A Charge of Valor

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Thor stood beside the shimmering waters of Neversink, the others beside him, staring at the corpses, and he wondered. Dragons. All of these men, slaughtered by dragons. The Sword, stolen, carried far away. On the one hand he felt relieved that it was not lost in the lake; yet he also felt an even deeper sense of dread knowing where it went. It was lost, just in a different way. The dragons were an indomitable force, and they lived so far away. How could they possibly wrest it away from them? Had their mission here failed? A part of him could not help but feel as if it had.

Yet, at the same time, Thor knew they had no choice. They were on a quest, and they had taken a vow to fulfill it. There was no backing down, their honor prevented it. They would have to do whatever it took to track the Sword and bring it home.

“So what now?” Reece finally asked, on behalf of all of them, who stood there, silent.

Thor turned to his old friend.

“We have no choice,” Thor answered. “We follow the Sword.”

“To the Land of the Dragons?” O’Connor asked, nervous.

Thor nodded back gravely.

“You are crazy,” Indra said.

They all turned to her.

“Crossing that desert was craziness. But this—what you propose—it is a guaranteed death sentence. Why not just throw yourselves off a cliff now and be done with it? The Land of the Dragons is a land of ash and fire. A land of death. You will never succeed in reaching it. And if you do, what will you do? Confront an entire nest of dragons? Even one of them will eviscerate you in the blink of an eye. Do you really presume you can just waltz in there and take back from them their most valued treasure? Dragons are greedy about their treasure, and they will not part with it without death.”

Thor sighed.

“You might speak the truth,” he acknowledged. “I do not argue with you. But it matters not. We are on a quest. We have taken a vow, and we must fulfill our vow, wherever it should take us. It is not about life or death. It is about valor.”

Indra shook her head again and again.

“There is a limit to your craziness that I can put up with. I came with you as you followed your silly map; I even followed you through the desert. But that is all. I value my life. I am sorry. I will not venture to a sure death.”

Thor nodded back.

“I understand,” he said. “We are not keeping you.”

Elden looked at Indra, and Thor could detect a sadness cross his face.

“Are you leaving us, then?” he asked. “Is that it?”

She nodded back, and Thor could detect the same sadness in her eyes.

“You don’t have to do this,” she said. “You don’t have to kill yourselves.”

“We have to do this,” Elden responded. “It is our way.”

She looked at him long and hard, and finally, she said:

“I understand.”

Indra stepped forward, reached out a hand and touched Elden’s cheek, then surprised them all by leaning in and kissing Elden.

She let her palm rest on his cheek, then slowly pulled back, turned, and walked away. Within minutes she was lost in the woods, gone from view. She never looked back.

Elden looked crushed, and flustered from embarrassment.

Thor and the others looked away, giving him his privacy. They had all lost something on this journey; they all understood.

They each stood there, lost in their thoughts, the gravity of the final step of their journey weighing on them.

The Land of the Dragons, Thor thought.

He wondered if they could ever reach it. And if they could ever make it out alive.

Thor, Reece, O’Connor, Elden and Conven—just the five of them now—marched with Krohn at their side. With Conval dead and Indra gone, they felt their absence, and Thor could not help but feel as if there group was ever shrinking. He’d had an ominous pit in his stomach ever since they’d left Neversink, just the five of them, ever since they’d parted ways with Indra; she was as fearless a girl as he’d ever met, and yet even she was afraid to go this way. It did not bode well.

As Indra had instructed, they had headed north, following a rough trail through rolling hills; they had been marching for hours, heading ever north, the hills dipping and rising in ever-higher rows of false peaks. Each time they reached the top of another one, Thor was sure there would be no more peaks; yet always there came another on the horizon. They continued like that, rising and falling for hours, all of them breathing hard, exhausted.

At this point, Thor wasn’t even certain they were following the right trail. All they had to go on was spotting the occasional carcass by the side of the road. The road was dotted every so often with skeletons, whether of people or animals Thor did not know, and each one put another pit in his stomach. The farther they went, the more skeletons they encountered, and the feeling of ominousness deepened. With every step, Thor felt more certain that they were all marching towards their deaths.

The gloom lay heavy on everyone. Conven was distraught with grief, out of his mind, unlike Thor had ever seen him. His eyes were bloodshot from crying, and while his tears had finally stopped, now they were replaced with a silent sense of devastation. He looked like a man ruined by grief; he looked unhinged. Thor was scared when he looked into his eyes: Conven did not seem to be quite there with them anymore.

Elden was despondent, too, ever since Indra had left. Clearly, he had cared for her, more than he had let on, and he walk with his jaws locked, a frown on his face. He, too, seemed lost in another world. That left just Reece and O’Connor, walking on either side of Thor, gripping their sword hilts, on-edge. Their endless trekking had taken a toll on them too, their eyes sunken into their heads from constant fear and exhaustion, and they did not look like the same boys who had set out on this quest. They all looked aged. Thor wondered if he looked as weary as they did.

With every step they took, Thor’s knees shaking, he could not help but wonder if this journey would ever end, if it had been a mistake to venture to begin with.

The Land of the Dragons. He could hardly believe the craziness of the five of them, in their state, marching to confront an army of dragons, daring to somehow wrest the Sword from their grip. It was a mission not even an armored army could hope to achieve. How they would succeed, he had no idea. His honor, though, demanded that he see it through. Whether he lived or not, in his mind, that was not what mattered. He would not return a failure. And he would not return a coward. A lesson Argon once taught him rang in his mind, like a mantra: sometimes, it is harder to retreat than to move forward. Sometimes, the only way out is THROUGH.

The one thing that gave Thor solace was thinking of Gwen. He felt his mother’s ring, deep in his shirt pocket, and he reached up and assured himself it was still there. He thought of Gwen constantly, more and more these days, and it kept him going. He wanted to be away from this awful place, from all these awful creatures and monsters and soldiers and slaves, to just be back in the Ring, back by her side. Now it felt, more and more, like a distant dream, like a fantasy that had never been real to begin with. He could hardly imagine being back in a world of peace, being together with Gwen, laughing, carefree, just lying there in a field of flowers and staring up at the sky. It seemed like another lifetime.

They all ascended yet another peak, this one steeper than the rest, huffing as they made it to the top, nearly climbing straight up as grass turned to rock. It had become more of an exercise in rock-climbing than hiking, and the higher they got, the stronger the gusts of wind became, and the colder the air. As they reached the top of this one, Thor prayed this would be the final ascent; he did not know how they could dip and rise one more time.

They reached the top and they all stopped, taken aback by the sight before them. They had reached the summit, and the view before them was astounding. The ground dropped off steeply below them at a sharp angle, plummeting hundreds of feet below. And down there, spread out below, was an entirely new landscape. There was no longer grass in sight—or rocks or mountains or hills or trees. Instead, the landscape was entirely, shockingly, white. It positively glowed. It looked like a desert, or beach, made up of tiny, white gravelly rocks, the light shining off it so brightly that Thor had to squint. It seemed to stretch to the end of the world.

The only variety in this endless landscape were massive holes in the earth, dotting it every hundred feet or so. Gaping black holes, scarring the landscape, like a minefield, making the landscape look like a giant game of checkers.

Thor turned to the others in wonder, and they all bore looks of surprise. No one knew what to make of it.

Thor knelt down, grabbed some of the fine white pebbles in his palm, felt them, and watched as they crumbled beneath his fingers. On a hunch, he raised them to his mouth and touched them to the tip of his tongue.

As he suspected.

“Salt,” Thor said. “It’s all salt.”

They all looked down at the landscape below them with a new sense of respect and wonder.

“That’s what Indra said,” Reece said. “The salt fields lie on the way to the Land of the Dragons.”

“But it stretches forever,” O’Connor said, looking out. “It’s like a desert. If we enter that, how can we ever possibly cross it? It’s vast. And we’re exhausted. And there’s no shelter anywhere.”

“And what of all those holes?” Reece asked.

“I, for one, am not in the mood to enter another desert,” Elden said.

“What choice do we have?” Thor asked. “There’s no turning back.”

Thor closed his eyes and heard Argon’s voice.

Sometimes the only way out is through.

Thor was feeling the same way the others were, but he knew he had to be strong. Confident. For all of them.

Thor looked down at the steep drop off and knew they wouldn’t be able to climb down on the fine sediment. They would have no choice but to slide down. It was a steep drop, and while it eventually curved off, as he stood there, he was reluctant, he had to admit, to take the first step. He could see the expressions on the others’ faces, and realized they were reluctant, too. It was so steep, it was almost like stepping off the edge of a cliff.

Conven stepped forward and without hesitating, he suddenly jumped, right off the edge. Thor could not believe it: he did it with no emotion and no hesitation, as if he were suicidal.

Conven did not even scream as he plummeted straight down the side of the salt cliff. His feet and back rubbed against the fine sediment, like sand, raising a huge white cloud of dust and making Thor lose sight of him. The dust cloud continued all the way down the mountain, hundreds of feet, until eventually the cliff began to curve and finally, Conven slid to a stop.

There were a few moments of silence, as Thor and the others looked to each other in wonder, waiting for the huge cloud of dust to evaporate, to see if Conven had survived.

As Thor peered into the dust, suddenly, there came motion. Conven stood, brushed himself off, and began to march, his back to them, as if nothing had just happened.

Thor gulped. He feared for Conven; he seemed unhinged.

Thor didn’t like heights, and he wavered as he looked straight down below.

Thor reached over and picked up Krohn, whining, and held him in his arms.

“I guess it’s now or never, old friend,” Reece said.

Thor nodded back, but neither of them moved.

“Remember that time you dove into the red sea,” Reece reminded him, and then laughed. “It was full of monsters.”

Thor smiled at the thought; it felt like a lifetime ago.

“It was quite a way to start The Hundred,” Thor said back.

As one, they all suddenly stepped forward and off the ledge.

They all screamed as they plunged through the air; Thor felt the wind rushing through him, pushing up his cheeks, feeling as if he were plummeting down to the very core of the earth.

Finally, Thor felt his feet, then his back, make contact with the fine salt sand as the cliff began to curve gradually outward. Luckily he was wearing thick clothes, otherwise he was sure it would have burned his skin. He felt a rubbing against his whole body, and it became more intense as gradually the mountain curved outwards.

Thor felt himself tumbling head over heels, as the mountain curved more and more; he started coughing as he was caught up in a huge cloud of salt, salt in his eyes and hair and mouth. For a moment he felt like he couldn’t breathe.

Finally, Thor tumbled and came to a stop, shaken and scraped, but unhurt. All around him, the others tumbled to a stop, too, not too far away. They all settled there in a huge cloud of white dust, and it took several seconds for it to clear enough for Thor to realize that everyone else had made it alive and unhurt, including Krohn

Slowly, they all began to dust themselves off and gain their feet. Thor rubbed his head as he fell in with the others. He turned and looked back up and was shocked: it looked impossibly high, as if they had just fallen off a mountain.

They turned and began the long march through the salt fields, trying to catch up with Conven, already far ahead and not looking back.

They trekked across the monotonous landscape, heading ever farther north, weaving in and out between the gaping holes. They passed more and more skeletons now, strewn haphazardly, and Thor could not but help but wonder how all these animals—or people—had died. He wondered what had killed him—and when. Most bones looked old, but some looked fresh. It did not put him at ease. He couldn’t help but shake the feeling that they were all walking into a big trap.

Thor looked over at one of the gaping holes in the ground and walked over to its edge. He stopped and looked.

The others gathered around and they all leaned over and looked down, and saw only blackness.

“What is it?” O’Connor asked.

As he voiced the words, they echoed and reverberated.

“It looks like some sort of tunnel,” Reece said.

“Perhaps they are the salt mines Indra spoke of,” Thor said.

“But who would mine this place?”

Thor turned and surveyed the landscape and realized that at some point some industry must have been here, tore up the land, then abandoned it. These holes were all that remained.

They continued their trek, marching through the endlessly landscape. As the sun grew long and Thor was overcome with hunger and thirst and exhaustion, he wondered, once again, where on earth they could take shelter in this place. Clearly they could not rest in one of the caves, which seemed to drop straight down to a bottomless pit, and he doubted they could sleep on the salt floor, wondering what creatures might roam here at night.

Before he could finish the thought, Thor suddenly heard an odd hissing noise, and his stomach dropped as he turned and saw, approaching them in the distance, a group of strange creatures. There were perhaps ten of them, and as they got closer, their appearance became more distinct: they looked like miniature alligators. They alternately slithered on their stomachs, then rose up on their forelegs, sometimes crawling and sometimes slithering. They had long tongues, as long as their bodies, and an armored skin, and every few feet their skin blew up, like a blowfish, the sharp points at the end of it protruding, then retracting. They had four eyes, and everything about them was colored white, camouflaging them perfectly with the salt terrain; except for their eyes, which were a bright, glowing purple.

“What the hell is that?” O’Connor asked.

Krohn snarled back, the hair rising on his back, as the boys all stopped in her tracks—all except for Conven, who kept walking casually towards them as if he had not a fear in the world.

“Conven, I wouldn’t do that,” Thor said.

But Conven kept marching. He casually drew his sword, the sound cutting through the air, and went out to meet the closest creature, who charged towards him.

Conven raised his sword—but before he could lower it, the creature closest to him suddenly looked up, opened its mouth, and extended its jaw revealing several sets of fangs.

“Conven, look out!” Reece screamed.

The creature craned back its neck, opened its jaws and sprayed a liquid from the back of its throat; it shot up through the air and doused Conven’s eyes.

Conven screamed, clutching his eyes as he dropped his sword and stumbled back.

“I can’t see!” he cried out.

The creatures approached, and Thor gulped, realizing they had a battle on their hands.

Watching what had just happened to Conven, Thor knew they had to act quickly or else all be blinded.

“Raise your shields!” Thor yelled.

He grabbed his shield and the others did, too, all of them crouching down and covering their faces. The creatures leaned back and hissed at them, and the liquid sprayed against the metal, just missing their eyes. Thor could hear the acidic venom eating into the metal of the shield.

When the spraying stopped, they all lowered their shields and charged forward. Thor sliced his sword down at the closest one, severing its head, while Elden swung his axe high and brought it down on the one before him, chopping off its head; Reece drove his spear through the head of another, and O’Connor raised his bow and shot one right in its open throat.

But as quickly as they killed the first four, four more appeared, darting forward and spraying venom at their eyes. They all quickly raised their shields, then attacked again.

But these creatures were smart; this time, they retreated, slithering backwards as Thor and the others swung down at empty air. Krohn leapt forward, snarling, and the creatures sprayed him. Krohn was too fast, though, dodging the venom, ducking low, then leaping high and pouncing, clamping down on one of the creature’s throats with his fangs, snarling as he killed the writhing creature on the spot.

Another creature leapt for Krohn, whose back was exposed, and began to bite him on his rear leg; Krohn yelped, and Thor leapt forward and slashed it—though the creature was too quick, and retreated before Thor could get it. Krohn, enraged, turned and pounced on several more creatures, killing three more—but he was not fast enough to avoid the tail of another creature, which whipped him hard on the back of his other leg, making him shriek and roll over several times, whining, limping. Thor realized that the tails of these creatures had stingers.

Finally the blinding effect of the spray seemed to wear off on Conven, and he, blinking tears from his eyes, reached down and grabbed his sword, and charged for the remaining creatures. He raised the shield, blocking the spray of several of them, and charged madly.

But they were too fast for him, all of them retreating from his wild sword slashes. They had learned too quickly.

Thor realized they had an intense battle on their hands. He did not know how they would kill the remaining group.

That was when he heard the noise. It was a tremendous hissing noise, and as he looked to the horizon, Thor’s heart dropped to see hundreds more of these creatures appearing, all slithering their way. Thor suddenly realized why there were so many skeletons on the road: these things must have killed everything in their path.

Conven backed up to their side, and the five of them faced off with the creatures, holding their ground, bracing for the destruction to come.

“Now what?” O’Connor asked.

Before Thor could respond there came a great rumbling from beneath the earth, stronger and stronger, until it shook the ground beneath them, making them all stumble. As it grew more intense, suddenly, all the creatures before them turned and scurried away in the other direction, slithering off as one unit, in a great cacophony of hissing noises. In moments, they disappeared from view.

“An earthquake?” Reece asked.

Thor was relieved the creatures had gone, but he had a sinking feeling as to what might have scared them away. They all looked at each other, baffled.

There came a great shriek, one so loud it nearly shattered Thor’s eardrums, and beside him there emerged from one of the holes a beast unlike anything Thor had ever seen. It looked like a monstrous snake, its body fifty feet wide and ten times as long. White in color, it had a flat head, slits for eyes, and its face was consumed by rows and rows of razor-sharp teeth. It roared and shrieked as it rose up from the ground, so high it blocked the sky. Then it arched down, opening its jaws impossibly wide and nose-diving to the ground as it caught and devoured dozens of those creatures. The creatures hissed and screamed as the beast picked them up in the air, dangling them from its mouth, squirming, and chewed on them. Their purple blood dripped down its mouth and body.

The snake must have eaten a dozen of them at once, and Thor could see the outline of their bodies writhing within as they slid down the creature’s throat.

Thor looked up with real fear, realizing now that they probably would have been better off facing hundreds of those creatures than this single huge monster.

The monster twisted its awful face and turned and set its sights on Thor and the others, as it opened its throat and screeched.

It came plummeting down, blocking out the sun, opening its mouth and diving downward to swallow them all at once. It came down impossibly fast, and Thor realized that in moments, they would all be dead.

Thor felt a tremendous heat rise through his body, and he stood in place, raised a palm, closed his eyes, and let the energy flow through him. He recalled Argon’s words.

Do not fight nature. Do not resist anything. Allow it to be what it is. Do not try to control it. Become one with it. Do as it would do.

Argon’s words rang through Thor’s mind and finally, he felt as if he was gaining some control over his powers. He noticed that whenever his back was truly to the wall, whenever he had no choice but to use his powers or die, they returned to him.

Thor raised his palm higher, trying to stay calm, and he felt the creature’s nature; it was an intense, monstrous nature, intent on killing them all. Thor did not try to resist it. Instead, he felt his energy morphing with the creature’s, and as he held up his hand, an orb of light suddenly shot up from his palm, rising into the air, as a stream of white light went forth from him, heading right for the creature’s face.

The light met the creature and it managed to hold it at bay, stopping it just feet from them, holding it frozen in mid-air right before it swallowed them. Thor felt his entire body shaking from the effort, and he did not know how much longer he could hold it back.

Conven screamed and charged forward, leaping into the creature’s mouth, raising his sword and stabbing it in the roof of its mouth. The creature shrieked.

The others followed suit, Reece jabbing it in the nose with his spear, Elden chopping it in the cheek with his axe, and O’Connor firing arrow after arrow into its eyes. The creature seemed more annoyed than hurt, and it was not even close to dead.

Thor’s arms were shaking, as he felt his control of the beast waning quickly. Finally, Thor felt himself lose control; his power was just not strong enough, and he could hold it back no longer.

The light ceased from Thor’s palm and the beast pulled back immediately, lifting its head high in the air. Conven was still standing there, inside its mouth, jabbing his sword into the roof of its mouth, and as the beast rose higher into the air and tried to swallowed him, the only thing keeping Conven alive was the sword thrust vertically into the roof of its mouth. As the beast clamped down, trying to squash Conven, the sword was beginning to bend.

Conven finally had fear in his eyes, as he hung there high in the air, between the beasts rows of teeth, his sword bending before his eyes and the beast’s mouth closing.

Thor was exhausted from his exertion, yet he forced himself to try again; somehow, he summoned some last part of himself, drawing on whatever energy reserves he had. He did not know if he could have done so for himself—but to see his friend in danger brought out another burst of energy in him.

Thor screamed and raised his other palm, and another light, a yellow light, came streaming forth. Just as the beast snapped the sword in its mouth, the light struck it, and Thor used his power to force the beast to open its jaws all the way. As they kept opening, Conven, spared from death, tumbled out of the beast’s mouth and went hurling through the air, landing on the salt floor with a thud.

The beast, enraged at losing a meal, raised its neck and shrieked, then turned and zeroed in on Thor. It plummeted down, right for him, clearly wanting to crush him.

Thor closed his eyes and raised both palms, summoning his last bit of strength. This time, a blue light shot out, covering the beast’s entire body. Thor raised his palms higher and higher, and as he did, he hoisted the beast high into the air, higher and higher, until its entire body exited the hole. It extended to its full length, hundreds of feet long and covered in a slimy ooze that had probably not seen the light of day. It wiggled furiously in the air, like a worm pulled out from beneath its rock.

In one last exertion of effort, Thor threw his hands forward, directing its energy with all that he had; as he did the beast, shrieking, went sailing through the air and came crashing down sideways, smashing on the ground. It shrieked an awful noise as it squirmed on its back, until finally it stopped moving.

Dead.

Thor dropped to his knees, collapsing from the exertion of strength. His powers were stronger than they had ever been, yet at the same time, he did not have the endurance to maintain them.

Suddenly, there arose a tremor all around them, the same tremor they’d heard when the beast had emerged from its hole. All around them, as far as they could see, the ground began to shake. They turned and exchanged a panicked look, and realized that monsters were about to emerge from every hole in the landscape.

Thousands of them.

“Are you going to just stand there all day?” came a voice Thor recognized.

Thor turned to see, with immense relief, Indra. She was galloping towards them on an orange beast that looked something like a camel, but was taller and broader, and had a wide, flat head. She led, by a rope, five more of them, stirring up dust as they charged right for them.

“GET ON! NOW!” she screamed.

Without hesitating Thor and the others mounted the animals, Thor grabbing Krohn with him. They all took off, together, at a gallop, racing through the salt field, narrowly avoiding the holes.

As they went, one by one, thousands of monsters emerged from the holes, shrieking, rising into the air, aiming for them. But the creatures they rode were fast—faster than any horse Thor had ever ridden, so fast, he could barely catch his breath as they rode. And clearly they had been trained to navigate this terrain to avoid these holes, these monsters, which they did deftly. As they rode, Thor holding on for his life, the monsters snapped down all around them and just missed each time, the animals faster than they, zigzagging every which way to avoid the strikes.

They narrowly dodged strike after strike, monster after monster, as they all charged through, taking them farther and farther from the salt fields.

As they finally cleared the perimeter, leaving the monsters behind them, Indra turned and smiled.

“Did you really think I would let a bunch of fools like you die in my own backyard?”