The Dragon Hunter and the Mage

by V. R. Cardoso

  The first pieces began to fall as Leth’s cavalry clashed with Aric’s spearmen. This was also the moment the first spell card came into play. As always, the card’s instructions were simple but effective – Enemy spears cannot move for two consecutive turns. It saved some of Leth’s cavalry, but not for very long.

  Dead pieces piled around the board as they were removed from play. The initial orderly formations had been replaced by an apparent mess of blue and red pieces. Aric played a card that allowed him to teleport three pieces and used those to punish Leth’s rear. It wasn’t the final blow yet, but it wreaked havoc on Leth’s lines.

  Then, suddenly, the balance seemed to shift. Although outnumbered, Leth’s forces remained fairly balanced, with the same number of each kind of piece. On the other hand, while Aric’s cavalry remained intact, he had lost most of his swords and spears. To compensate, Aric was forced to spend several spell cards protecting his vulnerable pieces.

  Aric looked across the board and found Leth smirking at him. Had he purposefully sacrificed numbers in order to get Aric off-balance? That smirk certainly said yes.

  We’ll see who laughs last.

  This wasn’t the ideal situation Aric had planned for, but then again, no plan ever played out exactly as predicted. The game was still well within his reach.

  “Been a good game so far, hasn’t it?” Aric asked, smiling.

  Leth shrugged, smiling as well. “Can’t complain.”

  “If you don’t mind, I’m going to finish it now.”

  “By all means,” Leth said.

  Aric was going to have fun wiping that smirk off his face.

  He played his final card, allowing six of his pieces to traverse mountains – impassable terrain. The plan was deliciously simple. Use that card to send his abundant cavalry around the choke point Leth controlled, and smash the swords Leth had been carefully protecting beyond it. From there, the game would be all but finished.

  A frown grew above Leth’s eyes as the stratagem unfolded. He could obviously see what was about to happen. He made some adjustments, retreating a couple of spears and horses, but it was useless. Those units would never get there in time. Leth’s army was doomed. Aric could only smile.

  Then, at the last moment, as Aric prepared to charge, Leth played his last spell card as well.

  “I turn my swords into spears,” he said, holding the card at Aric’s eye level.

  “What?” Aric mumbled.

  “That’s right. Which means your entire cavalry force is dead, and my army is free to hunt down what little is left of yours.” Chuckling, Leth placed the card on the table and leaned back. “But you don’t have to be dragged on hopelessly for the next few turns. You can just yield.”

  “That’s not possible…” Aric said, livid.

  Leth didn’t reply, though. He simply shrugged smugly.

  “You cheated!” Aric yelled, jumping to his feet.

  “What?”

  “You sneaky rat! You reached into the deck while I wasn’t watching.”

  “I did no such thing!” Leth replied, getting onto his feet as well. “You take that back, right now.”

  “How else would you possibly have that precise card at this precise moment?!” Aric asked. He swung around, looking for support. “Did anyone see it? Did anyone see him reach for the deck?”

  “You’re pathetic!” Leth said. “Did you consider just for a moment that I might have planned this from the start?”

  “Impossible. You’d have used that card by now if you had had it from the start.”

  “What a spoiled little brat, you are…” Leth said.

  “And you’re just a selfish, greedy narcissist who’ll do anything for his own gain.”

  It was as if an arrow had been fired at Leth’s heart. His arms fell, and all color abandoned his face. “Take that back,” he said lowly. “You take that back right now.”

  But Aric wasn’t going to. Instead, he stepped forward defiantly. “Admit you are a cheat.”

  “You know what?” Leth asked, disgust twisting the corners of his mouth. “You’re just a pitiful little guy that knows nothing except feeling sorry for himself. But I suppose that’s all your mommy had to teach you…”

  Aric’s eyes went blank with rage, his face turned red and a ringing began in his ears. With a jump, he lunged over the table, stomping over the Lagaht pieces and diving towards Leth’s neck.

  The two of them crashed to the ground, rolling over each other, punching and kicking until a group of senior Hunters jumped in and separated them.

  Aric could barely see. He tried to free himself, but the choke-hold the Hunter was holding him with didn’t give him a chance. Leth was beyond his reach.

  The wounds on Aric’s face had gone sore a little while ago. He could feel a lump growing on his lower lip that made it hard to close his mouth, but at least, the sickening taste of iron from the blood was gone.

  The door opened and Saruk peeked inside.

  “Are you hungry?” he asked.

  Both Aric and Leth replied with a suspicious yes.

  “Good,” the instructor said, then slammed the door shut again.

  Leth cursed. “How long have we been in here?”

  Aric didn’t say anything, he just looked the other way.

  “Oh right, you’re not talking to me now.” Leth sighed. “You’re the one who hit me first, you know? If anything, I shouldn’t be talking to you.” Once again, Aric didn’t reply. “Alright, fine. I shouldn’t have said those things. I’m sorry. But for the record, I did not cheat. I just goaded you from the beginning. It’s your own damn fault for underestimating me.” He felt his left cheekbone and cringed from the pain. He would have cringed even further if he could have seen how purple it had turned.

  “I’m sorry too,” Aric muttered at last, his eyes on the ground.

  Leth tried to hide his shock. “Good…” he said.

  “No, it’s not,” Aric continued. “I was an idiot. I mean, I was just… I don’t know what came over me.” He was having a hard time deciding what to say. “I know you didn’t cheat. And… yeah, I think we both know what my problem was.”

  Leth nodded. “Well… I did play a really good match,” he ended up saying after a bit. It managed to make Aric laugh, and Leth looked obviously pleased with that. “Listen, I know this doesn’t change much, and you’ll still feel like crap but… That kiss you saw, between me and Clea… It really did come out of the blue. I don’t think she was expecting it any more than I was. We haven’t even talked about it yet.”

  “What do you mean?” Aric asked, finally getting the courage to turn and face Leth.

  Leth shrugged as if he was baffled. “After you saw us, we just stood there like a couple of idiots staring at our hands and feet until one of us had the brilliant idea to say ‘I guess I’m going to sleep now’ and we left.”

  Aric chuckled.

  “I’m serious,” Leth said. “I can’t even remember who said it.”

  Aric’s chuckle turned into laughter and Leth joined him. Then, suddenly, the door swung open and Saruk appeared on the other side.

  “Am I interrupting something?” the instructor asked. He didn’t really give them a chance to reply. “Out. Get out.”

  They had been locked in that little cupboard in Saruk’s office for what felt like hours now. Without another word, the instructor escorted them out and across the halls, taking them through the narrowest, darkest tunnels they had ever been through inside Lamash. Then, after climbing down a couple flights of stairs, a shrill scream echoed around them. Even the flickering flames of the torches seemed to cower at the sound.

  “Who told you to stop?” Saruk asked, a murderous look in his eyes.

  Leth and Aric exchanged a glance. Aric didn’t know what Leth was thinking about, but he had a pretty good guess it was running away. Then, a second, even more terrifying scream almost persuaded him to really do it, but Saruk reached out, grabbed them both by their collars, and tossed them th
rough a door.

  The two recruits landed on the stone floor, screams filling the room around them. Aric looked up and saw a man being held down on a black table, blood dripping from him and over the table’s edge like a waterfall.

  “What the‒?!”

  “Don’t you even dare,” Saruk said, forcing him and Leth to not look away.

  The sight was disturbing. The man being held down had a horrible gash across his abdomen and another man had both his hands deep inside of it, blood reaching up to his elbows. All five people holding the man down had wounds of their own, with so much blood everywhere it was impossible to tell whose it was.

  Aric felt like puking, but he kept it in as best as he could. That man was clearly about to die, the least Aric could do was not to throw up on the people who were trying to save him.

  The wounded man’s screams became even higher pitched and his howling turned hoarser and hoarser until he passed out. At least, it made him become still, which helped the surgeon finish his job. The rip in the man’s flesh was sown closed and then washed with something that, from the smell of it, had to be the strongest liquor in all Arkhemia.

  Saruk kneeled in front of his recruits, their eyeballs ready to jump out.

  “This isn’t over for him yet,” the instructor said. “If this man is lucky, the wound won’t infect and he will survive. And that’s hoping he didn’t lose too much blood. In any case, the next few weeks will be nothing but pain for him. But there is more. Next door, there is another Hunter getting his leg sawed off. And somewhere down in the Main Hall is dead woman everyone’s been too busy to carry away.”

  Aric could only swallow.

  “This…” Saruk aimed a finger at the gasping, bleeding, cringing Hunters behind him, “is the life of a Dragon Hunter. This is yourlife. You might not have chosen it, but it’s what you have. One day, you’ll have to step inside a Dragon’s lair too, and when that day comes, all you’ll have is each other. That’s it. So you better learn‒”

  “I’m the sole responsible,” Aric said, cutting Saruk off. “I hit Leth, he was simply trying to defend himself.”

  Saruk nodded. “Good,” he said, getting on his feet.

  Both recruits followed him up.

  “Instructor,” Leth said, “That’s not really what‒”

  “Shut up!” Saruk barked. “Your Captain has assumed responsibility, as is his duty. So shut up and get out of my sight.”

  “I‒”

  “NOW!”

  Not looking very pleased with it, Leth turned around and left.

  “You will stay here,” Saruk told Aric, “and help these people.”

  Aric nodded obediently.

  “When that is done, you will return to your Company and let them know that tomorrow you will all be doing a blood run. You will load all blood crates in the stockpile onto horse carts, take them to Nish, and unload them at the Blood House. All by yourselves. No one will give you any help whatsoever. You will let your Company know this is your punishment and that they are all paying for something you did.”

  “Understood, instructor.”

  “Good,” Saruk said. “Now find yourself a bucket and start cleaning this mess.”

  The Guildsmen in charge of the blood stockpiles laughed every time one of them fell or let a crate slip through their fingers, nearly squashing their feet. These Guildsmen were called reservists, just like the cooks and the rest of the Fortress’ staff. They had all been Hunters once, but for some reason or another had been considered unfit for desert patrols. Some limped heavily, others were missing a limb, or maybe even two.

  For safety reasons, the Blood stockpile was located deep inside the mountain, which meant each crate had to travel about a mile inside the halls of the fortress before they reached the loading bay next to the Guild’s stables. However, the wheeled pushcarts had mysteriously disappeared and the elevator’s ropes had been cut just above the counter-weights. All very unfortunate, as the man responsible for the stockpile had put it. Add to that the fact that everyone they passed through the halls kept asking how they liked that their Captain had turned them into mules, and Aric was having a tremendous day. By the time all the crates had been loaded into the carts, there wasn’t a single recruit who hadn’t come up with his very own name for Aric, and none of them were either charming or flattering.

  “The least you could do is have your pet stay away,” Ashur complained.

  Geric was having a lot of fun chasing pebbles between everyone’s legs. Nahir nearly tripped over him twice and Athan almost got bitten when he stepped on Geric’s tail. Eventually, Aric managed to get the cat to stay away by sending him chasing an empty blind bomb shell down the mountain.

  The convoy left at midday, the peaking sun frying them under their cloaks. Only Leth and Geric seemed willing to sit with Aric on the front cart. Even Clea decided to go for one of the others.

  “Don’t worry,” Leth said as they started down the mountain. “They’ll forget about it soon enough.”

  However, Aric wasn’t so sure.

  Mounted on horse-pulled carts, the journey across the dunes was certainly far more comfortable than their usual desert runs. Or, at least, it would have been if their muscles didn’t hurt so much. And they still had to unload their cargo once they arrived in Nish as well.

  Night fell and they made camp on a plateau. Gathering the carts in the center, Aric spread the Company around them in a protective formation. A fortune could be made in the black market with all that blood, and raids on blood convoys weren’t rare.

  “Think there’ll be Paladins at the Blood House?” Aric asked Leth by the crackling fire.

  Around them, the rest of the recruits had fallen asleep.

  “Don’t Paladins oversee the destruction of Dragon blood?” Leth asked. “Yeah, I think so.”

  “I freaking hate Paladins,” Aric said, scratching behind one of Geric’s ears.

  “You know what?” Leth said. “I don’t think I’ve ever met a Paladin that wasn’t Samehrian.”

  Aric tried to muffle his own laughter before he woke anyone up. “That’s not true,” he said.

  “I swear by the first of my ancestors,” Leth said, but his smiled betrayed him. “In fact, I’m sure Ashur would have been a Paladin if he hadn’t joined the Guild.”

  “Hey, that reminds me,” Aric said, his eyes suddenly focused on something far, far away. “Do they need the Brewing Chamber to destroy the blood?”

  Leth shrugged. “No idea.”

  “’Cause the Brewing Chamber in Nish was destroyed.”

  “What?!” Leth clearly didn’t think that was plausible.

  “Seriously,” Aric assured him. “On my way to Lamash I stopped at the Blood House, and there was this really old guy, a Guildsman. I think he is the keeper of the Blood House.”

  “What about him?”

  “Well, out of nowhere, he takes me to this huge, barred door and tells me the Brewing Chamber was on the other side, but it had been destroyed a few days back.”

  “Wait, is this the same guy that told you about the desert Witch?”

  Aric sighed. “I saw Eliran with my very own eyes.”

  “Yeah,” Leth smiled. “In the same day you hallucinated about a sand storm.”

  Aric dismissed Leth with a hand wave and leaned back, closing his eyes.

  They arrived in Nish two days later. Their horse carts rolled across the city’s brown walls and into its cobblestone streets. Just as Aric remembered, the city looked mostly deserted, but a couple of citizens here and there were forced to make way for the convoy. They crisscrossed around a couple of blocks until Aric was forced to stop at a junction to ask for directions. Those empty streets made it feel even more like a maze.

  A fat man with a greasy smile approached Aric’s cart. With a thick Cyrinian accent that made Nahir sound like a native Arreline, he gave them some vague instructions. Aric decided it might be a better idea to ask someone else. Across the street, at the end of a block, Aric saw
a woman walking briskly, a white veil covering her head.

  “My lady, excuse me!” Aric called.

  “My lady?” Leth asked, chuckling.

  “Right,” Aric agreed. “Madam? Madam wait!”

  The woman turned around and Aric felt like a bolt of lightning had struck him down. Locks of copper hair danced around a face so pale it seemed to meld into her veil, making her blue eyes seem like lagoons glistening under the midday sun.

  “Eliran…” Aric mumbled.

  “What did you just say?” Leth asked.

  But Aric didn’t even hear him. He just stared at the woman as she turned away and disappeared into some tavern or inn on the side of the street.

  “We’re lost aren’t we?” Ashur said. He had walked over from his cart and was standing next to theirs looking his usual charming self.

  “It was Eliran.” Aric didn’t seem to have heard Ashur. “The woman I saw in the desert.”

  “He’s joking,” Leth assured Ashur.

  The Samehrian shook his head and turned to the other carts. “Our brave Captain is hallucinating about the desert Witch again.”

  There was a wave of disbelief from the rest of the convoy, but once again Aric didn’t seem to hear it. “That was Eliran,” he told Leth. “That was her.”

  “I think maybe you should focus on finding the Blood House instead,” Leth advised carefully.

  The yells from the other carts grew louder and more impatient. It seemed to do the trick and Aric snapped out of it.

  “Right,” Aric said. “We’ll just do what the fat guy said.” He grabbed the reins and spurred the horse forward, but he made sure to drive past the door the strange woman had gone through. A plaque hanging above it was shaped like a flagon and read: The Thirsty Dragon.

  It turned out they weren’t that far from the Blood House after all. Aric recognized it after only a couple of turns. With a whistle, he ordered everyone to dismount and begin unloading the cargo.

  The wrinkled face of the old keeper came out to meet them before the first crate was out of the cart.

  “Who are you?” the old man demanded to know. “Where is Muric?”