Heresy of Dragons

by Erik Reid

  She smiled, the cruel smile of a woman who thinks she knows better than you do. “The Order warned me there would be propaganda. That factions clinging to what little power they had would turn the masses against us.”

  “I’m not masses,” I said. “I’m just a normal guy, wearing an OP oven mitt and hunting live vampire dogs so an elderly draykin nerd can help my friend Dani with her candy business. Et cetera.”

  “The draykin,” she said. “They ruined a good hero once.”

  “What do you want?” I asked. “What does the Order want?”

  “To return the realms to isolation,” she said. “We were never meant to see behind the curtain.”

  “I don’t care if that’s true,” I said. “We both have our reasons for wanting to knock A’zarkin down a few pegs. Let’s team up, just in the short run.”

  She said something in response, but it was nearly inaudible. I stepped closer and cupped a hand to my ear.

  Again, words spoken so softly I couldn’t make them out. “I still can’t hear you,” I said, lifting my boot from the ground to take another step closer.

  A sudden movement sent me diving to the side. Lissa swung her arm out toward me with a shuriken in hand, its fine edge glinting back just enough moonlight to warn me a moment before it approached. As she leapt from her crouched position toward me, her other hand swung a second throwing star, turning her hands into bladed fists.

  Some ‘Party Assist’ that was. Sometimes, Oscar, I think we’re not really friends.

  “You’ve restocked,” I said.

  “I have a weapons cache,” she replied.

  “Self-storage facilities will open anywhere these days,” I said.

  And that was the end of our calm conversation. I scrambled to my feet and ran toward the only shelter in sight. The triad of trees that sheltered four sleeping bloodhounds.

  “Wake up, everybody!” I yelled. “Midnight snack! I’ve got a delicious plate of Kung Pow Kitty Cat for you, over there.”

  Those lumbering beasts were quick to alert, pouncing to all fours and stretching their arms and legs before racing toward me and the woman with cat-like features who chased me.

  “You would seek their help, demonspawn,” Lissa said, giving up her attempt at a stealthy whisper now.

  Sensory Assist: Incoming at 178 Degrees

  I ducked to the side and avoided a pair of oncoming throwing stars, thanks to Oscar’s heads up. They sailed past me, one landing in a tree’s trunk and the other sinking into the throat of a bloodhound and sending it tumbling to the ground in a gasping mess. Black blood seeped slowly from the gash in its neck as I ran past it, letting it writhe in continued agony on the ground.

  The other three ignored their fallen sibling and charged onward.

  Lissa was further behind me, placing me at the center of three ravenous vampire hounds and a feline huntress with impeccable aim. I needed these monsters to slow her down, which meant getting the fuck out of their way.

  One of Lissa’s shuriken sat lodged in the nearest tree trunk, and that gave me an idea. I raced toward it and used the embedded weapon like a stepping stool, jumping high enough to kick off the narrow metallic ledge protruding from the tree and reaching for a higher branch. I gripped tight and swung my legs upward, pulling my body onto the lowest tree limb.

  One bloodhound jumped and snapped its jaw, but I was out of reach. The other two raced onward toward Lissa.

  “Scram,” I said to the fiend beneath my spot in the tree. It snarled and yipped, jumping on all fours like an overexcited terrier. The branch bowed slightly downward under my weight.

  Lissa let out a roaring war cry and launched into a series of powerful kicks while I clung to a narrow branch and stared at the mangy vampire monster on the ground.

  I held myself up by my arms and let my legs dangle from the branch, gaging the distance and aiming for a spot to land. That’s when the branch snapped apart and I crashed a single story to the ground.

  Twigs and branches with floppy green leaves broke off the larger limb as it collided with the ground. The bloodhound jumped back and I rolled forward, springing to my feet. I was relieved that nothing seemed to hurt from that short fall.

  The bloodhound hissed and lunged at me.

  With my foot braced against the fallen tree limb, I yanked a smaller branch free and swiped at the monster as it approached. I smacked it across the face, then swung in the opposite direction and knocked it onto its back.

  The monster writhed and righted itself, but I wouldn’t leave it a second to regroup. I jumped high, aimed the branch downward, and executed a wicked down-thrust. The tip of the branch pierced the gray, tattered cloth on its torso, the sickly gray skin beneath it, and the slimy demon organs that kept its rotten body alive.

  “You would kill your brethren?” Lissa asked. She fended off two bloodhounds of her own, but still spared a glance back at me. “How rare.”

  With her shuriken pinched between her fingers, she punched the bloodhound in the stomach. Her fist sank deep within the monster’s punctured belly, then retracted just as quickly. Before the demonspawn creature could stumble backward, she plunged her other hand into the wound and reached upward within its body cavity.

  When her arm came free, she held a black rock the size of a human heart in her palm. Her fingers clenched tight while black goop trailed down her forearm. Then a burst of electric blue light erupted, engulfing her hand for a split second. A pile of dust was all that remained when she opened her fingers, allowing that dark silt to drift toward the ground, carried sidewise by the night’s oblivious breeze.

  “What the—”

  The second bloodhound backed away from her, then turned on me. I had let my guard down for a second, mystified by the way Lissa ignited the bloodhound’s heart in blue energies. The creature pounced on me as I braced for impact.

  Its jaw snapped by my ear, but I shuddered away from its bite and threw the creature off me. It landed on all fours and howled.

  There was no Sensory Assist coming through, so I trusted Lissa wasn’t throwing a shuriken while my back was turned.

  The bloodhound in front of me took a half-step toward me. Its blue eyes were like small lanterns, floating against the dark night. A low growl and the tensing of its legs foreshadowed another attack.

  This time, I didn’t step away. I bent low as that creature leapt at me, brought Oscar up under its chin, and gripped its throat hard. Too hard.

  “Oscar,” I said, struggling with my own hand to stop the glove from strangling the fiend I was sent here to capture. “Not a good time for your choking fetish.”

  With the bloodhound bucking wildly in my grasp, I lifted it off the ground and strained to keep my fingers from sinking into its soft jugular.

  “Stand down, Glovey,” I said. “Stand down!”

  My fingers relaxed into the grip I had originally intended — firm, but not lethal. Oscar backed off, letting me handle the rest of the fight from there. With a quick step toward the nearest tree, I curled the fingers of my free hand into the bloodhound’s oily, shaggy hair and twisted its face toward the tree’s trunk, then used Oscar to thrust its snapping jaw right into the bark.

  The screw-tipped teeth of that awful creature pierced the wood and sank deep. The monster thrashed with its legs and pushed its hands against the tree, but it was too deeply rooted in the wood to break free.

  Now I raised my fist, aiming for the back of its skull.

  “Be. Unconscious,” I said, pounding Oscar against its head. “Be. Like. In. Movies!”

  I struck repeatedly, but it wasn’t working, maybe because I was holding back. I didn’t trust Oscar not to splatter this thing’s head open like a pumpkin on mischief night. I needed it alive. And I needed my face not to be covered in bloodhound brains and bloody black goop.

  “Allow me,” Lissa said, lifting a shuriken from her belt and catching a glint of moonlight with it. I posed like a blacksmith with a hammer, ready to strike an anvil.

&
nbsp; “No,” I said. “Back off, I need this one to survive.”

  “I will suffer no demonspawn to live,” she said.

  “And I will suffer no demon hunter to kill,” I said. “I mean, generally, yes, that’s a helpful thing you do very well, but please stop now.”

  She grunted and tensed her arm, preparing to turn her throwing star into a stabby star and plunge the weapon into the bloodhound’s back.

  I lifted my hand and blocked the shuriken, taking the sharp tip against the center of my palm. There was no sting of a fine blade against Oscar’s impenetrable black fabric.

  Lissa recoiled, the counterforce of her attack bouncing her backward.

  “Impossible,” she said.

  “You know what they say, nothing’s impossible if you believe in yourself.”

  I tossed the weapon aside, while the bloodhound continued to press its hands against the tree trunk and wrench its head back and forth, digging itself out of the hearty bark.

  Lissa’s tail curled behind her and she bent her knees, reaching for her belt. A pair of long, wavy daggers came free, each extending six inches from their handles.

  “Those are new,” I said.

  “Quite the opposite,” she said. “These were a gift from my second sensei, who plucked them from the cold dead corpse of the demon Varana’kura four centuries ago.”

  “So, new-ish,” I said.

  I reached down and grabbed the bloodhound by its greasy mat of gray hair. As a last ditch effort at survival, I could pull the creature loose and use it as a shield. So much for Benoch’s little errand.

  My heart was in my throat. Lissa hadn’t attacked yet, though she was poised to any second. My reflexes were on a hair trigger, waiting for any sign that the tip of her blades would launch toward me.

  “You killed a bloodhound earlier,” she said. “What makes this one so special?”

  “I only need one,” I said. “We’re studying them, to learn how best to defeat A’zarkin.”

  “I want to believe you,” she said. “You are a good fighter for a man with no obvious training, and you’ve finally dressed the part. Demonspawn would not likely murder their own the way you did here.”

  “Is this another trick?” I asked. “I’m not letting my guard down around you again.”

  “No trick,” she said. “I do want to believe you. I simply cannot afford to.”

  She let out a roaring war cry and her eyes went wild. A wave of adrenaline and fear washed over me, and a litany of silver words appeared at once in my vision.

  Sync Progress: 7%

  Waypoint Travel: Enabled

  Usage Cost: 0.5% of Energy Reserves Per Traveler

  Available Waypoint Markers:

  Benoch’s Bunker

  Draykin Domain

  Simki Sylvania

  Tiny Town

  Activate Waypoint Travel? Y/N

  “Benoch’s Bunker!” I yelled. “Yes, and now, and yes now!”

  Oscar held the bloodhound tight by its hair, so I raised my natural, exposed hand to block the daggers that came quickly for my face.

  A pulse of blue light erupted, the same glacial blue as A’zarkin’s lightning, and Lissa’s demonfire amulet. It swallowed me up and blinded me. A moment later, Lissa and the three old trees that surrounded us were gone. Or, rather, I was gone, transported back to the small bedroom Benoch’s guards had tossed me into upon our first arrival. It was these dumpy, sparse quarters I had the poor judgment to use for Oscar’s mapping waypoint.

  Low Energy Warning

  Energy Reserves: 1%

  My eyes burned with the afterimage of that brilliant blue light, and my stomach sank at the familiarity of it. It was the same spherical burst of blue that A’zarkin summoned right before he teleported away. If that was a demon’s exit, I had just made one myself.

  I had no time to count my blessings at Oscar’s well-timed escape. A snarling, growling bloodhound thrashed by my side, its hair still tangled in my fingers. I tossed it aside, forcing it to land on its back along the room’s edge. It righted itself quickly, getting back onto all fours and staring at me with that half-man half-monster face and bearing those sharp, spiraled fangs.

  We circled each other along the room’s perimeter.

  “See,” I said. “I can’t be demonspawn or you’d heel when I say heel, maybe let me rub your tummy. But no, you’re all bitey-bitey. You know I’m just a normal dude. Why doesn’t Lissa?”

  The fiend didn’t answer, except to growl from deep within its throat and start drooling a thick, glistening string of saliva that was gray and murky, like most of the beast’s other features.

  “I mean, she’s obviously well versed in this Goddess/demon stuff,” I said. “And her little blue flame did turn black when I got near it, just like Benoch’s candle collection. But I’d like to think I’m a little too handsome to be in the demon family. No offense… well, sure, what the hell. Offense. Plenty of offense.”

  The monster feinted at me. I tensed my legs and braced for an impact that never came.

  “What kind of a family do you even have, weird little dog-brained half-breed?” I asked. “If A’zarkin is your pop, whose your mom? My pop wasn’t great, but my mom was. Maybe you should try taking after your maternal side instead. In fact, maybe I should too…”

  Another feint, but I tensed my legs anyway and readied myself, constantly circling the room and waiting for an opportunity to tackle this monster and knock it out. This was the homestretch, I just had to seal the deal and tell Benoch the good news.

  The next time the bloodhound moved, it was not a fake-out. It catapulted itself across the room and I reached out to grab it, aiming to grab onto its throat and pick things up where they left off — with me not quite strangling my prey to death.

  Instead, the monster twisted in midair, knocking its hind legs against my arm and throwing me off-balance. When it landed, it threw its jaw open wide and went right for my calf.

  “No,” I said, kicking that creature in the face. “Not after all this, you don’t. You’re not drinking my blood before Benoch gets his hands on you. Or after! I hope. Down, boy!”

  It snapped its teeth and rushed me again, in what quickly became a circular chase. On one pass around the room, I reached for the door handle and turned.

  It was still unlocked.

  A quick tug opened it just enough for me to slip out and pull it closed again behind me, trapping the monster inside the small stone-walled room with a dense metal door. It growled and yapped in there, throwing itself against the door, stressing the hinges that kept it in its frame.

  The doorknob jiggled as the creature tried to work the door open, but I held tight, preventing it from spinning. I had forgotten these things could use their five fingers as well as I could, thinking back on the trap they had set at the old fisherman’s pond a few days ago.

  Holy fuck, that was only a few days ago.

  As I held onto that doorknob, keeping the fiend trapped, it hit me that I was nowhere near ready for an end battle with A’zarkin. I still hadn’t fully acclimated to Silura yet. This was all happening too fast.

  “You’re back,” Benoch said.

  I nearly jumped out of my skin. “Don’t sneak up on people!”

  He strode down the circular hallway with a tray of hot tea in his hands.

  “This is my home,” he replied. “I’ll sneak where I want to sneak. How did you get in here? I never heard the hatch.”

  “Waypoint travel,” I said.

  “Interesting,” he replied.

  “What’s interesting,” I said, “is the bloodhound I’ve trapped inside this room.”

  “Very good. Call me when it’s sedated. Hopefully your tea will still be hot.”

  The bloodhound scratched at the rock floor and walls, occasionally thrashing against the metal door, whimpering, and then scurrying around in there all over again.

  “I recall the instruction to bring back a live one,” I said. “I think my work here is done.
”

  “Nonsense,” Benoch said. “No one’s work is ever done. Honestly, young people say the most ridiculous things.”

  The bloodhound took one final leap at the door, crashing its head into the metal so hard it left a round dent. Then, silence.

  “If that fucker just killed itself,” I said. With a quick turn of the doorknob, I pushed the door open a crack. A leg lay out where I could see it, covered in gray fur and globs of black. As I edged the door open further, light from the hallway torches illuminated the room even more, forcing every trace of foul black blood in that room to glimmer back the flickering light.

  The bloodhound lay sprawled out, unconscious in the room’s center. A long gash ran down its face, and its skin was split all over its shoulders and arms as well. Every wound was bleeding after its losing attack on the metal door, matting down its fur.

  The constant kicking and scratching, the running around to build up inertia, the desperate flailing in every direction — it all left the room’s floor, walls, and furniture covered in streaks of thick black blood, including the simple bed.

  “Benoch,” I said. “I’d like to switch rooms. This one is… soiled.”

  CHAPTER 20

  “Well,” Benoch said, “what are you waiting for?”

  I unfastened the rope that I had tied around my waist and brought it toward the unconscious bloodhound. With a few loops around the ankles, and a few more behind the hands, I hogtied that monster and pulled the knots tight.

  The blood that smeared the room wasn’t just thick and black, it was also pungent. I took shallow breaths as I worked, and only reluctantly, trying to balance the need to accomplish this quickly against the desire to avoid getting my hands unnecessarily slimed by the viscous fluid.