“Fuck you!” the man yelled as he landed a few feet away from me. “You dragon lovers are always coming around trying to put an end to our business. You should know better by now.”
“Maybe it’s you who should know better,” I countered as I lowered my stance slightly.
“Usually, you’re not this good with a blade.” The man smiled. “Seems you all have gotten more serious. Don’t worry, I’ll leave one of you alive to send the message to all your other buddies that it doesn’t matter how good you get, we’ll always be better.”
“I’ll leave you alive,” I told him. “But I have different plans for you.”
The man sneered again, and then he came toward me and swung wildly.
I countered each blow with my sword, and when he left his chest open, I yanked my foot back and gave him a swift kick to the ribs just as Blar let out a huge blue flame.
The elf gasped and hit the ground as he tried to catch his breath and clutched his burnt face.
“I’ve got him!” Kas called out, and she came running up as she dug into her satchel. The strawberry-blonde was splattered with blood, and there was dirt on her tunic, but she pulled out a small piece of rope from her bag and tied it around the man’s hands and feet while he continued to try to catch his breath.
“What is that?” I asked curiously.
“I enchanted it last night,” the sorceress said with a proud smile. “It should hold him no matter how much he struggles.”
“Good work,” I told her, and then I glanced behind her and saw Asta with Inger and Uffe.
The three of them were going through the pockets of the dead elves.
“I told her to see if she could find anything to help us,” Kas explained when she saw me looking past her.
“You’ll… pay for that,” the dark-haired elf gasped.
“I’ll deal with you later,” I told him, and I gave him a swift kick to the stomach so he scrunched in on himself and writhed in pain.
Then a sound in the woods behind me caught my ear, and I quickly spun around with my sword raised.
“Whoa!” Eira called out, and she appeared at the edge of the trees. “It’s just me.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I said as I lowered my weapon, and my face got hot with embarrassment.
“Never apologize for being a good warrior,” she told me with a smile, and then she held up the small cage and lifted the cover back slightly. “The poor thing seems scared to death. I tried to tell it I wasn’t going to hurt it, but I don’t think it understood me.”
“He’s just a baby,” I explained. “Probably only hours old. He can understand you, dragons are intuitively smart like that, but his fear is blocking any rational thought. I can sense how scared he is.”
“We should get him back to his mother like we did the ones yesterday,” Asta said.
“Yes.” I nodded. “But first, let’s see how many others are inside.”
“There might also be some notes or maps to help us,” Kas added.
“We’ll look through the place,” I agreed, and then I led the girls up to the entrance of the cart.
“Good luck in there,” the dark-haired elf laughed, but I ignored him.
I expected to sense more fear when I got closer to the cart, but instead, all I could sense was pain. It was a terrible anguish, and the feeling tightened my chest and nearly made me tear up. The emotion was so powerful, so overwhelming, I wasn’t sure I could handle it. I’d never experienced anything like it before.
I kept my hand on the hilt of my sword in case there were more men inside who’d decided not to come out, and then I stepped through the entrance and into quite a surprise. The cart was larger on the inside than it appeared on the outside. The ceiling above must have been fifty feet tall, probably due to some elven magic, and it was dimly lit with candles that flickered and made the shadows of the cages on the shelves dance.
Only, none of the cages were occupied.
“What’s going on?” Kas whispered.
Eira picked up a candle and started to walk around the room.
“Shite,” she breathed, and I rushed over to her.
Before I could ask what it was, I saw for myself. There was a large cage, and inside was a beautiful female dragon in total disrepair.
The female was a shiny silver color, and she was curled at the back of the cell with her head laid on the ground in despair. She had only a nub of flesh where one of her wings should have been, and there were fresh gashes on one of her legs. I realized she was the source of the pain I’d felt when we’d gotten close to the cart, but she was also in a state of shock and complete sadness since her baby had been taken from her.
My eyebrows pinched together as I thought about why she was there in the first place. Usually, these arseholes seemed to like to steal babies, they didn’t have a purpose for keeping the larger dragons.
Then realization dawned on me, and it nearly brought me to my knees.
They were using her for her eggs.
I wasn’t sure how they were breeding her, but they were waiting for her to lay an egg so they could sell the baby. I was sure that was what they were doing, and my body grew hot with anger.
“We have your baby,” I said, and I reached over and took the cage from Eira. I set the small contraption on the floor, and then I carefully removed the covering. The small dragon inside shivered in terror, but I heard his mother rustle, and I looked over to see she’d lifted her head slightly.
I opened the door to the cage and turned it so the baby could squeeze through the bars.
The small dragon looked at me for a second, then back to the bars before he darted over to his mother.
The female dragon greeted him warmly, and she nuzzled him and licked him all over while he nestled against her.
I could feel her relief and gratitude wash over me like a soothing blanket. The pain she’d felt didn’t go away entirely, and I supposed that was because of all the other children she’d lost, but she had this one now.
And she’d never lose another again. I’d make sure of that.
“We’re going to open the cell now,” I said aloud, and the mother looked at me with sad, disbelieving eyes.
Kas and Asta used their powers to remove the enchantment on the cage door, and once they were done, I slowly opened it and stepped to the side.
The large mother raised her head even more, but she didn’t stand up.
I focused on her emotions and found her to be confused and scared. She’d obviously tried to get away before and was punished because of it. Now, here we were trying to free her, but her captors still had her under their control.
I pinched my eyes shut to hide the emotion I felt at this realization, and then I took a steadying breath and opened them again. I locked eyes with the beautiful female dragon, and I took a step toward her as I sent her my feelings like I had with the yellow mother the day before.
“You’re okay,” I said softly. “Nobody will hurt you again. You’re free to go wherever you want.”
The female was hesitant, and she craned her neck out toward me, but I only took a step closer to her.
“You’re okay,” I repeated as I took yet another step.
I held my hand out and allowed her to sniff it softly, and then I carefully placed it on her nose as I did my best to send her all the love and happiness I could muster. I wanted her to feel something pure and untainted. She needed to know it was possible to experience that again, even after all she’d been through.
The dragon let out a heavy sigh, and I gently rubbed her nose before I placed my forehead against her own.
“You’ll be okay,” I said, and for a moment we stayed there, pressed against each other in silence.
Then I took a deep breath and stepped back.
“Go,” I told her. “Leave this terrible place.”
The mother dragon gently picked her baby up with her teeth and placed him on her back before she stood up and walked to the door of the cage.
; I led her out into the open, and I experienced the world with her for a second. She breathed in the sweet air and savored the feel of the fresh wind on her scales.
It had probably been years since she’d been outside.
After a few moments, she pressed her face against me once more, and then she slowly walked into the forest.
We weren’t far from the valley, and I knew she’d be safe there. The other dragons would protect her and her baby, I had no doubt about that.
“That was incredible,” Eira said after the female had gone.
“She’d been in there for so long.” I frowned.
“She’s free now.” Kas smiled softly and placed her hand on my arm. “That’s all we can do.”
“I know.” I smiled back and placed my hand on hers before I kissed her forehead.
“Well, that’s not exactly all we can do.” Eira arched an eyebrow and gestured to the tied-up man on the ground.
“Right.” I smirked back at the redhead. I’d been so overwhelmed with the dragon in the cart I’d nearly forgotten about the man I’d kept alive to interrogate.
I walked over to the man I’d killed with my dagger earlier, and I yanked the blade from his forehead before I made my way over to the man on the ground.
“Hey, hey,” he said as he tried to scoot away from me. “Get the fuck away from me!”
For a man who’d talked himself up so much, he seemed to get scared pretty quickly. I remembered his comment before we’d gone into the cart, and I realized he probably thought we were about to get eaten when we’d stepped inside. If I was him, I’d be scared, too.
“Who do you work for?” I asked, and I held my blade up to his throat.
“Fuck you,” the guy spat, and I saw the blood on his teeth.
“Oh, Blar,” I said, and the little dragon ran over to me. “Would you heat this up for me, please?”
The blue lizard practically snickered, and then he blew a small, but incredibly hot, flame onto the blade of the dagger.
“You think I’m afraid of a little hot metal?” the guy scoffed, but I could see the fear in his eyes. He was trying to mask it, but he wasn’t doing a good job. His eyes were dead set on the knife, and his whole body was tensed with anticipation.
“No,” I lied. “But you should be.”
I grabbed the elf by his pointed ear, yanked it to the side, and pressed the edge into the tissue that connected it to his body.
The man screamed at the top of his lungs as I slowly sawed his ear off. The knife was so hot the wound cauterized as I did it, which was exactly what I wanted. I needed to keep him alive, after all, and that would be hard to do if he bled out of every incision I intended on making on him.
“Oh, my,” I heard Asta breathe off to the side.
“Ew.” Kas blanched.
“Take the other one, too,” Eira said, and her voice was filled with amusement.
I should’ve known the redhead would get a kick out of this man’s torture.
“Why don’t you take it?” I asked playfully, and I moved to pass her the dagger. “I don’t want to have all the fun.”
“Okay, okay!” the man screamed as blood trickled down his neck and stained his tunic. “Don’t take my other ear, please! What do you want to know?”
He gasped from the shock and pain of losing a piece of his body, but I was honestly surprised it hadn’t taken longer to break him. I’d anticipated we’d need at least an hour before he talked, but it seemed he was less loyal than I’d previously thought.
“Who do you work for?” I asked again, and I leveled my gaze at the man.
“For myself,” he sneered. “I’m nobody’s lackey.”
“Eira,” I said, and I held up the dagger again.
“Alright!” the man shouted. “Fuck. There’s a group of guys we get the dragons from. I don’t know who he is, but I know they all work for one guy. He’s figured out a way to capture the babies.”
“If you get babies from these men, why did you have the dragon in the cart?” I asked, and my eyes narrowed on the guy.
“She was from one of the eggs we bought years ago,” he explained. “She’s silver.”
“So?” I asked.
“Silver dragons are rare,” he said with a roll of his eyes. “Their babies fetch double the price of a normal one.”
“How long ago did you get her?” I asked, and I could feel all the emotion drain from my face.
“Oh, come on,” the elf breathed. “It’s just business, it’s--”
“It’s a living creature!” I yelled as I pressed the knife to his throat again. “How fucking long?”
“Ten years, maybe,” he said through clenched teeth and closed eyes, and his body trembled as I held the blade against his freshly shaven neck. “I told you what you want, just let me go.”
That poor mother had been this man’s slave for a decade. I thought of the pain she felt, and how she’d been missing a wing. They’d no doubt taken it when she was little to make sure she couldn’t fly away. There was no greater cruelty than a creature meant for the sky who was bound to the earth. The poor female would never fly, and it was this man’s fault.
“You’ve told me nothing,” I growled as I pushed the blade into his skin so a bead of blood pooled at the tip.
If this arsehole thought I was about to let him go, he was sorely mistaken. Even after he told us what we wanted to know, there was no way he’d get out of this situation alive.
“What do you want to know?” he asked, and his breath grew more ragged as he tried to pull his neck away from the dagger in my hand.
The small drop of blood slowly snaked its way down his throat to his collarbone, and I had to stop myself from stabbing the length of the blade through his neck right then.
“Where can we find this guy?” I pushed.
“I don’t fucking know,” he breathed, but his eyes never left my hand. I could see the fear in them, and his pathetic switch from such a strong-willed opponent to a terrified little boy made me sick.
“What do you know?” I sneered, and I pushed the blade just the tiniest bit harder into his neck.
“Alright, alright,” he gasped. “Please, just don’t kill me.”
He was nearly in tears by then, and I pulled the dagger away and rolled my eyes.
“Tell us all you know,” Eira said as she walked over and stood behind me. “If you live or not depends on how good your information is.”
“O-Okay,” the elf stammered, and he licked his lips and looked around fervently as he thought. “We were supposed to meet up with the guys tomorrow. We were low on babies.”
“Where?” I asked through clenched teeth. The way he spoke so nonchalantly about capturing and torturing living creatures only served to make me despise him that much more. If he had a chance of leaving alive, which he hadn’t, it would have been gone after that remark.
“There’s a field at the edge of the valley,” the guy said quickly. “It’s, uh, it doesn’t have a name, but a lot of people know about it. The market used to be there, but they moved it after it got so big.”
“I know where it’s at.” Asta nodded. “I used to stay there sometimes when the weather was nice.”
I frowned when I thought about Asta’s past and how she used to be homeless and aimlessly wandering around this world, but I pushed the thought out of my head and focused back on the man in front of me.
“When were you to meet them?” I asked.
“Just after dawn,” he answered. “They take the babies at night, so we get them first thing in the morning so they don’t have them very long. It keeps them from being caught with the dragons.”
“I see.” I pursed my lips.
“That’s all I know, I swear,” the guy said, and he eyed the dagger in my hand nervously before he looked back up at me. “Let me go, and I’ll help you. I can take you to the field and introduce you. Whatever you need.”
The man’s blatant disregard for anything but his own life put a bad taste
in my mouth. He had no loyalty to the men he worked with, his trade, or the arseholes he got the dragons from. I didn’t expect men like him to value other lives above their own, but I did expect them to have some semblance of dignity.
This elf had thrown all that out the window at the first sign he’d lost. I didn’t appreciate his total willingness to turn his back on everything he knew, and I didn’t trust him.
He’d offered to help us, but he’d obviously spent a long time in the dragon trade, and I didn’t believe his offer for a second. Then again, he was pitiful enough that he might go through with it if it meant I’d let him live.
“Who are you meeting with?” Eira asked.
“I just told you.” The guy furrowed his eyebrows.
“What are their names?” the redhead asked, and she bent down and glared at him. “What do they look like?”
Realization dawned on the guy’s face, and he shook his head as his breath grew more ragged.
“Hey, come on,” he breathed, and he tried to muster a smile. “I told you I’d take you to them. I can introduce you. We’ll tell them you’re new to the trade.”
“He’s not going to tell us anything else,” Eira told me with a straight face.
“I’ll take you to them, I swear!” the elf cried. “You need me!”
I knew Eira was right, he wasn’t going to tell us anything else. He wanted to make sure we had a reason to keep him alive, but even without the names of the men he was meeting, he’d already told us enough to get the job done.
The man continued to plead and beg, but I wasn’t having it. I quickly flipped my dagger in my hand so it was primed for stabbing, and then I shoved the blade through the man’s eye socket.
His other eye widened for a split second, and I watched the light drain out of it. I hadn’t given a second thought about killing this monster, not after all the turmoil he’d caused and all the dragons he’d tortured. He deserved nothing short of what he’d gotten.
“Good riddance,” Eira sneered as I yanked my blade out of the man’s face, and we watched him fall backward onto the ground.
“What a horrible man.” Asta frowned.
“What he said gave me an idea, though,” Kas said.
Dragons of Asgard 2 Page 37
