by Eric Vall
“Run back and forth, and don’t stop,” Ruslan ordered the fox.
The magical messenger dipped its head and leapt from Ruslan’s hand before it took off down the path.
“Now, just think about your target instead of trying to follow it,” he said as I loaded another arrow against the bowstring.
“Okay, think about the fox,” I muttered under my breath.
Then I took a deep breath and released the string, and the arrow flew toward the silvery fox just as he dodged to the right. The projectile followed him, and when he tried to jump to the left, it plowed into his backside. The fox disappeared with a puff of gray smoke, and Ruslan jumped up and down with excitement.
“It worked!” he exclaimed.
“It really did,” I laughed. “Did you see the arrow jump to the side like that?”
“I did!” my father cheered. “That was splendid!”
“You were right,” I said. “I just had to think about the target, not about how to shoot it. This is like an aim-bot.”
“Brilliant!” Ruslan clapped his hands and grinned.
His excitement was contagious, and I found myself grinning as well. Maybe my new abilities weren’t something to be feared.
Well, at least not feared by me.
“I think these powers will come in handy,” I chuckled.
“You will be able to use them to protect your people even better now,” the fox Demi-Human agreed with a nod. “Now, what are you going to do with the actual relics?”
“I think they’re only of use to me now,” I answered, “but I decided to go ahead and put them in the vault, just in case.”
“Good thinking,” he replied.
“Let’s go find Alyona,” I suggested. “I’ll show them to you first.”
Ruslan dipped his head, and we followed the path back toward the city. The sun had begun its descent into evening, and I stared up at the blue sky as shades of pink and purple streaked across it like swipes of paint.
“We’ve kept the city council thing going,” Ruslan said as we meandered along the walkway. “It’s gotten bigger now, though. Our population has increased tremendously.”
“I noticed fresh faces in the crowd,” I replied. “How did so many people get here already?”
“Word has spread about the city growing,” he explained. “And, of course, some people are interested in the dragons who live here.”
“They know Valerra is here?” I asked with a cocked eyebrow.
“Well, they didn’t at first,” the fox answered. “They’d heard about you, but when the first attack happened, Valerra was here to defend us. Then the news spread that we had two dragons living here.”
“Interesting,” I murmured. “And that has drawn people to live here?”
“A few of them, yes,” Ruslan confirmed. “Some came because they weren’t allowed to live in certain cities because of being Demi-Human, or the miasma destroyed their own.”
“So, we have a bit of a variety now?” I laughed. “I like our city being a blend of so many different peoples. The country I come from is a blend of immigrants. How are my favorite little Asurans, by the way?”
“Ahhh, Ilya and Ilyushina,” my father hummed. “Ilya has taken to keeping a close eye on the palace. I’m actually quite surprised he hasn’t seen you yet. He’s usually at the palace, out here, or at home. Being at home is quite rare for Ilya. Poor Natalya can barely keep up with all that energy.”
The brother and sister Asurans were orphaned by a demonic attack on their village just outside Hatra, the same attack that nearly destroyed all the dragonsblood trees. We’d rescued the siblings and brought them back to our city, and I’d sort of taken the kids under my wing ever since. Now, they lived with the other surviving Asurans, Natalya and Maksim.
“I’m excited to see him.” I grinned. “And his sister?”
“Ilyushina has been working on some secret little project,” Ruslan answered with a furrowed brow. “She won’t even tell Natalya what it is, but I would imagine she’ll tell you.”
“I’m sure I can get it out of her,” I chuckled, but our laughter was interrupted by the sound of a horn blowing. It sounded like a foghorn as it bellowed out across the city, and even the trees around us swayed with the intensity of the noise.
“What the hell was that?” I asked as I whirled around to pinpoint the sound.
“It was the alarm at the gate,” Ruslan answered and narrowed his green eyes. “Someone is trying to get in.”
“Well, let’s go find out who,” I muttered as we changed direction and ran toward the city gates.
I had to slow my pace to keep Ruslan next to me, but the fox Demi-Human kept up with me pretty well.
As we reached the large metal gates, I could see my women, Julia, and Moskal had also rushed to investigate the signal. Laika’s sword was drawn and hung at her side, while Aaliyah’s claws were at their longest length. Even Naomi held a swirling black fireball in her palm as our paths intersected just before the gate.
We peered through the metal bars to see at least two dozen strangers standing outside the city. Their faces were exposed, and most of them wore plain brown robes with no markings. Some were human, and some were Demi-Human. It looked like an eclectic group of people, and I wondered for a moment if they were seeking refuge.
Then one man stepped forward and cleared that thought from my mind.
“I am Roxen of the Hazel Rose Guild,” he declared. “And we have come for the eggs of the dragons who have been exiled here.”
The human leader of the Hazel Rose Guild stood tall, and his brown hair was tied back into a curly ponytail at the nape of his neck. His dark eyes were focused on the guard atop the tower, so he didn’t even notice us just inside the gate.
Valerra growled when he finished his announcement, and I stepped closer to grasp her forearm. Her crimson scales were hot to the touch, and she hissed as Roxen’s attention turned to us.
“Ah!” He smiled. “That was easy enough.”
“Easy?” Valerra rumbled.
This time it was my turn to growl.
“You honestly thought dragons would just hand over their eggs without question?” I rumbled.
“Well, as long as you do, no one will get hurt,” Roxen assured us with his cocky bravado. “We’ll stay right here, and you can pass them through the gate. The world doesn’t need any more of your kind.”
He said the last two words with his nose scrunched up, as though the very mention of our kind had disgusted him.
“You have no idea what you’ve just done,” Laika warned, and her gray wolf ears flattened against her head as she bared her teeth. “If you want to live, you should leave.”
“We are not leaving until we have what we came for,” Roxen replied with a frown. “I thought I made that clear.”
“Crystal,” I muttered before I turned to Valerra. “Let’s show him what our kind can do.”
A visceral growl rumbled in Valerra’s chest, and our group scattered as we took our dragon forms. Gasps echoed throughout the Hazel Rose Guild, and several of their eyes widened when Valerra bellowed a column of fire into the air above us.
“Last chance,” Aaliyah announced in a singsong voice.
“They’re out of chances,” I growled.
Then Valerra and I took to the sky.
Chapter 7
Just as Valerra and I left the ground, Laika and Aaliyah grabbed onto my tail, and we flew over the city walls to hover above the Hazel Rose Guild.
I dipped my tail just enough for the warrior women to slide down to the ground, and Laika immediately plunged her broadsword through one of the guild members with a battle cry. Then she yanked her blade back and looked around with an expression that dared one of the men to come at her. The idiots gasped as Aaliyah landed on the ground next to the wolf, and then the women faced off with the men on the ground while Valerra and I attacked from above.
I opened my maw and released a cascade of fire down onto the crowd.
A few of the men were engulfed in flames, while others yelled and ran away. Then one of them mumbled a few words, and a barrier shield formed over their heads. My flames hit the shield and diverted away from the guild members, so I craned my neck to try and find out which of the men had initiated the spell, but there were too many to pick him out.
Valerra blew her own fire down onto the shield to no avail, and she roared with frustration as her flames stopped at the barrier.
“I will burn whoever did this!” she bellowed.
“A mage,” I growled. “We need to figure out which one it is.”
“And kill him,” Valerra snarled and bared her long canines.
“Indeed,” I agreed with a nod.
I looked down on the guild, and I could see several of them had started to go after Laika and Aaliyah in groups. The cowardly bastards couldn’t even handle my women one-on-one, but I bared my teeth and sent a wave of earthquake magic across the ground.
The land rumbled and shook as a crack formed outside the barrier spell and then spread underneath the men’s feet. Within moments, the gash widened to separate most of the guild from the others, and only a few were within fighting distance of my warriors.
Aaliyah looked up at me and grinned before she reared back and drove her claws into the man who stood across from her. She pulled her claws back out, and ten perfectly round holes began to pour blood onto the ground before the man fell into a heap at the lioness’ feet.
Then I watched as Laika spun around and whipped her broadsword with lightning speed to slice through two men at once. Their bodies toppled to the ground as blood arched through the air, and the wolf Demi-Human leaped over them to attack another enemy.
Since my women were holding their own, I focused again on finding the mage who had put up the shield. I wondered the best way for me to find him, and then the golden paths of the Sundex spirit’s power seemed to light up on the ground below me. I scanned the paths for each of the guild members, and they seemed to jut out in every possible direction. Then I noticed one man didn’t have any path options. He stood completely still, as though he was concentrating on a specific task.
Like powering a barrier spell.
So, I grinned and activated my earthquake magic again, but this time, I widened the crack even more and focused the shockwaves on the mage. The magic caused him to lose his balance, and he teetered back and forth as he tried to maintain the shield, which began to waver and flash. Then I sent one more shockwave, and the mage shouted in alarm as he toppled over into the wide crack in the ground.
One of the other men reached out to grab him, but instead, the mage pulled him into the crack, too. I could hear the fading sounds of their screams as they were swallowed up into the crevasse, and I bared my fangs in savage satisfaction.
Then the shield disappeared, and Valerra roared again as she and I flew closer to the men and released more flames onto the Hazel Rose Guild. By the time we rose up into the sky again, only half of the guild members remained. The rest were on fire or laid scattered across the ground with their bodies smoking from the flames of our magic.
Roxen rushed from his position at the gate to the middle of the guild and stopped just shy of the crack I’d made in the ground.
“There is no need for this battle!” he yelled as he shook his fist at us. “Just give up the eggs!”
“You’re a fool!” Valerra snarled before she bellowed another column of fire down at the guild leader.
Roxen gasped and lifted his hands to create another barrier just before the flames engulfed his body.
“Ha!” He pointed at us with a dramatic laugh. “You’ll never defeat the Hazel Rose Guild!”
On cue, several of the guild members lifted bows and arrows aimed directly for us. Then they pulled back the bowstrings and waited for Roxen’s command.
“Doesn’t a barrier spell work both ways?” Valerra raised a doubtful eyebrow.
Before I could answer, dozens of arrows flew through the barrier and poked us in our underbellies.
“Guess not,” I replied with a shrug. “But their arrows aren’t sharp enough for dragon skin.”
“Well, if we can’t attack from up here, what do we do?” Valerra growled and looked down onto the guild members.
They continued to shoot their useless arrows, and the projectiles bounced off our skin and dropped back down into the barrier to land at their feet.
When I realized the arrows could reenter the barrier spell, though, it gave me an idea.
“It looks like we need to attack from the inside,” I observed. “The barrier must be protecting them against magic, but if the arrows can go inside it, so can we.”
“Then what are we waiting for?” Valerra grinned and dive-bombed into the crowd. Her giant red body glided right through the barrier spell, and she landed with a thud on top of a group of guild members. Their yelps and screams were quickly extinguished as she settled all the way onto the ground, and I chuckled as I watched my mate casually crush a man under her massive clawed foot.
I wasn’t about to let the Crimson Dragon have all the fun, though, so I followed her lead and plunged through the barrier. I dropped onto another group of guild members, and I could feel their bones crunch underneath my huge scaly body as their bodies popped like squishy, red filled balloons. My inner dragon grinned with satisfaction, and then I swung my tail around and sent more of their bodies flying.
In my peripherals, I saw one of the guild members fly toward Laika, but the wolf-warrior skewered his body with her broadsword before I could warn her. Then she slid her blade back and tossed his limp body to the side. The wolf Demi-Human looked over at me with a devilish grin, and I was momentarily dazed by her olive skin glistening with sweat as she kicked ass. Her lithe figure moved like a badass dancer, and she effortlessly sliced and stabbed with her broadsword like a blood splattered ballerina.
I shook my head and focused on the battle. Only a handful of the men were left, and one of them was Roxen. The guild leader turned to catch my stare from twenty yards away, and I locked eyes with him as I shifted into my human form.
Then I used my new swiftness, blazed through the last few guild members, and snatched Roxen by the throat. I lifted him into the air, and he began to choke and claw at my hands.
“You weren’t… supposed to be here,” he gasped as his nails dug into the skin on my hands, and his face was rapidly turning red, then purple.
“Well, here I am.” I smirked. “Besides, the Crimson Dragon would have kicked your ass on her own anyway. I just sped up the process.”
“We… were only prepared for one dragon,” Roxen argued.
“Not prepared enough,” I snarled and tightened my grip. “Why did you come for the eggs?”
“We’ve heard the stories of two… dragons in Hatra,” he rasped after a moment. “The news has spread across all of Rahma, maybe even Inati. We all knew of the Crimson Dragon, but a male dragon means repopulation.”
“And that’s a problem?” I raised an eyebrow.
“Yessss,” he hissed, and the edges of his lips were turning blue from his lack of oxygen. “It’s… too dangerous to repopulate the dragon species. Your kind has destroyed entire cities before. Once we heard you’d left with the princess, we… came to get rid of the eggs.”
“So, you thought you’d just stroll right into my city and kill my child?” I roared in his face, and his hair blew back from my hot breath.
“We aren’t… the only ones!” Roxen insisted, and his eyes bulged out of his head as he struggled in my grasp like a fish on the line. “I can tell you more! Just put me down, and I’ll tell you everything I know!”
“It doesn’t matter who comes for the eggs,” I snarled. “You’re all signing up for a death wish.”
Before the guild leader could argue, I snapped his neck like a twig and tossed his body to the ground.
Then I turned back to see Valerra, Laika, and Aaliyah had finished off the last of the guild, and my dragon mate was ch
arring the remains that scattered across the land.
After they were finished, Valerra shifted back into her human form with an angry scowl across her face. Then the three women walked over toward me, and we headed to the gates.
“Those stupid, no-good humans,” my dragon mate spat out. “I’ll crush all their bones!”
Her angry voice echoed around the walls of Hatra, and I reached over and grabbed her hand.
“And I’ll help you,” I agreed as the gate lifted for us to enter the city. “But I did find out a little bit of information before I killed Roxen.”
“What did he tell you?” Aaliyah wondered as she licked droplets of blood off her wrists.
Before I could answer, Alyona, Miraya, Naomi, Ruslan, Julia, and Moskal rushed forward to meet us as we reentered the city.
“Is everyone all right?” my adoptive father asked as his eyes skipped over the four of us.
“Just fine.” Laika nodded, and the sun glinted off her gray hair speckled with crimson blood. “Lord Evan was just about to tell us what he learned from the guild leader before his demise.”
“Yeah, apparently, rumor has spread that Valerra and I both live here,” I said as I faced my family and lovers. “They wanted to get rid of any eggs we’d made. So, anyone who’s worried about us making more dragons could be coming after us, too. That could even be why other people attacked while we were gone. They thought they had a better chance of getting to the eggs when I wasn’t here to help Valerra.”
“Hmph,” Valerra scoffed and crossed her arms. “Fools.”
“Maybe since none of them have succeeded, they’ll stop trying,” Alyona suggested with a glimmer of hope in her violet eyes.
“Maybe,” I allowed, though I was not as hopeful as the princess.
We walked the rest of the way back to the Lunar Palace in silence, but I knew Alyona’s hope was unlikely, though I wished it wasn’t. If any of the other groups had been trying to steal the eggs, too, then this was just one of many attempts to take them. Luckily, I knew Valerra would die before she let anyone take either of the eggs, even if I wasn’t here. Hell, she’d almost roasted me when I came close to ours the first time, and it was half-mine. The gods only knew what she would do if anyone else came close to the egg vault.
