Gatekeepers Book 3: Redemption

Early morning sunlight filtered through the stained glass windows behind Theravor’s seat at the head of the table in the Dragon Council chamber. The king and his twelve council members were all sitting in their seats with stiff expressions on their faces. Poseidon, Damrabe, and Reothad stood close by. Vertex, who was still too drained to move, laid on a makeshift bed of clouds conjured by Boreta which floated near Theravor. The room was empty apart from the seventeen of them; Theravor had dismissed all the guards that normally occupied the room to ensure security.

A small figure peered out at the dragons from behind one of the marble columns. It was Clyad, the swordsman held prisoner in Skyhaven Prison until yesterday’s prison break. Unlike yesterday, he carried a weapon around this time; the same oversized katana that he used during the last Prisoners’ Games.

Vinzgar noticed Clyad peering out from the column and growled softly. “Theravor, are you certain it’s okay to let a prisoner in his room at such a critical time?” he questioned, turning to look at his king. “I understand that he isn’t aggressive, but still....”

Theravor sighed and looked down at Clyad, who seemed to be no more than an ant in his massive surroundings. “There’s a couple of reasons why I’ve allowed Clyad to sit in on this meeting,” he began. “First of all, Clyad, you’ve been cleared of all charges against you from three years ago.”

A look of shock crossed Clyad’s normally calm face, and he glanced up at Theravor in surprise. “How come?”

“After the prison break, I had a handful of investigators comb over Balara’s cave to search for anything we could get information out of. It didn’t take them too long to find a small pocket in the wall concealed by magic. There was a journal inside that indicated other prisoners or people that he or Vinkex considered worthy of joining their forces. You were the only human listed in the book; they apparently heard of your exploits prior to Balara’s imprisonment and decided to have you dropped into the prison for recruitment. The journal detailed their plan to hire you as a guard for one of the associates solely to take the fall for said associate’s assassination of one of the Council’s previous members.”

“What would they want with me?” Clyad appeared to be bewildered by all of this new information.

“From what the journal described, Vinkex and Balara apparently wanted you to become the ‘leader’ of the world’s humans,” Theravor sighed. “As I’m sure you’re aware by this point, dragons have great respect for those with strength. Though you are a human, and therefore one of the weakest creatures in the world, your strength allows you to beat most of the dragons you fought during any of the games. The fact you’re capable of using Mana Overload as a human probably drew even more attention from them. And Vinkex and Balara are not foolish enough to ignore humankind completely.”

Clyad remained silent as he digested what he just heard, chewing on the end of the grass stalk he had in his mouth.

“The second reason why you’re here today is for the upcoming battle.” Theravor dipped his head towards Clyad slightly. “I’d like to request your assistance for it.”

There was some murmuring from the Council as Clyad fixed his intense gaze with Theravor’s. He sighed before pulling the grass stalk out of his mouth. “I’m not gonna do this out of the kindness of my heart, ya know?”

“Of course.” Theravor lifted his head. “You were a member of the Mercenary Union, correct? Let’s just say that I’m hiring you for this fight. You’ll be rewarded an amount of gold Craeos befitting the request.”

Clyad thought in silence for a few moments as he thought things over. He eventually sighed. “Ya can keep the Craeos,” he muttered, scratching the back of his head. “Any decent person would feel pretty crappy if they took a large sum of gold Craeos from a king who just suffered through a civil war. I’m not heartless enough to just help you out for money when I already know what’s going on.” He stuck the grass stalk back in his mouth. “I’ll take on this request, free of charge.”

A smile played across the Dragon King’s lips. “Well spoken. That’s a good answer.” Theravor turned his attention to Vinzgar. “Have we heard anything from the scouts yet?”

Vinzgar shook his head. “We sent them out at dawn, but we haven’t received any word from them for the last half hour,” he answered. “But once they find something, we’ll know immediately.”

“The scouts also have the latest model of the Leyscope Goggles the Vizard and Managuard families have developed together,” Zero chimed in, raising a hand to adjust the blue-lens goggles resting atop his head. “They’ll be able to pick out any abnormalities from the natural magic of the world.”

Boreta sighed. “It’s no good that we hardly have any information on our enemies while they have plenty on us,” she commented. She glanced over at the immobile Vertex. “The only one of us who could’ve had useful information has had his memories of the last two years wiped clean.”

“So sorry about that,” Vertex growled sarcastically. Being left temporarily immobile and unable to assist in the upcoming battle has left him quite irritated.

“Is there no way to restore his memories?” Poseidon questioned, looking between Boreta and Damrabe. The two of them shook their heads.

“After a closer examination of Vertex, I don’t believe it’s remotely possible,” Damrabe admitted.

“We originally thought that those implanted with a shard of Vinkex’s crystal were simply put under his control, allowing Vinkex to manipulate them as he pleased,” Boreta explained. “However, it’s not that simple. From what we can tell, those implanted with crystal fragments have a new personality forced onto them, based off of their original personality. The new personality is therefore exceedingly similar to the first, making it hard to tell the difference. The new personality overwrites the first one and puts it in a state of sleep. When the new one is removed, the original personality becomes active once more, but has no knowledge of what the new personality experienced since they were unconscious of what was going on.”

Suddenly, there was a loud banging at the door. Several Council members flinched in surprise at the noise. Theravor’s eyes narrowed as he stared at the door, the tip of his tail twitching.

There was quite the commotion outside. Theravor left to guards posted at the entrance to the room to keep others out, but there appeared to be quite a struggle going on. Everyone could clearly hear what was being said.

“W-what are you doing?!” one of the guards roared.

“Entry without permission is not permitted beyond this point!” another one cried. “Stop struggling and explain your reason!”

“I don’t have time for that!” a third voice snapped. “I have crucial information I need to deliver to the King and the Council immediately!” There was some more scuffling, and the doors were flung open with a loud bang. A black dragon of short stature and dark grey underbelly scales and wing skin tumbled through the door and landed flat on the floor, panting hard. The dragon was covered from head to toe in dark brown leather scouting gear. Theravor immediately noted the numerous large cuts and injuries covering the small dragonoid’s body. Blood still flowed from the open wounds.

Vinzgar stood up from his seat as the dragon got to his hands and knees. “You’re part of the scouting party I sent out this morning!” he growled. “What happened? And why didn’t you bother contacting us through the communication device?”

The dragon finally managed to get some of his breath back. He got up in a bowing position, resting on one knee. “I apologize for not getting in touch with you earlier, sir,” he panted. He put his hand inside the folds of his clothing and pulled out a small, silver object that looked like a microphone. A dark shard of stone had been driven through the round top, skewering it. “But as you can see, my communication device was damaged, rendering it useless.”

“I overheard you had some important information to give us,” Theravor commented, taking control of the situation. “What do you have for us?”

The dragon scout lowered his head even further. “I have some good news and bad news. The good news is that we managed to locate the enemy’s stronghold. The bad news is that every member of the scouting party, except for myself, were wiped out by the forward members of the enemy’s vanguard.”

“What was that?!” Vinzgar snapped.

“Vinzgar, be quiet.”

Theravor’s cool command echoed slightly throughout the room, instantly silencing any sound. A shiver ran down Vinzgar’s spine as he looked over at Theravor. The Dragon King had both elbows planted on the table with his hands folded together to rest his head on. There was a dead-pan expression on his face that nobody had ever seen before.

“If what your scout said is true, then I imagine that the enemy is already moving towards us. Is that correct?” He directed the last question to the scout, who rapidly nodded his head.

“The enemy forces seem to have taken up residence in the Rogue King’s castle. A violent storm wall has been conjured around the entire perimeter of the flying archipelago; there’s no way to break through it without any sacrifice.”

“Without any sacrifice, you say?” Theravor’s tail twitched slightly as he thought it over. “That’s utter nonsense.”

“Huh?” Quite a few dragons were perplexed by this statement as Theravor stood up from his seat.

“Zero, hand me your goggles.”

Perplexed by the order, Zero did as he was told and passed them down the table to Theravor. Theravor snapped the goggles over his eyes and stepped over to the stained glass windows. “Boreta, I trust you to take care of the mess.”

“H-hold on just a moment, Theravor!” Boreta sputtered. Her head was spinning at the speed these unexpected events took place. “What are you getting ready to do?”

“Huh?” Theravor looked over his shoulder down the length of the table with a surprised look on his face. “What do you think I’m doing? I’m going to take down the storm barrier.”

“What?!” The entire room was taken aback by this comment.

“Don’t be reckless!” Zero roared. “Do you honestly think you can barge into enemy territory, smash their defenses, and come back in one piece all by yourself?!”

“I do.” Theravor turned back to the windows and unfurled his bat-like wings. The golden wing skin seemed to release minute gold dust with each slight movement. “Besides, if you want the job done right, do it yourself.” With that, Theravor smashed through the stained glass and took off at an incredible speed, disappearing over the horizon in a matter of seconds.

Everyone in the room stared at the disappearing figure well after it vanished from sight with their mouths hanging wide open. At length, Boreta gave a small sigh as she flicked her finger in the direction of the shattered glass. The pieces rose up into the air and flew back into the wall, restoring the glass to its original state.

“Honestly, I sometimes wonder if it’s Draycos that’s been rubbing off on the king, instead of them just being similar.”

A few minutes later, several hundred miles away, a massive storm system was slowly making its way in the direction of Dragonspire Castle. The chained islands were slowly being dragged through the skies by enslaved dragons, tugging on long lengths of additional chains attached to the islands. Jutting from the outer walls of the Rogue’s Castle that rested on the center island was a large stone tower that loomed high above the rest of the castle. Inside the top room of the tower, a group of about a dozen or so dragons shrouded in dark robes stood in a circle around a purple magic circle glowing on the ground.

“I’m tired,” one of them complained, falling to one knee. “Can I take a break?”

“No, you can’t!” one of the dragons standing next to him snapped. The dragon delivered a sharp kick to the first one’s side. “We’re the only ones capable of casting such a large-scale joint Conjuration spell! Keep it up for a few more hours until our supplier brings us more of the mana pills.

Suddenly, the nearby wall exploded with a loud boom. Cries of shock ran throughout the room as many dragons covered their heads from the flying debris. The magic circle flickered slightly as a large foot stepped out of the dust cloud.

Theravor stood at a hole blown out of the wall, glaring at all the dragons before him. If looks could kill, all the spellcasters would’ve been dead the moment he laid eyes on them.

“Hold it! Isn’t that--?!”

“Attack! We’re under enemy atta--!!”

The warning cry was cut off when Theravor stepped in front of the screaming dragon. A dim golden light flashed as the Dragon King drew his talons across the spellcaster’s chest. A second later, the robe burst into shreds as the spellcaster’s chest was cut open, spraying blood everywhere.

The screams didn’t last long as Theravor dispatched the remaining enemy spellcasters in a similar fashion, not letting any of them make a getaway or cause a commotion. The magic circle on the ground grew dimmer and dimmer with each enemy death. Finally, Theravor towered over the last one, who was curled up in a tight ball on the floor against the wall, trembling violently.

“W-what is this?” the spellcaster cried. “Why are you, the Dragon King, doing this?!”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Theravor growled, raising his right hand. “This is war. And when you go to war with me, you better be resolved to lose your life if I enter the battlefield. My people have already been through enough with nearly being hunted to extinction, and the more recent theft of our sacred treasure. But most prominently, your damned leader had the guts to eat Draycos, who I was extremely fond of.” Theravor flexed his claws dangerously. “I’m well beyond the point of simple anger now.”

Before the spellcaster could even protest, Theravor’s claws flashed across his neck. The severed head went flying an instant later, and as the head rolled across the floor, the last of the light from the magic circle faded away. Sighing, Theravor paced over to the hole in the wall and watched as the storm surrounding the castle vanished like a puff of smoke.

A small smile curled the Dragon King’s lips as he pulled the goggles away from his eyes and rested them atop his head. “Let there be vengeance,” he muttered under his breath.