Chapter 5 Sword of Fire

It was the first day back to school from Christmas break and Dallas was running late, as usual. His brother Kane was waiting in his Firebird, revving the engine impatiently.

The brothers fought constantly but the moment someone crossed either, they both tag teamed them and never lost a fight. Dallas was 6’7” tall with bright red hair and the temper to go with it, while Kane is only an inch shorter and has much darker red hair. Everyone knows you don’t cross the Ember brothers, but they also know they will stand and fight for those in need. The only thing they can’t stand more than each other is someone being bullied or treated wrong.

When the boys finally made it to school an hour late, Kane came into the parking lot at full speed leaving tire marks as he did a doughnut around the truck and trailer parked in the back of the parking lot. Kane came to a quick stop, slamming Dallas’s head into the dash. The boys ran to the door, but they were locked already. Dallas pushed the speaker button and asked the office if someone could come let them in. while the boys waited outside Dallas was messing around with the sword.

“Look at me I’m the dragon slayer, no one can stop me…” Dallas was interrupted by the school Principal, “Late again, Mr. Ember and again please leave our sword alone. One of these days you’re going to break it and somehow hurt yourself and somehow it’s going to be my fault, so please just don’t!”

Before he stepped away Kane stood beside him, smarting off to the principal as usual. Colt and his crew were watching from the parking lot and noticed the sword began to smoke a little.

“I think we might have found our next two chosen ones, but they are going to be rough!” said Colt, “Let’s wait and talk to them after school, maybe take some time to rest while we wait.”

It wasn’t even lunch time, and the boys were being escorted out the front door and clearly being sent home for the day. Colt figured it was now or never and they approached the boys cautiously.

“Hey guys, we would like to talk to you…” Colt began to say but the boys went into fight mode seeing a large group of people coming at them. After a few minutes of fighting everyone, Alioth and Aetos changed into their protector forms and detained the boys to give Colt a chance to speak to them.

“Guys, we are not here to fight you. We need your help but if you guys are going to be loose cannons, we will save the world without you. “Colt said straight to their faces.

Kane quickly replied’ “Save the world, wait a minute I want in. I can control myself; I can’t talk for my brother though!”

“I am more in control of myself than my brother ever will be. You can count on us to help anyone. What do you need from us?” asked Dallas.

“Well, you know that sword over there that you got in trouble for messing with. I need you both to go over there and pull it out of the stone, but when you do it is going to wake up that dragon. That dragon is the protector of the sword, and it is going to be mad, and it is going to come after you and us and anyone to get that sword back. We will have to find a way to fight and win against it. So far, all the protectors have surrendered and joined our team and I hope we can do the same here. I am hoping there is some power in the sword that allows you to control the dragon once defeated.” stated Colt.

The boys knew the principal would still be watching and waiting for them to drive off, so they would have to be sneaky. They walked through the cars and around the side of the building and walked along the edge of the building just out of the view of the front door. They reached out and grabbed the sword which ignited destroying the rock it was embedded in. The Ember brothers ran to the others, who were already in fighting positions. As the boys took up their positions, they looked at the school and saw… nothing. The dragon wasn’t there. Suddenly a shadow moved across them, and they looked to the sky where they could see the dragon flying around in the sky. It circled around and then as quickly as it took to the sky, it began to dive, right towards the group. Dallas noticed the dragon’s belly began to glow and yelled at everyone to get out of the way just in time for the dragon to breathe fire where the group had just been standing. Dallas stood and took his sword and began swinging his sword towards the dragon but knew he would never be able to hit it in the air. While he was swinging the sword, Kane noticed the fire on the ground began to dance in a rhythm following the motion of the sword.

Kane shouted at Dallas, “The sword can control the fire, use the fire as a weapon against the dragon!”

The next time the dragon flew low enough, Dallas took the sword and in a deliberate way moved the sword to make the fire move like a fire whip, striking the dragon across the wing. The dragon took a hard plunge into the parking lot landing on a few of the cars. While the dragon was down Dallas passed the sword to Kane who used the sword to make fire chains to hold the dragon down to the ground. They slowly began to approach the dragon and as they got close, they noticed he was about to spit fire right at them. Before they could think, Kane struck the sword down inches from the dragon’s snout, allowing the boys to divide the fire, hide behind the sword, and stay safe. Finally, the dragon spoke, “You truly born of fire, meant to be one with and control the sword and fire within. The sword and I are one and I must go with it. I am Thraxal and I am at your service from now on.”

The convoy now consisted of Colt’s truck and trailer, A.J. ’s Corvette, Kane’s Firebird, Ranger the Griffin, and Thraxal the Dragon, it was a sight to see coming down the road. Even with everyone together the last sword would be the most difficult. Eris was not going to just give it up and she is known for being an expert in chaos, there is no way to be ready for what she might bring. Everyone would have to be at their best and ready for anything. As the group headed south to Scarbury, they knew it was getting close to time to go after Ragnar and none of the battles so far would compare to the one to come. Everyone traveled in silence, Colt on Ranger, A.B. drove the truck, A.J. followed in his car, Kane followed closely behind in his Firebird, and Dallas flew above on Thraxal. It would be the longest part of their journey so far; it would take them 2 weeks to get to Scarbury. After eight days of traveling through the wide-open fields of lower Renanne, they came to a beautiful lake that looked like it went on for miles. As they pulled in, they saw a sign “Bragg Lake.” There was a small town right on the lake and the group went into town to reload on supplies for the rest of their journey. Colt was talking with the town Sheriff about heading down to Scarbury and asked him for the best route. The Sheriff looked at Colt sideways and questioned him why anyone in their right mind would want to go there. After a few minutes of arguing why he should just stay and enjoy Bragg Lake, the Sheriff finally gave him directions down the Bluff River.

As the team loaded supplies and headed out down the trail, they could tell it would not be an easy route. There were no roads from here on, they decided to leave the trailer behind in Bragg City with the Sheriff. The trail went right along the side of Bluff River and when they were at river level, the trail would be washed out and they would have to use Colt’s 4-wheel drive to pull out the other cars, making the trip take forever. When they weren’t at river level, they drove carefully across ridges that were barely wide enough to drive across and a few times the edges gave way almost causing the team to go plummeting to the river below.

As the group passed through the Rockwall Mountain Range Colt noticed a clearing at the base of the mountains close to the river. The clearing had mountain ridges circling it on all sides with a small opening on the riverside. He thought to himself this would be a good place to come back with everyone to train and set up camp before we march off to war.

After three weeks of traveling and almost losing a few team members, they finally made it to the outskirts of Scarbury. Scarbury seemed like a ghost town. It was clear why the Sheriff was concerned about the group coming here. It looked like a hurricane had swept in from the Baldwin Sea and left few survivors, but the weird thing was hurricanes never came from the Baldwin Sea and it only hit this town and nowhere else.