by Simon Archer
“Okay, so Shikun’s going to fight the Great Dragon’s warriors,” I said with an arched eyebrow. “And if she wins, she gets her tribal status back, we gain an army, it’s a lock. I love that Khalati Record.”
I looked over to Shikun, who was still in tears. You would have thought that she would be hopeful, given we could remove her curse, fake as it was, now. But the idea of it was stuck in her head.
“Shikun,” I asked her, “Do you want to go through with this? If you don’t want to, we can try to find another way.”
“I just don’t know.” Shikun tried to gather herself enough to talk. “I know this is important, but I just don’t know if I can. I don’t want everyone’s hopes riding on a Wingless.”
“My hopes are on you, Shikun,” I said to her. “You are more than capable of taking on any of these guys. This is almost a sure thing. But only you can say you want to.”
“If I have to.” Shikun gathered as much strength as she could. “I will invoke the rite. I will issue the challenge.”
“A challenge, is it?” The Great Dragon stepped up from his throne. “Very well. The fight will be in the center of the crater, so all may witness the Rite. We shall test the Wingless’ mettle.” His feet thundered as he walked down the steps.
“This all seems rather farcical, wouldn’t you say?” Reggie whispered to the purple draconian holding him. “I mean, the girl has wings. They’re just shinier than the rest of yours. What’s the harm in simply letting her back in?”
“The removal of one’s wings is a curse,” Purple growled back at him. “If she remains, the curse will spread to all of us.”
“But you’re not keeping her,” Reggie countered. “We’d be taking her as soon as our business with you all is done. This is all a load of bunk!”
“Traditions are important to them,” I told Reggie. “If we want to earn their trust, we play by their rules, and we win. Shikun’s got this in the bag.” I looked over to her, but she wouldn’t lift her head. We needed that head in the game.
“As with tradition,” Dothan stated officially, “the Wingless must choose one battle companion to help in the fight, and that the Great Dragon shall also choose two warriors to face them.”
“I choose William!” Shikun’s face immediately perked up, and she jerked up to look to me, smirking through her tears. She still lacked confidence in herself, that much was clear, but she still believed in me. But I had a feeling I could get it higher than it’s ever been in a little bit if all went according to plan. She just needed a push to realize how strong she actually was.
At any rate, I wasn’t fighting two draconian elite warriors myself.
“In all things, caution, William,” Libritas hummed in my ear. “Draconians are wild fighters, relying on their invulnerability to keep them safe in their reckless charges. You will need to be cautious.”
“You don’t have to tell me twice.” I was sweating bullets. Maybe I was stronger than the average guy, but draconians were on a whole other level. I’d seen what Shikun could do, and while I was able to take our captors by surprise a few times, we would no doubt be facing Karkaros’s elite warriors. One wrong move and I was dead.
“Are they allowed to know who their opponents are before the fight?” Petra asked the draconians around.
Karkaros answered for them. “Your opponent will be me.” He walked forward, stepping between all of us on his way to the stone door. I should have expected that. He’d be an almost guaranteed win against anyone one-on-one, and he seemed determined to protect his clan against the Wingless curse. He would put in his best fighters, even if one of them were him. “And I shall be choosing Tharnox to battle with me.”
As he approached, the draconians at the door rolled it open, letting their leader step through, and the others snickered when he mentioned Tharnox. They looked at us as if we were already dead.
I decided that I already didn’t like this Tharnox.
“I hope your wings are strong,” the purple one said to Amalthea before turning his gaze to Reggie and Petra. “She’ll be carrying you all back down the mountain with some gifts from us.” She turned her eyes towards Shikun and me. “Two funerary urns.”
With that, we were dragged through the throne room’s entrance by our chains as we were led to the crater’s bottom, the chosen place for us to fight for our lives and the lives of everyone back in the Marches. If we lost, they died as well. And even if we survived, we still had a nearly infinite army of bee people waiting for us after this.
Fingers crossed Tharnox was secretly a push-over.
27
We were all led out to the main thoroughfare of the volcanic crater, and the air cleared of the draconians. They all found seats at the edges of their homes’ platforms, waiting for the battle about to ensue. It turned the cavernous town into a stadium arena, filled with cheering and booing townspeople.
Too bad we were the away team.
Shikun and I were led out ahead of the rest of the group, out into the center of the town square. As we walked, the booing draconians grew louder, and I could pick out some of their jabs and taunts.
“Nobody wants you, Wingless!”
“You’re dead, outlanders!”
“Karkaros is gonna crush you!”
“You should have stayed at home!”
One of them had the absolute audacity to throw some fruit at us. Shikun put her silvered wings up to block it, but I managed to catch it before it could hit her. It was a purple-striped banana looking thing, and it was rotting even as I held it.
I was tempted to throw it back at him. Treating any of my girls like she was a leper? My breaking point was tested as I unclenched my hand to drop the fruit. That didn’t stop me from staring daggers into the draconian who threw it, a simple looking dark green one in the draconian equivalent of his thirties. He was a bit of a cowardly man to boot, stepping back into his house as I looked up at him.
Karkaros walked over to the other side of the square, the people cheering his name in unison over and over. A slew of light blue draconian women came to him, all carrying plates of black armor and furs. Karkaros unfurled his wings as the draconian attendants placed the pieces of armor on him, revealing just as many scars upon his body as were on his head. Given the impervious nature of draconians, scarring like that had to come from something especially nasty, possibly several especially deadly foes. In a quick flash, his body was adorned head to toe in this armor, including the arms of the wings upon his back.
Another two attendants came, each carrying a greatsword. And by greatsword, I meant a giant slab of jagged metal the length and width of my body with a handle at the end to make it look like a sword. As they were presented to him, Karkaros picked up each blade, easily handling them as if they were arming swords or daggers. He lifted both of the blades into the air as if he had already won, and the draconians ate it up. The cheering surged into a deafening roar. A chain of servants came with various fruits and meats, all lined up to meet Karkaros as he dug into each meal, one after the other. The endless parade kept coming, providing Karkaros enough food for a small village in record time.
While the Great Dragon ate, two red draconians came to us, carrying an assortment of weapons. Draconian weapons weren’t very elegant, and each club, sword, and mace showed that, all of them being massive, weighty things that favored brute strength like Karkaros’s swords. My honeysteel sword was included amongst them, which I promptly picked up in my offhand as I brandished Libritas in the other.
Shikun stared at the weapons or, more accurately, through them, losing herself in whatever thoughts she was feeling. I took solace in the fact that if we won, when we won, she would feel a thousand times better, and maybe those final remnants of the iron chain would come off her back. But, for now, she needed a weapon. I spied a hefty two-handed club that I thought was perfect for her. It was a long piece of dark rockwood, growing wider near the top. Affixed to it was the skull of a dead dragon or some other dragon-adjacent creature,
its teeth embedded in the side, and its thick forehead placed as the main point of impact. As if its teeth weren’t enough, the skull was also held on with two thick ropes on the snout and the top of the head, and if it was made by draconians, it was built to take a beating.
“Go for the big one,” I whispered to her, pointing at the club. “It suits your strength.”
“Oh, right.” She snapped back to reality. “Right. I’m…” She grabbed the giant club as she trailed off.
“You are going to be great. We’ve got this,” I tried to reassure her. “We’ve fought tougher than Karkaros before.”
“My curse has been weighing us down,” she mumbled. “You’ve done wonders in spite of it, but I’m destined to doom myself and anyone around me.”
“You are not cursed, Shikun.” I sheathed both my longsword and Libritas. “You’ve been more than essential to us getting even this far! I can count at least five times we all would have died if you weren’t around.”
“It’s only a matter of time before--” Shikun started another pity-rant.
“Oh, for the love of--” I held my tongue before I said something hurtful in my frustration. I was sick of this ‘curse’ nonsense… but then I got an idea, and my face lit up. “You know what? I didn’t want to have to do this, but you leave me no choice. I only have one of these, so you better be thankful I’m using it now.”
I placed my hands together as if I was praying. Lifting them above my head, I let out the lowest note I had in me. My neck twirled in circles as my head stayed in place, keeping the low note going.
“Um…” Shikun leaned back in confusion as she watched me. “What are you doing, William?” The other draconians that were guarding us, including that blue Dothan, looked at me with the same face she had.
“Hush, child,” I said in a mystical and sassy Texan exorcist voice. “I am communing with higher powers.” I uttered some gibberish in a droning chant as I brought my hands back down to my chest. With a flourish, I brought one hand high and the other low, slowly moving them in a circle around each other with jazz hands until the two had switched places.
“He’s cracked under the pressure,” the purple draconian said. “Karkaros will make paste out of him.”
“Do not think that any magic you bring will help you--” Dothan started to warn us.
“This is not magic, my friend,” I continued in my exorcist's voice. “This is a divine smiting of evil. The gods themselves beckon at my call.” I swirled my hands around each other in a mamba-like fashion, bringing them lower and lower until I shot them up like a tree, flourishing my fingers out like branches.
“Don’t you think you should be focused on the battle?” another draconian said to me. “You know, before you die like a fool?”
“He’s praying his last rites.” The purple draconian snickered. “Let him call upon his gods. They will do him no good against the Great Dragon.”
Ignoring them, I put one hand forward, palm outward, right in Shikun’s face.
“Imperius minimus, gluteus maximus.” I began my fake chant. “Et omne maledictum non alatum removere stupidis!” I slapped Shikun upside the head. Then I stood in my normal posture, pulling out Libritas and my sword. “That should do it.”
Shikun shook her head and blinked her eyes as she tried to comprehend the situation.
“What just happened?” Dothan asked.
“Oh, you don’t know?” I shifted my shoulders as I explained my fake ritual. “Uplanders are taught from an early age a very potent de-cursing tool. It calls upon the favor of the holy to dissolve any curse entirely, no matter how potent. It can only be used once, and then it’s gone. My Latin may be a little rusty, but I think I still got the job done. So congratulations, Shikun! You’re no longer Wingless.”
“I don’t feel any different,” Shikun said, looking at her hands. She looked back to her wings, flapping them as they flickered their bright flames.
“It’s not supposed to feel like anything,” I said, tapping her back with Libritas. “The curse is gone. Nothing you can do about it.”
“That’s insane!” the purple one said, flabbergasted at the idea that their stupid curse could be so easily tossed aside. “The curse is a part of her! She is spat on by the gods. You can’t just wish it away with a wave of your hand!”
“I guess we’ll find out!” I said, twirling my weapons. “If we win, it’ll prove the gods favor me, and the curse is gone. If we lose, we’re dead, and the curse dies along with us.”
The purple draconian grumbled as he stood there, unable to counter my logic. The rest stared at us, now a little unsure about how this fight could turn out, and that might just be enough witnesses to overcome this stigma.
Karkaros had just finished scarfing down the last of the meals brought by his servants, and he sloppily wiped his mouth of the juices with his wrist. The Great Dragon rolled his neck as he flapped his wings, kicking up some of the steam from the surrounding vents. The crowd cheered as he created a wave of hot air, drifting it towards us. When it finally hit our side, it latched onto my face and burned, like opening a hot, wet oven.
He walked towards us, coming to the arena to face us. We did the same, putting our weapons at the ready for whatever he would throw at us. Across the vast distance inside the volcano, we met near the middle, standing opposite each other. That’s when a troubling thought came to mind as Karkaros stood there alone.
“Where’s Tharnox?” Shikun whispered to me as if reading my mind. The longer he didn’t show, the more I was ready to make a diamond in my buttcheeks. Karkaros looked down on us with an intimidating glare.
“Shall we begin the formalities?” Karkaros’s voice bellowed as held his blades, one above him and one below, and stood prepared for battle.
“Only if you’re ready,” I said, poised to strike at one of the straps to his plate armor I saw. If I could peel off a piece and get to his skin, Libritas might burn hot enough to pierce his scales. Then we’d only have to worry about Tharnox, wherever he was. As soon as the battle started, he’d be dead.
“People of wind and fire!” a rainbow-colored draconian shouted from the air as he flew overhead, his voice echoing off the walls as he announced the spectacle. “The Rite of Rokna and Khan has been evoked! The challenge has been set! Not since the First War of the Bugs has such a historic event been seen!”
I assumed that meant the ancient war against the anthophilans, but in a bit of a derogatory way.
The people cheered as the rainbow draconian spoke, and I felt like a gladiator in the Roman Colosseum, but not the one the emperor wanted to win. A gust of steam burst from beside me, and the rainbow draconian continued.
“By ancient law, the challenger is allowed a battle companion. The Wingless has chosen an Uplander, William Tyler, Brandwielder, to champion her.” The people booed at us, their insults lost in the great roar of the many. The rainbow draconian flew down to us, a skinnier fellow than the rest of the draconians. “Do you come to challenge a brother of the clan, Wingless, and remove your curse?”
“Uh, yeah,” Shikun said casually, before composing herself to a more formal tone. “Yes, I have.”
Seemingly satisfied, the rainbow draconian rose back up to address the people. “If she can prove herself and overcome the curse of the Wingless,” the rainbow dragon shouted, “then she will be allowed to rejoin the clan and pass the curse to the defeated. Now, who has the Great Dragon Karkaros chosen for his champion? Who will brave the challenge?”
“I have chosen myself!” Karkaros called out to the crowd. They cried out again, making hearing anything else almost impossible. People love a good show, I guess.
“Our illustrious Great Dragon,” the rainbow dragon hollered, “the unbeatable Karkaros, Slayer of the Troll King, Purger of the Thatos Swarms, He That Walks in Smoke, has taken it upon himself to risk the curse of the Wingless upon himself! And who do you choose to fight alongside you?”
“I have chosen Tharnox!” Karkaros replied.
“Then summon him to your side, and may his arrival commence the battle!” The rainbow draconian flew to one of the houses upon the side of the wall, rushing as if he was late for something… or as if he was trying to avoid something.
Karkaros roared from his throat, and the crowd fell completely silent. No one was even whispering to each other. The only sounds we could hear were the steam vents whistling occasionally.
Then, after a few moments, the cheers started up again, a chant that started with a collective whisper. “Tharnox, Tharnox, Tharnox, Tharnox…” They chanted over and over again, growing louder and louder as they went.
I heard a low, rumbling sound, and a subtle vibration beneath my feet. The steam vents sprung up all over the crater, shouting out more intense bursts than before. The ground shook beneath us, and I suddenly realized where Tharnox was hiding, and that he was a lot bigger than a draconian.
28
“Shikun, fly!” I shouted as I started running for the edge of the volcano. The earth quaked beneath us at the movements of something beneath the stone film of the magma.
“Wait, William!” Shikun called out as she followed me. She stowed her club away to get a better stride going. Karkaros laughed as he saw us run away. “What about Karkaros?”
“Get your ass in the air right now, I swear to God!” I sprinted towards the edge like a gazelle running from a lion. As I took the steps, I found my feet no longer touching the ground, and Shikun’s arms wrapped underneath my armpits. We soared upward along the wall of the volcano, dodging between the houses lined up against it.