Was it? Aric wasn’t sure he was still following the conversation.
“There is plenty that she might want in the desert. Come with me,” he said, then stood up and left. He didn’t even wait for Aric.
They went downstairs. The Samehrian didn’t seem worried about the Paladins, but Aric could not avoid walking on the tips of his toes. They walked along two corridors until they arrived at a huge, barricaded door. Above the door, a small inscription had been scraped away and was unreadable, but the symbol of the Academy was still obvious – a flaming drop of water.
“We call the whole building Bloodhouse, but truly the proper Bloodhouse is down through this door,” the man said. “There are many of these across the Empire, but none is as close to the desert as this one. When magic was forbidden, this Bloodhouse, like all others, was shut down. The city itself suffered a similar fate,” he said longingly. “With the exception of a few spice traders, there is nothing left here to attract people, but once Nish was the heart of the magic trade in the Empire. Where there is Runium, there is magic, and where there is Dragon blood, there is Runium. No other city in the Empire had access to as much Dragon blood as Nish, and it was all transformed in there.” He indicated the door.
“I saw no other Paladins beside the ones who brought me,” Aric said. “Who guards this brewing chamber?”
“There is no need anymore. The brewing chamber was destroyed a couple of months ago. And before you ask, no, it was not an order from the Emperor.”
Aric was confused.
“So… who? How? Why?”
The old man chuckled.
“Exactly.” He crossed his arms, hugging himself. “I woke up in the middle of the night. There was a scream, no… a shriek.” His eyes were distant now. “Something no human mouth should be able to produce. It chilled my every bone. The other Paladins and I ran down here. The door was cracked open, and the two men who should have been guarding it were gone. We found them both inside, their naked bodies nailed to the wall above the blood pool, except that their bodies had been drained of all their blood and the pool had been smashed to pieces.” The old man shivered. “I don’t know for sure what happened, but I know it was magic and not the kind the Academy used to make.”
That was the creepiest thing Aric had ever heard.
“Why are you telling me this?” he asked.
“You must know. All Hunters do,” the old man said, shaking. “She is out there in the desert, and whatever she is doing is unnatural. She must be stopped.” He looked downright terrified.
They heard someone clear his throat and both jumped, turning towards the noise. It was a Paladin – Corca.
After a small sigh of relief, the old man said, “Don’t worry, sir. I was just showing the new recruit our facilities.”
“The boy should rest,” the Paladin said, pretending politeness. “Your fellow Guildsman could arrive tomorrow and if so,” he nodded towards Aric, “it will be a long day for him.”
Aric nodded back and agreed. The old man did not object, so shortly after, Aric was back in his room.
That night, Aric dreamt he was having lunch in the main hall of the Citadel with his mother, his father, and Fadan. The mood was joyful and there was no sign of Tarsus anywhere. Then, a Dragon had appeared in the sky above Augusta, and in the middle of the fire and destruction, Aric got lost from his family and ended up in a desert at the gates of the city. Suddenly alone, lost, and with the scorching sun searing his skin, he walked along the dunes until he found shelter beneath a formation of red rocks. He got scared after seeing a scorpion on the ground, and when he tried to leave he saw another one, and then another, and another, and another. There were scorpions everywhere, sprouting from the rock itself. He searched for a piece of ground free of the deadly animals, but there was none. Then, he heard a sinister laugh, the laugh of a woman. She came from behind one of the boulders, her gray face like that of a cadaver floating above a white tunic that flowed shapelessly as if there was no body underneath it.
“You shouldn’t be here, Hunter!”
He woke up covered in sweat, breathing heavily as if he had just run for hours. He shook his head, trying to remove that image from his mind, her scream still hammering in his ears.
Someone knocked, and Aric opened the door as he wiped the sticky sweat from his face. It was Corca.
The Paladin looked over his shoulder and said, “The Hunter has arrived. We are on our way, and you should leave soon as well.” He looked over his shoulder again. “I’ll follow you and as soon as the sun sets,” he nodded, “your prison is over.”
Aric smiled, feeling a mix of relief and excitement.
The Paladin turned to walk away, but Aric stopped him.
“Won’t your friends notice you’re missing?”
“My friends will be wasting what little they have on prostitutes and wine. By the time they realize I’m gone we’ll be at the gates of Victory.”
“I thought they couldn’t wait to get home?”
Corca laughed.
“Their home is whatever brothel cheap enough for our miserable salary. Don’t forget, it will be tonight, so don’t fall asleep. I might need help.”
The Hunter was probably the strangest person Aric had ever seen. His clothes were a tapestry of metal and leather plates from which claws and fangs of all sorts of predators hung, along with feathers from exotic birds and other objects. His thighs were covered with overlaying steel plates. His hair had been shaven on the right side above his ear, but grew down to his shoulder on the rest of his head, braided through with metal rings and colored ribbons. Beside these decorations, the man carried as many weapons as an entire Legion. Aric counted five daggers, one katana, four throwing knives, and a hatchet. He was even wearing brass knuckles on his right hand, and apparently he had cut himself with every single one of those blades. His face alone had three scars, each longer than the other. One of them crossed his left eye which, inexplicably, was intact.
The Hunter must have noticed Aric staring at that scar. “We still had Mages back then,” he said. “A damned Physician would not have saved this eye.”
Aric asked his name.
“Saruk,” he replied. “Volunteer. Back in my day, most of us were. You could make a lot of money hunting Dragons.” His voice was rough and deep as if it came from a dark, endless well. “Now that Runium is forbidden… let’s just say the Emperor should be more grateful that his skies haven’t seen a Dragon for centuries.”
Aric wondered how many Dragons this man had killed, but he was saved the question. Saruk wore the Hunters mark on his right arm. Under the fire branded V were ten triangles packed in a rectangle.
“Ten!” Aric blurted. “That’s a lot of Dragons….”
Saruk looked at his tattoo as if it was nothing.
“It’s only hard the first couple of times. Most Hunters die from lack of experience. After your fifth, you learn to deal with the panic. That helps.”
“How many survive until their fifth?” Aric asked. Maybe the stories about Dragon Hunters were a little exaggerated.
“Most never get to their third.”
“Oh….”
Once again, Aric felt grateful he was escaping later that night but this time, it was different. In the middle of his relief, there was some guilt. After all, right beside him was a man who had volunteered to hunt Dragons. Hundreds of cities across the Empire could sleep peacefully at night thanks to men and women like him. Aric himself had never even seen a Dragon, and he could thank them for that.
He shook his head. There was no point in wasting time with those thoughts. Besides, Saruk himself had admitted that he had joined for the money, not some noble cause. But if that was the case, why hadn’t he left the Guild after the Purge?
When the sun finally neared the horizon and the sky became smeared in red, that very question was still hammering his mind. Was it pure altruism, and if it was, what did that say of himself if he ran from that duty?
Saruk stopp
ed his horse and told him they would be sleeping by the roadside tonight. They were already in the desert, but there was still some vegetation here and there. Cacti and other kinds of bushes were spread around them like spilled beans across a kitchen floor.
It shouldn’t be long now. Aric caught himself scanning the landscape, hoping to find Corca hiding behind a rock. He scolded himself for that. Saruk could have noticed. It would have made him suspicious.
Aric decided to help the Hunter light the fire, and when the flames began to crackle he couldn’t handle his curiosity anymore.
“Why haven’t you left? If hunting Dragons isn’t lucrative any more than why stay? You’re a volunteer, you can leave.”
Saruk smiled with half his mouth. “What for?” he asked.
That was certainly not the answer Aric was looking for.
“What do you mean what for? In the desert, everything conspires to kill you. Even Eliran.”
“Eliran?” Saruk chuckled. “Eliran is a foolish story told by fools to frighten other fools. As for the desert….” He looked around, as if to an old friend. “It’s not more dangerous than the Western Sea or the Shamissai Mountains.” He tilted his head towards Aric. “Or the Citadel, wouldn’t you say?”
Aric was still not happy. “But you have to risk your life hunting Dragons. Ten or twenty Dragons worth of experience matter for nothing if one them spits a fireball on you.”
“That’s true,” the Hunter conceded as he finished skewering three sand sparrows. “But after you kill a Dragon… what else is there?” He paused. “After you go through the anxiety of entering a cavern, not knowing if the monster sleeps or is waiting for you, after you feel the panic of facing a creature the size of a fortress….” He stopped, looking like he was at a loss for words. “Can you imagine its tail, capable of splitting a boulder, crashing down on you? Can you imagine its claws, bigger than a man, burying themselves onto the rocky ground where you had stood moments before, its paws shaking the ground with every movement?” There was awe in his voice. “Nothing can prepare you for the moment you face your first Dragon, but nothing compares to the frenzy of watching it fall at your feet.” Saruk took a deep breath as if he was feeling it right then. “After that, what else is there in the world for you? It’s weird, I know but a man needs a horizon, something bigger than himself to look forward to, to follow or,” he shrugged, “to hunt.” Saruk turned his sparrow skewer and the fire crackled. “Besides….” He smiled. “If I left, my wife would shove a lance through my chest. She’s a Lancer,” he explained.
He had a wife? Aric didn’t even know Hunters married. On the other hand, why shouldn’t they?
They ate in silence for a bit, lit only by the fire now that night had fallen. Aric gave up thinking about what Saruk had said. After all, he would soon be on his way north again. It didn’t make any sense to worry about it now.
At that moment, he saw a shadow a few feet from Saruk. His eyes bulged, and he looked away immediately, fearing Saruk would notice something. To his satisfaction, the Hunter was still thoroughly focused on the bones of a sparrow he was chewing on.
This was it. He was finally going to escape. He had no idea how he would manage to contact his mother, but he would make sure Corca was well rewarded. It would be more than fair.
He casually glanced behind Saruk, who was still busy with his roasted bird. Corca’s shadow advanced carefully, without making a sound. Aric realized he was holding a knife, obviously aimed at Saruk’s throat.
What is he doing?!
Aric wanted to escape, sure, but not at the expense of the Hunter’s life. He tried making a gesture, but it came out too timid for fear of alerting Saruk. Corca was already on top of him, and Aric decided that he had no choice. He jumped and, to his surprise, Saruk did the same. With his back to Corca, the Hunter grabbed the arm holding the knife as if he had always known where it was. He disarmed the Paladin with a swift, invisible movement that ended with Corca laying on his back.
Aric took a step back. He could run. Saruk did not look to be in danger any more, but now Corca was.
Once again he was wrong. The Paladin rolled to his right, just in time to miss Saruk’s boot aimed for his face. It gave him enough time to stand back up. Without his knife, now in the hands of the Hunter, he unsheathed his sword and entered a guard stance.
Aric gave another step back, feeling that this was his chance. He could easily escape now, but his feet refused to move. “Easy!” he said. “There’s no need for this. Me and the Paladin can go and no one has to get hurt.”
Saruk chuckled. “You’re a Conscript of the Guild, boy. You’re not going anywhere.”
“The kid is right,” Corca said. “What do you care if he goes to your fortress or not? Are you going to die for a spoiled, useless recruit?”
“He’s one of my brothers, now. I’ll do what is best for him, whether he wants it or not.” He turned to Aric, but his knife stayed at the ready. “You don’t want to spend the rest of your life as a fugitive. Sooner or later you’ll find yourself in the gallows and‒”
Corca tried to catch him off guard with a thrust to his head, and the phrase was left unfinished. Using the knife he had taken from the Paladin, Saruk parried the blow at the same time as he unsheathed a second dagger from his belt, striking at his opponent’s belly, all in one single, fluid movement. Corca managed to jump backward, evading the Hunter’s blade by the thickness of a hair.
“I could use your help now, kid!” the Paladin said.
“Huh?” Aric wasn’t going to attack the Hunter. It wasn’t right.
“Listen, kid,” Saruk said as he charged with his blades drawing long arches. “I know who you are, and where you’re from.” His knives seemed to be everywhere. “In the Guild, we’re all equal. All brothers. The Guild can be the home and the family you never had. Don’t waste that.”
As he finished the sentence he struck a downwards blow so powerful it disarmed Corca and threw him to the ground, completely helpless.
Saruk raised one of his knives and Aric saw Corca lift a hand as if it could somehow stop the fatal blow.
“No!” Aric screamed. “I’ll go with you,” he promised.
Saruk froze. He looked at Aric and nodded, satisfied. Corca wasn’t as merciful. He grabbed a fistful of sand and threw it at the Hunter’s face. Blinded, Saruk staggered back, waving his blades randomly to his own protection.
The Paladin was quick. He recovered his sword, jumped back up and attacked the left flank of the hunter. Blood burst out from Saruk’s arm, and the knife it was holding fell to the ground. Still unable to see anything, the Hunter spun, trying to parry the next blow with his other dagger. Corca did the opposite movement, placing himself on the other flank, but when he raised his sword a burning log crashed into his face.
The Paladin released a grotesque scream and instinctively stepped back.
With the flaming log still in his hand, Aric yelled, “Run! Get out of here! Quick, before I change my mind.”
Corca did not need to be persuaded. He dashed away in a random direction, covering the burned flesh with his hands.
Aric dropped the log and turned to Saruk. The Hunter was still cleaning the sand from his face, but could already see through a slit in his watery eyes.
“Dragon Hunter…” Aric said in disbelief. “I’m going to regret this.”
Saruk smiled. “You have no idea…”
Chapter 6
The Dragon Hunters of Lamash
It took them three days to reach the mountain fortress. Three days under that merciless, scorching sun, the heat swirling up from the sand in waves. The “never ending desert”, they called it. It was a great sea of dunes under an ever clear sky, gold and blue for as far as far could be.
Night had fallen when they finally reached the home of the Dragon Hunters Guild turning the desert into a silver ocean beneath the moonlight. Lamash could be seen from miles away in any direction; four mountain peaks as tall as Demigods standing watch over
the desert. Lights shone from the countless windows, balconies, and turrets draping the mountain. One of the peaks, wider and taller, stood proudly at the center, connected by long stone bridges to the other three.
A path wound up the mountain, leading to the main gate, and the sprawling dunes became smaller and smaller as they climbed.
The drawbridge opened, crashing against the rocky ground. There was no moat to cross, just a seven-hundred-foot drop into the cliffs at the base of Lamash. Aric had to force himself not to look down.
Their horses were taken by one of the sentinels, and Aric followed Saruk into the fortress. The entrance hallway was a series of archways. They marched between the slanted columns supporting the ceiling and their steps echoed a thousand fold. It felt like being inside a Dragon’s ribcage. The entire area had been carved from the cinnamon colored mountain rock, but the walls had been polished to a gleam. Everything was so sharp and angular Aric was sure he would cut himself if he leaned against a corner. Even the doorways stuck out like knives.
At the end of the hallway stood a glorious staircase that led them to the upper levels. They climbed it and went through a wide corridor until they arrived at a large, black door. Saruk knocked, and shortly after they heard someone granting permission to enter.
It was only a study but was as large as a dining hall. The walls were lined with shelves bursting with rolled parchments and books. Some of them were open on top of a large mahogany desk at one end of the room, but Aric’s attention was drawn to something else. A massive, rectangular table bearing the largest piece of parchment he had ever seen.
It was a map, detailing every pass, hill, or rocky crag in the Mahar. Small wooden sculptures patrolled it, each one like a toy soldier holding a flag with a number.
“Grand-Master,” Saruk greeted. “The new recruit I picked up in Nish. Aric, this is the Guild’s leader – Grand-Master Sylene.”
At first, Aric did not see who Saruk was talking about. The Grand-Master was in a corner, reading from a book. She turned, and her black braids danced around her shoulders.
The Dragon Hunter and the Mage Page 10