We searched the tower, finding no living foe. We descended into the dungeons below. I led a party of my squadron down a flight of stairs. I kicked open a great door I found at the foot of the stairs. Cries of fear arose from within.
“We are of the Dragon Wing,” I called out.
“Saviors!” answered a woman from inside the room.
I entered. The room was filled with young women, all nude. The foe was said to keep our women that they captured in their raids as concubines – a horrid fate. I ordered the women to be led to the courtyard above. The women were covered in ash and grime. The warriors found pails, and drew water from the wells to allow them to wash away the filth.
I descended to the next level below. At the foot of the stairs were tables, bearing the cocoons. The large brown pods filled the vast subterranean chamber. Puddles of dark liquid were scattered on the stone floor.
“Here!” I called. My warriors poured out the jugs of oil they carried. I grasped a torch from one of the shieldmaidens.
“Back!” I called. I ascended the stairs, turned, and cast the torch onto the oil below. The flames spread quickly. The flames soon reached the pods.
The chamber was filled with high squeals. Some of the creatures were able to open the pods, and jump onto the floor. One of them rushed up the stairs. It was covered with a yellow liquid. Drops fell from the partly formed features of its face.
It looked up at me, and made a horrid mooing sound. As it neared me, I shoved it back with my boot into the flames below. I backed up the stairs, and ran to the ground level of the hive tower. We stacked wood and pitch into the tower - and set the evil place afire. As we left, I retrieved the shield of the noble house. We watched the flames rise from the windows of the place of horrors.
“Sire!” I called. “You are avenged.”
Of this day, the bards still sing in all the mead halls. So I have written in the first dispatches and in the Annals of the Realm. Thus ends my account of the fall of the hive of the Dark Isles. May all of this be seen by you to be right and proper, My Queen. Let it be ORDERED.
