Dragon (A Histories of Purga Novel)

Rone made no move to conceal his presence. Darvian cloaked himself again but Fiona remained as she was. The spear was in her left hand and that wicked helm still covered her head.

In front of them sprawled Detention Sector 1, usually reserved for the worst criminals the Kingdom of Roanoke had to offer.

Rone stared at the massive underground prison in shock. Housed in the thousands upon thousands of cells were ordinary citizens. Men, women and children. Each one looked miserable and terrified. A lot of their faces were bloodied or dirty. Walking along the narrow walkways outside each cell were Blak Soldiers. A lot of Blak Soldiers. With them were men clad in shabby, green prison clothes, and Rone realized that the soldiers must’ve released the criminals willing to fight for them.

Disgust rolled through Rone. He clenched the railing in front of him until his knuckles went white. When the anger washed completely through him, he stood back up.

His face was grim and determination flickered in his blue eyes. Without really knowing what he was doing, he stepped forward. There was a strange sensation in his head. It felt like something was tugging at his brain. He didn’t know what it was and for the most part, it was buried underneath all his emotions and forgotten.

“I am Prince Rone Varlamagne,” he shouted, his voice loud and booming. For a split second, his eyes lit up with white blue light. Everybody inside the prison clamped their hands over their ears as the wave of sound smacked into them. “You have violated my realm and imprisoned my people! I will not tolerate it anymore!”

People were shouting out in pain. Nearly everyone was on their knees, their mouths open but their screams lost in the tidal wave of sound coming from the Prince.

Then Rone raised both hands above his head, crossed at the wrists, and brought them down at his sides. His mechpaks opened and millions upon millions of the tiny robots surged into the air. They humped and converged and formed into twelve gigantic fists that flew forward so fast they were only blurs.

Rone’s eyes flashed with bright, white blue light again and as they did, powerful gusts of wind surged forward from out of nowhere and slammed into only Blak Soldiers or green-clad ex-criminals, tossing them into the air like pieces of trash.

Darvian and Fiona watched men go tumbling and pin-wheeling in every direction.

After that, everything was chaos.

Each one of the giant fists flew down the walkways next to the cells. The mysterious winds screeched along behind them and made them go insanely fast.

They smashed into Blak Soldiers and green-clad criminals alike and the vicious rebels were tossed aside like ragdolls. Some of them flipped over the railing and plummeted to their deaths hundreds of feet to the ground floor. Others were merely squashed flat as the fists rampaged over them or they were thrown into the bars of the cells with enough force to kill them on impact.

The big, metal fists continued to decimate the ranks of the Blak Soldiers and ex-criminals.

“Rone?” Darvian asked, his cocoon of camouflage gone.

“What’s happening?” Fiona asked as well, shouting to be heard over the howling noise of the winds. There was a bit of blood coming out of her ears from when Rone’s voice assaulted them.

Rone didn’t answer them. He was lost in a cyclone of emotion and power. He could feel it inside him. It whirled around, threatening to tear him apart at the seams. Fear fluttered in his heart, but he was powerless to stop whatever it was he just unleashed.

He cried out in pain as two more giant fists emerged from him--these made of nothing but dense air--and went shooting off to either side of the trio.

Darvian and Fiona quickly dodged out of the way and watched them bowl into soldiers that were trying to flank them.

The doomed men tried to create things with their nanos to shield them from the fists, but it was useless. No matter what they tried, they all died.

Suddenly, the unknown power Rone felt inside him vanished. He wasn’t prepared for that. It suddenly felt weak and a deep, undeniable fatigue sank in.

He collapsed to the ground.

Darvian and Fiona ran to him, Fiona putting two fingers to his throat. Fear exploded inside her.

“I can’t get a pulse!” she screamed, crying.

Darvian pushed her aside and laid his head on Rone’s chest. Faintly, he heard a heartbeat, but it was weak. He looked up at Fiona.

“He’s still alive,” he said, unable to stop from smiling with relief.

He pulled Rone up to his shoulder and they walked over to a guardhouse. They went inside and found a Blak Soldier there, his eyes wide and terrified. He was crouched on the ground with his arms over his head.

“Leave me alone!” he yelled.

“Open the cell doors,” Fiona snapped. She put the point of her spear in front of his eyes.

The man scrabbled quickly to his feet and pressed a button. All across the prison, doors opened.

Darvian and Fiona heard the ecstatic cheers and shouts from the former prisoners.

“Now, where is King Rowan?” she asked.

“I-I don’t know,” he said, his hands and body trembling with fear.

She put the point of her spear even closer to his face.

“I swear. I don’t know where he is!” he cried. “They didn’t tell me.”

She grabbed the soldier and hauled him out of the guardhouse. She dragged him down a walkway to the first open cell she came to. She had to push her way past the crowd of freed citizens to do it, but when she got there, she threw the man inside and slammed the door shut. As far as she could tell, he was the only survivor of Rone’s onslaught.

“Stay,” she ordered and walked away.

She went back to the guardhouse. Darvian had laid Rone gently on the floor and was sitting by his head.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with him,” he told her as she walked in. “And I can’t get him to wake up. The only thing keeping me from completely freaking out is the fact that his heartbeat is getting stronger.”

“Do you have any idea how he did that?” she asked.

“No. I’m not even sure what he did, let alone how,” Darvian replied. “Whatever it was, it completely wiped him out. It took nearly every bit of energy his body had. He’s lucky it stopped before it took everything. He could’ve killed himself.”

Rone abruptly groaned. They turned to him and saw his eyes open. They were bloodshot and little red veins snaked their way across the whites to his irises. Other than that, he seemed fine. He tried to get up but was still clearly weak. He only made it to his elbows.

“S-since we aren’t dead, I can assume our rescue mission was a success?” he asked, stammering slightly. He gulped loudly. “Man, I need a drink. My throat feels drier than the Qandari.”

Fiona took off a canteen that had been hanging on the flak vest beneath her metal chest-piece. She unscrewed the cap and handed it to him.

Rone took it, gratefully, and drank. He chugged down three long swallows and then passed it back to her.

“What happened?” he asked.

“You don’t remember?” Darvian questioned.

“All I remember is saying words that came out louder than they should’ve and then I woke up here,” he replied.

“We’ll worry about this later. Right now, we have to find the King,” Fiona said. “And we have to get these people out before reinforcements come.”

“Right,” Rone told her.

He got to his feet but nearly tumbled sideways. Darvian, however, was there to catch him. He held his friend up and waited for him to get his strength back.

Rone felt sick to his stomach and the muscles in his legs, the muscles in his entire body more like, felt like rubber. The feeling was unpleasant and it scared him slightly. He had never felt so completely weak before or completely helpless.

“You going to be okay?” Darvian asked.

“Honestly, I don’t know. I’ve never felt like this before,” he said. “I’m sure I’ll be fine in a few minutes. Right now, we have to find my father and get these people to safety.”

“How do you plan on doing that?” Fiona asked, standing next to them. She looked out the window of the guardhouse. Darvian and Rone looked as well. “There’s so many of them.”

There were hundreds of thousands of citizens out there and only two known exits out of Detention Sector 1. They needed to come up with a way to get everyone to safety before the rest of the Blak Army figured out what was going on and tried to stop them.

Rone’s mind, sluggish as it was from exhaustion, still jump-started into action and came up with a dozen or so ideas every minute. Most of them he discarded immediately because they were more than likely going to fail. He thought maybe they could barricade themselves within the prison. They could make a stand inside it but ultimately that wouldn’t work. There was no telling how long the war would last and there wouldn’t be enough supplies for them all to survive that long. He thought maybe they could take the lifts up in ones and twos, having Darvian camouflage them as they left, but time was an issue and that would take way too long, which made that plan completely unrealistic. There were others too, each one with their own set of problems.

What it came down to was the fact that they had to get out of the prison undetected or unnoticed and they had to do it quickly.

He walked slowly out of the guardhouse with his arm around Darvian’s shoulder and came to stand at the railing, looking down. He needed inspiration. He needed something that would work to get these people out safely. All he saw, however, were cheering, smiling people with faces overcome with relief.

He saw the broken bodies of the Blak Soldiers and ex-criminals. He shuddered at all the death he’d caused. He didn’t like thinking of himself as a killer but that’s what he was forced to become. It didn’t matter that he didn’t have a choice. It didn’t matter that he did it to protect his people. None of that changed the fact that he had caused death.

He took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. He forced his disturbing thoughts away and instead, he looked at the concrete floor of the prison compound. He looked at it for a long time, an idea blossoming.

He watched the freed citizens intently for several minutes, searching and searching for someone that could help with his newly formed idea. He was about to give up hope when he caught sight of a brawny man with blonde hair and a pointed goatee. He held a little girl cradled in his arms and a slightly older girl by her hand. A girl that looked to be in the middle of her teenage years was standing next to them with a baby in her arms. Her face was haggard and worried. The man was searching the sea of faces, but it didn’t look like he found whoever he was looking for.

A smile broke out on Rone’s face and relief flooded him.

He pointed to the man with the four daughters.

“Bring him here. We’ll need him,” Rone directed.

Fiona nodded and darted off to the side. They watched her sprint down a couple of staircases to the third level of the prison where the man was still searching the faces around him.

Rone and Darvian saw Fiona come up to him and start talking rapidly and insistently. The discussion seemed heated for a moment and an angry look came over the man’s features. Then they softened a bit as he turned and looked up at Rone. He saw Rone looking back and nodded his head in respect. He turned back to Fiona, said something to her, and then started following her back through the crowd. His daughters followed in his wake like ducklings trailing behind their mother. In a few moments, they were all standing in front of Rone.

“Your Highness,” the man said. He had a soft voice that completely contradicted his build and large frame. He bowed more deeply. “How can I be of assistance to you?”

“Quel Eoson,” Rone said, putting his hand out. The big man shook it and he smiled widely. “I’m glad to see that you survived, although I shouldn’t be surprised. My father told me that you were the most stubborn, thick-headed engineer he’s ever known.”

“Your father is insightful, Your Highness,” Quel replied. “I’m glad to see the rumors of your death were farfetched lies.”

“They tried, but failed. I am here now and I intend to see my people to safety,” Rone commented. “For that, however, I will need your help.”

He spent the next thirty minutes going over exactly what he needed Quel to do. The man said nothing back, he just listened intently. Rone finished outlining his plan and looked up at the big engineer.

“Can it be done with the time I’ve given you?” he asked.

“Oh sure. Won’t be a problem, Your Highness. But after we get everyone to safety, I’m coming back for Rose,” Quel replied, a fierce look on his face. Rose was his wife.

Quel turned to his daughters and talked quietly with them for a minute. Then he left, heading for the ground floor. His girls all huddled around the oldest (Megon, if Rone remembered right), their faces showing signs of shock and fatigue. Megon, however, didn’t let it hinder her ability to take care of her sisters. She led them away and Rone watched them find a relatively quiet spot. Pretty soon, all of them were asleep except for her. Her eyes remained open and alert, like an animal that sensed the presence of a predator.

Rone looked at Darvian and Fiona.

“Let’s get to work,” he said.