Wood shattered and flew in splinters across the deck as pure power ripped through the entire thing. Lambert stood watching in shock as Quintius exploded in front of him before everything else kicked in, and he ran up the gangplank, much valuing his life over his duty. It was a wise decision, as to pursue the accomplishment of his duty or even an honourable death would have led to a death, and dying was dying, no matter how honourably it happened.
Caird looked immediately anxious, his sword whirling out of its sheath and deflecting a large bit of wood that flew his way. The smiling man was unperturbed. Even now, the smile hadn't left his face.
"It seems," he mused, "that we have rather less time than I imagined."
=0=
When Alphas had finished his report, concluding with their fight against the Insidians, the king absently bade them leave, somewhat preoccupied with the matter of the wyverns that Alphas had presented to him. The attendant had ushered them out, and now they stood awkwardly just outside the door.
"Why does the Commander hate us?" Hiccup asked.
"Ah, so you noticed, huh?" Alphas sighed. "Well. It's not like he tries to hide it."
"Why though?" Astrid asked, still fuming a bit over the interaction.
"I don't know. No one knows why or how it happened. It's just one of those things, like you don't like the taste of fish, or you want to read instead of playing outside, or you hate a specific element," Alphas said. "It's just like that. Buzzard grew to hate foreigners for some reason."
"What do you mean, hate a specific element?" Fishlegs said, bewildered.
Both Arcanums looked at him, puzzled, before light dawned. "Oh, right. It's a magic thing. Forget about it."
"I don't think I want to forget about it," Hiccup said obstinately. "Explain."
Omegas grinned. Alphas gave an amused sigh. "Alright. Magic lesson number one takes place outside the castle though, because I don't want to blow anything up. It'll come out of my pocket, and some of this stuff is expensive as hell." He walked off and gestured to follow.
"Just down here, if you please." This was delivered rather flippantly.
They followed him down the corridors and halls and through various rooms until they exited the castle into daylight. By now, the sun had gone lower in the sky, which was a burning orange.
"You have a good view of the sunset from here," Hiccup said critically. Alphas glanced at him.
"How so?"
"There are sea stacks around Berk. It kind of blocks the view."
"Ah, right. We had them too, but they were knocked down. You know, so we can see anyone sneaking up on us."
"Makes sense," Astrid said, nodding.
They walked further until they were at the gates. Alphas pressed his hand to a symbol on the wall like Omegas had done when they came in. It glowed purple and the gates swung open for them to walk out.
"I know you're going to ask," Omegas said as Hiccup opened his mouth, "so I'll just explain right now, shall I? Basically, every magid - that means magic user - has a special magic signature. You can see it as the colours of our magic, right? Like Alphas is purple, I'm blue. That sigil scans our magic signature and lets us through if it matches one that's allowed."
"So you have a list of allowed signatures?"
Omegas nodded. "Right on. And if your signature is allowed, you can get through. If someone who isn't allowed tries to get in, the gates don't open and the guards are alerted."
"Could we do that?" Astrid asked. Omegas shrugged.
"It works if you have a strong enough signature to detect. Everyone has some magic, but it's almost always too weak to use. Magids are the people with strong enough magic to channel."
"And are there different ways to channel magic?" Fishlegs queried.
"Yessir. You have us, which is sorcerers, who use runes and sigils. It's like the magic alphabet. Write it down, put your magic into it for a starting boost, and it can keep going. No sigil can keep going without the power rune though. That's the basic rune, and it powers all the others. You give that a bit of your magic and it goes on forever. Any other rune gets powered by individual magic charges."
"Charges?"
"Giving it a bit of magic every time you need to use it, basically."
"What other kinds of… magids are there?" Snotlout asked. By now, everyone was listening closely.
"Sorcerers use symbols. You know that. Hell, you've seen it enough times. Then there's enchanters. Remember I said runes are like the magic alphabet? They're the written form. You have writing, and then you have talking, don't you? Enchanters say the magic. We write it down, they say it. Then there's magicians. They rely on an object of power to cast a spell, like a staff or a wand. They don't have to say or write anything, but they need the magic medium for casting and they have to mentally construct a spell. Going with that analogy of writing and talking, there's also thinking, right? Sometimes you think in a language? They have to think in the language of magic. They're faster, definitely, but if you get a single clause wrong in the spell you have to start over again."
Omegas paused. "I think I need some water. Anyone have some?"
Alphas wordlessly picked up a sort of small mug of water from a stall as he passed by and handed it back to Omegas, who drank deeply. He set the mug back down on the stall and handed the befuddled vendor a coin, which he hesitantly took.
"That," Omegas said appreciatively, "felt good. Right, where was I?"
"Magicians," Alphas reminded him.
"Got it. I just finished with magicians, didn't I? Yeah, I did. Okay. Next you have witches. They do their thing with potions. I don't know how potions are made, so don't ask. No one knows except witches because only witches have to bother to learn. It's complicated stuff. So, after witches there's mages. A mage is someone who can use magic without any kind of preliminary requirement. No writing, no talking, no thinking even. Just think about what you want the magic to do and it happens. The downside to being a mage, though, is that you burn through your magic pretty quick and you have to wait for it to recharge. The strength of the spell is also dependent on your mental and emotional state."
"What do you mean, you burn through your magic?" Fishlegs asked. "Isn't it like an infinite supply?"
Omegas wagged a finger at him. "You, sir, are full of questions. But no, magic isn't infinite in any way. The way that most people describe it - because we do have to teach our kids - is that everyone has a sort of cup inside them, full of magic. Every spell you cast takes up a little more magic. If your cup doesn't refill fast enough, you're pretty much depleted of magic. Everyone's cup is a little different. Some are bigger, some are smaller. What are you laughing about?"
This was directed at Snotlout, who was trying to suppress a smile that threatened, if unleashed, to consume his face and everyone in the immediate vicinity. A little laugh spilled out at the question, but he shook his head. Omegas tilted his head, as though pondering the circumstance.
"Well," he shrugged, "suit yourself. Do tell me if you feel like sharing the joke."
Snotlout struggled to contain himself.
"Anyway," Omegas continued, "There's a specific system of categorization for magids that depends on the kind of magic they do. Wizards have some of the more… flashy spells, I guess. I don't know, it's complicated. Their kind of magic is specifically called wizard-class magic because we don't have any sort of rule to it, at least not that we can put into words. You just know if it's wizard magic, but there's not really a definition for it."
"I thought wizards were, like, man witches?" Ruffnut said. Omegas stared at her in uncomprehending horror.
"I'm sorry?"
"I think she means," Alphas said, "that she thought wizards and witches were the same thing, but wizards were the males and witches were the females. Which they aren't."
"Oh, thank god," Omegas said, visibly relaxing. "Yeah, that's not it. Wizards and witches are completely different things."
"I know. You just said," Ruffnut told him.
"Then why the hell would you say it anyway?" he asked in complete bewilderment. She just shrugged.
Omegas blinked, attempting to dislodge whatever thoughts had terrorized him. "Right. So. Anyway. Wizards. Then there's alchemists, who work with the transformation of objects. Anyone can be an alchemist, but witches have it easiest. Then there's necromancers. Necromancy is seen as minor dark magic, so any necromancer is kind of shunned. Healers are pretty much the white magic version of necromancers, and they do what it says on the box. Psychics can see the future and things like that, and elementals have a special connection to a certain kind of element, like earth, air, fire, water, darkness, light, etcetera."
Omegas took a deep breath. "Talking this much is tiring. I think that's all of them though."
"You forgot the warlocks," Alphas reminded him.
"There aren't any left. What's the point?"
"No no, I'm interested," Hiccup interjected. "What are warlocks?"
Omegas sighed. "Warlocks were ultra powerful magids a long time ago. Only a mage could become a warlock though. Warlocks had an infinite supply of magic and perfect control over it, too. No one knows why only mages could become warlocks, it's just one of those things that happen."
He shrugged.
"There's also conjurors, who can, you guessed it, make things. Sometimes they're also called distorters, because bringing new things into existence isn't actually all they can do. They can also change reality around them. They don't have to say anything or write anything, their magic is kind of instinctive. We don't really know how to classify conjurors, because their magic is limited to bending the world, and they can't do anything else. The first category of magids is based on how they channel their magic, so they don't really fit in. The second category is based on specialization, but they can't really specialize in anything. Personally I think conjurors go in the channelling category." He snapped his fingers.
"Almost forgot to mention, the specialization category doesn't restrict you to that kind of magic only. You can still do other kinds, it's just that you'd be better doing a certain kind of magic. Like some people are better at drawing, some people are better at running, some people can do archery better than others. It's like that. Some people can be better at elemental magic, some people can be better at wizardry, some people make great necromancers."
He shrugged again. They kept walking in silence for a bit.
"Magic is more complicated than I thought," Hiccup confessed. Omegas grinned at him.
"What, you thought it was point and shoot? I can do whatever I set my mind to? It's just like anything else. There's an upside and a downside. You have to work for it, and sometimes you just have to have the aptitude, I guess."
They kept walking.
"And… how do you know if your level of magic is high enough to do it?" Fishlegs asked tentatively. Omegas laughed.
"Want to try your hand at magic, huh? Well, there's a test you can go through, but it's a long process, and it's not always accurate. Of course, there's a simple way, but we don't have anything that's required."
"What's the simple way?" Astrid asked curiously.
"Apparently there's a specific stone," Alphas said, "Which glows in the presence of a strong enough magic energy. The brighter the glow, the more powerful the magic. The level of strength required to make it glow is possessed by everyone though, so that doesn't tell you much. They were used before, but the last ones were destroyed a long time ago."
"Why would anyone destroy something like that?" Hiccup asked in confusion. "What kind of reason do you need to destroy something that useful? It was harmless, wasn't it?"
"It wasn't really up to anyone," Omegas cut in before Alphas could reply. Alphas shut his mouth, looking vaguely annoyed. "It was some kind of magic accident that blew up an entire island. All the stones were lost after the place sank."
"What caused it?" Tuffnut asked. Hiccup rolled his eyes. Of course he'd ask where explosions were involved. Alphas and Omegas shrugged. Omegas began to reply but Alphas slapped a hand over his mouth.
"Some kind of casting that set off a chain reaction. No one knows what the spell was, but it triggered every single kind of magical presence and sent it into overdrive," he said. His hand snapped off Omegas' mouth and he wiped it on his leg, looking disgusted.
"Why'd you do that?" he said.
"Why'd you do that?"
"You've talked enough. Let me have a go."
"Oh I'm sorry, I didn't know we were supposed to distribute the talking equally. No. I'm going to say as much as I like."
"I'll put spiders in your bed."
"I'll set up a trap that reverses your magic flow."
"I'll use a deflection sigil."
"I'll prepare a sigil to bypass it."
"I'll bypass that."
"I'll bypass that."
"I'll bypass-"
"No one's going to bypass anything," Hiccup interrupted before the conversation could deteriorate into the same phrase repeated. "Just… do what we were going to do."
Alphas and Omegas grinned simultaneously. The effect was uncanny. "Heh. Alright then. We'll do the whole subterfuge thing later."
They set off again, walking in silence.
=0=
Caird rushed a man as he landed from his dragon, and sliced his chest open. As the man staggered back, his eyes narrowed and he sent a wave of orange power at Caird, who ducked and rolled.
He stopped, and began to rise on his elbows, when a smooth sphere of yellow crystal landed right in front of his face.
There were sigils on it, and they were glowing.
Caird looked up and saw the man smile wickedly at him even as he bled out, and give him a thumbs up.
Then the ball flashed, and as Caird jumped up the world exploded.
He flew back, the world muted around him. Every sound made it seem like he was underwater, and his vision was a blurred grey.
Boots. Boots walking by. The boots stopped before him, and a hand reached down. Caird looked up, and in the black and white glory of the immediate world he saw the man he'd been walking with.
That faint smile. That terrifying smile.
Caird's senses kicked in as the world began to slowly fade back into normality, and he reached out. He was pulled up effortlessly, and Caird felt light for a moment as he dangled from the man's hand. He was gently set down.
Caird shook his head and slapped his hands against his face in an attempt to dislodge that hazy feeling.
"Mind staying here while I do what I need to?"
He immediately looked up and nodded. The man's smile widened a bit before settling back to its normal state.
"Thank you. I do appreciate it."
He walked off at a leisurely pace, seemingly unaware of the attackers, which was quite the wrong impression to take.
One of the soldiers saw an apparently easy target and ran at him. He went straight past as the man neatly sidestepped him, and stopped, looking puzzled.
He slowly fell to his knees, then dropped face down on the ground as blood stained the grass.
Myre walked on, calmly sheathing his sword.
=0=
"We're here," Alphas said, and entered a modestly sized building which, now that Hiccup looked at it, was actually quite large, not in the sense that it was tall, but that it covered a lot of ground. It probably covered the area of nine whole dragon pens of average size.
Alphas went up and knocked. A woman with curling black hair, blue eyes and a beige sort of long dress came out with a questioning expression that quickly morphed into shock. She slapped her hands over her open mouth.
"Your majesties!" she gasped. "You're back?"
"Feels like we never left, doesn't it, miss Arete?" Alphas smiled at her. "I'd like to borrow the room you use for magic classes, if you don't mind. There's no one already using it, is there?"
"Er, no," she said uncertainly. "But we will be having a class there later. Can I ask why you want it?"
Omegas waved a hand. "For magic lessons, of course. And don't worry, we won't take too long."
A small blur barrelled past Arete and slammed into Alphas' leg, where the shape settled into a small boy in a blue-green tunic and loose white pants, who was hugging his leg tightly.
"Uncle Alphas! You're back!"
"Oh, yeah, no love for me, huh?" Omegas said. The boy immediately let go and sprang into his chest, arms wrapping around him in an instant and not letting go.
"Actually," Omegas said with overexaggerated wheezing, "I change my mind."
The boy laughed delightedly. "I missed you too, Uncle Omegas."
"Thanks, kiddo." Omegas ruffled his hair, and he finally let go and jumped down. He peered shyly at the Berkians from behind Omegas.
"Who are you?" he asked. Hiccup looked at him.
He was cute, certainly. That mouth was turned upwards in a bashful smile. He had a small nose so customary of children his age, and black hair of a decent length that curled at the ends and cascaded over his forehead. The eyes were the same kind of dark as those of Alphas and Omegas. He couldn't have been more than four years old.
Hiccup knelt down until he was at eye level. "We," he said, racking his brains for something amusing to say before giving up, "are guests."
It was a lame finish, but he was coming up empty on all other fronts.
"Whose guests?" the boy asked.
"The king's," Hiccup told him.
"Oh, you're daddy's guests," the boy said. "You talk funny. Where are you from?"
"An island called Berk," Hiccup said, mind reeling over the fact that the boy had so casually stated that the king was his father. It was a plasma blast to drop in a conversation, and this child had done it with absolutely no flaunting of the fact, so unlike what he had expected. He knew he would have bragged a bit at that age.
"Are Alphas and Omegas your cousins?" he asked, flailing for something to keep the conversation going. The boy nodded, then ran back inside.
"That's Phaidros," Alphas told him as he straightened up. "Best kid I've ever met, although to be fair I don't meet that many kids."
Arete cleared her throat. "Would you gentlemen, and gentlewomen," she added, eyeing Astrid and Ruffnut, "mind going to the magic classroom? I do still have to teach."
"Of course, miss Arete," Alphas said with a bow, which clearly flustered her. "We'll be right on our way."
"Y-yes," she said. "Have fun."
And she closed the door with a little more force than was probably necessary.
"Quit teasing the poor woman," Omegas said casually as they stood, still looking at the door. Alphas looked confused.
"What did I do?"
Omegas shook his head with a dramatic sigh. "You're hopeless. Let's just go, shall we?"
And he went on around the corner.
=0=
Caird punched a man in the face so hard he fell down screaming and clutching a broken nose. Blood trickled between his fingers. Caird sliced those fingers off, resulting in a new pitch of screams. The next strike went straight through the heart.
Caird pulled free and spotted a faint trickle of soldiers from the opposing side, the last of which disappeared into a gap between the houses. He screamed a set of orders which all his nearby men quickly obeyed, leaving him to deal with a rather unfair number of men on his own.
He smiled grimly to himself. This was definitely a one-sided fight. For one thing, and the only thing that mattered, they were facing him.
Yes, very unfair indeed.
=0=
"Right," Alphas said, pulling up his sleeves and picking up a piece of chalk. "What were we actually here for?"
There was a momentary pause as everyone tried to remember.
"You said something about favourite elements, I think?" Fishlegs said hesitantly. Alphas snapped his fingers.
"That's the one."
Omegas lounged in the corner on a large chair, while the rest of them squatted uncomfortably on smaller chairs, presumably made for the children that attended this school. They faced a wall of pure darkness, or what Alphas had called a blackboard.
"Not favourite elements though," Alphas remarked as he held the chalk up. "We were talking about elements you hate. It's a common enough thing here."
The chalk spiralled, leaving behind it a line of white. Alphas brought it up in a curve and then back down from the high point, where it ended before the line of chalk met the previously drawn spiral.
"That," he said, tapping the blackboard, "is the symbol for fire."
He set to work again, making a single point with the chalk, then drawing three arms at equal distance from each other, all branching out from the initial dot and ending with a spiral each.
"That's air," he told them, then began drawing again. This time the chalk began at a high point and then curved downward, making a sort of incomplete crescent. Alphas continued from the lower point, making a wavy pattern that stuck close to the line. He stopped when he reached the top.
"Water."
The next symbol to be born began with a square with one side cut off. Alphas set the chalk to one of the points of the open side, and made a zigzag which overtook the other point and continued around the rest of the square until it came close to where it had started.
"Earth."
Alphas set the chalk down.
"These are the elements I'm sure you've heard of before. There's a lot more, but I think these are the most well known, yeah?"
Nodded heads gave him his answer.
"Right. So the reason why some people hate some of the elements is that they don't like the kind of effect it has. Of course, they still use it when they need to, but they don't necessarily like it. It's all down to personal taste, preference, and personality."
Alphas shrugged. "I'll just give you an idea of what it's like."
He tapped the drawing labelled 'fire', and it immediately began burning with a typical red flame. The red glow quickly vanished, however.
"You can set it off, but after the initial burst it's just normal fire. And stone doesn't catch fire. Blackboards are made of slate, so you can piece it together from there."
He tapped the drawing labelled 'air'. Nothing happened.
"Right. I'll need one of you to come up here to experience it. You can't see air, and the runes on their own have a weak effect. No shockwaves for you, sorry to say." He smiled.
"Snotlout. Come here."
Snotlout looked around in panic as if there were other Snotlouts seated around him. Fearfully, he got up and came over.
Alphas grabbed his wrist and held it to the sigil as he tapped it again.
Snotlout immediately relaxed as he felt the invisible effect of the spell.
"Feel that?"
"Yeah."
"What's it like?"
Snotlout shrugged. "Just air. Like when you blow on something."
Alphas looked as triumphant as though he had won a battle with the gods. "Exactly. You can go back."
Snotlout strutted back to his tiny chair and painstakingly sat back down.
"Next one," Alphas said, and tapped the one marked 'water'. Shimmering liquid immediately flowed down the blackness and dripped on the floor. Alphas looked down at it.
"Have to clean that up before we leave. Alright, last one."
He tapped the one marked 'earth'. A brown crust formed on the lines. Alphas put his hand to it, and brushed it off, where crumbled bits of earth landed on the floor and in the water.
"That's the basic elements you're familiar with. There's more, there's always more, but I'm only telling you these ones because you know them."
"What other elements are there?" Snotlout asked. He seemed to have taken a sudden interest.
"Well, there's darkness and light. You can understand those, I think. But it's not always that straightforward. There's also, for example, up and down. Those are also elements. It gets a little confusing."
"Could you show us those ones?" Fishlegs asked excitedly.
Alphas shook his head. "Nope."
"Why not?" Fishlegs said, a little crestfallen. Alphas pointed.
They all looked to see a crowd of children staring quietly at them through rectangles of a smooth, clear, crystal-like substance that Hiccup found vaguely familiar. Arete looked over the tops of their heads with a raised eyebrow, and gestured. The meaning was clear.
"It seems," Alphas said with a smile, "that we have some other eager young scholars."
=0=
Caird whirled through them. Even the magic they hurled of all various colours wasn't enough to take him down, as he simply managed to not be where their magic was. It was a dance, and Caird did not have two left feet. Both his feet were perfectly normal.
Caird spun between them, taking two more lives with a single arc of the blade.
Then the sword caught.
Caird looked at two dark eyes, and beneath those eyes was the worst smile he'd ever seen.
"Hello," said Alphas, and attacked.
=0=
When they got back to the castle, the Commander was waiting for them. The look of evident displeasure which appeared the instant he saw them was gone just as quickly.
"The forces are assembled," he said.
"That quickly?" Hiccup asked in astonishment. The Commander looked at him with distaste before the expression wiped itself off his face again, leaving him like a blank blackboard, and with just as much evident darkness, except in his case it was under the surface.
"Yes. We are always ready to battle. Especially with Myre."
"Great news, Buzzard. When's the attack planned?" Alphas asked.
"Whenever you wish."
"Then they will stay here until further notice, while we progress with the assault." Alphas looked back at Hiccup and the rest. "No excuses. If you go, there's the danger that you get caught too, and then all Berkians would be under lock and key."
Hiccup nodded glumly. He could see the logic there, but it just didn't sit right with him to sit back doing nothing while his people were at the whim of an apparent tyrant.
Hiccup frowned. He never did tell him, did he?
"Alright, but first I want to talk to you for a bit."
Alphas looked at him questioningly as Hiccup took him by the arm and led him around one of the castle's pillars.
"Yes?" he asked.
"You haven't told us yet. You said you would, but you haven't."
"What did I not tell you?" Alphas asked, plainly confused.
"Myre," Hiccup reminded him. "You haven't told us about Myre."
The confusion evaporated like parting clouds. "Ah. And you want to hear it now?"
"I want to hear it now," Hiccup said firmly.
Alphas sighed, and told him.
=0=
Caird walked backwards under the furious onslaught that was Alphas Arcanum. He could only barely keep up with all the movement. It astounded him that a single man could be this fast. Of course, Myre had told him when he joined that all magic users were physically enhanced…
Some clever move crashed into his sword with all the power of a thunderstorm, and the sword flew out of his hand, nicking him in the face on its whirling way.
Caird clutched at the gash, stunned. Was a sword cut supposed to be jarring?
Was the sword supposed to bounce when it hit you?
Ignoring the pain and Alphas standing over him, Caird poked a finger in, hissing as the agony rose, itself a screaming mass. His suspicions confirmed, he covered the exposed flesh with his hand and its one now extremely bloody finger.
Alphas raised the sword, settling into an executioner's stance. There was no ceremony to the movement, just the inevitability of death.
A flash of silver, and Caird closed his eyes.
Silver?
The blade was grey. And he was still conscious, no pain around the neck area. Which could only mean one thing.
Caird grinned, and opened his eyes to the only sight he knew he would see.
Myre stood with a single sword out, blocking the dark metal from its straight path into Caird's skull. He and Alphas stared directly into each other's eyes. Alphas' eyes were narrowed in that single minded focus of battle.
And Myre still smiled.
They moved.
Caird got up, still holding his face, and walked away from the sounds of clashing swords to pick up his own.
He might have been cut to the bone, but he damn well wasn't going down easy.
Caird held up the sword, and made to face any adversaries that weren't involved in that tornado that was Alphas and Myre.
=0=
Hiccup lay back in the bed that he'd been provided with, as had all the others, and worried.
He hoped none of his family, none of his loved ones had been hurt.
He wondered how Alphas and the rest were getting on.
=0=
Caird spun again through those unfortunate victims, and dared to laugh at them, even if it hurt to move his face or to feel the wind, stinging and cold, on his wound, not least because it riled them up, made them feel irritated.
And irritation is only a step away from anger.
And anger clouds the mind better than any drink.
Caird stuck his foot out as one of them charged, and the big man tripped. Caird took the opportunity to give him a little present to welcome him to the realms of death, namely a fatal stab in the back of the head.
He skipped underneath the arc of a sword, then blocked a swung fist with his jaw and countered by falling on top of the fresh corpse he'd made.
Some guy with a bruise on his chin and brass knuckles on his hands looked down at him, and showed him some teeth.
Caird rolled as the punch came down. It hit the body instead with enough force to crack ribs. Caird heard them break.
He instantly decided that this one needed to be taken care of at the earliest convenience.
He set his hands to the ground and pushed, lifting himself up momentarily, and in that split second which is the climax of the move, he kicked out with both feet, neatly catching his new adversary in the stomach. It was a flawless move, spoiled by the fact that he didn't seem to feel it. He just kept coming, unrelenting.
Caird held his sword up, the blade right in the way of the next punch in the hope of cutting up that fist, and it shattered under the force of the blow, bowling Caird back.
Really, he managed to think as he lay flat on his back, he was getting rather lucky. Any one of those shards of metal could have gone into his eye, and yet they all missed. All he had was a couple of rather large bits embedded in his chest and stomach, and another one in his cheek. He was taking care to keep his tongue away from where it penetrated into his mouth.
The man gave him a very menacing smile, and leaned down to finish the job.
The punch never reached Caird, because the man was hauled off in one fluid motion and thrown into another group of their opponents. Myre looked down at him as they all picked themselves up.
"You," he said, that smile still there, "need medical attention."
He caught the punch without even looking. Myre finally looked back when the owner of the fist began doing his utmost to wrench it free, and finally released. The puncher staggered back before righting himself. Myre just smiled at him, as was his perpetual custom.
The puncher suddenly launched himself, and Myre just sidestepped and slammed his fist into the back of his head so hard that he dropped to the ground and didn't move again.
Myre lifted Caird up, taking care not to apply any kind of pressure on the pieces of sword that were lodged in him, and they slowly walked back to the docks.
"You… get it?" Caird asked, feeling weak from blood loss.
Myre nodded. "Of course. We have no more need for this place now, so we shall be leaving. It does seem, however, that the sorcerers have also set their sights on Berk. I wonder why."
Caird had enough energy to ask one more question.
"You kill… either… of 'em?"
Before he succumbed to unconsciousness, he distinctly heard Myre's reply.
"Of course not. Where's the fun in that?"
=0=
"You're telling me," Leonidas said slowly, "that they just left?"
The soldier nodded. His name was Damianos, or something. "Yes sir."
"And why would they do that?"
"Beats me, sir. I was just out sinking the ships."
Leonidas looked at him. "What dragon do you have?"
"Wind Burst, sir."
"How many did you get?"
"I'd say about five, sir."
Leonidas nodded. "How many ships were sunk in total?"
Damianos looked thoughtful. "At a guess, sir, I'd say somewhere between thirty and forty."
"I see," Leonidas said with deceptive calmness. "And how many ships were left?"
The soldier looked crestfallen. "Over a hundred, sir," he said quietly.
"Dammit!" Leonidas roared. Damianos backed away.
"How much does it take to put a dent in his forces? How long does it take until he even notices? Huh?"
Leonidas grabbed the soldier before him by the collar, and lifted him into the air. "How long?" he yelled.
Damianos licked his lips. "S-sir, please put me down."
The fires of rage simmered down, and Leonidas quietly set the poor soldier on the ground. "Sorry. I lost my temper."
"It's… it's alright, Commander. I understand."
Leonidas looked tiredly at him.
"Who were they, anyway? The smaller one was good enough to take on us all at once. The bigger one I could have gotten, but the other one interfered. Did you get any idea of who they are?"
"Alphas told me that the bigger one was Caird, sir. I don't know about the other one."
Leonidas grunted. "He was a damn good fighter, anyway. We'll have to watch out."
"Yes sir." Damianos saluted, and walked away.
"Hey," Leonidas called after him. Damianos turned, a questioning look on his face.
"Sir?"
"What rank are you?"
"At the moment, I'm a private. Why, sir?"
"Private, huh? Well, from now on you're a corporal."
Leonidas left the shocked newly-appointed corporal behind, and went to check on wherever the hell the other guy had come out of.
=0=
"The hell is this?" Leonidas stared. Stone gears and sigils stared back at him. He'd found an opening in the floor of that damn great building at the center of the village, and when he went down he found a giant stone room full of grey pedestals and grey doors powered by grey gears, not to mention traps of grey arrows and huge grey boulders for crushing.
There were other traps too, but they were not worth mentioning, since they were more or less magical, meaning that Leonidas, who could see them a mile off and immediately draw up something to render them inert, was completely in the clear and unaffected. He would not have been surprised if he'd triggered one and the sigils lit up with grey light. It would have been completely in character.
And at the very end of whatever this was supposed to be, there was a small, bare room, also grey, which was to be entered by passing through some giant stone gates, also grey, which were powered by a mechanism of gears, also grey, which were activated by a stone lever, also grey.
Leonidas could feel himself getting a little bit sick, and he longed for fresh air and an environment that was, above all, not grey.
The doors looked completely normal, so of course he smashed through the wall instead with a special sigil that only he and a select few others in their military were allowed to have. He nodded with satisfaction at seeing the pitfall right in front of the door. He walked over, and peered down.
It certainly seemed deep. The blackness was quite welcome in the stifling, suffocating grey. Anything for a bit of variety. The torches, in brackets along the walls, were rotten. He didn't dare to light them, even just for some kind of redness to spice up the grey, for fear of poisoning himself in some way. He'd just have to contend with the monotony for a little while longer. At the very least, he didn't need any light. The air was alive with a kind of phantasmic glow, which he had used thus far to get through this… whatever it was.
That begged the question though. Why did a series of trapped corridors underneath the central building of a distinctly unmagical Viking tribe have magic-based traps in them? There was more to this place, it seemed, than met the eye.
Leonidas walked to the center of the room. There were several pedestals in a row, each of them with a small chest on top, except one. The mystery man must have taken that one. It stood to reason. If he had come here, he wouldn't have left without a prize.
Actually, how did they know this place existed?
Ah well. The question could be answered another time. Leonidas peered at the box, and, seeing nothing carved into it, went to open the lid.
And immediately snatched his hand back, cursing so much the walls must have winced. It would have served them right, if they did. Their fault for being big grey bastards.
Leonidas tentatively reached out and flicked the lid open. The burning sensation only lasted long enough to make him hiss. He put his hand in, taking care not to touch any of the sides, and removed the wound up bit of parchment in the middle. He glanced in as he removed the ribbon, and nodded to himself.
He'd been right. The sigils were carved on the inside. He read the parchment, and frowned. It was just some sort of riddle poetry about some building in Rome, of all places. Why the hell would Myre want something like this? He shrugged to himself. The king would want to know about it anyway. He might as well take the lot.
Carefully, he flicked open the lids and removed each scroll, coming away with a total of only a termite mound's worth of pain, as opposed to the mountain of agony he'd felt when he'd grabbed the first chest with both hands.
Leonidas gathered up the future, even though he didn't know it at the time, and went to walk back up to the surface.