by Dante King
I hadn’t realized that I had stopped to stand and stare at it until Elenari touched me on the arm. I blinked and looked down at her.
“Nice bit of statue, that,” I said, somewhat lamely.
She smiled. “Yes. It acts as more than just a piece of art though.”
“How’s that?” I asked. “Does it double as an anti-dragon cannon too?”
“The flame burns blue in times of peace,” Elenari said, “but if we were ever to be attacked, the flame roars up into the sky and turns a bright red. That way the villagers know to grab their weapons, or else flee to their cellars.”
“But I guess that hasn’t happened for a long time, right?” I asked, gazing about the bustling town. It was so quaint that it reminded me of a scene depicted on a cracker tin or a box of ginger biscuits.
“No. It’s never been lit in the time of anyone currently living,” Elenari said. “But, if it ever was, we—the dragonmancers—would be the tip of the spear in the defense of our people.”
We continued to gaze up at the statue for a few seconds, while across the square a blacksmith pounded out a steady rhythm on his anvil.
“When do the blacksmiths call it a day then?” I asked.
Elenari looked at me like I was a bit mad. “They call it a day when the sun is in the sky,” she said. “Then, when the sun goes down, they call it a night.”
I waved my hands in front of me. “No, no, I just mean, when do they finish? Everyone else seems to be hurrying home or to the taverns, maybe? But that blacksmith is still working away.”
“Oh, a forge never sleeps,” Elenari said. “A blacksmith will usually have an apprentice or helper that keeps the smithy fire burning, and he will not be far away. You never know when a horse might need shoeing or a carriage wheel repairing.”
“That’s right,” Saya said, coming to stand on my other side. “They say that at the heart of a doomed village is a cold forge.”
“Well, on that cheery note,” I said, “how about we get our butts into one of these taverns or inns or gin palaces that I see around the place, hm?”
“Where would you like to go?” Elenari asked. “There are a few establishments which cater almost exclusively to dragonmancers.”
I jerked my head toward my squad, and the squads of the two girls, who stood a little apart from us, talking among themselves.
“We’re all going out together, ladies,” I said.
Elenari looked at Saya. The blonde woman’s eyebrows rose in surprise.
“It is not really traditional for dragonmancers to mingle and fraternize in establishments with common soldiers, especially not establishments in which the general public are eating and drinking,” the gorgeous blonde said slowly.
“Pft, you know that tradition is just a security blanket, right? And where the fuck is the fun in too much security? Come on guys, let’s get you out of that stuffy comfort zone, hm?”
Elenari looked unsure.
“It’s not illegal to hang out with the squad, right?” I asked her.
“Well, no…” the elf said.
“Exactly, so let’s just visit a few places and have a few drinks and see what happens,” I said. I put my arms around the two women. “Come on, indulge me this once and let me take you on a good old Californian bar crawl.”
“It sounds like some sort of grueling exercise, this bar crawl,” Saya said.
“I can tell you that there’s nothing grueling about it,” I said, and then paused for a moment. “Well, maybe it gets a little grueling around the tenth bar—not to mention in the morning, if you’ve done the thing right—but sometimes you’ve got to stick your neck out and mix things up.”
Saya grinned. “Fine. Show us what this bar crawl is.”
Elenari glanced over her shoulder at the three squads waiting in the wings. “Sure,” she said, “I’m in. I mean, how much trouble could we really get into?”
Chapter Fifteen
It took me seven drinks before I became accustomed to just how much attention dragonmancers received from the general public. I thought that Elenari and Saya must have been overstating the fact that dragonmancers did not mingle with the townspeople, but, if anything, they were understating it.
Visiting the first tavern had been an eye-opening experience. Word seemed to have spread, as word does, from the Disputation Dungeons all the way down to the town center, running ahead of us like wildfire. It was already known that a new male dragonmancer had been brought to the Drako Academy from Earth—long brown hair, tall, fit, deep blue eyes—and that he had selected an unlikely band to form his squad, before putting on one of the best displays of combat that the Disputation Dungeons had ever seen.
Not my words. This had come along the town’s gossip grapevine.
As soon as we had walked into the first inn, our three squads in tow, every conversation faltered and died. There had been a heavy pause, in which I heard the clatter of a goblet falling to the ground, then a babble of chatter broke out. People craned over one another for a look at Elenari, Saya, and me. I was sure that, had everyone been armed with iPhones, we would have been all over everyone’s Instagram feeds before you could say TMZ.
The hubbub had only grown as we made our way toward the bar. When it became apparent that we were ordering drinks and actually going to stay there, consorting with all the regular townsfolk, people actually began leaving so that they could wrangle their friends into coming and seeing the dragonmancers hanging out in a regular inn…
We had ended up only staying in that tavern for as long as it took to order and down a round of cocktails. The neon green beverages left me smoking from the nose for a minute or two afterward. Then we left the tavern behind and headed down the street.
“Damn,” I remarked to Saya, “that was crazy. All those people...you weren’t wrong about dragonmancers being popular. We’re pretty much celebrities. That must be how Leonardo DiCaprio or Brad Pitt must feel every time they leave the house!”
“I do not know who they are, but I assume they are well-liked,” Elenari had said.
“You bet your cute ass they are.”
“Welcome to your first taste of what it is like to be a dragonmancer,” Saya said.
“We are the apple of the peoples’ eye!” Elenari laughed at the stunned look on my face as a little boy ran up to me and touched my hand before he ran back to hide behind his parents.
“Honored and feared,” Saya said. “Honored and feared are the dragonmancers.”
“It’s fucking bonkers,” I replied and steered us toward another tavern, larger and noisier than the first.
Even as we hustled along, we were followed by gawping strangers and people nudging and whispering to each other as we passed.
So yeah, seven drinks was all it took to take the edge off my first little dalliance with celebrity. I couldn’t tell you what those seven drinks contained—the tankard I was imbibing from just then held a carbonated beverage that tasted of honey and smelled of pine trees and mountain winds. Nor could I tell you who was paying for them. I got the impression that we were drinking on the house, and this was confirmed when Rupert came and plonked himself next to me and clapped me on the shoulder.
“I must say,” he said in his twitchy, eager stammer, “that this dismantling of the usual societal walls is really going down a treat.” He took a long pull from his own tankard, managing on the second attempt to actually pour some its contents into his mouth rather than down his chin. “Especially on my coin purse,” he finished.
“What the hell are we drinking, Rupert?” I asked him.
“Hm? Oh, this is mountain mead—a local specialty brewed by dwarves. What the dwarves don’t know about the manufacturing of alcohol is not worth the knowing.”
We were sitting in a tavern taken straight out of every novel or fable I had ever read. It was named The Wing Tip, and had a log fire roaring in its massive stone hearth. Rotating over it, on a magically powered spit, was what looked like an enormous crispy chicken dru
mstick. Bjorn had assured me it was from a roc, a giant crow-like bird that was also a pest in these parts. They could carry off sheep and, occasionally, small children.
“They look evil. Like they would taste like shit,” the bearded half-giant told me, suppressing a belch. “But, by the gods, just you wait until you try it. Fuckin’ divine. Are you a leg or breast man, Dragonm—Mike?”
“I’ll take whatever I can get, you cheeky motherfucker,” I replied. As was requisite after a comment like that, we laughed like schoolboys, exchanged knowing looks and smacked our tankards together in a toast.
The roof of this fine old alehouse was high and filled with blue pipe smoke, and the walls were constructed of solid logs laid end to end.
Elenari, Saya, Rupert, Gabby, Bjorn, and I were sitting in an area that had been cordoned off for us at my request. I’d flexed my dragonmancer’s metaphorical muscles and told the guy behind the bar that we’d settle in here so long as we could get a bit of space to ourselves, while still being part of the general atmosphere. The bartender, eager no doubt to keep the attraction of three dragonmancers on his premises, had swiftly booted out a group of hammered hobgoblins from a large corner booth and cordoned it off with rope. At the barrier, he had stationed a short, square man with a craggy face to stop anyone from bothering us. And, voila, just like that, the Mystocean Empire’s first VIP area was born.
Day one, and I was already shaking things up.
Whether it was because they had been fighting under Saya and Elenari for too long before I turned up, or for some other reason I wasn’t privy to, the two female dragonmancer’s squads sat a little apart from us and drank at a separate table.
When I mentioned this to Saya and asked whether their squads felt awkward, she said simply, “I don’t know. Perhaps. I imagine though, it is because they are used to the old ways.”
“Mm,” I said, swallowing a gulp of mountain mead, “so you’re saying that, in this world, change freaks people out, is that it?”
Saya drained her own tankard, held it up, and waved it at the barman. The man gave her an obsequious smile and began filling a round of fresh tankards for the table.
“New things, new ways, can be… unsettling,” she replied.
“Yeah, I guess they can,” I said, “but it doesn’t take long for people to stop complaining, start embracing the new thing, and start asking how they ever did that thing any other way.”
“You’re a philosopher?” Elenari leaned past Saya, slopping her drink over the edge of her tankard.
“Only when I’m drinking,” I said. “Just like everyone else.”
Saya and Elenari laughed.
“Michael,” Saya said as she moved closer to me but kept her eyes on my new squad, “you should be careful getting so friendly with your men.”
“Why’s that?” I gave the innkeeper a thumbs-up as he smoothly whisked away the empty tankard I had just set down and replaced it with a fresh one.
“Because you shall feel it all the more keenly if one of them is killed in conflict,” Saya replied in a low voice.
She had a point, of course. Drako Academy was, after all, where you trained to become proficient war-making machines. Soldiers were, at the end of the day, the sword in the hand of whatever civilization wielded them. Swords, by definition, were always in the thick of things and sometimes got broken.
It was a sobering thought—metaphorically sobering I mean; it would have taken a line of cocaine, a quart of coffee, and an ice-bath to make me anything less than half drunk. I couldn’t help but feel a little concerned for my new friends. In this dangerous world, they could be cut down in an instant.
Rupert gazed around the room while he twirled a small clasp knife around in his fingers. Occasionally, he stabbed at the gaps between the fingers on his other hand, which was spread out on the table.
Bjorn drank in that steady, purposeful way that you see people at weddings doing, when they fear that the open-bar might close at any moment.
Gabby, incredibly, was leaning back in his chair while some local strumpet bent over the rope and kissed her way up and down his neck. I made a mental note to ask him how he had managed to snare a girl—what with him having no tongue and all—and, more relevantly, what he planned on doing to her without one.
Maybe she’s just into the strong, silent type, my half-loaded brain postulated. I mean, he’s pretty strong and you won’t get much more silent.
Time blurred a little after that. Flashes of what we did came to my memory afterward, like when you’re standing on a train platform at night and a train whips past and you only catch static glimpses of what is going on inside the lighted carriages before they are whisked away again.
I remembered that Bjorn got up and started singing. There was a definite memory of Gabby falling off his chair and Rupert trying to help him up. Then Rupert was dancing—perhaps on a table, though I couldn’t be sure. Elenari ordered a round of shots, which the innkeeper had to put on special gloves and a pair of goggles to make. The resultant concoction tasted like diesel mixed with tabasco, and it actually spontaneously set Rupert’s feathered cap on fire when Gabby spat his drink out all over the headwear. Thankfully, it was lying on the table at the time of combustion.
Then we were outside, back in the crisp night air. There were still locals gathered around us and chattering excitedly, but the alcohol had wrapped me up in a nice blanket, which was mostly woven of goodwill for all my fellow creatures and a pressing need for a bacon cheeseburger.
“Hey, Elerina—I mean, Erinlara. Fuck! I mean, hey, Elenari, what’s the go with drinking and flying?”
Elenari looked at me through one eye. “What do you mean, Michael?”
“Well, can we just hop on dragons and go for a bit of a night time cruise? Or are we not allowed to do that while we’re under the influence?”
Saya snorted. “Not allowed? Of course we’re allowed. You just better make sure that you hold on. Our dragons are not intoxicated and can fly as easily as ever. Furthermore, it’s not as if Noctis will let you fly him into a cliff, but it’s not his responsibility to stop you slipping off either.”
“Right,” I said, turning around to see what had become of my squad members, my three crack troops.
Bjorn was hanging for dear life onto a lampost, which looked as if it might buckle under the strain. Rupert was trying to pick his hat up off the ground but was having a hard time getting hold of it. Gabby was a mere shadow in the night as he entered a shadowed alley with a woman who was part of Elenari’s squad.
“Well, gentlemen,” I said to Bjorn and Rupert, “we’re going to fly home, but allow me to say that it was a pleasure kicking your asses this afternoon and drinking with you this evening.”
Bjorn’s white-blonde beard was stained a dark red from whatever he had been drinking all night, giving him the worrying appearance of a man who had been guzzling raw meat.
“Mike… Mike… I’m tellin’ you. I am tellin’ you that… uh, that it’s going to be an honor serving under you,” the big half-giant managed to say.
“You better keep an eye out for his cock and balls swinging about, if you’re serving under him!” Rupert quipped as he managed to snatch his hat up only to drop it again.
“Nice one, Rupert,” I said. “Anyway, you idiots get home safe, while we,” and I touched the crystal that was hanging from the golden chain at my neck, “go by air.”
Noctis materialized. In the dim light cast by the taverns, eateries, and fairy lights, he looked like a shadow made solid.
“Damn, I wish I had one of those,” Bjorn said.
I mounted up. Elenari and Saya followed suit, though Saya almost fell off the other side of her dark gray steed.
“I might see you boys tomorrow,” I said. “Toodle-oo, motherfuckers!”
With that, the muscles in Noctis’ haunches bunched, and he leapt into the air. Behind me, I heard Gharmon and Scopula launch themselves skyward. Saya gave a tipsy whoop of delight that echoed out over the
pointed rooftops of the town.
The night air was even more chilly eighty feet off the ground, so I set a relaxed pace to save the three of us from getting frozen by the cold mountain breeze. Noctis emitted contentment at being out and about. I could feel it radiating through his sable scales. I patted him and grinned into the night.
What a life!
I could see the keep of the Crystal Spire dead ahead, lit from within, glowing like a ghostly finger amongst the dark peaks. Not wanting the voyage to end too soon, I swooped around and followed a moonlight-illuminated track. The track ran out of the town proper and into the wooded countryside surrounding the town. Thatched cottages and houses bordered the dirt road, their gardens larger and more ordered than the city dwellings. I guessed that these houses belonged to small time farmers and producers, artisans and craftsmen, who needed a bit more space than town living allowed.
Most of the windows in the cottages and houses were dark, and I mentioned this to Saya who was flying on my left. Despite the wind, she could hear me, thanks to whatever magic allowed fellow dragonriders to communicate while astride their steeds.
“People go to bed early on the weekends, do they?” I asked.
Saya grinned. “No,” she said, “it is more likely that these farmers and artificers are still in town, spending the scales they made during the week. People here work hard, but they also know how to enjoy life. You learn to take pleasure in the small things when your society has lived under the threat of war for so long.”
It was then, as the three of us swooped silently along, following the course of the track below, that I heard the scream.
“Did you hear that?” I asked Elenari, who was on my left.
She nodded.
“Sounds like a woman in need,” Saya said from my right.
I peered down onto the starlit track, pulling Noctis into a hover. Elenari and Saya followed suit.
“There!” I pointed down the track, which wound away, heading toward a rather forbidding-looking forest. The sizable cottages and workshops along this stretch of the path were all in shadow, the inhabitants clearly out and about, feasting and floating the tonsils.
