Dragon's wrath

Chapter 8: The beginning of war

With every new day, Alarick spent less time with me. Twice he didn’t come back home at all. I knew he was working with my father, trying to figure out how we could still be one or two steps ahead of Ezekiel, but without spies within his fortress it was difficult. 

“Coffee?” My mom distracted me which brought me back from my thoughts. For a brief moment I couldn’t process what she was asking me. 

“Oh? Sure. Thank you.” I answered with an apologetic tone and she pursed her lips without saying anything further. She squeezed my hand which was up on the table, stood up and went to make our drinks. More often than not, I spent my days with her. It wasn’t because I felt lonely, but my mom at least provided some distraction and even that was getting harder and harder every day. Thoughts of those who were now suffering without our help started to haunt me. 

“Here honey.” She placed the coffee in front of me. I must have spaced out again because it felt like she had just left my hand a second ago. 

“Maybe if you talk about it, it would help.” My mom tried as always, but I didn’t know where to start or how to start to be more precise. I shook my head and sipped my coffee. 

“Cream?” I asked with a fake smile pasted on my lips. 

“You always liked coffee with cream. We just couldn’t afford it so often back then,” my mom said, with a tinge of sadness in her voice. Clearly she had her own demons haunting her from the past. 

“We are fine Mom. We are fine and safe now,” I tried to reassure her, but I knew better than anyone that we were far from safe. Danger was still lurking in the dark, in the shadows which couldn’t be pierced by light. 

I finished my coffee and was ready to leave. It was getting dark and no matter how tasty the coffee that my mom made was, it wouldn’t help me stay awake. My sleep schedule was also messed up due to dreams. At least I blamed it on dreams, since I didn’t know why I woke up several times each night. That’s how I knew Alarick hadn’t come back twice before. 

“You know you could sleep here tonight right?” My mom was worried and I knew it, but I didn’t want to burden her further. She had her own life as did we, they only had one bedroom which was hers and my fathers. Where would my father sleep if I stayed there? 

“I know Mom, but Dad works hard every day, just like Alarick. I can’t possibly sleep in his  resting place.” I answered with a guilty smile. 

“He wouldn’t mind honey,” she argued, but I shook my head. 

“Thank you Mom, but I better go,” I said a little coldly and instantly regretted it, seeing the sadness in my mom’s eyes.

“I am sorry Mom,” I immediately apologized for my tone, but she shook her head dismissing my apology and I made a mental note to make it up to her later. 

Once I reached the elevator and pressed the button, the door opened and my father and Alarick were standing inside. 

“This is a surprise,” my father said, looking at me. 

“I was heading home,” I told him, but they both stepped out and pushed me back into the apartment. 

“We should talk first,” my father said and based on his tone, I knew something bad had happened again. The past few days we had only received bad news. I didn’t know what was happening, but Alarick’s face constantly looked haunted, just like today. My mom put water in the kettle again and made coffee for all of us before she joined me on the sofa. Alarick and my father took their seats on the chairs next to the sofa. 

“Something happened again,” my mom started because it seemed my father had difficulty starting. Once my mom had stated the obvious, he nodded his head and agreed. 

“Another village was burned down. We tried to get someone on the inside, but it seems no new staff is being accepted at the moment Ezekiel is being more cautious and only keeps his most trusted aides close, which means we can’t get anyone in,” my father said, but his voice broke slightly in the middle. 

“How many this time?” my mom asked, with concern. I was afraid to hear the answer, but at the time I was burning to know how many lives we had lost this time. 

“We sent a person to each village and warned them to be cautious and our person stayed there to observe,” Alarick started explaining instead of giving her a direct answer. Based on the darkness of his expression, it was definitely more than the previous village. 

“Alarick, how many?” I asked directly, with a stern voice. 

“Over seven hundred, but we found more than a hundred of them, mostly women and kids hiding in the nearby woods,” my father answered instead. I had to take several deep breaths to digest the number. Over a thousand people had now died because I tried to protect myself and wanted to hurt Ezekiel. Now he was taking it out on everyone else. 

“He is doing this because of me,” I said out loud. My mom moved closer to me and pulled me to her chest. 

“We have already discussed this. You can’t take the blame for this. Ezekiel was evil long before you were even born. This is not your fault.” My mom tried to soothe me, but it definitely wasn't helping.

“He never attacked villages like this. We still had people among his guards, so they could inform us of his movements. He got rid of them because of me. He is doing this because of me and he probably won’t stop unless I give myself up. He knows I won’t tolerate this. I can’t let him do this to people, to my people.” The only thing every village had in common was that they all were human villages belonging to Dragon or Elven lords. They were all farmers and producers so they didn’t even know how to fight. Their knowledge of this world was also different from what I was taught in school. Those people were still living in a different era than in normal human towns. 

“That’s another thing we wanted to discuss.” Alarick’s voice darkened and even my mom looked at him with fear in her eyes. 

“What do you mean?” she asked before looking at me. She already understood that what I had said was right. What I had just stated was completely correct, based on the knowledge they both had. 

“We found a note in the village. Pinned to one of the houses which was mostly destroyed except for part of the front wall and the door,” he continued slowly and quietly. Alarick was afraid to say it, but I already understood. It was clear as day.  He wanted me. Ezekiel did this because of me. 

“He wants me,” I said, pulling myself from my mom’s hug. 

“He is offering a new exchange, all our people who were stationed with him and a promise to stop burning villages if you come to him willingly,” my father finished instead. 

“You can’t be serious. She is your daughter. She is my daughter. You can’t give her to him,” my mom pleaded. She thought my father was going to give me up. 

“You think so low of me?” he almost shouted at her. “Do you really think I would give him my only child? The child you had to bear for me?” I could hear that my father was angry, but at the same time I knew he was desperate. He probably expected some advice or possible solutions to this situation. In his position he couldn’t turn a blind eye to his people and the innocent over his own blood, but his pride wouldn’t allow him to sacrifice me. 

“She is my mate, no one is going to sacrifice her, but we need to find a way to protect the people. The captives in Ezekiel’s fortress knew what they were getting themselves into and every single one of them was ready to die for the greater good, but the villagers are innocent. They are not fighters. They are not a part of us and do not have a place in this fight. We can’t let them be hostages in this game.” Alarick’s voice also strengthened with anger. 

“Can’t we simply evacuate all of them and bring them here?” my mom asked. She had more knowledge than me of our world and the villages. That was not possible. Some of them might be willing to leave, but definitely not all of them. They lived in their narrow world, under one lord who ruled them and with the king above everyone. They had no idea of the world order and most of them saw us only as a nuisance in this kingdom. The only exceptions were those who already knew what the king was capable of, after their homes were destroyed and burned to ashes. 

“Astrid, you know it is not that easy,” my father answered. His tone softened. My mom was still angry at him, I wasn’t really sure why, since he had already told her he wouldn’t sacrifice me. Sitting next to her, I could sense her anxiety and nervousness. 

“Can’t we send small groups to every village and keep them there as guards?” I asked instead. Alarick looked at me with sadness in his eyes, shaking his head.

“If we want to protect a village we would have to send an entire unit which is around a hundred of our fighters. We could only protect around five to six villages that way without leaving ourselves unprotected. Not only would there not be enough place to stay and sleep, but everyone would know they were there because of the equipment and weapons,” Alarick stated, but I shook my head to stop him from continuing. 

“I don’t mean for defense. Villagers don’t know how to spot attacking units and I am sure most of the time Ezekiel sends his dragon generals to burn the villages. That means they can be spotted if you know what you are looking for. More people might see them earlier and they could also help with the evacuation. We could train them to evacuate quickly. We had such drills at school so we could teach this drill to the villagers and in case of danger they could all disperse into the woods,” I explained my thoughts in detail. Alarick seemed to be thinking about it, as did my father. 

“It could work. We could dispatch twenty people to each village and allocate some of the survivors from the last village to each group so they could trust our people. This might work. We could still lose some stubborn people who will refuse to trust us, but our people are trained to search for enemies. We might as well install some security measures which could warn us in case of a land attack.” My father agreed and even improved my suggestion in the end. I was surprised that they hadn’t thought of it earlier. They were so used to preventing attacks that actually defending against any was something they were not used to anymore.

“Let our war with Ezekiel start then,” Alarick said out loud and his face sort of lightened. It seemed as if they both found some hope that they might be able to help those people.