Chapter 3: 

New Beginnings

I stopped the Riding Lizards after we had ridden for about an hour.

 I feared I might have given Mehmed brain damage, so I used kissing-heal the place where I had hit him. 

He then woke up. 

The first thing he did was make eye contact with me, then toss me on the ground and pin me down. 

“Ta qifsha nonen, do you know what you just did?! It was our duty to stand and fight. Now look at us, we ran away like cowards!” 

“Huh?! I save your life and this is how you react? Well, if you want to be a ‘hero’ then go jump off a cliff since you like suicide that much. And get the fuck off me,” I said and kicked him away. God he was heavy.

“Fuck you, I’m going back. We need to save our people, let’s---” 

I grabbed his arm. 

“Are you stupid? Everyone is dead. Elvana, baba, nana jem, Lindi, Luan, Afrimi, Arber, Bujal, Labinot. Everyone. There is nothing left. Now here’s the plan-” 

Mehmet slapped my hand away. 

“Dreq,” he said, “you can run away like a coward, but I’m going back”. 

He was the only family I had left, and now he was gonna go ahead and kill himself. Yes, he is only a half brother, but still. Should I knock him out again, I thought, but that wouldn’t be possible now that his guard was up.  

“Okay, just listen to me for one minute, you got 60 seconds at least? This is the plan: Right now we are weak, but if we head over to Llap, we can get stronger by battling in the dungeons, and we can get rich and hire mercenaries, and then get our revenge and retake what is rightfully ours! Tell me, how does that sound to you?” 

Mehmet clicked his tongue. 

“Disgraceful. If our family heard you now they’d be ashamed. You dare even speak of leaving the mountains and head for the life of hedonism…” 

And there is that orthodoxy I was talking about. In Dukagjina it is disgraceful to leave the mountains, and if you try to flee for Llap or Drenica your clan will hunt you down in the mountains and punish you. Which was why I never tried to leave. 

But now, in this environment of chaos and no clan-members to punish us, we could easily slip out. Live the good life. And of course get stronger and get revenge. But also finally escaping these damn mountains and heading to the rich flatlands.

“I see. If you want to throw your life away in the name of honour and other goblinshit, go ahead.” 

I sat on my Riding Lizard. Then I got an idea…

 “Hey what are you doing! Hey---”

I grabbed his Riding Lizard’s leash, then I kicked Mehmet in the stomach. 

“Tung tung!”

 I rode off quickly. I figured this would slow how long it took for him to walk over to his grave, and I needed two lizards so I could ride for longer durations and switch lizards when one got tired. 

Also, I didn’t know if that army was chasing survivors, but I wasn’t going to find out. Put as much distance between me and them as possible.

I took inventory now. 

I had a tailless Riding Lizard and an unharmed Riding Lizard. I had a lance attached to my back, and a machete on my hip, and three daggers on my back. And I had the leather clothes I was wearing. 

By now the weather had died down a little, but I was still wet and moist. But there was no time for me to stop for now. To heat myself up I used fire magic which helped a little.

Now I had to plan ahead. 

Water was no problem because of my magic, but food was. I figured I’d hunt boars for myself, and let the lizards eat goblins. And when I saw a dangerous monster, quickly ride away and avoid it. 

Also, I thought, avoid all cities and stick to the forests. I wasn’t sure who attacked us, but it was probably the Hasani clan. 

Still, I had never seen that kind of army. The organisation and tactics used were astonishing.  

I had no idea how long it would take to make it to Llap. I also had to make it past the border control. But I figured if I followed the North Star, and kept seeing the huge mountains to my right, that I should be good and make it eventually.

***

     More hours passed and it was now night. I was unsure what to do. I decided to keep moving and switched Riding Lizards. I felt that traveling at night would be safer because I wouldn’t be spotted.

I kept moving. It was now morning. 

I knew the Riding Lizards needed rest. 

“Food and shelter,” I mumbled. 

Then ahead, I spotted 5 goblins coming out of some kind of hole in the ground.

I grabbed my lance in my left hand and machete in my right hand. I then charged the goblins. I caught them completely by surprise.

 I impaled one goblin with the lance and slashed another goblin with the machete. 

On my right I saw that my tailless Riding Lizard bit off one goblin’s head. It was pretty gruesome and I felt sorry for it, but I couldn’t think about that for now. Had to survive. The two other goblins ran away, but impaled the first and my lizard killed the other.

I dismounted. I was so tired. 

Then I saw the hole they came from. My lizards were already eating the corpses. It looked terrible, guts and goblin brains everywhere. 

I took the three other goblin bodies that weren’t being eaten and dragged them into the hole. 

I used my magic to create a fire for light and saw that it was a small tunnel-system, where the goblins had used beams to uphold it in place. 

I felt bad for killing someone with intelligence, but then again, goblins ate babies, I was told, so didn’t matter. 

I guided my Riding Lizards into the hole and closed off the exit with Earth Magic, but left a little hole for ventilation. 

While sitting down, I saw something was happening with my tailless Riding Lizard’s tail: At the wound site, this weird small pink glob had started to grow. I heard somewhere that lizards can regrow their limbs completely.

 “But they don’t have magic, I think, so I wonder how they do it?”

I was utterly exhausted, so I laid down. I closed my eyes, and to the sound of goblins getting eaten, and while wearing wet clothes, I fell asleep.