The Kiss From a Dragon

by C. D. Pennington

  “No! Be careful with that!” he yelled, fear evident in his frail voice.

  “What is this?” she asked.

  “It’s….nothing. Please, give it here.” He held out a quivering hand.

  Cerana’s eyes narrowed as a thought entered her mind, and she threw the object as hard as she could against a nearby boulder.

  “NOOOOOOOOOO! You fool!” he yelled, as the crystal smashed into tiny pieces; small, sharp fragments flying everywhere.

  “Coviche!” Cerana yelled. Within moments, the dragon-woman appeared from the moonlit undergrowth, her strength returned. Cerana had guessed correctly that the crystal Blackwood carried was a fragment of dragonstone that protected him from the power of the dragons. Once destroyed, Coviche was able to approach him without any weakness.

  “Well done my friend,” the huge woman said, smiling at the resourcefulness of her new partner. She turned to the thin man, who was shaking with fear on the ground. “Blackwood,” she hissed menacingly.

  “Wha….how do you….who are you?” Civilus Blackwood croaked.

  “I believe you have information that I need, Civilus Blackwood. And you are going to give it to me. Do you understand?” Coviche leant over him and glared as threateningly as her beautiful face would allow. The pitiful, sobbing man nodded, looking up at her with total fear in his eyes.

  “Cerana, bring the creature.”

  Cerana did as she was bid, and dragged the still-choking goblin to Coviche. As she threw the goblin to the ground beside Blackwood, she recovered the second dagger and stood behind them both, acting as a guard to the prisoners.

  “Do you not know who I am?” Coviche asked. Blackwood shook his head, and the snivelling goblin remained silent. “Well, I know who you are. And I know you are working for the mage in the mountains.” Both prisoners’ eyes widened, and Blackwood’s jaw dropped open. “Tell me what you know. Now.” Coviche commanded.

  “I know nothing,” Blackwood announced.

  “Is that so? Let me see if this may change your mind.” Coviche held her left hand aloft, palm up. She closed her eyes and muttered some words until a small, glowing sphere emerged in her palm. The sphere grew to the size of a melon, a shimmering ball of white energy. It sparkled and crackled in the gloom, and as she withdrew her hand, the globe floated in mid-air. She pushed her hand forward, and the sphere glided towards the prisoners, stopping when she dropped her hand. Blackwood and the goblin regarded the glowing object with horror.

  “Kraznak.” Coviche’s word sent bolts of energy fizzing from the sphere, shocking the bodies of the stricken prisoners to the core. Every part of their bodies shook and trembled as if they were fitting, as the energy crackled like lightning around them. When Coviche released her spell, the man and the goblin slumped to the ground, groaning.

  Hauling them to their knees, Coviche gave them no respite. “Speak,” she commanded. “That was just a taster.”

  “Okay, okay,” Blackwood croaked. “What do you want to know?”

  “That’s better,” Coviche smiled, pleased with herself.

  And she hasn’t even transformed into a dragon yet, Cerana thought. But she probably doesn’t have enough room with all these trees.

  “I will know of any prisoners the mage holds,” Coviche ordered.

  “That I know of, there are two,” Blackwood admitted. Cerana listened intently.

  “Does that include the dragon or not?”

  Blackwood’s face dropped again. “How do you -”

  “Why is he holding them?” Coviche demanded, interrupting him.

  “I don’t know, I swear.”

  “Is there a girl too?”

  “Yes.”

  “Esteri,” Cerana softly said.

  “What does he want with her?” Coviche continued.

  “I…I know not.”

  Coviche looked to the sphere, which started to crackle with energy.

  “Alright, wait!” Blackwood conceded as he saw the energy building in the magical orb. “She has a disease. She’s the only one who has survived it so far. We are working on a cure, and we took her to test the antidote on.”

  Cerana bristled and gritted her teeth. She was furious that her sister was being held because of this man in front of her. The temptation to slit this pitiful man’s throat with her new daggers grew, but she resisted.

  “And this disease you speak of, would you happen to know how she contracted it?” Coviche questioned.

  The man looked nervously at the dragon-woman, then the sparkling sphere, sighed deeply and confessed. “Yes. We gave it to her.” He dropped his head, sensing defeat.

  Cerana gripped the daggers tighter. “Continue,” she snarled.

  “We found a way to recreate an ancient disease. Moriallaj is using the dragon for an ingredient that can infect a human without killing it instantly. It has taken time, but the girl is proof that he has done it.”

  “Ephylaxon,” Coviche said firmly. “And who is Moriallaj, the mage inside the tower?”

  “Yes,” Blackwood admitted. “But there is nothing you can do. The cure works.” He grinned maliciously. “And now no-one can stop him.” A twinkle appeared in his eye. He was getting excited again.

  “What do you mean?” Cerana asked nervously, but relieved to hear that Esteri was at least alive.

  “He can infect everyone in the realm now!” Blackwood said triumphantly, momentarily forgetting his hopeless situation. “And only he has the power to cure it! Ha-ha! Yes, we have the only cure, too. Just think how much power that gives him. Us. Just imagine what we can demand of that pitiful king now, and how powerless he will be to resist us!”

  Blackwood was growing in confidence, Cerana was growing in anger and hatred, and Coviche was growing more fearful that her suspicions were proving correct. Even the goblin had a smirk on his ugly face, but had the sense to remain silent.

  The two women were speechless as Blackwood continued. “What do you think, eh? When we tell him the only way to save his beloved realm is to surrender it to us? Do you think he will have a choice? No, I think not. He won’t risk the lives of all his people. He will have to surrender. Otherwise, everyone dies. So go ahead, do what you want with me. There is nothing more I can tell you anyway. You are too late, you have lost.”

  Cerana was ready to explode with rage. Coviche looked defeated as the realisation hit. She did not know what to say.

  Blackwood went on, brimming with new-found confidence from the knowledge that his adversaries had run out of ideas. “Nothing more you do to me will make me tell you any more, for there is only one thing I have left to say – and I will tell it to you of my own free will. There will soon be a new master of his pathetic realm, so you’d better get ready. A new age is dawning, and there is nothing you can do to stop it. There is nowhere to hide. So if I were you, I’d let me go free now, and I might just put in a good word for you and have you thrown in the dungeons instead of giving you the same thing we gave that little blond bitch.”

  That was as much as Cerana could take.

  All the pain and hurt and rage that had been building up inside her - not just this day, but ever since the lives of all her family had been turned upside down – finally boiled over. She roared with anger, yanked back Blackwood’s greasy hair at the same time as opening his throat from ear to ear with the curved, glowing dagger. Blood gushed from the deadly wound, and Blackwood died instantly, his lifeless body falling to the ground in a heap as a pool of blood spread across the land beside him.

  Cerana stood over him, breathing hard and grasping the daggers tightly in clenched fists. Blood dripped from the curved blade, the strange orange glow now extinguished altogether.

  The goblin sat with a horrified expression. The dead man’s sprayed blood dripped down his face. Coviche stood open-mouthed, furious at Cerana for murdering their hostage yet understanding completely what had made her do it.

  “That’s for my sister, you piece of shit,” Cerana growled.

  “Oh, maste
r!” Fearing for his own life, the goblin sprang from his position and kneeled at Cerana’s feet, head down, bony hands stroking her boots. “I is proud to serve the new master, err, mistress. I is your new humble servant, oh merciful mistress.” He looked up at her and clenched his hands together as if in prayer. “If mistress will save this one’s pitiful life, I will be hers forever. Just please don’t cut I’s throat, mistress.”

  “No, I’m not going to cut your throat, creature,” Cerana said coldly. “But you will serve me.”

  “Anything, oh merciful mistress!” the pathetic goblin snivelled.

  Cerana slid one of the daggers under her belt and lifted him to his feet by his cloak, gripping the back of his scrawny neck hard. She pointed the curved blade right between his wicked little eyes, his terrified stare following the dagger until his eyes crossed.

  Cerana had a new-found intensity that she was not aware she had in her, but she now knew precisely want she needed to do. Cerana Proudstone was not going to give in, and she was not going to abandon Esteri to her fate.

  And she had an idea of how to do it.

  She stared at the goblin. “You are going to get me into that tower.”

  CHAPTER 44 - Trust

  Coviche was worried. It was true, she did not herself have a better idea than the one Cerana had come up with, but that did not necessarily make the idea a good one. It was fraught with danger, and a great deal of trust would need to be placed on the goblin they had captured, whose name they had found out to be Varros. He had eagerly parted with information concerning the mountain, namely entering and exiting. From the little that Coviche knew about goblins, they were rather short of brain but very cunning and untrustworthy. She feared that Varros would tell them anything to save his green skin.

  However, she did admit to herself that some of the things he said would have taken a much more intelligent being than Varros to make up so convincingly on the spot. For that reason alone, she afforded him slightly more trust than she had at first. Besides, this is what she ultimately wanted – a way to get Cerana into the mountain. A way to her mother. She just wished there was a slightly better way than to trust the words and actions of a goblin.

  Under Cerana’s interrogation, Varros had explained that he was one of around thirty goblins working for the mage Moriallaj in his tower. He had no dealings with the prisoners and had never once seen Esteri nor Coviche’s mother - Dramilath of the black dragonflight, as Coviche had imparted to them.

  Varros claimed to be one of two scouts, and it was the job of the scouts to carry messages, goods and information to and from the tower. He had met Blackwood before to pass on packages, but he claimed not to know the contents, and Blackwood rarely spoke at their meetings. Coviche guessed that it was vials of the ephylaxon he carried, for Blackwood to slip into the water supplies.

  He also mentioned there were other, larger goblins, these more human-sized. Although not as many - he suggested only five or six he could remember – they were fierce and mean, and they scared Varros. Cerana’s task was becoming more folly by the minute, yet still she remained focused and strangely confident.

  When asked, the goblin willingly and excitedly told the two women how they came and went from the secret doors in the mountain. He showed them with glee a small bracelet he wore on his thin wrist which he claimed acted as a key to the hidden entrances, of which there were two – one on each side of the mountain. Cerana silently thanked the gods for her luck of being almost precisely where one of those doorways was when Varros exited earlier that night. For such a vast mountain, it was incredible she was in the right place at just the right time. It was fate, she thought. Someone was watching over her, helping her. Mother? Father?

  Varros did not know how the bracelets worked, but they just did. Cerana had her way in, rather more easily than either of the women expected.

  Coviche still feared a trap, yet as they had nothing else to go on, this was the plan they were going with, despite her better judgement. She also feared that Cerana was putting all her trust in this creature. It seemed her desire to rescue Esteri was clouding her judgement to the extent that the goblin could tell her anything and she would believe it. This worried her greatly, and she frowned as Cerana continued to obtain information from her new servant.

  Varros seemed more fearful of Cerana than he did of Coviche, perhaps rightly so if the evidence of Cerana’s execution of their former hostage was anything to go by. Maybe he would have a different opinion if Coviche transformed herself into the azure dragon, but that had not been necessary yet.

  There was little doubt in Coviche’s mind as to the resolve of her human comrade. She had proved remarkably resourceful, and felt well justified in rescuing Cerana from certain death at the gallows. With the power of the dragonstone hindering her – incapacitating her – there was no way she would have been able to do what Cerana had done and get them to the position they were in now. Yet she now felt guilt for being unable to help her new friend in the battle that was to come in the mage tower. A battle that she felt was inevitable, but was unsure as to whether Cerana was ready for it. The human was undoubtedly tough, and had grasped this opportunity with both hands once it had presented itself, once she had slit the throat of their antagonist. One down, she thought, one more to go. Although this one would be a great deal harder to overcome than the last one.

  Since she had killed Civilus Blackwood, Cerana had become a different woman: motivated, determined, hell-bent on the success of her mission. She had all but taken over the operations of the mission from Coviche. First, interrogating the one remaining prisoner who had now become more of an ally to her. And, finding a way into the tower and now plotting the downfall of the tower’s denizens. Not that either of them had any real clue as to what to expect inside the tower, but there was nothing they could do about that, only hope.

  Cerana was almost ready to embark on her mission to the mage tower, but Coviche wanted a word with her before she went – a private word out of range of Varros, who had become Cerana’s new shadow of late. As the huge woman strode towards her human friend, Cerana was cleaning the blood off her curved dagger with an old rag before sliding it into the sheath she still had strapped to her thigh. She did not seem to be aware of Coviche’s approach, or if she was, she made no hint to her presence.

  “Might I have a word with you before you go?” Coviche asked, as sure as she could be that the goblin was out of earshot.

  Cerana tightened the buckle at her thigh and turned to the beautiful girl in front of her. “I am ready,” she announced, seemingly unaware of the request.

  Coviche forced a smile. “So I see. But before you go, there is something I want to say. I never got the chance to say thank you for helping me.”

  “Yeah well don’t thank me yet, the real hard work is only just about to begin. Anyway, saving me from being hanged is the only thanks you need to give. I wouldn’t be here now if not for you, so I say that it’s me who should be thanking you.”

  Coviche didn’t argue with that. “I guess we are kind of even, then.”

  “Guess we are,” Cerana agreed. “Look, I have as much to lose here as you do, it’s my sister in there as well as your mother. It seems I have already lost one sister, and I do not intend to lose another. But I also know how it feels to lose a parent before their time - and trust me when I say that it is not something you want to go through. So I do know how much you are relying on me to help you. And I will do everything I can to save them both.”

  “You know I cannot go in with you, as much as it pains me not to,” the dragon-woman said with honesty. “But if you can somehow bring down that dragonstone, then I will be able to help. My mother will probably still be weak from its effects, but at least I can help you. I will know if you have managed to do it, fear not.”

  “I will do my best.”

  Coviche smiled wryly. “I do not doubt that whatsoever, Cerana Proudstone.” She had never before come across a human with so much resolve, or one who wa
s so determined. Cerana was absolutely committed to her task. And although Coviche knew that she was probably sending her friend to her death, there was simply no other way.

  “Do me one favour, if I return?” Cerana asked solemnly.

  “Anything.” If she did return, Coviche would give this human anything.

  “Start calling me just Cerana?” It was Cerana’s turn to smile wryly.

  Coviche laughed, causing Cerana to do so also. The two women embraced and locked themselves together for several minutes, Cerana’s head pressed against Coviche’s chest, such was the height difference.

  “So be it, Cerana. May the gods smile upon you in your quest.”

  “Farewell, my friend. I hope we have the chance to meet once again.”

  “As do I, Cerana Prou……..Cerana.”

  Cerana smiled once more, although this one was more forced than the last. Her heart felt heavy in her chest as she nodded courteously to the dragon-woman, then turned from her and began to walk away, a solitary tear slowly tracing its way from her eye to her cheek.

  CHAPTER 45 – The Tower of Stone

  Dawn had not long since broken. Although the rising sun could not be seen for the barricades that were the imposing mountains, its presence was felt as a welcoming warmth after the chilly night. The sky that was visible between the peaks took on a pink hue to the east, slowly changing to purple then orange the further south the eye could trace.

  Evidence of a recent rain shower was visible as darkened patches on the otherwise barren grounds between the mountains. It must only have been very light, for they were unaware of any precipitation in the woods; the canopy of trees that covered the forest acting as a barrier between the clouds and the ground.

  Cerana could not remember the last time she had slept, though strangely, she felt more awake than she had done in weeks. She was also surprised at her lack of hunger, although a mixture of fear, adrenaline and anticipation was probably the main reason for that.