Chapter 73: Fury

Mesh and Buddy were there offering me a hand, and I was about to when I stopped. I could hear trumpets in the far off distance; what was that? I waved the two off and then told them to get everyone inside and secure; my wives looked worried, but I told them to go help. 

"What is it, Hyde?"

Kadence was the only one that stayed with me.

"Markeye! Stop us! Kade, I can hear trumpets coming; I need you to help Breth and the rest get everyone who can fight ready, Okay? Can you do that for me?"

"Of course, but Hyde, you're scaring me; what's going on?"

"There are a lot of troops coming; I can smell and hear them, even the vibrations through the ground up here in the wagon. Please do as I ask; I am going to take a look."

"Don't do anything stupid, okay?"

Kadence hugged me and then kissed me before leaving. Why did I have this feeling that I was about to do something horrible? It was like a new sense in my stomach, something terrible was going to happen, and I would be at the center of it.

I walked over to the metal platform and was about to take off when Markeye called out to me, jogging over.

"Wait, before you go, I need to tell you something. I know we have all said the humans of this world are cruel and dangerous, but, Hyde, that is greatly understating the depth of it. Hold fast against these people; not all are bad, but someplace are a lot worse than others; Haertia is one of these places. Be strong and come back to us!"

With that, Markeye turned and left, heading back to the front of the wagon to keep watch. Markeye left me with my thought and the whirling cyclone of magical powers inside of me. What did he mean? Was I about to see some shit that couldn't be unseen? 

I didn't have the luxury of standing around and thinking for long; I needed to see what we were up against. I lit my mind up and rocketed into the air, shooting high above the House-Wagon. I watched as Markeye got smaller and then stopped at about fifty feet.

I lifted my gaze to see a large army, and they were pulling some wagons piled with a meat of some sort. I was over three miles away, so it was hard to say what it was, even with my new super-enhanced vision. I decide to move closer and start to fly in that direction, but I froze in the air when I could see clearly what the wagon held.

'I'm sorry, Hyde.' -Gripton.

'You knew this entire time, didn't you?'

Ice and fire coursed through my veins as I was able to clearly make out the grisly mess in the wagons and the one stuck down on a pike coming out the shoulder. I didn't have to guess at who it was; the mock wooden crown said it all. I also noted that Duck Face was down there two.

'You know I can't tell you what will happen and I don't know all the details. This event was going to happen no matter what we did.' -Gripton.

'You and I both know that isn't true; this is my fault. I'm the one that left that son of a bitch live; fucking Duck Face is down there right now!'

'There is only one outcome here that I see.' -Gripton.

I shot towards the army and crashed down fifty feet in front of the advancing army, making a ten-foot crater and causing the army to stop. I walked out of my crater and the leader, I assumed, since Duck Face was standing beside his horse in light armor.

"You are this so-called Great Master? I'll just assume so; my little friend here says you wanted the lizards, so we have brought most of them!"

"Most?" 

My voice boomed across the field without me even trying. The loudness didn't affect the speaker, but most others that could see me stepped back.

"Yes, well, it is the last skinning season; I think we have hunted them dry. You know, supplying for the demand, the lizards don't breed well either, so we are using the last ones for our festival. We tie them up, letting the adults skin them until they die, and then let our children finish for practice. I hear there are Crocodilefolk to the west; maybe we can..."

While the man was talking, I put up my hand in front of me. Was there a peaceful solution to this? One finger down. Could we come to terms? Another dropped. Even if they did, would I be able to do it? Did I want to? 

Only one finger remained. Did this world need the people of this army or the city? A place where torture is openly taught to the children? I closed my fist as my body began to change, and I could hear shouts coming from ahead.

I stepped forward and expanded, I was changing into a dragon again, but my magic reserve was now a bottomless pit. My black skin started to crack, leaving glowing red lines. I even used Breth's magic to make myself bigger the Marly was at her full size.

I looked down at the scurrying ants as thousand of soldiers dropped their weapons and ran, but it was too late. I breathed in and expelled fire on a section. Instantly, almost a quarter of all the troops died, cutting off that side, but the fire wasn't done. The fire started to explode and jump, then explode again, repeating up to ten times. I breathed a path on the other side and prevented the escape, and the troop died a horrible death of being blown apart or burned alive.

I had barely even done anything, and they were almost all dead. I looked at the pile of dust that was the bodies of my family's family. What was I going to tell Mishka? 

Rage filled me with so much fury that fire poured out of my cracks like a volcano as I let out a world-shaking roar, and I leaped into the air.