Archer Lumen: Earth's Version of Hell (Unfinshed)[Edited Up to Escape]

Chapter 6 | In Which Calder Becomes A Man

Chapter Six

Chapter 6 | In Which Calder Becomes A Man

Calder Watched As Archer Lumen faced off the half-formed Dragon. It was his Dragon, the one that had joined the water not too long ago. Right now it was a messy mass, looking more like goop than a flesh-made body. Half of the Dragon’s body was still in the water. Calder looked at it again and saw that it was water. White and foamy, reflecting the starry sky that had begun to form.

  Lumen looked as if he were about to faint, but caught himself. Calder watched as the boy extended a hand and placed it on the Dragon’s snout, a long thing that ended with a black, sweaty nose.

  “Boy,” Calder said. “Are you insane? Take your hand off of that thing!

  But Lumen wouldn’t listen. Asthen and Jacen had arrived now and Asthen looked at Lumen in disgust. “Why isn’t he passed out?”

  “I-I honestly don’t know,” Calder replied. “It’s not even like he’s fighting back. He looks like he’s petting the Dragon.”

  Asthen snorted disdainfully before instructing Jacen in their native tongue. The man dropped the two children he’d been carrying―a boy that probably came from the desert, and a girl that had been born in the Realm―and strode toward his Dragon, who sat on its haunches and looked around lazily. Calder watched as he retrieved a bottle and walked to the Lumen boy, annoyance clear in his stormy grey eyes.

  What happened next, shocked Calder out of his confused stupor.

  Jacen grabbed Lumen by the shoulder and turned him around. “Hey!” Lumen growled. “If you don’t―mnh! Mnh! Fzmnh!”

  Jacen instantly thrust the flask into Lumen’s mouth, making sure that all the contents entered the boy’s mouth. “Shut up! We’re behind schedule, and the officers of this town are already here.”

  Lumen began to sing, much to Jacen’s chagrin. Calder watched as the boy splayed out his hand again, in the direction of the forming Dragon. Suddenly the beast let out a monstrous roar that clashed with Lumen’s lyrics. “It’s the eye of the tiger, it’s the thrill of the fight!” Lumen cried. “Rising up to the challenge of our rival! And the last known survivor…”

  “We don’t have time for this,” Calder announced. He walked closer to Lumen and slapped the boy’s hand down. Instantly Calder’s Dragon stopped wailing, forming completely. We don’t know how many abilities he has, Jacen had said. Damn, if the kid could control Dragons, they were done for.

  That man better have more potions,Calder snorted. Otherwise, we’re screwed.

  Lumen had passed out now, slumped in Calder’s arms. It took them some time to figure out how they wanted to position the children. It’d already been decided that the protector and Lumen would ride on Calder’s Dragon, which was bigger than the other two. Lumen lay slumped against the ivory spike in front of him, while the protector―a girl with lean and muscled body with dark brown hair―was clutched loosely in the Dragon’s forepaw. Not the ideal place, but she was just the protector. No one too important.

  He held the reins now, having to put some effort to grasp them around Lumen’s body. “Let’s go!” he yelled. Asthen’s Dragon, a large dark red creature, was next to him. In front of the white spike, the little girl lay. Jacen’s Dragon was the same hue, and the boys were on his. He snapped the reins once, and felt the muscles bunching in his Dragon’s shoulders. He snapped them once more, and the beast pushed off of the ground, flapping its wings slowly and surely. Soon they began to soar, with Calder’s Dragon in the lead.