The Broken Kingdom (63 page)

…
why are you doing this…
the King
demanded.

…
you are a bad King…
The Dragon shot
back in fury.

If they spoke more, Riley didn’t hear it.
But they fought.

Whether it was intentional Riley didn’t
know, but they were heading away from the city, towards them.

The Dragon grabbed the King in his claws and
flew straight towards them. Riley drew her sword.

Suddenly the King was dropped right in front
of her. Fire exploded from above, nearly roasting Riley. The King
was dazed, and covered in soot and dust. His wings were ripped. Yet
he did not bleed, and Riley could see no bruises on him.

Without waiting another moment Riley slashed
at him with her sword. He took the blow full on. That got his
attention. Riley pushed the attack as he defended himself. Riley
felt her movements slowing down somehow. They were harder than they
should have been.

And then the King screamed in rage, ‘valkar!
Have you been so ruined that you can kill? What would Seta
think?’

But the feeling got no worse. And she
attacked. Some of her warriors joined the fight. The Dragon had to
stay back, there were too many around the King now.

The King could not focus on the warriors,
Riley was by far the greater danger.

Her sword smashed into the King’s claws with
a clang. She was vaguely aware that her sword was cracking. But she
didn’t stop. How he could keep going, she didn’t know. She fought
and fought, slowly tiring.

And then her sword snapped. She dropped it
and went after him with her bare hands.

She was hurting all over. She ignored it.
She saw the Dragon, waiting, unable to attack.

And so she grabbed the King and shoved him
outside the group of warriors. He was surprised at the sudden
turn.

A huge talon came down from above. The King
grabbed it, tried to resist. Riley picked up the part of her sword
attached to the hilt. And with it she slashed at him while he could
not counter.

Suddenly the Dragon stopped trying to squash
him. The King was off guard. The Dragon swiped at him, sending him
flying. Fire burned, consuming the King. A talon came down, rending
and slicing.

And it took what seemed a long time to
realise the King was no longer moving.

The Dragon’s flames flickered out.

Riley leaned on someone, gasping. ‘I-i-is he
dead?’ she trembled.

A silver haired man, Aerlid, walked past her
to the body.

‘Yes.’ he finally said. ‘You should burn
him. Or Adila will do it.’

The Dragon did not have to be asked twice.
Flames shot from his mouth. But his fire was not as hot as Adila’s.
It took a long time.

Riley slowly came back to herself. She was
hurting in a thousand different places, she was covered in her own
blood. She was having difficulty seeing. She touched her eye and
realized blood from a cut in her forehead had gotten in her
eye.

She looked around. Most of her warriors were
in one piece, the King had focussed most of his attention on her.
And Vann was there. She was leaning on Vann.

‘Why are you so close?’ she panted.

‘I think you should sit down.’ he said
worriedly.

Riley shook her head. ‘N-no. We have to go
speak to the humans, right now. Aerlid, come with me. Send the
signal to the others. Dragon, if you don’t mind, I think I’ll need
you for a bit.’

my throat is raw. but the King is ash. i
will come. and the ehlkrid will not attack you, not now.
And
for once, his voice did not boom, but was a quiet whisper inside
her pounding skull.

Riley nodded. ‘Wait, I need them too. They
have to follow me and look beaten, and they better not attack
anyone.’

how long do you require our service?

‘Not very long, you’ll be free, Dragon. I
just need your help convincing some people of something.’

very well.

They started walking towards the city.

‘Aerlid,’ Vann was asking. ‘Is she going to
collapse?’

‘Eventually. Not right now. I’ll look after
her.’

They entered the ruins of the city. Every
building they saw was horribly damaged in some way. An awful lot of
them were just rubble.

Eventually, they came upon a human, who
raised his SIGPEW at them.

‘Put that down,’ Riley said, somehow
managing to sound not exhausted. ‘We’re friends. We came to see the
damage. What happened? Where are your leaders?’

‘I… I don’t know. What happened? We weren’t
supposed to be attacked.’

‘I know. I’m afraid I was busy defeating the
Ehlkrid King and his army.’ And Riley gestured to the dragon. ‘One
of the ehlkrid got by us. Honestly, I thought Astar could handle
one ehlkrid.’

‘You mean… that wasn’t the strongest?’

‘No.’ Riley shook her head. ‘It’s dead now.
Take me to your team, or whoever’s left.’

The man nodded and started heading back into
the city. He didn’t seem very aware of what was going on around
him. Despite the destruction, Riley recognized this place all too
well; it was a street she used to take to school.

They came upon a group of soldiers who were
trying to prepare barricades incase of another attack. Riley told
them the same story. They looked at the dragon and Riley’s blood
splattered visage, aghast.

But Riley smiled, she said, ‘you’ll need
help rebuilding. How are you going to take care of the wounded and
feed the survivors?’

They slumped, not able to take any more.

‘We’ll help you. We’ll have to destroy
what’s left, none of these buildings can be salvaged.’ and as she
said that a badly damaged building collapsed to the ground. Whether
that was luck or Aerlid, Riley didn’t care. ‘While we’re rebuilding
you’ll have to stay with my tribe. I can’t keep you here, it’s not
safe. But we will look after you, and one day you can come back
home.’

Riley turned to one of her warriors. Quickly
some of the Mixed Aerlid had trained were brought to the front with
some pre-prepared supplies of food and bandages. The humans didn’t
object as the Mixed took over. In fact, with someone taking charge
and looking after them, they quickly collapsed, unable to fight any
more.

She called on one of the humans and asked
him to go with some of the Mixed to locate the survivors. She found
out where the members of the Council of Astar were supposed to be.
And while Vann was organizing everything else, Riley set off to
find the leaders of Astar, Aerlid in tow.

The silence stretched out. With each passing
second Razra thought,
there’s going to be another boom,
and,
is it over? Can it really be over?

Every few minutes the radio would buzz, and
the lady in charge would try and reach someone,
anyone
, to
find out what was happening.

Ten minutes after the last horrendous crash,
a human voice finally came over the radio.

‘
It’s over. It’s over…’
the man on
the other end of the radio sounded like he was sobbing.

Feeling ill at ease, Razra stood. Keili, who
was still grabbing onto him stood also.

‘W-what now?’ she mumbled, her face white
and her eyes wide with fear.

‘You heard him,’ Razra replied, his voice
weak. ‘It…’ whatever
it
was, ‘it’s over.’ He looked towards
the stairs, which led to the surface. ‘It’s over.’

Razra led the way, and so he was the first
to see what had become of Astar. He let out a cry of disbelief.
Behind him he heard people shrieking and crying.

‘This can’t, this can’t be!’ Keili gasped.
‘This can’t be!’

Razra felt like he must be in some horrible
nightmare. He’d gone down into the shelter, and emerged to a world
destroyed. The skyline was terribly altered, with buildings ending
in jagged tears. Smoke and ash stained the air, and fires raged.
Rubble was littered across the street, and in the distance he could
hear people screaming.

Razra stepped out into the street, numb with
shock. He couldn’t believe this.

‘How could this be?!’ Keili demanded, her
voice rising. ‘How could this happen?!’

‘I…’ Could this ruin of a city really be his
home?

‘What happened?’ she demanded. ‘What
happened?’

‘I don’t know…’ he said weakly. ‘I… don’t
understand…’He’d known what was
supposed
to happen. Riley
was going to fight the ehlkrid. They were going to do it
away
from the city. And then… he’d suspected Astar had had a
plan but… he felt suddenly ill as he wondered if his friend had
done this to his home.
No,
he told himself,
no, never!
Something else happened! We need to find out what happened!

‘Come on!’ He said to Keili, ‘Let’s go find
a soldier and ask!’

‘Yes, yes that’s a good idea.’ She said,
calming down now that she had a task to focus on.

Razra set off down the street, heading away
from the centre of the city as that was where most of the damage
appeared to be. As they walked his despair grew. Every street they
came across was horribly damaged.

‘Look, over there!’ Keili pointed, ‘a
soldier!’

Razra looked where she was pointing and saw
a soldier sitting by the twisted wreckage of a MEW. Razra and Keili
quickly ran over to him. Razra stopped as he saw what lay around
the man.

Keili let out a little gasp and halted
too.

‘They…are they…’ Razra mumbled, and stopped,
suddenly recognizing someone he knew. ‘Jann!’ he cried, and ran
over to the young man slumped against the side of the street.

Razra fell to his knees by the man he had
met only a handful of times. ‘Jann?’

‘Razra, come away.’ Keili sobbed. ‘He’s
dead
.’

‘They’re
all
dead.’ The man sitting
by the MEW suddenly said. ‘All dead.’

‘I… I knew him.’

‘Razra,
please
.’

‘I… I should tell someone. I don’t know who
his family is… I… I…’

‘Razra,
come away!’
Keili said and
pulled on his arm.

Razra let her pull him.

‘What happened here?’ Razra said, turning to
the man by the MEW.

He shook his head, tears cutting streaks
through the grime on his face. ‘One man. One ehlkrid.
Just
one
.’

‘That can’t be.’ Razra insisted. ‘Ehlkrid
come by all the time.’

‘It broke the shield, and did this… all of
this…’

Razra didn’t respond.

‘What… what are we going to do now?’ Keili
asked tentatively. ‘There has to be
someone
left who knows
what’s going on.’

Razra wasn’t sure. He couldn’t stop thinking
about Jann, the last time they’d met outside Mr Briggs office. Was
Mr Briggs ok?

‘Do you want to come with us?’ Keili asked
the soldier.

The soldier shook his head, ‘what’s the
point? It’s all gone…all gone…’

Razra slowly sank to the ground.

‘Razra?’

Razra shook his head, and Keili sat down
next to him. They stayed that way for what seemed an age. Then they
heard the sound of movement.

Keili let out a scream and pointed. Razra
turned to look and scrambled to his feet. Through the gaps in the
buildings he saw a huge, black creature with wings.

‘We gotta go!’ He said, his voice shaking,
as he grabbed Keili. ‘We gotta go!’

Then from between the buildings he saw
soldiers, and tall, hulking creatures, coming towards them.

Seeing the soldiers, dirty and ashen-faced,
but alive and
doing something
was enough to give Razra
pause.

The soldiers and the other creatures reached
them.

‘You there, are you alright?’ one of the
soldiers asked.

‘Yes, we’re… we’re alright.’ Razra answered,
looking from the soldier to the tall creature beside him.

‘What’s going on?’ Keili asked, her eyes
also on the creatures.

‘Our lord has come to help.’ The creature
grumbled, ‘she has defeated the King of the Ehlkrid, and sends us
to help. We will take you to our camp, and look after you while she
rebuilds your city.’