Surprise!

The wind was flowing under the large purple wings of Ladon over rivers, streams, hills and mountains. The wind was rushing through Lou Ann’s hair like water through a dam. He was swinging side to side, making her dizzy, and then his deep, calm voice filled her ears, “Awake, little one, awake.”

She opened her eyes, trying to remember what had happened and where she was. All the memories came back to her when she saw the tan, concerned face of her brother Nathan, standing over her.

“She’s awake,” he breathed as he turned behind him.

Only then did Lou Ann realize that another man was there. The man had dark brown, almost black hair, curling at his neck, and bright piercing blue eyes. His eyes stared directly into hers, and for a second, Lou Ann forgot that Nathan was there at all until he put his hand on her forehead.

“You’re burning up. You should try to eat something before you fall asleep again,” Nathan said, with that brotherly tone her had used on her so many times when they were little. He only used that voice when he was pitying someone, and she did not want to be pitied right now.

“I want to get up. Now,” she said in her best impression of their mother she could muster. He looked at her for a second, squinting his eyes, and then turned towards the man again.

“Cole, why don’t you take Lou Ann outside. Fresh air does wonders to the mind and body,” Nathan said. Nathan got up, and then left the room, apparently in a hurry. The man behind him, Cole she now knew, was walking towards her with a mug of some warm, brown liquid and sat down in the chair her brother had been in moments ago.

“You have to drink something first, then I will take you somewhere… wonderful.” he said in a deeper voice then Lou Ann expected. He pressed the mug into her hands, and then sat back, staring at the ceiling.

Only then did she look over the mug around the room. It was a brick-walled room, with dark stained wood flooring. A metal counter top and sink took up the wall opposite to her bed, and a little circular window was directly behind where Cole was sitting now. After taking everything in the small room in, she turned her gaze to Cole. He was still gazing at the ceiling, and as if he could she was looking at him, he turned his blue eyes to her. He looked at her for a long time as if thinking of something that was important.

“You look a lot like Nathan,” was all he said.

“I don’t care if I look like him,” she spat at him. “I am a separate person entirely. Different ideas, different interests, different person.”

“I didn’t mean it in a bad way, your brother was one of my only good friends in the army,” he stated.

“He can be nice when he wants to, and only to people he likes. He must think you are very important or something,” she said in a bitter tone.

“The girl’s feisty,” he said as he got up and put his hand out towards her. She glared at him for a second, and then got up by herself, but when she stood up, she got very dizzy, and somehow she ended up in his careful grip.

“You hit your head pretty hard when you fell off that dragon of yours,” he said, looking into her eyes with an emotion she couldn’t quite place.

“Hmph. Well, are we going to go see that wonderful place you were talking about now?”

All he did was drop his hands, and turn around. He opened the door and stepped out of her path so she could walk through the door. She didn’t say thank you, she just walked ahead, absorbing the view.

The hallway had a very musty smell. The wall and floor were made of very dark, rough stones that held veins of fool's gold. Everything looked very wet, and mold was growing near the chipped wood trim. It was lit by blue glowing dwarven lights hanging off the walls.

“Not exactly a palace, but this place keeps us safe. It is more of a bunker in the warmer parts of the Beor Mountains. I put wards up on the door, but they aren't very strong. We were waiting for you to get up, so you could put up stronger ones to block stronger dragon riders like Galbatorix and Murtagh,” he said as they walked up a set of steep stairs. The path was still lit by the blue hanging lights, but small windows at the top of the walls every few yards let in the yellow warmth of the outside world. Lou Ann knew from the moment she looked at Cole that he was something else, but a warlock was different. Too much like Galbatorix, she thought.

The stairs ended and Cole and Lou Ann walked for another few corridors until they reached two rusty, wooden doors. They were held tight by large iron beams that were branded will the symbol of the Yawe that indicated the bond of trust. Cole quickened his pace and opened the doors with a grunt, swinging them wide enough for her to fit through easily. The world outside was entirely different than the inside of this nasty place, Lou Ann thought to herself.

They stood on a swirling marble patio with large, white marble columns holding up a sapphire blue gemstone roof that most likely cost more than her entire house in Daret. It looked like the sea, with its uneven edges reflecting blue light in odd angles. Cole sat down on marble benches that matched the columns and admired the blue light. Lou Ann went to sit next to him, but as she did, the entire structure started to shake. Cole’s head snapped up to attention, and Lou Ann reached down to find her sword, only to realize that all of her weapons were gone, taken from her for safety reasons.

Why would they take away her sword? She needed to defend herself as much as anyone else, especially when she didn’t know where Ladon was. He could be anywhere, and just the thought made her stomach turn. Galbatorix might have him. No one had told her otherwise, and she didn’t think anyone was looking for him. She was about to turn around and search for her dragon herself when a big cracking noise vibrated through the ground, and into Lou Ann’s body.

She looked up, and saw at least two hundred soldiers, all wearing Galbatorix’s uniform. Lou Ann screamed and dived for Cole, who was still standing next to the marble bench, with his sword in hand. A look of horror was one his face, and Lou Ann realized then that Nathan had indeed protected Cole the entire time in the army. He was only a warlock, and he had no battle experience.

She reached for his belt, hoping to grab one of the daggers, just as the entire roof collapsed in on them. The doors opened, and a group of soldiers came out of a bunker and collided with Galbatorix’s soldiers. The clashing of steel on steel, and of bone cracking echoed off the walls.

Lou Ann searched for her brother. What had he been wearing last? Why hadn’t she payed more attention in the bunker? Then she saw him, leading a group of five soldiers towards her. He had an odd look on his face, like he was in pain. When he reached her, she felt a wave of dizziness. She didn’t know where Cole was, and Nathan wasn’t helping her stand at all. She looked around in confusion. Nathan grabbed her arm and threw her on the ground. She realized it then. Her brother was wearing the wrong colors.

He was on Galbatorix's side, and he was a commander in his army.

Dragonslayer

A roar rang in Nathan’s ears, coming from the purple dragon nearby. Nathan’s stomach lurched as he looked at his knee. The skin around his knee was bruised from the force of the metal going through his bracers. It had a large gash about an inch long under the kneecap, and the muscle under it was torn far apart. A swordsman had flailed his sword after Nathan had caught the soldier beneath the chin with his hammer. Now, Nathan lay in a trench next to Cole. Nathan flinched as Cole probed his fingers into his skin especially deep.

“This will itch, so stay as still as you can, or the flow of magic will stop,” said Cole as he cupped his hands around Nathan’s knee.

Cole whispered a short phrase in the ancient language. The flow of magic made his skin crawl, but then the feeling subsided to a dull soreness. Cole looked white, and he was shivering from using magic on three other men before himself.  A loud clink of steel on steel brought Nathan back to the situation at hand. He looked up at the sky, and he saw the purple dragon produce a wave of fire, catching a wagon ablaze. A man who was fighting behind the wagon fled with a howl into a nearby lake with a tail of flame behind him.

At the sight, Nathan got up and untied Fire-Eater from a nearby tree. The pure white horse was nickering, but at the sight of his rider he calmed down quickly. As Nathan climbed onto the horse, a shot of hot, blinding pain raged through his body from his knee. He shifted blindly in the saddle, and he almost fell of, but he managed to hold on to the horn. As his vision came back, he looked at the battle field.

The Empire was winning, but the commander's grey horse was not on guard behind a row of spears and men. With a fierce cry, Nathan held his battle hammer in the air, and he charged toward the tree. When he got close, he rose in the saddle and jumped off his steed, twisted in the air, and landed in the saddle. He cringed from slamming into the horn.

Five soldiers turned around all at once, and they circled Nathan in a small loop. Nathan stuck his heels into the horse's flanks, and he caught the first two soldiers with its hooves. He grabbed a spear from one of the soldiers, turned it around, and stabbed the man in the eye. Nathan then grabbed the dagger from the soldier's belt, and Nathan stabbed it into the next. As he gurgled, the fifth soldier stopped dead in his tracks with his eyes wide, as Nathan hit him upon the head with his own hammer.

Nathan looked around for a second, waiting for more. There were none; he had killed them all within a few minutes. There was still carnage on the battlefield, a dozen soldiers were still exchanging blows with his own men. He readied himself, taking a spear, two daggers, and a mace from the men he had killed.

He jabbed his heels into the flank of the grey battle horse, tried to control it as the horse jumped over the wagons onto two of the soldiers, most likely piercing their lungs. With that distraction, his soldiers dispatched the men on the road. He handed out his daggers, mace, and spear to soldiers who did not get weapons from the dead soldiers.

The carnage was almost unbearable, and the face of a man who did not get out of the burning wagons made bile come up his throat. Nathan leaned over the side of his saddle, and he spewed his small breakfast of cheese and bread onto the roots of an old oak tree.

The battle was not over yet; the dragon was still killing Nathan’s soldiers at a fast rate. The dragon was taking down more and more of Nathan’s men. The road was strewn with blood, vomit, broken weapons, and all the carnage of dead soldiers.

With all that going on, Nathan only thought of his dead family, all killed by a dragon years ago before the fall of the riders. Their faces were stuck in his mind like it was only yesterday. He had lost his mother, father, and two younger sisters, LouAnn and Martha. If they were still alive, LouAnn would be fourteen, and Martha would be ten. He, himself, was only nineteen, old enough to find a fair wife to have many young sons to take over the throne.

Nathan’s blood lust was overpowering as he jumped over a creek and rounded the road to its north side. Squatting in the saddle, he pulled a spear out of a fallen soldier, and rode straight toward the towering purple dragon. It blew a tongue of flame at an old tree with a tower for archers rested in between the thick, sturdy limbs. Nathan watched the tree disappear in a wall of flame, right before he threw the battered spear at the dragon.

The spear flew true, and it hit the creature in the eye. The creature jerked from the pain, and it let out a gut-wrenching roar. It locked eyes with Nathan for just a second, and then she lost her focus as something fell from its back.

The dragon’s rider hit the ground with a dull thunk. The dragon fell to the ground beside her, letting out a wail unlike anything Nathan had ever heard before. Nathan got up, and he slowly stepped towards the Dragon-Rider. The dragon made no move to come at him, and he sighed with relief. He took one step after another, creeping to the woman. He finally reached her, and pulled off her helmet. It was his sister, LouAnn.