by Dante King
Before I really realized it, I was amongst the enemy. I arrived so fast that I ran the first guy through with my spear quite by accident. He looked down at the magical, Chaos Magic infused weapon sticking out from his gut and then up at me.
“Yeah, your day’s not likely to get any better, man,” I said, and lashed out with a kick. The dude shot off the end of my spear and catapulted backward into the man behind, sending both of them tumbling away like they were two leaves caught up in a tornado.
I twisted, the spear moving so fast in my hand that it appeared to bend around my body as I spun it around my waist. It cut through the two men to my right, spilling the guts of one across the dirt, while the second taller bandit merely had his quadricep muscles severed to the bone. Both dropped.
I shot forward in the direction of the nearest bandits, and a couple of swords struck out at me, but I dodged them. I whipped the spear up again, struck out, and hit a dwarf so hard in the face with the butt of my enchanted weapon that his bottom jaw was ripped free of his head. His eyes goggled at me, as his tongue lolled around on his chest like a bloody purple eel, but I was already focused on the sound of the orc behind me swinging at my head with a meat cleaver.
I twisted faster than the eye could follow, but his blade still managed to nick my cheek. It was a shallow cut, but a cut all the same. I took the spear in one hand, freeing up my right hand, and delivered a killer hook to the orc’s face. My gauntleted fist connected with my opponent’s face, and his skull shattered. Teeth, blood, and what looked like brain flew through the air as the orc fell to the bloody battlefield. I reached up to touch the shallow cut his cleaver had made, but the skin was already knitting itself back together.
The rest of the bandits surrounding me fell like toy soldiers. Blood fountained into the air around me, spraying across my face and soaking my front.
I gazed quickly around, trying to pinpoint my friends.
Rupert was sprinting around the place like a psychotic Energizer Bunny, popping up to cut a hamstring here or knife a kidney there, and then dissolving back into the bedlam. Bjorn, bellowing like a bull, was fighting half a dozen men at once. As I watched, his axe swept the head from the shoulders of a bandit that might have been a troll, before he reached out and snapped the neck of another brigand.
I dodged aside as a warhammer swept past my face. My spear punched out, fast as a captive-bolt gun, and skewered two bandits at once. In a burst of inspiration, I hefted the Chaos Spear and flung it at an elf. It pierced his chest and knocked him onto his back. Normally, throwing your only weapon might have been stupid, but I had my handy crystal to retrieve it.
I switched Noctis’ power to my head slot, the spear vanishing from where it had impaled the elf. Then, I used my Blink ability to transport behind a brigand as he charged toward me. Before he realized I was no longer there, I broke his neck, then shifted Noctis back into the Right Arm slot and fired a Shadow Sphere into the face of another bandit, vanishing his head.
It was glorious destruction. Combat turned into an art form. I lost myself for a while in the clash and din of battle, in the ultimate contest that two warriors can have between themselves.
Penelope appeared at some point. Her quiver was empty, her bow sheathed. She took to the air on her Rooster Dragon, Glizbe, and helped Tamsin harry the remaining bandits from the air. Fyzos blasted the fuckers with her force breath, while Glizbe snatched them up in her jaws before breaking their necks with a savage shake.
Time dissolved, simplified. I was fighting now and, presumably, there was going to come a point in the future when I could stop. Until then though…
I lashed out with a roundhouse kick that sent a bandit cartwheeling through the air and into a tree. An overhand punch crumpled the iron breastplate of another of my enemies like tinfoil. I picked up a bandit in each hand and smashed their heads together so that they popped like a couple of grapes before I tossed their bodies away so that they knocked over a couple of their pals.
It didn’t take me long to create a circle of dead bodies around myself, while Bjorn, Rupert, and Gabby—who had joined the open battle and was now wielding his sabers with awesome effect—methodically took down as many bandits as they could.
As I dropped my last opponent—with a doozy of a Spartan kick that sent him rocketing through the wall of one of the huts and out the other wall in a shower of broken wood—I caught sight of the man that must have been heading this army of brigands.
He was your typical, villainous-looking motherfucker—slicked back, receding hair of a faded turquoise color, pointed ears, and pale skin that indicated that he might be an elf of some description. In looks he wasn’t so different to his comrades, although his clothes were perhaps a bit more well-kept. He wore a long dark blue cloak, and his knee-high riding boots were polished and not caked in mud like the others.
He emerged from the central hut and stared out at the battle raging around him. I figured he was trying to get his head around just who his men were fighting and how many of us there were. I doubt he thought for a second that there was only half a dozen of us. The carnage that was being created had even me second guessing that.
At the same time that I spotted him, he caught my eye.
My dragon-heightened senses couldn’t pick out anything amongst this mess of sensory details, but I imagined a slight dilation of the pupil, the elevation in his heart rate and the smell of him change as he realized that he wasn’t just looking at me but at his death also.
I held up a hand and pointed a finger at him. Then, without moving a muscle, I shifted Noctis into Weapon Slot A. The Chaos Spear appeared in my pointing hand.
Then I began to march toward him, slowly picking up speed as I got closer.
Of course, I could have run at him like a freight train from a standing start, but I wanted the fucker to have time to accept just how screwed he was. Normally, I wouldn’t have been showy like this, but I was fucking furious at the fate of the village.
He yelled something, and a line of about twenty bandits suddenly coalesced in front of me. I threw my spear at the man directly in front of me, and he was hurled thirty feet backward. My spear pinned him to the door that the Chief Bandit had just come through. The brigand twitched, stapled to the wood by my spear, until I shifted Noctis into the Leg slot and the spear holding him disappeared.
Noctis appeared in front of me. I jumped into the air, using my enhanced muscles to soar twenty feet upward, just as Noctis took flight. I landed on the Onyx Dragon’s back, and together we flew over the line of gaping men. As soon as we were over the Chief’s central hut, I backflipped off the dragon from a height of about fifty feet and plummeted.
I smashed through the ceiling of the hut like a bunker buster. A shockwave ripped out from where I landed in a superhero crouch. The door of the hut exploded outward with the force of the impact, spinning end over end until it nailed a bandit who was busy keeping his eye on Noctis.
Noctis banked like an F-16 and lined up the row of men that the Chief Bandit had tried to stop me with. My dragon opened his mouth and let loose with a raking burst of flaming monochromatic Chaos Magic. The twenty or so bandits exploded into wisps of nothingness as they were engulfed in the stream of magical fire, their bodies reduced to something less substantial than dust.
I walked out of the Chief’s hut as casually as I might have strolled down Hermosa Beach Pier on a Friday afternoon. A crossbow bolt flickered toward me. I caught it like it was nothing more deadly than a passing butterfly.
The Chief gaped at me.
“Wait,” he croaked, in a voice that sounded like he started each morning by gargling broken bottles. “I can explain!”
“Ooooh, that’s a zero for originality,” I said, walking toward him. Over his shoulder, I saw Gabby run a bandit through the chest with his saber, slice the hand off of another, and then bury his other saber in the skull of a third with a hollow chonk sound.
“No, I speak the truth!” the Chief said.
&nbs
p; “Sure you do, asswipe,” I said pleasantly.
“I can tell you things that will give you pause! Wait!” the Chief held up a hand, as if that alone could stop me. My wrist snapped out, and I flung the crossbow quarrel that I had just caught so hard that it went through the dude’s hand like it wasn’t even there.
“Mercy!” the Chief said, staring at the hole in his hand. “Mercy! Let me kneel before you and beg for my life!”
“Didn’t you know? A worm is the only fucking animal that can’t fall any lower,” I replied.
“Wait!” the wicked Chief cried.
My punch, powered by righteous anger and vengeance, smashed through the Chief’s teeth like they were made of styrofoam. My fist drove right through the back of the bastard’s head and out into the fresh air, spilling brains like confetti.
The Chief keeled over backward into the dust, blood pooling out around his head.
The rest of the bandits were mopped up in short order. With three dragonmancers on their case and their leader lying dead, they quickly lost what little composure they had. A few tried to make a break for it, but Gabby and Penelope picked them off with arrows they’d snatched from among their kills.
By the time that the last of the murdering brigands fell dead at Tamsin’s feet, the shadows were deepening under the trees. I was soaked in blood—some of it mine, but the wounds had since healed—and was feeling tired in the way that only using magic can make you feel.
“And that,” I said, my foot stamping down on the head of a groaning bandit who, to his credit, was reaching for a dropped knife even as he was bleeding out, “is that.”
As if by magic, once the glade had gone from battleground to graveyard, Davo and his three likely lads—Lu, Billi, and Gall—appeared on the edge of the clearing.
The four Leprechauns looked around at the destruction: at the shattered huts, mangled bodies, and fallen tree limbs. I saw four Adam’s apples bob up and down as their eyes fell on me, standing at the front of our little group of Drako Academy representatives.
I felt behind my ear and pulled out a severed finger that had lodged there in all the excitement. I flicked it away.
“Sorry about all the mess, gentlemen,” I said. “You know how it goes though, when someone has to shut down the party. People make a fuss sometimes.”
The Leprechauns said nothing but carried on gazing about. They looked a little dazed.
“Nothing a b-b-bit of a funeral pyre can’t fix,” Rupert said bracingly.
Davo blinked. “One moment.” He went over to the treeline and pulled along a cart on wheels. Inside, was a large hessian sack. He hauled the sack from out of the cart and handed it to me.
“What’s this?” I asked, handing the sack over to Bjorn without looking at it.
“Payment,” Billi said. “Thanks.”
“It’s not enough,” Lu said, “but it’s what we can spare. A token to you and the might of the Crystal Spire, for saving our asses.”
“That’s very generous, gentlemen,” I said, well aware of the look in the four Leprechauns eyes that told me that there was no point in trying to refuse the payment.
“Do you need guiding back to Swan Lake?” the Leprechauns asked us.
I shook my head. “No. If there’s somewhere you lads need to be, then feel free to go. Gabby will be able to show us our way back.”
Davo bowed his head. “Thank you again, Dragonmancer Noctis. We wish to get back to our main settlement and report on what happened here. The ferocity of you and your friends in battle will be known far and wide in these parts. You will have friends in this land, long before you meet them.”
I shook Davo’s hand. “Cheers. That’s good to know. Good luck to you.”
And, with barely a rustle, the Leprechauns dissolved into the woods.
As soon as they were gone, Penelope called to me. She was kneeling by the corpse of the dead Chief and had evidently just gone through his pockets.
“What is it, Pen?” I asked, rubbing at the dried blood in my stubble.
“This,” the Knowledge Sprite said. She held out a piece of thick, folded parchment to me. It had been sealed at some point with a blob of plain white wax. There was no sign of a sigil.
Rhook,
Use your force to spread discontent and despondency through the Windy Belt province. If possible, destroy towns and villages. Put all you find there to the sword. Blood and carnage are the watchwords of the day. Spare no one.
The Crystal Spire may send a dragonmancer to investigate. They will doubtless be an unblooded greenhorn. With your combined might, even they cannot stop you.
Kill any who oppose you, and you will weaken the Empress more than if you were to slay a whole contingent of her soldiers.
We will bring her to her knees one way or another.
With men like you on the outside splitting the Empress’ forces and me weakening them from within, we will soon usher in a new regime.
Good luck,
Dragon’s Bane
I looked up at Penelope.
“What do you make of this?” I asked. From what was said in this letter, it was obvious that these bandits had been expecting a dragonmancer, but they had been poorly prepared and had little to no discipline. They must have been overconfident.
“I have run most of the likely scenarios in my head, with all the available knowledge, Mike,” the Librarian said. “To me, it seems like that note coupled with what these bandits did here points to only one thing.”
I nodded, folded the note, and slid it into a pocket.
“Yeah,” I said. “A goddamn traitor.”
Chapter Eighteen
We crossed paths with Tamsin and Penelope’s squads on the leisurely flight back home. Us three dragonmancers were on dragonback, while my squad followed in the longboat. Of course, soldiers being soldiers, there was a good deal of not-so-subtle ribbing directed at the two squads from my boys.
“Better late than never!” Bjorn bellowed, still clutching tightly to the main mast but putting on a good show of nonchalant manliness despite that.
“W-we missed you at the p-p-p-party, obviously,” Rupert stuttered, “but we made the best of it. A very social affair!”
Bjorn ignored—or, more likely, not even noticing—the frosty eyes cast at him from Tamsin’s squad in their longboat.
“Speaking of parties,” he said, “you lasses might not have been much help in the fight, but did you at least bring some refreshments with you? We should celebrate!”
I let the boys have their moronic fun. After all, despite surviving our first proper mission together and walking out of it with all our limbs intact, we had seen some pretty heavy shit back there.
What a world, I thought as I gazed right out to the far northern horizon.
The chill air was soothing against my brow. My dragon was warm beneath me. From what I could gather, we had maybe an hour of daylight left. As it sunk toward the horizon, it grew a warmer shade of orange, sending long shadows stretching hungrily across the hills and plains below us until they ran up against the hard sides of the mountain range for which we were aiming. It was quite a sight. A sight that would have had Bob Ross rise from the grave to create yet another happy little accident.
What a universe; that you can see something as sickening and as brutal as what we saw at the Leprechaun village one minute, and then the next moment you’re confronted with beauty like that.
On the flight back, we all spent the time cleaning the blood from our armor and weapons. As I had been told on numerous occasions by my instructors, blood rusted equipment.
When we arrived at the Drako Academy, our squads took the longboats back to the hangar. Penelope, Tamsin, and I headed to the middle bailey where, according to Penelope, there were a selection of merchants who would take our loot in exchange for cold hard scales.
“I’ll bring your guys’ share to your place tomorrow or as soon as I can,” I said to my coterie as Gabby pulled on the tiller and swung the longboat towa
rd the hangar. “Try not to rack up too many more debts this evening while you’re out on the town celebrating, Bjorn!” I added.
Bjorn had a face like a boulder that had fallen to earth from space, so it was a hell of a thing to see him somehow paste a look of boyish innocence on it.
“Out on the town? We couldn’t do that, Dragonmancer. It’s a bloody school day tomorrow. Can’t be sufferin’ from the wine flu on a school day.”
“Bullshit,” I said. “I can read you like a damn book.”
“A b-book would you say?” Rupert interjected. “I would have said Bjorn would be more like a leaflet.”
Gabby made a motion in the air, and I laughed.
“Yeah, or a flyer!” I said, pointing at the mute, whose mouth twitched up at the corner—that was practically slapping the knee for Gabby.
“Don’t w-worry, Mike,” Rupert said to me, while Bjorn grumbled and shot him dirty looks, “I’ll make sure that our friend doesn’t run up too much more bad credit. Besides, I d-d-doubt he’d be able to find a single whore left in Drakereach that’d give him freebies.”
Bjorn ran his hands along the shaved sides of his head, where his tribal scars swirled in all their intricate patterns, like a greaser running a comb through his pompadour.
“That sounds like a challenge to me!” he boomed.
The middle bailey was busy with dragonmancers and soldiers finishing up their outdoor training sessions and drills and heading off to their next assignments. Some were chatting and laughing amongst themselves and ambling off in the direction of the refectory for an early dinner. Others were marching swiftly to the nearest armory to get attired for their turn at guard duty—sundown was a typically a time when the guards changed.