A Dragon at the Gate (The Chained Worlds Chronicles Book 2)

by Daniel Ruth

  Sighing, I stopped trying to piece what had happened together. I had a fair idea. Instead, I quickly rooted through what wreckage was not burnt beyond recognition. I found a few hundred gold coins, now loose since its pouches had been destroyed and the satchel near the boy was mostly in one piece. I simply grabbed it and left. I needed to get back to the others as soon as I could. With a large beast like this roaming the woods, I didn’t want to leave my humans alone.

  For some reason, I was getting increasingly tense as I approached Stella and Beth. I didn’t feel any better when I saw the two of them hurrying towards me.

  “It’s headed this way,” Stella said as she passed me, not even slowing.

  I realized then that the feeling of nervousness had to do with the subtle rhythmic shaking of the earth. Footsteps from a large creature.

  “You have defenses for acid, lightning, and fire,” I asked as we synched steps.

  “Yes, you know what it is?”

  “It’s likely,” I paused awkwardly. “A hydra.”

  “What? I thought dragons were rare,” Stella squawked in indignation. “What is this, their ancestral land?”

  “Hey now, hydras are only technically dragons,” I deflected.

  “Hydras are dragons?” Beth asked, focusing on the technicality.

  “Only technically. You know those old parodies of country folk that interbreed with their sisters and brothers and can barely write their names?”

  “Sure, but that’s not politically correct,” Beth remonstrated.

  “Well, those souls would be considered geniuses next to hydra. Now imagine there were upwards of nine of these, constantly snapping and arguing with one another.”

  “The multiple heads?” Stella offered. “They don’t get along.”

  “Yeah, not much. Like old married folk. Now imagine the Texas Chainsaw Massacre.”

  “You lost me,” Stella said.

  “Me too,” Beth added.

  “That’s alright, I didn’t really get it either when Jeremy added it to horror movie night. Fine. Psychopathic moron that spits different crap from each head.”

  “So there’s no talking to them?” Stella asked. At this moment we re-entered the clearing. Looking around at the devastation Stella continued, “Never mind.”

  “I assume you can’t summon any elementals since the dimensional barriers are locked down. Can you do anything else?”

  “I should be able to counter any one of the breath weapons. I can put up some decent barriers as long as you can keep it from concentrating on us. If you give me enough time, I can do something that might discourage it.”

  “Sure, I’ll be doing my best to discourage it too,” I replied with a grin. “Set up over there, I’ll get ready.” I could hear the footsteps now, not just feel them in the earth. Kneeling down, I took my shoes off and loosened my shirt and pants. I also took out one of my ceramic plates and rather than inscribing my anti-magic ward on it, I attempted to draw the anchor rune on it. The image in my mind wavered and my normally rock steady hand shook. The image that finally formed on the placard was more a parody than a rune.

  I sighed. Using this rune to split off shards from the main anchor rune was almost easy in comparison to attempting to inscribe the rune by itself. Obviously, my understanding of this fundamental concept of reality the rune embodied was in its infancy. Still, we would see if it had any effect. It was too late to do more. The trees bent and cracked before being pushed aside by the creature. This hydra only had three heads, they each swayed in the counterpoint of one another and then paused before roaring as they caught sight of me.

  “Hello, fellow... dragon,” I had to swallow my bile as I spoke the words. “I greet you in passing. I come in peace and am looking to leave in peace.”

  “You talk funny,” the first head growled. Strike one for a peaceful resolution.

  “He smells like a dragon, but doesn’t look like one,” the second head added, leaning forward on its long neck to get a better view. Am I the only freaking dragon that doesn’t have a super nose?

  The heads on this creature were huge, about the size of a small car, with teeth the dimensions of my arm. This only made sense when you considered the main body was the length of a bus and the height of a three-story building. A bit blocky really. It was obviously an adult. The massive size of the creature was typical. It didn’t mean it was ancient, it was simply how these morons were built.

  “Are you making fun of us? Why are you looking like a human?” The third one added its two cents.

  “Um, I’m stuck. Got cursed you know,” I replied. Hydra didn’t shape change or cast spells as far as I knew. Not that I knew that much about them. “So how about it? We shake hands and go in peace?”

  “It’s making fun of us!” The third head roared. Holy crud, talk about sensitive. I had no idea hydra were so thin skinned about not being able to shape change. I mean there’s only a hand full of breeds that can’t and yes, usually they are the low-grade morons but...

  “No! Not at all,” I protested. “It’s just a human saying.”

  “I don’t like how he talks,” the first head said. “Let’s kill him.”

  “I’m hungry,” the second head said. “Those wagons didn’t bring enough meat.” It looked over my head at the elf and human behind us. “We’ll let you live if you give us your human and whatever that pointy-eared thing is. It looks delicious.”

  “Right. That’s not going to happen. They’re mine,” I was getting annoyed. Sure this beast was more physically more powerful than myself but unlike them, I wasn’t a half-assed dragon. “If we fight you’re going to get hurt. Badly.”

  “You can’t even use a dragon shape and you threaten us,” the first head responded with derision.

  “You should know that a dragon is a dragon, no matter what shape it wears,” I warned. It was true, regardless of my shape, I was as strong and mostly durable as my native shape. Only my leverage suffered a bit.

  “He mocks us,” roared the third head again. “Thinks he’s better because he can change his shape!” Okay, that head was really annoying. Mind you he was right, but I never actually said that.

  “Let’s kill them all and eat them,” the second head opinioned. I could see where this was going. “Why is his hand glowing?”

  When he asked this question, I leaped upward, boosting my speed and height with a tiny bit of telekinetic energy. It was really the only way to reach them without them leisurely snapping me out of the air. This was the only surprise attack I was going to get and I needed to make it count. With my fingernail formed into a talon, I jabbed it into the forehead of the third head as hard as I could.

  My blow would have torn a werewolf or vampire in half. Even Conrad might have been crippled. My sparkling finger went in the depth of the talon and even the up to the third finger joint. It didn’t even reach the skull bone of the creature, a negligible flesh wound. However, I had passed the skin and was within the beast’s aura. I released the psychic energy I had gathered and it flooded the dim brain of the monster. The entire neck sagged as the brain shut down, overloaded and temporarily fried. Unfortunately, most of my energy reserved were gone.

  “Brother! You killed brother,” screamed the first head. Its neck writhed around as it aimed itself at my moving form, leaving a stream of fire behind me. I snorted. Fire on a dragon? I could have stood still and barely gotten a blister. Of course, if I stood still they may actually try to bite me. That would actually hurt.

  As for killing that head, that was nonsense. The attack used was the same one I had used to incapacitate Kingston and his gang. It simply overwhelmed the brain and puts it in a coma for a week. Generally, it was less than useful for anyone with the slightest bit of psionic talent. So, not so useful against vampires and usually massive overkill for shifters. Generally useless against dragons, except for these throwback primitives. Of course, now I barely had enough psionic energy to activate my energy blades. Light pooled into my palms and lengthened
into blades as tall as my body.

  Unlike the lost Sebastian, I am not a master of Kung Fu. Or whatever he does. My dodging most likely looked like a spastic rabbit, throwing himself between the wolf’s maw. However, it mostly worked. While it was dragging a limp head around like a ball and chain, I avoided the spewing fire and the second head’s lightning arcs. Just as my swords finally formed, I did get swiped by a massive paw. It lifted me up and threw me back against the stone barrier Stella had raised as her first line of defense.

  “Are you okay?” Stella shouted over the wall.

  “Sure!” I replied as I eased out of the impression my body had left in the magical stone surface. Definitely harder than mundane rock. “Not like I got hit by a claw.” Naturally, as soon as I said that talons the size of my sword fell on me. I parried two but the third sliced into my arm and knocked me back into the recess I had just crawled out of. “Ow! Flipping Neanderthal!”

  So there is actually one big benefit to being in dragon form, aside from leverage. Mass. I was getting knocked all over. Admittedly, my dragon form was still smaller than this beast, but being struck would have been far more tolerable and less prone to be knocked about. Cursing under my breath I stretched my body and grew to my bound maximum of just short of ten feet. I didn’t bother adding claws or teeth. My swords did far more damage than anything I could grow at this stunted size.

  And then the claws came down again. Even at my new height and borrowing heavily on the mass I had trapped in the firmament, I stumbled back against the wall. This time I wasn’t injured but I knew a losing tactic when I saw it. There was no way I could go up against this thing head to head. Hopefully, I had enough energy to cheat.

  Gathering my mental energies, I transmitted my body through space, onto the hydra’s back. Then I swung both swords down as hard as I could at the base of the first head. Screams erupted from that head as my swords bit through the hide several feet deep. Nowhere near decapitating it, but significant. Before I could swing again the lithe neck curled around and their maws arrowed towards me.

  Teleporting again, I appeared underneath it by their rear leg. Again, I swung full force, biting into several feet of armored flesh. I scowled. There was too much mass to cut through, to hamstrung it in any reasonable time frame. At this point, I heard a rumble and explosion. It didn’t sound like the hydra so I assumed Stella was beginning her attack.

  This time both remaining conscious heads screamed. Whatever elemental spell she was casting was pretty painful. I took advantage of this distraction to hack into the same leg wound again. I was past the armored skin so hopefully, it would be slightly more effective. There was another roar of pain and the tail whipped by me, bowling me back several hundred feet, through dozens of trees.

  Scrambling up out of the brambles and broken tree trunks, I staggered back. Aside from my arm, which had stopped bleeding, I was more battered than broken. This was good since the same was true for the hydra.

  Running full tilt back to the beast, I saw it was clawing and breathing on the stone barrier Stella had summoned. I sighed regretfully that the earth elemental wasn’t here. I was pretty sure they were fairly well matched. Now that I had a line of sight I drew back my sword and swung as hard as I could. Just before the swing completed I once more teleported to the neck of the first head.

  The beast sensed my teleport, but my timing was perfect. The sword landed before the head twitched, attempting to throw me off the creature’s back.

  “Derek, get clear!” Stella warned. This was easily done since I was already being tossed through the air. A huge tornado formed on top of the hydra. I was momentarily skeptical, at first, about whether it would actually do anything. After all, it was massive. If dragons had super powers then this hydra’s power would be hugeness. I should have known that magic spells would find a way. It took a few seconds but the creature’s massive body lifted into the air, as its limbs clawed for purchase in the emptiness. I frowned a moment. I think Stella was forgetting something.

  A moment later the creature blinked out of existence. Then it reappeared on top of me. Yeah, that was what she forgot. Dragons teleport. Dimensional teleportation was locked down, due to the demon lord’s barrier circles, but teleporting within dimensions was still in play.

  Having twenty tons of smelly beast land on you is not particularly fun. It doesn’t really hurt, but it was incapacitating. I pushed against the creature and the flesh moved but due to its size, I was still trapped in darkness. After a few seconds of trying to get leverage, I managed to extend my leg straight up and almost was able to have enough room to point my sword up at that smelly arrogant beast. Then the body on top of me started to lift again.

  I was only confused a moment. The roaring of the wind and raging of the hydra informed me that Stella was lifting the creature with the whirlwind again. Naturally, it would teleport again in seconds.

  Using a bit of levitation, I rose with the hydra and scrabbled in my pouch for the distorted rune I had scribed. I was frantically trying to adhere it to the beast when I felt the disturbance of the hydra beginning its teleport. With a growl, I focused and tried to match its energies. With a little luck and a tiny bit of skill, it was possible to tag along with another person or creature’s teleport if you could teleport yourself. It just required a bit of attunement.

  I was lucky. The world blinked and the dragon's belly was still in front of me. I finished using a bit of super glue to adhere the ceramic plate and then with my copious spilled blood, activated it. The moment energy flowed through the crippled rune the dimensions around churned and curled in ways space simply isn’t supposed to. I was introduced to a new, unpleasant sensation. Nausea.

  It was the first time I had felt such a queer sensation. From the whining growls I heard from the hydra, it may have been the first time for it as well. Then the sound of the tornado descended on us once more and we were lifted into the air again. Starting slowly, we began to spin faster and faster. The nausea got worse.

  I am not sure if this was what sea sickness felt like. It sounded like what people complained about and I didn’t like it one bit. Finally, I gathered my senses together enough to realize I was rapidly orbiting the hydra, who was in turn spinning in place. It seemed even sicker than I was. On one of my revolutions, I got close enough to kick off the beast. This got me far enough away to reduce the queasiness and allow me to focus.

  A moment later I was in still air and then falling. I welcomed the impact with the hard earth. It reminded me that I was no longer near an area of space that was twisted beyond sanity. Above me, I heard a reverberating moaning sound and then a gut wrenching choking sound. Looking up I barely activated a weak force field, before a fine mist stomach acid and half-digested meat and bone fell around me.

  Looking at the rapidly spinning, low-grade moron, above me. I grunted in satisfaction and started to trudge back towards Stella’s barrier.

  Chapter 19

  “He tried to kill us,” exclaimed a furious girl. I grunted in agreement, as I flipped through some of the papers I had salvaged from the destroyed caravan. “I don’t understand why he would do that.”

  “Well, it was a blithering idiot, shallow end of the gene pool and all that...” I trailed off as I pulled out a slightly damaged journal. This could be very useful in the future.

  “Dragons, in general, are fairly civilized and reasonable,” Stella replied soothingly to Beth’s upset tirade. “As long as you treat them with respect and don’t attack them.”

  “Gifts help,” I contributed a bit absently. “Especially gems, although gold certainly isn’t to be looked down on.”

  “Thank you for that analysis of how civilized dragons are,” Stella snarked. “Hydra are the outlier of the species. They tend to think with their stomach.”

  “So why did we let him get away?”

  I snorted in amusement as I looked up at the girl. “As much as I appreciate your vote of confidence, what we had was the best outcome.”

&nb
sp; “If I had access to my elementals or Faramond we would have crushed him,” Stella muttered under her breath.

  “Fine. The best outcome possible with our present resources,” I clarified reluctantly. “The hydra was a full adult. Although it was stronger than me, it wasn’t massively stronger than me. However, adult dragons are very durable. I could have hacked away for ten minutes and barely lopped off a head. I, however, am not quite that sturdy. Even if I hadn’t spent as much energy as I did knocking out that one annoying head, my shields would have been exhausted after a dozen hits.”

  “Which is why we are now in the middle of nowhere,” the disgruntled human mumbled.

  “We’re not that far off the road,” Stella replied. This was true. Although we had moved off the road to avoid having the three-headed wonder attack us, it was only a mile away. Unless that breed included some super senses there was no way it could track us. Stella was using a minor dust devil spell to follow us and hide our tracks. “We can keep parallel to the road and most likely avoid it until we get to civilization. As big as it is, a proper militia should be able to drive it off. From the sounds of it, the cities regularly deal with the larger demons.”

  “Used to deal with them,” I clarified. “With the barriers up random demons won’t be popping in.”

  “Just dinosaurs and other mundane creatures,” the elf replied.

  “They came out ahead. No question.”

  Stella half-heartedly poked a stick at the fire in response. She knew I was right.

  “Why are the dinosaurs so weak compared to the demons. Aren’t they larger?” Since it distracted Beth from her fit of nerves I was happy to respond.