A Tale of Two Knights

Chapter 22

Chapter 22

The entire forest reeked of smoke, well expected as lightning tends to start fires in forests.

"We have to save Sully first! The lives of the people are secondary to Sully... After all, he is the chosen one!" Faron yelled out while he fought Ludo.

"I made a promise to him. No matter what, we would save the people. If we abandon the people now, we may never be able to save them, and then a thousand people's lives would haunt us for the rest of our lives." Ludo argued.

"We cannot risk the lich taking Sully and using him as an infinite mana resource... Do you know how many lives can be lost if we are late? Thousands or even more lives could be lost in a rampage led by a powerful lich with infinite mana. One thousand deaths is better than hundreds of thousands!"

Faron thrusted his claymore at Ludo, while Ludo kept blocking the attacks to the best of his ability.

Ludo could see that Faron was getting angrier and angrier the more the argument continued. This would turn into a full fledged fight if he didn't think of something quick.

"Sully would rather we save him later after we save the people. We are capable of this together. We can save the people and save Sully, but it is impossible to save Sully first and save the people later."

"Do you hear what you are saying? You already know the Lich and the amount of power he holds already, now imagine the amount of power and the spells he would be able to conjure if he had infinite mana. There would be no way to stop him if he succeeds."

Faron's attacks kept getting stronger and stronger, his ferocity increased as he argued with Ludo.

"How could you even think the way you do?" Faron questioned.

"You have mentored Sully for months, how could you not want to save him first? I don't understand. I only want to save him for fear of the lich. I don't understand."

"The reason why is because I know what Sully would want. We will be able to save both, our powers combine, I would normally kill you again, but the enemy of my enemy is my friend."

Suddenly, Faron stopped attacking. He stood in thought after what Ludo said.

There would be a small chance of succession with saving them both, but if they did save the people and Sully, then that would be the ultimate goal in the end, saving both was what everyone wanted.

"Fine," Faron retorted. "But if we fail and something goes horribly wrong, you're going to regret it."

Ludo nodded and agreed. It was still a risky decision despite the agreement.

The sun shone as the base woke up. Everyone in the barracks was tired and starving, their bodies weak and frail. They haven't eaten food in days, and the conditions that they have stayed in were terrible, especially in tight spaces.

Thramor awoke and remembered his position. He was a slave at the base. Zolag the orc hated him enough just to make an exception for him. This was why he was the only dwarf at the base, however he didn't look like a dwarf at all. Thramor was seven feet tall and extremely muscular.

He got up and expected to hear the yell of either Zolag or Maegera, however nothing was heard, except a huge CRASH that startled everyone in the barracks.

Thramor ran over out of the barracks and went to see what the noise came from

The noise came from the entire west wall of the cave collapsing and a massive hole opened in the wall. Two knights in shining astorian armor threw away chunks of the rocks. The first knight was a bit taller, and had a blue cape, an armet, and a sword with black edges and a red gemstone. The second knight had a greathelm, boots and metal gauntlets, and he had a massive claymore that had silver edges.

Ludo and Faron were there to help.

Ludo was surprised to see that the same dwarf was there. The muscular one, the one whose name was Thramor. He quickly notioned for him to get the other people out of the barracks.

Together, they all went inside of the massive room of barracks, the room was stacked full of crowded messy beds, and the people that came were almost all elves, only few were human, but no other dwarves were present.

They all went over carefully not making any noise, Ludo saw the faces of men, women and children, all of them were skinny and dirty from the journey that they went through.

Ludo and Faron notioned for everyone to follow them, and they obliged. Ludo was surprised that they would immediately trust them, it must have been because of their desperation to get out of the situation, of course the people would be, not many things would ever be worse than being sacrificed for sake of power.

Hundreds, maybe even thousands of people came from the barracks, Ludo didn't need to count. As long as they got them it would be fine.

Suddenly, one of the women finally spoke, it was an old, maybe an elf of 70 years.

"Thank you... So much for saving us... We are now finally freed!"

Suddenly, a small group of people started to cheer, and then the rest of the people cheered at once, taking Ludo and Faron by surprise.

"SHH!" Ludo and Faron notioned. All of the people went silent immediately as they realized the mistake. They all turned quiet and listened to see if the noise was enough for their enslavers to notice.

After some time of pure silence, they were ready to go but then they heard a massive roar from the skies.

Two massive tarragons emerged from the sky, almost as if they had been birthed from the clouds. One of them was a gray color, and the smaller one had blue dragonskin.

Then the walls were broken down even more, the two massive ogres roared with ferocity, the people screamed for their life.

"TAKE EVERYONE AND RUN!" Ludo shouted at Thramor. He simply nodded and notioned for people to run and follow him. A giant crowd of people followed after him.

Ludo and Faron had successfully evacuated the people, but now the issue was defending the people from getting recaptured by the enslavers.

Ludo examined the tarragons and realized that Zolag was riding the gray tarragon and Maegara was riding the blue one, and they were noticeably smaller than Dranthe. The tarragons both roared and dived down toward Ludo and Faron. The trolls also ran at them, with their massive arch tree clubs over their heads, ready to attack.

Two tarragons with dangerous riders, as well as two massive trolls ready to attack? This might be Ludo's toughest fight yet.