Confusion - Chapter One.

Action: Part Two:

Dane's wrists were hurting.

He'd forgotten when he'd been hung up here, like a piece of meat, to await the pleasure of the General who ruled this blasted mountain, but it had been a while ago. At least three hours, maybe four by now.

Sweat drizzled slowly down his cheeks and fell almost two hundred feet into the smooth bed of lava far below. He wasn't sure if he should be flattered by how the Derns treated him, or hurt. They acted as though he was some kind of super-warrior. . . . Which he wasn't. Well, not in comparison with them anyway.

“Struggling's pointless!”

Dane instantly stopped twisting around, trying to ease the pain in his wrists (Which had shackles around them that were holding him to the roof of the cavern some twenty feet above), and looked for the source of the mocking voice.
To his disappointment it wasn't the General, finally there to relieve his suffering, but one of the score of massively built guards lined up along the ledge that ran along the edge of the cavern. Each were dressed as higher ranking Dern guards, with silver lined cloaks, and black painted armor. Only their commander had said anything since they'd caught him, an hour earlier, attempting to get a look into the mysterious valley to which he and his team had been sent to check on, to see if there actually was a massive Dern army stationed there, as other information sources reported.” Huh? You have any idea what would happen to me if I did get out of these?” He said, shaking his shackles.

The massive,bearded Dern commander looked critically down at the softly bubbling lava two hundred feet below and chuckled before leaning back against the polished basalt wall.

Suddenly something changed, Dane felt it inside of him; it felt like a light in the room had just been put out . . . The lava seemed to stop glowing, and the guards jerked to even stiffer attention. Then, there was a grinding crunch as a massive stone door slid slowly open, allowing a dim light to filter in.

In stepped what Dane had been waiting for: the General. He probably would have been impressed by the towering figure, robed in silver and black cloth, carrying a sword big enough for a battering ram, if he hadn't been hanging there, under his orders for the past four hours – in intense discomfort. After the massive warrior marched another twenty or so of the Dern guards.

Not much chance of escape now, with only two exits to this prison, and both guarded by at least twenty guards a-piece.

The General paced forward, past the guards, and out onto a massive projection of basalt that jutted over the lava, he stood there, eying Dane through a black helmet for a few moments before he spoke, and when he did his voice was deep and soothing, the complete opposite of his appearance.” What is your name, Senetran?”

Dane was slightly taken aback by the friendly tone, but his guard was up and he simply shrugged in response, saying calmly,” Why should I tell you?”

Slowly the figure raised its hands and took it's massive helmet off, slowly and carefully, as though it would shatter any moment. Of the many fearful Dern faces Dane had seen in his life, he had been expecting something properly horrifying to go with this particular Dern's fearful reputation, but the friendly looking, middle aged, black-haired man standing before him wasn't what he'd expected at all.” Well, you don't have to tell me. . . .” The man said softly.” But I doubt it would do any harm.”

Dane gave a half-hearted kick for the man, but he was too far away and he only managed to dig the chains a bit deeper into his wrists.” Sure it won't!” He knew that some Derns had the ability to read minds of you opened yourself enough, and that usually it was best to give them nothing to work with. He had an odd feeling that he'd seen this face before, and the words weren't as vicious as he'd intended.

But instantly he felt that his flash of confusion had given something away and he stopped struggling, feeling slightly worried. The General was frowning at him now.” Daniel Link! That's your name? You're a member of one of those maddening little Spy Groups! The Trident Group if I'm not mistaken” He turned to an awaiting guard.” Get him down!” He ordered curtly.

The guard nodded solemnly and holding out a hand, slammed Dane with some invisible force, the chains on his wrists snapped like twigs and he was thrown forward, face-down in front of the General who had put his helmet back on. Now all he saw were two glowing eyes. Not angry, more . . . confused?

Slowly he got to his knees, his hand closing on a rock, Haha, that's more like it! If he could only take down a couple of the guards he'd be able to break through and get out of the cave. And once out of this prison he'd be able to outrun them easily. . .

The General leaned down over him.” Dane, do you -”

His words were cut off with a ringing clang as Dane slammed the rock full force into the side of his helmet with a yell, though the rock turned to powder, the General was knocked twenty feet to the side, stunned.

Dane didn't hesitate, leaping forward at a surprised guard he jerked his own dagger out of his belt and kicked him in the chest. It felt like he'd kicked a barrel of pig-iron, however Dane was hitting hard, and the man screamed and fell backwards over the edge of the crevice . . . into the lava. Dane grunted in satisfaction, bent down lightening quickly, picked up another rock, and went for the next guard.

Two more of them went down, one with the rock embedded in his face, and another with the dagger in his neck, not even given time to begin to respond to his lightening attacks, before the rest of them pulled themselves out of their temporary surprise to face the threat.

Dane suddenly found himself surrounded by a forest of razor sharp swords and spears, all leveled for him, pinning him up against the crevice. He slowly took a step forward, but a spear slammed out of nowhere and he leapt back, just in time to avoid getting skewered.He smiled weakly, this wasn't good.

The next instant however, half a dozen of the Derns to one side of the group facing Dane screamed and fell to the floor. The Derns had all been so intent on their prey that they hadn't noticed the six cloaked figures that slipped through the still-open door to the cavern, and attacked them from behind. Sloppy, oddly sloppy for experienced Dern soldiers such as these.

Dane took his chance, knowing that without his help, his friends would be dead in seconds, leaping forward to the attack in the instant-long opening his companions had given him. The first man that faced him got a kick in the stomach and was thrown to the ground, the second man sliced at him with his sword, the tip whistling through he air, but Dane dodged, catching the edge of the flying sword in midair, and pulled himself under the man's guard. A quick punch in the guts and he crumpled to the ground in a heap.

Now with a sword of his own Dane was more than a match for any of these men, they were fast, for sure, they were strong, for sure, they were experienced, for sure, but Dane was half mutant himself, and had their extraordinary strength, speed, and reflexes plus a far greater than average skill with the sword.

Straining ever fiber in his body, he pushed his speed beyond the limits, and a half a second later three of the Derns where slammed backwards, cut to pieces by his fury of strokes. Suddenly one of the Derns stepped forward, sword readied and roared so loud that flakes of stone broke off the roof and fell to the floor all around them. Everyone froze, it was the Dern guard' commander: He smiled thinly at Dane." You'll pay for that." Then turning to the mutants behind him he chuckled and ordered softly." Men, step back, I'll take care of this."

Dane quickly understood the reasoning behind his thinking . . . Should he throw his men against the Trident group, four to one, they'd be forced to use magic, in which case he might well lose half, if not all of his men. This way he might well be able to take them all down without resorting to his men at all.

His men grinned evily and stepped to the door, keeping well out of the way.

Slowly the seven of them that formed the Trident Group spread out about the remaining figure, wary, weapons readied. Dane glanced to the side and saw that Jason, the leader of their group, was next to him, cloaked and hooded.” Having fun?” Jason said, glancing up at him.

Dane grinned at him.” You have no idea.”

“Yeah, well – DUCK!” Dane dropped to the floor just in time, avoiding getting skewered on the end of the last Derns spear.

They began to edge in, prodding their opponents defenses with random thrusts and attacks, but it quickly became apparent that this was no ordinary fighter, but one of the very best. Maybe even a match for Dane. He grinned calmly down at them, randomly slamming his spear for them, and forcing them to jump out of the way.

Jason glanced sideways at one of the others, Kendra, his sister, and gave a quick gesture. She instantly jumped forward and sliced at the giants legs with her sword, while at the same time Jason and another of their number moved in for the attack, hoping to overwhelm their opponent with sheer numbers. That's when things went wrong.

Jason rarely underestimated his enemies, but when he did, things never turned out well. Dane knew that it was foolish to attack this particular Dern, he was the only one of them in this group who could handle this thing without using magic (Magic was NOT an option simply because should they resort to magic, so would their enemies, and if that happened they might well just kill everything for a thousand yards around and bring the whole cavern down on their own heads), and even then there could be no promises. . . .

Kendra was caught by the shaft of the spear before she was half way through her swing, slapped backwards like rag-doll, and slammed into the wall. Then the giant, with a twist of his wrist almost skewered the other cloaked figure that was moving in to stab him from the right, but only managing to knock him onto his back, it ended up that Jason was the one who got the full force punch with the butt of the spear.

With a sickening crunch he slammed right onto the edge of the crevice, clawing frantically to get a hold, his sword spiraling out of his grip to fall into the lava hundreds of feet below. Dane didn't hesitate, and a good thing he didn't, for just as he caught Jason's forearm, he lost his grip and slipped further down until Dane was half hanging over the cliff, trying to hold onto him.” Help!” He called, hoping that the others could take down the last mutant before he lost his grip on Jasons sweaty hand.” Hurry!”

But all he got in response was a roar of triumph, and twisting around he saw, to his horror, standing over him, the mutant, spear raised, about to kill them both.

Chances are that the days of both Daniel Link and Jason Atkins would have ended that day if not for the figure that hurled itself out of the fuzzy darkness to Dane's right and knocked the mutant to the side. With a burst of energy Dane heaved Jason back to safety and then turned to see who their deliverer was, but all he got was a glimpse of the massive Dern staggering through the door of the cavern, followed by a smaller, cloaked and armored figure . . . the last he saw of him was a pair of curious, glittering eyes, and then he was gone.

“Kendra.” Jason groaned next to him, rolling over, he grabbed Dane's hand.” Check on everybody, I'll be fine! Hurry! We have to get out of here!”

Dane pulled him to his feet.” Yeah, come on!”

It turned out that the other five of them were quite fine, with only a few bruises from having been batted against walls, and scarcely a minute later they stepped out of the cavern and onto the jagged mountainside overlooking Trident City, the massive, sprawling mess of towers and lights that marked the great Dern Fortress.

Dane's feet were aching before they had gone a hundred yards away from the road, the sharp bits of volcanic rock lying all about dug into his legs and bare feet, no matter how tough, and cut them.” How much farther?” He groaned.

Jason threw an arm around his shoulders and pulled helped him along, going as fast as they could, trying to reach the mountaintop before any more Derns arrived.” Not long,” he said weakly.” Ten, maybe fifteen minutes.” He glanced at him out of the corner of his eye." Good work back there!"

Dane shrugged." Thanks for coming, I'd still be down there without you . . . Oh? Did you get the job done?" He added, looking up at Jason.

Jason nodded," Yeah, it turns out that that guy from Vicar City wasn't lying, there's gotta be two hundred thousand Derns down there from what I saw! And I didn't see everything!"

It turned out that it wasn't until more than half an hour of clambering over the jagged mountainside was done, that they saw their destination, a small, round hole in the ground, glowing from a soft blue light lit deep inside it.

“Youngest first.” Jason ordered, practically tossing Ryan, the youngest of their group at 16, into the hole. He gave a surprised yelp and disappeared with a flash.” You next Dane.”

Dane nodded and putting his arms on either side of the hole (Which was only some three feet across) plunged forward into the blue light.