Dragon Core

by Sain Artwell

  She found him.

  Beset by a sudden panic, Kastalos sank to the floor, clutching his bejeweled horns. Air felt dry on his tongue, and unnaturally heavy in his chest. His arms refused to stop shaking.

  “Master? What’s wrong?” pleaded two of his girls.

  “Master?” they asked. The girls flocked around him, worried by proxy to a point of near panic.

  Ashir peeked from her bowed pose, and asked, “Master. What was that?”

  “Work of a hostile oracle? Could Obsidian Maze be under assault?” Ilmiy guessed.

  Kastalos shook his head. That was not the doing of an oracle. A mad smile tugged at his lips.

  “Master, please gather yourself. You’re scaring us,” begged another girl.

  “The end. That tremble marked the end of our era,” he said.

  At that moment, Kastalos realized this would all soon be gone. His slave harem of hundreds, his unquestioned sovereignty over the Dustwing Dunes, his collection of ancient artifacts, his life—everything and all was forfeit. To know that was bizarrely cathartic, whilst no less frightening.

  Funny, he laughed, musing, that I could know my end with more certainty than the most precise prophecy of the Sorcerer King himself.

  “Master?” Cautiously, as if he might lop it off, Ashir raised her head. “Please tell us what ails you?”

  Why not, the century old secret would be on the lips of every wyrmkin anyway. Kastalos reached to pick up the smoldering cigar, and, despite his trembles, managed to draw in the breath of soothing fumes.

  “Our escapee has set free a man,” he said.

  “One man?”

  “But Master, the Fivewyrm Ascendancy defeated an ascending dragongod. You helped defeat a dragongod. And that was in a time of great turmoil, under weaker sovereigns. Are you saying this man’s strength is that great? Or is he a political prisoner, a secret heir to the Sorcerer King’s throne?” asked Damas. She had only recently enslaved her first vestige, and did not understand the nuances of draconic power.

  Kastalos shook his head. “He would kill himself before ever ascending.”

  “Then why, Master? Why are you so…”

  Terrified. She didn’t dare to suggest it, but he saw it on her lips.

  Why indeed? Kastalos could have provided a dozen stock answers about the man’s strength, vestiges, and skill. After all, he’d witnessed them firsthand in the war against Carrion Scourge. But it wasn’t the strength he feared. Though exceptional, that man was not a nation’s equal.

  “That man…” he began, wishing he had ten more goldleaf cigarettes and barrels of firewater to dull his dread, “I knew him when we were both but wyrmlings, learning to master the powers of our vestiges. He was… devoted. No… That doesn’t quite capture the extent of his obsession. He was… I always knew him to be a man of determination, of greater inner strength, one that exceeds the will of his dragonsoul. I could never quite quantify what it was, that spark which drove him on. Then. One day. We sensed the Carrion Scourge, and it was as if the spirit of the Corecrawler had possessed him. The rest of us fought to secure our own power, to ensure the advantage over our peers, or to secure treasures and slaves as any wyrmkin would. And he… I cannot say I fully comprehend why he and those women were ready to sacrifice everything for no gain of their own. Was it pure madness of bloodlust, or some forgotten sibling of insanity? Whatever it was which fueled their crusade against the Carrion Scourge, it shall now fuel his vendetta against us. That is what I fear—the thought of having to stand before that man—dying despite how I struggle.”

  After his words, a silence reigned.

  Several of Kastalos’ slaves showed him sympathy, pretending to understand. Others wore questioning expressions. Yatar scowled, disappointed by his display of weakness. Kastalos did not blame her. Had he not fought side-by-side with Alron, he might well believe himself to be insane.

  “Master. By your leave, I would begin evacuating your personal assets to your secret fortress refuge,” said Ilmiy from a bow.

  Kastalos stood, brushing his cloak. He waved her off. “No. To live a life fleeing from that which is inescapable is to die a hundred deaths by fear. I will not subject myself to such torture. Send a message to the Sorcerer King and the other sovereigns. Tell them to gather. Tell them to prepare for war.”

  “War? Against one man?”

  “Anything less would be an insulting underestimation of him.”

  Chapter 3 - Awakening

  Roughly eight hundred leagues north-east of Obsidian Maze, on the Nameless Island of the Deepfathom Sea, Alron stared blankly into the open ocean.

  His innards were knotting themselves under an all-encompassing nausea. His world seemed to melt like wax, as if none of his senses could be trusted. His balance faltered. Alron caught himself on one knee.

  A hundred years he had guarded Carrion Scourge’s dragon-core. A hundred years he had carried out his duty with pride, believing himself to honor his dead lovers. A hundred years those “dead” had endured torment, crying his name in vain. A hundred years he had wasted in complacency, like some dull-witted seasloth, smiling at the sun, and praising the names of those who’d betrayed him.

  And even before… even before they had “died” to bring down Carrion Scourge, they’d gladly paid blood and tears to forge themselves into the weapon the Ascendancy needed. Loved ones had died to make Alron what he was.

  His breaths grew heavy with guilt. Alron clutched his chest as a stabbing pain swelled by his heart.

  “Fei, tell me it is a lie, and I will forgive it,” he said, pleading her to dispel this unreality she’d plunged him into.

  Fei clutched her elbows. A sea wind blew through the thin golden veils covering her scarred body.

  “I wouldn’t lie to you,” she said.

  Alron drew long, steady breaths, and gazed at the heavens. Farmoon and Nearmoon were where he’d last seen them, despite him feeling as if he’d just been plunged into a different world altogether.

  “They imprisoned you,” he said, blinking rapidly to dismiss the emotion from his eye.

  Fei drew close to him, leaning a cheek against his hand. She didn’t answer. She didn’t need to.

  “Sorcerer King?” he asked.

  “He knew. They all knew. The people, though most have forgotten you, those who remember call you the Mad Traitor of the Carrion War. In secret maps where the Nameless Island exists, it’s marked as your prison.”

  Alron’s world began to unravel again and he had to steady his head. “Am I… Am I mad?”

  That was the only plausible explanation, the only way this could all have transpired, but he knew the answer. He wasn’t that mad. He could still parse truth from false.

  “A little, but a dash doesn’t kill,” Fei joked, smiling gently.

  Alron perked. “The others? Mlevanosk, Oqhizt, Yvaria. I saw their bodies with yours. Do you know of their fate?”

  Lips pursed in an apology. “A little. A traitorous oracle on the death-row spoke to me through a dream. I can’t say when it was for certain. Darkness takes the rhythm out of time. He’d been to Oqhizt’s grave, a monument to her heroism, and seen her dragon-core as proof of her death. Of the other two, he didn’t know. Others I’ve questioned on my path here swore they knew nothing of them. But then again, if they didn’t kill me…”

  “They could be alive,” he finished.

  A rush of relief swelled in Alron’s chest. And with relief, purpose. A new task, something he could do. A path to follow.

  “Yes. They could be anywhere in the world.”

  “We will find them.”

  “We will.” Fei leaned into his arm to hide fresh tears.

  Alron combed his fingers through her scraggy hair. The more he studied her, the more he noticed the mark of years on her.

  Not aging, of course; those who’d fused their vestiges into a dragon-core and awakened a dragonsoul could live untouched by time for several centuries. The marks on her were deeper, and far more irr
eversible. Something was missing in her gaze. Although she had clawed her way out of a nightmare, she’d lost a part of the hopeful young wyrmkin on her way here.

  Just as Alron thought the pain of betrayal had subsided, it struck him how thoroughly the Fivewyrm Ascendancy had used him.

  As a boy he’d worshiped the Sorcerer King as his hero—the man who’d saved him from a life of savagery, and guided the Ascendancy for the benefit of all wyrmkin. Alron had mastered his vestiges to serve him, forged a dragon-core to become his knight. He’d given the Ascendancy his everything. His past, his future, the futures of his lovers, and the lives they could’ve had.

  Everything they had given away. Always, and always for free.

  Alron had never wanted for much. Before the Carrion War, his greediest wish had been to settle down on an island with his women. To lead a simple life far from the politics of the clans and courts.

  All he’d ever asked them was to trust in his strength and devotion.

  He remembered the embarrassed way Fei had sneered at that notion, when Alron first spoke it out loud. There had been a blush to her smile on that summer day. Oqhizt had agreed immediately, on the condition the island was far from the Blood Jungles, somewhere without a single leech. Mlevanosk had jumped ahead, demanding to bear his firstborn, though Yvaria claimed to foresee Fei’s egg hatching first. That wish had caused much good-natured squabbling, and ended in an unforgettable night.

  Those had been the days of laughs and smiles. Innocent. Beautiful. Hopeful. Best of their lives.

  Together, they had believed in the future, in giving their everything to build a better tomorrow for themselves, and others. Even after losing them all, Alron had staunchly held onto that fevered dream. In his naive foolishness, he’d believed himself to be the hero Carrion Scourge had seen him as.

  And this… This was their reward?

  As a final act of cruelty, deep scars were now etched over Fei’s womb. For what purpose, other than malice, could it have been necessary to rob her of that small hope of bearing offspring one day?

  Why? Alron closed his eyes and drew a shivering breath. His dragonsoul slipped its leash, and reality trembled as his surroundings dragonized. The dragonsoul whispered malignant ideas to his mind and urged him to give in to every violent thought. Bits of the island cracked and sloughed off to tumble into the ocean.

  “I was fooled like some wet hatchling,” said Alron, soulfire rising from his nostrils. “No more. No more… Wyrmkin of the Ascendancy have earned their misery. This rotten world deserves its dragons.”

  The horizon blinked in four corners, as if a hundred stars had been born. Twinkling lights climbed into the pale morning sky, barreling towards the island at incredible speeds. The battleships had fired a focused salvo at them.

  Had Alron harbored any doubts of Fei’s truthfulness, this would’ve swept them away.

  Laughter bubbled from his lips. “And they say a star falls when a promise is broken. A century of promises, yes, that should earn me a hundred starfalls.”

  Fei’s fingers brushed Alron’s arm in a gentle caress. Her voice carried a joking lilt in an attempt to cheer him. “That’s over ten times the years we were together. Suppose that makes us strangers again? We’ll have to re-do the courtship, marriage, and everything else.”

  “Perhaps the stars do know mercy. A chance to fall for you a second time makes up for much pain,” Alron said.

  The bright lights climbed higher, growing brighter as the incoming bombardment neared the island.

  She averted her eyes, a whisper of a smile on her lips. “You sleazy flirt. You say that to all the women you see around here.”

  “Only to you.” Alron pulled her hips against his, tilting her chin up. “You’re as beautiful as the day you first caught my eyes. My obsession for you will never dim, not even if the slumbering dragongods awaken and stars dim.”

  Fei gawked, choking out a snort. “Who are you, and what have you done with my adorably awkward Alron? Not that I mind…”

  “We never did reintroduce ourselves, did we? Why, how terribly inconsiderate of me, considering the journey you endured to meet me. Greetings, my fair wyrmkin, and when I say fair, I do mean I find it nigh impossible to pry my gaze from your gorgeous visage. I am Alron, the former protector of the Nameless Island, and apparently the greatest fool of the Ascendancy. Now, if you would allow me to guide you on your tour, there’s a particular puddle I wish to shield from this coming rain.”

  Alron swept Fei off her feet. Flexing his renewed powers, Alron flooded dragonsoul into his cloak. The fabric fluttered, stiffening as it began to transform into wide thin wings with bladed edges. He glided over ten paces in an effortless bound, arriving above the squid pond.

  There, Alron raised the cloak above them as sturdy scales covered its surface. A moment later, a hail of artillery shells landed upon them.

  Who had orchestrated this betrayal and for what reasons no longer mattered.

  If the rest of the world didn’t give Alron the respect of reason…

  Well then, what incentive had he to respect reason? What reason was there to not give in to his baser instincts? None.

  As far as he was concerned, this bombardment signed in metal the death warrant of the Ascendancy, and everyone who dared to step in his way.

  Chapter 4 - The Blockade

  Outside the protective shade of Alron’s wings, boomed and crackled a thunderous rhythm. Alron’s ears popped a dozen times over. The ground shook violently as the island crumbled downward. Despite only the secondary shrapnel hitting them—thanks to the ships firing from such a vast distance—scales were torn from Alron’s wings.

  One flying metal fragment even pierced his wings and cut his cheek. Several more shells exploded nearby, before the bombardment came to a lull.

  When Alron unfurled his wings, he saw the Nameless Island and its surrounding reef were gone. White coral dust blanketed the air in a chalky smell.

  A stubby boulder with a single puddle remained standing, a foot above the waves. The squids within had survived, thank the stars. While carving them a channel to escape into the sea, Alron spotted the vestiges of Carrion Scourge, already sinking into the murky abyss.

  He bid them a respectful goodbye. For, despite everything, the echoes within those vestiges had kept Alron company over the years.

  “Ah. Well, at least the bird died,” Fei said cheerily.

  “Hm.” He’d sustained negligible damage. In all honesty, Alron had expected better. The Ascendancy should know Alron had never disrespected his foes by giving them anything but his utmost devotion. They should have known. Yet, they dared add another pebble to the mountain of insults stacked against him.

  Alron funneled vis into his lungs, fueling the flickering echo of a vestige he had copied from Fei. Soulfire spilled from his lips. Excellent. He’d regained a set of wings and basic soulfire. The rest of their shared powers would take a firmer bond to re-awaken, but even this was enough to make Alron’s dragonsoul rejoice. It was as if he’d taken the cast off of a leg, and was finally able to run again.

  His flames curved mid-air as Fei’s dragonsoul claimed control of them. An azure blaze gathered to her, licking up her svelte curves, engulfing Fei entirely as she transformed with her signature technique of Living Flame.

  White pits blazed in her pupils. Her hair was a brazier. She slid her burning fingers down along most alluring curves of fire, which were neither hot nor cold. Rather than burning timber or stone, soulfire feasted on vis—the very force that animated living beings, empowered vestiges and dragonsouls.

  “Mmm… I assume we’re in agreement as to how to spend the rest of our damned and brief lives upon this world?” Fei asked, brows lifted mischievously, as she pressed her fiery body against his.

  “We’re on a path to murder a great many souls,” Alron said.

  “Yes, lots and lots… And they all deserve it.”

  “Some do.” Others would die regardless, but what reason had Alro
n to spare the innocent if all of wyrmkind were as twisted? None.

  “Our lovers, them we’ll save, if we can,” he added. Alron spread his wings. With a single downward strike, he gained thirty feet, and Fei clung to his back like a mantle of flames.

  While climbing higher, he continued, “We shall tear the Ascendancy asunder, end the noble clans, and burn their precious lands into a graveyard. If this is what you wish to bring upon our former home, our former peers, friends, teachers, and relatives. Then, we are in agreement.”

  “Ah, Alron, you mustn’t begin foreplay so early in the day! A simple yes would’ve sufficed.”

  “Later…” Alron’s dragonsoul tingled as it was probed by a foreign mind. Battleships’ oracles had confirmed his survival. “…we’ll have time for each other between commandeering a vessel and destroying Blackmetal City.”

  Alron flew towards the north-west battleship, since it was closest. All four began to slowly close their circle, attempting to bring him in range of their more accurate weaponry, though it would take a long time for the south-eastern one to catch up.

  “Why Blackmetal City? Kastalos. I want to kill Kastalos. To burn his precious slaves. His family. His cities. His cock. I want to burn it off of him and make him eat it and dismember him and tear his vestiges from his body while he’s alive and make him grovel and turn his body into cursed stone and task a family of sea gnomes with its eternal torment,” Fei muttered.

  “Sea gnomes?” The battleship on Alron’s flightpath turned its flanks towards him.

  Fei peeked over his shoulder. “A sailor on the death-row spoke to me of them. Vicious things. Viciousest! I’ve never heard a wyrmkin speak of things with such horror in their voice. I’ll tell you of them, if you take me out on a romantic date.”

  “I look forward to it. And, if that is the case, we shall search for a sea gnome to ensure Kastalos’ final fate is one of unrivaled terror. First, however, we will take down Blackmetal City. The Ascendancy used to rely on it as the center of its logistics, as well as an important industrial zone for arming its forces. Its destruction should cripple the kingdom’s ability to wage long-term war against us, should this become a prolonged conflict. Afterwards, we may strike down Kastalos, unless other priorities come up. But, fret not, we will kill him before the Sorcerer King gets his due.”