Dragon Core

by Sain Artwell

  Alron nodded.

  She smiled. “That’s all. Just gimme vis and I’ll be back. Goodbye.”

  Oqhizt stepped up to him, cupped his cheeks, and gave him a kiss. When she stepped backwards, her body liquified and splashed across the floor. Around her dragon-core remained a viscous puddle.

  “Goodbye,” said Alron. He did not apologize, however, for no words could patch the promise his actions had breached.

  Fei flew up to him in a flash of soulfire, with Kme not far behind.

  “Did you kill her?” asked Fei.

  “I did.”

  Fei looked at Oqhizt’s remains, then at Alron. She gave him a bright smile and said, “I knew I could trust you. We’ll finally have Q back the way she’s supposed to be.”

  “This will make things easier,” said Kme, reaching towards the vibrating puddle.

  Alron lifted a wing between Kme and Oqhizt. “Thank you, but we’ve no need of your fleshbending in this case. You are no longer required. Leave us.”

  Kme’s eyes narrowed on him. She stepped back as the puddle began to shift towards the dragon-core, slowly knitting itself back into a wyrmkin form. “Very well…” With a bow, she took her leave.

  Even later that night, close to the glint of dawn, Oqhizt was once more revived.

  “Curse that rot-egg pile of—” Oqhizt cursed, her voice hoarse as she scampered onto all fours. She coughed phlegm and blood. Blinking away tears, she stared at the puddle. “Ghaaahhh… Why’s my regen so slow?”

  Before he said a word, Alron picked Oqhizt up into an embrace. “Welcome back.”

  “Haha! Good to be back… That means we won! We won! Suck my ass-dipped tail, you Garbage Carrion! Hahaha! C’mere you gorgeous!” She held his head and pulled herself into a passionate kiss. It tasted of blood and the most bittersweet déjà-vu.

  When Alron pulled out, he spoke, “Before I explain everything, I believe I owe you a victory dance.”

  “Heck yea you do! Is Fei joining?”

  “Of course.” A beaming smile curled Fei’s lips up. She stalked up to Oqhizt, running her claws up the tall muscled woman’s hips. “Oh, I’ve missed your butt! I can’t wait to watch Alron pound it again.” She gave it a slap, eliciting a yelp.

  The laugh they shared was strained, but as Alron sealed the room by dragonizing it, and cornered Oqhizt between his and Fei’s lustful gropes, all thoughts beside desire were pushed to the cliffside.

  Where Sofi’s body was a gentle collection of soft slopes, and Fei’s a sculpture of elegant beauty and artistic proportions, Oqhizt’s was a quarry of hardened muscle and voluptuous mounds. Very voluptuous. Leaning down to taste Oqhizt’s erect nipple, Alron regretted that he’d had nearly forgotten their silky texture, their sweat-salted taste. He reached down, sliding a finger over dripping lips, meeting a pair of more slender fingers on the entrance to Oqhizt’s asshole. Push.

  Fei smirked behind Oqhizt and bit her neck.

  “Angh!” Oqhizt cried out, her gruff, husky voice breaking in an awkward moan. Alron toyed with her entrance and bead, stretching her with three fingers, then massaging, maintaining a slow rhythm—a melody which excited ever more embarrassing moans from his old lover’s lips.

  Ah, that look she gave him as he peered up and straightened to loom above her. Eyes half-lidded, her gaze begged him.

  “Redo my bond,” she labored to breathe. “I need it.”

  Alron and Fei both redoubled their efforts to penetrate her, drawing odd moans.

  “Please!” Oqhizt cried.

  “We’ll speak of what happened later. Then, if you still desire it, I shall accept your bond,” said Alron softly.

  “Nu-uh! I don’t know why it snapped, but I don’t care. Give it back to me. I’m… I lost a lot of stuffing from my… A-ahhnn… memorrrries. Black spotsss soo goood Stars!”

  “Such an ass slut… Keep your tail off my wrist or I’ll shove it up here.” Fei bit on Oqhizt’s ear, breaking her concentration again. Neither she nor Alron stopped stroking. But Oqhizt was not easily discouraged.

  She continued to beg, “Now! I don’t care what happened. I’m yours, forever yours! Take me. Take my bond! You can’t abandon me.”

  “Shush, I never would.”

  “Then bond me!”

  Oqhizt closed her eyes, her lips parting in a plea. Though her dragon-core was not yet fully re-awakened, he could feel her opening it, leaving it vulnerable for his dragonsoul to dominate—for him to bond.

  “Then…” He caressed her cheek, taking a hold of her head to lean in. “…submit, be mine.”

  “Yes…” Oqhizt whispered. “Always.”

  He sealed their bond with a kiss and reached his influence into her dragon-core. The pulse of his vis caused her vestiges to glow bright throughout Oqhizt’s body, highlighting her veins. She became his as seamlessly as scales sit on a hide, as if she’d always been there. The sense of wholeness reminded Alron at once of what he’d missed all these years.

  Air vibrated. The dragonized room pulsed, as if alive. The heartstring vestiges woven through Alron’s chest began to twitch, as the dragonsoul within them seized the moment of transformation in a futile attempt to overpower his control.

  Down, Alron said to his bastard soul.

  He felt it change from Oqhizt’s influence, and grow. Acutely, he felt the presence of a spectral tail, even when it was not dragonized into existence, a long, ten foot tail with a spine of bladed spikes. And he felt in his veins stir tiny sparks, echoes of the first of Oqhizt’s vestiges.

  There may have been other things happening around them too—strange phenomena caused by the bonding of two willing dragon-cores. However, neither Alron nor his two women noticed them. Sex resumed.

  More. Harder! Fuck me like you mean to breed… Oqhizt’s needy demand rang in Alron’s thoughts.

  Fei’s giggle followed. Welcome back, Q.

  “Ah-ha-ha…” You heard that.

  “We did indeed.” Alron hoisted Oqhizt up, turned her around, and let her slide down, until and after her tight pucker parted around his unyielding girth. A ring of muscles clenched around his cock as Oqhizt shifted in his embrace, snapping to a vice-like tightness when Fei knelt to lick liquid arousal off of Oqhizt’s quivering cunny. Fei worked eagerly, almost too eagerly, closing her eyes to devote herself to chasing Oqhizt towards a quick orgasm.

  Alron told her to slow down.

  “As you wish…” she said, licking Oqhizt’s juices off her lips. “May I kiss her elsewhere?”

  That, he allowed.

  Standing, Fei traced a line of nibbles and soft licks across their lover’s chiseled body, making a long, indulgent stop at her breasts and nipples. Alron was guided more by instinct than conscious memory, as he slipped his arms beneath Oqhizt’s thighs and lifted them up to hold his hands behind her neck, trapping her between his arms and cock. Her sphincter tightened against his aggressive thrusts. Despite being so confined by his body, she did her best to hump against him, wiggling her hips, making her asshole gyrate around his thrusts. Howling, screaming obscenities, she came before he did, twice.

  Unlike someone else Alron knew, Oqhizt did not melt into a puddle after a few orgasms. She only grew more vigorous and enthusiastic in her submission.

  Oqhizt demanded to be allowed to suck his cock, initiating an odd competition between herself and Fei. To heat things up, Alron introduced Oqhizt to his new ability to dragonize extensions of his cock and stuffed them both with vibrating tools, before letting them compete hands-off on serving the real thing. Winner was the one to swallow his cum. Fei, of course, cheated by slipping her hand between Oqhizt’s muscular thighs and rubbing her to quick climax at the crucial moment.

  Sweaty and bitter, Oqhizt demanded punishment for her failure. Alron and Fei were only too happy to oblige.

  Until the very end, they denied her further release, teasing her ever closer to the edge. Of course, Oqhizt had to be restrained to stop her from masturbating with her hands or tail, but when she
was, she obeyed eagerly enough, becoming a servile piece of lips and tongue for Alron and Fei to use to heighten their shared pleasure. Oqhizt admitted to loving it without a shred of shame.

  She’d always been like this, Alron remembered—enthusiastic in submission as she was in life. She’d always been the first to trust him, no matter what.

  Sweet hours of sex rolled to a sweaty plateau. Two of his old lovers rested in Alron’s arms, half-sleeping. The sight was as unreal to his eyes as it was bittersweet.

  Oqhizt’s dragon-core bonded to his dragonsoul far too smoothly. She’d opened herself up to be bound to him without knowing anything. Her surface thoughts, now that he felt them, were those of uncomplicated contentment.

  Her eyes opened. “Mmmh… Hello, handsome.” Oqhizt climbed up to kiss his nose.

  Alron tousled her poofy curly hair. His smile faded. “It’s time we spoke. A lot has happened since we defeated the Carrion Scourge.”

  “Yeah… Kind of pieced that together.”

  Alron reached out with his vis, causing the floor to squirm and carry Oqhizt’s shell-jingle choker to them. He picked it up, and considered where to begin.

  “That’s kinda tacky, isn’t it,” she said.

  He paused. “Do you not remember it?”

  She looked at him weirdly. “Uh. Nah. Never seen it before. Should I? My head’s been feeling a bit fuzzy. I remember us preparing for the battle and the fight, but beyond that, it’s…” Oqhizt winced, touching her forehead. “Crap. How long have I been dead?”

  “A hundred years, give or take a few.”

  “You’re lying.” Her eyes drew wide. “A hundred? Why hadn’t I been revived earlier?!”

  Fei stirred to the rising voices, grumbling something about the dream Oqhizt being better behaved.

  Alron chuckled. He set the choker away and explained almost everything.

  He never did tell her of the promise she’d forgotten. She never asked. She simply accepted him, despite his war against Ascendancy. Whether it was the lost memories or emotions shared across the bond that made her trust him implicitly this time around, Alron couldn’t tell. More than likely, both played a part. Though guilt of what he’d done weighed upon him, Alron didn’t allow himself to wallow in the emotion just yet. He still had lives to take, nations to burn, and a King to kill.

  After recovering from bonding, the trio set out to visit the elders of the clans that composed the Blood Courts of Naputzeri.

  Chapter 28 - He’s Coming

  The last breath of Iceweaver howled around the Garden of Heavenly Dreams. The eternal storm surrounded Sorcerer King’s cloud-breaching tower in a barrier of freezing gale too cold and strong for any mortal to breach. Even so, she was beginning to wonder whether if that would be enough to sufficiently slow Alron’s advance, as she watched him from afar.

  Vestiges bound to the tower by star sorcery and skill of ancient dragonsmiths enhanced her farsight to cosmic distances, allowing Sorcerer King to easily project her consciousness into the Capital of Bones.

  There, she was a spectral observer to the fall of a nation, which had endured the failed ascensions of three dragongods. It did not, however, endure Alron.

  At times, he could be seen as a dark crimson blur, flying faster than a missile, making impossibly abrupt turns by using his sword as an anchor in space. Swings of his blade—which he dealt in dozens per heartbeat—passed through everything with equal ease. The aftershock of each swing broke glass in a wide radius, cracked the earth, and ruptured internal organs of those who’d been several feet removed from the actual swing.

  Some awakened masters survived, of course. There were elders and drakemen among the Blood Courts notorious for their regenerative abilities. Alron never paused to finish them off. The host of soulfire warriors forced their ethereal claws into the lungs of the regenerating wyrmkin, and set their vis aflame from within. As they passed, the soulfire creatures picked up jadegold weapons from the fallen.

  However outmatched, the Naputzeri were no strangers to battling against insurmountable odds. Heroic sacrifices of the elders and its greatest awakened masters culminated in a concentrated attack on the steps of the illustrious Spine Citadel.

  Concentrated explosions of blood-slaves buried underground spread toxic red mist all over Alron. In an instant, that blood solidified into branching blades long as trees. Sorcerer King saw the mental attacks of a hundred oracles lash Alron’s mind. A split of an instant later, the bone-white staircase exploded again as dragonfire missiles and artillery rained upon Alron, engulfing him in a flash of explosions and flames.

  Remaining forces surrounded the crater, and when the dust cleared, cried out a desperate warcry.

  There stood Alron, with his gigantic weapon above his head, lifted like a shield. A crimson woman stood above his shoulder like a spirit of blood, knitting together the few wounds that had gone through his sword and wings.

  Ground beneath Alron’s feet flashed red. Rubble turned into sharp scarlet barbs and blades, impaling many of the warriors who had rushed him. Soulfire warriors charged with weapons in hand, following right behind Alron as he sprang into motion. He slew all on his path, and carved a bloody road through the remaining clans of the Blood Court.

  When he was done, and the city was in ruins, the man simply took off towards Iceweaver Peaks, turning invisible by the time he reached the clouds.

  Sorcerer King withdrew from the vision, suppressing a smile. “Prepare the knights and maintain watch. He’ll be here by noon tomorrow,” she said.

  Dente, her head bowed as she knelt, nodded. “It shall be done. What of the rest of our forces?”

  “Already in position.”

  “They will barely inconvenience him.”

  “Every bit helps,” said Sorcerer King.

  Dente considered this, and frowned.

  Sorcerer King nodded, turning as if she expected Dente to leave. In truth, she already knew that the girl would linger, that she had a question burning her mind. After all, Sorcerer King had observed every moment of Dente’s duel with Alron.

  “I would like to ask you a question,” Dente said, her voice one of carefully built conviction.

  Sorcerer King gave her a smile. “Of course.”

  “Please answer honestly, did you know this would happen?” Dente stared at her with such determination that Sorcerer King nearly mistook her for her father.

  “I anticipated it for the most part, though the details cannot be foreseen, even by the Stars-gods.”

  Dente bristled.

  Sorcerer King reached out to lift her cheek up, offering the girl a sympathetic frown. “I apologize for keeping you in the dark. This was not a burden I thought wise to place upon you. Not so soon after the ritual robbed you of so many of your friends. Alron… this entire sequence of events has been long in the making by Sorcerer Kings before me.”

  “Sure. ‘For the better tomorrow’,” Dente said wryly. “If you can believe in things like that.”

  Sorcerer King timed her pause to make it seem she was conflicted on whether or not to speak her next words. She spoke gravely, “A world free of dragongods. That means a world free of vestiges, and all draconic powers. To that end, all those who would not relinquish their power willingly are enemies of the tomorrow. Trust the stars, Dente. They’ve guided us here. Their light illuminates a path to a world where wyrmkin can be free. You’ve seen how lost the wyrmkin are. We need their guidance to reach that tomorrow. We need to trust them just a little longer.”

  Though Dente looked conflicted, a twinkle of hope in her eyes was building into a brazier. She would do what needed to be done. Sorcerer King smiled at her protege. Fei, Alron… I raised her the best I could. She led a good life.

  Chapter 29 - Homecoming

  Alron flew over the spiraling ridges of tilted mountains, the spine of a dead dragongod. The familiar silhouette of Iceweaver’s colossal skull finally came into view, its head crowned by hundreds of horns so high they disappeared into the e
ternal blizzard raging in the heavens. Glossy dark blue walls of the City of Spires glistened beneath the waning crescent moons, and the tens of thousands of lanterns glowing within arched windows.

  Now this is a hero’s welcome, Fei’s mock cheer sounded in Alron’s mind.

  A flock of drakebeasts, monsters, winged wyrmkin, and wyrmkin riding on beasts took off simultaneously. Oracles had seen through their cloak of invisibility. Numbering in tens of thousands, the enemies, distant specks still, spread out like a reaching claw. Towards the center of that black swarming claw, Alron flew.

  Five miles away, the wyrmkin unleashed a barrage of dragonfire missiles.

  No cannons, noted Oqhizt.

  Not this close to the City, though the sniper will likely be here.

  Can they pierce your hide? asked Oqhizt.

  Hers can. Her cannon is as powerful as that of a battleship. Beware her. She is good.

  But not the rest? Alright. I’ll keep circling for warmth then and minor regen. Lemme know if we’re about to get hit.

  We’re about to be hit, said Fei.

  Haa-haa… I meant hit by cannons or spears or somesuch physical punches.

  Will do.

  Waves of missiles grew closer. These were ice arrows, winged bullets of frostfire, and mighty blizzards condensed into sentient projectiles. Fewer in number, but not dismissable, were the other types of dragonfire among them.

  Layers of solid fire and soulfire engulfed Alron from the tip of his long whipping tail to his wide blade-like wings as he tensed them tight for a steady glide. With a tight grip on Apocalypse, Alron released a portion of the stored spin-energy in a forward swing. His gut lurched. The explosive release of kinetic energy catapulted him forward at thrice the speed of his wings alone, smacking right through the wall of missiles.

  Only five of the hundreds of missiles hit him. The layers of flames, a dragonized arsenal of jadegold weapons turned into a living armor, and his own broken dragongod body reinforced by Oqhizt’s fleshbending shrugged off the attacks as if they were snowflakes falling on a hot pan.