The Beginning of the End: A Middang3ard Series (Dragon Approved Book 11) Read online

  The Beginning of the End

  Dragon Approved™ Book Eleven

  Ramy Vance

  Michael Anderle

  The Beginning of the End Team

  Thanks to the JIT Readers

  Kathleen Fettig

  Diane L. Smith

  Deb Mader

  Kerry Mortimer

  Veronica Stephan-Miller

  Kelly O’Donnell

  If we’ve missed anyone, please let us know!

  Editor

  The Skyhunter Editing Team

  This Book is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Sometimes both.

  Copyright © 2020 by Ramy Vance & Michael Anderle

  Cover Art by Jake @ J Caleb Design

  http://jcalebdesign.com / [email protected]

  Cover copyright © LMBPN Publishing

  A Michael Anderle Production

  LMBPN Publishing supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

  The distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  LMBPN Publishing

  PMB 196, 2540 South Maryland Pkwy

  Las Vegas, NV 89109

  First US Edition, May 2020

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-64202-928-4

  Print ISBN: 978-1-64202-929-1

  Dedication

  To Martha Carr … thank you for helping get on board this crazy train!

  —Ramy

  To Family, Friends and

  Those Who Love

  to Read.

  May We All Enjoy Grace

  to Live the Life We Are

  Called.

  — Michael

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Author Notes Ramy Vance

  Author Notes Michael Anderle

  Other Books by the Authors

  Connect with The Authors

  Chapter One

  Alex stared in horror at the yawning portal resting above the Earth, from which emerged an ensemble of horrors. Vrosks with their mangy feathers, bizarre technological experiments hanging from the creature’s beaks. A ship that stretched back into the portal, a horrid thing that looked to be made of flesh, covered in windows that might have been its eyes. Tendrils adorned its bow as if it were some perverse squid shot out into the dark, uncaring black of space.

  The dragonriders had stopped in their tracks. They couldn’t move forward, not after having seen the abominations crossing into their plane of existence. All they could do was stare in growing terror, a terror that was radiating from that ship as if it had been weaponized. “What the hell is that thing?” Brath shouted.

  Alex would have answered, but she felt like her head was splitting open. A familiar voice had wormed its way into her head—the Dark One. He had spoken to her once before, aboard the meteor. Now he was speaking again. A few moments earlier, he had told her that Vardis was not to be trusted. Since then, Alex’s head had been full of white noise, a meandering sort of thought. “It’s the Dark One,” she finally managed.

  Gill, who was flying beside Alex and Chine, whirled around to meet Alex’s eyes. She could see fear in them. “Wait, are you saying the Dark One?” he asked. “Aboard the ship?”

  Alex nodded, certain for reasons she couldn’t put into words that the Dark One was aboard that ship. Not one of the different incarnations like the pale white child; the real deal was on that ship, and he’d come for Alex.

  “Alex, what’s the plan?”

  She couldn’t tell who had asked. Everyone seemed far away at the moment. Her head was pounding, and she was having a hard time putting her thoughts together. If she had any thoughts. She wasn’t certain what she was doing so far above the Earth.

  The dragonriders sat there dumbly as the Dark One’s forces continued to pour out of the portal like a foul oil spill across the ocean.

  Brath’s voice rang out over the comm. “We need to move now!” he shouted. “Everyone on me! Someone wrangle Alex!”

  Gill and Jim spun around Alex so that they could force her backward, away from the portal opening.

  Whatever was affecting Alex was affecting Chine as well. The dragon’s joints were locked as if he had been scared motionless. If the two hadn’t been breathing, it would have been easy to assume they were dead.

  Jim, Gill, Jollies, and Vardis followed Brath as he retreated toward the far side of the moon, but he didn’t stop there. He headed toward an asteroid field beyond it. He set down on one of the asteroids, and the dragonriders descended beside him.

  Brath leaped off Furi and came over to Alex, who was muttering to herself, holding her head in her hands. “Hey! Alex?” he shouted.

  Alex looked up, hardly able to keep her eyes on him. They kept moving back and forth as if she were looking for something. She could see Brath, but something about him being in front of her didn’t make any sense.

  The white noise was still drumming in the back of her head. Suddenly, it surged to a crescendo, hitting a fever pitch as a voice screamed, “Alex!”

  Alex twitched violently as if she had been shocked and jerked upward. Her body relaxed as she stared into space, trying to make sense of the vague waves of information pouring through her head from the Dark One’s ship.

  Jollies flew to Alex and tugged on her cheek, to no avail. “Is she going to be okay?” the pixie asked the assembled crew.

  Brath looked over his shoulder to see if the Dark One’s forces had followed them. “I have no idea, but we can’t wait for her to stop freaking out to figure out what to do. Otherwise, we’re all going to end up dead.”

  Gill, who had knelt beside Alex, asked Brath, “What do you think we should do?”

  “We can’t risk a head-on fight. We’re way outnumbered. If we charge them, we’re just going to end up dead.”

  “Astute observation. We could hide.”

  The asteroids would make a reasonable hiding place. The field looked to be too densely populated for the Dark One’s flagship to follow them in. The vrosks would have the ability to weave in and out of the asteroids, but so would the dragonriders. That would at least put them all on the same playing field.

  Figuring out what to do was the most important thing. Luckily, Alex had never been much of the planner until recently. Everyone in Boundless was used to making decisions. “If we hide here, we could be easily overrun,” Jollies squeaked. “We can’t just stay still.”

  Gill paced as he tried to think of something. “We could all take different positions,” he suggested, pointing to three different spots that formed a triangle. “We could attack from above and below, cutting out some of the vrosks. We still won’t have to deal with the ship. Once we get the numbers down, we can funnel them to a kill spot.”

  Jim had exited his mech and now was walking up the asteroid, checking for different vantage points. “That’s not a bad idea. We could have the heavy hitters down here, pounding them with artill
ery, and two lighter Riders up at the top.”

  Boundless was in survival mode. There was no way they were going to be able to outrun the forces they had seen coming through the portal, and there could be more.

  Jollies pointed to an asteroid off to the left, and she and Amber headed toward it. Gill did the same. Brath and Jim stayed behind with Alex, who was starting to come out of the fog of the Dark One’s influence. “He’s here!” Alex muttered as she tried to get to her feet. “He’s actually here.”

  Jim helped Alex get up and held her steady as she stumbled. “Don’t you hear him?” she asked, her eyes wide and frantic. “Can’t you hear him?”

  “I don’t hear anything,” Jim told her.

  Suddenly, Alex fell to her knees, gripping her skull as she screamed, “He’s in my head! He’s in my head!”

  Brath and Jim exchanged glances, neither of them knowing what to do in the situation. They could tell Alex was in pain but didn’t know how to help. “Chine, is there anything you can do?” Jim asked the dragon.

  Chine didn’t respond. His eyes had rolled back in his head and smoke was coming from his nostrils, but he paid no attention to the human or the gnome. “Guess we gotta figure this one out on our own,” Brath muttered.

  Jim guided Alex over to Chine and sat her down by the dragon’s feet. “She’ll come out of it,” the mech rider said. “Something like this happened on the meteor. She’s linked to the Dark One. I don’t know how, but it happened. They went into some kind of vision or alternate reality. It’s hard to understand, but the two of them are linked.”

  “Like her and Vardis.”

  Jim glanced at the alien, who was standing away from everyone else as if he were waiting for something. “Yeah,” Jim said slowly. “Like with Vardis.”

  Brath grimaced. “Your girlfriend seems like she’s been getting the raw end of everything. Lucky she’s so tough.”

  “She’s not my—”

  The gnome shrugged. “You stay close to her. I’ll move up and take point. Furi should be able to handle whatever comes this way. Just make sure nothing happens to her.”

  Brath walked toward Furi and leaped onto his back, leaving Jim there with Alex, who could barely comprehend what was going on around her. If she had been aware, she wouldn’t have believed the amount of respect Brath had shown toward her, but that was most likely why Brath had said it. He knew Alex wouldn’t hear.

  Jim got back into his mech, bringing it around to Alex and Chine and preparing for the vrosks that were going to come through the asteroids at any minute. He was trembling, staring at the stars and asteroids around him.

  Alex watched all of this happening, feeling as if she were both present and someplace far away. The Dark One’s voice was still ringing in her ears, although now it made less sense. She couldn’t tell if he was speaking to her or if she was merely hearing whatever constituted his thoughts.

  Chine stretched his wing over Alex as he curled into a ball, pulling her closer to him. Alex was glad the dragon was here with her. Even though she didn’t know specifically what he was doing, she could feel him fighting something off. Maybe he was the only reason she wasn’t going insane.

  The rest of Boundless was secured in their positions. Now they were simply waiting. Silence and tense nerves as the vrosks and whatever else could have come from that portal were heading toward them. “Anybody know a good joke?” Jollies finally asked.

  Brath was scratching the back of Furi’s neck, trying to soothe the dragon, who was just as stressed as everyone else. “One that pixies would find funny?” he asked. “Is it even a joke? You all laugh at just about anything.”

  “Then it shouldn’t be hard for you to think of one, right?”

  Gill and Jim snickered over the comm, and Brath turned nearly as red as his beard. “Okay, I got one,” Brath said. “A gnome and a drow walk into a bar. The bartender asks, ‘What will you two be having?’ The gnome says, ‘Whatever you got on the menu.’ The bartender turns to the drow and asks, ‘What about you?’ The drow leans over the bar and says, ‘Your finest stones.’”

  Nobody laughed. The silence grew thicker and thicker. “Uh, I think jokes are supposed to be funny,” Jim teased.

  Brath shouted, “Gnomes don’t do humor, all right!”

  Gill was snickering, barely able to manage, “It’s kinda impressive. You managed to say something a pixie didn’t think was funny.”

  Amber set off a small electrical pulse and Jollies quipped, “You’re right. There was nothing funny about that.”

  “Gnomes don’t tell jokes!” Brath shouted again. “Wait, hold up, guys. I think they’re coming.”

  Boundless looked at the stars, which were twinkling like lost dreams. In the distance, they could see the vrosks massing. The attack was beginning.

  The dragonriders readied their weapons. This was going to be a fight worth remembering—if they survived.

  Chapter Two

  Jollies and Gill headed toward their positions, leaving Jim and Brath on the asteroid with Alex, waiting for the Dark One’s forces to make it to them. Jim hovered over Alex as she slipped in and out of consciousness. Whatever was happening was getting worse.

  Brath didn’t know what to do. He felt completely unprepared for the situation. Even though he had started everyone talking about a plan, he’d been surprised to hear himself speak. Giving orders wasn’t his thing. It wasn’t that he liked following them. Responsibility wasn’t his thing either.

  That didn’t matter at the moment. All of the Riders were responsible for Alex. She’d placed her life on the line way too many times for them to let anything happen to her. The only reason any of them were still alive was because of her.

  Alex screamed again, and Brath wished it was true that no one could hear you scream in space. She sounded like she was in pain, and it was very obvious that there was nothing any of them could do about it.

  Vardis was standing far from the rest of the group. He was staring at the moon as if he could see something.

  Brath had to fight the urge to walk up behind Vardis, pull him down, and beat the living snot out of him. He didn’t trust the guy. The whole situation with the kin attacking them had been ridiculous. What was supposed to be a simple mission had turned into a disaster, and Vardis was possibly responsible for it.

  Maybe he’s working with the Dark One, Brath thought. This could have all just been an orchestrated double-cross.

  As Brath watched Vardis, that possibility seemed less likely. If Vardis was working with the Dark One, then why was he still with Boundless? He should have bounced as soon as the Dark One’s forces had shown up.

  Brath didn’t even want to think about the amount of firepower they were going to be up against. It was hard for him to fathom that the Dark One had come to the battle in person. Actually, it was horrifying. All of the nine realms had been fighting this guy’s armor, and almost no one had ever seen or heard him. Except on the gnome world.

  The memories came faster than Brath was prepared for. The smell of burning flesh, the screams that never ended, that seemed to stretch across the entire planet. Weeks without food, scouring in the forest like animals being hunted.

  Gnomes had seen the Dark One. Many of them were now dead. Brath was lucky to have escaped when the gnomish world fell, but others hadn’t been as lucky. Not the ones who had seen the Dark One’s face.

  Stories had been shared between survivors. Brath never talked about his own. No one needed to know what had made him an orphan. But he listened to everyone else’s tales. He’d memorized them, carved them into his heart. He internalized the pain of every gnome he met and swore revenge.

  One gnome he remembered, not much older than him, had spoken about how she had seen the Dark One’s actual face. She’d been part of the early resistance that had fought when the Dark One’s first ships touched down on the planet. Her squad had been mostly wiped out. The rest had been captured.

  She said she’d been brought into a throne room, and
that was where she had seen him. His face never rested, like it was made of black water, constantly shifting and changing. Sometimes it was the face of a friend. Other times it was her own. Then it would become something much worse—a deep emptiness that sent her spiraling into madness for weeks to come.

  No one ever asked the gnome how she’d escaped. You could see in her eyes that whatever she had done was not something she would forget. When it came to refugees, sometimes it was best to leave it at that. If someone talked, they might start crying. Opening wounds was always a painful process.

  As Brath stared up at space, following Vardis’ line of sight, he had to admit to himself he was curious to see the Dark One’s face. Not that he took it lightly. But the curiosity was there. The face of the creature that was wiping out entire civilizations, a monster from another hellish dimension. Who wouldn’t be a little curious?

  Though it was much more than curiosity. Brath felt like he had to stare into the Dark One’s face, to see what kind of madness really dwelled within that dark face. Would he be strong enough to look away, to hold on to his sanity? If he wasn’t, was he strong enough to even be fighting in this war? If you couldn’t look your enemy in the eye, were you even a warrior?

  Alex screamed again, her pain ringing out in the darkness of space. Brath wished there was something to do, but Alex stopped screaming soon enough. Now she was only muttering in a fitful sleep. Brath hoped Jim would be able to concentrate on the fighting and ignore the state Alex was in. Humans were usually too emotional.