Chapter 18: Left Behind

I finally found them. My little girl and my little boy were huddled over their mother crying their eyes out, their sweet faces peppered with fear the likes of which I never wanted them to know. My wife lay on the ground, apparently in too much pain to get up. When I couldn’t find any injuries on her, I realized in horror that she had gone into labor. Of all the places to give birth to our third child ... a dust-strewn alley that shook and cracked while a storm of fire and soot raged around us and people fleeing for their lives.

As I took my wife’s hand, my own eyes filling with tears, the look of agony and terror on her face just about broke my heart. And then, another quake shook the ground, this one much more violent than any before. It knocked me off my feet, forcing me to shield my children from the fall. As I looked behind us, I saw a massive, gold, and scaly foot with claws the size of fighter jets ripping through the earth only a few yards away from us. I looked up to see the glowing red eyes of the Golden Dragon staring down at me from hundreds of feet up in the air, growling so loud that it reverberated throughout my whole body.

“Okay, I’m lost. How’d you know that Éclair was going to rescue us?” asked Ryan breathlessly while trying to keep up with Leon and Éclair.

Leon took the lead as they ran down flight after flight of stairs. Éclair ran in the middle and Ryan took the rear. So far, they hadn’t run into any guards, but Ryan was more concerned about dying from exhaustion.

Either they run like gazelles or I’m out of shape! Maybe a little of both!

“I reasoned that it was highly likely Éclair had escaped her captors and was somewhere in the vicinity,” responded Leon coolly without even breaking stride.

“How’d you figure that?” asked Ryan, trying to sound less winded than he really felt.

Even while staring at the back of his head, Ryan could just picture the smug look on Leon’s face. “Elementary, my dear Watson! It was fairly obvious even to someone not in the detective business. The building was on lockdown when we arrived, but rather than focusing their forces to keeping intruders out, most of the personnel were localized in the interior as if to keep something in.

“You tend to notice these things when you’ve seen as many large corporation complexes as I have. Plus, the way that Lord Gregory and Galzar behaved told me the rest. So, while you were distracting them with your clever foolishness, I sent out a telepathic signal designed to key in on Éclair’s specific psionic signature.”

Ryan couldn’t help but be impressed. “And here I thought you were just moping in silence.”

“I may be quieter than you at times, but I never mope.”

“But Éclair; how did you know where to find us?”

“My medallion showed me the way,” she explained.

“Really?! I think I may have forgotten mine.”

“You should be more vigilant. You never know when such a thing will come in handy.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Six o’clock!” shouted Éclair abruptly while drawing her bow and turning in Ryan’s direction.

For a split second, Ryan stared down the sinister shaft of a white-tipped arrow. He barely had enough time to duck before the arrow zipped through his hair, burying itself inside the arm of the soldier directly behind him and pinning him to the wall. The mercenary howled in pain and outrage. Before the man had time to raise his weapon, a thin layer of ice originating from the arrow grew over the length of his body until only his head remained uncovered.

“What did you do to me?! Let me outta of here! You can’t just leave me here to die!”

“Don’t worry,” said Éclair satisfactorily. “You’ll live, which is more than I can say for anyone else who tries to sneak up on us.”

Before the mercenary could say anything else, Éclair waved her hand and a thin layer of ice appeared over his mouth. Fortunately for him, Éclair left just enough space on his face for his nostrils.

“Thanks, Éclair,” said Ryan still admiring her handiwork with a sense of both awe and dread.

Éclair beamed radiantly after shooting a man and freezing him to the wall. Then in the sweetest voice ever spoken, she said, “Why, you’re quite welcome, Ryan. Looks like you did learn a few manners in my absence.”

Ryan rubbed his arm in embarrassment. Talking to Éclair was one thing; getting saved by her explored new avenues of inadequacy. “To tell you the truth, I’m a little embarrassed. We’re supposed to be the ones saving you, not the other way around. Guess you really didn’t need us after all?”

Éclair seemed a little taken aback for a moment. “Well, even if it wasn’t like you might have imagined it to be, ‘damsel in distress’ and all that jazz, I’m still very grateful. Truthfully, I was on the verge of giving up when you arrived.

“Even if you don’t think you did much, you still came all this way to help me. Not many people would be willing to do that. It took real courage. So for that, I hope you can accept my thanks, even belated as it is.”

The frozen man made a muffled sound through his ice gag, which might’ve been a disgusted groan. Ryan could only imagine what the mercenary thought of the whole affair.

Despite the circumstances, Ryan couldn’t help but grin proudly from the compliment. “Aww, go on. You’re probably right. I am the most talented Elemental of my age.”

Éclair raised her eyebrow in a mixture of annoyed amusement. “Boys. Give them a little praise and their heads swell to the size of a melon.”

“If there is anything consistent about Ryan, it’s his susceptibility to flattery,” chipped in Leon, grinning as well.

Ryan immediately crossed his arms and assumed his pouty face. “Who asked you four-eyes?”

For some reason, both of the older adolescents started laughing.

“What? What’s so funny?” demanded Ryan.

“For future reference,” said Éclair pulling back a strain of her hair in a most alluring fashion. “If you ever want to get a girl, you’d probably be better off without the pouty face. It’s cute, but maybe a little much.”

That was it! The worst possible thing she could have possibly said to him. Now all that’s left to do when the mission is over is find a hole somewhere in the wilderness and spend the rest of my life wallowing in shame!

Despite the inner turmoil in his heart from such humiliating commentary, Ryan still managed a retort. “Oh, repartee. Guess that’s why I plan to be a bachelor!”

Éclair giggled one last time and said, “Well, good luck with that,” before returning her making her bow disappear in a flash of blue light and continuing their descent down the stairway.

Ryan wished that he could stop being so awkward around Éclair. The mission was about saving the Ministry of Fire, not some middle school crush that probably would never happen. But no matter how much he tried to reason his way out of it, he couldn’t keep his mind off of her, or even give up the hope that when she smiled and joked with him, it could someday mean something more.

Ah. Young love.

The voice had returned, but this time, Ryan honestly couldn’t tell if it was the dark voice or Zand’s voice.

After what seemed like hours of running, the three finally came to a break in the stairway as the path led into a corridor. Leon brought the group to a halt in front of two iron doors with an upraised fist.

Speaking in a hushed voice, Leon said, “As far as I can tell, we’re close to the ground level of the complex, which means that we will soon be coming to the main exit. It also means that security is going to be as tight as a pickle jar from this point on.”

“What about Grafael and the others?” asked Ryan.

“Don’t worry about them. If everything has gone according to plan, they should be out of the complex by now.”

Leon’s rare bout of optimism was quickly expunged with the sound of gunfire and a familiar roar from a certain Saurian. With a burst of speed that left even Leon and Éclair in the dust, Ryan busted down the doors from their hinges. The heavy iron doors clanged! to ground loudly as he sprinted through. While turning the corner, he barely even registered the cries from Leon and Éclair as pure chaos greeted him.

Mercenaries were everywhere. Over a hundred at least pouring into the corridor from every entry point. And barreling through their ranks like a runaway train was Grafael, as well as Tork and Rachel. But something was wrong. Tork was grounded as blood dripped from his left wing. Rachel lay unconscious in his arms with a nasty gash in her shoulder. As for Silvia, the Goblin enemy that Ryan hoped to turn friend, she was nowhere to be found.

Don’t let your simpering emotions placate you this time. Unless you wish your friends to suffer an ignoble end, kill without reservation. Conflate your anger with your compassion, and turn it into power to protect your friends by destroying your enemies.

The dark voice returned, but Ryan didn’t give himself time to speculate. Paying no heed to Leon or Éclair’s warnings, Ryan ignited both hands into flames and plunged headlong into the twenty or so mercenaries that stood between him and the others. The first mercenary had his back to the door, so Ryan grabbed him by the back of his collar with his hands still aflame, hoisted him in the air, and set him on fire.

He tuned out the man’s painful screams, not giving himself time to feel guilty. Ryan took the mercenaries by surprise from behind as he pushed through them with the flaming, screaming man in his arms. He used his victim as a battering ram and a shield from enemy fire.

The burning man in Ryan’s arms eventually stopped screaming and went limp. Ryan’s barbarism surprised him, but he didn’t freeze up even though he knew that men were dying from his actions. His friends were in trouble and he needed to help them. That singular thought erased all other concerns for Ryan.

As Ryan forced his way through the rear flank, several mercenaries took notice of him and fired. Ryan raised the first mercenary’s still-burning body to catch the slugs. He then threw the seared corpse into the attacking guards, knocking them to the ground and igniting several of them, who ran away screaming.

Other guards behind him trained their weapons on him, but Ryan took them out with an expert spinning kick that Grafael had taught him. He even set his foot on fire as he spun to give his attack extra power.

Seizing on their momentary confusion, Grafael clicked something on his war hammer which caused a chain to extend from the shaft, causing the head of the hammer to fall, caving in the floor. Then, swinging the weapon over his head, Grafael used the chain-extended hammer much like a whip, crashing it into the backside of the enemies and sending scores of them flying through the air.

Ryan didn’t know that Grafael had a ranged attack in his repertoire, but considering that he relied mostly on close-quarters combat, it made sense.

Reacting quickly, Ryan finished off the rest with some well-timed blows. Each punch he threw exploded like a grenade against his adversaries, sending grown men in heavy armor flying like beach balls.

However, they had no time to celebrate. As many enemies as Grafael and Ryan had managed to defeat, they didn’t even put a dent in the guard’s overall numbers. As a wall of enemies and laser fire came rushing towards them, Ryan mentally prepared himself for death.

Then, a thick wall of ice appeared and blocked all attackers. Ryan turned behind him and saw that ice surrounded them, his breath coming out in a fog because of the cold. In the center of the ice dome, Éclair held up her arms with her brow furrowed in concentration.

Standing next to her, Leon held a sun gem in one hand and Éclair’s arm with his other hand. Éclair had erected a dome of ice to surround them while Leon fed her psionic energy from the sun gem to keep it stable.

“Next time I tell you to wait, Ryan, you had better be damn sure to do what I say, especially when-” A slight squeal of pain escaped Éclair’s lips before she could finish.

“Whatever we’re going to do, we’d better do it fast,” said Leon. The sun gem in his hand slowly shrunk in size as its energy transferred to Éclair, which she in turn transferred to the ice wall. “As soon as this sun gem disappears, so does that wall. We have seconds before an army of mercs comes crashing down on our ears! Any ideas?”

“Tork’s hurt and so is Rachel. We need to get them to safety,” demanded Ryan.

“Don’t worry about me, Ryan, old boy. Merely a flesh wound, nothing more,” grunted Tork, trying to put on a brave face despite the pain that Ryan could plainly see in his gait. “As for Rachel, I’ll give my life before I let any harm come to the Minister’s granddaughter.”

“That’s great and all, but I’m kind of in excruciating pain myself right now,” hissed Éclair through clenched teeth.

Ryan saw hundreds of bolts crashing against the newly made ice dome. Éclair strained to remake the ice that was lost, but she fought a losing battle.

“Éclair,” said Ryan in a quiet but determined voice, kneeling close to her. “Let the wall down. I’ll create an opening using my explosions while you and the others get to safety.”

“In these tight quarters, you’d only be getting yourself killed!” Blood trickled down Éclair’s nose and out her ears. Sweat beaded her beautiful, fair-skinned brow. Her eyes were closed from either concentration or pain; probably a little of both. “Look! I’ll create a hole in the dome to the exit! When I do, you guys make a run for the main gate!”

“Éclair, damn it! Open your eyes and look at me!”

Ryan could tell that it took some effort, but Éclair slowly opened her eyes. For a brief moment, the pain vanished as she was forced to concentrate on him.

“No one is leaving you behind,” said Ryan quietly. “So just get that through your thick head. We’ll find another way.”

“There is no other way!”

Before Ryan could say anything else, Grafael put a huge, scaly hand on his shoulder, and said, “Yes there is. Let down the wall. I’ll take it from here.”

“No, Grafy! I’m not willing to sacrifice you or Ryan or anyone else!”

“And yet, everyone here was willing to sacrifice their lives to save you,” he replied calmly. “If you prevent us from doing that, you’ll put to vain all efforts in getting here.”

“Grafael! You can’t do this!” cried Éclair with an even more pained expression.

“The hell I can’t! My ancestors journeyed through the stars before humans ventured from their caves. They tamed the wilds of Sauria using nothing but their strength and their will. I would shame their name as well as the name of my father if I was not willing to rise to the occasion. Now’s my chance for glory and I dare not waste it!”

“Grafael,” said Éclair somberly with tears streaming down her cheeks.

Suddenly, the wall of ice shattered. Éclair gasped and fell, but Ryan caught her before she hit the ground. As the mercenaries advanced, Grafael dug both of his hands into the metal floor plating and tugged upwards. The entire corridor shook as Grafael pulled out a hunk of metal as big as the doors to the main entrance.

With a mighty heave and a feral roar, Grafael slammed the wall of iron into the oncoming enemies and plugged up the corridor entrance once again. Grafael then flattened himself against the wall with his back. The wall buckled and shook as hundreds of men on the other side put their combined weights against it, but were held back by the will of a single Saurian.

“You are my protectorate, Éclair Hamashe!” shouted Grafael in a shaking voice. “That means that before you die, I will die in your place! That was the agreement, and the noble house of Hamashe would be put to shame if their last surviving heir broke an agreement!”

As Éclair sat trembling in Ryan’s arms, more tears came to her eyes. Until that moment, Ryan had never known such a face of pure sorrow. He felt just like she did right then. He knew what Grafael proposed made sense, and yet he didn’t want to accept it.

However, he didn’t offer any argument for the simple reason that he knew that look on Grafael’s face. The look of a man who has committed himself to doing something no matter what obstacles stood in his path or who tried to sway him. Ryan vaguely recalled that same look on his father’s face, but he couldn’t remember when.