by Arthur Slade
“He is a little tired,” I said. “We’ve been flying for a long time.”
I had slowly removed my remaining glove and was opening and closing my right and left hands, getting the frost out so I could grab my daggers. My fingers were so cold they felt as if they’d snap like brittle twigs.
Still, I saw nothing.
Then a movement in the snow to my left. A shadow was there that looked a little taller than me.
“Why did he return?” the shadow asked.
“He didn’t tell me.”
“I should have known. He would never inform a slave.”
“Slave?" I said. And this time my voice went a little high-pitched. "I’m not his slave. Why would you call me that?”
“You’re human, therefore you’re a slave.” I couldn’t quite wrap my thoughts around that logic. I blinked hard and my dragon eye suddenly outlined him in red. The size of him made me draw in a frightened breath. He was twice as big as Brax. “It seems a shame to kill him while he’s sleeping," the shadow continued, "though, without witnesses I can tell his father that he died begging for his life. I like that image of the proud Brax begging.”
“Brax would never beg,” I said. “I’m certain his father would know that.” I had moved my hands to the dagger hilts and was now flexing my leg muscles to warm myself for a jump. I hoped the stretching would be hidden by my cloak.
“You’re a smart slave,” the voice said. “He was always too stubborn to beg. Instead, I’ll mention that he said something insulting about the family line. That’s more like Brax. Always so clever with his thoughts and his big words. Always above us. Can you think of something he would say?”
“What? No? I’m not making up lies for you.”
The shape let out a breath that melted the softly falling snowflakes. “It looks better if I have a story. Breaking his neck while he sleeps makes me look bad.”
“You won’t be breaking his neck,” I said.
There was a short silence followed by hollow laughter. “A slave who stands by its master. Oh, this I’ve never seen. What is it you’ll do to me, gnat?”
He came closer. The moonlight outlined him and the shadows and snow fell away. It was like a huge chunk of this white, cold land was leaning over me. The first recognizable thing to emerge from the snow was a long wide snout with thick scales, followed by a misshapen horned head with eyes that glowed with the brightness of blue sapphire. I was looking at a pure white dragon. He was not lithe like Brax, but his body was revealed to be a mass of muscle and fat, his teeth slightly rotted and his wings flat against his shoulders. I tried to recall what type of dragon he was from my readings but failed.
“So, slave gnat. Give me an answer before I tear you to little bloody pieces. What clever thing would your master say before he died? Give it the ring of truth. And tell me now.”
“He—he wouldn’t say anything to you. He’d ignore you.”
“Bah! That’s not good enough! You’re no help.” He rose higher and clumps of snow fell off of him. His underbelly was flabby, but I knew better than to expect him to be slow of foot and tail.
“He would say stuff it, Darius,” Brax whispered. “Stuff it up your nostril and smoke it like a herring.”
“What?” The white dragon’s eyes opened comically wide. "What?"
“He might also say," Brax continued, his voice growing stronger, "‘your mother is calling you. Time for your spanking.’”
“You’re awake?” Darius said.
“You’re as swift as ever, my simple friend. Your thoughts are wingless.”
This was apparently an insult in dragon culture. Because at these words, the white dragon expanded his chest and displayed the talons on his front feet.
“For that I’ll only bring back the shreds of you,” the white dragon said.
“Oh, it is I who will tear your liver from your insides and feed it to the ravens.”
“You are too weak.” But Darius had inched back.
“No. No, I’m not,” Brax said. And he shook his body and made a movement that somehow made all his skin warm at once and the snow and ice fall off. He was revealed in stark black. He rose. “I suggest, Darius son of Davnex, keeper of lies and sower of untruths and prince of cowards, who is renowned for avarice across the nesting grounds, that you back away and return to your lair, or I will tear you in two.” Brax was now at his full height—though smaller than Darius, it was clear something about his bearing made him seem larger and more powerful.
I stepped out of his way. The heat was emanating off of him.
“Now go, Darius," Brax hissed. "Tail between your legs. Horns down. Away from me before I send you wingless to the netherworld.”
The white dragon took another step backwards and another, his eyes on Brax. The fear was clear on his face. I got the sense that with one tiny flick of a claw or snort of flames Brax would send him running, scrambling away.
Brax had the same sense: he drew himself higher and higher so he was bigger. He stepped toward the white dragon.
And slipped—his leg gave out, and he fell, tried to stand, but slipped again and couldn’t get up. “Oh, darn,” he said. “Of all the damnable times.”
“Ha! Ha! You’re weak,” Darius shouted. He pointed a shaking talon at Brax. “I knew it. I knew it.”
“You didn’t,” Brax said, then he looked at me. “Sorry, I… I thought I had him.”
“No,” the white dragon said, “it is I who have you.” Darius came a step closer and then took another tentative, cowardly step, but his bravery was growing. And he was bigger now, or at least he had puffed out his chest and wings as if seeing the weakness of his opponent had made him grow. He had powerful jaws. Again I searched my mind to remember what sort of flame came out of him. Or was it a gas? But my mind failed me. I should have spent even more time in the library. Maybe if I’d slept there, I’d know his capabilities.
But I wasn’t in the library now. This situation demanded action and so I crunched through the snow, one step at a time.
“No, child,” Brax whispered “No. Don’t do it.”
But I ignored him. He could barely move his head now. That show had taken all his strength.
I jumped the last bit so I was standing between him and the white dragon. I drew my daggers.
The white dragon gave out a long, rollicking chuckle. “This will be fun,” Darius said. “Oh, will this ever be fun.”
And then he opened his mouth, showing a glittering set of massive teeth.
5
One Too Many Times Back to the Well
They had not trained me for this. The largest creatures we students ever stood face to face with were the giant black swans that assassins use as their mounts. And the old rule of “look them in the eye to show them who is their master” wouldn’t work here.
Though, I tried. I glared at Darius, willing every last bit of nerve and confidence to rise from my frozen feet, through my shaking legs and into my eyes. He did not differ from any of the brainless bullies I’d met in class or the mortal realms. Except he had talons. And breathed fire or ice or gas or something else that would kill me in an instant.
It turned out it was fire.
I discovered that because he let out a blast of white flame of such intense heat that even before the flame reached me the snow melted on my face. I threw myself to the right, landing more clumsily than I'd have liked. But at least I wasn't dead.
The snow where I'd been standing was melted right down to bare stone. In that one blast he’d cleared ten feet.
“You have quick teensy-weensy feet,” he said. “A nervous mouse with poky things in your paws. But what do you do if I fry your master while you’re over there?” And he drew back, sucking in his breath as a sign he was preparing to let out another blast of flame.
At Brax. Who wasn’t moving or making a squeak.
“No!” I shouted and leaped toward the white dragon, my daggers out. But he had feinted and turned his head and released another b
reath of ivory heat at me. It was only by luck that I touched one foot down in time to push off and avoid being fried. Again the snow melted down to the rock and another wave of heat made me sweat. I hadn’t expected him to be so clever.
I hopped to my left and circled behind him. “Oh, you will taste good, mouse,” he said. “I like to work for my meals. I bet your marrow is very, very rich. And I—ahhh!”
While he was blabbering on, I snuck in close enough to stab his tail and was pleased to see the Uriken blades would poke through his scales. I popped backwards, proud of that move.
Darius whipped his tail out and smacked me from my feet, and I tumbled across the snow. I skidded for several feet, came to a stop and did my best to stand right up, uncertain if anything had been broken.
The dragon had turned to face me; his white scaly face was turning red, which I assumed was a sign of anger. His roar shook the earth all around me.
He had turned his back on Brax. And, if Brax had some tiny reservoir of strength left, he could jump on his back, or bring him down with a surprise blast of flames. I shouted inside my head, “Now, Brax. Now!” and my eye—his eye—flashed red in what I was learning meant he was getting a message from me.
Brax!
But the snow fell gently on him. His wings stayed stationary along with the rest of him.
The white dragon charged toward me, smashing through snowbanks and shattering stones along the way. He was even bigger and stronger than I’d thought and if he could do that to stone, my body would be demolished.
I jumped out of the way and he flew right past, but he reached out and his talons swooped over me, tearing my hood but not cutting my head right off. And then he turned, trying to stop that massive body and catching some ice. He lost his footing and rolled over. Once. Twice. And onto his side.
Which was my chance to do damage. I darted in and stabbed at his hind leg, which elicited a shout of rage. Then I sped as fast as my feet would go, across the snow, darting side to side as he pursued, his talons cutting through the ice. I dodged or turned at the last moment, each time praying my boots would find their grip.
I’d stabbed him twice now. Both wounds trickled blood that quickly froze. At this rate it would take me a hundred years to kill him.
Master Alesius’s old words came to me. Know your enemy, know your weapons. By that he meant knowing which weapons would work for which job. The daggers cut him but my chances of getting close enough to his head to strike a fatal blow were small. And my low supply of poisons and dusts wouldn’t cause even a moment’s concern for such a large beast. I’d need pails and pails of poison.
I still checked through my list as I dodged and scrambled across rocks. At one moment I spotted a distant cave mouth and briefly considered running inside, but then I would be trapped and it was a big cave. That was probably where he lived.
My legs were getting tired but I wasn’t feeling the cold. Fear does that to a body. I slipped, and he nearly had me but I rolled out of his reach.
“I grow tired of this,” Darius said. Perhaps he would stop. But hope fled when he followed with, “I won’t even eat you. I’m just going to tear you into shreds of flesh and bone.”
“I taste bad anyway,” I said, dodging another sweep of his claws. A bit of bravado might irk him into a mistake.
Then I hit on something on my list I’d forgotten. I reached into my pocket and threw the dust I found there at his eyes. When it hit the air it burst into bright shining particles, and that made the white dragon rear back. And the burning stars floated toward him.
As the cloud neared I nearly cheered aloud. Go. Go. Get him.
Darius stared. The ocular dust would blind him, and I could charge in and finish him.
But a gust of wind caught the cloud and it blew away from both of us.
“Well, that was cute,” Darius said.
I took that moment to move closer, unclip my cloak and toss it at him. If my dust wouldn’t blind him, then the cloak would. It arced up into the air, a perfect throw, the weighted ends spreading out to cover his face.
He blasted out a breath of hot air and the cloak billowed and fell to the ground.
“That was cute, too. But without your cloak it’s clear you’re not even two bites’ worth. Yet, I'll bite you all the same.” Then he launched himself toward me.
I had figured out the pattern to his movements and faked left, then went right. I felt a certainty come over me. All this training. The times my maestrus had yelled and corrected me so that each step was perfect, each movement deadly. Even a dragon wouldn’t be able to match such training.
Then my foot slipped.
I tumbled and was upright in a heartbeat.
But it was a heartbeat too late. Darius was looking down on me, smiling. He opened his mouth and out came flames.
As a reflex I put up my hand to block them. But that was pointless.
I was dead.
6
Trapped in Amber
The flames enveloped me. They were bright enough to make my pupils narrow. An unbearable face-melting, flesh-smoking, bone-burning heat went from head to foot in a heartbeat. And it kept burning me—my hair would be gone—I could smell it smoldering. My clothes were ashy rags in moments.
The pain was so great that it felt as though time had slowed to nothing, as if I was trapped in boiling amber. I had always hoped that death, when it came, would be quick. But this was inexorably slow. Every patch of exposed skin seared with the pain. My one eye—my human eye—closed, but my dragon eye stayed open as if it wanted to stare at the source of the fire. When Banderius had been burned he’d fallen over in a heartbeat.
But I was standing there blazing like a straw dummy.
I was standing there with my daggers in the air. My arms glowing with pain.
I was standing.
It was impossible. I had not burned up. Most of my clothes had. The blades looked hot, their edges keen.
But I had not fallen. I was a statue in the fire.
The flame stopped and every one of my muscles screamed with the pain—it had heated every joint. The snow around me was gone.
“How can this be?” the white dragon said. “How. Can. This. Be?”
I had the same question. When I glanced at my bare arms, the skin looked mottled.
No. Not mottled. Scaled. Like there were fish scales across my whole body.
Or the scales of a dragon.
I took a step forward. And another.
“Do not move,” Darius boomed. “Stay where you are, mouse.”
But I wasn’t a mouse. A mouse would be dead. A normal mortal would be dead.
As I walked the ashes fell from my shoulders.
What was I?
You are an assassin, a voice said inside my head.
Yes! I was an assassin holding two daggers. And I had an enemy in front of me who had paused in confusion, and that was a weakness. And weakness should always be exploited. I’d had that lesson shouted, cajoled or smacked into me in every single class I’d taken at Red Assassin school.
My skin was cooling, the snowflakes melting wherever they landed on me. I took another step. And another.
“I warn you,” Darius said. “I warn you. No closer.” His voice squeaked at the end. It sounded funny coming from someone so large.
He blasted another funnel of flame, this time hotter, larger, enveloping me. Heating my skin. Making me close one eye, but my dragon eye stayed focused on my target beyond the flame. A shadow in the shape of a dragon, its mouth open, its feet planted and talons digging into the ice below it. Talons that would be hard to lift because they would be caught there. Muscles were tight with exertion. And…
… And fear. He feared me.
My limbs were warmed up and loose. I was not dying. Instead, I was alive and the path before me was clear. I took two more steps.
The white dragon stopped spraying his flame and drew in a deep, wheezing breath. His eyes were wild. “You cannot be alive.”
&
nbsp; “I can,” I said. “I am. But you are done.” And with those words still on my lips, I leapt. The dragon attempted to move his feet and get out of my way, but his talons caught in the ice. His disbelief made him slow and my first dagger caught him between the eyes. I brought the second one in at an angle, slightly in front of his ear.
He collapsed beneath me and didn’t even shudder. I landed on his neck.
Darius, the white dragon, was dead. I pulled out my daggers, rubbed them clean on what remained of my trousers and sheathed the blades.
The snow was already covering him, making him even more white. The flakes continued to melt on my skin. I looked down.
My heart wasn’t even beating fast. My clothes were tatters and I should be shivering, but not yet. That would come. The scales I’d seen on my skin were retreating back into my flesh.
I stepped down from Darius and walked, almost dreamlike, leaving melted footprints in the snow. I lifted my cloak from the ground and drew it around my shoulders, still moving forward. Finally, I stood before Brax.
To my surprise, he had an eye open and an unreadable look on his face. “Oh no,” he said. “I’ve created a monster.”
7
A Place to Rest
I stared down at him. My skin was cooling and the slightest of shivers had started.
“What have you done?” I asked.
He shrugged his wings slightly, which made a small avalanche of snow fall. “You begged for my eye and with it came my blood. The winged gods only know what arrives next.”
I shivered full force despite my cloak. “So you’ve never seen this type of thing before?”
“Never. But I’ve never given up an eye before.” He coughed roughly. “This is not the time to delve deep into such matters, child. Though I will say congratulations on your first kill.”