HORRIBLE CHOICE

Garn gazed at the fighting force below with increasing frustration. The thing controlling his daughter and his commanders had wanted to give the order to attack the invaders not long after the black dragon had dropped him within their midst. He’d argued against involvement as they battled the gigantic creations the Alchemist had created.

The being that inhabited his daughter had taken his advice, at least part of it. The thing had moved the Citadel soldiers to the courtyard while Crystalyn had fought the creations. One of the creatures still stood, bent over a pile of rubble. Garn worried since he hadn’t seen his daughter in some time.

Now his soldiers, no its, advanced in rows along the courtyard, those groups without officers moving with precision.

Garn’s heartbeat accelerated as his oldest daughter sprinted out from behind one of the pillars the invaders had pulled down for cover. Crystalyn ran toward the Dark army. What was she doing?

Close behind her, the colossal creation threw a massive green and blue stone ball before its advance.

Crystalyn had run from danger into worse peril. Garn wanted to ask it for the dragon’s aid, but there was no time.

Slipping nimbly to the right, Crystalyn somehow avoided the front row of Dark soldiers. Then she vanished behind a wall of metal shields. His concern deepened until he noticed her running behind the great ball as it rolled through the regiment rows.

The black dragon sprang to the side. The marble ball rolled past, banging into the gateway, and seven Users fell to their deaths. Garn barely noticed. His daughter had turned to face the creation following, forgetting the danger so near. Knowing she wouldn’t hear from this distance, he vaguely heard someone shout look out with his voice, as he ran toward her.

The dragon whipped around, its great reptile tail catching his daughter in the side. As if nothing more than a doll made of rags, Crystalyn thudded into the gate wall a partial story high and then slid to the floor in a heap, unmoving.

Racing down the grand stairway, the fear in the pit of Garn’s stomach for his eldest daughter accelerated his heart and constricted his throat. His practical mind nagged no one could survive such a blow.

A group of five from the Dark Regiment, the controlled ones, captains all, spread out to bar his way at the bottom. Barely slowing, Garn’s great sword disposed of two. He shouldered between the two as they fell and raced on.

With its left fist, the creation pounded on the dragon’s head. The beast had clamped its great jaws upon the right arm.

Giving them ample room, Garn hugged the wall. Making it to the crumpled form of his daughter, he dropped to one knee, checking her pulse. At first, he found none and feared the worst; his heart hammered in his chest. Calming his fears, he slowed the thumps of his internal organ until they faded beyond detection.

Then, though weak, he felt the pulse he hoped to find at her neck.

Standing, he turned, a shout for healers dying at his lips. It stood near, wearing his youngest daughter’s body. Flanked by three dull-eyed, slouching generals, the translucence of the smoky barrier glinted around it still. A glance upward revealed the twelve mages grouped in front of the grand stairway.

“Again, you abandoned your post,” the creature inside his youngest said. “The Over Mind wishes you flogged for each episode at our private quarters once the enemy is eradicated.”

Elated, Garn barely heard. “Some of the Users maintaining your barrier will have the healing ability. Command them to aid me, quickly. There is not much time left for her.”

Jade’s emerald eyes regarded his oldest. “This offspring of yours has no use to the One Mind, quite the opposite. Request is denied.”

Garn leapt, drawing from his sheath as he did. The tip of his great sword rested in the small of his daughter’s neck before he could change his mind about what he was doing. As one, the three generals drew long swords and then lumbered toward him. “Call them off or I plunge this through her throat,” he snarled.

Though it did not give a flick of the hand, nor say a word, all three generals froze. “You would slay your remaining progeny? The Over Mind believes you now use deception. The One Mind will not provide aid to your fallen offspring,” it said.

Gripped within the sounds of the carnage happening at the front lines, the fierce battle between dragon and creation, the sizzling bolts of Dark and Light exchanged from both sides, it came to Garn he had a horrible choice to make. Destroy one of his children for the unlikely success of saving another.

How could he take the chance of losing both daughters, one by his own hand?

How could he not?