Dragon Core

by Sain Artwell

  “More will come.” Alron knelt by Dente, removed the starsteel stakes, and threw them out of her reach. He stood to leave.

  “Flee, before they capture your lovers. Do not try to follow me,” Alron warned Dente.

  Dente clutched her wounds as they knit shut. Fire returned to her glare, and spite to her tone. “You massacred thousands and expect me to be grateful for being spared? You dragon— No. You’re a being fouler than a dragongod, for whom destruction is a part of their nature. Yours is that of pure malice and selfishness.”

  Alron turned, glancing over the carnage. Wyrmkin, men, and women. Each betrayed by their clans, nation, sovereign, and king, who squandered their lives without forethought or care. This was the reward for duty and obedience for heroic bravery: The immortal honor of death—the bliss of oblivion.

  “I’ve done them a kindness,” he said, softly smiling. “They parted faithful to their beliefs. Should they have lived through the destruction of their city, nation, and society, they’d suffer the curse of a warrior without cause—a curse of chaos.”

  “And yet I live? You think I’ll let you destroy my home?” Dente was slowly getting up and getting ready to fight.

  Alron had squandered precious moments by lingering. He took off with a ground shattering bound, and sprinted past the blurring hallways, shedding off the lingering attention of oracles on his way out. Knowing that Dente’s keen ears could still hear him, he spoke.

  “To you, Dente, we give the greatest gift a hero can have. A dragon to slay, and a happy ending.”

  Distant echoes of Dente’s curses chased Alron all the way out of the Ministry.

  Arriving at a small side exit, Alron slowed to a walking pace and let Sofi out of his wing. Silently, he dragonized the door’s lock. It unfolded into scarlet worms and he peered out into a walled courtyard.

  Gold trimmed and elegantly decorated firewagons stood in silent rows under the watch of a sentinel and a nervously pacing redcloak. Sirens howled in warning.

  Sofi flicked the projector back on. The illusion twinkled before settling into the appearance of a young master and his slave.

  “Get the key,” said Alron.

  Sofi produced it. “Those are private firewagons of the ministers.” When Alron confronted her with a puzzled stare, she clarified, “The key won’t work.”

  “The key.” Alron extended his hand.

  She handed it over, and Alron led them to the closest firewagon. He climbed on the rider’s seat—a saddle atop the many-legged engine bearing the face of a dragon. Alron was confronted by a veritable jungle of levers and switches and gauges with numbers through which he couldn’t have found a single path of logic.

  “That’s the key-hole.” Sofi helped from the ladder leading up to the rider’s saddle. She pointed at a hole. “Apologies, I don’t mean to offend, but do you know what you’re doing?”

  “Hm. Excellent question.” Alron dragonized the key and forced it into the mis-matching socket. Alron simply willed it to work, and his dragonsoul did its best. It seeped into the metal, fusing cogs together and separating others into two. The engine coughed.

  “Seems I knew,” said Alron.

  Sofi stared at him blankly, as if stunned by an unexpected revelation.

  Alron shimmied back on the seat. “Take the reins.”

  “The levers,” she corrected. Sofi scampered onto the position, attached the dragonfire mask to her face, and exhaled. Thick flames rolled through the transparent metallic tubes, awakening the hungrily roaring engine. “Should we postpone the confrontation with Rasdrev?” Sofi asked between breaths. “I know you slew a dragongod, but he is strong, has an army, and Fei is wounded.”

  “…am fine…” croaked Fei from deep within Alron’s throat.

  “She says she is fine,” said Alron. Are you fine, Fei?

  It’s tingling, she replied.

  What is?

  The tingling is tingling. Like the starsteel. Like the chains and stakes. It feels the same. Not the same… No… Starsteel is the reverse. The tingling isn’t, but can be. It can be anything. My darling… I will need vis soon. A lot of vis…

  I shall find a source of vis. When I do, are you ready to aid in battle?

  Yes… Vis… Then join…

  “She is fine,” Alron confirmed.

  “If you say so.” Sofi looked at him with apprehension. She pulled a lever, animating the mechanical fore-limbs of the firewagon, and guided it gently to the front gate.

  “Halt!” The redcloak guard jumped to her feet with a palm held up. “Halt! No one is to leave the Ministry grounds.”

  “We are leaving,” said Alron. “It’s not safe here.”

  The redcloak nodded, but stood firm. “I understand your position, master, but the Ministry is in martial lock-down. I am under orders to not let anyone pass until the emergency is resolved. Now, if you would tell me your names and affiliations—”

  Alron flourished his glaive, slaying both the gate guard and her sentinel companion. Sofi drove through.

  While pulling onto the bridge roads criss-crossing the City’s Heart, Alron pondered Dente’s accusation.

  For all the death he’d dealt, not a twinge of remorse touched his heart. Not a drop of guilt weighed his conscience. And though he tried, not even in the distant past from a time hundred years gone, could he recall an incident when slaying a foe had pained him. If it ever had, then that Alron of the past was long dead.

  At least he wasn’t slaughtering for pure amusement. He had a goal, however grim. Only by trimming the top could this world truly flourish again. This, in Alron’s mind, justified his actions, more so than revenge.

  Far above them, where the Ministry building merged with the City’s dome, an enormous window shattered. A dark blue silhouette glided out on three wings, whilst clutching onto a handful of others.

  “Can you make it move faster?” asked Alron, keeping a wary eye on Dente.

  She was dodging bullets and dragonfire from cannons built on the side of the Ministry, as well as smaller artillery platforms spread throughout the Heart, all the while diving straight towards him.

  Cursed little hatchling. She just wouldn’t give up. Yet, despite being the target of her wrath, Alron couldn’t help but smile with pride.

  “Apologies, I am not a very proficient firewagon rider!” Sofi turned sharply at an intersection of bridges, taking a tunnel through a low-hanging grandforge. The side of the firewagon scratched against a railing. “However, increasing our speed would go against the idea of stealthily riding through the city.”

  “Stealth is no longer a concern.”

  “Oh?” Sofi turned to look sidelong at Alron. “In that case…”

  Behind them, Dente slammed into the tunnel’s entrance, denting the metal road. Her fiery eyes locked on Alron, who rose to stand atop the wagon.

  Dente ran at an incredible speed. With each stride, she dug claws deep into the road for grip—she had yet to master dragonizing her footholds for leverage—but was gaining on them nonetheless. Her blinded sniper was cradled securely in Dente’s arms, whilst the other two of her bonds seemed to have partially recovered. Zhu-Zhu, the fleshbender, clung to Dente’s back, and Isac had assumed the form of an icy cleaver.

  “Drat!” Sofi turned all of her attention to driving, flipping switches and blowing fire into the pipes. They accelerated, but not fast enough.

  Alron dragonized the roof of the firewagon, shedding their disguise. Subterfuge may have spared him a few drops of sweat against being targeted by redcloaks, but all that had come to an end now. His neck-scales stiffened as the farsights of scores of oracles locked on them.

  They rode out the tunnel and onto a hanging bridge. Dente emerged ten flickers later, spread her wings, and leapt, swinging her cleaver in a flying uppercut.

  With a two-handed swing, Alron deflected the blow. Frostfire erupted from Dente’s weapon.

  I smell the ice boy… Is she there, Alron?

  She is, Alron replied, w
hile diverting Dente’s attacks off to the sides. One burst of frostfire encased a firewagon passing by, another iced the cables of the bridge. Several of the cables snapped. Uh-oh. Alron jumped back, grabbed Sofi by the collar, and took off.

  Sofi yelped. “The wagon!”

  Dente’s cleaver cut the firewagon in half and froze both halves. Frozen cables of the bridge snapped, and like a beheaded deepwyrm the massive contraption of wire and metal went tumbling into the chasm beneath the Heart. Alron dragonized Sofi’s clothes for protection, and to fuse her onto his stomach, for he could not afford to spare a single limb.

  They gained speed, but Dente was closing in fast. Alron cut a path into a jungle of cables and catwalks, dragonizing everything he cut, transforming metal into clawed tendrils, which collapsed onto Dente. Alron had nearly lost her behind a grandforge when frostfire exploded through the gaps in the cables, and a dark-blue woman broke free.

  Cannons hanging low from the City’s dome tracked them, as Alron ascended alongside balconies and windows crowded by curious faces. Even when people perished in the crossfire of Alron sending dragonized architecture plummeting on Dente, and Dente flinging missiles of frostfire at him, the cannons never fired.

  As suspicious as a dark sky without rain. Rasdrev was not one to fret over the lives of wyrmkin. By now, he should have been unloading everything under the Blackmetal dome to stop them, unless…

  “Rasdrev has seen through the trap your cult prepared,” said Alron.

  “What did you say?!” Sofi shouted over the sound of wind, wings, and battle.

  The hanging fortress with Mlevanosk came into view, separated from the other forges by nearly a quarter mile of empty space.

  Cannons dotted its walls, many of them recently grafted onto former balconies. A web of barbed cables hung bundled up near the ceiling, ready to block the entrance into the open space. Thick smoke embraced the fortress’s surroundings.

  Despite the trap gleaming brighter than a blade in sunlight, the bait was one Alron could not resist.

  Alone, on a bridge elevated above the smoke, stood a figure reminiscent of a man Alron had last seen more than a century ago. Dark robes of strangely shimmering fabric draped his bestially hunched body, leaving bare only a metallic tail and nine-eyed metal mask. Behind that mask was one of the chief architects of Alron’s betrayal, one of the few wyrmkin on the Great Den whose crimes a simple death could not absolve.

  Memories of Mlevanosk’s torment flashed through Alron’s mind.

  “Rasdrev…” Sofi’s whisper trembled. “Alron—”

  “It is a trap, this I know,” he said calmly, whilst gliding down and landing with grace.

  She squeezed his chest, her heartbeat racing. “If I die by accident, promise me you’ll save Mlevanosk some other way. No matter what.”

  “By my dragonsoul, I do so swear.”

  Rasdrev… Fei’s thoughts seethed with bloodlust and hatred as thick as his. Vis. Get me vis now and I will kill him myself.

  Soon, my love. Be patient.

  Alron approached without meeting any resistance and landed ten paces from Rasdrev. He looked left and right, letting Rasdrev know he was well aware of what hid beneath the black clouds. Before a word could be said, an impact swayed the bridge. Dente strode forth from a crater of frozen spikes, frostfire spilling from her nostrils with her every breath.

  “Rasdrev! Do you realize what you have done?!” Dente shouted, gritting her teeth.

  Rasdrev and Alron turned to regard her slowly, while keeping at least one eye on each other—or eight in Rasdrev’s case.

  “Princess Dente, welcome. I am glad to see you in such good spirits,” replied Rasdrev, his deep, welcoming voice that of a soft-hearted innkeep.

  “Welcome? If it were not for your ‘welcome’ the entire crisis would’ve been resolved days ago! Your blatant disobedience has earned you the ire of Sorcerer King, and can no longer be disregarded. As the fourth princess and current successor to the Garden of Heavenly Dreams, I, Dente, demand your immediate submission and assistance in apprehending this monster. Obey, and the Sorcerer King will be lenient with your punishment. You may yet salvage your right to rule the Blackmetal City.” She positioned herself behind Alron’s back, opposite from Rasdrev.

  Alron kept both her and Rasdrev in view, but made no moves.

  Rasdrev inclined his head in a theatrical display of regret. “I must, unfortunately, respectfully decline.”

  “Traitorous sack of worms!” Dente assumed a wide stance, and her morphcore companion transformed from a cleaver to lance. “You risk the Ascendancy. And for what?”

  “For two excellent specimens.” Rasdrev tapped his metallic fingers together. “The two of you shall aid us to usher forth an era free of dragongods. An age of fire and metal—”

  In a split of an instant, Alron’s scarlet glaive and Dente’s frozen lance pierced Rasdrev’s body. Dente glared death at Alron as they withdrew their blades and stepped back. Rasdrev coughed, gurgling. Black blood, transparent fluids, and machinery spurted from his wounds, eyes, and from behind the mask.

  “Marvelous… Truly marvelous…” Rasdrev coughed, clutching his guts as flesh and metal tumbled onto the ground. “I am thankful for the opportunity to behold the true ability… of broken dragongods.”

  He collapsed face-first onto a puddle of his own blood, and remained still.

  The barbed web of cables fell down between the tall canyons between grandforges, blocking the exit from the clearing around Mlevanosk’s prison—or at least adding an obstacle should they attempt to leave. Alron grinned at the prospect of a challenge, anticipation sending tingles up his spine. Scanning their surroundings, he stepped backwards, preparing to react to everything and anything that Rasdrev might have prepared.

  “And now, you die!” Dente declared, her weapon lengthening to match Alron’s glaive.

  Alron held a palm towards her, and took another step back from Rasdrev’s body. He spotted air shimmering high in the air, as something dove towards them. “You’d best leave, Dente. Though I’ve no intention of killing you, I will not risk the lives of my lovers to save you from your own decisions.”

  “What in the Stars are you on about!” Dente’s voice cracked with rage. “Attempting to avoid our duel?!”

  And then the bridge around Rasdrev cracked under the weight of a being rivaling the size of deep leviathans. An invisible appendage thicker than a tree whacked Dente on the head, launching her across the bridge and into the web. Sofi stifled a high pitched ‘eep’. Alron spun his glaive into position, turning to face the invisible foe.

  Veil of invisible flames parted to reveal a thin, unnaturally long claw. It reached down to Rasdrev and pierced his skull. The claw lifted up a bloody metal cylinder, and inserted it into a writhing mass of metallic limbs some ten paces above ground. Ratcheting and clanking sounded from the invisible construct, followed by howling of bellows and pipes. By sound alone, the thing was as tall as a siege tower.

  “…ank you for waiting…” The metallic voice held Rasdrev’s intonation and rhythm. “Would you mind leaving Mlevanosk’s little friend on the side?”

  “Most kind of you.” Alron nodded, letting Sofi down, and patted her on the back. “Get to Mlevanosk. Do what you can. I will bring you the rest of the vestiges shortly,” he whispered.

  Sofi’s mouth pressed shut tight. She eyed the invisible titan warily.

  “No harm will come to you, little one.” The croak of mechanics grated against the softness of Rasdrev’s voice. “After all, you are a specimen even more precious than the broken dragongods.”

  Sofi shivered visibly. Her grip tightened on the straps of the satchel with Mlevanosk’s vestiges. She cast Alron a hesitant look, then spun around and jogged towards the entrance to the Cold Slab.

  “My deepest gratitude,” said Alron to Rasdrev, as Sofi grew distant.

  “Think nothing of it. You and I will become close acquaintances. Besides her intrinsic value, I would hate to ruin ou
r rapport this early.”

  Alron almost laughed, but kept his teeth clenched. “Indeed. Say…” He cracked his neck, slowly pacing to take position in the middle of the bridge. “…was there a purpose to torturing Mlevanosk?”

  “A very forward question.”

  “Answer me.”

  “I did it out of love,” Rasdrev replied. His voice rippled with deep emotion, the sound of which turned a knot of nausea in Alron’s guts. “Her body was a distraction from her true calling. I could not bear to see a mind such as hers suffer. But I would lie to deny the research value of a wyrmkin bonded to a broken dragongod. Her torment served multiple purposes.”

  Memories of Mlevanosk’s pain from her vestiges flashed through Alron’s mind as if they were his own, made worse by the fact that they weren’t. The agony she’d felt losing her flesh, the despair with which she’d cried out for him. Sheer terror of that waking nightmare had been too much to bear even to Alron’s brave beloved Mlevanosk.

  Make him suffer… Make him beg… Fei’s wrath smoldered deep in Alron’s lungs, right beside his own.

  Alron blew a coat of soulfire over his glaive and, for the first time in a century, assumed a formal stance with his glaive held high. “Would you entertain one more question?” he asked.

  “Certainly, if it is within my ability to answer.”

  “Where are the rest of Mlevanosk’s vestiges?”

  “Ah… of course, of course.” Rasdrev shifted. The bridge groaned in pain. Stone pavement cracked under immense weight. Sparks and smoke blew out from hundreds of exhaust pipes along Rasdrev’s machine, washing off the invisible flames that had coated his armor-vehicle-construct—Alron knew not what to call it.

  His confusion must’ve shown, because Rasdrev soon elucidated the question, “Allow me to present my solution to dragongods: The Avatar of Metal Dawn.”

  Chapter 18 - Proxies and Prophecies

  A shimmering of illusory dragonfire and steam betrayed the machine’s outline, revealing glimpses of the whole. Avatar of Metal Dawn reached the height of six stories. An unnamable beast of blackmetal, its half-obscured appearance was reminiscent of the forbidden dreams of things behind the stars.