The Prophecy of Five

I: 2 :I

Ezran

"Corvus! Corvus wake up!"

"Huh? What... what's going on?" said the sleepy tracker. "King Ezran, it's still nighttime. We aren't leaving until the morning."

"I saw something. It's hard to explain." Ezran told Corvus the vision he had. "And I just know that Callum and Rayla are in trouble. We have to do something!"

"If I may, it was a dream. I'm sure they're fine." Corvus said, comforting the young king. "Callum is a very capable guy, and he's with Rayla. There's not much a Moonshadow elf can't do."

"You're... you're probably right. But I can just feel like something is wrong. They need help."

Corvus sat up and thought.

"Well, we can't go back. We need to get you back to Katolis, resolve some issues there, and by then it might be too late."

"So what can we do? You can't go, and Bait wouldn't be much help in a fight." he said, looking at the glow-toad fast sleep on his pillow.

"I think I know someone who can help." said Corvus. "I served with him and General Amaya at the Breach. He's an expert fighter, I'm just not sure he's gonna like going back into Xadia."

"We have to try! Callum and Rayla could use all the help they can get."

"Alright. We'll head out in the morning. Just try to get some rest."

Ezran put his head back down on his pillow. He was wondering who this 'expert fighter' Corvus mentioned was and why he would be so opposed to going back into Xadia. He poured over all these questions until he fell back asleep.

-----

"Ezran. King Ezran. Hellooo?"

"Huh? Yeah?" Ezran grumbled, still partially asleep.

"It's time to go. It's not a long walk to where we'll find him but we'd better get going now." said Corvus. "He doesn't usually stay in one place for too long."

"Oh yeah. So who is this guy anyways? Why doesn't he like Xadia?" asked Ezran.

"Well, it's a long story. One I'm sure he'd like to forget." Corvus started telling him about this fighter. "His name is Maximilian. He served at the Breach with me a few years ago before I was recruited by your aunt. He was a much better fighter than I was. Any weapon you could think of, he was amazing."

"Sounds like someone who would feel right at home at the Breach." Ezran had heard about all the fighting that goes on along the border with Xadia. He knew only the best fighters were stationed there. "So what happened to him?"

Corvus stopped, his expression turned sad. "We were patrolling along one of the routes when we were attacked. Sunfire elves. We didn't stand a chance. They cut right through our armor, our weapons were useless against them."

Ezran had seen what a sunforged dagger could to a sword, he could only imagine the kind of damage a sunforged sword could do.

"But you made it out. Obviously you did. So what happened?" he prodded, wanting to know how Corvus escaped.

"Well, Maximillian told me and the rest of our squad to run and go get the general. That he would hold off the elves until we returned. He didn't need weapons to beat them. 'They can't cut what they can't hit.', he said to me as I turned to get help. But when we returned, he was gone. We though he was dead, cut down trying to save us. We honored him as a hero."

"But he's alive? You're sure of it?!" asked Ezran.

"Let me finish." Corvus said. "We honored his sacrifice, but our shifts didn't end. We knew we had to up our awareness. The general called for spies to keep us up-to-date on the elves movements. It was around a year after Max's disappearance that a spy found him. He had been brought to a sunfire elf camp and was... not in good shape."

Ezran thought about that. A whole year?! No contact with anyone, nobody knows where you are or even if you're alive?!

"That must have been terrible." he said. "But you got him back right?"

Corvus looked down at Ez and smiled. "I wish I could say I did, but it was your aunt, General Amaya. She led an attack on the elven camp to free him. But on their way there they found him on a path. He had passed out from heat exhaustion and desperately needed help." Corvus looked up, back to the road they were walking. "She carried him back from the Breach and made sure he was okay. He recovered, but he was never the same. We asked him how he got away from the elves, but he didn't know. He just... walked out."

"Aren't sunfire elves the best soldiers in Xadia? Why would they leave him unguarded?" Ezran asked.

"I never found out. And neither did he. Speaking of which, we're here."

Rayla

Oh no. Not this guy again.

Rayla had encountered Sol Regem once before. When she left Xadia to, um... help Runaan in Katolis. She knew she would have to come back this way, so why was she so surprised to find him here?

He was still as big as she remembered. Easily twenty times bigger than the dragon she had saved from Soren and Claudia a few days ago. Six large horns on his head that formed into a sort of crown, brown and tan scales that made him look like a part of the mountain, and wings that looked like they could start whirlwinds in a single flap.

But given all of this, Rayla wasn't afraid of him. She knew something about this sun dragon that humans didn't. He's a hybrid, half sun dragon and half earth. He's got the looks and name of a sun dragon, but that was it. He was just a showman. A fraud. This 'Guardian of Xadia' was nothing of the sort. He couldn't breathe fire, couldn't fly, all he could do was look like he could do those things.

Pffft. Some dragon. She thought to herself.

She waited with Callum and Zym behind a large boulder until the ground stopped shaking. Sol Regem was looking around, probably for some yummy geodes to eat. That's another thing. He was more 'earth dragon' than anything, and earth dragons don't eat meat, they like rocks. Gems are their favorite but they'll settle for almost anything. She saw him dip his head down behind a boulder and assumed he had found something tasty to eat.

"Alright. He's not looking, but that doesn't mean we're out of this yet." she whispered. He might not eat Callum, but the dragon could still hurt him. Seeing as she had almost watched Callum die only a few days ago, she didn't want to risk losing him again.

"Okay." Callum whispered back. "So what should we do?"

Rayla thought for a minute. Well, he might leave us alone if he sees Zym, but he also might go get more elves.

"It's a tough call, but I think we should just try to get as far around him as we can. He won't attack me, but you..."

Callum got the idea.

"Yeah yeah. Big dragon isn't a fan of humans."

She nodded. "Alright. Follow me."