Unwilling to Succumb (The Dragon Lorde #2)

Chapter Twenty-Six: The Manor of Glass

Towering and cumbrous trees grew from the soil and coiled up above our heads, like ironed beam-poles lifting up the sky. Green star-shaped leaves rustled upon their branches like the strands of one's hair, beautiful yet very delicate.

Then there were the brilliant rays of the sun, alighting the top-side of each leaf, portraying a vivid golden halo around each green delicacy. The tree trunks were warped, weathered, and lined, with well-known, if not possible intelligence, with each new knick.

But what doomed them all, was the great amount of dark green moss laying thick and heavy against their trunks, gradually saturating their lives into a puddle of soggy wood.

As well as the bright and freshness of the greenery, there was the never- ceasing twitters of birds racing through the limbs of trees, above our heads, and hidden away from our eyes in the foliage. They were bright little jewels in the heavy mugginess of this forest. They were also a massive pain in my ars-

"Oh, you will regret that, you little bastard!" I shouted, after the little blue feathered bird, who had deemed fit to leave me a smelly present on my cheek.

But he was gone faster than I could say, twitter tweet tweet.

"Well, isn't he just charming?" Lorde Alonso relished, in his pleasant accent.

I dropped his feet.

Lorde Alonso's legs flopped to the ground, in an echo of one another, though his pits were still held up high in the arms of his brother.

As for Lorde Kaede, he eyed me with a heady glare.

"Ouch!" Lorde Alonso grunted.

Ignoring it altogether, I groaned in relief, stretching my chest up towards the sky, relishing in the fact that the burning pain in my back was beginning to loosen.

"Pardon me for saying, but you are bloody heavy!"

..

An hour later, a single bead of sweat fell from Lorde Kaede's hair, sliding down that marbled and perfect brow of his, down and down, until it reached the curvature tip of his nose clinging with a moments breath before falling.

And that ladies and gents, is what I call progression, for it appeared the bloody man of stone apparently was human after all.

As for me?

Ha! I am absolutely, horrifyingly, disgustedly human in every word and statement.

Sweat was dripping profusely from every teeny pore on my skin. I wasn't just sweating; I was sweat himself.

Stinking like a pirate's underarm, who had far too many beans than he could handle.

I was repulsive, but I didn't care.

Not the shaking of my arms, as I carried Lorde Alonso like a priced beast I've shot in the woods. Not the stone hard exertion in Lorde Kaede's features, as he deemed my arse to be slower than his grandmama!

No.

No, all that mattered was to keep my feet moving, one foot after another until the only sound in my ears was the padding of my feet against the ground and the countless yelling of men.

Wait, what?

I lifted my other leg over another bush before pausing at the sight before us, as we neared the clearing of the trees. Stretched far across the great expanse of green grass was hundreds of men. Men adorned in bright robes that synched their waist with a fabricated belt. Men that were doing rather strange things.....