by Dante King
“All this for that little old pendant, more likely,” Hana said.
The Vetruscan bearmancer was standing ready, her stance low. She looked like a spring that was on the point of unwinding all at once.
“The pendant…” I whispered.
A slow smile spread across my face as a beautiful realization dawned in my mind; a realization that was instantly shared by the half a dozen dragons under my guidance.
The clamor amongst our enemy host was gathering momentum. There was the unmistakable air about them of a bunch of murderous morons about to set to
“Cyan, you’re sure that I can channel all of you into a single slot if I need to?” I asked quickly.
“Looks like it, Dad,” the Faerie Dragon replied.
“She’s right, Father,” Pan assured me, much to Cyan’s annoyance.
My smile widened to the point where I wouldn’t have been surprised to feel it touch at the back of my head.
“All right,” I said, in a voice that was as still, cold, and deadly dangerous as a frozen lake. “Then, all of you, get into the Leg Slot. Now.”
Six dragons appeared in front of me and my fellow mancers: Onyx, Pearl, Smog, Tempest, Faerie, and Ice.
It was probably the most ball-shrinking wall of foes that any of that Shadow Nation battalion had ever come across.
“It will most definitely be the last,” Noctis told me, reveling in the joy that dragons felt at imminent destruction and death.
Seeing my assembly of bristling, angry dragons, each one taking a shape that was at least the size of your average Winnebago, the other mancers got the idea immediately.
In no time at all Bearne, Corvar, and Fyzos added their impressive bulk to the wall in front of us.
The noise of our enemy diminished noticeably. Seemed that they had suddenly become just a mite less cocky—I wasn’t sure why.
I strode between the flanks of Noctis and Pan, emerging between the black scales and the cobalt blue. I raised my finger and pointed it at our suddenly very worried looking enemy.
“Flame them,” I said.
The collection of fire that poured forth from the eight dragons, as well as some rather fantastic ice-spheres conjured and loosed by Hana’s war-bear, Bearne, was a spectacle the likes of which I had never seen before.
Scintillating rose flame ripped out of Garth, shredding goblins into confetti. Fyzos’ flame was more a concussion wave than anything else, and it tore a strip through the ranks of the foe, blasting body parts in all directions. The icy blue fire of Brenna froze and shattered the hapless dark-elves that she was focusing on in a splintered second, while Noctis’ roaring bursts of silvery-black Chaos magic caused dozens of trolls to burst into shreds of ether and fall like ash to the floor of Fateseeker’s Cavern.
The enemy had nowhere to go, nowhere to run, and nowhere to hide. In military circles, I believed there was an acronym they might have liked to use: SNAFU—Situation Normal: All Fucked Up.
They were decimated, and I was really talking decimated here. They were fucked worse than someone burning their bridges while standing on them. Fucked worse than Snowden when he came out with those leaks. Fucked worse than a woman I heard of who got caught stealing headstones for decorations on Halloween.
They were fucked.
The torrents of fire and light and magic played across the stonework, melting it in places. Goblins and trolls, imps and dark-elves were reduced to mere particles.
It was still while there were maybe two dozen of the enemy left that our magical beasts fell on them with tooth and claw.
“Live prey,” Noctis told me coldly, “is so much sweeter than dead flesh.”
Victory had never been so easily assured.
Chapter 15
There was nothing left of the Shadow Nations force but ash and char, after our nine magical creatures had finished with them. Ash and char, that was all. The stone chamber was streaked and smeared black with what had formerly been about three-hundred living, breathing, stinking beings. It had been a stark reminder, to me at least, at just how powerful and ruthless dragons were.
I hadn’t been required to lift a single finger in the defeat of the horde. Neither had any of the other mancers. It had had nothing to do with being scared—of course it hadn’t, we were mancers. We would have simply gotten in the way of our beasts as they unleashed, for the first time, all together.
For my part, as the sire to five of the dragons that I shared a mind with and held the crystals to, it felt like a coming of age. It had been a bonding experience, where Wayne, Garth, Cyan, Pan, and Brenna had got to come together and establish a pecking order of sorts, under the watchful gaze of the undisputed alpha, Noctis.
“Enjoy that, did you?” I asked the Onyx Dragon, when all our magical beasts had been returned to their crystals.
“We faced our enemy and they turned from the hunters into the hunted,” Noctis replied, his words glowing with satisfaction in the same way that metal radiates when it is drawn from a forge. “That is the ultimate goal; to defeat your opponent in the space of time that lies between laying eyes on one another and joining battle.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more comprehensive slaughter,” I admitted to him. “The girls and I didn’t even need to do anything.”
Noctis settled himself comfortably in my mind. He was evidently extremely satisfied with how the fight had gone, as he should have been. We had faced a slavering Shadow Nations horde and what was now left of them would have had to have been swept up and posted back to whatever nebulous figure controlled them.
“That is how our relationship, the bond between dragon and mancer, works,” the Onyx Dragoon said. “We concentrate on how we can best help one another. We analyze situations in the time it takes a bird to flap its wings and we act for the good for the whole, yes?”
“You’re damn right,” I said.
Although they did not speak to me, I could tell that my other dragons were feeling pretty chuffed with themselves right then too. I could hear them at the edge of my awareness, going over how they, individually, had done in the battle.
“Mike?” Hana said, putting a hand on my shoulder and breaking me from the internal conversation.
“Yeah?” I asked.
Hana pointed up toward the ceiling of the chamber. Clearly, the extended dragonfire, reverberating roars of the beasts, and the odd loose arrow that had been fired wildly by the panicking Shadow Nations horde had done nothing for the internal integrity of the Fateseeker’s Cavern.
There was a sharp crack, and a jagged line ran up the wall from the floor like a bolt of reversed lightning.
I looked down to make sure that Will was nearby. The wisp was already lurking by the exit.
I had always said that guy was clever.
“Girls!” I said loudly as a large chunk of the wall splintered and crashed down. “It’s time for us to go!”
My fellow mancers were smart cookies, it was part of what I found so attractive about them, so they didn’t need to wait for a formal invitation or written instructions to hightail it out of there.
As we boosted for the exit, at the doorway of which Will was waiting like a genial exit sign, pulsing ever more urgently, a section of ceiling at the back of the chamber collapsed inward.
I reached the exit first but waited for the women. Will lit the way and took the lead, while I ushered Tamsin, Renji, and Hana through. As they sprinted past me, I watched as the Fateseeker’s Cavern sprang a plethora of leaks in its stonework and the desert sands of Akrit began to pour in. It was like watching a submarine rupture, only the hissing roar was provided by an ocean of sand instead of saltwater.
“Move your asses!” I yelled, swatting Hana affectionately on the ass as she flew past me. “I hate it when I get sand in my boots!”
As I turned and made to follow the fleeing women, there was a roar and the entire ceiling buckled inward.
If it hadn’t been for Will’s infallible sense of direction, I doubted we
would have made it out of that place alive. Even with Will zooming along ahead of us, taking every correct turn and urging us on to ever greater speeds, I could still feel the uncomfortable spray of sand on the back of my neck for too long.
Behind us, the rumble of the collapsing Fateseeker’s Cavern and the wholesale destruction of the temple as it collapsed outward, chasing us, sounded like the gods moving the furniture around.
We ran and we ran. There is something about a collapsing building that lends wings to a man’s feet. The cracking, splintering booming that followed us was like nothing I had ever heard before.
Still, at least the dracaenae that’d had the misfortune to guard the pendant had now been given a proper burial.
After what seemed like too long, we outran the sound of the destruction. I guessed that the temple passages down which we had fled, back toward Kakra’s little stronghold, had filled with sand ahead of the main collapse. Now, there was only the occasional deep rumble as tons of sand settled and shifted into position, ready to relax again for the next fifty eons.
Kakra met us at the opening, at the entrance, to the Subterranean Realms where she had left us. The desert seer looked pleased, but unsurprised, to see us. I guess she wouldn’t have been much of a prophet if she couldn’t at least act like she had known that we would make it all along.
“My my my,” the old wormmancer said, dusting sand off Tamsin’s sleeveless leather jerkin, “you made fine time. Very fine time. For some reason, I thought you may have been held up.”
Kakra’s mismatched red and blue eyes twinkled, but she gave nothing away.
“You were successful, then?” she asked.
“I guess we were, yeah,” I said. “We didn’t know what we were getting, but when we did, it proved to be quite… advantageous.”
“Hence the speediness of our return, wise one,” Hana said.
“The relic, a pendant as it turned out to be, enabled Mike to hold multiple dragons in a single crystal slot,” Renji said with slow care. “For any other mancer, I don’t think it would really have been much of an advantage, seeing as only the Dragon Breeder is able to be bonded with more than one dragon.”
“Yet you can see why the Shadow Nations would covet such a thing?” Kakra asked.
I nodded. “Better to have it and not be able to use it than let your enemy have it,” I said. “Classic politics, really.”
“It is the way with all weapons,” Kakra said. “Powers, kingdoms, people; they hoard them like all resources. It is so, if such a time ever arises, those powers, kingdoms, or people can obtain any victory they desire with any weapon they possess. Why is it, do you think, that mancers are so revered? They are some of the best weapons that your kingdoms have at their disposal.”
“The best,” Tamsin said stoutly.
Kakra tilted her head and looked at the hobgoblin through her odd eyes. “You could be right. A soldier that can summon mythical beasts, use magic, and fell a rhinoceros with a single punch. There’s little not to love about that from a military point of view.”
“I’d never punch a rhinoceros,” I said. “They’re endangered.”
Kakra gave me a confused look and began to lead the way back down the passage. The sound of her feet scuffing across the smooth stone and the tap-tap-tap of her bone staff were all the sounds there were for a minute or so.
“How is Zala going?” I asked the wormmancer.
“The catmancer is making good progress and is fine to travel once more,” Kakra replied, “but it will not be long before her location is open to the Shaykh once more. It is good that you returned so quickly. Come, let us go and see how she fares and make our plans.”
We found Zala sitting up at the low table around which we had eaten not so long before. She had a platter in her lap and was shoveling rice and yoghurt and bread into her face with her fingers, as if she had not eaten in days.
Hell, I thought, perhaps she hasn’t. Perhaps that’s just another mark against the Shaykh that I’ll have to settle with him before I kick his pelvis out through the top of his head.
She looked up when we entered the room; her whole body tensing, the pupils of her liquid dark eyes contracting just like a surprised cat.
Then, she relaxed and smiled warmly at Kakra.
“How do you feel now, my dear?” the Last Wormmancer asked.
Zala swallowed and said, “Much better, thank you, though the poultice is beginning to itch a little.”
“Yes,” Kakra said, leaning down to examine the drying compress between Zala’s exquisite breasts, “that is to be expected. Time is flowing freely. We must make our schemes and put them into action.”
We did not sit. There seemed little point. Instead, I said, “Kakra, it’s obvious that you already have some notion of want to do next. It’d be a proud and foolish man who didn’t at least listen to someone who can predict the future. What’s your advice?”
Kakra’s pensive gaze did not leave Zala.
“I believe that the best thing for us all to do,” she said, “is to take wing on your dragons and actually venture back to Akrit.”
“But Seer,” Tamsin said, “when the poultice’s efficacy runs out, won’t that make it all the easier for Shaykh Antizah to find Zala? To find us all?”
Kakra shook her white head. “I think not. Even if the Shaykh can pinpoint that Zala is back in the city, he will still have himself quite the mission in finding her due to the enormous amount of people there.”
I considered this.
“You’re opting for the needle in haystack approach?” I asked.
“That’s correct,” the desert seer said.
Slowly, I nodded my head. “That makes sense. If he can’t pinpoint the exact location of Zala, then logic follows that we should put her where his men have to go through as many potential rebel candidates as possible.”
Kakra inclined her head in the affirmative. “That’s right, Dragon Breeder. If the Shaykh is going to know roughly where Zala is—and where we are—then we may as well make it as tricky as possible for him to locate us exactly. The capital of Akrit is a melting pot and, like all melting pots, it is a damned messy and sticky thing to be viewed from the outside.”
“Sounds good,” I said. “At least, it sounds like the best to be made of a messy situation.”
I looked around, making sure that Tamsin, Hana, and Renji had no objections to this plan. As I expected, they did not. That was unsurprising; they were smart and focused women. They knew as well as I did that we were going to have to go back into the lion’s den to sort this shit out. Knew that we’d have to take the fight back to the Shaykh if we were to do the right thing and free Akrit’s catmancers from lives of bound servitude.
“So, all of you are happy to head back into Akrit?” Kakra asked us, after me and the girls had exchanged looks: looks which said as plain as day that we were going to head back into the capital of Akrit and ruffle the Shaykh’s feathers.
“Ladies?” I asked.
“I’m in,” Tamsin said.
“In,” Renji said.
“I wouldn’t miss it,” Hana said.
“You’ll need me, and I’ll be there,” said Zala.
“Ditto all of the above,” I said.
“Excellent, I’m glad that we are all in agreement,” Kakra said, clapping her hands together.
“Are we leaving now?” Tamsin asked. She looked keen and eager. No one would have guessed that only an hour or so before we had watched three-hundred or so Shadow Nation troops get cooked extra-crispy by our beasts and then had to make a dash for our lives as the desert collapsed in on us.
“No,” said Kakra. “Although I think that time is of the essence, I believe that you could all benefit with a brief rest. I did not anticipate you coming through your trials so quickly. It would be foolish not to take advantage of the time that we have to spare. I think that when we reach the capital, there will be precious little time for relaxing.”
“Not for the Shaykh, that�
�s for damn sure,” I said.
“I do not doubt that in the slightest,” the old wormmancer said. “In the meantime, if any of you would like to rest and take a nap, there are plenty of bunk rooms in which you might refresh yourselves.”
“I think,” I said, “that I might take you up on that offer, Kakra. May as well recharge the batteries while we have a chance.”
Kakra, of course, didn’t know what the fuck batteries were, but she showed me to a clean sleeping room with a single bed in it all the same. I thanked her, and she told me that she would wake me in an hour. I was just settling in for what promised to be a nice little nap when the door to the room opened and shut quickly, and I found myself looking at none other than Hana.
“Hey there,” I said.
Hana stood in the doorway for a few moments just looking at me.
“Something on your mind?” I asked.
“Just you,” the bearmancer replied.
“I see,” I said. Already, the idea of a nap was receding into the distance. The Vetruscan bearmancer, with her Viking-esque haircut, piercings, and penetrative deep maroon eyes, was gazing at me speculatively. It was the sort of speculative look that, in my experience, only led down one road—and it was a road I liked to travel.
There didn’t seem to be any point beating around the bush.
Unless that’s what Hana wanted me to do, obviously.
“You better come here, then,” I said.
With a sudden violence and urgency, Hana was on me, straddling me where I lay on the comfortable mattress.
“Imminent danger and possible death,” I quipped, “who would have thought those two things could be such powerful aphrodisiacs?”
In answer, Hana’s hand shot out and grasped me by the back of the neck. Irresistibly, the bearmancer pulled me up to her, pressing her face against mine, crushing her lips against my own. Our kisses were hungry, unrefined, fervent. There was no fairy-tale element to them, no romance. There was only a sudden animal need; a fire that needed to be allowed to burn unchecked.
Our teeth clicked together as our tongues thrust into each other's mouths. Dancing. Probing. Entwining. Our hands seemed to have minds of their own; our fingers moved of their own accord and investigated each other’s bodies over our clothes.