Heresy of Dragons

by Erik Reid

  I knew without a sniff test. I was ripe.

  Gretna rubbed her hands over her tan skin with her eye-catching golden undertones while I disrobed. I was knee-deep in the water before I had second thoughts. I needed a bath, yes, but what about Oscar?

  The glove’s black fabric extended down to the middle of my forearm. I tried to dig a finger beneath it, but it was like trying to dig beneath my own skin. The glove was a part of me now, unsettling as that might be. I mean, wouldn’t my fingernails keep growing?

  “Oscar,” I whispered. “Can you trim my fingernails?”

  No answer.

  “What about water? Is that like, kosher? What’s your sitch?”

  Onicite Skin Cohesion-AR Diagnostic Summary:

  Water-proof: Y

  Fire-proof: Y

  Puncture-proof: Y

  Radiation-proof: Y

  Surge-proof: Y

  “And if I politely ask you to disengage?” I asked. “Quit. Terminate. Power down. Control+Alt+Delete.”

  Visual silence. Oscar would not be dismissed so easily.

  Satisfied that I wouldn’t doom the fate of Silura by splashing around with the captain of the queen’s guard, I waded further into the water and caught up with Gretna.

  “Here,” she said, turning her back toward me. I reached my arms out wide and rubbed fresh lake water into her skin. I could see the areas of her shoulders she had already reached. Those practically glowed under the rising sun. Yet her back had a thin layer of soot from the dense smoke that permeated the city. It had even found its way beneath her solid armor.

  The harder I rubbed, the faster that soot vanished. The effect, however, was to force her large breasts to bounce along the surface of the water.

  “You’re sure this is okay?” I asked.

  “Of course,” she said. “I’ll do you next. Can’t risk getting skin rot.”

  “No,” I said. “Clearly that would be bad. I just mean, you practically ordered me to take off all my clothes. It was unexpected.”

  “It’s the most efficient way to bathe,” she said. “Every second we waste is another opportunity for bloodhounds to puncture the queen’s precious egg. There’s no reason to travel with wet armor that will just slow us down.”

  “You’re the boss,” I said. My thumbs dug into her firm, muscular flesh. Her contours were soft, a thin layer of fat smoothing over the bands of muscle beneath. Her tail darted around in the water lazily, catching me between the legs a few times and trailing upward before flicking away again.

  “Now that is good,” she said. “I came for a bath and got a massage. I especially like that gloved hand. Goes deep into the tissue.”

  Gretna leaned back then, arching her back slightly and turning her neck to the side so that Oscar had better access to the spots she liked best. Her breasts rose up from the water as she moved, not that it bothered her any.

  “You do look vaguely German,” I said. “Maybe that’s why you’re so free with your body.”

  “What do you mean, ‘free’?”

  “I think it’s cool, don’t get me wrong,” I said. “What are they, D-cups? Any other woman would smack me just for getting this close to them.”

  “Because of sexual reasons?” She laughed. “We’re completely different species. We couldn’t possibly be attracted to each other. You might as well be neutered.”

  “So I don’t look the least bit like a draykin man to you?” I asked.

  “No,” she said, turning around in the water to stare at my chest. “I mean, you have enough muscle definition. I can see that some of the anatomy is the same. But you don’t have a tail, and your ears are so round and weird looking. It’s comical, not arousing.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Wait,” she said. “Do your women have anatomy like mine?”

  Her breasts floated in the water between us, drifting apart with the lake’s gentle current, then colliding again. They bobbed up and down like playful globes of supple flesh, teasing me with nipples that hardened against the water’s cool touch.

  “Not often,” I said. “We’ll just leave it at that.”

  “Your turn,” she said. “Spin around.”

  I turned around, keeping my eyes on Dani and Clara while Gretna’s hands worked up and down my arms, my shoulders, my back. It was relaxing and almost sensual.

  “You mentioned taking care of the queen’s baby when it’s born,” I said. “What was that all about?”

  She laughed again. “Born! That’s a monkey word if I ever heard one. But it’s true, when that hatchling cracks open her shell and climbs onto the world stage, I’ll hang up my helmet and become her wardmaster.

  “It’ll be a nice change of pace. Don’t get me wrong, I’m very good at killing things that need to be killed, but I’ve always wondered about children. They love unconditionally, you know? I’m not an easy woman to get along with, so taking on a child seems like an efficient way to find someone to love me.”

  “We’re getting along just fine,” I said, my body swaying with the force of Gretna’s fingers rubbing and massaging my skin. “Now that you aren’t trying to arrest me or threaten me with a swift execution, that is.”

  “True,” she said. “But if the queen decides we need to separate you from that glove, it’s choppy-choppy time. I don’t plan to get all fuzzy on you just yet.”

  “See, now you’ve ruined our nice moment.”

  “I’d rather put my captain days behind me though. Wardmaster Gretna has a nice feel to it. What should I teach her first though? All the vital organs that an inch-long claw can fatally wound in battle, or the art of tail-fencing to prove her royal honor and fitness?”

  “I’ll leave that one up to you,” I said.

  “Ah, it’ll be nice either way, like having a whelp of my own, without all the disappointment in myself if she becomes a royal screw-up. I mean, she’s not from my egg, you know? Easy to disavow afterward. Win-win.”

  “Sounds perfect,” I said.

  “Yes. The Goddess has truly blessed me.”

  Before long, Dani and Clara woke up and joined us in the lake. The girls took turns washing each other’s backs. I almost offered to help, but there was a limit to how close I could get now without making things awkward.

  I may not have a tail, but I did have something.

  I left the lake before the girls were done so I could get dressed alone and start unpacking breakfast from our horses’ saddlebags. It was a beautiful morning by the lake, splashing in the water, drying in the morning’s warming light, noshing on free rations. I almost forgot the magnitude of the task ahead.

  Gretna, however, kept it top of mind. The moment our bellies were full, she ordered us back on our horses and to ride across the open grasslands that stretched further east. My legs protested at first, but they eased back into the previous day’s position without too much of a problem. I must be getting used to the shape of the saddle and the constant bumping and thumping.

  What I wasn’t used to was silver-scripted pop-up ads in my field of vision.

  Sensory Assist: Incoming at 170 Degrees

  My eyes darted from side to side, but nothing moved or seemed out of place. I looked over my shoulder, straining to figure out exactly where 170 degrees was, but then I saw it. Almost directly behind us, and small in the distance, a pair of riders galloped at full speed. Their bodies leaned low, alongside the long necks of the horses beneath them.

  “Gretna,” I said. “My Spidey-Sense is tingling. We have company.”

  She turned back without slowing her mount and squinted into the distance. “They’re gaining on us fast.”

  “I wish I could zoom in,” I said.

  Sensory Assist Request for Magnification: Acknowledged

  Magnification Strength: 1,000%

  Usage Cost: 0.3% of Energy Reserves

  Activate Magnification? Y/N

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Yes what?” Gretna asked.

  “I just told Oscar to
use some of his stored energy to help me zoom in.”

  My peripheral vision became glassy and irresolute, but my focus on the two riders behind us clarified into an impossible level of detail. Even at this distance, I could see the eyelashes on the horses’ eyes and the wrinkles in the black leather coats the riders wore. They had black caps on their heads and goggles covering their eyes.

  Their outfits were featureless, right down to their solid black pants and boots. The horses, however, were dressed in color. Dark blue pads rested beneath the riders’ saddles. The royal insignia of Varrowsgard was emblazoned on each side.

  I opened my mouth to report back what I saw, but my horse stopped short and turned sharply to the right, throwing me off its back. Clara hung tight, gripping the saddle in my absence and using her perfect sense of balance to maintain her seat.

  My vision snapped back to normal when my back cracked against the ground.

  Energy Reserves Down: 4.1%

  “You have to watch where you’re going,” Gretna said, tugging the reins of her horse and turning toward me. “I thought you learned that yesterday.”

  “I can’t look forward and backward at the same time,” I said.

  “Is that a proverb?” Gretna asked. “You can’t envision the future if you’re stuck in the past… I like it. But it’s irrelevant. Face forward on a horse. It’s not that hard.”

  I moaned and lay on the ground while Clara hopped off the horse and ran to my side.

  “I’m not bleeding,” I said. “Unless you can heal a bruised ego, there’s nothing you can do.”

  “What did you see?” Dani asked. “Are we in harm’s way?”

  “They have the queen’s insignia,” I said. “If she sent spies to make sure we didn’t detour…”

  “Messengers!” Gretna said. “That makes sense. Messenger horses ride with that level of speed and precision. Marvelous creatures.”

  The riders approached at an uncanny rate, riding like jockeys setting out to win big at the ol’ derby.

  “Why don’t we have horses like that?” I asked.

  Gretna laughed, the way a teacher’s pet laughs at the class dunce. “We’re not messengers,” she said. “We ride as an extension of the royal guard, so we need horses that are meaty enough to take an arrow to the ass and keep riding. Messenger horses are too lean.”

  “But fast,” I said. “You said yourself time was of the essence.”

  “Fast and dead isn’t half as good as slow and ‘live,” she said. “Another proverb. Come on, back on your horse and let’s ride.”

  I groaned and dragged myself upright. As Clara and I mounted slowly, the pair of messengers sped past us. The sound of hooves clopping against the grass grew loud fast and then vanished just as quickly, leaving the messengers to blur into small dark splotches in the distance by the time we resumed our own travels.

  A few times during the next hour of riding, Clara’s hands tightened against my chest and she pulled herself forward a few inches, only to recede again.

  “Clara?” I asked. “Something wrong?”

  “No,” she said. “Well, I have a question, but I worry it might sound like a criticism when it isn’t. It’s just a… curiosity.”

  “Clara, if you have something to say, please say it,” I said.

  “You mentioned spending some of Oscar’s energy,” she said. “How much does he have?”

  “Not terribly much from what I can tell.”

  “The riders behind us would have approached on their own,” Clara said. “Advance warning of their identity would not have helped us evade them with nothing but sparse trees in every direction.”

  “True,” I said.

  “Would it not be wiser to hold onto Oscar’s power until his help could make a greater difference?”

  “Glover-boy here has battery power and I’m not going to stockpile it like megalixers for the late game. If a little immediate power can help us when we need it, great. I’m all about that instant gratification.”

  I kicked the horse in the side and we sped up a bit, closing the gap between us and our two teammates.

  Right. Because that’s what we were now, teammates. And that’s why Clara was concerned. My immediate gratification might turn into delayed regret if I didn’t think harder about the resources we had at our disposal.

  “But I see your point,” I added. “From now on I’ll think twice to make sure I don’t waste Oscar’s energy.”

  Clara’s fingers tensed against me. “I didn’t say it was a waste.”

  “I know that,” I said. “You were smart to say something, that’s all.”

  She relaxed after that. “Smart…” She said the word like it was foreign to her. “And that pleases you?”

  “You are genetically incapable of displeasing me,” I said.

  “Oh,” she said. “What if you wanted me to displease you one day?”

  “Shh. Questions like that cause paradoxes in the space-time continuum.”

  With another kick to the ribs, our horse raced forward and brought us neck and neck with Gretna and Dani.

  “Race you,” I said.

  “You don’t even know where we’re going,” Dani replied.

  “Then maybe Gretna should tell me.”

  “Benoch’s location is a closely-held secret,” Gretna said. “Queen Zolocki gave me permission to bring you there, but not to disclose the markers I follow to construct the route.”

  The road forked and Gretna steered her horse to the left, though both paths looked fairly identical.

  That’s when Oscar chimed in.

  Party Assist: Initializing

  Point of Information: Party Assist triggers when opportunity alignment allows

  Party Assist: 35 Degrees

  “You’re sure you know the directions?” I asked.

  “I have practiced this trip before,” she said. “When the queen’s egg hatches, I will escort the heir to the throne to her royal lessons at Benoch’s compound where I will stay to raise and protect her.”

  “And he knows something about this fashionable Klyntar-esque hand wrapper?”

  “The queen thinks so,” she said. “He also knows about humans, more than anyone else here does.”

  I glanced down at my black fist while we trotted down the left path and whispered, “What do you want Oscar?”

  Party Assist: 43 Degrees

  “Why?”

  He didn’t explain himself.

  “Well, this is awkward,” I said. “Oscar wants us to head down the right side of this fork. We should consider that before the paths diverge too far from each other.”

  “Oscar’s redirecting us?” Dani asked.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I think the glove does what it wants, and the more it syncs with me, the more it considers maybe possibly answering some of my questions every now and then.

  “This is not one of those times. He thinks the other path leads to a Party Assist.”

  “We cannot afford a detour,” Gretna said.

  “Then you go see Uncle Ben,” I said. “Oscar is a member of this team too, and he needs a pit stop.”

  “I can’t let that gauntlet out of my sight,” Gretna said.

  “And I’m not about to make enemies with my own hand,” I said, turning my horse so that Clara and I crossed a grassy expanse on our way to the dirt path we had bypassed earlier. Gretna’s horse neighed and reared on its hind legs as Gretna steered into a sharp pivot. It changed course and followed us with Dani holding on tight.

  “We’ll have to double back when this is through,” Gretna said. “I only know the route one way.”

  We followed Oscar’s guidance for hours, with a growing feeling of unease knotting in the pit of my stomach. It felt like missing an exit on a highway. Every inch we traveled forward was another inch we’d retread later if this route was a mistake, but we had no choice now but to keep going.

  “We’ll take a break soon and reconsider our options,” I said. The road bisected a thicket of de
nse old trees up ahead, which meant water. Our horses deserved at least that.

  Noon was coming, so hiding out beneath the canopies of old trees would do us some good. As we got closer, I realized the canopies had more to them than leaves and branches. Straw huts hid among the upper boughs, with bridges built of simple planks and knotted vines.

  “Ah,” I said. “The ancient ruins of an Ewok village.”

  “Mmhmm,” Dani replied.

  “Wait, are you shitting me?” I asked. “You have Ewoks here? Is this fucking Endor?”

  “Yes?” Dani replied. “No? I don’t know what your words mean, Kyle. I thought it would be easiest to agree and move forward.”

  “I guess I deserved that,” I said. “I do make a lot of jokes for my own benefit.”

  Dani didn’t reply to that. Instead, she hopped off the back of Gretna’s horse and ran ahead, veering from the path and crouching near a row of bushes.

  I followed behind her and brought the horse to a stop so I could jump down.

  “These are synappers,” Dani said. “They boost reflexes. They’re bitter, and the seeds inside have an unpleasant sand-like texture, but we might want to stock up on them.”

  “Can’t you just melt them into crispy bite-sized sugar balls?” I asked.

  “You mean… add alchemical ingredients to simple little confections?” she asked. “It would probably work. I have heard of adding a spoonful of sugar to help medicine go down.”

  I pinched my lips together and resisted breaking into song. “Yep, same principle.”