Path of Dragons

Hope stepped through the odd portal, and the second she set foot on the other side, she stumbled. Some of her lost footing could be chalked up to simple surprise. After all, suddenly finding herself in paradise – especially after spending years in the frozen grip of winter – was quite a shock to her system. However, in terms of causing a brief bout of lost balance, the real culprit was the sheer weight of ethera on the other side of that gate.

And she wasn’t alone, either. The others from Forest Hills were clearly struggling with similar feelings concerning the setting. For her part, Hope felt like she was enveloped in a wet blanket – sort of like thick humidity but encompassing her very spirit – and she knew it would take some time to acclimate.

It was not unpleasant, though.

Not for her, at least. Instead of feeling confining, it was comforting. Like a hug from her father, though less personal and far more profound. She could feel the power in the air. It tingled against her skin and enveloped her on a spiritual level, but it also felt invigorating in a way she had never experienced and she couldn’t adequately explain.

Those conflicting feelings – of shock and comfort – warred for a brief moment until her father stepped through the gate behind her. A second later, the Druid followed, and the gate of roots wilted, disappearing into the surrounding soil. Immediately, Hope felt his presence behind her. Like a coming storm, he loomed over everyone, as if he was a natural disaster in the making. Intimidating didn’t quite cover his demeanor. It went deeper than that.

If gods truly existed, then she had to believe that being in their presence would make her feel something similar. Elijah was just a man. Clearly. But he was more than that, too. She didn’t need her father’s stories – which lacked details, probably to maintain whatever was left of her innocence – to know that he was dangerous and powerful in a way that she’d never experienced before.

Even if his aura wasn’t so domineering, the man had just transported her settlement’s entire population across the world in a single day. That kind of power couldn’t have been common.

And on top of that, he’d somehow brokered an agreement with the grimlings. Those little creatures had proved incredibly vicious over the years, and Hope personally knew dozens of people they’d killed for no other reason than that they’d set foot in the forest. And Elijah had scared even them.

Then there was the majestic, nine-tailed fox. That creature had felt similarly oppressive, and all of Hope’s instincts – nascent though they were – told her that the creature was incredibly powerful. If it had wanted to, it could have killed everyone there. Except maybe Elijah, who had somehow befriended the beast so thoroughly that she had entrusted him with the safety of her children.

No – every detail suggested that Elijah was not just a man. He was something else, though Hope had no clue what that something might be.

Fortunately, his actions – as well as her father’s friendship – had proven that the Druid was an ally. So, Hope pushed her misgivings aside and focused on her surroundings. That was when she let out a little gasp.

“It’s paradise,” she murmured.

It was an understatement of the highest order. At first, she thought she was in a jungle, but after only a moment, Hope saw the order amidst the chaos. Everything was meticulously laid out, each plant exactly where it was supposed to be. Fat bees that made her feel a little wary drifted through the area, while butterflies with colorful wings fluttered here and there, often alighting on fruit-bearing bushes that glistened with both ethera and moisture.

And in the center of it all, a mighty tree stood sentry over everything. With pristine white bark and blue leaves, it looked entirely alien, but it also seemed perfectly at home within the environment. Moreover, it emitted an aura of power that rivaled even Elijah’s. Perhaps it even exceeded it.

After a few seconds of looking around, Hope saw what seemed like a treehouse that had been so thoroughly incorporated into its tree base that she wasn’t sure whether it had been grown or built. Given everything else she saw within the grove, she didn’t rule out the former.

Finally, she saw a thoroughly incomprehensible scene.

At first, she thought it was just another tree, though an oddly shaped one. But then it moved, and not in a way that suggested it was being rustled by the wind. Instead, it was a bipedal tree, with two arms, two legs, and a distinctly humanoid appearance. Much to its chagrin, the little kits – snow white and even more excited than they had been back in the forest – danced around it, letting out little high-pitched yips that sounded like a mixture of a dog’s bark and a chirp reminiscent of a birdcall.

“Calm down, Nerthus. They’re just excited,” said Elijah, stepping forward. “Here. I’ll gather them. I think they’ll love it in the Frozen Glade.”

The tree – Nerthus, it seemed – responded by fixing the Druid with a withering glare. “Why do you hate me? First, the lunar deer, and now these…pests?”

“Don’t be so dramatic,” Elijah sighed, rolling his eyes. Then, he knelt, and the kits all raced toward him. They leaped into his arms, where they quickly proceeded to sniff and lick everything while they climbed all over him. He let out a joyous laugh as he tried to corral the little beasts. “Can you show our guests to the dock while I take care of these?”

“If you remove them from the grove, I will do anything,” said Nerthus in a dignified and long-suffering tone.

After that, Elijah left everyone behind while the tree creature asked the Forest Hill natives to follow him away from the grove. Hope and the others did just that, passing a ring of trees that looked strikingly similar to the massive, white tree at the center of the grove. They were markedly less developed and far less powerful, though.

What followed was a trek through a jungle-like forest that spanned at least a couple of miles. Along the way, Hope was absolutely astounded by the density of the vegetation as well as the ethera. The air was cool enough – it felt like autumn – but the flora and humidity was suggestive of a rainforest.

Hope also saw plenty of animals. From happy birds flying from tree to tree to squirrels that felt oddly oppressive, a wide variety of beasts were represented. And she sensed that there were even more creatures that she couldn’t see. In short, it was as thickly populated as any nature reserve.

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Gradually, they snaked their way through the forest until, at last, reaching a rocky beach.

That’s when someone let out a scream.

It took Hope a few seconds until she saw why. It was an enormous crab – at least the size of a mini-van – and it was scuttling in their direction. Only a moment later, Nerthus disappeared, and Hope’s heart leaped into her throat as she saw their guide – and presumed guardian – leave them behind. Memories from the beginning of the apocalypse flashed into her mind, of dozens of scenes of death and carnage, and in that moment, she knew she was going to die.

But then, Nerthus reappeared next to the vehicle-sized crab, and a series of thick roots burst free of his body. In the space of a second, they wrapped around the crab, and only a moment later, he spun. The crab’s legs waved, and its claws snapped, but it could do nothing to stop the tree-man from tossing it like a discus. It hit the surf more than a hundred yards down the beach.

Nerthus disappeared again, only to reemerge right next to the group. “My apologies. The crabs rarely come this close to the dock,” he said. “Nuisances, all, but Elijah has a fondness for them. If you will follow me?”

Without any further acknowledgement of what he’d just done, the tree-man led them forward. Only then did Hope see the sturdy dock stretching a couple dozen yards out into the ocean. It wasn’t a complex structure, but it looked – and more importantly, felt – extremely sturdy. There were a couple of large rowboats moored on either side of the far end of the dock.

“Hope,” said her father, breaking her out of her reverie. Then, he asked, “Are you coming?”

“Oh. Sorry,” she responded. “Just a little thrown off guard by all of this.”

“It is a little much, isn’t it? Do you feel the ethera?” he asked.

“It’s much higher than back home,” she answered. “I guess this is supposed to be our new home, though.”

“Well, not here specifically,” he said. Then, he pointed across a narrow strait to a settlement a few miles away.

Or city, more accurately.

None of the buildings were more than ten stories tall, but there were enough of them to suggest that the settlement played host to thousands of people. A huge wall surrounded it on three sides, with two stretches extending far enough into the ocean that they reached deeper water.

It was so surprising that, for a few moments, Hope was struck speechless. They’d been struggling to survive all that time, and here was a real city.

She had only been ten years old when the world had ended, but even then, she’d visited larger cities nearby on a few occasions. She’d gone to Columbus on a couple of field trips, and her father had taken her to visit Cincinnati a few times to see her Aunt Renee, so she was vaguely familiar with cities. Still, she had never expected to find anything like that in the new world.

It was unexpectedly overwhelming, and she found tears gathering at the corners of her eyes.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she said, wiping her tears away. “Just happy, I guess.”

For the first time in a long time, her attitude lived up to her name.

* * *

Ron put his arm around his daughter’s shoulders, hugging her tight as the rowboat slid across the glassy surface of the sea. Like a bay, the strait was protected from the effects of the open ocean, so there were few waves. However, he’d heard enough stories from Elijah to recognize that they weren’t entirely out of danger. Oceans played host to some of the most powerful creatures in existence, and he knew he needed to remain on guard just in case they were attacked.

Still, it was difficult.

Elijah had often spoken of his home, but hearing those stories and actually seeing it were two very different things. The density of the ethera alone was enough to throw him off guard, and that wasn’t even considering everything else. It was all so overwhelming.

And then there was the city in the distance, which was growing every closer by the minute as the rowers – all steadfast Rangers who’d taken the protection of Forest Hills as their personal calling – steadily guided the boats toward the docks.

Like the grove itself, Ironshore had been the subject of plenty of Elijah’s stories. The Druid wasn’t exactly a social butterfly, often disappearing for hours – or even days – to explore ruins or crypts or whatever else took his fancy. However, it was difficult to spend more than half a year around someone without hearing at least a few tales. And most of Elijah’s centered around his grove or the nearby city of alien races.

From those, Ron had expected to find something akin to an old-west frontier town. A bunch of wooden buildings, mud streets, and barely-surviving people. But what Ron saw across that strait was closer to an old European city like Paris. As they came closer, he saw that the buildings were mostly new – or new-ish – but they each held a certain dignity that modern American construction generally lacked. Sure, modern – or at least in terms of the world before everything had changed – architecture was often pleasing enough to look at, and he would never have denigrated their efforts. However, most of the newer buildings exhibited a certain soulless aesthetic that depended on shininess instead of creativity to set them apart.

In Ron’s admittedly uneducated-on-the-subject opinion, older buildings had far more going for them. He hesitated to call them more beautiful, but as a layman, he definitely considered the older examples far more creative.

Ironshore was like that, with interesting lines, carvings, and other details that put him in mind of a style supported by more than just sleekness and modern minimalism.

Such thoughts accompanied him as the boat gradually came closer to the extensive docks that abutted the strait. There were huge ships docked there, some reaching hundreds of feet in length, that suggested that at least part of the city’s economy was tied to harvesting the treasures of the open ocean. But there were smaller boats there as well, and their approach was closely monitored by the fishermen who manned them.

That was when Ron got his first good look at the residents. The fishermen were mostly goblins, with huge, bat-like ears and skin tones ranging from green to yellow, but there were also stout and bearded dwarves as well as diminutive gnomes among them. Ron even saw a few humans, suggesting that the city had truly become a haven for diversity.

Eventually, they arrived, and they were met by a goblin in a crisp, pinstripe suit who wore a bowler hat and carried an elaborately carved cane.

“Welcome!” the goblin announced excitedly as dockworkers – mostly dwarves – raced to tie off the boat. “Nerthus told me to expect some new citizens. I am Ramik, the mayor of Ironshore.”

Ron had no idea how the tree-man had warned the goblin of their arrival, but that wasn’t really something he was that worried about. In a world of magic, such things were easily explainable.

As the de facto leader of the refugees, Ron introduced himself, and he quickly discovered that he very much liked the goblin. He seemed quite urbane, polite, and more accommodating than anyone could have expected. Soon enough, the refugees were led to a residential area featuring a handful of buildings that contained apartments. They were told that they would be able to stay rent-free in those dwellings for sixty days or until they got on their feet.

That was more than any of them had expected. No one in Forest Hills had been lazy. They’d all worked extremely hard for their survival, and not a one of them wanted a hand-out. But a hand up was a different story altogether, and they all accepted the gift in the spirit it was presumably given.

In addition, Ramik handed every individual a sheaf of papers, each one containing a map of the city and its surroundings, information on where to find work in various fields, and the location of the public dining hall where people could get good, if fairly bland, food each day.

“I don’t know how to thank you,” Ron said.

“No need for thanks. This city is only as good as its people,” Ramik said proudly. “We have worked extremely hard to make it what it is. People have died defending Ironshore. We desperately want to be great, and to do that, we need to ensure that its citizens are well cared for so they can focus on being the best they can be. This is your home now. Perhaps only a few of you will stay, but while you’re here, you are one of us.”

It was an admirable sentiment, and one Ron wholeheartedly hoped was sincere. Whatever the case, he felt that he could finally relax – at least a little – because at long last, his people were safe. Now, he could focus on curing his daughter’s illness.

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