“I only ask for an audience with the king.” The former queen said with her hands raised.
I sent a telepathic message to the king to tell him that his wife was here to see him, to which he responded. “Tell the guards not to arrest her, I will be there in a minute!”
“Will do sir.” I responded before calling one of the guards. “Hey! The king is coming here to see her and he told me to make sure that she is NOT arrested. Understand?”
The guard quickly stopped what he was doing and exclaimed in a military tone. “Yes sir!”
Only a few seconds later the doors opened and the king followed by his two guards, then benign my father and his apprentice, exited the castle to join us before somebody could say anything the king went and took his wife in it’s arms and said almost crying. “Solem, thank the gods you are safe!” He made a pause to embrace his wife and continued. “I was so scared I had lost you.”
“Is that you sunshine?” The queen asked on the verge of crying
“Yes it’s really me, not that traitor Tylus, it really is me.” The king said now crying and sobbing. His then royal stature, impossible to touch, was now reduced to a normal human being.
A few minutes passed and the royal couple, still in each other's arms, started talking again. The king spoke first. “Why are you here?” He asked. “Why did you come back even when you were threatened with death?”
The queen’s expression darkened and with a sad face said. “I came here because our daughter’s life is at stake.”
The king’s expression darkened, matching the one of it’s wife, and he asked. “What danger is she facing?” The king’s expression showed concern and stress.
The queen began crying as she began retelling the two months that had passed by. When they were banned from the city, the queen and princess had fled into the plains and walked for a few days before reaching the mana filled forest that held magic beasts and monsters in an attempt to reach a safe village far away from the capital. Unfortunately, they were attacked and captured by high orcs that brought them far into the forest.
When those words got out, a castle maid made a muffled gasp when she saw the queen. The maid was about as tall as Thalia, she had long black hair and lush green eyes indicating that she was a demi-elf like my mother but differently from my mother, her ears were round like human ears.
The queen stopped her story and walked towards the maid and said. “I’m sorry little one, I couldn’t save both my daughter and myself.” The maid fell on her knees and began crying, she was then carried away by the head maid that was reassuring. I then said to my father. “She must be a really good friend of the princess to be affected like that.”
“More than a good friend…” My dad said with a sad face. “She’s the princess’s fiance.” My father had an expression that I rarely saw in him, sympathy. I only saw it on him during the weddings of his friend's adventurer.
“Come on dad, go help her. I can manage the people here.” I told my father with the same face as him. My father looked at me with a thankful face and said. “Yes of course. Thanks son.”
The queen had just finished telling her husband the horrors that she lived through that her husband took her in his arms and started apologizing to his wife for what he had done to her. “I am sorry for what I put you through. I’m so sorry.” The king kept saying again and again.
“You don’t have to say all this, it wasn’t you my dear.” The queen said with a smile and tearful eyes.I left the little group to go back to the place where I had found the queen being chased by the orcs to begin investigating.
***
Where the orcs had deviated from their path were a set of foot print in the ground. They were large porcine-like hooves imprinted in the ground and were going in the woods nearby. I was in my dragon form, the orcs if they saw me, would surely run away in fear but if they were courageous enough some of them might try to attack me.
The forest I was in was called the great forest of ledas in honor of the goddess of life ledas. It was filled with different monsters and beasts going from the weakest like slimes at the beginning of the forest, to great monsters like ogres and giants deeper in the forest. “What we consider as monsters in the world are magic beasts that acquired the ability to think and to have judgment.” I remember my teacher saying in my first year of adventuring school. “Magic beasts like orcs or ogres are considered as monsters because they are to communicate with one another with a language called monster tongue.”
Maybe if I can speak with them they will be able to explain why they kidnap the queen and princess in exiles even if they never entered their territory. I was a few feet away from the campfire now. I could see the orcs clearly too. They were three. They were tall, at least six and a half feet each, they were looking at the campfire as if they were waiting for food to appear on it. They also looked tired and scared almost as if they were going to be punished for something. One of the orcs put a hand on his abdomen and said in monster tongue that I could understand and speak thanks to Irilath. “If we don’t bring someone to the shaman to sacrifice before the full moon in two days the clan is going to starve.”
Another orc that seemed a little more optimistic said. “Don’t worry brothers we will find someone else.”
The orc that had yet spoken said in a sarcastic tone. “And where are we going to find someone? Is it going to fall from the sky?”
The first orc said in a scared and sad voice. “Yu’lor is right. If we don’t find a sacrifice for the dragon god Ugolath we will have to sacrifice one of the women in our tribe...again.”
The dragon god? But it’s a different name so it must be an imposter. I decided to make a little growling sound to make my presence known. The three orcs immediately turned in my direction and took their weapons out of their sheaths. I poked my head out of the darkness protecting me. Almost instantaneously, the three orcs faces showed sheer terror. Unable to move and unable to fight. The optimistic orc from before recovered enough from his shock to try and attack me. He began to run towards me with its crudely made blade in position to make a lateral slash. One of the orcs yelled. “Iz’ker no!” When the blade was about to make contact, I opened my mouth and caught it between my jaws. Realising his error the orc named Iz’ker let go of the blade and fell on backwards. I began to show more and more of my body obligating the terrified orcs to move back to the other side of the camp. I stuck the sword in the ground and said. “I am not here to hurt you, I am here to help you.” In monster tongue.
The three orcs looked at each other and bowed before saying. “We are sorry, we have lost the sacrifice that our great lord ordered us to give you. We are ready to repay you with our lives.” I looked at them more closely. The orc named Yu’lor was the more tattooed of the three, he had short pants made out of dark brown fabric with furs of different animals sewn to it. The orc named Iz’ker was the smallest of the three and had less tattoos than the other two. His pants had also less furs than the others. Finally, The one in the center that I didn’t know the name was the tallest of the three. His short pants had furs and blue armor plates. “You in the middle.” The orc raised his head, “I am sorry to inform you that the entity that you are sacrificing your people for is an impostor.”
“I don’t think so, great one.” The orc said. “When we were contacted by Ugolath, we chose to ignore him but then our crops began to die inexplicably and people began falling ill out of nowhere.” He made a pause, his eyes showed clear signs of exhaustion and sadness. “Ugolath or more accurately his mage underling came to our village demanding a sacrifice to pay our debt to the great lord. It was two moons ago, our village can’t keep up with this. We need females from other races or else our village will die.” When he finished his story, I asked “What is your name orkyl warrior.” The orcs in the monster tongue are called orkyls.
“My name is Aj’rak, may I ask what is yours?” The orc asked back.
“My name is Ithan Lightbearer, I am the one chosen to represent the dragon god Irilath in this world.” I said standing on my four legs to my full height. “Lead me to your village so I can see who this mage works with.”
“Of course great Ithan.” The orc said with a little more hope in his eyes.
***
“We will arrive soon.” The smallest orc announced. Yu’lor the tattooed orc then added. “When the mage sees you he might attack back.”
“Don’t worry about him and I will try to limit the damages done to your village.” I said in a reassuring tone. The orc thanked me and told me that we were here.
When we entered the village, I could tell something was up. The luxuriant and rich brown soil of the forest gave way to a dusty and dry dirt environnement. The people quickly ran and hid in their huts when we entered the gates of the village. We arrived fairly quickly to the village but it had been a whole night since I left the castle. The sun was just finishing to rise above the horizon. The end of the village finished in a steep ravine and a few feet away from the edge was standing a hut taller than the ones I had seen before. Aj’rak called. “Mage get out of the hut, we have to talk!”
“What is it you lesser!” a voice hissed from inside the hut
The orc looked at me and said with his most intimidating voice. “Come look by yourself!” The voice hissed again while getting out of the hut. “How dare you talk to me on that ton…” The mage’s voice was cut short when he saw what was standing in front of him.
Aj’rak started talking loud enough so that the people hidden in their homes would hear him. “The one standing beside me told us the truth, you were sent by a false god to end our village and kill our people. You are no saint, you are a demon!” The orc roared his last word loud enough for the whole forest to hear.
The mage then started talking again with a shaky voice. “You dare defy the wish of the dragon god Ugolath.” He raised his hand towards the hut and said. “If you take as much as one step I will erase your home out of existence chieftain.” Aj’rak stopped moving, I could see drops of sweat forming on his tattooed forehead.
The time seemed to stop, nobody was moving even a finger, until time stopped for real. In my dragon form I have a much better control on my powers. This lets me stop time itself for a short moment before it restarts. I whispered “Time lock.” but unfortunately the mage heard me and fired a ball of blood red fire towards the hut before time stopped. The fireball stopped in midair and the world faded to black. With the time stopped, the light particles stop moving like everything around this prevents any one in the spell to see anything, the only way to see in the time lock is to have a light magic user who can restart the process of light by imbuing it with mana as strong as the time lock. I restarted the light and approached the mage. I touched his forehead to gather the information I needed and smouched him under my giant paw. I placed myself between the fireball and the hut and restarted time, the fireball impacted with my scales leaving not even a scratch or a burn on my body.
When the mage died the heavy atmosphere of the curse was lifted and almost instantaneously, the dry and yellow grass started regaining it’s natural green colour, the crooked and leafless trees began blooming with life and the dry and dusty soil where crop use to grow began regaining it’s normal dark brown colour. It looked like the whole forest was coming back to life.
When the transformation ended I said to the orc chieftain. “Now your people will be able to live in peace again.” Aj’rak looked at me with tearful eyes and said. “Thank you so much lord Lightbearer! We will be eternally in your debt!”
The chieftain then told me in a respectful voice. “While we were walking here you told us the reason for your visit and I know where you can find the one you are looking for.”
“Yes! Of course thank you for reminding me.” I exclaimed. “I forgot her! How can I be so stupid!” I told myself.
“It is in the underground chambers that the mage created and…” He made a pause, he looked a little embarrassed. “I don’t think you can fit through them.” The orc finished. I looked down at myself still in my draconic form and said while reshaping in my human form. “Don’t worry I can shapeshift.” The orc looked at me impressed before showing me the way.
The passageways leading to our destination were high enough for the orcs to pass and wide for two of them to stand side by side. The tunnel’s walls were smooth, almost carved out of the very stone they were made out of. After a little walk we arrived in a wide open chamber, The chamber didn’t look like the tunnels we had just emerged from, the chamber looked like a naturally made cave with stalactites and stalagmite dispersed in pairs around the area, a large waterfall was visible from an opening in the side of the wall. Near the opening was a rusted metal cage containing a figure.
Aj’rak and I ran towards the cage and helped the captive princess out. She had long golden blonde hairs like her father, the beauty of her mother was also in her, she had a simple, thorn and dirty red dress with brown pants and black shoes. She was unconscious for the time benign but she would soon wake up and find herself surrounded by a purple eyed guy and orcs. I told Aj’rak to go back up with his men and that I would keep an eye on her. A few hours passed and the young girl woke up. “Hello? Is there someone?” She asked, scared. “Is this another nightmare?” She asked again in the same tone.
“No it’s not and you don’t have to fear anything anymore.” I answered, startling her.
End of chapter 6
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