"The last one is kept somewhere on the Artarak," she said.
"Where shall we be going then? It's not like we can be in all those places at once, we are only five," I said.
"You mean four," she corrected. We all knew what she was implying when she said that.
"How long are we going to go without him? We need the power of the Siege if we are to succeed. We don't even know who the Homage is," Jacob began ranting. Ciara kept quiet and didn't offer any kind of response until the football players were done practising. We then moved on to the school library which was our rendezvous point since it was the least suspicious. We waited in the last aisle for Kendall to arrive. It didn't take him long to get there and we soon found ourselves in Artarak lobby where Ciara continued her briefing.
"I asked Jovenor to meet us in the conference room where we would be discussing the best course of action," she said. I had been tasked with helping Kendall catch up to speed. By the time we entered the conference room he was on the same page as all of us.
"Took you guys long enough," Jovenor complained while he looked at a hologram of Armensia that floated on above the table.
"How is the situation Jovenor?" I asked.
"Alpha Ciara, I propose that you get your Siege on board since he has the power to stop time in your world. It is for this reason that we can only call on the artras at this specific time and only for a short time. It is almost like you are not even here at all," Jovenor sounded annoyed.
"What happened?" Ciara asked him ignoring the tantrum he was throwing.
"The combat elves were attacked by the Caspro Burnes and he took their totem whilst you were in your world, unreachable as always," he said, "that's not all, the Ice and Fire Dragons were attacked too, their totems were also taken."
"How many casualties were there?" Ciara asked.
"I don't think you get it, without the artras, there is not much the rest of us can do against the magic of the Beasts. So we took the course of action that we could for the mean time. The Dark mages need seven totems, so we gave them those three. They are useless to them without the rest," Jovenor explained.
Ciara tool a moment of silence to think. She had not yet shown a reaction to the information she had been given. There was only so much the four of us could do. We all knew we could not be in six places at once, so in this situation it seemed like we only had four places left to protect. "What does this map do?" she asked.
"It monitors the current situation of the other places bearing the totems. I would assume Travas would split his forces in order to retrieve this totem, but he is being as careful as he can and carefully planning these raids. He took out the most powerful strongholds in your absence. We had diverted most of our resources to protecting the other totems that are not yet in his possession," he said.
"Why don't you change the location of the totems?" Ciara asked.
"We cannot do that. Haven't you heard? The totems are so powerful they cannot even be lifted by an ordinary Armensian," he said.
Then how did they get to their locations in the first place," I finally spoke up infuriated.
"They were put there by the Great Beasts themselves and since the Dark mages possess the power of those Beasts, they can hold them. I would say the same for the artras, but it was only Jekyll who brought the one in possession of the artras here himself," he explained.
"You said there is a totem here, but we have no idea where it is. An object of that much power would be impossible to hide," Ciara asked.
"Sometimes people say that Jekyll should have finished the Dark mages off when he had the chance for his power was unmatched to this day. If you have never seen the totem, then it is no surprise," Jovenor said and as if on queue, the map on the table began flashing red.
"The forest of Alm has been attacked, Alpha. Get there and prevent the calamity we face," he said.
Ciara wasted no time in summoning the portal that would take us to the forest in which the community of Dragon riders resided. I still didn't understand something about this world. There were so many kinds of dragons that it never made any sense. "So this is it, we are going against the Dark mages in our current state?" Jacob asked indifferently.
"We are on the defensive, don't try to be a hero. Our job is to protect the totem, I also want to see if we can move it," Ciara said.
"Didn't Jovenor just say we couldn't?" I asked.
"There isn't much we can do right now. If we could at least hide the existence of the remaining totems from Travas, we could slow down his plans. You guys remember the phrase 'Rise of the Great Seven'?" Ciara asked.
"Yes, it is what the messenger told Texan that day we found him at the cave in the north," I said remembering the weird encrypted conversation the two of them had on that day.
"Wait," Jovenor called before he moved to the portal that Ciara had just made and cast magic on it, "The portal will drop you exactly where the totem is. To be honest with you, I have never felt less faith in the artras than I do now. It's not your fault, your predecessors screwed up, we all understand that. And for that reason the dragon riders have agreed that they will aid you in your task. Good luck, artras." He said.
I didn't like the sympathetic look he gave us, but he was right in everything he said. We needed the luck if we were going to stand a chance in beating Travas at all. All generations of artras before us had the luxury of being trained while they grew up, but here we were incapable of even the simplest of complex spells and yet we were expected to achieve more than all the previous generations before us. The odds were stacked against us in ways none of us liked to admit, but we weren't about to abandon the people of Armensia just because we were scared of the odds of us winning this battle. Cara was the first to step through the portal followed by Kendall, then Jacob and finally me. I paused a bit before going through.
"What if we meet Travas on the other side of this portal?" I asked the wizard.
"My best advice to all of you then would be to run," he said, "but since you know about the rules of Armensian magic, you know he cannot kill you directly with his own magic, but there are a number of things he can do. Keep your distance from him," the wizard said, "there is a lot I could tell you to do, but I would only end up wasting time and doom your friends.
All this would have been easier if you had been trained growing up. Trust your instincts, at the end of it all, magic always comes down to that when you're out of options." With that said, I walked through the portal. I couldn't tell if he had been helpful or not. There was still a lot that none of us knew about Armensia and yet we all still walked into battle. One thing I knew about this was, it was not going to be the same or as easy as it was when we dealt with Texan the first time.
The forest of Alm was like nothing I expected from my imagination of forests. The forest itself bore trees whose girth was as wide as that of a lighthouse. This forest was said to have stood for the same time as the life of Armensia itself. We currently stood in a clearing that was nearly as large as a football field. At the centre of the clearing which was close to where Ciara's portal had opened was the largest tree stump I had ever seen. On the tree stump itself resided a staff. On further inspection the staff was intricately designed and well crafted that the top of it looked like an eagle perched on a ball. The eagle itself had its wings outspread as though it was getting ready to set to the skies. "Wow," was the only thing that came out of my mouth.
"I know right," I heard Kendall's voice beside me. I looked at him and noticed he was in awe of something rather than the staff. I followed his line of site and saw that he was merely facing the treeline. At first I didn't see it, but after squinting I finally saw what he meant. The trees themselves had parts of them that looked like windows and doors. This was forcing me to look more clearly. These big trees had been exploited and turned into homes. The trees continued to grow and the inhabitants did nothing to hinder that and instead built inside of them.
"Talk about a tree house," I barely said before Kendall and I began laughing, I just had to. That was still not all that this forest was offering us. Surrounding us was a total of eight dragon riders. Two of them, a man and a woman, elves no doubt, dismounted and approached us. They both looked like they had seen their share of the battle field as they had the scars to prove it. It took me far longer than I would have liked, but eventually I recognised the man that stood before me. He was one of the dragon riders that welcomed us to Armensia the first day we arrived. He accompanied Caspro Burnes in that day. Since Caspro had left the Elder council, I guess it left a power vacuum of sorts.
Ciara was the one to approach him and ask for the report. Ever since coming to Armensia we had learnt that it was proper for the artras to let the alpha speak for them. As long as we were in the same place and we were to act formal, the alpha would be the one to handle communication such that there was no contradiction. As such we all left the talking to Ciara when we were in the presence of high ranking Armensian officials ('I am not even sure I should call them that'), more like leaders.
"It's good to see you are okay, Elder Warren," Ciara greeted. The name didn't even strike a chord in my head.
"I was never properly introduced, my name is Warren Sanders. It was I who took over Caspro's place as leader of the Elves. No time to catch up, I'm afraid. We spotted an eagle heading for the centre of the forest of Alm. We also detected the power coming from it as none other than that of Abigail, one of the Dark mages responsible for enslaving the Great Eagle," he said.
"So the Dark mages are really making their move," Ciara said.
"Yes, and we are to protect this totem. We cannot risk losing another one to the Dark mages," the man said, "I must warn you though, we will be dealing with more than just one of the Dark Seven. Reports from the others indicate that the mages have been facing more than one of them. They wouldn't send just Abigail alone. Stay alert," he explained.
The dragon riders had already began forming a circle around the totem hovering several feet in the air in preparation for the coming terror. I began to feel the same dread I felt the day we fought Texan. The dark mages were coming closer. Kendall positioned himself to my right such that he was ninety degrees from me in regards to the totem. Jacob did the same on my left and I took the other side leaving Ciara there. This was so we guarded the totem from four sides.
"I hate being backed up against a corner," Jacob said.
"I know man," I replied.
Just then Ciara went up to the totem and reached for it. It was humming with power just by her coming close to it. "If we could move it, this would be a lot easier," she said before holding it with one hand and attempting to lift it. It didn't budge prompting her to use both hands. It still remained firmly planted on the tree stump.
"No one had been able to move that thing in more than a thousand years," the Elder said from his dragon that also now hovered in the air along with the others, their backs all turned to the totem. "It was placed there by the Great Eagle herself a long time ago when the rules of Armensian magic were written."
Ciara eventually gave up and walked back to her position where she stood ready and unmoving. i closed my eyes in an effort to pinpoint the origin of the feeling of dread I was having. As expected it was coming from beyond the treeline, but beyond that I couldn't tell which direction the Dark mage was in let alone what they doing at the moment. "Ciara, what does the Great Eagle command?" I asked, remembering her saying that each Beast controlled something that made them extremely dangerous.
"She commands wind," she said.
"Oh, that is just great," I cursed under my breath as the air around us stilled. I pretty much knew what was going on now that Ciara had told me that. This Great Bird of Prey couldn't be better suited to control any other element other than the one it relished in every day of its life. Everything had gone dead quiet and the only thing that could be heard was the gentle flapping of the eight majestic dragons that hovered in the sky above us. The tension in the air doubled as we had all pretty much predicted that our situation was about to take a turn for the worst.
"Brace yourselves, artras," the Elder spoke calmly. Due to the dead silence he didn't even have to shout for all of us to get the message. It was about to get terribly windy, and we all needed to have the best footing if we to even stand a chance in this battle. My only wonder was with the dragons, how were they going to fare in a fight where the element that helped them fly was being used against them. Regardless, the riders all looked ready for what was to come. I had been practising a bit of earth magic though I wasn't quite good at it. I used the little I knew to brace my feet firmly to the ground and crouched down for more stability. I saw the other do something similar to avoid being knocked back. Good thing we wore our armour, although this didn't exactly cool my nerves.
"Here she comes," Ciara said sounding like she was getting ready for a race. The instant she said it, all hell broke loose, it was like nothing I had expected since we even signed up for this battle.