Fearless Genre Warriors

by Steve Lockley

  ‘I’m sorry I got us into this mess, Therin.’ The boy sounded so meek, so contrite and so different to the manic, gung-ho hero he had been striving for that Therin was moved enough to reach over to pat his shoulder.

  ‘There now, lad. We’ve been in worse situations.’ Offhand, Therin couldn’t think of any, but it was clearly what Gilrain needed to hear. His back straightened and he dropped back down do peer over the ledge. The thunder was getting louder now and the skies above them lit up with the lightning of the approaching storm.

  There was nothing they could now but wait to see where this madness would end.

  The dragon didn’t like thunderstorms. They unsettled her; set the delicate hairs on her underbelly to tingling with static. The accursed horse had somehow managed to evade her every attempt to snatch it up in her talons and now she was wet through and increasingly foul-tempered. Her wings were made heavy with the rain for whilst her outer, hardened skin was waterproofed, the membrane of the wings was less so. The wetter she got, the harder it became to remain aloft.

  With a belch of fury, she set fire to yet another tree. The sheer heat of her flames ensured that the unfortunate vegetation was reduced to ash in seconds. The rain, nowhere near strong enough to douse the magical flames of a dragon-kin, merely threw up steam and a choking, black plume of smoke. She threw back her head and roared her fury to the four winds.

  On the ledge far above, Therin’s eyes widened. ‘It doesn’t sound at all impressed with the state of things,’ he observed. Despite the cloying terror that had him in a firm grip, he couldn’t help but feel a strange sense of calm. So he was going to be eaten alive by a dragon. There were worse ways he could die.

  Offhand, he couldn’t think of any, but he was sure that there were.

  ‘No,’ said Gilrain in a distracted tone. ‘No, it doesn’t. I suspect it’s going to be heading back here any moment.’ He hefted the weight of his sword and made a couple of test forward thrusts with the weapon. This was no ornately forged, magically-blessed weapon. This was steel in its most lethal form; well sharpened and in the hands of Gilrain, capable of dealing considerable damage. For all his flaws and quirks, the boy was a superb swordsman.

  As if on cue, there was the sound of wind displaced by huge wings and the dragon burst above the outcrop, all scales, teeth and damp rage. It reared, back, exposing its underbelly. Unlike every book he had ever read on the subject of dragons – both of them – the creature’s belly was as well-armoured as the rest of it. The talons on the end of the dragon’s feet curled and the dragon threw its head forward, drawing a deep breath ready to belch it at the unfortunate pair.

  ‘Gilrain!’ Therin called out the youth’s name in alarm as the boy leaped to his feet and steadied himself. There was the sound of the dragon’s deep inhalation and Therin closed his eyes, not wanting to watch Gilrain be burned to a crisp.

  His life flashed before his eyes which he found faintly disappointing. He had hoped for some of the more colourful bits, preferably those involving young ladies he had known. Instead, all he tasted in his presumably final seconds were moments of regret and loss. Despite the severity of the situation, Therin couldn’t help but feel he’d somehow been cruelly robbed.

  The sound of crackling flame never came. Instead, he heard a strange noise, like breaking bone and then a peculiar sound that was reminiscent of stirring a vast cauldron of gruel.

  Cutting across both of those noises were Gilrain’s bellow of triumph and the most anguished, horrible scream of pain that Therin had ever heard. His eyes pried themselves open again despite his will and what he saw would come back to haunt him in his dreams on occasion for years to come.

  The dragon was screaming furiously, flinging its huge head from side to side. A dark, gelatinous liquid glooped slowly from its eye socket where Gilrain’s sword was now well and truly lodged. The warrior himself was still hanging onto the hilt for dear life, being shaken like a rag doll in a dog’s jaws. A thick, gelatinous substance oozed down its from the wound; dragon’s blood, Therin realised in creeping alarm. The thick substance hit the rock ledge and hissed wickedly. The rain neutralised some of its acidic qualities, but not all of it. It began to chew through the rock as easily as a hot knife through butter.

  ‘Gilrain...’ Therin scrambled backwards, away from the effervescing acidic patch on the ledge. ‘Gilrain, is this your plan?’

  ‘I need... to get... oof... another stab at... ow...’ Gilrain was slammed against the side of the cliff, but refused to let go of the sword. Instead, in a brief moment when the dragon paused to let out another shriek of pain, he twisted it nastily. The sound of the creature’s eyeball being mangled to shreds by the weapon set Therin’s teeth on edge.

  It struggled for a little longer, Gilrain still clinging onto his sword before it finally set its claws down on the ledge.

  That didn’t help matters, either.

  The dragon was exceptionally huge. And with that immense proportion, its reptilian body was also exceptionally heavy. Far too heavy for the now-weakened by acidic dragon’s blood ledge.

  Therin had thought that the sound of the dragon’s scream, or the sound of its eye as it had been destroyed were the worst things he had ever endured. That had been before he had heard the sound of a cracking stone ledge, the only solid thing between his feet and the plunge to the ground far below. The resonant, horrible sound was enthusiastically echoed by another rumble of thunder from the storm that had now moved right overhead.

  ‘Gilrain!’ But it seemed that the warrior was far too engrossed in his plan to plunge the sword even deeper into the dragon’s eye socket to care about a little thing like plunging to an absolute certain death. ‘Gilrain, if we make it out of this alive, so help me, I’ll kill you...’

  The ledge broke.

  ‘You survived the fall, though,’ said Boz observantly. Therin stared at the barman coldly.

  ‘Do you want me to finish this story or what?’

  ‘Sorry.’

  The ledge broke.

  The dragon, the ledge and its two human occupants stood for the briefest of moments teetering on the edge of possibility and then gravity took over. With a crack of breaking stone, the whole lot plummeted to the forest floor below. The thunder rumbled and the sky lit up as nature played her music-free soundtrack around them.

  Gilrain had released his hold briefly on the sword but otherwise seemed oblivious to the fact that he was careening towards a messy death. Renewing his grip on the weapon’s hilt, he drew the sword free from the dragon’s eye socket with a wet sucking sound. Before the dragon could react, he lunged forward again, putting the full weight of his body behind it. This time, he felt the blade slide into the dragon’s brain and Gilrain knew he had achieved the incredible.

  ‘Therin!’ His cry was triumphant. ‘Therin! I killed it!’

  ‘Well done, lad. Well done. I suggest that you enjoy your moment of triumph because it won’t last all that long... what the hell are you doing, Gilrain?’

  Gilrain didn’t answer. Instead, he grabbed his elder by the waist and jumped from the tumbling rock. They landed with a heavy thud on the back of the falling dragon.

  ‘Hold on tight!’

  There it was again. That faintly maniacal tone to the voice that made Therin genuinely wonder if the boy was truly sane. He was definitely one boar’s head short of a banquet. And yet there was some insane sense in what they were doing. If they held tightly and if the gods smiled down on them – which given the situation thus far seemed pretty unlikely – then the dragon’s bulk would absorb the worst of the impact and they might just survive.

  For the second time in an hour, Therin’s life flashed before his eyes. It was still fairly dull, so he tried to force something more cheerful into his thoughts. If he was going to die, he wouldn’t do it filled with regret.

  The rain hammered down on the falling group, drenching Gilrain’s ha
ir to his head and bouncing off Therin’s largely bald pate. At this velocity, the rain was like tiny stones ricocheting from their skin. The wind roared around their ears and without even meaning to, Therin found more words of Gilrain’s accursed ballad form in his mind.

  The hero took the dragon down; he stuck it through the brain

  Its death cry could be heard above the driving wind and rain

  He fell to earth upon its back and prayed that he’d find luck

  And hoped he’d reach the bottom still intact, but then...’

  ‘OH F...’

  Therin never finished the line and the stanza was lost forever. All the breath was jolted out of him as the dragon crunched into the ground. There was the sound of cracking bones and the wet, pulpy sound of bursting flesh as part of its stomach tore apart through the force of the impact. Therin was still clinging onto its neck for dear life and felt the jolt through his entire body. His teeth crunched together with such force that he thought they might have broken. His vision swam before his eyes and it was a good few moments before he realised that Gilrain was no longer seated on the dragon with him.

  He looked around wildly and saw the lanky youth lying face down in a puddle. He wasn’t moving.

  ‘Gilrain!’

  Therin slid from the dragon’s neck and immediately fell over. All the joints in his body were still singing with the vibration of the landing. Dragging himself to his feet, he forced himself to get to the warrior as quickly as he could. He rolled the boy over.

  Gilrain’s eyes were tightly shut and Therin checked him frantically for signs of breathing. A few seconds later, Gilrain’s right eye opened the tiniest crack.

  ‘Are we there yet?’

  Therin stared at the young warrior, flooded with rage and relief and did the only sensible thing he could do under the circumstances.

  He punched Gilrain full in the face.

  ‘You see?’

  It was five minutes later and Gilrain was crowing delightedly over the fallen dragon. He had regained his senses fairly swiftly and although he would be sporting an impressive black eye for the next few days, he didn’t seem to notice. Thunder rumbled overhead, still electing to punctuate the bloody scene on the forest floor. The dragon was half-eaten by the hissing puddle of its own acidic blood which was rapidly neutralising in the downpour. It looked pitiful on the ground, its majestic wings broken beneath it and with the indignity of Gilrain’s sword still being stuck in its eye.

  ‘I see a dead dragon, Gilrain.’ Therin was tired and shaken, his whole body aching in places he didn’t even know he had. ‘Well done. You killed it. Now can we find the horse and get out of this rain?’

  ‘I meant my plan. It worked. I had no doubt at all. And that’s the critical lesson. Never doubt yourself.’ Despite his bone-weariness, Therin smiled wanly. It wasn’t the first time that Gilrain had quoted his own advice back to him and he sincerely believed that it wouldn’t be the last.

  Gilrain walked around the huge corpse a few more times, then nodded in satisfaction. ‘A souvenir, then. Proof that the beast is slain. A tooth, do you think?’

  ‘Whatever makes you happy.’ Therin shivered against the cold. His clothes were saturated, soaking him to the skin and the thunder and lightning still crashing in the heavens above were not showing any sign of abating.

  Nodding again, the young warrior strode towards his prize and reached out a hand to reclaim the sword.

  Several seconds later, Therin and Gilrain discovered that there are worse things than a raging dragon.

  ‘What was it?’ Boz was totally caught up in Therin’s tale now. Gilrain was actively snoring, fast asleep with his head in a puddle of his own drool and Therin reached over to absently pat him on the shoulder. Gilrain mumbled something and shifted position.

  ‘What was it?’ The barman repeated the question. ‘What was worse than a raging dragon? A raging dragon’s mate? What?’

  Therin uncorked the bottle of mead and poured himself a generous quantity.

  ‘A raging dead dragon,’ he said and his voice quivered.

  In the years that followed, Therin looked back at the moment with something approaching fondness. It had been inevitable really, given the way their luck had been going throughout the entire episode. But still, when it happened, it was as though it were occurring to someone else.

  The moment Gilrain’s hand closed around the hilt of the very wet metal weapon that was embedded into a very wet dragon, the gods – in their infinite wisdom – chose that moment to unleash another bolt of lightning. This one, however, craved a place to ground and Therin swore blind he could see it zig-zag towards the sword in the dragon’s eye.

  When it struck, there was a deafening crash, a dazzling blaze of blue-white light and Gilrain let out a cry of pain. He was thrust backwards, landing once again in the mud, his hand burned and his hair looking frazzled around the edges. He was still alive though and that was something to be grateful for.

  Gilrain was still alive.

  And thanks to the jolt of electrical energy channelled through a weapon embedded into its brain, so were the simple nerve functions of the formerly dead dragon. Its one good eye slowly opened and fixed on its murderer in a hateful cyclopean stare.

  ‘That was a close call.’ Gilrain sat up and tried to smooth back his wet and now semi-fried hair. He seemed oblivious to the horror unfolding before him.

  The dragon very slowly and with obvious difficulty tried to raise itself up on shattered bones. Not being truly alive, it felt no pain and got into a more-or-less upright position.

  ‘Gilrain...’ Therin began backing away.

  The dragon wobbled slightly and moved its great, leonine head towards the sound of the other voice. The eyelid rolled down slowly over the great eye and Therin swallowed anxiously as it raised one leg. It paused for a moment as though trying to recall the principles of locomotion and then brought the leg down again, a few short inches from where it had been. Another leg followed suit, then another, then the last. All four limbs were horribly distorted and its gait was made ungainly and unnatural.

  Not that there was anything natural about a reanimated dragon.

  ‘I could have been killed,’ complained the young warrior as he got to his feet and tried to wipe the worst of the mud from his armour.

  ‘Gilrain!’ Therin tried with a bit more force. Gilrain looked at him.

  ‘Alright, alright, I’ll get my sword, get my tooth and get...’

  Gilrain had moved back to the dragon and found himself barely inches away from its face. He stared into its glowering eye, his hand frozen in the motion of reaching for his sword.

  The dragon stared right back.

  Then slowly, very slowly, its jaw began to open, revealing razor fangs that could remove Gilrain’s face in an instant. Several of them were loose, dislodged by the fall, and wobbled comically in the dragon’s mouth. A wisp of smoke trailed from its nostrils and it lifted another leg.

  ‘Therin.’

  ‘Yes, Gilrain?’ Therin’s voice was barely above a whisper.

  ‘Therin, didn’t I just... I mean, isn’t that dragon meant to be... that is...’

  ‘Yes, Gilrain?’

  ‘We should leave.’

  ‘Yes, Gilrain.’

  ‘We should leave very, very quickly.’

  ‘Yes, Gilrain.’

  The dragon, still attempting to work out how to move – not an easy task with only part of a functioning brain – made a noise that was surprisingly pitiful. It could best be described as a sort of squeak; not the kind of noise Gilrain would ever have associated with a beast of such magnitude. Almost unable to stop himself, Gilrain reached forward and closed a hand around one of the loose teeth in the mighty jaw.

  ‘Are we leaving, then?’ Therin’s voice was urgent.

  ‘What?’ Gilrain was transfixed by what h
e had wrought. This would sit remarkably well in the Ballad of Gilrain, he thought wildly. His own tiny human brain was entirely failing to grasp the absolute horror of what was happening and had Therin not finally grabbed him by the arm and started running, he might well have stood there until the dragon had worked out how to eat him.

  They ran.

  ‘Not exactly the heroic ending you were hoping for, I suppose,’ said Therin almost apologetically. He drained the glass of mead and set it back down on the table. Boz was staring at him incredulously.

  ‘The dragon’s probably still where we left it,’ said Therin. ‘I don’t imagine it can last very long and perhaps the kindest thing we could have done would have been to kill it again. But well. It might have been a dead dragon with a broken body, but you didn’t see the size of its teeth. Like... tombstones.’ For the first time during the telling of the story, Therin shuddered at the memory.

  Gilrain stirred from his position on the table and moaned softly in his sleep. Therin glanced down at him. ‘I think the lad is finally catching up with the situation,’ he said in a sympathetic tone. ‘Lives in the moment, he does. He’s probably just starting to realise what happened back there in the woods.’

  ‘I ain’t sure I actually believe you,’ said Boz, his face suspicious.

  ‘I can understand that.’ Therin reached over to Gilrain, whose left hand still remained firmly clenched into a fist and with gentleness prised the fingers apart.

  In Gilrain’s palm was an enormous tooth... no, a fang. It was so sharp that it had cut his hand to ribbons and now freed from its fleshy prison, it clattered against the wooden inn table. Boz stared down at it. He had seen a dragon’s tooth before and judging from the damage to Gilrain’s hand, this was anything but a fake.

  ‘How about now?’ Therin asked.

  Boz looked up from the dragon’s tooth. ‘You got any idea how much those things sell for on the open market?’ The medicinal properties of dragon’s teeth was well known. Therin smiled and there was slyness in it.