planets and bred like vermin.”
“The universe was big enough to share!”
“Like hell it was!”
“Well, it was before the beast started to rip into it.” Roared Sedeath. “And here I told Saita to make peace with you. You are no better than vermin you seek to control.”
He threw the old Dekai to the ground. “How did you even manage to get this around me?”
“Your love for the lesser creatures of the universe was going to destroy us all.” Spat the man. “I had my way around you and your chancellors.”
Sedeath slowly shook his head. “And to think I named you friend.”
“The past isn’t what is important.” Said Edzeeker as he got to his feet. “For us to have a future you must make use of me. There is no way around it, and you know that!”
“He’s played us. Well and truly.” Said Saasha with a grin. “Sedeath, what about what you did with Saita? Are you safe?”
“That is at least one thing he cannot manipulate. Your Majesty, I will ask that you have him barred from the rest of the meeting. I will be cutting my visit short. I need to return home as soon as Saita is healed to see how deep this goes. I cannot risk leaving her weakened when we are linked.”
Saasha indicated that two guards were to take the Dekai away, and it was done with him screaming the whole way. Sedeath sighed heavily and said. “I am sorry, I would have thought that by now I would have been old enough to see through this kind of deceit, but clearly, I am not clever enough. I cannot believe what my kind has released onto this world. I need to go talk to the Kai about this development.”
He paused, then added as an afterthought. “Lord Pura, Lady Myla, if no one has told you yet, Saita is awake and wishes to talk to the both of you.”
The two humans breathed a sigh of relief, but Doran, who had remained silent all this time looked a little hurt, so the Dekai added for his benefit. “I believe this is business.”
“Where do we go from here?” asked Mertz. “The Dekai was no help and seemingly led us into doing what he wanted us to do. We are also sitting with a person who can become the next Fell Dragon. There are giant wolves running around harvesting people’s life energy, and there is a mysterious disease which will cause people to lose the will to live while draining them of what strength they had.”
“We prepare, we warn, and we fortify.” Said Larden.
The younger General turned to the Queen and said. “I’ll take responsibility for her. She doesn’t have to be named Guard to work with us. I will put her through hell to build up what we need.”
Pura cleared his throat, and Larden immediately added. “With permission of her ruler of course.”
“I’d like to talk to her at length about everything. I doubt she has heard much about these meetings behind her back.” Said Pura.
“And I suggest we take this opportunity to find where the Wolven are holed up and take one alive.”
The table jumped as Siar suddenly spoke. She had spent some time listening but never said a word. She had learned early on from her mother that it was always best to listen first and then contribute afterwards.
Mertz and Larden looked like they both wanted to say something to her but stopped, then looked at each other before saying. “Dibs.”
“That is for the crown to decide.” Said Brucel with a grin as he looked at his mother.
Saasha chuckled and nodded her head. “Agreed Siar. We will need to make use of Gatex and his people to track. I believe for now that is all we can talk about. Larden, I want you to escort the Human King and Myla to Saita. While you are there have a look at her son. The boy is six, perhaps there is another way to introduce humans to the Guard. Mertz call in the general council and let’s get that meeting over and done with. Sedeath, I’d like Jethron back, please. I will need to talk about trade and where we go from here.”
Saasha waited until the room cleared before she said softly. “How much of what he just said was true versus wanting us to see him as a villain?”
Jethron took a deep breath and sighed. “I don’t know, Mother. I wish I did. I truly believe that Saita will need to face him one day but…I don’t know. Things are coming to light that makes me believe that I can’t even trust my own council. If the Fell Dragon was created by my kind, it happened before the split from the Kai.”
“Are you telling me…?”
“I don’t know if the Kai are in on it or not. I will need to find out. This is becoming far more than what I ever anticipated.” Jethron scratched at an ear in irritation. “This goes back further than what I could have ever imagined.”
“What do you want me to do?”
The young King smiled at his mother and simply said. “I wish I had an answer to that.”
And the mystery of the Fell Dragon deepens even more but it doesn't stop here, because she isn't as stupid as what Edzeeker believes her to be.
For those of you who have never heard of Fell Dragon you can find Book 1 here, Book 2 here and the start of Book 3 here. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me. I love discussing my books!
As the series continues, it will combine with another book series I wrote. To avoid confusion about what is happening, introductory chapters will be introduced separately so that you don't have to be lost. However, these chapters will contain spoilers. You can find these chapters here:
Races Explained
Banishment
Royal Guard
Saasha’s Direct Family
Saith Characters Recap
Human Characters Recap
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Haven't read the other parts yet? Follow these handy links:
Part 11>>You are Here>>Part 13
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