Galen - The Untold Tales of Frelanna Forest

Chap 3: The conquest

The mysterious dragon was injured, but it didn’t mean that its consciousness was fading away. So when it sensed the human smell from Galen, it immediately reacted back, by standing up rapidly and spread its wing to threaten him.

“Roar!!”

“Whoa!”

Despite the severe injure, its cry was so loud as if every species could hear its sound. Galen was surprised by its powerful atmosphere so he accidentally dropped his lamp on the ground and it got broken. Everything in this sight was currently so dark. The only light resource only comes from the light of the fire surrounding the dragon and him.

Galen hadn’t known much about dragons since from his childhood, he hadn’t ever seen them before and his father just said that they were human’s enemies, trying to kill everyone of us. That’s why whenever humans saw dragons, they would kill each other immediately and reverse. But in Galen’s eyes, he could read its behavior. It was just scared of him.

He didn’t know how to calm the dragon down to not let the nearby royal guard notice. Galen rose both his arms as if a criminal surrendered in front of the polices. He hoped that the dragon’s eyes could see through the darkness to see his act.

“Please calm down, don’t be afraid. I’m not your enemy!” Galen said “I heard your voice calling me here. You are needing help right? I’m here to help you!”

The dragon stopped its aggressive state, stayed docile and its eyes stare at Galen, like it was trying to look for something deep inside him. Two pairs of eyes looked at each other. The dragon noticed the sparking image of the flame flickering in Galen’s emerald iris, showed it his sincerity and determination. It confirmed that Galen wasn’t its enemy. However, it still stayed cautious and pushed itself backward with the wings still stay spreading to the air.

Of a sudden, the pain from the injury tortured the dragon again and urged it to fall on the ground. It was the consequence of the sudden air strike attack, when the dragon flew through Tredia Kingdom’s civil area. Someone just shot it by the orichalcum arrow – A specialized weapon craft by orichalcum ore. It was very solid that it could pierce through the hardened dragon’s scale and if possible, could kill them.

Galen noticed the arrow’s reflection piercing on its body and understood everything happened. So now he just needed to unplug it and heal for this poor injured creature.

Galen cautiously approached the dragon’s injury to check out the situation.

“That orichalcum arrow pierces so deeply into its body, so it’s impossible to take it out immediately. It would break her vein and be very hard to handle the blood.” Frank said when checking out the dragon with Galen “Galen, at this rate, she would die…”

Galen knew it too. Also, he hadn’t counted the fact that the wolves could detect the smell of the dragon’s blood and lure them coming here. To save this dragon, he had to do it by himself. In order to not cause pain to the dragon, he thought about: Take the arrow out while using healing magic at the same time.

“Frank.” Galen asked Frank “Can you help me pull the arrow out? I’ll heal her injury.”

“Leave it to me!”

Frank’s tiny kitten body flew to the arrow. His front legs held the arrow.

“Tell me when you are ready, Galen!”

“Okay Frank.” Galen’s hands gently touched on the dragon “I’m ready!”

“Haaa!!!!”

“Heal!!”

That arrow was so tight, Frank had a hard time pulling the arrow out. At the same time, Galen maximized his focus, poured his aura energy to heal the dragon to minimize the pain for the dragon as possible. Galen carefully looked at the dragon’s head too to watch out for its reaction. It was enduring the pain, Galen could feel its body trembling. He just could say “hang on” to encourage it. The dragon seemed to understand him and stayed still on the ground.

Suddenly, Galen and Frank trembled. Galen’s heart beat faster when his ears could hear something that he never wanted to happen… The footstep echoed from all directions and surrounding him and the dragon, formed into a circle formation. With that familiar growl… Were they the wolves?! They definitely smelled the blood from the dragon and came here!!

“Frank, hurry up!!” Galen yelled while boosting his healing speed.

“I got it! I got it!! Ahhhh!!!”

Frank tried his best to pull out. Eventually, he did it! The inertia pushed him backward as he successfully took the arrow out. At this moment, Galen also completed healing for the dragon as well.

The wolves rushed to Galen. However… everything just happened so fast that Galen didn’t have to react.

In the 1st second, Galen saw the wolves trying to jump up and attack him.

In the 2nd second, they suddenly got knocked back by an invisible force. A giant shadow covered Galen and protected him from their assault.

The dragon was protecting him, and covered him with its huge wings…

Galen then could hear someone’s voice echoing in his head, the same as the dragon’s.

“Get out! This is my prey!!”

The wolves were hesitating as if they also listened to the dragon and understood what it said. They cautiously determining the situation if they could win the battle or not. But for a few seconds later, they all decided to retreat.

Galen gave a relieved sigh. He was going to say thanks, but the dragon had already spread its wings and flew away. Its image rapidly disappeared into the darkness of the starry sky.

Galen was confused, but he got the reason immediately when he heard the noise of the royal guards chasing after him.

“Your Highness! My apology for coming late!” A group of the guards had arrived to his location and hold him up “Is everything alright? We just detected a dragon falling near your place!”

“I’m… I’m okay. Actually, there wasn’t any dragon here so please don’t report it to my father.”

Galen answered while looking at the sky without blinking his eyes like a soulless person. He felt like he just woke up from a magical dream, since it was his first time to witness a dragon by his own eyes…

***

Eventually, the day for the conquest had arrived…

According to Eino’s strategy, Tredia Army would attack the smaller kingdom located at the southern border. Before launching the war, she informed the royal members that she had done careful research thanks to the spies that she specially recruited for the investigation.

Balony Kingdom was a medium-size kingdom if looking at the continent map. However, this kingdom was currently suffering from the lack of life resources since their king didn’t care about the civilians anymore and just enjoyed everything for himself. Balony Kingdom looked very luxurious and powerful, but it was just the appearance. Their most important factor, the military was very weak. Besides, the capital of this kingdom was located in the valley, mountains were like their natural fortress. But sadly, they didn’t know how to use this opportunity and there weren’t any barracks being built there for the national defense.

Not only that, Eino also gave King Anderton and Galen the map of the mountains and marked the blind spots of Balony Kingdom’s observation tower. Galen attentively looked at Eino’s strategy map. It was very well made since he could understand all of the possibilities and strategies that she provided for him and his father.

In conclusion, after sleepless nights studying army commanding and the art of the war, Galen could judge this conquest’s difficulty as easy-medium. In terms of quantity, perhaps Tredia would have lesser soldiers than Balony, but Tredia side had too many advantageous conditions to win. This time, with the command of both Galen and his father, if they knew how to use this strategic map properly, they could easily use it and lead to victory within one day only.

Galen believed it would be the chance for him to impress his father. After this conquest, he had to say thanks to Eino and give her a gift!

***

Now here he is, standing at the top highest mountain where King Anderton and he could observe the entire capital of Balony Kingdom from afar. Galen still couldn’t believe by himself… If he was the protector of Balony Kingdom, he would already blame that greedy and selfless king for pushing his kingdom into the life-threatening danger!

The duo father and son stayed still and observe for a while. Then, King Anderton spoke to break the silence.

“Listen, Galen.”

“Yes, father?” Galen answered back. Now thinking back, he didn’t remember how long his father and he talking so close to each other like this.

“…Don’t disappoint me this time.”

The one disappointed was Galen if exactly…

He expected his father was going to recover their familial relationship but… he was still as strict as usual.

When the king left the scene, Frank appeared from Galen’s royal cape.

“Grrrr!! What is happening with him?! Is he your father anymore or not?!” Frank felt like his head going to explode from anger “We’re going to go to the war, where the life is a very thin thread and he was still so cold toward you!”

“It’s alright, Frank.”

Galen rubbed Frank. His sad eyes didn’t leave his father’s image, who was speaking to the soldiers about the operation. At the line for elite warriors, he could see Kris too. But Kris just gave Galen a disgusted eye glance.

“I think there must be a reason urge him to do that with me…”

“Listen, we will split into two teams. One attack directly at Northern Gate, one will flank to their blind spot at the Western Gate!!” King Anderton announced in front of public, while riding on the horse “My son, Crown Prince Galen will command the second team and I the first team! The victory is within each of your hands, so let’s bring the victory to Tredia!!”

Galen hid Frank into his cape and rushed to his horse as well.

“Frank, it’s my time!!”

“Okay!! Good luck, kid!!! I wish your father will change his point of view about you after this war too!!!”

“FOR TREDIA!!” As the alarm horns echoed, it was when Tredia Army – with 2000 people, began launching the conquest to the capital of Balony Kingdom.

At the halfway rushing down from the summit of the mountain, Galen shouted “SPLIT!”. It was when the army of Galen separated from his father’s and secretly launched the attack by flanking to the western gate, the weakest gate to defend since it was covered by thick forest so there were fewer people use this gate.

Galen looked behind his army. He also noticed Kris was in the same with his team too.

***

“KYAAHHH!”

Galen with his soldiers easily broke the western gate and invaded the civilian area of the capital. The innocents didn’t have time to react to this sudden attack, they screamed, ran away like the broken ant colony.

Just at his first step inside the fortress, Galen was shocked by a sudden terrible smell attacking his nose. It was the smell of the corpse and the bad environment inside this capital. Everyone had to live in a bad rural condition and the poverty completely covered this area! It urged him to anger more and motivated him to destroy this Balony Kingdom’s royal system. If he could, he would like to help Balony folks to survive this crisis and bring happiness to them!!

The soldiers of Balony approached Galen’s team and the official clash exploded, intensively and chaotically. Galen controlled his horse, rushed forward and slashed his sword to the enemies. Despite being a kind person, Galen had no choice to show his eventual attitude toward the war and become the proper leader of everyone. In the art of the war he learned, if he wants a better future for Balony Kingdom, the sacrifice must require!

Next to him, Kris went rampaged to the enemies like a maniac. He rose his claymore to the sky, the flame covered his weapon. The scream of the enemy side soldiers echoed Galen’s ears as Kris jumped up above and slammed on the ground, caused the insane fire explosion in the middle of the enemy’s crowd and pushed them back being burnt. Galen was impressed by Kris’s combat capability. So this was his true power…

Suddenly, Galen noticed a Balony soldier attacked Kris from behind. He rushed his horse behind Kris and swung his sword to save his life.

“Are you okay?” Galen asked.

“Hm! Not your business, useless prince! I just didn’t pay careful enough!”

Ignoring Galen, Kris just kept going to join the battlefield. At this time, Galen also lost his patience, he angrily shouted out.

“I’LL SHOW YOU!! I’LL BECOME THE GREATEST KING EVER!!” Then Galen jumped into the crowd and fight.

***

The war was going more smoothly than Galen thought. He could hear the exciting scream in the northern direction so he believed that his father also got an opportunity at the main gate as well!

In this case, he decided to lead his team to the Palace. “To The Palace!!” He shouted, everyone followed him too. Meanwhile, Kris was enjoying his victory for killing countless soldiers. He was annoyed when his job hadn’t been done yet and obligated to follow Galen to the palace.

They had been rushing, clashing, fighting, defeating the soldiers who were defending the palace. The more swings of the sword, Galen saw that his armor had been splashed by more blood. He felt guilty for himself, but he had no other choice…

However, when they climbed to the highest corridor of the fortress and head to the palace gate, and dived into the chaos of the war, suddenly, Galen felt something not right!

His horse went crazy, didn’t listen to his control anymore.

It neighed a loud sound and dragged Galen to the border of the corridor, slammed him to the wall as if it was attempting to kill him.

Bang!

“AHH!!”

Galen screamed in agony when his body got slammed into the wall by the power of the horse's weight. 

“Hey!! What’s wrong with you??” Kris was stunned and screamed to Galen.

“I don’t know!!!”

This is bad! Galen thought. He bit his lips, he was sure that someone was trying to control his horse!!

When the horse dragged Galen to the border of the corridor and jumped off the fortress, Galen could feel his body was falling along with the horse as well. Beneath him was the sea of fire, the ground was cracked into a huge cliff that led him to the dark unknown depth…

But what he was shocked the most… Galen couldn’t believe his eyes anymore…

…it was his father, who was using a magic spell to control the horse and try to kill him.

“Fa…father?

Why…

…why do you do that to me?”