Last Dragon Standing

by G. A. Aiken

  Ragnar headed off, his kin and the royal following. But he kept one ear open for what was going on at the execution. Sometimes, if it was a popular local being executed, the occasional uprising might start and those could turn ugly fast. He’d prefer not to get caught in the middle of something like that. Especially with the royal do-gooder bringing up the rear.

  They were nearing the corner where they would turn onto the next street when Ragnar heard whoever was running the execution say, “Do you have any last words?”

  He picked up his pace, knowing that those last words could really get a riot moving along.

  “Good people—” He heard the words ring out over the yard and street, and Ragnar stumbled to a stop, his chest—which hadn’t bothered him since he’d last spoken to the Dragon Queen—beginning to itch again.

  His brother and cousin stopped short next to him.

  “What is it?” Vigholf asked.

  Ragnar ignored him and looked over at the royal with them. The Blue had stopped too, and when he saw that Ragnar’s gaze had locked on him, he cringed.

  Stepping around his brother, Ragnar looked up at the executioner’s block. A fresh noose swung in the cool afternoon air, and a black-masked bull of a man stood at the ready to do his job.

  And there, at the front of the block, wearing more chains than seemed necessary for someone these humans should at least think was also human, and with two units’ worth of men aiming pikes at her, stood one royal who didn’t know how not to find trouble.

  With her long dark red hair blowing in the same direction as the noose behind her, and dirt on her cheeks, nose, and blue gown, she held her shackled hands out, her big brown eyes imploring as she said again, “Good people. I beg you to see the injustice you are doing here. The unfairness. For I am innocent!”

  Hardly.

  “What is she doing here?” Vigholf asked, his gaze fastened on the executioner’s block.

  “Performing,” was Ragnar’s only answer. Because that was the only explanation. She was a dragoness for the gods’ sake! She could blast the entire town to embers without even shifting to her natural form, and yet she’d let them put her up there for execution!

  What exactly is wrong with these Southland royals?

  Keita clasped her hands together and looked up into the skies above, making sure to angle her head so the crowd could see the tears glistening in her eyes.

  “I assure all you good people that I had nothing to do with Lord Bampour’s tragic death. For I—”

  “Is this going to take much longer?”

  Keita snapped her mouth shut and glared into the audience at her feet. She looked past all those unnecessary guards, focusing on the male who had interrupted her eloquent soliloquy.

  “Sorry,” he said, the hood of his cloak covering his handsome face. “Go on.”

  “Thank you,” she snipped.

  Keita let out a breath, looked up at the sky again, and asked, “Where was I?”

  “You had nothing to do with Lord Bampour’s tragic death,” that familiar voice offered.

  “Thank you.” She cleared her throat. “I am not the one who has done this horrible deed. I am an innocent! And I beg all of you”—she brought her gaze down and opened her arms as much as the thick chain between her shackles would allow—“to save me from this horrid fate that I do not…” Keita’s words faded away, and she leaned forward a bit, trying to see beyond the crowd of men and pikes in front of her. After a moment, she asked, “Éibhear?”

  Her baby brother, towering over the entire crowd, waved at her and, grinning, Keita waved back. Making sure not to hit herself in the face with that stupid chain. “Éibhear!” she cheered. “What are you doing here?”

  “Just passing through,” he called back. “You all right?”

  “Oh, I’m fine,” she answered honestly. “Are you going to stay for the execution?”

  “I guess I better so we can bring your body back to Mum.”

  “Don’t take me to her. She’ll just spit on my corpse and dance around it. And being trapped in the afterlife, I won’t be able to beat her within an inch of her miserable existence. But tell Daddy I said hi.” Keita clasped her hands together again and said, “Now, where was I?”

  She heard her traveling companion clear his throat, and when she glanced over at him, he pointed to something that had pushed past all the townspeople and guards and now was right in front of the block she stood upon.

  She examined the male. She could smell the lightning that came from within him, knew he was a Northlander. The blue hood of his cloak probably hid purple hair—common among the Lightnings. But his human face was surprisingly handsome for a barbarian. Sharp cheekbones, delicious-looking full lips, a strong jaw, and a once-battered nose that kept him from looking too perfect. But it was his eyes that made her think she might know him from somewhere. They were blue with shots of silver, like tiny bolts of lightning. They were as beautiful as anything she’d seen, and Keita felt sure that if she’d fucked this one, she would have remembered. She tried to be very good about that sort of thing—especially if she fucked the one-time enemies of her people, since that sort of thing brought all sorts of problems.

  She pointed at him. “Don’t I know you?”

  “What do you think you’re doing?” he asked, rather than answering her.

  “I’m about to be wrongly executed for something I didn’t do.”

  “And yet something tells me you did do it. Now get your ass down here.”

  “Get my…” Keita slammed her hands onto her hips, the chain nearly not allowing it. Although she refused to believe her hips were that wide.

  “You need to go away before I get angry,” Keita told him.

  “I’ve seen you angry. I wasn’t impressed. Tell me, princess, did you hit at them with your tiny little fists or use that tail to ward them off?”

  When Keita’s skin began to itch and the overwhelming desire to kill everything within a league of her rage flowed from her pores like honey, she knew exactly who this arrogant, lightning-breathing, worthless scum of a whore bastard was! “You! I should have finished you when I had the chance, warlord,” Keita told him.

  “Should haves. I bet your entire life is filled with should haves.”

  “Only where you’re concerned. Because I should have torn your feeble barbarian heart from your weak chest and I should have danced around you in a veritable orgy of blood and pain and suffering that would have called the dark gods to me so they could make me their reigning queen!”

  “Keita?” her traveling companion called out lightly.

  “What?”

  When he didn’t answer, she lifted her gaze from the dragon in front of her. The entire crowd now watched her in horror.

  “I could be wrong,” her friend said, “but I’m thinking the ‘good people, I have been wrongly accused’ speech isn’t going to work at the moment.”

  And whose fault was that? The Lightning’s fault, that’s who!

  “Finish it!” Lord Bampour yelled from the safety of the gate walls, his men scrambling to get him to safety.

  The executioner grabbed Keita by the shoulders, yanking her back. The guards on the ground tried to force the Lightning back with the now screaming-for-her-blood townsfolk.

  “Well, you’ve left me no choice,” Keita told the audience watching her.

  “Keita, no!” Éibhear cried out. Typical of her baby brother. What would he have her do instead? Let these peasants hang her, a royal, like meat? Was that what he wanted?

  The executioner reached for the noose, and Keita sucked air into her lungs. But guards were tossed aside, and Ragnar the Bastard, as she liked to call him when she thought of him at all, jumped onto the block and caught hold of the front of her dress. “Oy!” she gasped. “Watch the dress!” Ignoring her, as he always seemed to do, Ragnar hauled her forward and over his shoulder.

  “Put me down!” she ordered.

  “Quiet!” the bastard snarled, already moving awa
y from the block. “Just the sound of your voice irritates me.”

  Keita raised her head and saw the Baron Lord’s guards charging forward. “Kill him!” she ordered them, causing them all to stop and stare at her. Humans. Although she found most of them quite entertaining, they could be a little on the slow side.

  Using her chained hands, she gestured at the bastard who was walking off with her over his shoulder like a sack of grain. “Kill. Him,” she said again. “Now!”

  Finally, swords were pulled, and the villagers made a run for it. The fight was on, but all Keita could do was sit there on this idiot’s shoulder, hoping the human soldiers could finish what she hadn’t two years before.

  “Keita!” She heard the urgency and warning in her friend’s voice and looked back at the block she’d been dragged from.

  The executioner, who’d stopped by her cell last night and promised to fuck her corpse when he was done stretching her neck—she sensed he had no interest in her while she was still moving…and warm—was off the block and heading toward her. With the barbarian busy fighting the guards in front of him, he had no clue the executioner was coming.

  She saw the man smile under the black mask that covered everything to his nose, his hands stretching out for her throat. One good twist of her human neck and she’d be done. It was the risk they all took when they shifted to human—they were a little easier to kill. But there were some abilities Keita still had access to, no matter her form. So when she felt those big fingers against her neck, she unleashed the line of flame she’d been holding on to and turned the executioner into ash.

  Of course, she also demolished the wooden executioner’s block behind him and set fire to several other nearby buildings, but that couldn’t be helped. Yet around her, everything froze, all eyes on her and Ragnar.

  And in that moment, all Keita could think was, Ooops.

  Ragnar stopped, his eyes briefly closing in pure irritation. “Tell me you didn’t do what I think you just did.”

  “It’s not like I had other options. I’m still chained!”

  “You have to be the dumbest—”

  “It’s not my fault!”

  He sensed that would be her eternal mantra, which explained why he was already sick of hearing it.

  “Kill them, you fools!” someone commanded from the tower gates.

  Ragnar let out an annoyed sigh. “Thank you very much, princess. You just made this harder and probably upset that overly sensitive brother of yours.”

  Rather than being concerned about their lives or anything else he’d said, the spoiled royal demanded, “Did…did you just call me princess or prince-ass?”

  “Does it matter?”

  Vigholf and Meinhard had their shields at the ready, their swords drawn. The Blue, however, stood between the dragons and the humans, his hands raised. “Wait, wait! This isn’t necessary. We can all work this out!”

  The body Ragnar held shook.

  “Are you laughing?”

  “Isn’t he cute? Two years away with blood-thirsty brutes and he’s still as adorable as the day he was hatched. I was, in point of fact, the first face he ever saw when he hatched his way out of his shell. My mother had told me to tell her when it was happening, but I didn’t want to. I wanted him all to my—”

  “Shut up.”

  “Did you just tell me to shut up?”

  “Yes.”

  “You rude, self-centered, egotistical—”

  That was when Ragnar tossed her off his shoulder.

  Vigholf blinked. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “We’re leaving her. Finish the execution!” he called out. “She’s all yours.”

  “We’re not leaving my sister!” the Blue protested.

  “Then you can stay and be executed right along with her. I, however, am leaving.”

  “How could you?” the princess wailed from her place on the ground. “To leave me here to die! Like an animal in the street! Will no one care for me?”

  “Shut up.”

  “Oy!” The Blue shoved him. “That’s my sister you’re speaking to!”

  “Do that again, boy, and I’ll make you more like your sister than you’d like.”

  From his crouched, battle-ready position, Meinhard asked, “Is this really the time for this argument?”

  Vigholf pushed his shield forward to ward off the weapons aimed at him. “What do you want us to do, brother?”

  The soldiers were getting bolder, starting to prod with their pikes, pushing at Vigholf’s and Meinhard’s shields.

  True, there were many things they could do in this situation to save more than not, but Ragnar wasn’t in the mood to bother.

  “Kill them all,” Ragnar ordered.

  “Or we can run,” the Blue threw in desperately, still trying to save the humans.

  “Run? Away?” Vigholf shook his head, disgusted.

  “If you try to harm anyone”—the Blue swallowed—“you’ll force me to defend them.”

  Ragnar, unable to help himself, snorted at that “threat.”

  The Blue frowned. “Now what does that mean?”

  The ground beneath their feet rumbled, and Ragnar looked down, watching dirt and stone pop up as something moved under them.

  The commanding officers of the guards ordered their men back as the ground in front of Ragnar and his kin exploded around them, and something he’d only read about in books burst into the open air.

  “What,” Vigholf demanded without backing down, “in all the battle-fucks is that thing?”

  Unlike Ragnar, Vigholf didn’t read many books. So to see something that was as long as Ragnar was in dragon form, but not as wide, gold scales glistening in the two suns and a mane of black and gold fur trailing from the top of its head down its spine to its tail did nothing but confuse him. Plus the creature had no horns but antlers; no talons but fur-covered striped claws like Ragnar had seen on big jungle cats. It had fewer fangs and more chewing teeth than either the Horde dragons or the Fire Breathers; and no wings, yet it floated on the air as easily as any winged dragon could. In other words, a being that would not only horrify Vigholf with its oddness but Meinhard as well.

  Yet it wasn’t something that unusual, if Ragnar remembered his readings correctly. It was simply an Eastland dragon.

  Circling over them without any wings, the foreigner unleashed flame. What was strange was that although the flame covered everything within a hundred feet, no one was harmed.

  Ragnar raised his hand and ran it through the flame. He felt no heat, no pain. And yet it wasn’t an illusion. He felt the strength of the flame blowing against his hand. Strange. Just…strange. No wings, no sharpened tail, and no bite to his flame. What a weak kitten, this dragon.

  The flames stopped, and they were now all alone, the streets completely deserted.

  The foreigner shifted while he still hovered in the air, and, with a shocking amount of skill, his human form floated to the ground, bare feet lightly landing on the cobble-stoned street. The Eastlander paused a moment to shake out his straight black hair, the tips appearing as if dipped in gold.

  “Everyone all right?” he asked.

  “Ren! Thank the gods!” the princess cried out, making Ragnar snarl, just a little. “You’ve come to rescue me!”

  Laughing, the foreigner walked over to her.

  “Honestly, Keita,” the Eastlander lightly chastised. “Your lack of subtlety with flame is something you have to work on.”

  He removed the metal cuffs, and the princess rubbed her wrists.

  “I was in fear for my life and trapped by Lord Low-Brow over there.” She shrugged. “I just…reacted.”

  “Liar.”

  “Oh, whatever. The important question is did you like my speech?”

  He helped her to her feet. “A little wordy. The looking up at the sky with the tear-filled eyes was a nice touch, though.”

  “I thought so. I’ll have to use that again.”

  The rest of her chains hit
the ground, and the foreigner walked around the group and retrieved his clothes a few feet away.

  While Vigholf and Meinhard watched the foreigner closely, their weapons still drawn, Ragnar focused on the princess. She glared first. He glared in return. There might have also been some sneering. Then she suddenly charged past him and into the arms of the big blue ox standing behind him.

  “Keita!”

  Her baby brother lifted Keita into his arms and swung her around. Keita marveled at how much he’d grown. At this point, he might be even bigger than their father…and-grand-father. He was massive! And that was as human. She couldn’t wait to see what he looked like when he shifted.

  Keita wrapped her arms around her brother’s neck and squeezed him tight. “I’m so happy to see you, Éibhear!”

  “And I you. Has it been two years?”

  “Oh, yes.” She kissed his cheek and hugged him again. “Too long! Now put me down. I want to get a good look at you.”

  He placed her on the ground, and Keita stepped back. Actually, she took several steps back so she could see all of him.

  “By the gods of mayhem, Éibhear. Look at the size of you!”

  “It’s not that bad,” he said self-consciously. “I haven’t grown any in a few months.”

  She didn’t know how to tell him he probably wasn’t done growing yet, so she decided not to tell him at all. He’d figure it out when he needed new leggings.

  “You look as handsome as ever,” she told him instead, enjoying his shy smile. Ahh, she’d missed him so. The youngest of her siblings, Éibhear was the one she mothered. Some days she couldn’t do enough for him, and she enjoyed being that way because he never took it for granted. Fearghus and Briec, her oldest siblings, were the classic big brothers. Always protective and caring, they watched out for her when they could. And then there was Gwenvael. She was closest to Gwenvael in age and in temperament. Gwenvael was more like a best friend than a brother; the two of them getting into lots of trouble as they’d matured in their mother’s court. But that was more than a century ago and times had changed.

  Just like the size of Éibhear’s neck. Gods! Look at that thing.

  “So what brings you here, brother?”