A Land of Fire

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Thor sprinted, charging up the mountaintop, keeping his eyes fixed on those tribesmen in the distance, winding their way up the volcano and carrying his son. Thor gasped as he ran, his brothers right behind him, his son in his sights, so close, hardly a few hundred yards away, determined to reach him or to die trying.

The entourage of tribesmen bore his son over their heads, on poles, in a small bassinet, bobbing up and down as they hiked. Thor saw the smoldering volcano, and he knew they were taking Guwayne to it, to sacrifice him.

Thor’s heart was breaking inside as he urged his legs to go faster. He felt every muscle, every fiber of his being, about to explode; what he would give now for Mycoples.

Thor knew he had to do something.

“GUWAYNE!” he shrieked.

The group of tribesmen turned and saw Thor, and their eyes opened wide in panic. Thor did not wait, but hurled the spear in his hand with all his might, sending it flying fifty yards up the steep mountain slope, and watching with satisfaction as it pierced one of the tribesmen carrying his son in the back. The man screamed and collapsed.

The rest of the tribesmen, though, picked up the slack, and they took off at a jog, running Guwayne higher up the mountaintop. Thor chased after them, but he had no other spears to throw.

“GUWAYNE!” Thor shouted again, his voice echoing off the mountains.

Thor ran and ran, and he realized that he was gaining on them, able to move faster than the tribesmen. He was but seventy yards away…sixty…fifty. Thor ran faster, encourage, feeling confident that he could reach them in time. He would kill each and every one of them, rescue his boy, and bring him back to Gwendolyn.

Barely thirty yards away, Thor was getting close enough to see the panicked men’s expressions. They were no match for Thor’s speed, the speed of a man with his entire life on the line. He ran like a man possessed, more determined than he’d been for anything in his life.

Thor ran up the narrow mountain pass, narrowing, right on the edge of the cliff, running with everything that he had. They were hardly ten yards away now, just close enough for him to begin to draw his sword, to leap into the air, to butcher them. Thor reached down for the hilt of his sword—

And that was when it happened.

Suddenly, Thor felt an odd sensation beneath his feet, and he felt himself unsteady. Thor looked down and watched, in horror, as the path started to collapse.

Before Thor could react, the road gave way, caught up in a landslide, a giant avalanche. Thor found himself slipping, then falling, straight down the steep downslide, the mountain turning to mud, softened by the rains. He slid uncontrollably, down the mud, faster and faster, down hundreds of feet, shrieking, all his brothers sliding with him.

Thor spun around as he fell, looked up, and he saw his boy, so far away from him now, getting farther with each passing second.

“GUWAYNE!” Thor shrieked.

His shriek echoed off the mountains, again and again, the scream of a father losing a son, of a man losing everything he’d had.

Guwayne felt himself bouncing as the tribesmen carried him to the top of the volcano. He squinted his eyes at the thick smoke, finding it hard to breathe. His bassinet was hot, and he cried and cried, wanting to go down.

Guwayne heard a distant shriek, echoing off the mountains, and he recognized the voice. It was the sound of his father.

Guwayne wanted to be with him, wanted to be where he was. But the shriek faded, echoing away, and Guwayne knew that he was, once again, alone in the universe, left only with these strange men who looked down at him with hate.

Guwayne soon felt his bassinet lowered, and he looked over the edge and saw beneath him an endless flaming pit down into the earth. The heat was so intense here, the smoke rising up, and as the men set him down, he saw one of the men remove something shiny from his belt. It was sharp, and it glistened as he held it high, clutching it in his hand.

Guwayne screamed. He did not know what it was, but he knew that it was meant for him.

He screamed a scream to match his father’s, and it echoed off the mountain range, bouncing back to him, a scream that he knew would go unanswered.

On a lonely beach at the edge of the Land of the Druids, there came a slight tremor in the ground. The tremor grew and grew, as the waves receded, and the sands bristled, and the chirping of birds and the calls of beasts quieted. Something amazing was happening, even for here, in the Land of the Druids, something that happened only once in centuries.

There was a sole object on this beach, one that remained here after Thorgrin and Mycoples had left, an object that was sitting there, alone, waiting.

As the morning sun shone down on it, there came a slight crack in the single dragon egg. The little dragon within it reached up and pushed against the shell, and the shell cracked again.

And again.

In moments, the perfectly still and silent air was breached by a single sound—a long, sharp cry. It was the cry of a new life coming onto the planet.

A dragon emerged, smashing the egg, rearing its head, spreading its wings, as the egg shattered to pieces all around it, sprinkling down onto the sand.

The dragon leaned back and arched its neck, and looked to the skies. The world was new. Everything was new. He did not understand it at all.

But he knew, deep down, that it was his. This world was his. All his. That nothing on this planet was stronger than he.

The dragon threw back its head and screeched, a high-pitched noise, soft at first, but growing louder by the second. Soon, he knew, it would be strong enough to destroy the world.