Icehawk's Ill Omen

From the Friday Challenge:
"You must slay the princess, rescue the dragon, and—"

Icehawk found an expression beyond dumbfounded. "Excuse me?"

The Seer looked up. "What?"

"Don't you mean, 'slay the dragon, rescue the princess?'"

"If I'd meant that, I'd have said it. No, it's all right here." She turned back to the entrails. "Slay the princess, rescue the dragon, and—"

"Are you sure you're reading that right?""Read it yourself. Plain as day." The seer tapped the pancreas. "Slay the princess." She batted a cat away from the liver. "Rescue the dragon." She stirred the intestines with her finger. "And—"

“…die a horrible, gruesome, painful death,” finished the old Seer.

“What?” gagged Icehawk.

He leapt up beside the old woman by the altar. He stared down at the entrails and couldn’t make heads or tails of the mess. “Where? Where does it say that last part?”

The seer waved her hand dismissively and a little piece of gore from the bird flew off the tip of her finger. “Its all there, but you’re not a seer are you? You can’t make any sense of omens.”

Icehawk grabbed a cat that was attempting to eat the part of the augury that had predicted his doom. He turned, dropped the cat, and deftly, before it reached the floor, punted it soundly between two columns at the end of the room.

“RAAaaawwwaa!” *THUMP*

“No! Show me where it says I’ve got to die a gruesome, horrible death!” Icehawk had forgotten entirely about the princess and the dragon for the moment. He backhanded another cat soundly off the altar. It landed at the Seer’s feet.

The priestess scooped up the cat and scratched behind its ears for a moment. “I know it is tough to hear, but look at the coil right after the loop and then the way the intestines rupture right before the anus spilling the…”

“Alright! Alright! I get it. Fine. I’m going to die. Whatever. But it doesn’t have to be right away, right? It could be years from now, couldn’t it?” Icehawk looked pleadingly toward the grimy old woman.

“Actually, given the way the kidneys fell, its most likely within a week or two, maybe a month.”

Icehawk turned and slumped down with his back against the altar and gave a halfhearted kick at a passing tabby. “I was really hoping for something more like ‘You should marry Yvette Goldenhair and not Freya Firelocks.’ I would have even settled for, “You will find love soon after disappointment.’ Are you sure it isn’t something like that?”

“No deary, it is quite clear. Here, take this goblet and drink. You can stay the night in Otogu’s temple. No need to start your journey too soon.” The old woman handed Icehawk a steaming drink.

The barbarian barely looked at the draught before downing it in one swig. He struggled to his feet and stumbled after the seer. She showed him back to a small room with a cot covered by a calico skin blanket. “Pass the night here, great warrior. Perhaps the morning will find you ready to face your fate.”

Icehawk felt the sleep take hold of him almost like a beast sinking its jaws into his spirit.

Icehawk opened his eyes and found himself in the middle of an open meadow surrounded by trees. The sun was too orange and the flowers too blue, but it felt very comfortable. He had been here before, but knew it was his first time. A huge willow tree stood in the middle of the meadow sobbing. Icehawk knew he should go over and talk to it right away.

“Hail, mighty tree, why are you weeping?” shouted the barbarian.

“I weep for the Dreamlands, Great Warrior. For our hero has come, and he is wearing the dress of a peasant girl!” The tree let out a sniffle and then a barely suppressed wail.

Icehawk looked down at his attire and was rather embarrassed to find he was wearing the dress Yvette Goldenhair had been wearing when he last saw her. It wouldn’t have been so bad, but he didn’t have the curves to carry it off.

“I didn’t realize I was still wearing this old thing.” He paused for a second and thought. That wasn’t the right thing to say. “Just a minute, tree.”

“Take all the time you need, Heroine,” moaned the willow.

“Cut that out, you’re not helping the issue here. I’ve got to remember what I’m supposed to be wearing.” Icehawk sat down, being careful not to wrinkle his dress much, and tried to think.

A silky dark brown rabbit came hopping by and stopped. It had huge dark eyes and long lashes. It gazed knowingly at Icehawk.

“What do you want, bunny?” growled the frustrated fighter.

“I was just going to comment on how beautifully your dress complements your eyes!” giggled the creature.

“Why, thank you… Hey, don’t you start too. I’m trying to rectify this situation. I’m not supposed to be wearing a dress, I’m supposed to be wearing something else. I just can’t remember what.”

The rabbit looked up at the sobbing willow tree and asked, “Is this sap supposed to be the One? Willy, hey, snap out of it and answer me here.”

“Oh, oh, yes, Bella. He arrived with a clap of thunder and a flash of lightning, just like the prophecy says. But, the prophecy says he’s supposed to be a great warrior, not a dress wearing weirdo.” The willow immediately broke into a series of hysterical cries and squeals.

The bunny, Bella, hopped over to Icehawk and motioned for him to lean down for a whisper. As the barbarian put his ear next to the rabbit, she opened her jaws wide and bit into his ear lobe hard.

“Arrraaahhh! You little fiend! I ought to…” and Icehawk drew his hand up over his head and found it suddenly heavy, a battleaxe seeming to appear in it from nowhere. Surprised by the sudden appearance of the weapon, Icehawk forgot his vicious attacker for a moment and stared at the sturdy implement in his hand. Memories seemed to swirl in and out of his mind.

On a snowy field facing Langdun Castle’s gates, he looked down at the Golden Knight of Langdum. The knight’s horse was fleeing back into the castle, and Icehawk’s axe was protruding out of the dead knight’s chest.

In the torch light, untold fathoms beneath the earth, he looked at the slime and ichor dripping from his axe. A mindeater lay at his feet, its oblong skull split nearly in half.

Shields and swords clattered and smashed around him. The formerly bull headed king of the Murganites lay at his feet, blood still pulsing out of his neck where his head used to be attached. His axe had cleaved through a horn and beheaded this king.

“Good!” cooed the bunny as Icehawk snapped out of his reverie. “Now for the rest of your equipment…” Leaping deftly, and far too well, Bella flew past his other ear and took a little bite.

This time, he didn’t even get angry. He just sunk into his own mind.

Merrnock the Ice Troll was pinned to the wall of his glacial cavern home. Sticking out from between his ribs was Icehawk’s trusted blade. The handle was a plain design, but crafted from rare metals whose origins the barbarian himself didn’t know.

That handle was now clubbing a fellow barbarian on the head as Icehawk rushed to catch the longboat headed for Greenslopes.

Now he was hacking the sixth arm off of Heragna, Demonspawn of Terneria, with the long, bluish grey blade.

Now, he was standing in a wide open meadow, a willow weeping noisily behind him and a bunny commanding his attention in front.

“Hero, HERO! You have no shield? An axe and a sword? What are you, crazy? Don’t you need protection?” the rabbit was looking at him incredulously. It was odd, Icehawk didn’t think rabbits could look incredulous, but this one was.

“The best defense is a good offense. They can’t hurt you if they’re already dead. Except Algamoth, Undead Wizard of Ur. He was pretty nasty and he was already dead. Oooh, so was Maruk-yethah, Mummy of the Seventh Pyramid of Irik-Alam. I guess maybe that rule doesn’t really apply to undead…” Icehawk sat scratching his chin with the pommel of his newly appeared sword. The gesture looked incredibly dangerous, and Bella decided it was best to stop him from thinking any harder.

“I’m glad to see you’ve remembered proper warrior attire. You’ve broken the spell of the Dreamlands better than any of us have.” The rabbit bounded to the side to look the barbarian over.

Icehawk looked down and was quite glad to see Yvette Goldenhair’s dress had been replaced with his white bearskin armor. He hopped to his feet and felt the easy creak of his well-worn sea serpent skin boots. “This is more like it!”

“Now, Great Warrior, it is off to slay the Princess and rescue the King.” The bunny began hopping down a path that Icehawk had not yet seen.

“Umm, I thought I was supposed to rescue a dragon for some reason, not a king…”

Looking over her shoulder, the rabbit twitched her nose, “One in the same here in the Dreamlands.”

The unlikely pair began down the path. As the sun sunk low in the sky, the rabbit couldn’t help but ask, “Why are you looking down at your feet so much warrior? Are you afraid you’ve forgotten how to walk?”

“No. It is just the bricks of this path. How do they get them that bright yellow color?”

“They aren’t bricks. They are scales from the King himself. Some say that all the lands of Dream are made from him. We are going to his tower, Nightspyre.”

“Aren’t we slaying the Princess first?”

“We’re not doing anything of the sort,” replied the rabbit with emphasis. “You are the one that will do any slaying and rescuing that are necessary. You’re the one that can break the dreaming spell so well. You must be quite a man.”

“I do wear the largest loin cloth in my tribe.” That fact had never failed to impress Freya Firelocks.

The bunny stopped short of hopping, and stared at Icehawk, horrified. She shook her head and started hoping again.



Three weeks later, the pair crested a jagged rim of mountain and looked down at the Nightspyre. It hovered over the bubbling magma of an open caldera. The jet black tower gleamed with the reflected horrifying red light. The way had been hard. That business with the Blood Roses had dulled Icehawk’s axe blade, but he had saved Bella the rabbit. Luckily, the rock troll had actually sharpened his axe as he killed it. Then the goblins. Where did they come up with their ideas for what constituted warfare? Seriously, the stink had only just begun to wear off.

“That magma is liquid dream, Icehawk. We cannot touch it and live.” Bella looked up at the barbarian with worry in her dark eyes.

“Don’t worry silly rabbit, this kind of trick is so simply, it’s for kids. I still have one piece of meat from Umagi’s unending feast. I shall simply grow some wings and fly us across.”

“But, you used all of Umagi’s wine to change me back from stone, you won’t be able to undo the changes to you this time!”

“That’s alright. I rather liked having that boar’s head last time. Tusks came in handy against the wolfmen. Besides, I could hack the wings off if I didn’t need them anymore, right?” And Icehawk popped his last magic morsel into his mouth, thinking clearly of large, eagle’s wings.

The meat burned in his stomach and he could feel the two tendrils of hot power surge to his shoulders. The pain was excruciating as the wings ripped out of his back, and he collapsed to his knees as the feathered appendages extended up, each inch pulling and stretching the flesh of his back. Finally, a burst of faerie fire exploded out from his stomach as the secondary magic of the meat blasted its seemingly random affect.

At first, Icehawk couldn’t tell what the second change had been until he looked down at his arms. His skin was covered in fine, golden scales, like the path they had followed to get to Nightspyre. He felt his face, and it too was covered. Only the palms of his hands had soft, smooth skin. He wanted to check elsewhere, but didn’t in front of Bella. The bunny’s jaw had dropped. “You look like an angel…” she gasped.

“What’s that? Some sort of snaky thing with wings?” Icehawk was actually freaked out by the scales. He’d had a deathly fear of snakes since the Marshes of Alquada incident. Right now, he felt like he was being hugged by another giant python, only this time, he couldn’t hack it to bits with his sword because he was the snake.

“No, it’s a messenger from God. They come in times of trouble to help or bring messages and such. Sort of like you I suppose. Well, let’s go!” Bella hoped over, and Icehawk scooped her into the pouch they had devised to carry her when needed.

The barbarian ran and launched himself into the air with great beating flaps of his wings. He circled around the rocks and path, practicing using the new wings. He’d dreamed of flying like this many times after seeing the Bird People of Elianos, and it seemed to almost come naturally. Banking, he turned toward the expanse of liquid dream magma and the Nighspyre hovering over the center of it.

At about the halfway point, Icehawk saw a sudden burst of white objects leave the crown of the tower. They looked like birds, and as they dived downward, Icehawk was almost sure of it. “It’s the Princess’s gryphons. They’re horrid creatures! Sometimes they travel out into the Dreamlands and eat whoever and whatever they can catch. There always seem to be more and more.” Bella was breathing fast, almost squealing with fear.

“Don’t worry, Bella. I’ve got this.” Icehawk drew his sword and his axe from their places. He then did something that surprised his rabbit passenger. He wheeled around and flew away from the plunging gryphons.

“What? We can’t run away, we’ve got to…”

“Rabbit, let me handle the fighting.” Icehawk beat his wings fast and hard, climbing as he flew away from the streaking beasts. The gryphons were forced to flatten their approach, losing some of their advantage of attacking from above. Icehawk then banked upward hard and climbed as hard as he could, attempting to actually get above the hard diving creatures.

If he hadn’t been so stunned by what he saw, he would have been able to press his advantage immediately. The gryphons were all colored the same, snow white avian forequarters and jet black feline hindquarters. The lead gryphon had the exact same eerie sky blue eyes as the dove he had brought to the Seer three weeks ago. And the feline part of that gryphon had the same crooked tail as the kitten he had sealed in a box a week before that.

Icehawk managed to recover in time to fend off the first few gryphons. Since they were now climbing toward him, their attacks were weaker than they could have been. He was even able to down the last two of the flock, one beheaded by his axe, the other’s wing clipped cleanly by his sword. The latter went screeching into the liquid dream below and perished with a plop.

“Two down, six to go,” shouted Bella from the pouch.

Icehawk turned and climbed as best he could, again trying to get the height advantage on the gryphons. But, now they seemed to know what he was up to and responded in kind. Being much more natural fliers, four of the gryphons out climbed Icehawk easily. Two more however seemed impatient for blood and took a more direct route, arriving a few seconds before their flockmates. As Icehawk carved these two up like guinea fowl from above easily out of reach of their claws, he realized that the beasts probably weren’t used to fighting intelligent enemies.

Of course, as the other four raked his back with their claws, he wasn’t sure he was all that intelligent. As the gryphons attacked, Icehawk pulled his wings down, trying to keep them out of the range of the monsters. This had the added benefit of causing him to start to plunge away from his foes as well. Casting a backward glance, he saw the gryphons tuck into dives as well, giving chase. Looking down at the glowing liquid dream, Icehawk took a deep breath and began concentrating on his flying dreams of the past. Fast and faster they plunged.

“Icehawk… ICEHAWK… IIIIICEHAAAAAAAHHHHH!” screamed Bella as they dove straight for certain death.

At the last possible moment, Icehawk threw wide his wings and grabbed the air to pull himself out of the dive. A hot updraft aided his cause, and he managed to break into a glide a few feet above the surface. Like music to his ears, he heard three distinct splashes and plops behind him. He waited, but the fourth one never came. He looked back and found two sky blue eyes staring at him with hatred and bloodlust.

“Listen,” he called back over his shoulder, “My people have been using your people for omens for ages. Its just the natural order of things. I mean, we’re big and strong, and you’re stupid birds that fly into our snares. Wait, scratch that last part. Its just a cultural difference really. Look, I really respect you birds. You can fly and the Bird People of Elianos are really nice folks. Very hospitable, share anything they’ve got with you. Only, I mean they only eat worms and insects and seeds, so you don’t want to ask them for food.”

The gryphons eyes suddenly widened, and it screeched and banked hard away to the left. “Well, I knew he’d listen to reason,” sighed Icehawk.

“We’re going to die!” shouted Bella from the pouch.

“No, no, look behind us, I’ve convinced him to leave use alone. I suppose he could have been a her. I didn’t check to see if it was a boy or a girl kitten. I mean, it would be the cat part that would tell the sex of a gryphon, wouldn’t it? Do they lay eggs, you think?”

As he finally looked in front of him, Icehawk realized why the gryphon had pulled off. They flew straight between two stone outcropping on the side of the Nightspyre.

Amazingly, they had threaded the needle and not struck either outcropping with their bodies, but Icehawk’s wings were not so lucky. They crash landed and tumbled in a pile onto a wide, flat rocky area in front of the huge doors to tower. Icehawk’s wings were mangled and bleeding. Bella was thrown clear of the warrior, and rolled to a stop almost at the foot of the gates.

Icehawk lifted himself onto his knees, folded his broken wings into his back as much as he could, and took a deep breath. He scanned the sky for the gryphon, but it was no where to be seen. Slowly, he struggled to his feet and hobbled over to the rabbit. “Bella, Bella, please don’t be dead. I still need you to tell me where to go and how to get there.”

“Since you asked so nicely…” whispered the bunny as she pulled herself out of the pouch. “We need to get inside before that beast swoops down on us. Are you alright?”

“I don’t think I’ll be flying anytime soon,” the barbarian managed a weak grin. “Come on, let’s try these doors.”

The actual doors to the tower were huge, thirty foot tall affairs with wrought iron and some sort of black wood. But, there were smaller doors within the doors that opened easily at Icehawk’s touch. He slung Bella back into the pouch and readied his sword and axe again.

The tower was filled with strange, impossible rooms and staircases that went to nowhere and everywhere all at once. There were no creatures on the lower levels that Icehawk and Bella traversed. It was a lonely, echoing trip upward.

“The Princess is said to live high up, near the top of the tower with more of her demon creatures to guard her. She has the king imprisoned there, somewhere. Most who speak of such things in whispers are certain of it.” Bella tucked her head down into the pouch, with only her ears sticking up.

“I’ve been meaning to ask, um, how old is this Princess? Is she like really old? With white hair?”

“No, she is a young girl with golden curls. Though any of us have only seen her from a great distance.” Bella replied with surprise. “Why would you think her old?”

“Just a hunch. I must be wrong though.”



Finally, after what seemed an eternity of climbing stairs, and doubling back, and magic portals, and shadow walking, and stopping to sleep twice, they finally arrived some place quite different. At the end of a long hall, they saw pink curtains draped across a large doorway. For a long while they had been noticing a strange smell, and Icehawk finally realized what it was, cat urine. The putrid smell in the hallway nearly ripped consciousness from him. Foul piles and puddles abounded as he approached the pink curtains. Unable to stop himself, he ran the last ten yards and pushed through the curtains, gasping for breath.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” was all the barbarian could manage. He had burst into a large open room. On one side was a balcony to the outside, the first sky they’d seen in a two days or more. The room was occupied by what appeared to be twenty or more large jungle cats of various types, lions, tigers, leopards, jaguars, even an ocelot (at least Icehawk thought that’s what you’d call that kind).

The cats were mostly asleep, and the ones that were awake were taken completely by surprise. Not only by surprise, but totally unawares. Icehawk spotted a stairway heading up only a short distance away, and made a mad dash for it.

“I say chap, are you supposed to be here?” asked a sleepy looking tiger in a distinct accent.

“Absolutely!” replied Icehawk as he dashed up the stairs.

“Oh, quite good. Carry on then! Hope you brought the crumpets. Princess wants her crumpets.” The tiger dropped his head back onto his paws and drifted back into a nap.

Icehawk found that the staircase he was on wound upward and upward again. With no sound of pursuit, he soon slowed down. “I guess that’s why everyone has guard dogs and not guard cats,” peeped Bella from the pouch.

Icehawk was about to reply when a shrill voice echoed down from somewhere up the stairs, “I want my tea and crumpetssss! I want them now, now, NOW!”

He looked down at the rabbit, “Could that be the Princess? I might not mind offing a kid like that.”

“She only looks like a child, Icehawk. She’s some kind of powerful sorceress to come to the Dreamlands, imprison the King, and take over ruling herself.”

“I guess you’ve got a point. Still, I can’t stand kids whining. Little brats.”

“You’ll know a tree by its fruit, barbarian, you know that. The mother and father of such children aren’t doing their jobs properly.”

“Bella, you speak a lot of truth for a rabbit. Actually, I don’t suppose I’ve talked much to any rabbit before all this.” Icehawk began scratching his chin with the hilt of his sword.

“Don’t worry about it. Let’s just pretend we’ve got tea and crumpets and then kill this princess or whatever she is.” Bella hunkered down into the pouch and Icehawk shifted it around behind him, hoping to protect the little creature during whatever was to come.

He continued up the stairs and found a hallway draped in pink curtains and hangings. A large pink door was closed at the end. Icehawk strode up to the door and rapped on it. “Tea and crumpets for the Princess!” he announced in his best imitation of a servants voice.

“OOoooh! Dolly! Did you hear? Our tea and crumpetsss are here! Bring them in right away!”

Icehawk opened the door ready for almost anything. He found a room decorated all in pinks and whites. A huge canopy bed sat on one side with all its curtains drawn closed and dollhouses and toys were strewn everywhere. There were two balconies opening out on two sides of the room. Sitting at a white, half sized play table was a little girl of about seven or eight. On top of her golden curl covered head rested a golden circlet with a large yellow amethyst set at its center. She was wearing a white, frilly dress with pink ribbons and ruffles.

“You’re not Raj! Where’sss Raj? He was ssssuppossssed to bring me my tea and crumptesss!” shouted the little girl impetuously.

The were two very unsettling things about this Princess to Icehawk. First and most obviously were her teeth. They looked like beans that had been left on the fire overnight by accident, each a distinct, blackened, nub. They were far too familiar for his liking. The other thing was the way she was pronouncing the letter ‘s.’ It was giving him the heebie-jeebies.

“Raj sent me with the tea and crumpets. Just wait right there and I’ll serve them up nice.”

“Dolly wants hers with lots of butter and put extra milk in her tea. Dolly, come!”

From the bed, a shape suddenly began to stir and to Icehawk’s utter horror, a blue eyed bird head poked its way out between the curtains of the bed. The gryphon recognized its lost prey immediately and exploded out of the bed at Icehawk. It was only his barbarian reflexes and the axe throwing he’d learned from Uncle Elkbellow that saved him from immediate death. Slipping his axe out from behind him and dropping the pouch containing Bella, he used his Uncle’s trick underhand toss. It wasn’t perfect since the gryphon was charging him, but the hand of the axe struck the bird head so hard, the beast crumpled in midair and landed hard, crushing the play table.

Kicking her chair over backward, the Princess suddenly began to change. He legs twined together and became green and her arms seemed to shrink up into her sleeves and disappear. Then coils of serpentine body seemed to be pouring out from under her play dress as she lifted herself up. “You are the one who hurt my petsss!” The Princess’s still golden curled little girl head opened its mouth and spat. A lightning bolt arced toward Icehawk, and he ducked and rolled out of the way as a dollhouse took the full blast and was blown to pieces. Little scorched doll clothes floated down through the air like leaves in autumn. His skin was crawling at the sight of all those coils of snake body and if it weren’t for the rush of combat, he would have screamed at the pain of rolling over his broken wings.

He rolled up onto his knees as he drew his sword only to be smacked brutally by the Princess’s huge green tail. Icehawk went crashing into a rocking horse and tumbled over it. The Princess slithered over to him quickly and began to wrap him in her coils, giggling the whole time. “I’d like to keep you sleeping longer before I eat you, but you’re a dangerous one, Icehawk.”

The Princess’s voice was old and cracking now. He knew she was the Seer from the Temple of Otogu somehow. But, his mind was having trouble focusing as the thick, muscles and coils wrapped him tighter and tighter. Somehow his sword hand was still free, but that seemed to matter little, as every ounce of breath was being crushed from his lungs.

“You can’t have him, Serpent! I claim him as mine!” howled a screeching, high voice. Bella leapt with incredible speed and seemed to fly at the Princess’s throat. The rabbit bit deeply and latched onto the Princess’s throat, but missed the veins. The Princess thrashed wildly, screaming and hissing. She loosened her grip on Icehawk and tried to use her tail to bat away Bella. Her first few wild swipes failed, but she finally connected, dislodging the rabbit and sending it flying into the bed.

The instant the Princess had loosened her grip, Icehawk had gasped deeply three times and then lifted his sword to strike, but Bella had still been in his way. As soon as the Princess had knocked the rabbit away, Icehawk struck. He drove his sword hard across the thing’s neck, easily slaying the distracted Princess.

The Princess disappeared in a acrid cloud of green smoke, but her circlet clattered to the ground.

Icehawk ran to the bed to find Bella. She had landed amid the fluffy pillows and was shaking her bunny head groggily when he got there. The barbarian scooped up the rabbit and hugged her to his chest. “I didn’t know rabbits could fight!”

“Of course we can,” she replied weakly, “We’ve got big, nasty teethes.”

“Now, do you know where this King of Dreamland is?” asked the barbarian returning quickly to business.

“I only know that he is trapped somewhere here on the top of the tower.” Icehawk set Bella down on the bed and looked around the room. His eyes fell upon the circlet the Princess had been wearing and he bounded over too it. Scooping it up, he looked at the yellow amethyst in the middle, and sure enough, he could see what looked like a great, golden dragon suspended inside. “How do you suppose we get him…”

Icehawk never finished his question. The gryphon he had downed earlier had not died, only been knocked out. Recovering, it had pounced upon him from behind and slammed him to the ground. The circlet had slipped from Icehawk’s hand and was rolling toward one of the balconies.

The gryphon was murderous with rage, its blue eyes wide as it pecked at Icehawk, its hooked beak catching and ripping his flesh on his head and neck. The bird claws tore at his chest and the cat claws ripped at his abdomen and legs. Icehawk could feel his stomach rip open as the beast dug at him. He slammed his sword up into the creature’s side, but he could feel it hit ribs and stop. The bird claws gripped him by the shoulders and chest, and the gryphon drug him to the balcony. Icehawk could feel his own intestines spilling onto the balcony as the gryphon paused to get a better grip. He sword hand swiped to the side, and he could feel it scrape something over the edge of the balcony. He turned to see the circlet plunging down toward the liquid dream through a haze of blood and pain. He felt suddenly like all was lost. He could not free this dragon king of dreams, and he was still going to die a gruesome, painful death. As the gryphon lifted off from the balcony, carrying Icehawk, the barbarian could see his life blood and guts trailing behind.

Suddenly, a blinding white flash filled the entire Dreamlands and a great golden dragon burst from out of the liquid dream by the base of the Nightspyre. The roar of the Dragon King of the Dreamland was the last sound Icehawk heard there before he died.

Then, Icehawk’s eyes opened. He was in a familiar little room on a cot he vaguely recognized. His organs were where they were supposed to be, he had no wings, broken or otherwise, and his skin was its normal peachy white. And, he heard crying from what seemed like the room next door. Rolling out of bed, he staggered to the door. His legs felt weak, like he hadn’t used them in weeks. Pushing open the door, he became aware of noises behind doors up and down the hallway.

Icehawk opened the door to the room next to his. A dark man with many long twisted braids of hair was sitting up on a cot weeping. Something seemed very familiar about him to the barbarian. Then, a very familiar voice said from behind him, “Don’t mind William, he gets emotional sometimes.”

Standing in the open doorway across the hall was a petite brown haired, olive skinned woman with dark eyes that Icehawk knew very well. As he turned slowly, Icehawk whispered, “Bella?”