Chapter 18

By the time Varden returned to his friends they had thawed and were looking for him.

Argus said, " We only have a little time, we must get out of here."

Varden had noticed a tunnel behind the thrown had light coming in. He knew that must be the way out, but he wondered what all the urgency was about.

Argus said, " Well we woke up, didn't we? So, what happens when all the ice melts?"

Varden hadn't thought about it before. Now that Argus had pointed it out it made sense that is what the dragon must have been trying to warn him about. And that is why Argus was so opposed to going on this journey in the first place.

The tunnel that led up was too steep for most of them to climb, so Drake carefully and quickly climbed up and lowered a rope so the others could use it to climb up.

They found themselves deep in the forest on the far side of the castle. Looking at the surroundings they could kind of tell exactly where they were it was a place that no one ever went. If they did, they were never heard from again. There had been ice in this area for years and it never melted, and nothing ever grew here so there was no reason for anyone to ever go there.

Now everything was melting but it would take days for everything to thaw. Rite now they had to get back to the town and prepare it for an attack in case the giants attacked and get everyone ready to fight.

Varden noticed things were going back to normal. It seemed like the dragon had a wider effect on things than they first thought. Now it seemed like nature was back to the way things were supposed to be and the animals were acting like themselves again. Now the creatures were back to running away instead of attacking them.

It made traveling back to town so much easier and quicker they didn't have to keep their guard up along the way. When they got close to town, they heard a commotion going on it was weird it was as if they were in a major city. As they looked, they noticed that most of the men that they saw were royal guardsmen.

The closer that they got the more they saw that the town was filled. Varden noticed that some of them were from his father's troop along with 30 other troop colors it was as if the whole royal guard had been assembled.

Varden found himself completely exhausted and all he wanted to do was sleep for a week, but seeing all his old friends from the guard unit he just had to find out what was going on and why were they all there.

As Varden approached he heard his father's voice, he couldn't believe that his father was really there, but where was he? He heard him but couldn't see him. Varden quickly started looking for him, but he didn't see him anywhere until he looked up to the balcony of the Inn and that is where the four generals were sitting. Then Varden realized just how many men there really were here and sitting with Parren was Sabol. Drayden was so excited to see her father, especially sitting with Parren.

They were finding it very hard to move through the streets because of all the crowds that were gathered until Parren spoke up and said, "Attention!" The men quickly froze in their tracks, then started forming up in lines clearing the streets, and that made it easy to make their way to the Inn.

When they made it to the top of the stairs, they saw that Parren was back to normal, the effect of the dragon had completely worn off.

Varden took a seat near his father and within minutes he was sound asleep.

Varden awoke to pain and the feeling that he couldn't move. It felt like a herd of horses had trampled him down. He was able to rise slowly to see every inch of him was covered in bruises. The fight with the dragon was worse than he had imagined.

In a little while Drayden entered the room and said, "I am glad to see that you are finally awake. While you have been asleep for two days there have been so many changes going on. The King was reluctant to give all his royal guard to your father but since he had saved his life, he had consented to it. He even recalled some of the retired guards to come help as well. My father has contacted the ships guild, and everyone is helping. There are more ships arriving full of men every day. As for the giants, several men have seen them in the castle and all the creatures have fled off into the mountains. "

While she was talking to him, she finished off the healing that she had been working on for two days so by the end of her tale he was healed and ready to go.

As soon as Drayden left, Varden got dressed but not in his armor. He didn't want to put that on at least for a while. Then he went looking for his father. It was harder than he thought. There were so many soldiers and sailors in the town that he had to think of where his father would most likely be. Then he remembered where he had seen him last, that was on the balcony, even if he was not there, he should be able to look out and see him from there and find him.

Varden pushed his way down the hall to the balcony and when he reached it, he noticed his father sitting with three other generals and four ship captains.

He heard them discussing what they thought would be the best way to attack the castle. As he listened, he could tell that they weren't sure just how to attack it.

The obstacles they were facing were tremendous. The first barrier they would have to deal with was the moat, the waters were treacherous as they had found out, not only do they stun but they are also filled with vicious man-eating creatures. Second was the wall and its humungous height. It made scaling it impossible. With this many soldiers, they could easily take it.

The giants could easily kill a lot of men before they would even get close to the castle walls. There was one thing that was in their favor. The giants were not very bright, but they were smart enough to live together and in a castle. So at least one was intelligent enough to pull the others together.

Varden stepped forward and said the only way they would stand a chance was if they could draw them out of the castle.

They all realized that they had to get them out of the castle, but exactly how was the question? Just then a guard came running up to the table. He reported, "The last of the giants are free from the ice. Now it seems like they are forming a troop under the command of the humungous giant that is far bigger than any of the others. While I was listening, I overheard them say that they were going to start collecting treasure and prisoners once again."

At this point, Varden realized what Argus and the Dragon were both trying to stop him from doing.

Varden spoke up and said we have to meet them before they get to the forest, so quickly gather your men we must march on to the castle now!

Perrin signaled to his men to assemble, within a few minutes, the men were assembled and were ready to go. Sabol did the same and the sailors quickly formed ranks behind the guards. One of the men was sent to Argus's castle to gather his guards as well.

On the way downstairs, Drayden caught up with them and asked what was going on. Varden explained everything as they walked. As they reached the bar they noticed Drake, Ryan, Titus, and Wolfram all gathered to have drinks. As soon as they noticed Varden coming down the stairs, they quickly got up and joined him. When they stepped out of the bar, they noticed the soldiers were lined up from the small farms outside town all the way to Argus's Castle. Varden was amazed at the number of soldiers. He had never seen anything like this before in his life.

As they walked to the front, passing all those men, noting each had been thoroughly trained. A realization hit Varden hard that every man was risking their life because he wouldn't give up and leave things alone.

They finally reached Argus's castle where Argus was waiting for them. Argus told the guards to protect his students and instructed Cara to stay with the other students in the back and to do her best to help them with their spells.

Argus joined the others in front, so Varden had his friends surrounding him with a humungous army backing him up. The only problem he saw was he was about to face an army of giants. He had no doubt they would be victorious. They had too many men for them to lose He was wondering at what cost they would win.

Varden noticed they had spent some time clearing and widening the path through the forest. Now it was easy for six big men to go through instead of a single file line. Varden knew that was a good way to keep the men busy and out of trouble. That would cut down on the number of drunks and fights. But he wondered if it was the smartest thing for them to do because this would make it a lot easier and faster for the giants to reach the town.

The trip through the forest went very quickly and before they knew it, they were at the meadow and it was just in time, the giants were emerging from the castle and the king was leading the way.

Argus told Varden, " You must challenge the King for the right to rule and win to save all our lives and the freedom of humans everywhere."

Just then Argus was struck by lightning and a huge explosion which blew everyone off their feet. No one was hurt except for Argus. Cara told Varden he wouldn't have his magic for a month because he told privileged information.

The troops quickly reformed their ranks and Varden entered the meadow all alone. When he got close, he yelled out a challenge for the throne. The king looked at him and let out a tremendous laugh.

The king said, " I have beaten all challengers and have only been beaten once by an army of dragons." Then gave another tremendous laugh.

He then called for his troops to enter the meadow. Varden said now to the others and they also entered the meadow. The two of them were now surrounded on all sides by people as well as giants.

The king said, " I see that you have already gathered all the slaves that we will be needing and a few extras. Good that way we won't have to go looking for them."

Varden said, " You will have to kill me to make slaves out of my friends."

The king said, " If you win you shall rule in my place, if you lose you will die, and all you know sell forever be our slaves."

The two squared off and looked at each other, Varden looked like a small mouse compared to the giant. Like something that would easily and quickly be stepped on. Varden looked up at the giant and all he could see for as far as he could see was the giant, he stood a little taller than the giant's ankle.

The giants started by trying to step on him. Varden was a lot faster than the king and was able to easily get out from under his feet. Then Varden quickly grabbed the giant's foot and lifted it. The giant was heavy, but he was able to throw him off his feet. As the giant fell and hit the ground the ground trembled and shook and knocked Varden and everyone else off their feet.

They both climbed to their feet and looked each other over carefully again. The king had to rethink his strategy. This insect he thought wasn't going to be as easy to kill as he first thought.

Varden was still wondering how he could get high enough to do any kind of real damage. From where he stood the best, he could do was stab a bit higher than the King's ankle.

All he could do was hope that an opportunity would present itself quickly because he didn't know just how long he could last again something so huge. Varden looked down at his sword the best that it looked like compared to the giant was the small pin. Then he looked up at the giant king and he was carrying a humungous war hammer that looked like it was big enough to flatten the whole house with one hit, and on the King's back, he wore a large shield strapped to it. The shield was so large that Varden didn't really have anything that he could describe it by nothing else even compared to the size.

Just then the king swung his hammer down at Varden. Varden dove out of the way just in time as the hammer hit next to him and just then the air blew him 6 feet. As Varden managed to climb to his feet the hammer came again, and he barely managed to get out of the way this time. The third swing seemed to come way too fast and he was unable to get out of the way all he had time to do was stand up and put his hands over his head to protect it and he was driven straight into the ground like a spike. As the king lifted his hammer all anyone could see was a circular indentation in the ground left by the hammer.

The king let out a loud laugh and said, " Some challenger, Ha!"

Just then they saw some dirt start to move, as they all watched Varden emerge from the whole. Everyone fell silent including the king as they watched Varden climb to his feet, dusted himself off then quickly charged at the king. This took everyone by surprise, especially the king. The king was not used to a single human attacking him in fact because of his size the only time he's ever been attacked by a large group of things including giants and he found that this little Nat was a lot more trouble than he had ever thought it could be.

He finally climbed to the giant's shoulder and then wondered just what he was going to do next he had his sword but in comparison with the giant it was nothing. The sword was just too small to do any real damage. The only thing he could do would be to keep hacking away with it till he could finally cut deep enough to do some damage.

The king tried to grab him several times, but Varden was quick enough to get out of sight and out of reach. Varden told the king to surrender, and he immediately refused.

So Varden took the tip of his sword and stepped into the back of the king's neck just enough to cause pain but no real damage.

Then Varden said, " Surrender now, or I will have to kill you."

The king didn't answer so Varden stuck him in the back of the neck again. The king took a swat at Varden and he easily dodged his hand. Varden was able to get out of the way but he realized that this was never going to work. So Varden took a shield and slammed it into the back of his head as hard as he could.

The king stumbled forward and tried to regain his footing, but it was hard to even keep his eyes open. He was able to take two steps before he completely passed out and went crashing to the ground. When the king hit the ground Varden went flying and bounced off the chest of another giant.

The king was not asleep for long, but it was long enough for them to realize that he had lost. When he awoke Varden told him that he had to have all of the giants separate and never bother humans or anything else again.

The giant nodded his head and looked very surprised at Varden because he was expecting him to kill that is what he would have done. Then he told the others and they all separated by the family without any more trouble. Since they had all recently been awakened and everything that the giants had had was destroyed. Starting over small family units was not really that difficult.

When it was all over Varden pulled Drayden to the side and asked her, " Since it is all over what will you do, and where will you go? "

Drayden replied," I'm not sure."

Varden found himself being forced to ask her, but it wasn't really forced, it was more like the burning desire to ask her. So, he finally gave in to his desire and said, " Drayden I know this is not the place or the time to ask you, but will you marry me?"

This stunned her. It wasn't that she hadn't expected it, it was that she wasn't really ready to deal with it just yet. There was a moment of silence that finally broke when Drayden said, " I would love to, but I can't at least right now I can. I feel that there is still better that I must do before I can even consider your offer. I do want to you know and you know that I love you, but we will just have to leave it like that for now. "

Varden's heart sank at hearing her words, but he understood why, and he did his best not to show his disappointment. So, he quickly turned things around and said I would still like to go exploring with you and I feel that there's still so much for us to do together.

When she smiled and agreed Varden instantly felt better at least a little.

Then there was an entry and bold letters it stated this. I wrote this in hopes of whoever finds this might learn the lesson that I had such a hard time learning that is. Listen when others warn you and stop just to listen and learn. I find that things could have worked out a lot worse and it was only luck that made things turn out good for me. I am so glad that everything eventually worked out for the best.

Then the writing suddenly stopped. Doug found himself at the end of the journal, but he was wondering if there was more missing its top so abruptly and there were still some of the pages that he couldn't quite read. Now tiredness started to overwhelm him and knew he had to return to try and find anything else at the site in hopes he could find another journal or some clue that would lead him to more.

After searching for a while and with the light fading, he knew that he was going to have to come back some other time and look to see if there was still anything more to find. He gathered everything and made his way back to the library and then back home to think about everything that he had read. Doug knew that if he was going to find more, he was going to need guidance to do it as he looked at the box sitting at his side wondering if there was still more out there.

Rubbing the Jem on the box Doug thought that luck just might be on his side now.

The End.