by Dante King
Ten feet from the ground, my survival instincts fired up again. I flicked myself backward, using the momentum of the fall, and performed a lovely backflip. I landed in a spray of dust and pine needles at the foot of the tree and straightened up.
Many of the watching dragonmancers, including Penelope, patted me on the back.
“Better luck next time, greenhorn,” said one stunning woman with dark skin and platinum blonde hair cut into a fashionable bob. She lay a soft hand on my shoulder and gave it a brief squeeze. “The name is Nina,” she added, almost as a careless afterthought, flashing a pair of violet eyes at me from under long lashes as she walked past. She had the most exquisite facial bone structure that I had ever seen. “Let me know if you ever need some one-on-one tuition.”
As I watched her sashay away, I felt the sting of my minor failure fade a little.
“Hey, you,” a soft, smoky voice said from behind me.
I felt a tingle run from the bottom of my spine to the top, like a lightning bolt in reverse, followed by a nice warming sensation that flooded my brain like mulled wine.
I knew that voice, and I knew that accompanying sensation.
“Hello, Tamsin,” I said, turning.
The hobgoblin stood behind me, looking just as fantastic as she had the last time I had seen her. The scent of her—fresh sweat, shea butter, and leather—filled my head in an intoxicating fashion. She stood tall and proud and beautiful as any goddess, her black hair falling like a shadow down her back. Her yellow demonic eyes with their gold pupils looked me up and down. Her sharp, white pointed teeth were exposed as she smiled.
I gave my head a little shake. It was a strong glamor, if that is what it was. I wondered whether it could be taught, whether it was a natural or whether I was affected in this way because I was male. Certainly, none of the other women standing nearby seemed to be influenced by this strange pull that Tamsin exuded.
“You did pretty well for your first time there, Earthling,” she said.
“Thanks,” I replied, trying not to stare at the hobgoblin’s austerely beautiful countenance. “But call me Mike, yeah?”
Tamsin’s lips quirked up, showing off more of her impressive set of gnashers. It looked to me like she enjoyed a bit of banter.
“Well… Mike,” she said, biting off the word. “I was going to show a few of the other newer recruits around some weapon drills. Fancy joining in?”
I looked around. Most of the other dragonmancers were busy working out, but there were a few pairs dotted here and there who looked to be practicing with finely crafted wooden weapons.
“Sure,” I said to Tamsin.
Without another word, Tamsin led the way to where a couple of other dragonmancers, wearing the red and black combo of Rank Ones, were chatting by a rack of weapons set against the trunk of a fallen tree. One was none other than the sexy dark-skinned platinum blonde Nina who had introduced herself to me a moment before.
“Right,” Tamsin said, “we only have a limited time out here, so allow me to make the introductions and then we can get on with things. Viessa and Nina, this is Mike, our resident Earthling, token male, and Bearer of Noctis, the Onyx Dragon. Mike this is Viessa, a Drow and Bearer of Emrin, the Ivory Dragon, and this is Nina, a Sea Elf and Bearer of Ixlid, the Aqua Dragon.”
Viessa, who had a chilly blue tint to her skin and an icy gleam in her black eyes, nodded politely to me. Her head was shaved except for a plaited warrior’s queue at the back of her head that ran down to the top of her shapely butt. I’d never seen a woman look sexy with a hairstyle like that before, but this Viessa somehow managed to pull it off.
Nina inclined her head at me and held my gaze for far longer than the introduction merited. She really was extraordinarily attractive. Those violet eyes of hers cut down into me, probed around, and stirred me up like a couple of drill bits.
“Mike, as the newest of the newbies, is there any weapon that you fancy working on?” Tamsin said, snapping me out of the semi-trance I was in.
I blinked and looked over at the weapon rack. I didn’t really need to think too long and hard about it though. Tamsin was amazing with the spear, and I had quite enjoyed the feel of the weapon in my hand when I had taken on the six-headed sinbeast during my Transfusion Ceremony—despite the fact that I had barely had a chance to use it.
I pointed at the bunch of long ash spears that sat at one end of the rack. Tamsin’s eyes shone.
“Ah, an excellent choice,” she said. “And, if I may say so, I’m just the woman to teach you how to use one. ”
I picked a spear up. For something that was so long and heavy, I found that I could hold it and maneuver it in one hand as easily as a walking stick or a golf club.
Nina and Viessa picked up a spear each too, and I grabbed up another and tossed it to Tamsin.
“She talks the talk,” I said, “but does she walk the walk?”
For the rest of the time the company spent in the glade, the three of us—me, Nina, and Viessa—were put through our paces by Tamsin. Just as the hobgoblin had said, and just as I had seen, she really knew her shit when it came to polearms.
“There are two obvious advantages to the spear,” Tamsin told us as she showed us the best way to grip the weapon and the stances that would most benefit us when using it. “The first is that, for amateurs, the fighting takes place a safe distance from your body.”
Viessa snorted derisively, as if taking this into account constituted cowardice. Her snort earned her a smack in the back of the knee with Tamsin’s spear.
“The second advantage is reach, obviously,” Tamsin continued in her silky voice, ignoring the poisonous glance that Viessa shot at her. “Reach buys you time. Reach gives you safety. There’s no shame in fighting smart, in fighting with your head.”
She whipped her spear around in a complex whirl of stabs, swipes, and thrusts. She moved so fast that the spear appeared to be just a smear of brown in the air. It spun around her neck, twirled along her arms, and came to half about an inch from Nina’s throat. Nina gulped and took a step back.
“Did I mention that they can be fast too?” Tamsin crooned, her yellow eyes lit with a savage light. “Especially with the strength given to us by our dragons.”
The red-skinned hobgoblin walked between us, adjusting our grips and stances until they were precisely the way she wanted them. She laid her callused hands on the back of my front hand and tweaked it around a few degrees. Her breath was warm and tickly on my face.
“Can you think of another advantage of the spear?” she hissed into my ear. “Can you think of a common misconception of this weapon that the spear wielder can use to their advantage in battle?”
It was hard to concentrate with her lips an inch from my throat. Very hard. I steered my mind away from what else we could enjoy that was very hard and considered the question.
“Ah, I guess, that its length might be something that opponents take for granted,” I said.
“Good,” Tamsin said, using her spear to open up my legs a little so that I was more balanced. “How so?”
“Well, a spear is long, right? But that doesn’t mean you have to spend all your time fighting from a distance, does it?”
I skipped forward then, briefly releasing the shaft of the wooden spear and then grabbing it again just below the tip. Suddenly, with the ash shaft behind me, it was no longer a spear but a dagger that could be punched into someone, if you were up close and personal with them.
“Very good, Earthling,” Tamsin said, and she sounded so genuinely pleased that I bit the retort for calling me ‘Earthling.’ The name rankled me. Made me feel like I was an exhibition, or a bit-part in some shitty eighties sci-fi flick.
“Excuse me for asking, Tamsin,” Viessa said in a harsh voice that exuded rudeness despite the politeness of her words, “but why is it that we need to learn conventional arms? It’s not that I don’t find it interesting, or delight in the idea of slaying hordes of our enemies with a blade, but surely mag
ic is a more expedient method of killing?”
Tamsin presented the other warrior with a blank stare.
“It would be foolish for a dragonmancer to rely solely upon the power—the magic—that their bond with their dragon imbues them with,” she said. “And dragonmancers are many things, but foolish is not one of them.”
“Yes, Viessa,” Nina said, “and we have limitations, don’t we? Our mana isn’t inexhaustible.”
Viessa looked like she wanted to fling a scathing retort at Nina, but Tamsin held up a hand.
“Despite sounding like a condescending know-it-all, the Sea Elf is right, Viessa,” the hobgoblin said. “Although we are powerful when compared to the mortal soldiers that make up the bulk of armies, we are only able to use our dragon’s powers in one crystal slot at a time. That means that we must be able wield conventional weapons to a damned good degree if we find ourselves inclined to use our dragons defensively.”
She bared her teeth wolfishly, and any other questions that Viessa had withered and died on her lips.
“Now,” Tamsin said, “let’s stop the rabbiting and practice, yes?”
We drilled through a series of set positions for about ten minutes, going through the same motions over and over again until they became easier to complete successfully. I had experienced similar repetitive tutelage before, during my training at Remorseless. It was the sort of schooling that became ingrained, instilling moves that you could fall back on when you were beat and dead on your feet—no thinking required.
“Another aspect of the spear that warriors tend to forget in the heat of the moment,” Tamsin said, as we twirled, stabbed, and returned to our starting positions, “is that the bladed tip is not the only part of the spear that can ruin someone’s day.”
We stopped our drilling and faced Tamsin as she instructed.
“Stop me, if you can,” she said.
And, with that little warning, she attacked. She thrust the spear tip at my face, and I bumbled backward, just managing to flick the tip aside with the haft of my own weapon. The tip of Tamsin’s spear darted right, aimed at Viessa’s chest. Before it reached her target, however, Tamsin kicked the butt of her spear. It shot around and smacked Nina in the chin.
Then, Tamsin spun like a top, her spear zipping around her waist in a blur as if it were fixed to her, and thrust at me again. I blocked the stab but didn’t even see the exact way that the hobgoblin once more kicked the butt of her spear—this time making it rotate over her shoulder—and sent it whipping down toward my unprotected head.
It was another case of dragon-enhanced abilities coming to the rescue. My hand shot out instinctively—so fast that my muscles must have bypassed my brain—and the spear shaft thwacked into my palm with a meaty slap. I closed my fingers around the ash shaft and held on.
And, this time, I had the dragonmancer’s strength to match Tamsin’s.
The hobgoblin jerked at the spear. It was clear that she had expected to be able to wrench it free, but this time, she was out of luck. She staggered a little, as she failed to free her wooden weapon and was put off balance. In the time that it took her to regain her equilibrium, I had rested the tip of my own spear against her breast.
“That’d count as stopping, wouldn’t it?” I asked mildly.
Tamsin looked down at the wooden spear tip resting against her heart as Nina stood rubbing her forehead and Viessa relaxed out of her fighting stance.
“Yes,” she said, through slightly gritted teeth. “Yes, it would.”
She stepped away and batted the tip away from her chest.
“It seems,” she said to me, “that you and I are due a rematch one of these days.”
“Is that a date?” I quipped, with a grin and wink.
Before Tamsin could answer me, a roar from Fennu, Sergeant Milena’s golden dragon, stopped the training company in their tracks as effectively as the school lunch bell.
“All right, kids,” the Sergeant bellowed, “I like what I see, but life can’t be all fun. Tidy up and then summon your dragons. We’re running a tad on the late side, so we’ll be flying home today.”
Having to only put our spears back in the rack, Viessa, Nina, and I quickly summoned our dragons into our Leg Slots, mounted and waited for the signal to leave.
Viessa’s dragon, Emrin, was a sulfur yellow creature with the same cold, black eyes as his rider. He had a fringe of yellow spikes all around his head, which, when looked at head on, made him look like some terrifying caricature of the sun. His claws were long and curved and gouged into the earth as he shuffled his feet. They looked like just the claws you’d choose if you needed something disemboweled in a hurry.
The gorgeous Sea Elf, Nina, had a cerulean-colored dragon that was as disarmingly good looking as she was—almost. Ixlid had a neck that curved up into the shape of an S, rather than stretched out straight like many of the other dragons. Her scales were so small and closely knit that she appeared as smooth as a seal from a few yards away. Her legs also more closely resembled claw-tipped flippers than feet, though this did not seem to hinder her movement.
After only a few minutes, Sergeant Milena gave the order to depart. Fifty dragons rose into the air like a phalanx of monstrous swans. Me and Noctis were among them and ascending next to Penelope on her Rooster Dragon. Together, we began making their way back to the Drako Academy.
When we arrived back at the middle bailey, I said goodbye to Penelope. She had to hurry away to take up her duties in the Grand Library, while I was due to partake in martial classes with my squad before lunch.
As I watched the shapely Knowledge Sprite pull down her robes so that they covered her slender legs, I couldn’t help but notice that she had an intellectual attractiveness about her. She reminded me of how I felt when I learned that Mila Kunis would—or so rumor in Hollywood had it—play World of Warcraft in her panties. She wasn’t just hot physically; she had a super academic quality to her too.
Once Penelope had left, I looked around. Many of the dragonmancers had been met by soldiers that I assumed were their individual squad members.
I guess they’re meeting up for a bit of lunchtime bonding with their coteries before they head off for martial training, I thought.
“They’re meeting their squads here,” Noctis said, responding to my thoughts, “because that is all part of the training. Squads rarely leave their dragonmancer’s side.”
A slight frown creased my face.
“Surely, in that case,” I said to my dragon, “my squad should be here too, shouldn’t they?”
“They should be,” Noctis replied.
“Hm,” I thought back. “I guess they’re running a little late.”
“Hopefully, for their sake, not too late,” Noctis said in his unhurried, ancient voice. “The Academy is not known to look kindly upon squads who shirk their duties.” The Onyx Dragon’s equine head snapped to the right. “One approaches with you in her sights, Mike. The female who, judging by her scent, both wants to fight you and—”
“Michael!” Tamsin said, striding up to me.
“Mike,” I corrected her automatically, but Tamsin brushed my words aside like they were flies. Still, at least she wasn’t calling me Earthling anymore.
Behind her, two female and one male soldier lingered, their eyes canvassing their surroundings ceaselessly. They were obviously Tamsin’s squad—or coterie, as dragonmancers referred to them.
“Are you about to hit me up for that date already, Tamsin?” I asked, refusing to let this intimidating woman overawe me.
Tamsin had the same commanding presence as Saya did, but with an added squeeze of potential ruthlessness that the Amazonian blonde did not possess.
The red-skinned hobgoblin flashed that carnivorous smile at me. The top few buttons of her shirt were undone, and her exposed cleavage made my eyes want to migrate south for the winter.
“Alas no,” she said in her sultry voice. “It pains me to say that we will have to put such plans on hold for the n
once.”
“Did she just say ‘for the nonce’?” I mentally asked Noctis.
“What is so peculiar about that?” the dragon asked.
I had to concede that point. I guessed that bit of wordage wouldn’t have sounded strange to a mythical entity that was however many thousand years old.
“That’s too bad,” I said to Tamsin. “I was thinking we could run over some of your techniques when it comes to the handling of a pole.”
I saw that comment flash over Tamsin’s head like a frisbee.
“You’ve got bigger fish to fry right now,” the red-skinned beauty said.
“I do?”
“A whale might be closer to the mark,” Tamsin said.
“What are you talking about?” I asked, though I had a notion. “My squad not being here?”
“Precisely,” the hobgoblin said.
“What’s the big deal about that?” I asked.
Tamsin cocked her head to one side and gave me a slightly condescending look—arched brows, a smirk, a slight narrowing of the gold-pupiled yellow eyes—which, bizarrely, made me want to fuck her all the more.
“Fresh squad members are not indispensable, Mike,” she said. “This is a black mark against them. You can bet that Lieutenant Kaleen will have noted it. If they cut training again, they’ll be punished.”
“Punished how?” I asked, though I doubted they could expect to get a smack on the ass and sent to bed without dinner.
“Execution,” Tamsin said detachedly.
“Bit extreme, isn’t it?” I said.
“It’s to show how serious the Spire is about training: cutting training is analogous to deserting on the battlefield.” The hobgoblin sniffed. “And that is the lowest of all crimes here.”
With those encouraging words, Tamsin and her coterie left.
“Shit,” I said.
I summoned Noctis back into his crystal and made a move toward the gate leading into the lower bailey and, beyond that, the town of Drakereach.
“I’m all for that New Age work-life balance bullshit,” I muttered to myself as I strode quickly along the path past the archery butts. “If they’re going to work and fight hard, then they can play as hard as they like.”
