Eternal Fire

Chapter 17

Amluse stood in front of the army gathered below them. Ember glanced at Amluse, he had taken over as leader of the world of Humanyos after she had attacked the Queen, who had not come out of wherever she was except for parades and celebrations. Whenever the Queen did come out, she looked calm and composed, but her tail twitches and occasional wild looks told a different story. She had not recovered mentally from Ember's attack. Why haven't they used a mental dragon to sort her mind out? Ember wondered in her head the last time she had seen the female dragon.

Ember glanced at the dragon army in front of her. She started counting, it was going to be a long task, seeing as the army reached wide and far. Numbering in the thousands, maybe millions. She listened to Amluse as he spoke.

"We are going to start the last stage of training for our invasion of Almaiser. World wide training. Half of the army will go ahead and defend a position, the other half will wait a couple of days before marching onwards. We will do four of these practices, so both halves will defend twice, and both halves will attack twice." The King named two generals who would lead the two armies. He started naming teams of dragons, "If I have said your team name, you are defending. The rest are attacking. Defenders go, the attackers will follow in a couple of hours." Amluse turned away, and walked towards the fortress, Ember followed.

"You will be on the attacking team, all the time, stay behind the front lines and use your fire, don't actually kill too many, don't try to kill at all." Amluse said, whilst walking down the decorated passageway.

"Okay. Can I burn some though?"

"Fine, not too badly, they need to be easy to heal and be able to fight in the next match."

"Thank you. Where will you be?"

"Watching."

"You are not taking part?"

"Nope. I want to see everything that is going on, to find the weaknesses in our attack and defence, then we can improve on them, then we will be the best army in all of the worlds, none will be able to stop us, not anyone, or anything. We will be invincible!"

"To a certain extent. We will all die one day."

"Well, invincible in our fighting."

"What are the plans for after we have taken Almaiser?"

"Recover, recruit, stamp out any rebellions, then attack Ballasmara. We will end the war that have being going for centuries, it will save lives."

"What will happen to all three worlds?"

"We will repair Humanyos to it's former glory, give it life. I'll let Almaiser's wilderness take a little more of the world, it will become a peaceful retreat. Ballasmara, I'll end the war, create peace across the species, and create some sporting events for those that still crave blood. Then we'll take over the rest of your world, diminish the threat of the 'hunters' and let dragons live peacefully."

"That sounds good." Ember said, "What will the sporting events be?"

Amluse hesitated for a second, "A way for dragons to prove themselves, there will be fighting, flying, running, showing off powers."

"Okay, a way for dragons to fight legally." Ember murmured quietly.

"What was that?" Amluse asked, turning his head to look at Ember.

"Nothing, just saying that it was a good idea, then dragons wouldn't fight illegally."

"Sure..." he said and turned back to the passage, which was starting to reach the end.

   Amluse opened the door to go into the hall, some youngsters stood there, a teacher stood, making sure that they stayed in their rows. Ember counted how many there were in a row, ten, and how many rows there were, six. Sixty two year olds, all going to see the 'weird dragon in the tower', to see if they had any 'interesting' prophecies that included them, fun, fun, fun. Amluse turned and walked over to the door which led, after some stairs (or flying), to the room where Amluse's sister lived.