"How many guards do they need to run this place?" Vincent said, clearly exasperated at the sight of more appearing from the distance. "I swear it feels like the magic training room with the dummies reviving after each kill."
"It is like that, isn't it," Theo said as he swung his sword, killing a guard mindlessly charging at him. "I'm glad, however, we had practice with the reviving dummies."
Vincent said, "Let's just say under the current circumstances, I'm not overwhelmed, thanks to the training." He released his arrow, and it went flying and landed on a bridge, causing an explosion and collapsing it, killing a bunch of guards, bodies falling to the ground.
Juan shouted, "Most of these guards I've never seen before."
Aldric said, "The dungeon is probably deeper than we initially thought." He touched his earpiece. "Connor, the layout?"
From the other side of the line, Connor said, "Six floors above and six below. You're right, the dungeon is deeper than we thought."
A soldier's voice came through, urgent and ringing with concern. "Uh, my lord? We have a problem."
"What's that?" Aldric said.
"My drones are below ground, and you're not going to believe this. There are monsters. They're charging up and—"
Aldric felt the ground beneath him shake, and he knew what that meant for he had experienced it before. A stampede of monsters.
"Brace yourself!" he shouted at his men.
Piling out from cave openings were orcs, trolls, goblins, dire wolves, and basilisks—weapons in hand, mindlessly roaring and charging, demanding blood.
"Holy deity!" Theo said.
Vincent stared, stupefied. "They housed monsters?"
"Just as I feared," Aldric said. "It's more than met the eye." He summoned his magic as he shouted orders. "Kill all of them. Not one is allowed to escape this place."
"Roger!" the men echoed in answer as they, too, summoned their magic.
Aldric flicked his gaze to Malcolm up on the bridge, hot anger seething in his blood. He touched his earpiece and said, "Connor, I want to know who that bastard on the bridge is."
"Roger that," Connor said from the other side.
The horde of monsters stampeded toward them as the guards fell back, and Aldric released his lightning whip, the marks on his shoulders and arms glowing with magic. The lash went rippling in the air, with sparks zapping out in every direction, killing monsters—many of them—the lightning touched in the process.
Vincent unleashed more of his electrical arrows, causing an explosion, killing more while Theo blasted out his flame, burning alive those close by, and cries of agony before death reverberated throughout the place.
Juan said as he swung his sword, "Damn! I wish I could use magic, but having only activated my mana yesterday, it's impossible."
"I got your back," Liam said as his circle shot out fireballs and then fire blasts, covering Juan as the man fought the monsters with his sword and fist.
When he had slayed the last of the ones surrounding him, Juan turned to Liam and said, "Didn't I say we'd work well together."
Liam sent a fireball past Juan's ear, burning a troll that had a wooden club over Juan's head as he said, "You did." He spotted an orc and shouted, "Ten o'clock!"
Juan, confused, asked, "What's a ten o'clock?"
Liam realized Juan hadn't learned how to read the time or the hands of the clock yet, and said, "Behind you to your right."
Juan spun around as he swung his sword, slicing the blade across the orc's belly as he did so. The orc swayed as it groaned and then fell to the ground. When he returned his attention to Liam, Liam said, "Good job," as he gave him a thumbs-up.
Juan tilted his head to one side as Liam summoned another magic circle and it started spitting out more fireballs. Juan swung his sword again, wondering what the hand signal meant, and after slaying a basilisk, running his sword across the monster's neck, thus decapitating it, he tried it himself, doing a thumbs-up to the already dead monster. "Good job," he said.
Behind him, Liam asked, "What are you doing?"
Juan said, "Uh, nothing." Then he charged off to slay more monsters with Liam following him, shooting fireballs at the fiends that targeted Juan from the distance, over Juan's back since he could only fight in close combat.
Aldric send out a blast of ice lances to a horde of monsters, annihilating them where they stood when Connor's voice came through. "My lord, it's Malcolm Hurston."
Aldric frowned as he lashed out his whip. He said, "Hurston?"
"There's more," Connor said. "There are priests controlling the monsters. One, a high priest is—"
As the ground and walls swayed, rifts ran across here and there, and suddenly, something humongous broke out, with earth and wall shattering and debris falling. Aldric stared, stunned, at the sight neither he nor his men had ever expected to see again until they themselves ventured into Blackfield to seek revenge.
A behemoth of a dragon rose in the air, its wings flapping out, its mouth wide open as an ear-piercing screech filled the air.
"Holy deity!" Juan said, his eyes wide.
"A dragon?" Liam said.
Theo, Vincent, and the soldiers stared, shocked at the sight of the creature, indeed the very same one that had destroyed their town four years ago, for they would never forget such a monster. Most had had it haunting them in their nightmares for years after the attack.
Aldric, seeing his old sword stuck on the dragon's eyes, felt raw emotion erupting within him, overwhelming him. He opened his mouth and screamed, echoing his white-hot pain—anger, betrayal, and sadness. The appearance of this creature could only mean one thing; the dragon did not originate from Blackfield Dungeon, nor the monsters that had attacked his land and people four years ago. It had originated from this place, operated by men, commanded by Lord Malcolm Hurston.
Juan, Vincent, and Theo, as well as the soldiers, too, realized this, and they felt nothing but blind rage. As they continued to fight, they were seething, having realized these were the ones who had killed many of their people, their loved ones, and a soldier, having lost his wife and children as well as his parents to this lot, roared as he swung his swords. Another did the same and then more followed, sending out elemental magic at the horde that kept piling out through the mouths of the caves.
It took a moment for Aldric to take control of his gut-wrenching emotions and calm himself down. He was a warrior, and his head needed to be clear during a battle. Indeed, his head was now cleared. As clear as day as he raised his gaze to the dragon, hovering above them, still screeching in the air. He flicked his eyes to the bastard behind all this, Malcolm Hurston, who was grinning with glee from atop the bridge.
As commander of his warriors, it was Aldric's job to take down the strongest, hence, he gave out the order. "Vincent, you take care of the priests."
"Roger," Vincent replied and immediately started off toward the bridge that was lined with priests in hoods chanting ancient spells.
"Juan, bring me Hurston's head."
Juan, who had a personal score to settle with the bastard who had imprisoned him and his men, as well as the civilians, said as he smirked, "With pleasure." He ran off toward the stairs.
"Theo," Aldric said. "I leave you to command the soldiers. Take care of these monsters and the guards."
"Are you going after the dragon alone?" Theo asked.
"It has to be me alone," Aldric said. If it wasn't him who slayed that prodigious creature, as the lord of the land, he would never feel he could ever right the wrong that had been done to Norsewood and avenge his people.
Theo nodded. To the soldiers, he shouted, "Men, it's up to us now, so let's do our worst. It's retribution time!"
The soldiers roared, and an all-out killing began as men and monsters fought, magic circles turning and glowing and flames of fire, lances of ice, and blasts of wind flashed about as monsters fell like flies.
Aldric brought out his lightning whip. His eyes on the dragon, he released the weapon where it rippled up in the air and slashed on the behemoth, sending lightning waves through its entire gigantic body, causing it to screech even more as it went crashing onto the side of the fort, bringing down the side of the wall and the bridges and stairs as well as the mine's opening in the process. Aldric sprinted toward it, his circle blasting ice lances and then fire blasts consecutively, hitting the dragon, damaging the hard scales, breaking and scattering it, which pleasantly surprised Aldric for no weapons had been able to put even a scratch on that thing, one of the hardest raw materials in Eseron. Until now.
Wounded and bleeding and in a pile of rubble, the dragon roared and then flapped its wings. And up it went, flying high in the sky once again as it opened its mouth. Aldric saw the fire breath coming, and he shouted at his men, "Incoming fire breath!"
The soldiers, as well as the guards down below, knew they were done for if they didn't take cover, and before they could even move, it was too late as the hot inferno came, a blaring of flame discharged down.