Chapter 6: The dragons

Erbalar was exhausted. He flew over many villages in which life was present, and he shouted to the northerners to flee. Gaal continued to pursue him and did not pay attention to the locals. Finally, Erbalar flew long enough to get close to Hoogmeerfall. And he saw several dragons.

"Help, brothers," Erbalar shouted.

Chekwansilorush was the first to react and flew to Gaal. The dragons sitting below and communicating with the ikhagatbers. Farum, Ulli, Fernir, Randair, Hafron and Releks instantly took off, and also headed towards Gaal. Some other dragons were already in the sky.

Erbalar was so tired of flapping his wings, that he starts to lose speed, and he finally landed on one house, destroying it. But Gaal was already distracted from him. Chekwan released fire blasts at Gaal, and the fiery dragon decided to pursue Chekwan.

Ansellellor suddenly appeared next to the ikhagatbers.

"Ah, that's where Gaal is," he said.

The ikhagatbers prepared to cast their spells.

"You're one of the First," Eickshamweit shouted.

"Yes, I'm one of them, but I'm on your side. I'll now open a portal, and you'll connect by your telepathically magic with the one who Gaal is chasing now and ask him to fly into the portal. Let Gaal have a little fun on Kaartarnar," Ansell proposed.

The ikhagatbers exchanged glances and nodded to Eickshamweit.

"We agree," Eickshamweit said.

"Good!" Ansell said.

Ansellellor cast a portal spell, and the ikhagatbers were able to connect with the Chekwan's mind, who had already begun to move away along with other dragons that tried to distract Gaal on themselves, but the fire dragon did not react to others but flew only after Chekwan. The portal opened, and a planet with maroon soil and volcanoes could be seen, lava spreading, forming orange-colored lakes. There was a kind of light gray smog in the sky. Chekwan flew into a huge portal, and Gaal flew after him. The rest of the dragons wanted to fly into the portal to help Chekwan, but the portal closed, and Ansellellor ​​disappeared.

Farum flew up to the ikhagatbers.

"Is this the one I thought of? Was it one of the First?" Farum asked.

"Yes," Eickshamweit replied, "maybe it was a trick, I don't know, but he took Gaal somewhere, and we certainly would not have dealt with the fiery dragon!"

"But Chekwan flew in there! And I promised my brothers that we will not lose anyone else!"

Suddenly a portal appeared and Chekwan flew out of it, followed by two black streams of smoke, which almost immediately disappeared somewhere.

"Uff, I don't know what this place was, but it's really hot there! Better this coolness of the north!" Chekwan said.

Erbalar decided to approach them, all this time he just lay in the rubble of the house. Now Duvarl and Ashneer flew up to him to see if everything is alright.

"Thank you, brothers, for taking Gaal away, or he would have burned me!" Erbalar said

"Traitor!" Ulli shouted to him.

"Ulli, why are you so hateful?" Erbalar asked, "you were with a false mother, you believed in a false prophecy –"

"Have you already talked with the ikhagatbers, do you know the truth?" Farum interrupted him.

"I don't know, I suppose. What kind of truth are you talking about? I was looking for you, brothers, as well as our mothers! That we fought–"

"It doesn't matter anymore," Farum interrupted him again, "These ermirians," and he shook his head towards the ikhagatbers, "are about to change your view of life, brother."

Ansellellor suddenly appeared.

"A curious adventure," he said.

"Here comes our father!" Farum said loudly. All the dragons approached. Some sat in the snow, others preferred to hang in the air flapping their wings, which annoyed the ikhagatbers, since the dragons with their huge wings created the additional wind, cooling the tired, frozen faces of the old men.

"The First, please transform them to the ermirian-like form, we know that when they lie with their mothers, they turn– "Eickshamweit wanted them to stop flying around.

"Actually, not quite so," Ansell interrupted him. "Yes, mothers give birth to dragons," he looked at several dragons," but we inject the seed of dragons from another planet into the bosom of askaldenfirsts. If we were engaged in straight bloodline to interbreed, then, I suppose, the dragon race would have degenerated long ago. We just loved the legend."

The dragons did not restrain themselves from such information and sent streams of fire into the sky.

"What is he talking about?" Erbalar could not believe what he just heard.

"This is our 'creator', Erbalar," Ulli said disgustedly.

"Creator?"

Farum nodded to the ikhagatbers.

"Now I'll show you everything," Eickshamweit said and cast a spell that telepathically transmits knowledge.

Erbalar nearly fainted.

"Has the problem with Gaal been resolved, creator?" Fernir asked suddenly.

"I showed my former colleagues that they would not be able to control Gaal, and in the end, after an unthinkable amount of mutual counterarguments, we agreed," Ansell tried to smile, but again his face showed an expression of guile and sneer. "I sent some of the ermirians to another planet to get them used to it. If my colleagues decide to return Gaal, then we'll all have to move to Malderfir".

"I don't believe it!" Erbalar shouted, "I have a mother, Lisandersterna, and she was created by the true barzandakors, the true half-gods, true First! And you are some old arqilunian liar!"

"Sorry, but I'm telling you the truth. But yes, your mother is Lisandra, that's for sure, Erbalar. But we are the First, we created both Lisandra and her enemies. I, however, tried little to participate in this, but we, the First, are just intelligent beings from another planet. We are long-lived and have some knowledge and magic, but there are not many of us. And my colleagues come up with various ways to take over different planets, but I gave up such a life."

"And all of this only because of some mineral?!" Erbalar can't calm himself. "And you know, old man, that I saw the forgotten tribe of tukhtaashes in the east, near the ocean, and I saw that they could control Gaal.

"What?" Ansellellor was genuinely surprised. "Indeed, I couldn't figure out how to find Gaal some time ago. Hmm... Someone can control him. I mean not someone, but tukhtaashes from the other continent can control him. It's very interesting!"

"Is that true?" Farum asked, referring to Erbalar.

"Yes, Farum, I saw it myself," Erbalar replied.

"What do you think of that, First?" Farum asked.

"I think that I need to think about, I need to go, bye!" and after these words, Ansell said something to himself and disappeared.

"Bye? That's all? And this is our creator, our father?!" Talaf asked in surprise.

"At least he said that our mothers are real, and we are not lying with them! The First are taking dragon seed from somewhere," Randair put in.

"But they don't create it themselves, do they?" Irkir asked.

"It seems so," Farum replied.

"So we have our real fathers somewhere, and it turns out that we are not brothers to each other," Irkir concluded.

"Our mothers gave birth to us, and they can be called sisters, which mean we are still brothers!" Farum said.

In the meantime, the ikhagatbers said something to each other in their ancient language, where a simple word could be pronounced several minutes, and some words were pronounced for several hours. Then they stood in a circle and began to conjure. Several dragons took to the air.

"What are you doing?" Farum was surprised. The ikhagatbers did not answer.

Ulli with rage fired a powerful blast into the spot where the ikhagatbers stood, but the fire hit the dome.

"We must fly away, brothers!" Randair suddenly shouted.

"They're our allies, aren't they?" Releks hesitated.

Farum realized that something was wrong!

"Fly away! Fly to the south! Brothers! Now! Now!" and he took off himself.

And then suddenly hundreds of the huge ice spears fell from the sky. One spear nailed Fayroar's wing, another completely pierced the body of Piraksimonish, one spear hit Talaf's eye as he took off and he fell directly on the taking off Beliks. Beliks crashed and then tried to get out from under Talaf's body.

Duvarl and Armale fell right next to the ikhagatbers, several spears sticking out of the dragons' bodies. The dying Duvarl tried to spew flame towards the ikhagatbers, but he failed and died, and only pain reflected in his dead eyes. The spear hit Releks' tail and he howled and spewed a stream of fire, hitting Balar, and the green dragon with brown lines lost direction in flight, and the spear hit him, he fell a little further from the ikhagatbers.

Fayroar ripped a wing in two places and ran north. Mirdar and Irkir were also hit by spears right in their wings and bodies, and they fell dead even further away from the ikhagatbers. Almost all of the other dragons were wounded but were able to fly away or run far enough from the spell's area.

Waving his wounded wing, Farum looked over to where the ikhagatbers were and said,

"It doesn't matter who created me, and it doesn't matter what path I took, I will devote the rest of my life to the extermination of all of you, ugly, deceitful ermirians!"

And he flew after the brothers, some began to land and walk because the wounds did not allow them to fly. Soon they moved far enough from Hoogmeerfall.

"Forgive me, brothers," Releks shouted suddenly, "this is my fault!"

"No, brother," Farum shouted to him, "this is the fault of these disgusting small creatures, snunorfs, ikhagatbers, arqilunians, oldenmessers, dwarfs and others, I don't care who created them, I don't care who created us, we are intelligent beings and they want to exterminate us! And I won't let that happen!"

"Yes, I've always told you, Farum," the wounded Ulli said, "extermination of bad species is the way to prosperity, otherwise our kind will disappear forever!"

"Now I understand, brother," Farum said, "no more talks with these creatures, now we will follow the rule that everyone is a threat, and we must eliminate threats."

"I don't support it," Erbalar shouted, walking behind him with wounded wings.

"Traitor!" Ulli reminded him again.

"You too! You have been deceived several times!" Erbalar persisted, "I was with my mother, and she wanted to save the ermirians! Not all of them are liars or want us harm! Two flew on me, and they were reasonable, and they've stopped me from being foolish!"

"Ermirian slave!" Ulli shouted, "Go, fly if you can, ask a healing from your masters!"

"Erbalar, you are my brother," Farum said, "but you are not in my place. I have made my decision, and my brothers will support me. And you must decide who you are with! If you stay with us, you will burn Ermir, just like Gaal. If you leave and interfere with us, you will become our enemy!"

"And what about our mothers?" Erbalar asked. "If our mothers decide not to destroy Ermir, then what?"

"We will convince them!" Farum said.

"And what if they refuse?" Erbalar asked.

"Then we will burn our mothers!" shouted Farum with anger.

Some of the dragons exchanged glances and decided to stop to wait for Erbalar.

"Are you seriously going against the mothers?" Chekwan asked.

"If they decide to help these pathetic creatures, then yes," Farum admitted.

"And what about our kind?" Chekwan asked.

"What kind? A kind of puppets without fathers, a kind of creatures that were born from the seed, which was forcibly injected into our mother-dolls?" asked Farum angrily, "Are you talking about of that kind?"

"A few minutes ago you've said that you want to save our kind!" Chekwan exclaimed in surprise. "How you can save our family if you destroy the mothers?"

Farum did not answer.

"I'll not fly to exterminate the ermirians," Erbalar said suddenly as he made up his mind.

"You barely can walk, traitor," Ulli put in.

"I will stay with Erbalar," Chekwansilorush said confidently.

"And I'll stay with my brother!" Hafronsilorush supported him.

"I'm with them too, I'm sorry, Farum," said Releksdalfiaks.

"You said it was your fault!" Farum shouted, addressing Releks, "And instead of avenging your brothers, you choose the side of the renegades!"

"You are willing to sacrifice our mothers, Farum," Chekwan told him, "I see that it is you who will lead our kind to extinction!"

"Traitors!" Ulli roared, "Leave them, Farum, we have nothing to talk about with them." And Ulli, Farum, Irkir, Fernir, Randair and Mirdar went in one direction, unable to make the flight. Farum turned around and saw Ashneer and Halicksimonish.

"Are you staying too?" Farum was surprised.

"Yes, and I hope when we meet again, we will still be brothers," Ashneer said.

Farum turned away and with the other dragons went south, the rest followed them with their eyes because they were going to move also south, to the Belt of Twilight.