The Dragon's Prize

by Sophie Park

  No good.

  The sword wasn’t magical enough!

  Sandra scrambled to get her blade back and help Mira. Mira seemed to think she was doing well and pressed the attack, throwing a flurry of thrusts and slashes at the dragon. It was clear that she was unpracticed with the blade, but her anger helped make up for it. The blows were clumsy but fast, and rage made them powerful. She cut the waist of his shirt to ribbons, but he managed to keep from being gutted by dodging backward.

  “Stay with him!” Sandra yelled as she scooped her sword up and rushed forward to press the attack. “Don’t give him room!”

  Mira didn’t acknowledge the words, but kept pressing. Daro kept backing up, and Mira stuck to him like glue, not letting him bring his big sword into play.

  Sandra ran straight at the two, sword high.

  “Go right!” Sandra yelled.

  Mira went right.

  Daro turned to keep her in front of him, which gave Sandra an open avenue to his side. She struck as hard as she could at his shoulder, trying to cut off some of his defense. Literally. He saw the attack coming out of the corner of his eye and spun desperately to the side, bringing his sword up to block just before he lost his arm.

  Mira stabbed him in the side. Sandra kicked him in the chest. He rolled backward.

  Sandra charged with him, punching him in the abs and chopping at his leg. He dodged to the side, which put him in range of Mira’s sword. She stabbed him again.

  “How do you know each other’s thoughts!?” He looked from one to the other in desperation and tried to get away.

  Sandra pressed, and she could tell he was getting more desperate. He was leaving a trail of human blood in his wake: it streamed freely from a dozen cuts and gashes, both from the current fight and when he was in dragon form. This would be over soon…

  Sandra didn’t see the blow coming.

  He struck her in the chest with a fist, then wrenched downward as she flew away. The force of the punch knocked the air out of her and the twisting motion tore her breastplate off. She struck the coins hard and rolled awkwardly backward into a crouch. That was enough time to see him backhand Mira across the face. She cried out and fell sideways, blood spattering in an arc from her mouth. He followed that up by kicking her in the ribs. He was so strong that Mira flew across the coins and disappeared behind a small pile.

  “No!” Sandra stood and tried to run to her friend, but had to block the sword.

  Block. Dodge. Sandra blinked blood out of her eyes, her own?, and tried to circle around him to get away.

  His blows sent tremors of force through her muscles, and she felt herself buckle a little under each strike. Strong! He was so strong!

  She tried to back off from him, but he followed up a slash with a slap. A slap? He used his left hand to slap her across the face. The shock of it blurred her vision and took her focus away from the battle. How could a slap hurt so much? The next sword blow struck home, cutting a ragged gash across the front of her armor.

  Sandra screamed.

  If she hadn’t been wearing chainmail, it probably would have killed her.

  She fell to her knees and let the sword dangle in her grip, shocked by the blood cascading down the front of her armor onto the ground. So much blood…

  Daro punched her in the side of the head and she went down. Black flowers bloomed in her vision and red pain filled her mind.

  He kicked her like he’d kicked Mira, right in the ribs.

  Crack!

  Something broke. A sharp pain burst in her side and suddenly it was hard to breathe, like someone clamped an iron band around her lungs. That was bad.

  She didn’t have a lot of time to think. The world was spinning! No. She was spinning! She rolled across the coins and down a small hill until coming to a stop at the bottom of it.

  Sandra tried to stand. Her arms would barely support her weight, and she collapsed back to the ground. Her chest felt hot and wet from all the blood spilling out, and she knew that it was only a matter of minutes before she bled out.

  They were close. So close!

  It wasn’t fair.

  She could hear him walking towards her. Slowly. Mockingly. He was whistling!

  “How does it feel?” Daro laughed mockingly.

  “What?” Sandra mumbled around the blood in her mouth. Bastard!

  “To be so close. You really did come close, you know?” Maybe he was walking slowly because of all the damage he’d taken?

  “Bastard.”

  “Ha! It’s been a long time since I last had such a good fight, you know?”

  “…” Sandra concentrated on not bleeding to death, rather than trading words with the maniacal dragon.

  “But! In the end, you’re still going to die!” He stood at the top of the small hill Sandra had rolled down. She could barely see him for all of the spots winking across her vision and the bloodstained hair hanging in front of her eyes.

  “…”

  “Well, now you’re just sucking the fun out of this.” He slid to the bottom of the hill and stood, looking at her. Sandra looked back up at him, meeting his eyes. She refused to die a coward. “Maybe this will help?”

  He kicked her in the jaw, swing his foot in an arc so it skimmed just over her armor and struck her mercilessly.

  She flew backward through the air, aware of nothing but the pain as her teeth snapped together and her jawbone probably broke. He even tore a hole in the skin under her chin with the hard tip of his boot, and she could feel blood rushing out from that.

  Would she bleed to death from that or the chest wound first?

  As her upward arc turned to a downward one, she felt something strange in her newest wound. Tingling… something delicious and sparkling flooded into her mouth through the wound.

  What?

  The Heal potion!

  It hit her harder than he had. Her entire body wracked with pain and she screamed. Light poured out of her open mouth, exploded from the gash in her chest and screamed out from the myriad small cuts she’d received.

  Strength flooded back into her muscles, and the aches and fatigue of battle were burned away in one glorious moment.

  Without even realizing it, she was standing again. Daro was less than a foot from her, hands over his head with the blade ready for a killing blow, and a shocked look on his face.

  “What?” He obviously didn’t know what was happening.

  In the rush of energy from the Heal, Sandra barreled into him. She unleashed a brutal combo of punches into his midsection and slammed her forehead hard on his. The ferocity of the blows made him drop his sword, and Sandra just kept coming. She leapt forward into him, throwing knees into his chest and elbows into his face, and used her momentum to bear him to the ground.

  He tried to bring his hands up to protect his vulnerable head, but she wouldn’t let him. She hammered her knees down on his shoulders and pummeled his face. She had no weapons, but her fists were covered in thick, heavy chainmail which dug cruel cuts in his skin and provided more force with her strikes than brass knuckles would.

  She hit him and hit him until he mustered the strength to twist out from under her and roll away.

  Bad move.

  She grabbed the sword he dropped and smashed it into the bridge of his nose. He cried out and grabbed his face, trying to stanch the flood of blood from the hit. Sandra rose to her feet, reversed the blade in her grip so that the tip pointed down, then stuck downward with all her might.

  “No!” Daro’s whole body arched with spasms as the blade punched through his sternum and out his back into the gold underneath.

  He flopped around, trying to get a grip on the hilt, but Sandra pressed on it until the cross guard was touching his chest. He growled and she let go of the sword, backing up a step. His lower half wasn’t moving, which was promising, but his hands gripped the blade and started the slow process of pulling it back out.

  Right!

  He survived that last time.

  S
andra scrambled across the coins to find her other sword. She could hear him laughing.

  “It’ll take more than that to kill me!” His words were muffled around the blood coming out of his mouth, and his breath hitched as he spoke, probably from cold steel piercing his lung.

  Sandra ignored him. She found her sword and ran back to where he was.

  He almost had the greatsword out. He had pulled it out so far that his elbows were locked trying to hold onto the hilt, and he was sawing it back and forth to completely remove it from his chest.

  If that happened…

  Sandra didn’t let it happen. In the moment as he got the sword free and gave a shout of triumph, Sandra chopped at his neck with the magical sword.

  His shout turned to a gasping choke. The blade cut part of the way through the thick, chorded muscle of his neck. But not all the way. Sandra ignored the gout of blood which covered her and brought the sword up and down again. Again. She chopped at his neck through his screams, then his gurgles, then an outright torrent of blood as his body returned to its original size. She didn’t flinch, just kept chopping at the reptilian neck until the sword went all the way through and hit coins.

  Success!

  She didn’t even look for the head which came free. She dropped the sword and ran to where she’d last seen Mira.

  “Mira!” She tore across the coins, ignoring the way they cut into her bare feet, looking for her friend.

  “Sa… cough!... Sandra?”

  There!

  Sandra charged over a pile of coins and fell to a knee slide to cover the rest of the distance. Mira was lying on her side on the ground, coughing and struggling to breathe.

  “Mira! No!” Sandra gathered Mira into her arms and hugged her close. She could hear a lethal rattle in Mira’s breath… “I won’t let this happen!”

  What could she do?

  The potions!

  Sandra dug in her pocket until she found the potions, then dropped them unceremoniously into a pile on the ground.

  “Drink this.” Sandra grabbed the first potion, uncorked it, and poured it onto Mira’s face. Mira spluttered against the sudden liquid, but obediently opened her mouth and drank.

  “Tastes like… cough!... sunshine.” Mira gave a wan smile.

  “I know hon, I know it’s strange.” Sandra discarded the empty potion, then grabbed the next one. “Just drink.”

  Sandra poured three more potions down Mira’s throat. She could barely see what she was doing through desperate tears and shaking fingers, but she managed to get most of the healing potions in the right place. Mira went from barely tolerating the fluid to drinking them eagerly.

  When the last one was done, Sandra hugged Mira again, holding her close and squeezing her eyes shut. Tears leaked out between her shuttered lids and her heart hammered in her chest.

  Mira had to be okay!

  She had to be…

  Could a potion fix what happened to Mira? The Heal fixed Sandra, but it was much more powerful magic.

  “S… Sandra?”

  “Yes? Oh, Mira, yes? What is it?”

  “… you’re hurting me.” Mira’s voice was steady and strong, though choked a bit by the force of Sandra’s hug.

  “Oh! I’m sorry!” Sandra let go, pushing Mira an arm’s length away so she could examine her friend. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah… yeah, I think I’m alright.” The rattle in her voice was gone and her breathing was deep and even. “Thanks.”

  “No… no problem.” Sandra’s voice was still broken by tears. Tears of happiness now, but still tears. The sobs were coming and they weren’t going to stop for a while. “Oh Gods, I’m glad you’re okay.”

  “Thanks. You too.” Mira was crying too.

  They hugged again, holding each other close to remind them that the other was okay. They sobbed into each other’s shoulders and rocked on the coins, glad to be alive and together.