by Jessica Ryan
“There’s no time to waste,” Val said. Quickly he slung the bundle of sticks over his back and picked Mara up, pulling her close to his body as he cradled her.
“I think I’m going to die,” she whispered to Val.
“You’ll live, sweetling,” he whispered back.
Mara could only smile. Val actually did care about her. He was moving quickly now, taking her to safety. She looked at the ground around them, at the sea of dead bodies that lay in all directions. Val was a great knight and a great warrior; he’d dispatched the entire goblin horde by himself. He was her brave warrior, no doubt about that.
As he climbed the path higher on the mountain, deeper into the rocks, she realized he wasn’t taking her home for healing. He was heading in the wrong direction.
“Where are we going?” she whispered.
“Quiet, sweetling,” he said, the strenuous activity not even making his breath ragged. He was in exceptional shape. Maybe he would defeat the dragon.
“How are you going to beat the dragon?” she asked quietly.
“Easily,” he said. “Dragons are predictable. After all, they’re just animals.”
“How?” she asked.
“Shhh. You must preserve your strength.”
“Please,” she begged. “It takes my mind off the pain. Tell me about the dragon.”
“Dragons can be beaten a number of ways,” he said, amazingly pushing himself up and over the rocks while carrying her and wearing his armor. He was a magnificent specimen of a man. “Sometimes you can use their own hubris and ritual against them. Lure them into a trap and spring it.”
“Can you kill them with a regular weapon?”
“Of course you can,” he said. “Generally their hide is too tough and thick for any normal weapon to work, but a magic weapon can easily pierce their scales.”
“Like Heart Fire.”
“Yes, like Heart Fire. I once cut a black dragon’s head clean off with Heart Fire. It was in the dungeons under the Tanzabel Mountains.”
“Where is that?”
“Deep in the countryside to the west of Atherny. It was where I was born.”
“So you do have a human past,” she said weakly, feeling pain as she laughed.
“Yes,” Val said, smiling down at her. “I suppose I do, sweetling.”
“I like it when you call me that,” she said. Val was so tender right now, so caring. This was what she wanted from their relationship; this was the kind of husband he would truly be. She could feel it.
“Well, sweetling,” he said, dipping to kiss her gently on the forehead. “I will make sure to use it as much as possible before you meet your end.”
“My end?” she asked.
Val ignored her question and glanced nervously at her wound. She felt fear grab her chest and tighten it. Val had probably seen many wounds in all his battles, so he had to know something about this one.
“Is it bad?” she asked.
“Is what bad?”
“My cut.”
“No, sweetling, you will live. Do not worry about that.”
“It hurts so badly.”
“You’re not used to being hurt. It will be fine.”
Val remained silent the rest of the journey, finally exiting the rocky path and walking onto the snow-covered mountainside. The wind was howling and the snow was whipping, cutting right through Mara’s dress and chilling her to the bone. She huddled closer to Val and in response he tightened his grip. She didn’t know if she was bleeding anymore; it didn’t feel like blood was flowing, but the pain was still excruciating.
“We’re here,” he said, setting her gently in the snow. She cried out and sucked in a deep breath as she sank into the snow, feeling the sting of the cold powder against the bare skin of her legs.
“This rock will do perfectly,” Val said, rubbing a large piece of stone that shot out of the snow at an angle.
She held her wound and remained silent as he pulled four long chains with shackles on the ends from his pack and began to stake them into the rock. Mara turned her head curiously as she watched. What could he possibly be doing with that?
“Sir,” she said, trying to be heard through the howling wind. “You told me earlier that a white dragon was the smallest of all dragons.”
“That is correct,” he said, hammering with ruthless efficiency.
“But even so, those shackles are barely large enough to chain a horse to that rock. Is a white dragon really so small?”
“Of course not,” he said, looking down at her with the same predatory gleam in his eyes that she had seen earlier.
Mara immediately felt her stomach churn as her breakfast tried to find its way out the same way that it had entered. “What are you going to shackle, then?”
“Bait,” Val said, moving towards her.
She was too weak to run away, but she tried anyway. She stood up and turned to run, but he was on her in no time, grabbing her by the hair and yanking her backwards. She felt tears rising up in her eyes as he pulled her backwards. His grip was so strong, she was sure he was going to rip every hair out of her scalp at once.
“Please!” she screamed. “You’re supposed to be my lord husband!”
“An easy story to get your father to agree to send you!” he snarled, dragging her back towards the rock.
She squirmed and tried to fight, but she suddenly felt the warm flow of blood over her chest as her wound reopened. “No!” she screamed as he slammed her against the rock and began to close the manacles over her wrists. “You promised to take me away.”
“You village girls are so gullible and so are your stupid fathers. You dangle even the tiniest bit of prestige in front of them and they jump at it without using that thing inside their skull the gods gave them. Stupid sniveling mealworm.”
“Why?” she screamed.
“Why?” he yelled back in her face, pausing to laugh sardonically. “Dragons can’t resist a maiden offered to them. I told you they’re creatures of hubris and ritual. For centuries they’ve been unable to turn down a living sacrifice to their mighty nature. It will be this dragon’s downfall.”
“I thought you loved me,” she cried.
“Love? Love? Haha!” She couldn’t even cry or yell anymore as Val leaned over and spit right in her face. “You’re just as stupid as the rest of the village girls. Like I could ever love a creature as simple as a woman. You’re nothing but a means to an end for me. Sometimes it’s a means to get my dick wet. Sometimes it’s a means to kill a dragon. You could have been both, but you resisted.”
Mara just looked to her side, unable to deal with the cruelty of the supposedly brave dragon knight. If only the world knew what a piece of trash Val really was. She could only hope the dragon would defeat him and end her suffering quickly and quietly. She hoped dragons were big enough to swallow a human in one bite, swiftly and cleanly.
Val was building something with the sticks they had collected, some sort of a pyre. The last thing she saw of him was his purely evil smile as he lit the wood on fire before disappearing into the darkness behind the rock.
She was alone. Dragon’s bait.
Chapter 3
The mid-afternoon sky gave way to night as the snow continued to howl all around Mara, but the fire in front of her still raged. She gathered a little warmth from it, a small comfort in the face of what was coming.
The sky had been gray and overcast. Now it turned a dark shade of blue as the moon rose high above the mountain, bathing the location of her death in beautiful silvery light. This was how it would end for Mara, being eaten by a dragon or bleeding to death on the mountainside high above the village that she had once called home. It seemed ages ago that she had sewn her father’s clothes and prepared his supper.
Mara stared at the moon and said a silent prayer to every god she could think of, hoping her death would be painless. The waiting was beginning to drive her crazy as her wound slowly bled. She could see her skin turning pale and could feel it gr
owing clammy. Even though it was below freezing she could feel the sweat beading on her skin. The cut had to be infected by now. It was bringing a heavy fever on.
Mara’s vision was blurring and getting fuzzy. The moon was starting to bleed into the sky and the smoke from the fire was choking her. She weakly looked up, hoping to see Val come back to change his mind and remove her from the rock. Surely he would realize the error of his ways before death’s final embrace took her.
She shifted uncomfortably as she made out a figure standing on the other side of the fire. It was some sort of giant. No, it was a man. The fever seemed to dissipate all at once as she laid her eyes on the man who watched her from the other side of the fire. Who was he? A barbarian lord? An envoy from the gods here to shepherd her to the afterlife? He was too breathtaking to be anything less than a very special man.
He stood almost seven feet tall, with pale, nearly white skin that looked silver in the beautiful moonlight. His nearly white hair flowed past his shoulders and danced across his massive, sculpted chest as he nodded slowly while looking at her. His beard was a similar white, cut very close to his face. The thing that stood out the most to her, though, was his eyes. She had always thought her eyes were the most beautiful in the world, but this man’s eyes were like bright sapphires shining through the darkness like a beacon of hope. Even in the darkness the blue was so deep and so bright that its glow popped through the fire.
The only armor the man wore was a white scale pauldron on one shoulder. He didn’t need clothes, though. His pale body was perfect the way it was.
“Please, sir,” she whispered. “Save me from this hell. Take me to a better place.”
The man didn’t respond. Instead, he turned and vanished back into the darkness beyond the fire, leaving Mara alone with her pain and self-pity once again.
“Why?” she moaned, the tears flowing from her eyes. “Please don’t leave me.”
There was nobody to hear her pleas. She was still alone on the rock, waiting for her death to come. Where had Val gone? Was he hiding in the darkness, watching her beg for her life, talking to mystery men who probably didn’t exist while he laughed at her foolishness? Why was he so incredibly cruel? He had grown up in farmlands, just like Mara. Surely he could empathize with her plight.
How could someone so powerful be so evil? He didn’t deserve the power he wielded. He didn’t deserve to hold Heart Fire.
What was that? she thought. She sucked in a deep breath as she saw it again. Over the moon. Something is flying in front of the moon.
She was sure it wasn’t something she was imagining, like the beautiful man who just stood watching her, doing nothing to save her. She looked up to the moon and stifled a scream as the form that shadowed the moon became more and more visible. The dragon! He was here and he was circling above.
Mara had been waiting for the dragon to arrive and end her suffering, but now, as he prepared to land, she could feel nothing but fear. How could such a magnificent creature inspire such fear in her heart?
Her hair blew in all directions as a rush of wind nearly blew her rock out of the ground, putting out the fire and leaving her in the silvery glow of the full moon. The ground shook as the monstrous angel hit the ground, stretching out and revealing its full essence and beauty to Mara.
She thought she would scream in fear, lose her mind and beg for mercy as the arbiter of death spread his wings and looked down at her. But none of those feelings came, and she remained surprisingly calm. The dragon wasn’t terrible at all, he was beautiful.
Such a creature couldn’t be evil; it was like the best parts of the heavenly realms had been combined to create the perfect being. His scales were pure white, like crystals of snow dotting his entire body. They shone and glittered like diamonds in the moonlight, mesmerizing Mara. His wings were leathery and bat-like, but they were strong and expansive. Under his chin was a frock of white frills that looked like a busy beard hanging low. His eyes settled on her, studying everything about her.
She remained perfectly still as his snakelike neck brought his head forward. She felt no fear as his massive chin landed on the rock next to her, his nostrils inhaling every piece of her scent. She could see his eyes, beautiful sapphire orbs that looked like a perfectly spherical planet floating in the universe, as they settled on the cut on her shoulder and collarbone that was still bleeding slowly.
“I’m hurt,” she said weakly. The dragon’s eyes turned to her, acknowledging the fact that she was speaking to him. “A goblin hurt me and he wouldn’t heal me.” Immediately she felt her stomach retch and fear wash over her as she realized what was about to happen to this magnificent creature. “You need to go! He’s using me as bait! It’s a trap!”
The dragon grunted and reared back, roaring to the sky as it processed her words. She could only cry out in terror as she saw a heavy boot land on the rock next to her and then spring forward. Val was here, and he was using the rock to fly through the air, Heart Fire pointed at the dragon’s heart as he launched his deadly surprise attack.
The dragon was huge, about the side of a barn in her hometown, but even so he was a sitting duck for the flaming magical sword that was mere seconds away from piercing his mighty heart of ice.
Mara smiled as the dragon moved with the agility of a smaller creature, ducking to the side and bringing its tail up to catch Val across the midsection. The evil knight let out a great cry as he was slammed into the snow. That didn’t stop him for long. He came up fast, throwing a dagger at the dragon to distract it as he sprang into action with his two-handed sword, swinging and stabbing at the radiant creature.
The dragon was so beautiful, so perfect, how could anyone want to kill it? She was astonished that anyone would ever hunt a dragon. She understood now why the barbarians worshipped the dragon and sacrificed their fairest maidens to it. Dragons were the closest things to gods that anyone could ever lay eyes on without passing on to the afterlife.
“Please, dragon,” she whispered, feeling her tenuous grip on consciousness begin to slip. “You’re my only hope. Please kill Val Woodshadow. He’s the real evil in this world.”
Anyone who wanted to murder a dragon had to be evil, didn’t they? Nobody should want to kill such perfection.
The fighting was becoming fuzzy, but she could tell that neither combatant was tiring. As powerful and beautiful as the dragon was, Val was just as terrible and terrifying. Each blow the dragon threw at him was expertly blocked. Each blow he threw at the dragon was easily dodged or parried. They were an even match for one another, and that truly scared Mara more than anything else.
The stories her father had told her as a child had always been the same. Evil kidnapped the beautiful princess and tried to hold her from good, but in the end good was always more powerful and always easily dispatched evil. But those stories were just fairy tales. She was learning that the hard way as evil proved more than a match for good at this moment.
Her heart jumped into her throat as the dragon let out a terrible howl that filled the night sky and drowned out the wind. Val had connected with a shot to the dragon’s wing, drawing bright red blood that stained the snow and made Mara’s world crumble down around her.
“No,” she whispered weakly. “No, he can’t win.”
She saw Val’s trademark cocky, evil smile as he watched the blood pooling in the blanket of snow that covered the ground. His cockiness proved to be his undoing as the dragon’s other wing flew in and caught him on the side of the head, sending him tumbling to the ground. He tried to rise but the dragon reared back, opening its mouth as a brilliant white light began to emanate from deep within its throat. The light pooled in its great mouth, balling up and expanding as the dragon continued to rear back.
It was the dragon’s breath weapon, something she had heard about before. Val had told her all about it during the trip. Each dragon had a different breath weapon, depending on its color. Val had told her that a white dragon released a powerful blast of cold that could
freeze a man right to the bone. If only that would be the case right now. Val’s heart was frozen, but the rest of him remained warm and able to do damage.
Finally the dragon released its breath weapon on Val. A brilliant blue and white flash of light escaped its mouth and enveloped Val, completely covering his body.
Mara was barely able to keep her eyes open now, but she knew that Val had to be finished off. The dragon’s breath weapon was not something anyone could survive, not even a terrible slayer like Val.
She lost her fight with the darkness and slipped into unconsciousness. The last thing she would remember seeing was Val, standing unharmed as the light from Heart Fire warded the dragon’s breath away. She passed out, feeling nothing but despair.
Chapter 4
“Poor thing,” a distant voice said, cracking through the darkness that had enveloped Mara’s life. “The fever is finally subsiding.”
“The master has taken quite a shining to this one,” another, heavier voice said. “You’d better make sure that wound is clean and dressed properly.”
“It’s from a goblin’s dagger,” a third, higher pitched voice said. “It didn’t cut too deeply, but she lost a lot of blood.”
Mara felt something cool and wet on her forehead as the first voice spoke again. “I think she’s waking up. Her eyes are fluttering.”
“Oh, how exciting!” the high-pitched voice said. “We finally get to meet her.”
Mara began to blink, trying to eliminate the blurriness from her life as the world came into focus. She was lying on a bed with her head slightly elevated. As she opened her eyes she could see that she was in a large stone cavern. The ceiling was roughly cut out of stone with a thin layer of ice crystals covering it. She knew immediately that she was still on the mountain, or inside of it to be more exact, but she didn’t feel the bone-deep chill that she had experienced while she was exposed to the unforgiving wind.
“Don’t try to sit up too quickly, dear,” a voice said. She felt a large hand pat her on the back and provide support as she sat up on her elbows and tried to gather her bearings. “I don’t want you getting sick again. I don’t think your stomach has anything left in it, dear.”
