The Shadow's Approach

**T-Minus 15 Minutes.**
The forest below the Old Watchtower Ridge was a blur of black and gray motion to **Jerrick**. He was moving at a pace that should have crippled a lesser being, a Dragon-enhanced sprint that ate the ground between him and the Queen. The Shadow Guard operated in the quiet places, and Jerrick, their captain, was a master of speed and silence. Yet, even he was pushing past the limits of discretion, knowing every second counted.
He didn't wear the heavy armor of the Dragon Guard; his gear was streamlined, obsidian-colored leather crafted to be both tough and magically quiet. His two most trusted operatives, **Lyra** and **Kael**, kept pace ten feet behind, two extensions of his desperate will.
*Find the Queen. Intercept. Extract.*
The mental channel from the hidden nexus had been the most terrifying message of his life: *The King is gone. Atlas is hunting.* It wasn't just a crisis; it was the end of their world. But the Queen's final thought—*We are running out of time*—had burned away the shock, replacing it with focused, lethal intent.
Jerrick trusted the Queen's vector: North, toward the Watchtower Ridge. But five minutes ago, his sensitive Dragon instincts had registered a cataclysmic magical spike—the chaotic, hateful signature of **Elder God power** mixed with the familiar, pure wave of the Queen's own bloodline. The resulting magical vacuum had made the area utterly opaque.
"Spread out, five-meter interval," Jerrick commanded in a low, mental snap that bypassed their ears and hit their consciousness. "Lyra, flank left. Kael, flank right. We are running blind. Look for signs of the target and a major engagement point."
They were now on the slope of the ridge. The trees were twisting, ancient pines, the ground slick with loose shale and moss. The air was colder here, thinning, carrying the scent of rock and ozone.
Lyra, on the left flank, hit the brakes first. *Captain, I have a massive scar on the ground, twenty meters to my right. It's not fire. It's corrosive.*
Jerrick immediately cut toward the site. He found the smoking crater where the Queen had been struck—a purplish, steaming wound on the earth where a large tree and a patch of ground were simply *gone*.
He knelt, his hand hovering over the scar. It was hot, vibrating with residual, alien magic. This was Atlas, unrestrained.
Then, Kael's mental voice, tight with urgency: *Captain! Above! I have the flight vector! He's heading back South—fast and panicked. He's retreating.*
Jerrick stood, ignoring the deep anxiety coiling in his gut. Atlas retreating? It made no sense. He had the Queen pinned. The only reason a predator stops feeding is if a *larger* predator shows up, or if the prey makes a move that terrifies it.
"He's heading back to the Grove," Jerrick deduced aloud, half to himself. "The Queen did something. She bought us time. Find her trail. Now."
He abandoned the crater and began scanning the cliff face, ignoring the obvious tracks. He was looking for signs of a wounded Dragon Queen protecting her children. He noticed a faint smear of mud and blood on a low-hanging branch—too low for him, but perfect for a woman running bent low.
He followed the faint, almost invisible disturbances in the shadows up the steepening slope.
*There.* A small rock, recently dislodged, resting on a flat stone. It shouldn't be there. The trail led directly into a field of massive, broken boulders at the base of the ridge's peak.
"She's near the rendezvous point," Jerrick transmitted. "She's battered, possibly injured, but moving. Lyra, Kael, assume defensive formation on the perimeter. Be silent and lethal. We are walking into a trap, not a rescue."
He activated the concealed comm unit on his wrist, a delicate mechanism woven with silver thread, and whispered a single, highly encrypted code phrase.
"Shadow One to Watchtower. **The Heartwood burns.** We have visual confirmation of the target zone. Preparing for retrieval."
Jerrick emerged from the tree line and saw the boulders. And then, he saw them.
The Queen, leaning heavily against a jagged rock, her clothes torn and dirty, her face pale but resolute. Standing beside her, wide-eyed and silently watchful, were the two children. She was a ruin, yet radiating more King's Presence than he had ever felt from her before.
He started toward her.
**T-Minus 3 Minutes.**
Suddenly, a massive, jagged shadow detached itself from a cluster of boulders thirty yards to their right. It wasn't Atlas. It was a secondary, armored guard—a colossal, crimson-scaled **Mountain Troll** that must have been roused by Atlas's earlier blast and was now seeking the source of the noise.
It let out a ground-shaking roar, its eyes fixing on the four Dragons. It was a beast of pure rage, too large to be ignored, too close to be bypassed.
The rescue was underway, but the final three minutes would not be easy.