by Billy Wong
Strength's mount caught U in its huge talons and dipped towards the ground, placing him gently down. Cart-Dragger smiled. "So your big asses are good for something. U, are you okay?"
"I'll be fine," he said in a strained voice. "Don't think I can fly for now, though."
Strength sounded almost happy as Cart-Dragger climbed up in front of her. "Then it's up to us! Here we go."
"Did you kill your wyvern?"
"I didn't even need to. My partner here did all the work—he's a fierce fighter, just takes him a moment to get fully into it."
She slapped the vulturelike God Soldier's back. "That's nice to hear."
"Will that whirlwind get us again?" the elemental asked.
"I don't think she can cast a big spell like that again right away, but I can't be sure... we'll just have to risk it." They zoomed towards Tiamat. Cart-Dragger saw that she held a blue orb in her claws, and brought it towards her chest. "How did she already..?" The druids must have given it up. But what was she doing with it? She reached up and slit a hole in her bosom with a talon.
"Please don't tell me they're going to merge," Strength said.
Cart-Dragger gulped. She pictured a regenerating Tiamat with tentacles sticking out of her flanks, and control over water added on top of her already potent air magic. "If they do that there's no telling how formidable they might become, or if all of us together can even beat them." Call us Deus, she imagined the combined being saying, and worship us as the one true god! Nope, no way she was going to let that happen... They closed in, another breath passing frightfully close to the vulture's wings. "Strength, lend me your glaive!"
"What?"
"Tiamat probably has her shield up. Since your friend won't be able to get close, I need to jump. But if I break the barrier with my hammer, I might not get to swing again quick enough. So I need one hit for the shield—hoping I get through—and another immediately after for the core. Unless you plan to jump with me..."
Strength handed her the polearm without further issue. "Luck be with you, Duchess."
"Throw one of my javelins too. If it hits the shield first, it might weaken it a tad for me." The giantess plucked a javelin from her quiver as she stood and leapt from their mount's back. "Let our wills be one," she whispered as wind howled past her in freefall.
You are amazing, Maximilian said.
"Now you compliment me?"
Insane, but amazing. Your self-belief, even I must admire.
In truth, she wasn't so confident this would work. But the alternative involved letting Tiamat fuse with Tentacle Nest and probably gain overwhelming power, plus she felt rather tired and lightheaded for another extended battle. She had to give stopping this in its tracks her best shot. Windy breath roared upward. She spun in the air, the blast grazing her but not enough to significantly alter her trajectory. "Is your will with me?"
In this, yes.
"Then let's give it everything we have!" Strength's javelin flew down past her, perfectly timed as it stopped against the barrier just when she got into reach of it. "First Star!" She hit right next to it with the glaive, but failed to break through. With no time to think, she struck with her hammer too. "Second Star!" She felt the resistance disappear as the shield shattered, but started to fall past Tentacle Nest's core. Oh, crap. Desperately she raised both weapons overhead and swung. "Star Star!" The wyrm snarled in defiance while glaive and hammer sought the glowing mass that pulsed anew in her chest, spreading its blue light through her hide—then screamed as they connected, bursting the core apart. Light streamed from Tiamat's wound into the air. She fell backwards, unfortunately set to crush a good portion of the Merciful's forest under her bulk, but it couldn't be helped.
What was I supposed to do? Maximilian asked.
"I would've suggested you soften our fall, but it seems like we'll have an ample dragon-y cushion for it. So the support you expressed will do."
I'm a bit underwhelmed you could only come up with those names for your attacks...
"I was improvising on the fly. Besides, my parents were the Stars of Galantria, so it fits."
You still could have gone with Double Star instead of that terrible "Star Star."
Tiamat crashed down among the trees, one of her wingbones snapping with a tremendous crack against the ground. This time, it was pretty certain she wouldn't be able to fly anytime soon. She twitched weakly on her back while Cart-Dragger stood up from a crouch on her chest and walked up her neck towards her head. "Though your race is despicable, you are strong. May the next King Elementals born after Kraken and I succeed where we failed." Cart-Dragger stood silently upon her throat, bent with pain and exhaustion herself. "Why do you not end it? Must you taunt me with my helplessness?"
"I don't want to kill you." She exhaled. "I mean, I sort of do, considering how many you've murdered. But one of my friends, even as she lay dying from injuries inflicted by you, didn't want me to and hoped we could come to a peaceful resolution. If your life can buy peace, then I'm willing to spare it."
"Peace?" Tiamat laughed. "There can never be peace between us, as long as your race's nature remains the same. Your existence and the existence of all other living beings are at odds. You wish to keep me alive as your prisoner so that another King Elemental of Air will not be born to oppose you. Ha. You cannot stop me from ending my own life, so you will live in fear that my successor is greater than I and you will lack the strength to defeat them."
She felt tempted to let Tiamat kill herself, however she intended to, but her loyalty to E won out and she spoke. "The friend who I speak of was an elemental."
"What of it? It was that bird, wasn't it? That corrupted, metal-feathered abomination whose subservience to you had long been ingrained into her. Such as her hardly count as elementals in my eyes. You might as well save your words, for repeating hers will never sway me."
She was really on the verge of giving up, her arm trembling in rage as it yearned to raise the maul and shut this winged bitch up once and for all. "We figured our words wouldn't be much use," she said, a terse even tone the best she could force. "But your kind can sense each other's emotions if you touch their cores, yes?" She pulled E's core out from the protective container Scott had provided, sadness flowing through her at its fading warmth, and placed it on the scaly skin at her feet.
At first Tiamat remained quiet, and Cart-Dragger prepared to finish her off. But then she said in a slow, small voice, "I thought her corrupted and weak, but no. I feel her—she was strong, and her feelings pure. If she believed so in you, perhaps humans should be given a chance after all."
Though she still held ire at Tiamat for her past actions, that even she could be moved touched Cart-Dragger's heart. "Did you hear that, E?" She wiped tears from her eyes and sniffed. "I'm so proud of you. Tiamat said you were strong. Wherever you are, I want you to know I'm honored to have had a friend like you."
"I will no longer compel my brethren to attack you," the wyrm said after a pause, "and give you until a new King Elemental of Water is born to prove that you can change. But there is something else you should know. The very earth wishes for your destruction."
"What do you mean, the very earth?"
"The spirit of the world itself, the only true god, writhes with agony from your deeds, and would be relieved for you to be gone."
She didn't know how much she should believe this, since elementals could also have religion which might not necessarily be based in reality. However, "If that's the case, we'll prove to it too that we can live in harmony. That's just all there is to it."
#
A few hours later, Cart-Dragger limped with her human companions away from the druids' enclave towards their mounts. They'd spent a good amount of time discussing the situation with the Merciful, who agreed to let Tiamat stay until she was healed enough to leave. Some were understandably irate at having part of their forest wrecked, but Vana and others appreciated the value of peace enough to give this a chance. "I wonder if Tiamat really plans
on leaving us alone," Ruth mused, "or if she just said that to buy time to regroup."
Though she hoped E's desire wouldn't have been for naught, Cart-Dragger acknowledged the latter to be a possibility. "She is blind with a badly broken wing, though she might eventually be able to heal those with water elemental cores or some other way, I doubt she'll threaten us for a while. And if she does, we're not unaware of her, and have beaten her before. In that case, she won't get a third chance."
Strength said, "I still think we should have finished her... but I suppose this will be worth it if it actually leads to peace."
"I guess it's a good thing too that Lars and Ruth's wyvern survived to deliver her message to the elemental army, due to them being so slow to kill it."
"It was fast!" Ruth spread her hands in exasperation. "Hard to get a good hit on a vital area when your opponent is zipping all around you. You just didn't have that problem because you're barely human, and also used trickery. But yeah, lucky us."
"Think Jasper will forgive us now after we quelled the danger to mankind at least for the time being?" Lars asked Cart-Dragger.
"I don't know, he seems to hold a grudge well, and some of us could have done things differently to mitigate the damage to his city." She heard Strength snort. "Hopefully though, we'll gain enough support from Athendar's people for him to reconsider cutting ties with us."
Maximilian's voice sounded in her head, so soft as to be near unintelligible. While I was not able to achieve my goal, it was an interesting time traveling with you. I bid you farewell.
"Huh? What are you talking about?"
"Is it him?" Lars asked edgily.
After you lost so much of my blood in the previous battle, I no longer have a sufficient foothold within you. I am fading—you have won again, Wall-Crash... His resigned words trailed off to nothing, and she supposed he was gone.
"Maximilian isn't inside me anymore," she explained for the others. "Since I bled so much when Tiamat clawed me, I lost enough of his blood that he can't stay in me. I guess his soul has finally moved on... then again, I can't rule out him having another body with his blood that he can transfer into."
Lars frowned. "Are you sure he isn't just lying low in wait for you to let your guard down?"
"I can't be certain of that either," she replied after a moment. "But either way, like I said about Tiamat, I've beaten him before, and will just have to stay vigilant. To be honest, I'm more worried about what the next big threat will be. Because there always seems to be one, doesn't there? Abaddon will probably want to leave for his volcanic lands soon, too. Him staying with us full time would be like asking us to stay in the frozen wastes as far north as you can go." She grinned. "Yet, I figure we'll overcome whatever it is we face next."
"Why, because you're so strong?" Strength asked.
"No, because we're so strong." That seemed to please the big woman, as a smile tugged at her lips before Cart-Dragger raised a fist to the sky and continued, "Meaning us, Galantria, and humanity! Human pride!"
Her friends looked dubiously at her, but then joined in. "Human pride!" they chanted as one, and she finished with a contented, "Hell yeah."
Epilogue
Vana regarded the battered dragon, so large she had to look up even as the latter lay downed. "So even you were defeated... I must say, it makes me question who are the true monsters."
Though blind, Tiamat turned her head in the direction of her voice. "Is this the first time you have questioned that? You were rather quick to give up Kraken's core at my demand, despite showing little fear."
She hesitated. She could say she was just good at hiding it, but thought candor might improve the affinity between her and the Queen Elemental. "The Merciful's mercy is towards nature as a whole, not any single race. If the future requires humans to be wiped out, I have little investment against it."
"But you are a human."
"I am also aware all things must die eventually. That applies to groups as much as individuals. When our time comes, so be it."
"Interesting view."
Vana shrugged. "Since you have decided to back down for now, though, I suppose humanity will have a reprieve. If the world itself wishes our destruction again as you said, who will you side with?"
"I have seen enough that I will give mankind a chance to prove itself to the world as promised. And you?"
"We have no history of becoming involved in conflicts, and I admire the conviction of the short one who drags carts. But she is yet young, and who knows if the future might not corrupt her? So we will see."
Cover design copyright © Jaka Prawira http://behance.net/ellinsworth
Author Billy Wong is an avid fan of heroic fantasy, with a special love for strong female warriors. He draws inspiration from the epic legends of old, and is on a quest to bring over the top deeds and larger than life heroes back to prominence in today's literary world.
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