by Hans Bezdek
I grunted as a bolt shot through my left knee, causing me to drop to my knees again. Looked like the gnome had finally realized he needed to shoot me on the other side of the water.
“Trying to run away again?” asked Galdric, approaching me as my wall of water finally died. “Not anymore.”
“I wasn’t running,” I hissed.
“Then what were you doing, hmm?” he asked, staring down at me from just a couple feet away.
I glared up at him silently. The last thing we needed was Galdric having the blade.
“I believe he was trying to pull out that sword, sir,” said the elf, pointing at the Shattered Sword.
“Were you now…” smiled Galdric, taking a step closer and reaching out for it. This was about to go from really bad to worse.
“GAH!” he shouted, immediately removing his hand the second it touched the hilt.
Thank the gods… it wasn’t just me.
“Idiot,” I laughed. “Tricked ya!”
Galdric kicked me in the face with his boot, causing me to nearly fall over.
“Reimar!” shouted Cassandra in concern. The rest of the Trumblers now circled around me, laughing.
“We’re the idiots, are we?” asked Galdric, his cruel smile returning. “What does that make you, then? We’ve got you completely surrounded. Dmetri will be thrilled to see your head on his table soon enough.”
“Whatever,” I said. After thinking I was about to die so many times in the past couple of days, I was starting to get numb to the fear. I didn’t have a dagger anymore, and I was nearly completely dry on magic. At best, I could probably do one more wall of water. A lot of good that would do me.
“What’s that? The cocky Reimar Pinespell is finally admitting defeat?” asked Galdric. His group all around laughed. “Looks like all we had to do was take out your ability to run away, and all your gusto would just disappear.”
“Now I truly see how you’re such a good hitman,” I nodded solemnly.
“You do, huh?” he laughed.
“Yeah… you talk everyone to death,” I said. “It’s gotta be the most painful thing I’ve ever had to deal with.”
Glaring at me, Galdric yanked the crossbow away from the gnome. He level it at my shoulder and let the bolt fly.
I stifled a grunt as it hit, not wanting to give him too much satisfaction.
“We’ll see how much pain you can take before you finally die,” grinned Galdric, handing the gnome back the crossbow to be reloaded. “And don’t worry about your girlfriend. She’ll be our newest plaything.”
The dragon blood within me suddenly surged, causing me to try and calm it down. Wait a minute… why was I calming it down? There was no point in hiding my true self anymore. This was the end of the line. Cassandra and I either made it out of here alive, or not at all.
I looked up at Cassandra, who stared back at me without a hint of worry or fear. I gave her a wink, and she smiled back. I hoped she didn’t hate me after this, but it was better than the alternative.
“Unfortunately, you guys are about to be my playthings,” I said, harnessing the last of my magical energy.
The Tumblers all laughed as the gnome handed Galdric back the crossbow.
“Seems like the pain is already making you delusional, Reimar,” chuckled Galdric. “Pity.”
As the man pulled the trigger, I cast the final wall of water spell. Making the water as dark a blue as possible, the wall encased me in a circle, blocking their view of me and stopping the bolt from the crossbow.
Knowing I didn’t have much time, I began the transformation immediately.
I looked down as my skin began to turn green, slowly becoming scaled.
“This again?” sneered Galdric. The other Tumblers burst into laughter, knowing that this wouldn’t hurt them, and soon they would continue the beat down.
The bolts in my shoulder and knee painfully inched their way out, eventually dropping away as my skin healed itself.
“Should we come in and join you?” taunted one of the humans, oblivious to the transformation taking place.
I arched over as my wings sprouted out behind me, spreading out several feet in each direction.
“Based on how weak this spell is, my guess is he’s out of magic now,” said the elf sorcerer. This brought a cheer from the others.
My clothes and bag melded into me as the tips of my fingers turned to sharp claws, along with the toes on my feet.
“This wall should just about be done now if it’s like the last one,” mumbled the gnome.
As I grew a couple of feet taller, my tail sprouted out, curving down to the cold ceramic tiles.
“Prolonging the inevitable, Reimar,” called out Galdric.
I stopped the process as I completed the shift to my half dragon form. This gave me most of the benefits of being a dragon, and combined them with the benefits of being a man.
My spell finally ended as the wall of water collapsed to the ground in a puddle.
“Looks like time is-w-what the?!” stammered Galdric.
All of the Tumblers stumbled backwards, unsure of what was happening. I slowly looked around, analyzing each of them with my emerald eyes. My senses were heightened now, and I was beginning to pick out things I hadn’t earlier. The gnome’s eyes were a light purple color, just like a lilac. One of the humans breathing was raspy. He must have been recovering from a cold. The elf sorcerer was several inches shorter than he appeared. He had been using an illusion spell to grow taller. To keep it up so long, he must have been very powerful indeed. That made him the first threat to take care of. All of these small details I began notice, some beneficial some not.
All of the Tumblers had one thing in common though: the scent of cold, sweaty, fear.
And it smelled delicious.
“What… what are you?” mumbled Galdric, eyes wider than I had ever seen them.
“H-He appears to be a green dragon,” tried the elf. “Except… in a human body?”
“So he’s a green dragon then?” asked one of the men.
“Not quite… he’s something… in between,” said the elf.
I looked past them to Cassandra. The elf’s eyes were wide and her mouth open. I couldn’t tell if she was surprised, in awe, or horrified. She no longer struggled in the orcs grasp, but just stared back at me.
“Looks like she didn’t know either,” mentioned Galdric, glancing back to Cassandra as I did. “Guess you two weren’t so close after all.”
I opened my muzzle for the first time, letting some smoke escape from my nostrils. “I would be less concerned with my friendships and more concerned with begging for your life.”
The Tumblers looked to Galdric, unsure of what to do. Galdric eyed me up and down for a moment before speaking.
“Good news, boys,” shouted Galdric. “Not only will we get money for bringing the freak’s head to Dmetri, but it’ll be more than double when we take those eyes!”
One of the humans laughed nervously, while all the others kept silent. All, that is, except for the elf spell caster. I could hear him ever so softly beginning to mutter the beginning of the lightning ray spell.
“All of these deaths are on your head,” I said, nodding slightly towards Galdric.
I jumped at the elf, wings beating as fast as they would. In less than a second I was on the spell caster. Reaching my arm out, I took hold of the elf’s neck and took him straight up with me. Crushing his windpipe in my fist, I looked down at the other Tumblers.
As expected, the gnome held his crossbow up towards me and fired. I chucked the breathless sorcerer in the direction of the bolt, which the elf caught in the head.
“No!” shouted the gnome, watching his comrade’s lifeless body fall to the ground.
“Reload you fool!” shouted Galdric.
Using the elf’s body as a distraction, I dove down at the orcs holding onto Cassandra. I spun as I landed, colliding my tail with the left orc’s face. He let go of Cassandra as he sailed back
through the air, crashing into the wall. The other orc pushed Cassandra away, quickly going for his club. I dug my claws into the orc’s shoulder and pushed back, using the help of my wings to easily overpower him.
I thrust him into the blue flamed torch behind him. He roared out in pain from my claws and the fire, trying in futile to push me off. Tilting my head back, I roared down on him with fire of my own as I released my claws. The orc collapsed, the horrid smell of burnt orc flesh filling this part of the room.
Hearing the twang of the crossbow’s release, I flexed my wings, knocking the bolt out of my way right as it got to me.
“W-What?” stuttered the gnome, looking down at the crossbow like it was malfunctioning.
I looked over at the remaining orc, intending to finish him off next. Instead, Cassandra was on him with a flurry of dagger strikes.
Turning my attention to the gnome, I flew over to him with three beats of my wings.
“S-Stop!” he screamed, as I grabbed the crossbow and smashed it in my grip.
The two humans came to his aid, drawing their swords and lunging at me. I reached out, catching both blades on my arms. The men brought the blades back striking at me a second, third, and fourth time. Their expression became more and more exasperated with each strike, until finally they accepted the truth.
They could do nothing against my green scales.
Grabbing each human with a free hand, and the gnome with my mouth, I flew up through one of the holes in the ceiling. The three struggled the whole time, trying to get free of my as I climbed higher and higher into the sky. Once I reached a point where I could hardly see the ruins anymore, I granted them their wish.
Letting go, I watched for a second as the three screamed on their way back to the stone buildings. After I was confident there was no chance of them surviving, I dove down past them and back into the circular room.
I landed in front of the Shattered Sword and stared at the lone Tumbler still alive: Galdric.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
The three Tumblers rained down onto the roof, making no additional noises afterward.
Galdric gulped, turned around, and bolted for the door.
Cassandra jumped in front of him, blocking his escape. She spun her orc blood coated daggers idly as she looked at him, until finally he turned back to face me.
I slowly walked towards the man as he fell down on his knees.
“N-Now hear me out, Reimar,” he said, speaking quickly. “T-The three of us should t-t-team up and overthrow Dmetri, yeah? H-He’d stand no chance against us. Then t-the three of us could have t-total control of the T-T-Tumblers!”
I continued to approach, giving no response.
“A-And by that, of course, I-I mean the t-t-two of you will be the leaders,” he said, hands palm up. “T-The two of you would make very strong, g-great leaders.”
Stopping in front of him, I stared down at him, waiting for him to finish.
Galdric looked back and forth between Cassandra and me, a nervous smile on his face. “S-So? What will it be? Y-You guys in?”
“No thanks,” shrugged Cassandra.
Galdric’s eyes widened as he looked back at me.
“You heard the lady,” I said, shrugging as well.
“But-”
Extending a claw, with the flick of my wrist I separated the bald man’s head from the rest of his body.
Chapter 19
Cassandra looked me over, still spinning her daggers as she examined me. I was trying to get a read off of her, but I couldn’t. Her eyes were no longer widened with surprise or concern, and she didn’t smell of fear like the Tumblers had. She was just inspecting me.
“So… Stalrik was right,” she mumbled, putting her daggers back on her belt. “You are a half dragon.”
I nodded. “He was. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you befo-”
Cassandra began a barrage of slaps and punches at my arm and head. While my scales protected me from seriously getting injured, it still hurt a little.
“You! Should! Have! Told! Me!” she said, emphasizing each word with a strike.
“Okay, okay!” I said flying up to get out of her reach. “I told you I was sorry! The green dragons have been hunted to near extinction, I couldn’t risk letting you know when I hardly knew you!”
The elf took a few breaths to calm down.
“If word got out that there was a green dragon near Kra’Gar, or the Willows of Wander, or wherever, then the place would be swamped with poachers,” I explained. “Would you really want dozens or hundreds, maybe even thousands, of people like Stalrik roaming a nearby area? Innocent people with green eyes everywhere would be hunted down, not just me.”
“Alright,” she nodded. “I get it. You had to be extra careful telling anyone that you were a green dragon… or a half one… how does that work, by the way?”
“I’m not sure,” I shrugged. “I never knew my parents, so I’m not sure which one was human and which was dragon. I’m assuming the dragon took the form of a human during the… creation… process-”
“No, stop!” she groaned. “I didn’t mean how does the mating work. How do you choose your form?”
“Oh, that,” I said, landing down next to her again. “I can change into a human, half dragon, or full dragon. I haven’t spent much time as a full dragon, and also rarely spend time in this form. While I’m a human, if I get particularly angry or hurt, I can feel the blood within me rush. I get a tingling feeling, and it makes me want to transform. I normally fight it down, but I saw we had no other options with Galdric.”
“This form seems strong,” she pointed out.
“It is,” I nodded. “I get the flexible benefits of being human, along with use of five fingers. I also get most of the strength I get while fully a dragon. In my full dragon form I’m stronger and faster, but it takes longer to transform and I also can’t reach behind me, like how I beat Stalrik.”
“Interesting,” she said. She looked past me and up to the Shattered Sword, the blue glow dancing off of the reflection in her eyes. “Why didn’t you or Galdric take the Shattered Sword?”
“It burned both of us,” I said. “I’m not sure what kind of magic is doing it, but for some reason neither of us could touch it without burning.”
Cassandra and I walked over to the center of the platform, inspecting the structure for quite some time. Even with my heightened magic detection, I wasn’t able to notice anything in particular keeping the sword from being held. Cassandra ran her hands over the stone column beneath the Sword, looking for any traps or levers.
“Nothing there…” she mumbled, looking it over.
“Do these purple rocks look familiar to you?” I asked, running my claws over them. They were set in such a perfect circle around the Sword. It looked very out of place, and perhaps it was the reason the hilt burned at the touch. There was something about them that seemed familiar to me, but I couldn’t quite place it.
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I’ve never seen rocks like those before.”
“It’s probably nothing,” I muttered, stretching and looking up through the holes in the ceiling. The night sky was beginning to fade into morning. If we wanted to make it back to Barky and the other treekin, we’d need to get moving soon.
Cassandra looked at the Sword hopefully, then back up to me. “How bad did it hurt when you touched it?”
“Well, it left a mark,” I said, looking down at my scaled hand. The mark was gone now, healed thanks to my transformation.
“I’m thinking about just going for it anyway,” she said. “What do you think?”
“Sure. Don’t say I didn’t warn you, though.
Slowly, Cassandra reached her index finger out towards the hilt. With just her finger tip, she pushed forward and nudged it. Her eyes widened, and she did it again.
“You don’t have to keep doing it to prove how tough you are, you know,” I said.
She took a step closer, then wrapped her hand around the hil
t.
“Woah, what are you doing!?” I asked, worried.
“It doesn’t burn me!”
“Really?” I asked. Figuring we must have done something to disable the effect, I poked at it with my claw. Searing pain shot through me again, causing me to pull my hand back and curse.
“How odd,” she said, looking over the Shattered Sword slowly. Suddenly, she pulled up, removing the Sword from the stone.
Before I could cheer in celebration, the blue light of the sword disappeared. The blade was still there, just no longer glowing. Instantly, all of the blue flames on the torches extinguished.
“What happened?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” she said looking down at the Shattered Sword with concern. She waved it around a few times, trying to get the blade to turn blue again.
“Did you break it?”
“No!” she said, turning pink. “I-It probably just takes some getting used to. It must have already broken, or something.”
“I mean, it is called the Shattered Sword, after all,” came a new voice.
The two of us turned towards the hallway. A man dressed in a flowing black coat stood there, a nasty looking black dagger hanging from his belt. On his head was a familiar metal visor.
“Crazy homeless guy!” I said, waving with a clawed hand. It was then that I realized I was in my half dragon form, and now a second person knew about that. Not ideal.
“What he means to say,” said Cassandra, shooting a glare at me, “is thank you.”
“Hey, I can’t remember his name,” I shrugged.
“That’s quite alright,” smiled the man, walking closer to us. He payed my form no attention whatsoever. Maybe his visor allowed him to see my true self, or something. “I never actually gave it to you. Typically, I don’t share that kind of information. Given the circumstances, though, I may as well. It’s Ulrich.”
“Well, thank you, Ulrich, for leading us here,” I said. “I honestly never believed in the Shattered Sword until just now.”
“That’s quite alright,” laughed Ulrich. “Many people don’t believe in it. Why, most people by now have forgotten most of the truths about this weapon, along with the other artifacts of old.”