The Disintegration of Dragons, Part 1: A Death in Vastervik

by Mark Bousquet

  “Let’s not tell the dwarves,” Mogon said, taking the glass and downing it in one gulp. “You know how touchy they are.”

  “Yes, my lord,” Ergrid replied with a smile that quickly vanished after catching the eye of a fellow servant. “Your bath is ready for you, sir,” she said, motioning to the large tub behind him.

  “Is it now?” he asked. “And which of you seven shall assist me?”

  “All of us,” Ergrid said quickly, involuntarily licking her lips.

  “Seven women just for one man?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. “Has Vastervik become a land of magic in my absence?”

  “No, my lord. Queen Allaria wanted to make certain you-”

  “Then who was responsible for the Amethyst Dragon high in the sky as we approached?” Mogon asked, cutting her off as the other six servants began to rub a coarse salve over his body. “The use of magic is strictly outlawed everywhere on the Third Continent except by the elves in the Quill. Has the forest grown this far west?”

  “No, sir,” Ergrid answered. “Queen Allaria allows the Elves of the Forest to use magic within the city walls.”

  “Why would she do this?”

  “Because of her elven lover,” Ergrid said quickly, before a look of horror washed across her face. “I am sorry, sir, what I meant to say-”

  Mogon waved the redhead’s concern aside. “This gossip shall remain between us,” he said with a wink. “But now,” he addressed the other six women, “I shall have to ask you to leave.”

  “But, sir,” Ergrid protested coyly as she stepped in to rub the orange soap into Mogon’s upper right thigh, “who will help you remove this soap from your body?”

  Glancing to the curtain and expecting it to move again, Mogon was surprised when they remained still. When he glanced back down to Ergrid’s hand, he saw why this was:

  Ishora the Elf had a sword resting on the redhead’s wrist, it’s tip resting dangerously close to Mogon’s manhood.

  “Everybody out,” the elf ordered with a mischievous smile. “Perhaps the queen thinks the task of washing the Great Hero of the Golem War,” she rolled her eyes playfully at Ergrid, “requires seven human girls, but I can assure you, it requires only one elf woman.”

  “WHY SO GLUM?” Looj the Dwarf razzed Norril the Dragon Legionnaire as he handed him a stein of ale. The two men were in a crowded bar outside of the double moats, but Norril had commandeered a booth in the corner, desiring to be alone. “Is Olig failing in his duties beneath the table?”

  Norril took the ale and took a long pull, his eyes never leaving the dwarf as Mogon’s dwarven Rider of Judgment clambered up onto the bench opposite the black man. Norril hooked his thumb toward the back room, and the dwarf peered around the edge of the table where he could see Olig and a Mountain Elf engaged in wicked flirtation.

  “Don’t play coy with me, boy,” Looj said. “You might be human but you were raised in Keskeinen and all your tells are dwarf tells,” the rough weapons maker said, pointing a finger.

  “Yeah,” Norril replied, “and if it wasn’t for the dearly departed king of Vastervik, I’d still be a slave in your mines with all the other human kids you kidnapped.”

  Looj took a large gulp of ale and didn’t bother to wipe the overspill from his heavily bearded cheeks. “Kidnapping is a funny way of saying, ‘rescued you from the wizards.’ What they did to you,” Looj said harshly, “was slavery. We gave you two square meals and safety.”

  “You made us mine for metals,” Norril accused, low and angry.

  “Everyone’s gotta work.”

  “I was seven.”

  “Humans,” Looj scoffed, looking around at a bar full of humans, elves, dwarves, and a random goblin or ten hanging from a light fixture, wrestling across the floor, sitting on the bar, or dry humping the side of someone’s head. “That’s your problem, you know. Humans always worried about what people think. Always trying to complicate things. Look at me - I’m a dwarf. I make weapons when I’m not busy riding around the continent with you and Mogon killing wizzies. If you were me, you’d be busy trying to learn poetry or something.”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  “You’re a soldier,” Looj snapped. “Take your orders and do your job.”

  Norril opened his palms in confusion. “This is about my job, now? I thought it was about Olig?”

  “That’s another thing you humans get all worked up about,” Looj said, shaking his head. “Dwarves don’t care where anyone buries their pecker.”

  “Elves do.”

  “Only the Forest Elves,” Looj reminded him. “The Lake Elves and Mountain Elves don’t.”

  “That Lake Elf cares,” Norril smiled, pointing to a goblin who’d wrapped himself to the head of a blue-skinned elf and was busy trying to poke his brain through his ear. The elf grabbed one of the goblin’s large ears and pulled it towards the floor until the goblin finally gave up his attempt at rutting.

  Looj laughed and finished his stein. “What I’m saying, boy-”

  “I really hate when you call me, boy.”

  “What I’m saying, Norril,” Looj corrected himself, “is that it’s time you embrace who you are. You’re a soldier under Mogon’s command. Mogon wants you to hunt wizards, put ‘em on a phony trial, and then drive an axe through their skull? Then do it and don't worry about it. You want to grunt and thrust with Olig? Then do it - do him,” Looj smiled, “and don’t worry about it. Stop moping. Stop being so sullen. If things are that bad … quit the Dragons.”

  The words hit Norril hard enough that the tall, rough man visibly flinched. “That’s not possible,” he said weakly.

  The dwarf could see the pain the human was in and stood up on the bench to reach a hand across the table. “What is it, Norril? Mogon doesn’t own you.”

  Norril looked at the dwarf and yanked his arm away. “You don’t know anything about Mogon. He’s not … forget it.” His eyes nervously searched the room. Looj had never seen this big, tough kid looked so scared, not even on the day he’d found him in an underground cavern in Theluji, chained to the earth to tempt the lions into the clutches of the wizards.

  “What is it?” Looj pressed in a whisper. “Is this about what happened deep inside the Spine when you ended the Golem War?”

  Norril’s hands flashed out to shove the dwarf backwards to the bench, and he rose from the table. “Do not ever ask me about those three days in the Spine. Ever.”

  Looj held up his hands in apology. The old dwarf wanted to call to the younger human to come back and talk, but Norril was already at the bar, his hands slamming a bounty of gold and silver coins in front of an old woman in a dusty brown robe who looked out of place in the bustling bar. “That enough?” he asked.

  “It depends what you want,” the woman answered.

  “I want to forget who I am,” Norril said.

  The woman nodded and handed him three glass vials of yellow powder. “Do not take them until-”

  “Don’t tell me what to do, woman,” Norril said, taking the stopper off the first vial. “I’m a Dragon,” he insisted, and snorted half of the powder into his nose.

  “WHAT DO YOU mean, he asked you to leave?” Allaria demanded of Ergrid as the serving girl stood before the Queen of Vastervik with a bowed head. The two women were of nearly the same age, but where circumstance had made one queen, it had made the other almost beneath the world’s notice.

  “We were doing everything you ordered, Ma’am,” Ergrid replied defensively, wishing this long, open hallway had a place for her to disappear behind, “but the elf-”

  “Elf?”

  “The elven representative among his Riders of Judgment,” Ergrid explained quickly. The redhead showed the raven-haired queen a small cut on the top of her wrist. “She- Ishora did this to me when I reached for Mogon’s …” Her voice faded and her face turned red.

  Allaria threw her hands up in disgust and moved to the edge of the hallway to look out the tall, slender window. Before her
, final preparations were being made for tonight’s ceremony and she could feel the electric buzz coursing through her kingdom. Across the double moats, laughter and song could be heard, and these sights and sounds calmed the young ruler’s anger.

  The Third Continent was ready for a party, and Allaria was ready to give it to them.

  “I suppose I cannot blame him for loving the taste of elf,” Allaria said, turning back to Ergrid with a small, wicked smile upon her face, “and what I desire is for him to be happy for the celebrations tonight. If he’d rather spend time with the elf than you …” The queen shrugged.

  “Yes, Ma’am,” Ergrid bowed. “Shall there be anything else, Ma’am?”

  Allaria walked across the stone floor to run her hands through Ergrid’s red hair, then across her round cheeks, down her neck, and touched every part of the other woman’s body through her light blue tunic.

  Though uncomfortable by her queen’s probing hands, Ergrid did nothing to move away.

  “I thought perhaps I had made a mistake in sending you,” Allaria said, running her right hand around Ergrid’s waist, “but if I did, it is not because of your shape. I had thought he’d prefer someone more virginal. Tell me, girl, how did you come to work in the castle? You look far too well bred to be born into this life.”

  Ergrid looked away in shame. “My father, Ma’am, was a Dragon,” she said proudly.

  Allaria pulled her hand away and a look of shock came to her face. “By the gods, girl! Why are you working as a servant if you are the daughter of a Dragon? The continent has provided all families of the 19th with enough coin to live comfortably in honor of their sacrifice!”

  Ergrid turned back to the queen with a fierce, defiant look in her eyes. “My father never took a handout, Ma’am, and neither will I.”

  The queen’s mind raced. She could not be found to have a Dragon’s child in her employ, but there was a passion in the girl that could be harnessed. “Tell me,” she said in a low voice, “what it is you most want in this world?”

  “I want the truth about what happened in the Spine,” she seethed in a ragged whisper. “I want to know why the Dragons refuse to tell us what they did to win the Golem War. I want to know why they returned and my father did not. I was going to ask that of Mogon but when I came face to face with him … I panicked like a foolish school girl. It shall not happen again, even if I have to carve the answer from his intestines!”

  Allaria felt as if the gods had just put a new weapon into her hands. “There, there,” she said, wrapping a hand around Ergrid’s waist as she slid in next to her. “Do not be too hard on yourself. Mogon is the most famous, most celebrated man in all of the Third Continent, and you are just a child. No,” she said, placing a finger to the servant’s lips to halt the coming protestation. “You and I,” she whispered, walking Ergrid to the window to look out on the gathered visitors, “are going to become the very best of friends. Now,” she said, slipping behind the redhead and gathering her hair up in her hands, “let us talk about the new terms of your employment. I cannot have a Dragon child working for me as a servant, but that does not mean,” she whispered, leaning in to let her lips brush against Ergrid’s ear, “you will not earn your keep, and together we will discover the truth of what the Dragons did down in the bottom of the world. How does that sound, girl?”

  “Delightful,” Ergrid enthused.

  “And what will you do to get that information?”

  “Anything.”

  “Good,” Allaria replied, letting her hands run down to Ergrid’s waist. “Tonight, during the ceremony, I want you to watch from the highest tower as you give your body to Albero. After a few sessions with him, you will never blush in the presence of a man again. And in no short time,” she said, kissing Ergrid’s neck, “Mogon will bend to our will and we will have our answers.”

  “Yes, my queen,” Ergrid said, putting her fate in Allaria’s wandering hands.

  “YOU MAY BE the Great Hero of the Golem War,” Ishora grumbled to the sleeping body of Mogon, “but you snore like the devil himself.”

  The silvery elf slid out of bed and toward the table containing Mogon’s black and gold armor. She wanted Allaria’s harem of servants gone but she had no intention of cleaning her lover’s clothes. “I suppose I shall have to get them back,” she mumbled, running her hands over the black metal, a wartime gift from the dwarves of Keskeinen after the Dragons had taken an oath to head into the Spine and fight the wizards in their stronghold.

  Ishora picked up Mogon’s helmet and let her hands run over the dents and through the scraped paint. Like everyone on the Third Continent, Ishora desired to know the details of that final battle, but no matter the skill of her tongue, she could not get Mogon to divulge that information. Sometime during the past year, she had given up on that mission and turned her back on her people to rut in secret with a human.

  Mogon appreciated what she had done, but she still had to kill three of his ex-lovers to prevent them from sniffing around.

  Not that he knew that.

  Heroes frowned on that sort of thing.

  Trading the helmet for a glove, Ishora slipped her hand inside, letting her fingers fill the space that Mogon traditionally occupied. At the bottom of the Third Continent, the Spine of Mountains ran in a straight line from horizon to horizon. Unlike the majestic Keskeinen near the heart of the land, the Spine was a terrifying, snow-covered, rocky barrier that split the ocean. The wizards had set up their encampment there in secret over a hundred years ago, but it was only the last two decades the people of the Third had an inkling something was amiss beneath the grey rock and white ice.

  Only the Mountain Elves dared live in that region. The dwarves had fled the innards of those rocks a thousand years before, claiming there was nothing of value there.

  King Q’andrasij of the Mountain Elves had been the first ruler to fall, as giant golems of mountain rock descended upon his home and turned his teenage son, Q’andrasik, into a boy king. Q’andrasik was a man now and had let her know that if she ever desired a throne, the seat next to his belonged to her.

  A tempting offer, but the Forest Elf’s desire for Q’andrasik did not extend to his throne.

  She removed Mogon’s glove and set it back on the table. Looking over her shoulder at the snoring human, she knew this was her place. Some in the Quill Forest would mock her, of course, but there was no one alive she trusted more than Mogon. Her thin fingers danced across his chest plate, then turned it upside down. She had seen Mogon scratching at his plate multiple times in the past four weeks and sought out the cause of the discomfort. Now was the time for repairs.

  Looking inside the armor, she ran her hands over the padded leather, searching for damage.

  Ishora found something, but the discomfort it would bring was for her and not her lover:

  She found a letter from Queen Allaria, asking for Mogon’s hand in marriage.

  Ishora turned to look at her sleeping lover but she could not see past the rage in her heart.

  “BORING!”

  “Shut up, you stupid goblin,” Yuba ordered, hushing Chig Chig the goblin. The farmer from Ryst hated everything about this damn celebration, which most assuredly included being stuck sitting at a table way off to the right of the stage with a goblin. Ishora and Looj were sitting with their own kind, but Yuba didn’t qualify for a seat at the table of Ryst’s Queen Solandi.

  Yuba and Chig Chig were the human and goblin representatives on Mogon’s Riders of Judgment. The middle aged man was proud to have joined up a year ago when Mogon came to town asking for a volunteer to ride with them, but the early excitement had long since worn off. Other than Ishora, Mogon and his Dragon Legionnaires had little to do with them, so every day was a variation of the same theme: ride, ride, ride, ride, ride, ride, ride. Looj wasn’t so bad for a dwarf but Ishora was an elitist tramp and Chig Chig was …

  Well, Chig Chig was a goblin, which meant he spent his time being disgusting. When he did talk, it was i
n words of one or two syllables. That little bastard still loved doing Mogon’s bidding, but Yuba was ready to go home. Every village they stopped in as they hunted witches saw Yuba pitching as many people as possible with the idea of replacing him. A year ago, he fought people off, but over the past six months, no one wanted to take his place. While people were happy when the Dragons came to town, they weren’t inclined to want to leave with them. Yuba knew for a fact that most people did not cut the witches into a thousand pieces and scatter their bits all over the Third Continent.

  Mogon be damned.

  “Hot!” Chig Chig said, hopping up onto the top of the table.

  “Get down!” Yuba grumbled, grabbing hold of the creature’s black tunic and pulling him back into his seat.

  The two Riders watched Queen Allaria welcome everyone and talk about unity and blah blah blah.

  Yuba was interested only in how much wine he could toss down his gullet, and pondering the hotness of the young queen.

  MOGON STEPPED UP onto the stage that had been constructed on the grass between the inner moat and the castle, darkness having fallen. Two rows of tables had been added on the shores of both moats, and the waters that filled them were covered with floating lanterns. Behind him, the gray center of the Third Continent stood proud and resolute. King Denner had been a good man and a better king. The leader of the Dragon Legion had only met Allaria on two occasions - at the funerals for both of her parents. There were all manner of rumors surrounding the young queen out on the Continent, and while Mogon was not worried about the content of the whispers, it concerned him there were so many conflicting reports. It did not matter what kind of ruler there was in times of peace, the soldier believed, so long as the people knew what kind of ruler they had.

  From the moment Queen Allaria had taken the stage in her resplendent purple gowns that seemed to sway with a wind blowing just for her, all of Mogon’s fears were washed away. Allaria may have been only nineteen, but she was a woman who men would follow into the fires that burned at the center of the world.

  “And now,” Allaria announced to the gathered crowd, “the man who won the Golem War, Mogon, leader of the Dragon Legion!”