James Owen - Here, There Be Dragons

In minutes the elves had lost almost a quarter of their soldiers, and the dwarves, scarcely less.
Dousing the torches had helped, but it was only a remedy, not a cure. The Shadow-Born could push through archers like stones through water, and only heavy weapons gave them any pause at all.

“It’s called a grenade,” Jack said.
Nemo was incredulous. “There are reasons I don’t use explosives in warfare, young Jack,” he said. “They’re too unpredictable.”
“In your world, maybe,” said Jack, “but not in mine. This is my kind of weapon, from the real world. If Shadow-Born can be pushed back, they can be blown up.”
Nemo looked unconvinced. “Do you have any experience making this sort of device?”
“I’ve read a lot about them,” said Jack, “and I used the cannon on the Indigo Dragon pretty effectively.”
Nemo started to rise in protest, but Jack cut him off.
“This is the place where imagination counts for as much as everything else, right?” said Jack. “So I improvised a little. It’ll still work. I’ve been improvising since I came here—and I always seem to come through.”
Nemo bowed his head, considering, then met Jack’s eyes. “All right. What do we need to do?”
“Sound a retreat from the valley,” said Jack. “Get our troops coming up the hill, then light the fuse and fling it into the center of the enemy force, at the lowest point. If it works, I can fashion several more from what you have aboard the Nautilus.”
Nemo seemed impressed, then took a closer look.
“I don’t think there’s a long enough fuse,” he said, examining Jack’s handiwork. “What if—”
“Are you questioning me?” Jack shot back. “Just do as I tell you, and everything will be fine.”
Nemo gave him a long, considered look, then nodded. “Aven trusts you, and so I cannot do less. Get more of them ready. We’re going to need them.”
Nemo conferred with Charys and Eledir, and the retreat was sounded. The allies turned and ran up and out of the small valley, away from the carnage that was taking place among their fallen comrades.
The enemy wasted no time in surging forward, only now they were under the direct command of the Winter King, who led the charge.
Jack was running down the hill past the retreating centaurs with the second grenade as Nemo lit the first device and threw it directly at the Winter King.
The charge exploded prematurely, almost as soon as it was thrown, showering the phalanx of Wendigo and Shadow-Born in dirt, but nothing more. The effect on the captain of the Nautilus was a different matter.
The right half of Nemo’s torso, including his arm and shoulder, was completely gone, blown away by the charge. His face was burned and blistered, and the corneas of his eyes had been utterly scorched. He was blind, and dying in agony.
All because he had trusted Jack.
Jack ran to his fallen comrade and dropped to his knees. With the retreat, he and Nemo were alone on the battlefield with several thousand of the enemy approaching fast. Jack fumbled with the second grenade, but before he could light it, the Shadow-Born were on him.
Without a pause, the Shadow-Born rushed past and continued up the hillside.
Jack looked around wildly, confused, as thousands of the cold, black forms flowed around him. Even the Wendigo did little more than pause to sniff at Nemo before moving on. Then the Winter King was there, looking down at him.
In answer to Jack’s silent plea, the Winter King spoke, a cruel light glittering in his eyes.
“They left you, Jack, because Shadow-Born do not consume their own.”
With a cold smile and a wink, the Winter King ran past.
As he stared on in horror, Jack’s shadow flickered back into view, then solidified. But it was too late—the damage had been done. Nemo was dead.
Jack knelt in the blood-soaked earth and began to scream.

Charles and Tummeler had to twice submerge themselves in the surf to avoid random groups of Wendigo that had caught their scent and come looking. Being completely under water hid their smell, but did little for their spirits.
Nevertheless, they had managed to make their way around the entirety of the east side and had drawn up alongside the Black Dragon itself. Charles’s biggest concern had been identifying the tent of the Winter King, but that proved not to be a problem. It was not only the largest tent in the encampment, but also the only one with posted guards—two nasty-looking Wendigo.
“That’ll be what we’re looking for, no doubt about it,” Charles whispered. “I’m sure Pandora’s Box is inside. Why else bother posting guards on a tent behind an army the size of the one he’s got?”
“Agreed, Master Scowler,” said Tummeler. “So—when we gets inside, what’s y’r plan? Do we try t’ steal th’ kettle, or just cap it here?”
“Steal it, if we can,” said Charles. “I haven’t the faintest idea how we’d go about closing it. There’s bound to be some sort of magic involved, so I doubt it’ll be as simple as nailing a board to the top and adding a ‘Do Not Touch’ sign.”
“Okay,” said Tummeler. “I know you’ll do for th’ best.”
“We should have brought Jack,” Charles lamented. “He’s got a knack for improvising in difficult situations.”
As they whispered back and forth, they moved stealthily out of the water, using the bulk of the Black Dragon as a blind. On the sand, Tummeler shook the water out of his fur and plopped down on his haunches, and Charles squatted down next to him, dropping the heavy shield to rest.
“There be just somethin’ I been wond’ring,” said Tummeler. “If it’s a big ol’ cooking pot, why does everyone call it ‘Aunt Dora’s Box’?”
“Pandora’s Box,” Charles corrected, “and it’s just the nature of things to change. That’s the nature of storytelling—a kettle becomes a cauldron becomes a crochan becomes a box, all depending on who’s telling the story. And since Pandora had it last, that’s the story—and name—everyone knows.
“Take your shield, for example,” he continued, turning over the shield and dusting off the sand. “It was probably used by a Roman soldier, or a legionnaire, or someone like that, and it was called ‘Polemicus’s Shield,’ or something like that—but I’ll always know it as ‘Mr. Tummeler’s…”
He stopped, mouth gaping.
“Master Charles?” said Tummeler. “What is it?”
Charles was looking at the surface of the shield. The pattern forged on it was a bit tarnished, but still gleamed with visible detail. It was a stylized depiction of the Medusa, from Greek myth.
“Tell me again what Samaranth said when he gave this to you, Tummeler.”
“Samaranth said it belonged to a famous hero in your world,” said Tummeler. “Pericles, or Theseus, or…or…”
“Perseus,” said Charles, as a connection clicked in his mind. “The shield belonged to Perseus.”
“That’s it!” Tummeler said excitedly. “Samaranth said that even th’ smallest o’ us c’n be a hero, if they have th’ chance—and he said this shield would give me th’ chance.”
“Did he now?” said Charles as a smile began to cheshire over his face. “I think he’s right—and I think we’re about to deal a nasty blow to the Winter King.”

“It only makes sense,” John said as he and Artus climbed the low rise of the ridge. “Arthur created the Silver Throne to rule in both worlds—our world and the Archipelago. If part of his power was the ability to summon the dragons, he would want to be able to do it no matter which realm he was in.”
Artus nodded, mute. It was beginning to be evident to him that John really believed he could make something useful happen—and Artus didn’t believe that himself. In the last few days, he’d seen a sharp line drawn between his boyhood fantasies about being a knight and the realities of living in a world where actions had real consequences.
It took only a minute for them to ascend to the rough circle of stones. As they stepped inside, a chill wind began to rise, concentrated within the circle itself.
“I think this was maybe a bad idea…,” Artus began.
John gripped him by the shoulders and spun him around. Artus expected a lecture, but John just smiled at him, as the wind grew in speed and intensity. “Think of it this way—if it works, it works. If it doesn’t, we tried. If knights only went on quests they were sure of, they’d never go at all.”
“Good point.”
The wind swirled about them as if it intended to rip them from the very Earth and fling them into the abyss. The roar of the falls echoed against the stone of the bluff, and the spray plastered their hair to their faces. The elements seemed to be conspiring to drive them back as John opened the Geographica and turned it to the page Artus needed.
“John,” Artus called out, “are you certain of this?”
“As certain as I can be of anything,” John called back over the violent storm.
“How can I do this, John?” Artus yelled. “I can’t! I’m not ready for this!”
John thrust the Geographica into Artus’s hands.
“You wished all your life to be a knight,” he said, his voice firm and his eyes clear. “Now claim your destiny, and become a king.”
Artus drew a deep breath and began to calm down. His eyes darted back and forth from the desperately earnest face of his friend to the near-holy book in his hands—a book that could create a king, that would create a king, if only he so chose.
Reading a few lines from a book to claim his heritage, his throne, and his destiny. As simple an action as drawing a sword from an anvil.
Artus looked over the lines a final time, then closed the book and began to recite:
By right and rule
For need of might
I call on thee
I call on thee
By blood bound
By honor given
I call on thee
I call on thee
For life and light your protection given
From within this ring by the power of Heaven
I call on thee
I call on thee
With the last word, the tempest around them suddenly began to fade.
Finished, Artus looked at the darkness, then at the book, then again out into the void. “Did I do it right?”
“You did just fine,” said John. “You certainly did something.”
“How long is it supposed to take?”
“It doesn’t say.”
They waited for five heartbeats, then ten.
Then twenty. Then twenty more.
Nothing happened.

Too much ground had been given in the effort to use Jack’s offensive. Charys and Eledir had trusted Nemo and Nemo had trusted Jack, and the line had been irrevocably moved. The allies had lost more than half of their soldiers to the Shadow-Born, and although the Wendigo had at worst killed only a small number of the fallen, it was going to happen to the rest sooner or later.
What remained of the elves, dwarves, animals, and mythbeasts had come together in a hollow just opposite the beach, where they were ringed in by Charys and the centaurs, who stood as the last line of defense.
The Shadow-Born had swarmed past, and for a few moments Aven and Bert thought that some miracle had occurred—but it was no miracle, just more strategy. The dark specters had cut off the path of retreat to the ships. There would be no escape.
At the command of the Winter King, a Wendigo sounded a hunting horn and summoned the Troll and Goblin armies back to the field.
The battle was over.

Artus and John had not seen the events of the battlefield. They had fixed their attention outward, toward the void.
Artus drew in a sharp breath, then glanced quickly at John, who held his gaze steady.
“Something’s wrong, John.”
“Have patience, Artus. I believe in you.”
Artus seemed to shrink inward. “I don’t know if I do.”
“That’s all right,” John said, gripping the younger man’s shoulder. “I believe enough for both of us.”
Then the world shifted. Something changed. The air was stilled, and even the eternal roar of the falls became muted, as if the world had begun to hold its breath.
The eye of the storm had opened up around the small, noble ring of standing stones, and it extended its pull into the distant reaches of eternity—and there, something entered the open doorway of the eye.
“Look!” said John. “Look to the void—there, in the darkness! Do you see it?”
Far above their heads, deep to the west, a single point of light had appeared, small, but sharp and bright.
A star.
“I see it,” said Artus. “But what does it—”
“Another one!” said John, pointing. “And there! Another!”
As they watched, the sky beyond began to fill with stars that flickered and flared into bright life. Then, unexpectedly, some of the stars grew brighter. And brighter. And then they began to move.
“John,” said Artus breathlessly, “those aren’t stars…
“…those are dragons.”
At last—at long last, the dragons had returned to the Archipelago.
Part Six