Chapter 2: The Price of Prophecy

The Ape Commander flashed a wicked grin as if he sensed the red dragon's unease, holding up his hammer, ready to announce the attack. Ignitus scowled and snarled as a tiny ball of orange light suddenly appeared in the sky behind the large ape. His eyes widened as the orange ball grew in size and struck one of the hovering dreadwings from behind, catching it alight and making the others scatter. A second and third fireball suddenly landed among the cluster of startled apes as the flames overcome them. Ignitus gasped as he recognized the silhouette that came speeding like an arrow towards the balcony

"Ignitus!" called Pyra triumphantly as he shot overhead. The young fire dragon swooped over the guardian and the beleaguered moles, casting a blanket of fire over the ramp and the ape soldiers between them and the temple door. Ignitus had no time to take all this in as the Ape commander, howling at the flames that now covered his back, swung his massive hammer at the Fire Guardian vengefully. He reared back and then leapt in the air, his hind legs kicking the commander hard back against the edge of the troop container, falling motionless. The Moles cheered for Pyra as Ignitus turned around and saw that the apes that had entrapped them were vanquished. He saw his squire circling around the temple dome as the dreadwings gave chase to him, howling and screeching as he irreverently taunted them.

"Try and keep up!" he laughed as he ducked and dived evasively. Ignitus felt the first real sense of hope he'd had all evening as he watched the young fire dragon who had just saved their lives.

"Fall back to the temple!" he ordered the Mole at arms at his feet, "The path is clear now go!" At once the moles started running towards the temple as Ignitus turned his attention back to Pyra. The dozen dreadwings behind him followed like the body of a giant, flying snake, mimicking his every twist and turn. Ignitus looked back to the moles to see them running through the circular door.

"Close it behind you!" he shouted to them before with a grand leap he took to the air after Pyra. The young dragon flew beneath the ramp of the balcony and looped sharply around it, climbing high above the temple. Ignitus tagged onto the tail of the airborne entourage, diving onto the last dreadwing from above, dragging his claws over its wings and ripping its rider clean off with his teeth, the creature falling away as the rest of the group suddenly took notice and split up.

"Use your height, young dragon!" Ignitus called out, Pyra giving only a firm nod in response as he cast a jet a flame against another dreadwing. Ignitus flew upwards as several dreadwings dived at him, slashing his claws and teeth at them or simply ramming them with brute force as he pushed on towards Pyra who was fighting a battle of his own. He had not the size or strength of the Fire Guardian, but his smaller size made him a more elusive target.

Pyra suddenly sprang upwards as two dreadwings attacked from both sides, the pair slamming into each other and sending their riders flying through the air as the orange dragon chuckled confidently. He looked down and with a thrust of his wings he dived headlong towards Ignitus in a near vertical decent as the other dreadwings gave chase to the two dragons. Neither deviated from their course as they sped towards each other, seemingly intent on a mid-air collision. As they came close enough to read each other's pupils, Ignitus winked to Pyra.

"Chase the tail!" he bellowed.

"Chase the tail!" Pyra concurred, grinning.

In that moment the two dragons shifted their bodies to their right side, passing by within an inch of each other. Tilting onto their left side, they pulled sharply back and turned to the left after each other, both spitting streaks of flame outwards just behind each other's tails. Spinning in a fiery ballet, the two groups of dreadwings pursuing them were scorched in the spinning wheel of fire, the bat monsters falling like the leaves of a flaming tree. The wheel of fire spun a half a dozen times before the circle broke and Ignitus and Pyra came to a halt in the air. Facing opposite ways, the two dragons turned to look at each other.

"Now that's cooking!" Pyra cheered.

"Well done, young dragon!" praised Ignitus, allowing himself to smile. Pyra returned the gesture in turn before he looked out towards the moons whereupon his expression changed.

"There's another one of them," he said sternly, Ignitus spinning in the air to see the threat. It was another dreadwing, hovering some distance away from them, the Celestial Moons illuminated behind it. Ignitus recognized at once it was not simply another one of the flying pests, for he had seen this particular foe before. The creature's face was obscured by a triple horned armored helmet unlike the others, its rider too had a distinctive appearance. His armored shoulder pads sported three protruding spikes, his helmet sported two with the third spike missing its top half, presumably lost in combat. His helmet completely obscured his face, showing nothing but a pair of glowing red eyes behind his viewing port. The rider, known only as the 'Masked Assassin', stood atop his mount with his arms crossed, his shoulders began rocking as the ape began to laugh behind his helmet.

"Yor' lives end 'ere wit' me!"

"You're wines are… well and clean?" asked Pyra, unable to decipher the muffled taunts behind the Assassins mask.

"I'm afraid not, Pyra," Ignitus replied gravely. At that moment the Masked Assassin raised his fists up and shouted yet more indistinguishable gibberish across the sky. Although he could not decipher it, his intuition told Ignitus that he was shouting an order. He instinctively looked up towards the clouds above them. A misty white fleece streaked across the night sky but was suddenly broken as new a swarm of screeching dreadwings came tearing through it, diving towards them.

"Get to the temple, now!" Ignitus shouted, diving towards the earth, glancing over his shoulder to see Pyra in tow. They aimed for the temple, hoping they could outrun their pursuers.

"Look out!" Pyra exclaimed. A flash of red in the left corner of Ignitus' eyes caught his attention as a ball of red, unnatural fire came shooting across their path from the mouth of the Assassin's dreadwing.

"Stay close to me!" Ignitus cried as he and Pyra weaved and ducked to throw off the Assassin's aim as more of the fiery projectiles were launched at them. The temple was now close, but the pursuing dreadwings had closed the gap, some reaching the dome of the temple ahead of the two dragons. He glanced over at Pyra who stayed firmly by his right side as though an invisible tether had them bound to each other. They leveled out as they swooped over the end of the balcony towards the doors, the dreadwings atop the dome leaping down in front of them, cutting them off. Ignitus felt his heart skip as he tried to shout to Pyra to pull up but knew it was too late.

The three dreadwings unleashed their sonic scream in one skull shattering roar, striking the two dragons like a wave crashing against a rocky shore. Stunned, Ignitus threw his wings in front to try and protect them both as the riders aimed their crossbows as he and Pyra together tumbled and crashed into the ramp. Ignitus cried out as the bolts tore through his wings and skimmed off his scales and armor as he and Pyra tumbled over themselves, his ears now ringing a hundred-fold worse than before.

"My ears!" Pyra cried. Ignitus felt his heart roaring although he couldn't hear it, he scrambled to right himself, reaching with his foreleg and dragging the dazed Pyra close to his chest as he stood tall, his bloodied wings dripping onto the stone floor. The silence was surreal and unnerving as the dreadwings before them made no sound even as they screamed, the Fire Guardian feeling a quiver of fear run through the body of the young dragon he held close to him.

He glanced over his shoulder and saw that they had become surrounded again, the other dreadwings encircling the balcony and others crammed onto the path behind them, cutting off any escape. The Masked Assassin hovered into view at the far end of the balcony, the armored figure heaving jovially as he laughed at the dragon's plight. Ignitus turned back to face the temple, snarling definitely as the dreadwings and their riders faced him down vehemently. The whining in his ears had subsided enough to allow him to hear, though not understand Pyra who had pulled away from his foreleg and now stood definitely beneath his chest. Ignitus looked down and observed the fear in the young squire, whose head was cocked to the side and looking to him for salvation. He read his mouth and, in his mind, heard the young dragon ask,

"What do we do, Ignitus?"

Leveling his eye to their foes, the ape riders were readying their crossbows for another volley. He knew those behind were doing the same, and in that moment, narrow as it may have seemed, his thoughts were only of his young apprentice who had come so selflessly to aid his mentor, who looked up at him and doubted not that he had the means to deliver them from the jaws of death.

"Pyra, get down!" he said aloud, his deafness only mildly subsiding. Without waiting the Fire Guardian suddenly hunched down to the ground, his torn wings arching forwards as before, covering himself and the young dragon.

The air outside the temple changed in an instant. The sparks and embers that drifted through the air seemed to develop sentience and turned and whooshed towards the two dragons. The cool of the night became humid and hot as the swirling embers intensified as if caught in a tornado, growing and glowing hotter. The Fire Guardian felt his body heat up as if steaming from the inside, his veins burned and his heart felt as if it had grown twice its size.

Fearfully, the apes fired their crossbows at once as the embers spontaneously burst into great tongues of flame, encircling yet seemingly not harming the dragons inside it.

The bolts liquefied on contact with the flames as a cone of raging, pulsing fire shot into the sky. Igntius suddenly leapt to his feet and fanned his wings out wide as he and the flames roared in tandem. The Assassin's dreadwing pulled sharply away as the other dreadwings began to take flight but too late. A blinding orange flash seemed to light up the whole world and the cone of fire exploded outwards across the temple balcony, scorching the stone and incinerating all life that it touched. A swirl of ash that had once been their foes churned with the gale of smoke and embers that encircled the mentor and apprentice, both untouched by the firestorm as it faded into nothing just as quickly as it had been summoned.

Ignitus gasped for breath and felt his legs nearly give way in the aftermath of the Fury attack, a destructive concentration of elemental power of which he had summoned in their moment of peril; the penultimate expression of control a dragon could have over an element. The ability to unleash its raw power and control it through mind and body. But even for a Guardian, such an act took much out of even the mightiest of dragons and he hadn't time to rest.

"Are you okay, Ignitus?" cried Pyra peering up, his breathing heavy with exhilaration, "That was incredible!"

"Yes," he replied strenuously, still somewhat hearing impaired, "As I get older it takes longer to recover."

"You got them, Ignitus, you did it!" cheered the young squire as he squirmed from Ignitus's hold and stood before him like an excited puppy. The Fire Guardian, against his better judgement, smiled dimly with Pyra's merriment, until he saw the expression of the young dragon change suddenly as he peered towards the sky behind the red dragon. Ignitus turned himself around and saw the focus of the young dragon. Far out from the end of the balcony, the Masked Assassin, who had escaped the firestorm, was hovering in place, his small but distinct silhouette waving its arms furiously atop his hideous mount. Ignitus showed his teeth in anger at his survival, wanting nothing more than to face the menacing ape who had long been a thorn in his side, in spite of how weakened he felt. The tiny red eyes that stared back regarded him with equal contempt as yet more indecipherable rambling emitted behind his helmet. Ignitus fanned his wings out, ready to take flight even as they bled onto the blackened ground beneath him. He turned his head to Pyra who had moved beside him, saying loudly,

"I want you to head inside, find Volteer…"

"IGNITUS LOOK OUT!" Pyra shouted as he suddenly sprinted forward, jumping into the air in front of the Fire Guardian. Ignitus snapped his head forward just in time to see the incoming ball of red energy fill his vision as Pyra leapt up in front of him. He gasped as the missile struck the young dragon first, Pyra cried out in pain as he was thrown back against the guardian, knocking the pair of them down as the ball of red fire dissipated. Ignitus was frozen in shock for a moment before he forced himself back up, his eyes falling on Pyra who lay on his side writhing in hurt.

"Pyra!" he exclaimed, the despair in his own voice shaking him as his hearing returned in full. He looked up at the source of the projectile; the projectile meant for him, seeing the Masked Assassin laughing once more from his vantage point. A rage he had rarely felt before overcame Ignitus, a primal urge to destroy that went against his sense of ethics and all he believed was right. The fire in his belly raged such that it felt like it would consume him like his Fury fire had disintegrated his foes.

The only thing that stopped him from taking flight at that moment and tearing his opponent limb from limb and damn the consequences was the painful groaning of his squire, whose pain was the source of his anger and the gut wrenching sight of the twin moons being darkened by yet another swarm of dread wings flying towards the temple in numbers he dare not try to count. Ignitus looked back down at Pyra, the orange scales of his left side and black abdomen singed and bleeding, his breathing strained and erratic. He carefully leaned over him, grimacing at the young dragon's state and silently in awe of his heroic deed.

"Hold on, young dragon!" he said as steadily as his body allowed, gingerly clasping him between his large front paws, lifting him up as Ignitus stood up on his hind legs. With aid of his wings, he leapt a fair distance towards the temple door, his weight shaking the ground as he landed.

"OPEN THE DOORS!" he shouted, the wounded Pyra hanging limply in his front paws, looking behind anxiously at the dreadwing reinforcements, many he now saw were carrying more troop carriers. The Masked Assassin shouted again and another flash of red came flying from the mouth of his mount toward them. Ignitus looked back as the doors in front of him creaked open and several anxious moles with weapons raised stood before him. He lunged forward without pause, knocking some of them down as he leapt through the door.

"CLOSE IT!" he exclaimed desperately, the red fireball splashing over the ground he had just been as the doors were closed expediently, "Seal it off! Barricade it!" he ordered, "Pyra needs help!" he pleaded.

"Enemy reinforcements are approaching!"

"Take him to the grotto, sir!" answered one of the moles. Not waiting to see his orders followed, Ignitus took flight inside the dojo, two powerful beats of his wings took him quickly through the room into the grotto. He landed just inside the doorway and what he saw filled him with only more dread; the grotto was filled with numerous wounded dragons and mole at arms, healers and physicians trying desperately to treat them. The rest of the space was taken up with crates of supplies that had been hastily moved into the room, telling him that the battle was going badly for them. The dragon eggs all remained untouched, resting safely in their nests, blissfully ignorant of the peril they were in. Outside of the closed door towards the sparring ground was the sounds of battles raging inside the temple, all disturbingly close. He turned his head towards the golden bowl in which rested the single purple egg; arguably the most precious of them all yet also in a pessimistic sense, solely responsible for the pain and suffering inflicted on all those within the temple's walls.

"Ignitus…" groaned Pyra weakly, causing the red dragon to turn his head back.

"You will be alright, young dragon," he replied warmly, grateful the young squire couldn't see the fear in his eyes. Four moles quickly rushed towards them as Ignitus stood anxiously upright.

"We'll take him, sir," said a mole, the four of them stood beneath Igntius's forelegs as they extended their arms up towards Pyra. He carefully lowered the young dragon to them, the four moles holding him under his belly and carrying him above their heads over to a small square of space just beside the pool of visions, facing the open door to western garden. It was only then Ignitus took notice of the familiar battle standard next to where they placed him, the one he had last seen in next training room. It was as fitting a place as any for the young apprentice to lay as the moles tended to him. Ignitus guessed correctly that Pyra had moved it into the grotto before heading out into the fight.

"You are wounded too, sir," remarked the physician.

"Never mind me, help him!" Ignitus snapped coldly.

"Get some water for him!" one of the mole physicians said to another, just as a loud explosion from outside the temple rocked the earth, followed by several more. Ignitus knew it was the troop carriers he had seen now slamming into the ground and unleashing their hordes of ravenous apes against the temple. From the corner of his eye a mole with a bandage around his left arm pushed himself off from the wall and wandered sorely towards him.

"They overran us in the garden, sir," he said grimly, "We used some powder kegs to demolish end of the tunnel, collapsed it all in. They won't be gettin' through it sir, not anytime soon."

"You did your best," Ignitus replied consolingly, masking his distress that that they were folding on two of the three fronts they had to defend, their chances of survival or escape narrowing to the point of hopelessness.

"What of Volteer? What of the southern approach?" he asked aloud.

"They've broken into the interior, sir," said another mole holding himself up on a wooden crutch, "That's when they got me. Master Volteer is still out there."

"What about the messenger falcon?"

"We got the message out sir, but who knows if he made it."

"Ignitus…" Pyra called weakly, drawing his attention back to him.

"Don't speak, Pyra, just rest," the Fire Guardian told him softly.

"Did he get you too?" Pyra asked definitely. Ignitus forced a smile in response to his pluckiness.

"No, I am fine. I am indebted to you, young dragon. We all are." Through his grimaces of pain, the young orange dragon twisted his mouth into a grin, giving the slightest of nods to his mentor who mustered just enough of false hope to nod back. "I see you secured the banner," Ignitus continued as a mole returned with a bowl of water.

"Had to be sure it was safe," Pyra croaked weakly, "Can't let anything happen to it…"

"Indeed not," he said. Another loud rumble vibrated through the temple, dust and specks of debris falling from the ceiling. Forcing himself to put his apprentice's welfare off to the side, the Fire Guardian steeled himself and turned back to the mole physicians,

"Look after him," he ordered curtly before he took off running across the room, passing the wounded and the dying as the doors to the sparing area opened to him.

End of Chapter 2.