Path of Dragons-Chapter 4Book 9: : The Eternal War

A gentle breeze rustled Elijah’s hair as he watched the last of the refugees being escorted down the dock and to their new lives. The evacuation had gone much like the first, though for entirely different reasons. Davika, Mako, and their people had gone willingly, mostly because they had been pushed to their limits and they trusted him. The second group went because they were terrified of the alternative.

Elijah hadn’t intended to force anyone to do anything. He wasn’t in the business of bullying people. But his entrance – in all his green-blazing glory – had suggested something far different. They’d gone with him out of fear.

Hopefully, now that they were in Ironshore, they would get over it.

Probably not, though. He’d left quite an impression on them, as evidenced by how quickly they hurried away.

“I am really not cut out for this kind of thing,” he muttered to himself.

“What kind of thing?” asked Ramik. He’d personally come to the docks to help supervise the integration of the city’s new additions. He was a busy goblin, so Elijah had assumed he’d done so because he wanted something from Elijah.

“Dealing with people, mostly,” he admitted. In truth, he’d considered taking a softer tactic with the separatists, but their history with the other refugees had colored his approach. Maybe that had been a mistake. He glanced back at the setting sun. It had taken almost a week to get the people transported back, and that wasn’t even considering the travel time to the dolmen. “Do you think your sailors can get through the storm?”

“Perhaps,” Ramik admitted. “It would take a special ship. Why?”

The goblin knew a little about what Elijah had been up to, but he certainly wasn’t privy to all of the details. And it was time to change that. So, Elijah responded, “How about this? I’ll explain everything tomorrow morning over breakfast. You can give me your input on how you want to proceed.”

“Is it serious?” asked Ramik.

“Potentially. No real danger for now,” Elijah admitted. He had the harpies contained, and the tree kept the Primal Realm from growing too powerful to control. “But the more I think about it, the more I’m thinking that this could represent a significant opportunity for Ironshore.”

Indeed, of late, he’d given a lot of thought to Ironshore and, to a lesser extent, Argos. The former was his home – or close enough that it didn’t bear distinction – and the latter was the first city that had truly embraced him after the world had changed. He wanted them to succeed, and they’d both taken steps to ensure that. Ironshore was already home to some of the most powerful crafters in the world – courtesy of Carmen and the Forge of Creation – and Atticus had positioned Argos as a true global player in terms of trade. However, it felt like the time had come for Elijah to put his thumb on the scale.

They needed his support, and he was going to give it.

The first step was the soap, which he hoped would put the citizenry of both settlements on the fast track to unprecedented body cultivation. But there needed to be more. They needed fuel for their growth.

And he had an idea about how to do that while getting something he needed as well.

But now wasn’t the time to go there with Ramik. He still needed to work out some of the details in his head, and what’s more, something more important was on his mind. So, after the goblin mayor agreed, Elijah set out for the Branch, where he hoped to hear from Sadie. Fortunately, he wasn’t forced to wait for more than a few minutes before it was his turn, but he was disappointed to find that he had no new messages.

“Okay. Need a more direct approach,” he said to himself as he left the building behind. Soon enough, he found himself beside the Spires and having a nice conversation with Eryka about the relationship between space, time, and ethera. He didn’t understand half of it, but he liked her enthusiasm. After only half an hour, it was his turn, so he stepped into the center of the arched spires and waited for the spell to activate.

The first indication the teleportation was incoming was the subtle vibration of the spires. It intensified with every passing second as great flows of ethera erupted from the ley line and into the foci. Then, Eryka took hold of some apparatus attached to one of the spires and cast a spell. The Spires released the ethera with an audible exhale, and Elijah disappeared.

A millisecond later – at least according to his perception – he was somewhere entirely new. The first indication was that Eryka was gone, and where she’d stood was a stout man with a sizable beer belly.

“Step free of the Spires,” he said in a bored tone.

Elijah complied, and the second he stepped out from the boundary, he found himself in knee-deep snow. The temperature was well below freezing, and he knew it would only get worse when the sun set. So, he removed his Mantle of the Chimera, dismissing it into his ring before replacing it with the Cloak of the Iron Bear. The Mantle was great – a truly magnificent piece of equipment – but there was no substitute for the Temperate trait, which kept him warm even in the frigid air of what had once been Russia.

The surrounding forest was sparse, with trees spaced far apart, which allowed him an easy opportunity to see the city rising in the distance. Sadie had described Svotogorsk to him in her last message, but that description was a poor substitute for laying his eyes on the settlement.

From afar, it looked like one huge structure designed along brutalist sensibilities. The thick walls were made of undressed concrete, with little effort given to meaningless factors like aesthetics. In fact, as Sadie had indicated, it looked like an enormous bunker.

Given the circumstances she’d explained, that was probably a sensible route, though Elijah couldn’t help but feel a bit of disappointment. He wasn’t an expert in architecture, but he definitely liked a nice building. Svotogorsk, for all its apparent defensibility, was not that.

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What’s more, the second Elijah had arrived, he’d felt a distinct shift in the ambient ethera. It was thick, though not quite as thick as he’d felt back home. In fact, the atmospheric energy was slightly thinner than what he’d experienced on Chimera Island before conquering the Primal Realm.

But he was less concerned with the density and more worried about what came with it. Like the aura of death in Hong Kong or the mutability around and within the Chimeric Forge, the atmosphere of the area surrounding Svotogorsk had a distinct flavor as well. And to Elijah, it was vaguely familiar.

Only after a couple of minutes – during which he strode toward the city – he placed it. Once, on his way to Seattle, he’d found an old battlefield. He still had no idea who’d fought there or why, but that wasn’t what made the place interesting. Instead, the fight had been so brutal that it had changed the area’s attunement. Perhaps it would have been temporary, but there was a chance that the aura of conflict would have taken hold and become anchored to the area.

Elijah had done what he could to restore it to something more balanced.

What he felt around Svotogorsk was similar. Stronger, too. Much, much stronger, and to the point where he could already feel some of his deep-seated emotions rising in his mind. Old irritations and forgotten enmities suddenly seemed a lot more important than they had back in Ironshore.

He shoved them aside as he approached the entrance. There, he found his way barred by a half-dozen soldiers. More than anything, he wanted to simply barge in and make demands. From their hard looks, the soldiers wanted that as well. They were obviously itching for a fight.

With some difficulty, Elijah took hold of his aggression, then said, “I’m here to see…Ivanka.”

“And who are you to demand to see the leader of Svotogorsk?” asked one of the soldiers. A man, bearded and lean.

“My name is Elijah Hart.”

“That supposed to mean –”

Behind him, one of the other soldiers’ face went pale. She grabbed her comrade by the shoulder, then whispered in his ear.

“Oh,” the man said, his own complexion losing a bit of color as well. “I’ll send someone to announce your arrival.”

With that, one of the other guards took off at a run, disappearing into one of the concrete buildings only a moment later. That gave Elijah a little more opportunity to focus on his surroundings. His first impression of the bunker-like buildings was mostly accurate, though they were far more complex than he’d expected. Each one was like a town in itself, and together, they were clearly capable of housing a sizable population.

If less than a few hundred thousand people made their homes in Svotogorsk, he would have been surprised. Though the population wasn’t nearly as dense as he would have expected from the accommodations.

The people were an eclectic mix. Most had clear Nordic ancestry, with pale complexions and light-colored hair, though there were plenty of brunettes around as well. The civilians were roughly dressed in a mixture of homespun cloth, thick furs, and hardy leathers. By comparison, the fighters predominantly wore brigantine armor with stout, conical helmets. They might’ve looked a bit silly if the people wearing them weren’t so battle-hardened.

Every one of them was armed to the teeth, with multiple knives, a sword as a side-arm, and a spear. Some carried crossbows as well, though they were the minority.

The fighters were also outnumbered by the civilians by quite a lot. Maybe as many as three-to-one, which didn’t seem to fit with the militaristic impression he’d gotten from the city. Perhaps he’d been mistaken. ƒreeωebnovel.ƈom

Whatever the case, it wasn’t long before a stocky older woman approached. She was flanked by two burly guards that struggled to keep up despite much longer legs. When she arrived, she said, “You’re Elijah, eh? Sadie told me about you. Come on then. Let’s get back inside. My bones are too old for this weather.”

With that, she turned and walked away. The guards parted, letting him through, and he hurried to catch the old woman. Her pace was fast, but with Elijah’s clearly superior attributes, he had no trouble keeping up. When she saw that, Ivanka let out an annoyed but barely audible snort.

A few moments later, she was leading him through one of the concrete buildings, which were just as complex as Elijah’s senses suggested. A few twists and turns later, and they’d arrived at a cozy office. The centerpiece was a large fur rug, but there were plenty of colorful tapestries on the walls.

All except one, which played host to a detailed map of the area.

“Do you want something to drink? I have vodka,” Ivanka said, sitting behind the desk. She gestured to a leather chair covered in furs. “Sit, sit. I like your cloak.”

“No, thanks on the drink,” Elijah responded, self-consciously fingering the soft fur of the Cloak of the Iron Bear. As he sat, he added, “You should see my other one. It’s a lot shinier.”

“Bah, shiny,” Ivanka scoffed. “Fur is better.”

Elijah could tell from the décor that she believed that wholeheartedly. If he was honest, he preferred the fur look as well, though he didn’t enjoy the odd stares he got when he wore the Cloak of the Iron Bear in places like Seattle, where it definitely wasn’t suited to the environment.

Regardless, he wasn’t there to talk about fashion or gear choices.

“I came here to ask about the Primal Realm,” he said.

“No you didn’t.”

“What? I’m pretty sure –”

“You’re here to ask about Sadie Song. She’s fine, by the way. A little roughed up, but her performance in the Primal Realm is quite impressive. Without her, my people would have surely failed,” Ivanka said, pouring herself a drink. She downed it in a single gulp, then poured another. “Considering that my husband is in there too, that’s good news indeed.”

“How do you know this?” asked Elijah. As far as he knew, once someone entered a Primal Realm, they were trapped inside until it was conquered. That meant getting messages in and out was impossible.

“Oracles.”

“What?”

“We have Oracles. Two of them. They’re twins,” she explained. “One’s inside the Primal Realm. The other’s out here. Through a quirk of their class, they can communicate with one another, after a fashion.”

After that, she went on to explain that they’d sent ten thousand fighters into the Primal Realm, including Sadie and Ivanka’s husband. “Anything else would have been insufficient,” the woman concluded.

“I can help.”

“No, you can’t.”

“I don’t think you understand. I’ve already conquered two Primal Realms. One by myself. I can definitely help.”

“Ah, but you can’t enter,” Ivanka stated. “The Primal Realm sealed the second we reached its population limit. No reinforcements are possible now.”

“That doesn’t make sense…”

Ivanka shrugged. “You’re welcome to try to enter. Maybe we’re all wrong. I hope so, because they could use all the help they can get.”

Elijah nodded, then stood. “I’ll see for myself.”

“Good luck.”

He thanked her, then left the building. As soon as he was outside the city’s walls, he shifted into the Shape of Venom, then ducked behind a berm. After only a couple of seconds, he adopted Guise of the Unseen, then took off at a sprint. With his high attributes, he could move very quickly when he wanted to, so it was only an hour later when he reached his destination.

The Primal Realm was located in an old, deserted castle. According to Ivanka, when the realm wasn’t sealed, it constantly spat ogres into the world. However, now that it was closed, there was nothing around. So, he had no problems reaching the entrance. When he laid a claw on the gate in question, he received a notification:

You have reached the Eternal War. This Primal Realm is currently sealed and will not reopen until a victor is decided.

“Shit,” he hissed. As much as he wanted to help, it seemed that Sadie and the others were on their own.