Lucinda, Dangerously

by Sunny

  The other demon didn’t have my problem. He stretched up huge and immense, his own clothes tearing as he transformed into demon beast, and the two of them came together with thunderous impact. They fought with a speed too quick for me to follow. Feeling useless, I retrieved the sword the bandit had dropped, and felt better holding the long blade in one hand, and an ivory tusk in the other. But it only took me a second to realize how useless the weapons were to me.

  On Derek’s command, six more bandits dropped down onto the floor of the arena, transforming midleap into their demon beast forms. Five of these huge creatures raced to where Hari wrestled with the other demon. The last one came deliberately toward me with slow, menacing intent, twice my size and crushingly heavy, but that was as nothing to his strength and speed. The weapons I held were about as useful against him as throwing a handful of dirt at a raging forest fire.

  “Now, Lucinda!” Hari said in a deep-throated yell. Now meaning that it would be a pretty good time to shift into another form.

  Concentrating, I spiraled down into the core of myself and tried to find that spark that would open the door to transformation.

  “Come on, come on,” I muttered. To myself, not the demon advancing on me. He needed no encouragement.

  Power flared faintly within me, stretching up, pushing against the gossamer-thin veil that blocked me from my other self. Gathering a concentration of power, I punched a tiny tendril of it through that invisible barrier, and the connection was made. A flash, a shimmering glow, as something deep inside me caught fire and started to roar up and out of me into exultant being.

  I turned my eyes up into the amphitheater to where Derek sat, and saw the same triumph, the same exultation in his own glittering eyes. Yes! we shouted within, as I started to stretch and shift in change. I had a moment to decide which form I would take, dragon or demon beast, and chose dragon. It was a much harder transformation, slower and longer.

  The approaching demon could have jumped me then, but he didn’t. He came to a stop and waited patiently at a sharp command from Derek. The bandit’s only deformity was a missing ear and a large chunk of meaty flesh below that, so you could see the white edge of his jawbone.

  The other demon apparently didn’t know I had another shape to change into, other than my demon beast form. His eyes grew huge with shocked surprise as I surpassed even his great size and continued to grow larger and yet still larger in shape until my head rose above the crumbling arena walls.

  I opened my mouth and a burning stream of fire spewed out of me toward the posted guards along the wall. Turning in a circle, I flamed the entire seating area of the amphitheater. Derek dove behind his stone throne. Others, including three of the guards and one archer, were not as quick as he, and were set afire, screaming, burning, falling backward.

  My heavy tail swept the arena floor as I flamed the audience above, shifting around the bodies of the boars and knocking down all the transformed demons fighting in the pit. I tried to find Hari but could not see him.

  Arrows flew at me from the three remaining archers. One struck my scaly face and glanced off, just missing my eye; another skittered off my back. One arrow swooped in at a clever angle and pierced the thinner skin under my neck. I reared back, roaring at the sharp pain, the impact of my body collapsing the wall behind me. Hari appeared suddenly up in the tiered stands of the amphitheater.

  “Go now, Lucinda. Leave!” he yelled. Then winked out of sight. Bloody invisible!

  A few sluggish drops of blood splashed onto the stone floor, revealing his path. A longbow was snatched from an archer’s startled hands, the quiver of arrows yanked off his back. Invisible hands pushed the archer off the wall, screaming and flailing. Those same unseen hands shot arrows, one after the other, at the two remaining archers, who ducked and took cover, until he emptied the quiver.

  “Hari.” I growled his name in a deep rumble of sound. “Jump on my back.”

  For a moment I thought he was going to listen to me as the longbow dropped to the ground. But I was wrong. His form flickered briefly into visibility partway around the amphitheater, then winked out of sight again, just long enough to see that he was heading toward the two other archers. A spate of arrows flew in his direction.

  “Go! Just please go!” Hari shouted, just a voice. More arrows flew out toward the new position his voice had revealed.

  I roared, in fury, in defeat. Hari was not going to leave, not while the remaining archers threatened my escape, and my continued presence only endangered him and forced him to reveal his position to the others. I couldn’t even flame the archers for fear of burning Hari, too.

  With regret, I launched myself up into the air. My wings snapped open, and with two deep, powerful fanning sweeps, I lifted out of the arena. A couple of arrows whizzed past my wings, and only by the luck of an upstroke not piercing them. I didn’t look down, just focused on gaining as much altitude as I could, flying blindly through the thick fog. An updraft suddenly caught and lifted me above the white mist, and I soared even higher, carried along by the powerful wind current. It was exhilarating, riding up into the vastness of the sky. So wildly free.

  Then Derek’s voice drifted up to me from far down below. “We’ve got him, you dragon bitch! Watch. Watch while we tear him apart!”

  SIXTEEN

  THEY CAUGHT HARI eventually by his blood trail. That and the fact that he grew weaker with each lost drop of blood until he was unable to maintain his invisibility and stuttered into sight once more. He lost even the strength to maintain his demon beast form, and shrank back into his normal size, but no matter. Hari had accomplished the most important thing. He had taken out the two remaining archers, broken their bows and arrows into useless pieces.

  Three bandits tackled Hari and brought him down into the arena pit before he could go back and destroy the other two longbows. They were retrieved by the bandits, who shot at Lucinda’s departing form. But soon the thick mist swallowed her up, and blocked her from their sight.

  Derek had come out of hiding once Hari was secured by the others bandits. The bandit lord remained in his normal demon form, but even at an arm’s-length distance shorter than the four big brutes holding Hari down, he exuded a malevolence that the others lacked—a pure evil madness mixed with spewing wrath. He ripped into Hari with demon claws. “Scream,” he commanded.

  Blood spilled, and flesh parted down to the bone. But Hari just smiled up into Derek’s furious eyes, his jaw clenched tight, not a sound escaping him.

  For a brief moment, Hari thought he’d pushed Derek into a rage so great that he would end Hari’s existence now, destroying the only remaining lever he held against his escaping prey in his maddened fury. But Hari had underestimated his opponent.

  The bandit lord spun around and disgorged his wrath up into the fog-covered sky. “We’ve got him, you dragon bitch! Watch. Watch while we tear him apart!” He turned back to the four demons holding each of his limbs. “Go ahead,” Derek told them. “Rip him apart in as slow and painful a manner as you can. Make him scream.”

  The pressure began—a slow, powerful, inexorable pull on all of his extremities.

  Per size and poundage, there was almost no creature stronger than a demon beast. In the human world, the closest thing to that sheer force was the great dinosaurs. A transformed demon had more power than a bull or an elephant, so when the four demons began to pull, his body stretched until it could stretch no more, then began to give along its weakest points. His torn flesh began to rip and tear further under the steady, unrelenting force. Skin gave first, splitting the seams of his wounds wider, longer, deeper. The more resilient muscle, fascia, and tendon followed next. It was a pain that was immense and indescribable. Pain twined with silent, screaming horror as Hari felt his innards pop free, saw them bulge up like huge bloated worms along the widening split of his wounds.

  “He’s not screaming,” Derek said unhappily. Then gave a triumphant shout as he caught sight of a large dark shape flying back t
oward them through the mist.

  No! Don’t come back, Hari wanted to shout, but he couldn’t. If he opened his mouth, only horrible screams would come spilling out, not words. He fixed on the sight of her, and even under the tearing of flesh and anguish of mind, he could have wept at the beauty of what he saw. Dragon flying once more. Magnificent, beautiful, breath-taking.

  The wound in his chest where the sword had run him through suddenly split under the increased pull of the four demons. Ribs separated, and his chest cavity gaped open, exposing the raw, covered organs of his heart and lungs.

  “Stubborn bastard,” muttered the demon stretching out his right arm. The force increased incrementally more, and Hari’s shoulder popped out of its socket in sudden, wrenching give. Fresh, excruciating agony splashed through him like acid. But still no sound, not even when the other shoulder popped out, or when his hip joints followed with sickening jolts. The following spasms of the violently stretched joint muscles white-washed him further in hot blazes of pain.

  The demon grasping his right leg cursed and twisted the limb he was holding, yanking on it like an angry child whose toy was not working properly. “Come on, you bloody lunatic, give us a scream.”

  Dots whitened Hari’s vision. No, no, no. Don’t faint. Don’t you fucking faint. He had to see! Had to know what happened to his dragon Queen!

  Hari fought through the searing agony of his body to fix his eyes on the glorious sight of dragon flying down out of the misty sky, golden scales glistening with almost metallic brightness, fire breathing savagely from her mouth, sending all the bandits, even the four demon beast scum holding him, running and scattering under her swooping threat.

  She was so fierce and bright, so gloriously savage a sight, that for one brief moment hope flared up in him. Hope that she would succeed in rescuing him and flying them both away.

  Then Derek stepped into sight above him, smiling down at him with his sword in hand. “Ignorant bandits, running away. Don’t they know that the safest place to be is right next to you?” He sliced his blade lightly across Hari’s neck in a bloody taunt, and the dragon screamed as it hurtled down toward them, so large, so fierce, so big a force that Derek should have been afraid. But there was no fear in the bandit lord’s eyes, just hungry anticipation.

  Fire shot out of Lucinda’s mouth to burn the ground and any bandits foolish enough to be out in the open. But the one area she should have flamed—where Derek stood beside Hari—she did not burn. The safest spot indeed. That bastard was too damn cunning and excited. Derek had something planned, and Hari was too weak and injured to do anything to stop him.

  “Now!” Derek shouted, raising his sword like a general ordering a charge. But instead of men rushing forward, nets filled with rocks were unearthed from the ground and flung up into the sky by a dozen bandits. They used nothing more their own power; but demon beast strength was as great as that of a human catapult. A hail of sharp stones sprayed the air like buckshot.

  “No.” Hari moaned, watching their deadly flight. “Please. No!”

  One net, even three or four, the big dragon could have dodged. But not the vast barrage that came pelting her way in wide, spraying arcs.

  Hari watched, helpless, as the projectiles struck Lucinda’s face and body. But it was the sharp rocks that ripped through her wings that damaged her the most. Nothing—not even a fierce dragon—could fly with holes in their wings. She plummeted down from the sky, crashed through the far end of the arena, taking down the entire north wall, and hit the ground in a hard, jarring impact.

  Derek laughed in triumph. “The nets! Cast the empty nets over her!”

  With only the barest control, desperately managed, Hari weakly grabbed Derek’s leg.

  The bandit lord looked down at him with eyes lit maniacally bright. “A useless effort,” he said and slashed his sword down, cutting through Hari’s arm, cracking bone.

  With gentle, insulting ease, Derek pulled his leg free of Hari’s lax grip. “Nothing can save her now. Nothing.” And ran eagerly toward his prize.

  Hari rolled onto his side, and felt his organs, barely contained, threaten to spill out of him. He forced his other arm to move, the simply dislocated one. By stubborn will alone, he made it grip the ground, and tried to drag his body forward. But he was too weak. A scream of anguish—body, mind, soul—was all that came from the horrendously painful effort.

  Hari craned his neck as far as he could to watch the bandits swarm around his dragon queen. The gold dragon shook her head, tried to heave up onto her feet, but was too injured and dazed to accomplish it.

  “Please,” Hari prayed to whatever power might be out there listening to him. “Please save her.”

  As Hari watched, his anguished eyes fixed on his queen, a shadow flickered on the ground next to her. It took quick shape, budding up from a weed plant smeared crimson with the dragon’s blood, sprouting up into a slender, black Floradëur. Talon!

  He looked like a slight shadow against the glittering gold scales of the huge dragon. Talon touched her and both their forms shimmered and morphed, shrinking, growing smaller, disappearing down the small plant.

  It was Derek’s enraged roar, “No!” that finally convinced Hari that what he was seeing was true.

  She was rescued. Safe.

  “Thank you,” Hari whispered. “Thank you.”

  SEVENTEEN

  THERE WAS BRIEF chaos, and then eerie silence as all the bandits dispersed to search the surrounding jungle-forest. Brielle watched them from where she crouched behind a pile of rubble—what had, a few moments ago, been part of the arena wall. Since her transition to demon dead, she had seen horrors and cruelty, pettiness and selfish meanness, which seemed to be a commonality here in all but the beautiful ebony woman hidden in the belowground cell. She, alone, had elegance and grace of body and spirit. She alone was kindness and light in this dark and dismal realm.

  It was because of Sarai, and Brielle’s refusal to let her die, that she ventured outside to look for a way to escape, first from the manacles and bars Brielle wasn’t strong enough to break, then outside beyond Purgatory. They had to get out of here, and it was up to her to find a way. The other two female demon servants inside the broken-down palace were too cowed and fearful, and just as mean and vicious as any of the males here. She could not seek help from them. Their sole focus was their own survival, and that did not run parallel with helping Brielle and Sarai escape, or even acknowledging that a hidden captive existed within their midst. They possessed eyes that did not see what would be dangerous to their health, ears that did not hear what should not be heard.

  She had planned to stay far away from the arena where everyone had gathered, and search the empty work sheds and individual dwellings for a cutting tool to attack the cell bars with. Then Brielle had heard his voice, so calm and quiet among all the coarse mutterings and excited shouts of the bandits. It was a voice filled with confidence and authority, rare in this place of cowards and maimed cripples, who were as broken and bent in spirit as they were in body.

  They smell my blood. Don’t talk, don’t move, and they won’t know you’re here.

  Brielle hadn’t even registered their meaning at first. Didn’t understand what he was trying to do until his next words.

  Lucinda, don’t. Go back.

  Only then did Brielle finally realize that the male she heard inside the arena was trying to protect the woman he spoke to. It was so alien a concept, so contrary to the laws of survival here, that hearing that voice, hearing those words, was like seeing a golden ray of sunlight cutting through the dense mist, a compelling and irresistible draw. Brielle could no more turn away from it than a flower could turn away from the light. That voice drew her to scale up the old arena wall until she could peek her eyes up over the edge and see within.

  Brielle’s first sight of him was disconcerting, like she was gazing down into a badly miscast play. She was looking for a hero, expecting someone to match that calm midnight voice. Instead she s
aw one of the darkest, swarthiest demons she’d ever laid eyes upon in the center of the arena floor. He was tall, lean, and quite mean-looking, with a saturnine face that was dark, cruel, and coolly cunning. His wounds leaked blood, his eyes glittered red, and his lips curled back in an ugly, soundless snarl as he faced the five geant boars circling him. He looked much more the villain than the hero his words and actions implied.

  Sitting, in contrast, with graceful dignity on the throne above was the new bandit lord, handsome with a high noble brow and long aquiline nose, the kind of visage a sculptor would have chiseled onto the beautiful statue of a prince. But Brielle knew how false that outer covering was. There was no honor or nobility in the soul behind that attractive face—only cowardice, malice, and truly frightening evil.

  It was only when the woman moved that Brielle’s eyes were drawn to her. She was a stunning beauty, her hair and skin the exquisite color of gold. She was a small demon but voluptuously built, with large cat eyes, high cheeks, and a full, sensuous mouth. But for all her soft, lush curves, there was a hardness to her, a dark and dangerous look in her eyes much like the warrior trying to protect her. And when she sprang into action, snapping off a tusk, driving it deep into the geant boar’s eye, Brielle saw that she was a warrior, too.

  In fascination, Brielle watched the two of them fight the five boars, and then the warrior that came after them, Malik the Dreaded. She watched the impossible happen as the golden woman transformed into a huge, gold dragon. Watched her protector veil himself in invisibility, and fight off the others as his lady made her escape. Watched with muted horror as they captured the dark demon and began to pull and stretch out his body and torturously start to rip him apart. She watched with dashed hope as the dragon returned and was taken down by the hailstorm of sharp rocks that ripped her wings and made her fall. Watched with disbelief as another black one like Sarai appeared out of the ground next to her, then shrank both their forms to disappear down a sprouting weed plant. It was a fantastical, almost unbelievable series of events.