Chapter 16

The noise was so loud it was not surprising that the twins and Markus both jumped up out of their bed rolls. 

The twins went into their rucksacks, both pulling out short swords and stood next to each other at the ready.

Markus reached into his and when he brought his hand out, he was only holding onto a pommel, but no blade! That won't be much use in a fight without a blade...

With a quick flick of his wrist, the sword came alive and out of the pommel came a silver liquid that quickly turned solid, forming the blade.

Now that was impressive Rex thought, now for mine.

Reaching into his bag, Rex felt around, besides clothes and spare shoes, he had nothing to fight with! With the looks on the other peoples faces, it looked like he was going to need something!

"I don't have a weapon!" He called to Markus.

"You're a Magnus, you don't need one!" He called back, "inside of you is power most people can only dream of having, that is more useful than any weapon I could give you." 

"Great! The answer I was looking for!" Rex said gritting his teeth in frustration. Use what's inside me doesn't make any sense...

"Light!!" Markus yelled, throwing his hand into the air. Out of his hand a ball of light shot straight up and exploded like a flare lighting up the area. With it being dark they weren't able to see 3 creatures stalking them. 

When Rex saw what made the sound, he was terrified. The creature wore a torn shirt and pants with a tatty hood over its head, the 3 creatures seemed to be making clicking noises at each other, like they were talking to each other, they had long skinny arms, and 3 claws on each hand. Their faces were mostly hidden, but Rex thought he saw one of them with a beak. As they came closer up the hill 2 of them walked in opposite directions to box them in. 

"S**t!" Markus said, "Crazaks! Odd they are so far away from their den. They are creatures from the desert."

"Bring.....boy.....to......usssssss" hissed the crazak standing in front of the group, "give.....boy......or.......dieeee."

"The boy is with us!" Yelled Raz, "come and get him if you want him."

"Killlllllll!!!" Screeched the crazak that was leading the pack, leaping the 5 feet landing on Markus. The crazak gripped his claws into Markus's shoulders and tried to bite him on the neck, Markus was able to bring his sword up as the crazak bit, and instead of flesh it bit the blade of the sword. 

Not far away, the twins were double teaming the second crazak, Raz would distract, while Kal would slice or stab, and then they would swap roles, for the amount they fought between themselves, this seemed to be the time they worked in perfect harmony. Their tactic was working, because the more damage they inflicted, the slower the crazak seemed to become.

The third crazak had snuck around to try and ambush Rex while the rest of his group was busy was the rest of its pack. Rex looked around the camp, noticed there was only two here in the fight and one was missing. 

'

It is stalking you young one, turn around'

This voice that kept popping up without warning was really starting to irritate Rex, yes it seemed helpful, but he had no idea who it was, or where the voice was coming from or why he was hearing it. Turning around, Rex couldn't see anything, but soon he heard a faint clicking sound coming towards him.

"Come.....boy....queen.....wants....you...alive....or....dead..." it hissed.

"You'll have to drag me!" Rex said lifting his fists up.

"Fine....with.....usssss" 

After it hissed those words, the crazak started running at Rex, clicking its beak, arms in front of it with its claws spread ready to grab him.

"Voice, if you have any words of wisdom, now is the time!!" Rex looked up yelling.

'Believe we are a weapon, and it will be so' came the voice, echoing in Rex's head.

"Great, I need wisdom and it gives me riddles." Rex cried. What does that even mean? Believe my arms are weapons, I would love a weapon right now he thought. Looking up, the crazak was only 10 feet away, when it lept into the air. I'm a goner! Rex thought, so he did the only thing he could think of, closed his eyes, remembered what the voice told him and thought of his hand as a weapon and took a swing at it. He felt the impact off him hitting the crazak and then heard a crunch, Was that me or it? I feel surprisingly fine, so Rex opened his eyes. It took him a while to comprehend the scene in front of him. 

Rex was fine, but the crazak that attacked him was on its back just to his side with 3 massive gashes across its chest. How did that happen? He thought, looking at his hands. One of his hands did not resemble his at all! Turning the new hand around he noticed that he now had 3 fingers and his thumb all had very large sharp claw like fingernails, and his whole hand and up to his forearm was now covered in glossy black scales. This is insane he said to himself, how did he do that?

'If you find that impressive, wait until you see what you can do when we learn to be as one' said the deep voice again.

Markus had just finished dealing with the crazak that had attacked him, he looked over to the twins, they had just finished off the second crazak, "there was one more! Find it!"

"It is over here!" Yelled Rex. Pointing to the crazak that was beside him.

“What did you do to it!” Asked Raz, slightly shuddering a bit seeing that part of the crazaks insides had begun to come outside. “That’s a deep slash”

“I did it with this!” Rex exclaimed lifting his hand up and showing to the group, “I don’t know how I did it, but it came out when I needed it and saved my life.” Soon after showing the group, he felt warmth trace from his armpit all the way to his fingers. The black scales disappeared and his hand started to take his shape back again, it was only a few seconds and his hand was back to normal.

“So the rumours of the Magnus family  are true” Markus said taking Rex’s hand in his, flipping it around and looking at it closely, “you can be soul bound.”

Soul bound!!?? Rex didn’t like the sound of that, “what had my soul??” He said quite worried.

“This is definitely the expertise of the Fate Seer, but my understanding is, that your family’s gift is you can share your soul with a dragons.” Markus said to him, “ that’s where your abilities come from, whatever abilities the dragon had, you have. You just need to find out which dragon chose you.”

“How do I do that?” Rex asked.

“I don’t know. That’s something you and your soul bound need to figure out” Markus said shrugging his shoulders.

“Would that be why I can hear a voice that no one else seems to be able to hear?” Rex said.

“Hearing voices still makes you crazy!!” Kal said raising an eyebrow at Rex “even here”

Great, so this voice makes me crazy, I’m sharing my soul with something or someone that chose me, What next, Rex said to himself.

Soon the sun started to rise over the horizon signalling morning, “well no time for rest now, let’s pack up and move on” Markus said “there is still a ways to go”

The twins had piled up the crazaks and Markus set them ablaze. “Even though they are creatures, their souls still need to be released” He said to Rex.

It didn’t take long for them to pull apart their camp, and the twins changed their form again, they had saddled up and went back along their path heading towards the Bohl Mountain range. 

Seeing as Rex had started to learn more about his family, Markus begun to tell Rex everything he knew about dragons. But unfortunately

Markus didn’t know of any dragons being black in scale colour, “my knowledge of dragons isn’t as impressive as the Seer or your father, so they will no doubt know more.” He added.

They took up their usual travelling talk not long after the talk of dragons died off, and Raz broke out another crude song which lifted the mood a little, making the next few hours a little better.

Meanwhile a few hours back down the road, someone was jogging up the path that led away from the gateway, she stopped to read a few horse tracks that led her up a small hill. Yep, I’m on the right track, camp fire, still warm, only put out a few hours ago, it seems a fight broke out, charred remains, crazak! He fought off 3 of them! He is definitely stronger than I thought. I will break you either way Rex.

Seeing the tracks heading back out towards the Ragnar Mountains, she picked up the pace a little.

“At this rate I’ll have you by nightfall” she said to herself.