Dragon Emperor

by Eric Vall

  First, I felt a sensation in the back of my mind, like how I’d feel whenever I’d have a brilliant idea or managed to learn something difficult in a short amount of time. Like I’d accomplished an achievement. The other thing that happened was the stone giant I had wrapped myself around crumbled into a pile of stones.

  Shouts erupted behind me, and the stone giant that remained moved toward the fallen dryads. The swordswoman ran and slammed her broadsword into the ground before the two dryads so that she could grab the attention of the giant, and the giant monster reached down to grab her before she could dodge.

  Without thinking, I jumped up and closed my mouth around the joint of his shoulder. The arm holding the swordswoman crumbled, and relief rushed through my body when one of the uninjured dryads caught her in a bed of soft leaves.

  I let go of the giant’s shoulder and clawed my way up his torso. Everytime my claws dug into his stone flesh I could hear the giant roar in pain. Deep cracks and gouges covered the body of the giant, and he frantically swung his arms around as he tried to dislodge me. A few of his blows hit me, but it almost felt like I was being smacked by a toddler, and I really didn’t feel any pain.

  Once my face reached his neck, I reared my head, opened my maw as wide as I could, and clamped my fangs around his throat. The giant thrashed underneath me, and I dug my claws even further into his chest.

  My eyes locked onto the swordswoman’s eyes as I tightened my death grip. Her eyes were a deep, dark gray. A storm caught in a beautiful face.

  I twisted backward toward the water’s edge as the giant struggled beneath my jaws. The giant and I fell into the dark lake, and I tightened around him even as we sunk to the bottom. Through the rush of water, I could hear the telltale cracks that foretold the stone giant’s death. I kept a steady pressure on the stone giant’s neck as he thrashed, but it seemed he didn’t need air. The stone flesh of his neck continued to crack under my fangs, however, and I tightened myself around him even further. Finally, he shattered into millions of tiny pieces that continued to sink further and further down into the bottom of the lake.

  I stared down into the dark water at the debris field for a moment and shook my head. I actually did it. I killed two stone giants. The feeling of triumph rose from my belly and heated my chest, and I felt my lips curl into a smile over my fangs. I swam to the surface of the lake and made my way back to the adventurers, and my mind spun with questions that I would ask them about this world and why I was here.

  And they were going to give me some fucking answers.

  Chapter 2

  The adventurers eyed me warily when I climbed out of the lake, and I bit back a growl of frustration when one even lifted his weapon in my direction. Couldn’t they see that I had just helped them? I wasn’t an enemy. If I had wanted to kill them, I would have just helped the stone giants instead. Why would I risk my life trying to save them otherwise?

  I could clearly hear the way their heartbeats had sped up, and I knew they were poised to flee at any moment. Then a thought suddenly crossed my mind.

  They didn’t think I was the one who had killed all those people, did they?

  “I mean you no harm,” I said as I crouched down and made myself seem as small as possible. A difficult thing to do since I towered over them. I also laid my head on the ground and did my best attempt at puppy eyes.

  It may not have had the effect intended since they backed away even further.

  “That is a bit hard to believe, Dragon.” The swordswoman stepped in front of the dryads protectively with her broadsword clutched tightly in one hand.

  “Well, why else would I save you?” I asked as I focused my eyes on the warrior wolf-woman. I noticed earlier in the cave that my sight was dramatically improved, but now that I was actually looking at people, the detail I was picking up was all sorts of astounding. Colors were now more vibrant and every detail had sharpened so I could see every tear and scuff on her blood stained leather body armor.

  “To trick us?” The swordswoman’s gray wolf ears laid flat against her head, and they framed the dark-gray long braid she had tied tightly at the crown of her head. Bruises mottled her supple olive skin, and I could easily pick out the veins that ran along the muscles of her arms and legs. Around her neck she wore a black leather gorget embroidered with a blue tree. I wondered what that meant as my gaze finally landed on her face. She was a real beauty, with thin eyebrows that arched over her stormy eyes, high cheekbones, and an elfin nose. My eyes trailed to her mouth, and blood dripped from her full lips.

  Wolf Demi-Human: Internal bleeding and two fractured ribs.

  Priority: Caution required. Wounds are slowly healing.

  Status: Stable. No treatment necessary.

  “Why would I trick you?” I rumbled, and if I could frown, I would.

  “Because you are a Dragon? The answer seems obvious.” The swordswoman only widened her stance in response.

  Saving their lives obviously hadn’t been enough, unless they thought I only did it because I wanted to eat them.

  I wrinkled my nose at the thought. Just because I was apparently a dragon now didn’t mean I was going to eat people.

  “His breath healed us!” one of the other dryad women interrupted. “Why would a dragon do that?”

  “True.” The swordswoman wiped the blood from her mouth, and she hesitated as her eyes stared into mine. Finally, she took a deep breath and nodded. “Well met, Dragon, if we infringed upon your territory, you have our apologies. We had no knowledge of your presence. Your help was greatly appreciated.”

  “Territory? I don’t live here.” I thought of the mass graves I had found earlier in the cave. I wasn’t a part of whatever horrors they had found.

  “If you do not live here, Dragon, then why are you here?” the swordswoman asked as she raised one thin gray eyebrow at me.

  A thousand possible explanations hovered on the tip of my tongue, but I didn’t know what to say. What could I possibly say? I couldn’t even explain it to myself in a way that didn’t sound totally insane. I had found a dragon mask, stepped through a mirror in my aunt’s antique store, and ended up here.

  Yup, that sounded totally bonkers.

  I also doubted that they would believe me even if I tried to make it seem less insane, so I decided to settle for the simplest explanation with the least amount of facts.

  “I don’t know,” I muttered. “One moment I was in my home, and then I was here. And my name’s Evan, not ‘dragon’.”

  The adventurers stiffened at my words, and I tried to frown, but all I accomplished was twisting my lips against my fangs.

  “Did I say something wrong?” I asked.

  One of the dryads stepped forward. She looked almost human, but instead of “normal” colored hair, pale green curls were tied back in a long, loose braid, and eyes almost as light as her hair stared unblinkingly at me from a cherubic face. Her skin also looked a bit like the soft bark of a birch tree. It seemed both smooth but also may be textured, but I couldn’t tell for sure until I touched it. The woman moved slowly, as if she didn’t want to startle me, and then came to kneel on the ground before my great clawed feet.

  “O merciful dragon known as Evan,” she intoned, “if this one may be so bold as to ask, when you came here, was there a great light?”

  The dryad kept her gaze on the ground as she spoke, and I found that very strange. Her manner of speech was also very different from the almost casual way the swordswoman had spoken to me. I wasn’t sure if the respect came from saving them from the stone giants or from being a dragon, but I decided it wasn’t terrible.

  I thought back to the storage room mirror, and it somehow felt like it had been years since I’d been there. That couldn’t be right, but I didn’t even have a guess as to how long I had been inside of this cave. With a sigh, I closed my eyes in order to remember what had happened clearly. There had been a strange light, and it came from within the mirror. I panicked and then, somehow, that same strange l
ight had calmed me down. It pulled me in, and I followed. It had felt like a homecoming.

  “There was a light, the color of gold, and it made everything around me glow, even the dust,” I murmured, and then I opened my eyes again to look at the dryad.

  Her head snapped up at my words, and her pale green eyes widened to the size of saucers. She glanced back at her companions and worry colored her voice. “Someone summoned the black dragon here, but there’s no summoning circle nearby.”

  I frowned. Summoned? Didn’t that usually require some sort of epic and all powerful deity that needed a world saved? My mind trailed off to all the games I played and shows I’d seen. There was always some type of fateful meeting where the protagonist got sent on their path, usually before they ended up in the new world.

  If that’s what had happened to me, then I’d been shortchanged. Where was my hot goddess, damn it?

  “Where am I?” I asked. “You seem just as confused as I am, and maybe we can help each other out.”

  The adventures all shared a look, like they didn’t know how to respond.

  “You are, perhaps, a long way from your home, Evan,” the swordswoman finally replied with a tired smile. “You’re near Hatra, in the southern edge of Rahma, if that is of any help. You’ll have to understand, we’ve seen many things, but we’ve never seen a black dragon.”

  “Rahma? Are dragons rare here?” I wondered if that was the name of the world I had fallen into or if it was the country. Part of me was still waiting to wake up any second now, but the longer I sat here, the more it started to sink in that this was probably real.

  Holy shit.

  “You are in the world of Inati,” the kneeling dryad explained in a patient voice, “and while there are many dragons, there’s never been one with the color of your scales.”

  I rubbed my snout with my claws and let out a low hiss. “Shit, well, is there a way to un-summon me? Can I go back to my world?”

  The dryad shook her head apologetically. “A Celestial Divinity might be able to, but finding one and convincing them to do it is an entirely different matter.”

  “A Celestial Divinity?” I shook my head. So, there potentially was a hot goddess out there for me to meet. That was too much to handle right now, though. It could wait for the time being. I exhaled shakily and looked up at the adventures with a strained attempt of a smile. “I’m sorry, I’ve been rude. What are your names?”

  Once again, the adventurers shared a wide-eyed look, probably because a dragon has never healed them, saved them from stone giants, and then politely asked what their names were.

  The first one to speak was the beautiful wolf-eared swordswoman, and her lips twitched in a half smile. “I am Laika of the Blue Tree. I would introduce myself properly by bowing, but my ribs would be quite unhappy with me at this moment. You'll have to forgive my own rudeness.”

  I smiled at her, but before I could respond, the others cut in.

  “I, Anton of the Blue Tree, offer my greetings,” the other wolf Demi-Human declared as he bent at the waist slowly with his hands placed on his thighs.

  The three dryads spoke and also bowed as one. “We, Trina, Polina, and Marina of the Blue Tree offer our greetings.”

  “The Blue Tree?” I leaned forward curiously and wondered if it was a clan or maybe even a town. They all wore gorgets embroidered with a blue tree, and now that I focused on it, I could feel that a subtle power emanated from it.

  Leather Gorget: A protective aura exudes from this object. Healing is augmented when worn.

  “The Blue Tree is a guild,” Laika explained with a patient yet proud smile, “easily the most famous of all the guilds that can be found within Rahma. There is no other guild within a thousand miles that can hold a candle to us.”

  I smirked at that. “Famous doesn’t come cheap.”

  Laika smirked back. “We are most definitely quite expensive. But we often perform charitable requests. We aren’t heartless.”

  “Ahh,” I said as my eyes rested on her gorget again. “Is that why you each have magical healing gorgets? Is it a perk because your guild is so powerful?”

  “How do you know our gorgets heal us?” Polina stepped closer to me with awe in her eyes.

  “You don’t see the words in the air? It’s like a status--” I trailed off as I realized they wouldn’t know what a video game was. “It’s like I can see words floating over you guys, and it tells me what things are and how badly you are hurt.”

  The adventurers collectively blinked at me.

  “Wait, you guys can’t do that?” I asked as I looked between them.

  “No,” Laika dryly replied, “generally only those blessed by the gods can tell what a magical item does but they don’t see words, they just sense it. Priests and priestesses as well as champions and paladins, but they tend to charge for those services.”

  “Well, I can see the words.” I shrugged my massive shoulders.

  “Is that something dragons can do?” Marina murmured to Polina.

  “We haven’t really talked much with dragons, so how would I know that?” Polina frowned as she tapped her finger against her lips.

  “What does it look like, Dragon Evan? Do they scroll, or flash, or do they just kinda fade away?” Trina waved her arms in the air and swayed as she spoke.

  “You look ridiculous, you aren’t a reed,” Marina snickered into her hand.

  Trina pouted. “I’m just trying to figure out how it works, aren’t you curious about it all?”

  “Obviously it’s not going to be normal magic, he’s a dragon,” Polina sighed.

  “Well, then how does dragon magic work, sister, if you are so knowledgeable?” Trina scoffed.

  “How the dragon sees the magic doesn’t matter at the moment.” Laika shook her head as she took control of the conversation again. “We’ll leave that discussion for when we’re back at Hatra and have completed our mission.”

  It was clear to me that the swordswoman was the leader of the group. They deferred to her leadership, and she was ready to sacrifice herself for them. That much had been evident from the earlier fight. She was loyal and fiercely protective of her own. I was sure that if I had turned out to be an enemy, she would have done everything, and more, in her power to protect her comrades.

  “Mission? Is that why you’re in the cave? Were you asked to kill those stone giants?” I questioned as I leaned forward. While the crystals and luminescent fish had been beautiful sights, the mountain of bones had led me to believe that this wasn’t a place anyone went to for fun.

  “Not exactly,” Anton grumbled quietly.

  “Then why are you here?” I pressed. “You guys are here by choice, and I figure you weren’t the ones to summon me. You have to admit, it was perfect timing, though.”

  Two of the dryads giggled melodiously at my words, and then they chirped in a cheerful chorus. “It was indeed. You swooped out of the lake and surprised us all. Even the giants! Then you healed us and saved us instead of eating us. How did you do that? There’s never been a dragon that can heal people, they just kill.”

  “Really? I surprised them? I thought they just looked constipated.” My halfhearted attempt at a joke drew out more giggles from the lovely dryads. “I’ve honestly no idea how I healed you, it kinda just happened. I wanted to help.”

  It really had been me that healed them then. I had meant to breathe fire, but instead I’d somehow healed. I wasn’t sure just how that worked out, but I was grateful for it. Five lives had been saved, and that’s what mattered to me. Now wasn’t the time to overthink it or freak out about it. What was done was done.

  “As amusing as that may be, you have a point,” Laika sighed as she pulled her braided hair over her shoulder and picked out the debris caught in it. “If you hadn’t appeared when you did, we may not have gotten out of this wretched place alive. We owe you our lives.”

  “You weren’t expecting them?” I glanced at the wide field of rubble that surrounded us. Some of th
e boulders were the size of my Jeep, even bigger.

  Oh shit, my Jeep … Aunt Emma would be so mad that I left it in front of her shop. I had so much to explain when I managed to get back to my own world. Hopefully, I’d be able to return to the storage room at the moment in time right after I left.

  That’s how magical teleportation worked, right?

  I really was grasping at straws now.

  “We expected the usual cave dwellers. Bats and serpent creatures, the odd cave troll or two. But this many stone giants?” Laika scoffed and threw a rock she had pulled out of her braid. It echoed down the tunnel and ricocheted against a wall. “They’re solitary creatures. You can find two at most together at any given time. We felled one a short walk from the surface. We were ready for the second one. The last three were a nightmare.”

  “Is it that unusual? There’s never been that many together before?” I asked as I leaned back to stare at the crystals on the ceiling.

  “The circumstances have to be just right,” Polina said as she shook her head, “and the most common way is if a demon lord had gathered them here.”

  My eyes went wide as I snapped my gaze to the dryad. Demon lords now, too? Next they were going to tell me they rode here on a unicorn.

  “And if there’s a demon lord down in this cave, that means we were on the right path,” Anton said as he stood and stretched, “and there’s surely something precious here.”

  “Is that why you were so antsy around me earlier?” I cocked my head to the side. It made sense, once I thought about it. If a group of stone giants would only appear at the behest of a demon lord or something like that, and then I suddenly burst out from a lake like a jack-in-a-box, I’d be a little terrified, too.

  “We were even less prepared to face a dragon,” Laika dryly replied.

  “I probably should have thought through that entrance. Sorry,” I rumbled.

  “Don’t apologize.” Laika shrugged. “Your entrance saved us, after all.”

  I half expected her to wince, but apparently her ribs had finished healing by then because another series of words flashed across my vision.