Parasite Soul

by Jags, Chris

  Anyone should have known not to risk attacking such a formidable creature at close quarters. Grievously wounded as it was, the jaggermund was desperate and dangerous. Merequio, however, had always been reckless; no doubt his anger at his father informed his actions. Or perhaps he just wanted the glory of the kill. Whatever the case, the attack proved catastrophic.

  Roaring, the jaggermund lashed out. Raking claws caught Merequio across the forehead. Skin split as he reeled backward. Tiera yelled his name, as did their father. Blood flowed freely into his eyes as he clutched his face, dazed and blinded. Purest luck allowed him to duck the beast’s next blow; unable to judge his position with accuracy, he dodged out of its line of sight but not away. The world seemed to freeze. Tiera could have counted every flying chunk of snow as the beast whipped about, its powerful bone-tipped tail catching her brother in the side of the head. A sharp and horrible crack seemed to split the sky, freezing the world. Merequio spun off limply with his head dangling at a crazy angle. Tiera stuffed both her mittens into her mouth and screamed.

  Memory, she would reflect in later years, was a funny thing. She could recall with utmost clarity her brother’s expression as he died – his eyes, crimson-filmed and wide with shock, brushing her own one last time but unable to see her. His hair a blood-spattered halo. How he landed with his left leg twisted beneath him; it broke, but that no longer mattered. She remembered all this but she couldn’t even recall how the jaggermund had eventually been slain or whom had killed it. Perhaps her brother’s final blow had been fatal; she’d never asked. She had only the vaguest recollection of the camp being packed up or the journey back to Seveston. At the moment of her brother’s death, the world simply seemed to stop turning.

  Merequio’s funeral had been a blur. Tiera recalled a sea of interchangeable noble faces commiserating with her on her loss, but few of them had been sincere. The nobles were never sincere. They’d simply deemed it politically sound to make an appearance at such an important event. Merequio had always held the nobility in the utmost of contempt. Following the funeral, so did Tiera.

  The jaggermund’s head, she’d been told later by her old maid Grentha, had afterward been paraded around the streets of Vingate on the tip of a spear. When Grentha had grown too old to serve, save in the most basic of tasks, Tiera had been left with no one to talk to. Her father, never an affectionate man, left her to her devices. She became a ghost in the palace, hating everyone and everything.

  Then one day she was no longer a child. On that day, she came to the decision that she was no longer a ghost, either. She went to bed a lost, confused, angry girl. When she emerged from the cocoon of her bedchamber the following morning, it was as a fully-fledged princess.

  I

  One day, Simon promised himself, he would pen a memoir. Sure, he didn’t know how to write, but he’d seen scribes scribbling away with their quills, and he couldn’t imagine it was a difficult art to learn; at least not in comparison with what he currently hoped to accomplish. If worst came to worst, and he was missing a hand or two by the time it came to splotch paper with ink, he could hire some learned fellow to do the job for him and take the credit afterward.

  Ultimately, it didn’t really matter to Simon how his biography came about. All he knew for certain was what the first sentence would say: You can’t possibly imagine how deafening a dragon’s roar is until you’ve had one of the fat bastards howling in your face.

  The fat bastard in question, a colossal gold-armored beast with unthinkably foul breath, was stomping in mad circles trying to maneuver itself behind him. His torch caused it greater alarm than his sword, which was odd for a fire-breather, but a fact Simon took full advantage of as he swept the burning brand back and forth. Dozens of beady black spider eyes glinted in the flickering light. Disquieting as they were, Simon would have stared into them all day to avoid contemplating the terrifying ivory blades lining the monster’s cavernous mouth.

  This may, he admitted to himself as he stumbled back to avoid a slashing talon, have been a bad idea. But the reward! Focus on the reward.

  Simon was having difficulty concentrating the life of wealth and privilege which awaited if he successfully completed his task when every breath he took might be his last. He was hardly the first fool to tackle this dragon, and far from the best armed or most competent. The beast’s great bulk and ferocity was a sobering reminder that he was no knight, just a peasant with more guts than brains.

  Even his sword – which he’d found abandoned in the ditch of the road which snaked past his father’s farm - was second rate, blunt and tarnished. Smothered by weeds, it had lain rusting in muddy water for who knew how long. Simon would surely never even have spotted it had he not been chasing a coin which had escaped the pockets of his threadbare pants and rolled into the same ditch. The coin was lost forever, but the sword stamped the loss clean from his mind.

  A knight would have scoffed at the blade. It was battered and dull, the runes inscribed into the metal nearly indistinguishable. In the eyes of a peasant youth, however, it was a windfall. Simon had spent countless evenings waving the sword at enemy fence posts, trying to get a feel for it. As he’d thrust and hacked in the general vicinity of his imperturbable foes, he’d imagined the exploits of the great warrior it might once have belonged to; the great warrior he might become if he could learn to wield it with similar proficiency.

  Sadly, no one in the village was qualified to teach him. A tiny rural community, Brand was exclusively home to farmers and craftsmen. Even the local blacksmith had never forged anything more martial than a horseshoe. Simon had been left with no choice but to develop his own feel for the weapon.

  “There is probably a flaw in the metal,” Simon’s father Veter had suggested, frowning down at the illused weapon as he turned it over and over in his lap. “Why else would it be discarded so unceremoniously? A knight would retire it with honor, pass it on to his heirs, or at the very least sell it.”

  “It’s not flawed,” Simon had countered defensively. While he lacked the technical knowledge to make this assertion, gut instinct had told him that the sword was still potent. The haft seemed to crackle with power. Wielding it made him feel as though no force in Cannevish could stand before him.

  “Then it’s a murder weapon, incriminating its owner and cast away in flight,” the older man had returned, earning himself a patronizing sigh. Sometimes the man’s cynicism was stifling.

  “Well, it’s mine now.” That he was the blade’s new owner had been of the only importance to Simon at the time. No matter its current condition, how many peasants could lay claim to ownership of a sword which had almost certainly once belonged to a great man? Of course, had he stopped to consider the reality of the sword’s decrepitude rather than allowing himself to get swept away in flights of fantasy, he wouldn’t now be facing a colossal, ferocious beast upon the scales of which this beat-up old artifact would almost certainly break – if he ever even landed a blow.

  Let’s face it, Simon, he told himself as he scrambled under the dragon’s snapping, slavering jaws, you aren’t going home tonight. I suppose you thought you were clever, coming at night and hoping the monster would be asleep. As if no knight had thought of that before you! Looks like you won’t be winning the hand of a princess after all. You, my friend, are going to end up as dragon dung.

  No one knew where this monstrosity had come from, but it had certainly made itself at home in Cannevish. Upon its arrival, it had immediately taken to scarfing back flocks of sheep. Swiftly graduating to herds of cattle, which it seemed to enjoy stampeding, it inevitably began sampling men and found them to its liking. Consequently, several small villages had disappeared in fiery infernos, the dragon picking through the burning rubble for well-cooked morsels. Discovering little resistance, it grew bolder, gorging itself on ever larger communities. Soon, it had become the terror of the entire nation.

  As he reflected upon its murderous capabilities, Simon began to realize the enormity of his mis
calculation. No single human could possibly hope to topple this embarrassingly rotund but terrifyingly titanic juggernaut. When there was room to stand nearly upright in a monster’s gaping maw, no princess in the world was worth the hassle of trying to topple it.

  The bull drake’s temper was fraying. It clearly found Simon, who’d been dashing about the cave like a madman, deeply exasperating. There was little room to maneuver its great bulk; its lashing tail chipped and scored the cave walls. Every time it attempted to unfurl its vast bat-like wings, a rain of stalactites provided it a painful reminder of just how cramped its quarters were.

  For his part, Simon was having difficulty keeping an eye on his surroundings as he desperately attempted to keep the dragon at bay. The den was littered with human remains. Simon had stumbled over half a knight earlier, which had nearly cost him his life. Shortly afterward, he’d slipped on a slick patch which he’d determined, with horror, to be the liquid remnants of a freshly dismembered peasant. The poor fellow had undoubtedly entertained Simon’s own dreams of elevating himself above his station. All in all, the cave was as treacherous, revolting, and depressing, and the stench was incredible.

  Upon losing two crack troops of soldiers to the beast, King Minus had formulated a strategy destined to earn him the distinction of Most Reviled Monarch in Cannevish history. His plan began innocently enough: occupy the dragon by bringing it food. In the interest of restricting the range of its activities, cows, sheep, goats, and jackalopes were shepherded to it in great quantities. Unfortunately, having developed a specialized taste for humankind, the dragon snubbed its nose at this menu, and its one-lizard onslaught continued unabated.

  Desperate now, King Minus ensured that minstrels would sing of his villainy for centuries to come by ordering his troops to round up hundreds of hapless young peasant maidens. At first, no one knew what he intended, some suggesting that he was protecting Cannevish’s future by secreting the young and fertile away. When the girls did not return and dragon attacks abruptly ceased, however, even village idiots were able to put two and two together: the king was no less a monster than the dragon.

  The steady supply of involuntary meals might have satisfied the beast, but the parents of said meals were understandably disenchanted with this policy. As their daughters dwindled in number, the citizens grew restless. Rumblings of a peasant uprising mounted. With bereft families demanding that Minus practice what he preached and donated his own damn daughter - or better yet himself - to the dragon’s larder, even the unscrupulous monarch came to the conclusion that it was time to end the beast’s reign of terror before Cannevish became exclusively a kingdom of men.

  Soldiers, promised glory, set out to end the beast’s reign. A few eviscerated warriors later, volunteers slowed to a trickle. The trickle soon dried up, with fighting men mysteriously finding employment opportunities in neighboring kingdoms. This exodus of muscle left King Minus with little choice but to offer a reward for the beast’s head. Gold alone proved to be little incentive for warriors to march themselves to certain death, so Minus tossed in noble titles and the deeds to generous estates.

  The result was a lot of dead knights.

  Cannevish, weakened by the dragon’s depredations, was fast becoming an easy target for opportunistic invaders. None of the surrounding kingdoms currently wanted it, on account of the dragon, but King Minus found himself in a very unfortunate situation. The beast was a blight on his nation, yet should he lose too many fighting men in his efforts to destroy it, his lands would be severely weakened and easy pickings for outsiders. He refused to ask his neighbors for help, lest the political cost was too high; besides which, several monarchs had already publicly denounced him as the real wyrm in Cannevish. Incredibly, it turned out that sacrificing your kingdom’s young womenfolk to feed a monster wasn’t the best way to invoke sympathy or unsolicited assistance from rival kingdoms.

  Finally, in an effort to spare his fighting forces, King Minus offered the hand of his daughter Tiera, a maiden now in her eighteenth summer, to any citizen who could best the beast. If nothing else, this policy managed to thin the peasant herd. As it turned out, scores of men were willing to hurl themselves into the dragon’s slavering jaws for the faint possibility of rising above their lot. If King Minus’ plans involved subduing the creature by overfeeding it, he was succeeding admirably. It was anyone’s guess how much longer it would be able to support its expanding girth with its increasingly inadequate wings.

  Some would-be suitors attacked it in groups; how they planned to divide the princess up should they succeed was not immediately clear. Others dueled one another for the right to ascend to the cave, as though the order in which they served themselves to the dragon was of any issue. The rudimentary camp at the base of Mount Corrigan swarmed with idiots, each possessed of the single-minded certainty that he was the man destined to inherit the kingdom, while Princess Tiera kept his bed warm. That the princess was as legendarily difficult as she was beautiful, that her ego couldn’t have been flattened by the payload of a ballista, didn’t seem to trouble them. Gold coins and royal tail obscured their vision. All the while, the confused dragon barely had to leave its cave, as an entire kingdom had banded together to keep it fat and content.

  Simon, of course, was no warrior. Nor was he crafty or scholarly, like those who sought to trick or trap the dragon. His competition mocked him relentlessly, but Simon wasn’t intimidated. The way he saw it, his chances were as good as any of the other men. If he was devoured, as was looking increasingly likely, then so be it; he would never have to plow a field or shear a sheep again. If, however, luck was with him, luxury awaited for the rest of his days. Having the kingdom’s most desirable woman at his side was just gravy.

  Pay attention, he reprimanded himself sharply as the dragon, moving quickly for its bulk, swung its hindquarters about and whipped at him with its massive spiked tail. He managed to roll to the side as the huge organic club thundered to the floor, sending bone shrapnel flying. The beast roared again, infuriated by its nimble prey. Simon was sure that his ears would never stop ringing, but he was, at least, grateful for not have been overburdened with armor. He might be no closer to defeating the dragon than any of his predecessors, but he’d lasted longer than many. Down in the base camp, Simon fantasized, they would hear the beast’s continuing howls of frustration and grudgingly recognize that they’d underestimated him.

  Still, he was tiring. Sooner or later that thrashing tail or one of the creature’s great feet would make a stew of him, and he hadn’t seen the slightest opening in the dragon’s defense. Occasionally he threw a longing glance toward the cave mouth, but there was an awful lot of beast in between him and the opening. Could he roll beneath it? He didn’t think so, but he doubted he had it in him to dodge more than a couple more blows, either. It was worth a shot.

  Feigning a dash to the left, he instead sprinted right, tossing the guttering torch at the dragon’s face. Multiple glittering eyes blinked in unison as the great slavering head flinched away. Bones crunching underfoot, Simon took advantage of his opening and rolled under an arching wing, leaping over the spiked battering ram tail. The toe of his left boot got temporarily caught in a ribcage and he had to bounce on one foot, kicking manically, to remove it. Then he was out of the stifling, stinking cavern, breathing cool night air.

  For a moment, he teetered on the edge of a rocky precipice. A path snaked off downhill to his right; he saw the light of bonfires, far below, signifying the base camp. In the distance, crowding the dark shimmer of the kingdom’s largest lake, he could make out the twinkling lights of the capital city of Vingate. Seeing these lights and reaching them were two very different matters.

  Behind him, the dragon screamed in fury. Pounding the cave floor with its talons - for all the world as though it were throwing a temper tantrum - it swiveled its vast bulk toward the cave mouth, arachnid eyes bright with wrath. Spotting its elusive prey, it lunged forward, rivulets of silver drool trailing like streamers from bet
ween its teeth. Skulls, helmets, and skulls in helmets clattered into the shadows as the beast plowed through them, snorting and bellowing like a thousand stampeding oxen.

  Simon’s breath hitched as he realized that he wouldn’t reach the relative safety of the path in time. Time slowed as he stared at onrushing death. He thought of the farm, of his father, and inexplicably of Adelaide, their patchy old cow. He thought about how desperately he didn’t want to die, now that death was a certainty. Although it seemed a likely time to shriek his lungs bloody – terror enveloped him like a shroud woven from searing fire and glacial ice - he only sighed.

  The dragon screeched to a halt, spraying bone, blades and armor in a tidal wave before it. Simon blinked in surprise. The dragon looked astonished, too, and maybe a little fearful. It coughed, belched, and sat down on its haunches, its vast armor-plated underbelly completely obscuring its hind feet. For a stretching moment it stared at Simon, and Simon stared blankly back. Then it hiccupped and collapsed.

  Silence fell. No doubt the hopefuls in the camp below thought Simon was finally dissolving in stomach acid. Simon, however, was pretty sure – almost positive, in fact – that the dragon was dead. There was always a chance that it was playing dead, but what reason would it have for such a charade? He’d been trapped between the beast and a fatal fall; it had won the contest and there had been no need for subterfuge. No, he’d seen plenty of dead animals in his day, and the dragon was no longer breathing.

  Edging away from the cliff, Simon considered his options. Would anyone believe that the great beast, overstuffed and overexerted, angered beyond reason, had succumbed to a heart attack? If they did, would they deny Simon his reward, instead attributing the creature’s death to natural causes?

  Very probably, he decided. It was time, then, to carve himself a legend.

  Approaching the corpse cautiously, just in case, he poked at it carefully with his boot. Glazed eyes gazed blankly at nothing. The beast was truly dead. Kneeling, Simon forced his rusty old blade between two overlapping scales in its neck and leaned on it with all his weight. This accomplished, he couldn’t resist working it around a bit, widening the wound. When at length he retrieved it, burning blood sizzled on the metal and spilled sluggishly from the wound.