Dragon Emperor

by Eric Vall

  Immediately, I flew into the air and out of their reach before I looked around for whatever had intervened in the battle.

  What looked like a floating aircraft carrier made out of wood came into view in the sky above me, and I could just make out the trees carved into the sides of the ship and the larger tree at its helm. Lapis lazuli glinted in the carved wood, and I knew it could only be one thing.

  The Blue Tree Guild’s airship had arrived with their entire force, just as Laika said they would.

  Help was here now, and the behemoths would fall before the barrier protecting Hatra did.

  All along the deck of the ship were easily two hundred warriors, and they gripped their weapons tightly as savage smiles crossed their faces. A group of what I assumed to be mages stood at the helm of the ship, and I felt another breeze of glacial air.

  The Green Glass Sect’s attack on Hatra was destined to fail.

  Chapter 15

  The armored beasts let out enraged roars as they turned from me to the Blue Tree Guild airship. Above us, the skies churned as a maelstrom of power caused the strikes of lighting to fall faster and faster all around us, and the dark clouds were illuminated by the lightning strikes as they narrowly missed the airship.

  I glided over to the airship that remained just out of reach of the behemoths and hovered near the helm. An older wolf Demi-Human stood in the midst of the mages. His fur and hair were a dark gray and, somehow, he reminded me of Laika.

  “Never thought I’d be fighting side by side with a dragon!” the old wolf cried out as amusement glittered in his steely eyes. “I am Pyotr of the Blue Tree Guild, Master Dragon. We hastened our pace when our mages caught sight of the advancing army. Hopefully, we aren’t late to the festivities.”

  “You arrived just in time,” I rumbled over the growing sound of thunder. “I was beginning to struggle with those things.”

  The behemoths clambered on top of each other in an attempt to reach the airship, but the vessel remained out of reach of their claws.

  “Rather annoying creatures, aren’t they?” Pyotr walked to the railing of the airship and leaned over it to look at the behemoths. “Do you know where their summoner is?”

  My lips pulled away from my fangs at the thought of Asher. I’d heard him scream in frustration when I slew the first behemoth and later when the summoning circles had been destroyed by Alyona, but I didn’t know where he was on the battlefield now.

  “I was focused on keeping the beasts away from the barrier,” I admitted to the wolf. “I lost track of the summoner.”

  “Well, he must still be alive.” The wolf shrugged as he lifted his hand and signaled to the group of mages.

  Power rose in the air all around us, and it tasted like winter and glacial ice that was capable of freezing even the hottest desert. The Blue Tree Guild mages raised their hands in sync, and an ornate magical array appeared above them.

  A moment later, I could sense a steady stream of power flow from them and into the array that shifted from pale blue to stark white against the storm clouds.

  “How do you figure?” I flapped my massive wings to remain close to the airship.

  “Summoned creatures die or disappear when their summoner dies.” Pyotr tapped the side of his nose and winked.

  I opened my mouth to respond when a bolt of lightning fell from the sky and nearly missed my head by inches. The smell of burnt ozone lingered in the air, and I sneezed from the strength of it.

  The lightning strike further illuminated the battlefield, and then I caught sight of Asher. He stood on the roof of one of the half fallen scout towers outside of Hatra.

  “Found him,” I growled as my anger reared its head inside of me and called out for blood. “I’ll take care of him.”

  With one flap of my wings, I flew upward into the sky as the Blue Tree Guild mages let loose a torrent of frost and ice on the behemoths. The moment one of the armored beasts had been frozen, the warriors jumped down from the airship, and it was almost like they had wings. The Blue Tree Guild warriors dove and through the air, what must have been hundreds of feet, without fear or hesitation, and many of them didn’t even carry shields. All they had were their swords in their hands.

  As they reached the frozen behemoth, they stabbed their swords into the ice and carved deep grooves as they stopped their falls. By the time they reached the ground, the frozen beast shattered as if the swords of the warriors had been my claws.

  Systematically, the Blue Tree Guild worked in taking down the remaining behemoths. The mages on the airship paralyzed them with ice, and the warriors on the ground shattered them with their swords.

  The full might of the Blue Tree Guild was definitely nothing to laugh at.

  While I flew toward the half crumbled scout’s tower, I dodged more strikes of lightning that all seemed to be aimed at me. The power behind the strikes were intensifying with each subsequent flash of lightning, and my scales began to warm up from their intensity.

  At first, I had thought the behemoths had been the ones to summon the lightning or that it was part of their ability. But now that I was further away from the armored beasts and heading after Asher, I knew the lightning was his magic being used against me.

  A crackling dome shaped barrier surrounded the roof of the tower, and in the center of that barrier was Asher. Blood and dirt covered his face and his fine armor as he glared up at me with pure hatred in his pale green eyes. His sword was embedded into the center of the stone floor, and lightning crackled from the blade’s edge.

  “So, you’ve come, wretched dragon.” He clenched his jaw as he let go of his sword.

  His voice echoed, augmented by magic that made each word he spoke crackle as if it were a crack of lightning, up to me.

  “End this now, Asher,” I growled out, and my voice carried down to him as I tried to talk sense into him. “Your army and your behemoths are finished. There is no future where you win this battle. Leave Hatra now, and you’ll live.”

  The man laughed wildly as he brought up one hand to cover his face, and all around us, the lightning strikes increased in frequency. It was becoming more difficult to dodge them, and the tips of my wings were singed by bolts.

  “This won’t end, dragon, until one of us is dead,” Asher hissed out as he slashed his hand downward. “I will not be allowed to leave this wretched place until my mission is complete.”

  Lightning rained down and for a moment, everything around the two of us was perfectly illuminated. There were no shadows or even stormy clouds that I could see. Everything was covered in a wash of white light that almost blinded me.

  “Your mission?” I snarled as I tried to dodge the lightning. “Are you talking about Alyona or something else? What really drove you to bring an army all the way out here?”

  One of the strikes hit my tail, and I hissed in pain. Quickly, I gathered my healing power inside of myself and pushed it toward the area that burned. It didn’t feel like the lightning strike had broken through my scales, but it was still painful. I knew my scales weren’t sensitive, otherwise I would have felt immense pain while fighting the stone giants, so that meant that the lightning was just incredibly powerful.

  “While there is admittedly a more fitting palace for that princess,” Asher said as he kept his pale eyes on me, “there was more to be done with this city than just her. She was the final jewel to be stolen away.”

  The lightning strikes kept me trapped in the area around the tower, and I had no easy avenue for escape. For all intents and purposes, I was stuck here until I could figure a way out and what Asher meant by “more to be done.”

  Then an idea struck me.

  Hatra was destroyed by demons a thousand years ago, and the population that survived continued to dwindle down. It wouldn’t have been long until Hatra was nothing more than a tomb thanks to the nonstop miasma attacks.

  No one knew why the city had been targeted, but Laika and I had uncovered the underground library that stretched far underne
ath Hatra. There were countless rooms and an immense amount of forgotten knowledge in the sprawling archive. In one of those books had been a clue in fighting the miasma, the purifying power of the dragonsblood plant nurtured by the Asuras in the nearby forest.

  And then, there was the suspicious arrival of the scholar Olivier right before a summoning circle opened above the city as Corrupted Corpses and miasma controlled warriors poured in. Alyona had been attacked at the same time and forced into deviation. Everything had snowballed until this battle, and now I knew why.

  All the attacks after I arrived in this world were all connected. The appearance of the Corrupted Corpses, the attack on the Asuras, and this current battle were all the cause of one organization.

  “You attacked the Asuras?” I growled as I flew above the barrier. “Why would you do that? Why would anyone want to kill them?”

  As Asher moved to keep his eyes on me, his face shifted, and it looked like another face was painted over his features. It was blurry and vaguely familiar, as if I had seen the face before, but it wasn’t Asher’s face. As soon as I focused on the face, thought, it disappeared from view almost as if I had imagined it. But I knew I hadn’t.

  There was something strange going on with Asher.

  “Because they posed a threat to the Sage with their precious trees.” Asher shrugged and bared his teeth in a pained smile. “Thus, they had to be gotten rid of.”

  “Sage?” I glanced around for something to use to break through the barrier even though I knew I couldn’t use my stone abilities again without weakening myself further. “Is that your teacher or something? Did you torture those bandits on his orders, too?”

  I was exhausted to the bone, but I couldn’t show it. I had to take Asher down no matter what it took, even if it meant throwing myself against his barrier until I somehow managed to push through.

  Even the mere thought of lifting a boulder in the air to smash against him filled me with exhaustion and nausea.

  “We cannot and will not disobey him.” There was a hint of regret in Asher’s voice as he spoke. “Therefore, if he asks us to lay waste to entire villages and ravage entire towns, be they full of women and children and the elderly, we will do so.”

  Anger rose up in me, and I wanted nothing more than to rip out the heart of this Sage and shove it back down his throat so he’d choke on it.

  My eyes focused on the crackling barrier, and I wondered how I could get through that thing without killing myself. The voltage of the electricity was insane, and there was just too much of me to forcibly heal as I came into contact with the barrier.

  Unless, there was less of me. The cogs in my mind turned as I remembered how the Blue Tree Guild warriors had used the force of their fall to shatter the frozen behemoths and how I had earlier shattered through the armor of one behemoth with a jagged spear of stone. Only, instead of using a stone spear or a steel sword, I would be the blade that would cut through the barrier.

  I flew upward, as high as I could force myself to go, and I managed to break through the dark clouds that obscured the night sky. My heart pounded in my chest as the stars sparkled above me, and the air grew thinner.

  Sunrise was almost upon us, and the pale rays of sunlight filled me with hope.

  I could do this.

  I steadied myself in the air and closed my eyes as I sought Asher with my other senses. My mind dove past the clouds and ignored the surrounding chaos of the battlefield until it touched upon the electric barrier, and inside of it, I sensed Asher. His appearance in my mind was that of a human shape, the color of pale green, and it glowed within the barrier except for a tendril of miasma coiled where his heart should be.

  My heart rate steadied to a slow beat, and I drew in a deep breath.

  Then I let myself fall.

  As I dove toward the barrier, I forced myself to shift into my human form, and my scales melted into human flesh. All around me, I spread my healing power, and it reinforced me as my body began healing faster and faster until even my skin had become more impenetrable than reinforced steel.

  The air whistled around me as I neared the electric barrier, and I forced my body to relax. My heart was beating like crazy, and it had reached a wild rhythm in my ears. There was no turning back from this. I had bet everything on my healing powers, and either I would make it through this barrier alive or I would die.

  My eyes snapped open the moment I reached the barrier, and it shattered underneath the strength of my power. It was like the barrier had been dispersed like mist on a lake, and it barely tingled on my flesh.

  Asher pulled his sword from the stone, but he was too slow. My feet had already touched ground, and I launched myself at him. My claws scraped against the blade of his sword as Asher used it to divert me in a different direction. I let myself fall toward the stone floor and pulled my legs up at the last moment so I rolled.

  Then I heard the movement of Asher’s sword as it cut through the air, and I dove to the side to dodge. My heart pounded in my chest as I jumped back to my feet, and then I turned to see Asher reversing his grip on the sword.

  My muscles ached as we paced around each other and waited for someone to make a move again. Each step I took felt like knives being stabbed into my body, and I dragged up my healing power inside of me to cover those hurts.

  As we circled each other, a stillness settled in the air, and the putrid scent of corruptive miasma filled my nose. I stared at my opponent, and in my mind’s eye I could see the stench of the miasma curling off him like fumes or puppet strings. Then Asher moved, and the sword came down on me faster than I could see.

  But thanks to my dragon fast reflexes, I swatted the blade out of his hand just as it nicked my cheek.

  Then my clawed hand was at his throat, and my other hand was on his chest as I slammed him into the ground. His chest plate crumbled under the force of my hand, and the scent of blood filled the air before I pulled forth stone to shackle his arms and legs in an instant.

  “You think this is victory?” Asher closed his pale eyes as he laughed. “It doesn’t matter if you slaughter me and rout this army. You will never win.”

  “What do you mean?” I growled out as my hand tightened around his neck.

  “Did you really think that the happiness you have here will last?” There was pity in Asher’s voice as he opened his eyes to look at me. “You’re a being that has no purpose in existing in the first place. A black dragon? What use does this world have for you? You’ve only finished digging Hatra’s grave.”

  “Shut up!” I slammed my fist into the stone beside his head in anger. “I’m going to protect Hatra and everyone in it!”

  “Oh yes, just like how you’re going to protect the Divine Maiden?” Asher chuckled, and blood dribbled from his lips. “Didn’t she already fall into deviation?”

  “How do you know that?” My eyes widened as my hand around his throat loosened in shock. “No one outside of Hatra could have known that.”

  “The Sage has eyes everywhere.” Miasma swirled in Asher’s pale green eyes, and he smiled sadly up at me. “There is no secret he cannot uncover, especially when there is so much to gain. The princess of the land traveling incognito to save a wretched city and in turn placing her own life at risk? What better prize could there be? With one stone, he gains the treasures of this city and the crown jewel of Rahma, the princess herself.”

  “He won’t,” I promised as I let go of Asher’s throat and looked out across at the ending battle. “You’ve already lost. There’s nothing here for him or for the Green Glass Sect.”

  I didn’t have to look at Asher’s health status to know he was dying. With my mind’s eye, I could see the way his heart was choked by the cruel vice of miasma. I had compared the miasma around his body like puppet strings earlier, but now those puppet strings tightened around his heart and choked the life from him. His heart fluttered in his chest, and each breath he took became wetter and wetter with blood since I’d shattered his chest when I thre
w him against the ground.

  “I can promise you this, cursed dragon,” Asher struggled to speak as the miasma swirled sluggishly in his eyes, “we won’t be the last ones to attack Hatra. No one will suffer a dragon to have the power of the Divine Maiden. It won’t matter if it’s the Sage or not. There will be other sects, other families, other countries after you and this city. This world will fight you.”

  “They can try, but I’ll win, and if I need to, I’ll conquer this whole damn world.” I flexed my claws as I spoke, and I meant my words.

  This world would be mine.

  “Good.” It was a faint sound, barely above a whisper, that left Asher’s mouth. “If it’s you, maybe you can stop this madness, and everything will finally end.”

  At that moment, I felt regret in my heart as I placed my hand on Asher’s chest. Now that I had calmed down, I knew if things had been different, we might have been able to get along. He was under the control of the Sage, and the miasma that swirled in his heart poisoned him further as it sucked his life away.

  “I can heal you.” My mind raced as I searched for a way to extract the miasma from his heart. “I’ll take you back to the city.”

  “No,” Asher whispered as his eyes fluttered open, “take my sword and kill me. Do not let him take that from me.”

  I clenched my jaw as I stared at the dying man in front of me. There had to be something I could do, some way to carve the miasma out of him and break him free of the Sage’s control. If only I could just put him in some sort of stasis, like a medical coma or something.

  “Think, you have magic, come on,” I muttered to myself as I placed my hand back on Asher’s chest.

  Predation: Assimilation activated. Beginning consumption.

  White light seeped out from my hand and bled all over Asher’s body. I could hear a soft song in my head, like the rushing sound of wind and the crackle of thunder in the air, as all of Asher’s body was covered in the white light.