Heresy of Dragons

by Erik Reid

  “Besides, they’re doing important work. The next litter will be my largest yet and I need additional nursery space, not to mention diaper tombs.”

  “Diaper changing rooms are a higher priority than saving all of space and time?” I asked. “Really?”

  “Not diaper rooms,” Clara said. “Diaper tombs. We toss the used diapers into a stone room and seal it over with a boulder so we never have to encounter them again. Half of the doorways in this complex are just hidden heaps of soiled diapers.”

  “That is vile,” I said, thinking back to the stone doors Dani and I almost knocked over on our exploratory stroll through these looping tunnels.

  “What is vile,” Momma Jumbo said, “is a failed taker returning to my home to barter away more of my precious brood.”

  “I don’t think you understand,” I said, tossing a sack full of small black coins onto the floor by her feet. “All together, we have four thousand rounds here. It’s not bartering. It’s enough to put your next three litters on pre-order.”

  “Coin is not my only purpose,” the woman said. “I see to it that my children are well taken. If you cannot help my babies thrive, I will find customers who can.”

  Her face twitched and she let out a little gasp, wrapping her dark red hands across her bare belly. “They kicked,” she said. “It’s like a damned chorus line in there. Calm down, you little twits, Momma’s tired of your shit!”

  The pregnant woman settled back into her seat and closed her eyes, making the end of our conversation apparent. I took my coins, stormed out of her central chamber, and marched back down the main tunnel.

  “Kyle,” Dani said, jogging to catch up. “We can’t just give up. A’zarkin has the queen’s egg!”

  “We’re not giving up,” I said, ducking down a side tunnel and waving the girls toward me. “We’re giving those kobold diggers a choice. You and Kaylee, stay here and keep a lookout. Clara and I will lead those red little devils into a revolution. Hold our cash while we make our pitch to see who’ll follow us.”

  I handed my coins to Kaylee while Dani took Clara’s bag, then I marched down the corridor into the unknown, led by the sound of occasional metal hammers and pickaxes crashing against stone. The torches that lined the tunnel were far and few between, leaving me to walk in near-darkness for long stretches before passing the brightness and warmth of a flaming oil-soaked torch again.

  “My siblings have spent their lives hoping for a taker that never came,” Clara said. She trailed behind me a single step, even though there was room enough in the tunnel to walk by my side. “The idea of simply walking away from their posts here has likely never crossed their minds.”

  “They don’t have to be afraid of her,” I said. “There’s strength in numbers.”

  “I’ve never been good with numbers,” Clara said. “I doubt my brothers are any better with that concept.”

  “How’s this for a concept: liberation. Sounds pretty sweet, right?”

  “May I offer a suggestion?”

  “Any time,” I said. “You never need to ask permission to speak. Ever.”

  “Be sensitive to what you offer my kobold brethren. Freedom and independence are two different things.”

  In my haste to enlist a demolition team of kobolds to tunnel us toward A’zarkin, I missed a small pile of debris that sat along the tunnel’s floor. My boot crunched into it, snapping something short and pale in half.

  I leaned down and squinted in the low light. “Is that a skeleton?”

  “A child that doesn’t sell by the age of seven is sent into the tunnels,” Clara said. “The work is hard, and not without danger.”

  “So dear old mom digs tombs for diapers and not her own children?” I asked. “What a heartless bag of lard. And she keeps her own chamber so full of flame, but the tunnels where her children work are all so dark.

  “I can’t imagine living underground like this for an entire lifetime. I mean, people talk about a ‘man cave,’ but it’s never an actual cave. Unless you’re Batman. Even then, he had a butler on hand.”

  “The sun was always kept out of reach as a young girl,” Clara said, glancing downward while she spoke. “Mother was afraid it would fill our heads with ideas of lazy days and idle recreation, but I was a daring child. I stole my glances skyward.”

  “Go on.”

  “Long before my mother beat the sense of adventure out of my bones, yes. I would sneak past her central chamber early in the morning while she slept. The deep crevice that provides access for takers to climb down and purchase their givens was an opening to light, and warmth, and promise. I would stand at the bottom of that chasm and stare upward at the sky, waiting for the sun to climb past the lip of that pit’s rocky mouth and shine its golden rays onto my pale, sad cheeks.

  “Then,” she continued, her eyes still fixed on the tunnel floor, “when the sun did emerge, I closed my eyes and wished I were someplace else. Only when my eyelids darkened with the shade of an oncoming cloud would I snap my eyes open to steal the shortest glimpse of that yellow ball of fire in the sky. I never saw the sun all at once, but even the sliver I took in was enough to keep me coming back.”

  “Did your mother catch you?” I asked.

  “Once,” Clara said. “I waited for the sun and it didn’t come, so I kept waiting, hoping for a small gap in the clouds that blanketed the sky. Instead, the world darkened and a storm broke those clouds apart, drenching me in a sudden curtain of freezing rain.

  “When I tried to sneak into the tunnels, my bare feet were wet and made smacking noises against the rock floors. Mother got up from her stone seat and stared down the tunnel I walked down, filling my small body with dread. She had beat me before, both with her harsh words and her calloused hands. I didn’t know which type of pain hurt worse, but they both terrified me.

  “As I approached her, she narrowed her eyes at me, grunted once, and turned her head away. I stood still for a moment, waiting for my punishment, but none came. I dragged myself back to my room to dry off and start my chores, but she never mentioned that episode again. I waited days and weeks and months for her to resurrect my mistake and tear me apart. I’ll never know why she let that pass.

  “Perhaps she knew how powerful silence could be, and in a way, she prevailed over me. That was the last time I snuck around behind her back. There were other beatings and cruel insults I know I deserved for all the times I failed or embarrassed her, but none stemmed from that one rainy day.

  “Over the years, I forgot about the sun. Forgot about the way I would sneak. Forgot about my dream of freedom. The time to be a child was over; I had young siblings to care for.”

  “Don’t lose the light, Clara,” I said. “Momma Jumbo may have kept you from the sun, but it’s still there. This is your time to soak it in.”

  “We don’t all get to walk in the sun,” she said, hanging her head just a few inches lower. “Some have a darker path waiting for them.”

  I stopped walking and turned back to look at Clara. Her soft, pink face was lit only faintly by the light that stretched toward us from the sparse torches. She leaned against the rock wall and took a deep breath.

  My hands reached toward her upper arms and held her steady while her face turned away.

  “Why do you talk about yourself like you’re some doomed soul on executioner’s row? You’re a part of this team, and as long as we stand by your side, you’ll always have allies who fight to keep you safe and happy. I need you to know that. Safe and happy. Tell me what we can do to bring back that spark of joy I saw when we first met.”

  She put a hand on top of mine, reaching toward her upper arm and laying her palm across the back of my bare hand.

  “My skin,” she said, “is pink like the frail petals of a wilting rose, while my siblings are bold and bright and red. My arms are too slender to wield a hammer, my hands are too soft to dig at the rock. I was never fit for a kobold’s life, and never loved because of it.

  “To make it worse, I
contained a magic I never understood, and was poorly suited to use. I just wanted to heal people, but my mother said healing was not the business she ran, and I was forbidden to do more than heal the minor scrapes that my younger siblings managed to inflict upon each other.

  “I see now my mistake. I believed this was the magic of life. Healing, and soothing, and nurturing. It is not. I am an instrument of death.”

  “Clara,” I said, tilting my head to steal some eye contact that she expertly avoided. “It breaks my heart to hear you talk this way about yourself. Is this about Gretna? What happened—”

  “Was terrifying,” she said. “And excruciating. I felt every ounce of her pain. The wrenching moment a soul tears free from the body? I lived through that. I… died through that. I tried to pull her soul back to this world, to tie it to her body and keep her fighting for life, but something went wrong. I think I tied myself to her death instead. I feel her presence, all around us. It is a constant reminder of the agony of that day.”

  “Holy shit,” I said.

  “When I heal someone,” she said, “I form a connection. My body takes on their pain while my mind focuses on closing their wounds. When I make the bleeding stop and the skin close over, I feel… relief.

  “With Gretna, I failed. The deep and throbbing pain the wound left in her throat, the escape of her blood in quick bursts as her heart continued pumping, the weakness in her bones as her body gave up on her — that’s what I was left with. There was no release of that pain, no relief when it ended, and no soothing peace that comes from a wound well-healed.

  “In some ways, I’m still dying her death.

  “Please don’t think I’m being selfish. I know it was worse for her, but I am still grateful for the sacrifice she made to help win this war.

  “She died so that the pain we suffered together would teach me not to fear death, and not to extoll life. She died to prepare me to put an end to the demon A’zarkin.”

  “I won’t let you sacrifice yourself,” I said. “We’ll find another way.”

  “The world will not miss one slain kobold,” she said.

  “I will,” I replied. My thumbs started to rub Clara’s pink skin, covered in shifting shadows from distant torches. “I never knew your magic came at such a high price. No one’s asking you to heal again. I won’t let them.”

  Finally, she looked up. Her large, dark eyes held a life’s worth of solitary sadness in them. Of course she thought her gift was a burden in disguise. That’s what her life had always been.

  “So much has changed since I first discovered my gift,” she said. “I’m not sure I could use it again for healing, even if I wanted to.”

  “I think it’s time someone healed you, Clara.” I leaned in and kissed her, still gripping her upper arms and holding her against the tunnel’s rock wall.

  She broke away from our kiss and turned her head. “I was not born to be loved.”

  “What kind of a Goddess would make a woman so sweet, and beautiful, and kind, if she wasn’t meant to be loved?” I leaned forward and kissed her neck, trailing up her delicate pink skin until I reached her pointy kobold ear. I nudged at it with my nose, then gave her tiny earlobe a quick nibble before swinging back for another kiss.

  “I am an instrument of her divine plan,” Clara said. “I cannot let selfish feelings lure me away from my destined path.”

  My lips hovered an inch from hers as I spoke. “I have my own divine plan.” This time, when I landed my mouth against hers, she kissed me back. Her mouth wrestled against mine, parting just enough to invite my tongue to play against hers.

  Her hands swept across my body as we kissed, searching the terrain of my chest and abs, reaching further for the waist of my leather pants. I had unleashed something in her, and she gave into that impulse now, discovering it with reckless abandon.

  I explored her curves slowly, studying every inch of her as my hands slid from her hips toward the narrow of her waist before cupping her breasts from beneath. The fabric of her top moved with my hands, reshaping against her plump, round breasts while my fingers lightly kneaded at her flesh.

  Clara breathed deeper now, forcing her chest more firmly against my hands as her lungs inflated with air.

  “What if I’m not suited to this,” she said. “What if I disappoint you?”

  “Shh,” I said. “Stop worrying about me. Let me focus on you for a change.”

  I lowered myself to my knees and flipped her skirt with one hand, holding the fabric flat against her stomach. Her palms braced against the rock wall behind her as my fingers traced her outer lips, smooth and darker pink than the skin that covered her body.

  I kissed the tender spot between her vulva and her inner leg. Her muscles were tense against my lips. “You’re shaking.”

  “No one has touched me this way before,” she said.

  “Do you like it?” I asked between kisses, inching my way closer to her mound as it swelled with excitement.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Then relax.”

  My tongue traced her slit, dipping beneath her lips and teasing the delicate skin beneath until I found her entry. I searched further, probing my tongue inside her core and exploring her tight inner walls. Her body fought my tongue, tensing around me even as she got excited and wet.

  It would take more than a calming word to get my kobold given to relax.

  I let my mouth explore her vulva, kissing and licking at her body as she got used to my touch. The sensitive hood of her clit begged for my attention. I nuzzled it with my nose and flicked it lightly with my tongue, testing Clara’s reaction. A sharp intake of breath and an excited whimper told me to keep going.

  I played against her clit with my tongue, lapping at it and pulsing her body with sensation. She swelled beneath my face as the rush of arousal prepared her for more.

  When my tongue licked back down her lower lips, it darted inside her wet hole. She let me in further this time, allowing my tongue to glide inside her slick entry with ease.

  I pleasured her with one hand, thumbing her beautiful pearl while my face stayed buried in her mound. I didn’t need the touch of a Goddess’s power to work magic here, just the ability to read Clara’s body and assert my way forward when she tensed with uncertainty. Each time she threatened to withdraw, it was a little less; each time she relaxed into the pleasure I sent through her nerves, it was a little more.

  Now her fingers dug into my hair, curling around handfuls of it and holding tight. Her hips started to rock, gently at first, but then she pressed my face against her vulva and thrust faster.

  I grabbed onto her ass with one hand while my face buried in her silky folds, pulling her harder against my face so that her body engulfed me. There was no breathing now, no room for warm tunnel air or the dancing light of sparse torches. There was only skin against skin, my nose pressed deep against her, my tongue lapping up her slick juices.

  My fingers released her handful of ass cheek and I reached for my waist, unfastening the buttons that held my raging boner trapped beneath tight pants. As each button popped open, my length pulsed with the yearning desire to be free.

  At last, I stood at full attention, my shaft rock hard and my head on full alert. That’s when Clara’s knees started to shake again, but not from fear or timidity.

  “Something is tingling inside me,” she said. “An urge I’ve never felt.”

  “You’ll come soon,” I said, sending the vibrations of my voice into her body before applying my mouth to more important endeavors. Her juices flowed faster now and my tongue swam in them, satiny and sweet.

  Then her body pulsed with orgasm, gushing with excitement as her hips rocked against my face. Her voice echoed down the tunnel in both directions as she moaned, lost to the euphoric rapture of a body gone electric with pleasure.

  I wiped my face against the back of my hand and looked up. Her head rested against the rock wall behind her as her chest rose and fell in long breaths that heaved her breas
ts upward and lowered them slowly.

  I stood and brushed her hair across her forehead, peering deeply into her large, dark eyes. “It’s a nice feeling, isn’t it?”

  “But you didn’t—”

  “I will,” I said, spinning her around to face the rocky wall. She braced her hands against it and I nudged her feet with mine until she spread her legs apart.

  My hand trailed down her neck, following her spine toward her ass. I grabbed it with both hands and rested my cock against her rear, then reached beneath her skirt and dipped my fingers between her lower lips. I collected her juices on my fingers and used them to lube up my cock.

  She made my hand so slippery and warm, I had to stop myself from finishing right then. I let my dick stand at attention for a moment while I got my mind right, then I glided it into Clara’s waiting hole from behind.

  My tongue had started the delicate process of preparing Clara’s entry, but she was still so tight I had to pause after each second to let her acclimate to the size of my cock. Her fingers tensed against the rock wall and she leaned up onto her toes as I buried my dick inside her.

  I rocked my hips back slowly while Clara froze and waited. When I sank back into her depths again her voice squeaked and her breathing came in short bursts.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  “Never better,” she said. “Our bodies, they’ve made a powerful connection.”

  “Not just our bodies.” I kissed the back of her neck and pumped my hips faster, rocking her body with each thrust. With one hand on her shoulder, I reached the other around her front and took hold of her breast, slipping my hand beneath her top and running my fingers down her slope until I found her nipple. As I tweaked it gently, she began to moan.

  Clara lifted one leg and touched her foot to the rock wall in front of her, then the other. She clung to that wall with her perfect kobold grip, bending her legs and arching her back so that my cock slid easily inside her. With my hands holding her hips steady, I let my own hips do all of the work, pumping and thrusting against my wall-climbing lover.

  Her juices were dripping down my cock now, her muscles clenching hard against my shaft. Pressure and fire built up inside me, forcing a grunt from my throat every time my pelvis smacked against Clara’s ass.