Metallic footsteps awoke her from her slumber. Stretching her scaly wings, covered by white pearl scales, they revolted the air of the cavern with their eighty metres of wingspan, causing a small turbulence in the darkness. Lazily opening her eyes, she sighed in boredom, freezing the air in front of her and making countless ice droplets fall onto the ground. Her two legs, kneeling, started to exert force, causing the two wings of the wyvern to act as canes, as they bended the same way bat wings do, crushing and cracking the ground as the titanic lizard, carrying her over fifty tons took of weight, took all of the space her form required. Her seven metres tail to fangs dwarfed the now visible knight, shining brightly to her awakening night vision.
“What has brought you to me, food?” Purred the ancient wyvern, with apparent hunger in her tone. Her muscles started to flex, helping her heart pump the blood and banishing the sleepiness. Her tail started to wave around. At its end, a sting the size of a normal sword darted around with evil intent.
The armoured figure, carrying a torch to dispel the darkness, didn’t answer. Their body build was completely hidden by an arcane, full body plate armour. Their helmets hid their eyes. A once white armour, made from silver, that had been greyed out by the dangers of dragon hunting. The leather had almost turned pitch black and only the magic runes on top of it kept it from breaking apart, it appeared. Inside the scabbard in their back, a long sword, more akin to a great sword than to its base form, rested. Weighting around five kilograms, it was stuffed with magical runes along its almost one metre blade length. The grip, nearing thirty centimetres, was enough for their two gauntlets to grab onto. A simple cross type guard protected the hands.
A small tick in her eyes, the wyvern continued, “It is a shame I cannot hear your manly voice as you are frozen in despair. And it is an even greater shame, for you that is, than I am not that hungry. Armour always gets stuck between the fangs, you know?” Their only response was a continuous walk, dignifying their stance as a knight. They had now entered inside the cavernous space that was her laid, filled with bookshelves and, behind her, a shelf with five human skulls, one of them cracked long ago.
Now bored and slightly angry, she breathed in and out, causing an ice storm that engulfed the knight, freezing everything in a fifty by four area, reaching deep into the tunnel that communicated her laid to the outside.
Once the frozen mist settled down, not that it defreezed the ground, her eyes arched up, enjoying the sight before her. The knight was untouched by the cold, but they had moved. They had swiftly struck the upcoming ice calamity with their great sword with a vertical slash. Now the sword was shining white, holding inside it her powerful breath attack, lighting their way in place of the discarded and frozen torch.
“Aren’t you a tough boy… Maybe I could add you to my shelf.” She started to think aloud. As the knight started to walk, she lunged forwards and tried, not that hard, to bite them in half.
They sidestepped the attack and jumped forward, arriving timely next to her unguarded flank, as her left wing hadn’t moved to cover it. They raised the sword again. All the runes in the armour flared up again, as the first time had been hidden by the mist, and they gathered all their strength. Their arms were now the gathering centre of all of the strength of their body as it arched. The ground beneath their feet broke up in a similar way to the wyvern, who now received a desperate scream of danger from her instincts. The wyvern tried to dodge, but it was far too late, for the sword descended with devilish speed, colliding with her skin and making the same sounds as if two enormous boulders of stone had crashed and broke against each other.
Normally, wyverns’ scales were impenetrable to both physical and magical attacks. Their composition made them excellent batteries of mana, causing the spells to either feed the scales or to bounce as the scale’s mana force it out. This very same mana was also used as combustible to reinforce the scales, making them temporally harder than steel, belittling any physical attacks.
That was, of course, within some limits. They wouldn’t be able to withstand a ritual spell nor a hundred cannon balls. But they made wyverns realistically unbreakable. What she had come to see, and feel, was that that knight was not realistic.
The sword impacted with a force equivalent to her hefty body. Standing tall to her pride, her skin didn’t break by a nail's margin. The kinetic energy, on the other hand, did subscribe to no such measly barriers, travelling into her body and crushing and liquifying internal organs, causing internal bleeding and splintered bones.
She roared with enough power that the chamber trembled. Dust and little rocks fell as she hit the knight with her left wing as she backed away. The knight, now unstable, was able to block her tail’s strike, even if it sended them flying. Pain she hadn’t felt since she was a youngling threatened to down her already, and her vision blurred as she oversaw the knight’s flight and how, before colliding against the ground, they rolled, lessening the impact.
“Human…” She hissed. That man was a danger. A measly creature of little more than a metre and seventy had almost killed her in one strike. Her mind soured her ire, remembering her of the hole in the ceiling. An escape route.
“Dragonkind has fallen so low as to run away from a mortal?” The first words of the human and they were as cold as her breath. A challenge. But she was no red dragon. She was smart. Her pride, even if bigger, would not bow so low as to fall to some cheap provocation.
“Exactly.” Her wings expanded again and with the thunderous movement of tons of air, she rose in the empty space above while the knight tried to reach her in their mad run. A few seconds later she was gone from their sight.
In rage, the knight stabbed their sword onto the rocky ground, hiding half of the sword inside the rock. Their armour’s runes dwindled and lost their shine. ‘Two weeks of preparation and it runs away.’. Their eyes turned to the only hoard visible in the cavern, the shelf with the skulls.
They walked towards it and grabbed the fifth, the cracked one, with extreme care. They didn’t hear their company enter the cavern. Nor their calls. Only when their second in command touched their shoulder did they jump.
“Commander Ires?” The worried gaze from her follower woke her up. Nostalgia for her father being defeated by mad rage, she nodded.
“Track her. She is now easy prey to other dragons, and an ancient always has too many enemies. She won’t go very far.” Her eyes went to the cracked skull. “But that will be our second priority. Scratch all of my past orders. We shall hunt the white calf.”
“The one the mercenary guild put an order on in, how was it called…Yellowhold?”
“You know the cities of the Empire’s east.” She recovered her embedded sword, sheathing it on her back. “We will start the march tomorrow morning. Prepare the company, Marc. I have to attend to personal matters.”
Marc reticently nodded, not knowing what to say. Nobody joined a dragon hunting mercenary company for laughs. It paid bad and the risks were too many to count. They were hunting demigods, after all. Looking at the back of his Commander, he wished to know what to say to offer some measure of closure or confort. Instead, he went to care for his new duties. They would be ready to march at first light, not a second later.
Ires didn’t bother to hail any of her subordinates, she never did. It didn't happen today. However, it wouldn’t be surprising to lose more than half of her unit in the next fight. It was too common for her liking.
Leaving the camp, she entered deep inside the forest and laid on the grassy ground. The full moon was laughing at her, shining in the same whiteness as her father’s killer. That damned monster had pushed her off her father, and it had had the gall to not remember her even as she almost killed her. She had been a pebble then. Now…now she was a sword, ready to gouge her insides out. She decided she would bury her father back in their old home. But first, she would murder all of the brood of that monster. She would show their heads to her and, finally, tear her apart.
The gauntlets she hadn’t undressed yet screeched under the strength she was clutching them.
………….
“Nether’s whore, my damned head…It burns.” Thug fell off his bed, crashing against the wooden floor of her bedchambers, devoid of anything but an old and gnawed bed. He had little use for anything else. What he had even less use for was the dozens of wooden cups he felt onto.
“Karax’s great…!! Urgh!” The pain wasn’t strong enough to restore his clarity. He simply laid there while his body protested the uncomfortable position. After half an hour, he had grown too thirsty, or just thirsty enough, to gather enough energy to rise from the floor. Trotting towards the small bathroom, the smell of the toilet reminded his body of the ailment it had achieved after a drinking night, causing Thug to puck his guts out.
Cleaning his mouth, he grabbed a nearby skin and took a sip, promptly spitting it out. ‘When I search for wine it is always water. Why did it have to be reversed right now?’ Grimacing, he nevertheless took another sip, now prepared for it. The hand grabbing the wineskin had a silver ring. After struggling for too much time, he found the water he wanted and finally left his house.
Wondering why he didn’t dress before, he found that he was in yesterday’s clothes. Sniffing his right armpit, he grimaced yet again. He was dying to bathe in the public baths, but his empty pockets spoke to him about his reality. “Curse my drunken me. What a damned fool.” He shook his head. He had even been paid not even three days ago, for Gods’ sake!
Not remembering how it got here, as he had been too busy controlling his nausea, he entered the Mercenary’s Pit, the bar where the requests for miscellaneous jobs were put on. Yellowhold was a smallish city, after all. Ignoring the Inquisition lapdog on one of the tables, who listening to the rowdy mercenaries, on a heathen hunting mission Thug surmised, he sat on the bar of the tavern.
“You look like shit.” Rudely started the barkeeper, one of his only friends in the city.
“Feel like it. And I guess I smell like that too.”
“Didn’t want to be the one saying it.” Timor slowed down on his cup cleaning routine of now, and tentatively asked, as if it weren’t his business, “You should relax a bit, Thug. You broke two chairs yesterday…And I guess you are broke, seeing you here.”
“And you should act like my barkeeper and serve me a cold one, but who am I to preach?” Retorted Thug, too uncomfortable with his nausea to be grateful for the concern. Not that he would have accepted it healthy either.
Timor returned his gaze to the cups. “Right I do. But your tab is too high right now for that.”
That froze Thug for a few seconds. “Elenia’s right tit. You are lying, right?” He warkly rose his right hand.
Timor simply shook his head.
Thug hid his face with his hand as he slouched forward, loudly sighing. “What a way to wake up to a new and beautiful morning.”
“It is noon.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Dropping his hands from his face and onto the counter, he added, “Just give me some good damn job.”
“You hate hobgoblin hunting. And I only have two quests today.”
“Give me both. I have an inkling that today they aren’t going to smell that bad anymore.”
Unease came to the barkeeper, “Both, really? One is above your paycheck.”
“Too much pay?”
Timor nodded as subtle as he could, eyeing the Inquisitor.
Thug didn’t realise. “Do not care for the risks today. Give me a discount when I come later regretting it.”
“Thug…” A soft tone, full of worry.
Thug only shook his hand in the air. “Need the money.”
“I will just be your barkeeper if you keep this up.” Warned Timor. Even if he wanted to, he would not be able to shield Thug with this job.
“I will drink to that!” Smirked Thug. “They never tell you to stop spending money on the things you want to.”
Timor sighed long and hard. “So be it. But forget about the discount.”
……
“Dragon hunting, huh?” Spoke Thug, to no one in particular. It was dangerous to be too silent in the forest, so he wasn’t bothering to hide his noises. It could also be pride, but it wasn’t unfounded, for his skill was real.
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His leather boots struggled to make the noise of footsteps, for he was way too used to being silent. His studded leather armour was well maintained despite the unending stains, adding different tonalities to its dirty brown. A short sword held from his waist, together with two daggers. His chestplate, hidden by some degree by his cloak, was home to many pockets, filled with several utensils.
Opening a map, he nodded. “Two hours from the zone of sightings. A wounded pup should not be able to run that far from there. Taking in the last onlookers reported two days ago…” He looked to the northeast. A mountain could be seen from inside the forest. It appeared close, but he knew it would be at least three days of travel.
He upped the pace, returning to his usual sneakiness. ‘A dragon hunting quest. I am already regretting it and it has been four hours.’. Night was already falling, but the full moon was bright enough. Grabbing from his waist pouch an energy potion, he uncorked it with his teeth and took a long swing. ‘As bitter as always.’.
After two and a half days he reached a small clearing with a big tree. Now a cloudy night, he almost passed his prey, if it hadn’t muttered in its sleep.
He stopped in his tracks and approached the tree. At its base, a hastily clawed out hole had been formed. Inside, a small girl trembled. An arrow was still stabbed on her left flank, the wound having reopened too many times, getting it infected.
Two small horns rested on her head. A small and lizardly tail coiled around her legs. She appeared no older than a nine years old human kid, if one forgot about the draconid features. White and unkempt hair, full of dirt and leaves, reflected the little light that fell from the sky. Dressed in the rags of old clothes and a cloak too big for her, she appeared as pitiful as one could get. Memories from the past tried to come to light and made him take a swing from the wineskin he always wore with him.
He sighed and closed his eyes. ‘I really, really hate my job sometimes.’. He unsheathed his short sword and raised it, his body knowing where to strike even in blindness, But weakness always breeds more of itself and, by keeping his sight closed, his hearing received more attention. His ears catched her delirious ravings, as she was immersed in her dream.
“Mommy…Sorry, I am sorry…” The sniffling he heard was the last nail in his proverbial coffin, and he opened his eyes again.
…….
Pain and cold were slowly dwindling. Her slumber quickly destabilising, she rushed to awoke, causing her mouth to let out a small hiss as her flank flared with pain. But only pain. No stinging or burning sensation remained. She turned to look at it, the light of a nearby bonfire letting her tired eyes see the wound bandaged, lacking the steel stick that had harmed her so much. ‘Wait, light?’ Her reptilian eyes shoot upwards, locating a cursed human, sitting against a tree.
She inhaled and tried to exhale as much as she could, her insides protesting against the sudden request. Her icy breath didn’t reach far, only causing a cold mist and almost putting out the fire.
“Thank you.” The human started, shaking his head, “I was feeling hot this early winter night. I also didn’t want to eat hot food either.”
She looked to the fire, seeing a small pot of rabbit stew that she had covered in a small and thin layer of ice that was quickly defrosting. Her stomach grumbled, coming alive by the now booming scent her tongue was catching. Her instincts caused her to lick the air, saboring further the food. Her partial metamorphosis was causing her problems again.
The human sighed and continued, now in a softer voice, “My bad. Sorry if I startled you. I am just an old and cranky man. You are not at fault. Eat.”
She receded further into a crouching position, revealing her fangs and hissing, trying to appear more threatening, too scared to smell the emotions in his voice.
The human moved his hand, causing her to flinch. Instead of grabbing his metal stick he rested it in his face, sighing another time. “Well, now I know for sure I am bad with kids.” His voice grew cold and professional, as if speaking to a superior, and the blue smell of sadness and regret she was starting to perceive from him vanished. “You understand your position right, dragon?”
His sudden change made her wariness reach its maximum and growled, “You are going to sell me for hoards.”
“Yes.” He nodded. “But I am a mercenary.”
She didn’t understand what he meant. Nonetheless, the next words confused her.
“And I am open for business. You could hire me.”
Her tongue confirmed that he wasn’t lying, but that only startled her. “What?”
“Your scales, horns and hair are very valuable products.” That paled in comparison with her blood, but he left that detail out. “You can buy me with those.”
“...your hoard dragon scales?” The smell of hidden information recovered her bearings and her unease.
“I hoard money. And scales are… Your scales can be exchanged for gold coins.” He did his best to not sigh again. ‘Is she really just a kid?’. That thought made him reach for his wineskin and tried to take another sip. ‘Empty, Nethers. Not a drink today.'
She didn’t believe him, even against what her body was telling her. She needed more time, her body was quickly regaining strength and she would be able to breathe again in moments. “And why would I want to hire you?”
The human shaked his head and reached for his bag, pulling out a piece of paper and, after crumbling it, threw it at her. It bounced in the ground a few times. Catching her hesitation on reaching for it, he explained, “That’s an official statement from the Mercenary guild. Thirty gold coins for your capture. Dead only. I am the first empty-head to accept it. But others will come.”
“So, you are threatening me to hire you for my protection?” A bit of anger came by in her tone. She may be young, but she wouldn’t be fooled like that.
“Not threatening, no. Just asking.” He rose up and walked towards the bonfire. The dragon pup capitalised on the opportunity and breathed again, now at full force, on him. Once the mist faded, she found her frozen cloak where he had been, near the now frozen bonfire. Panicking, she looked to the sides and stopped once she noticed a dagger under her neck.
“I am simply offering a service.” He retired the dagger. “And can you stop doing that? If you ruin my…our dinner, I will scream.” He had managed to retreat with the pot.
She almost fell to the ground, looking at him, half a metre away from her, with teary and fearful eyes. Unmistakable. The smell of anger. It brought memories that she didn’t want right now, causing her eyes to tear up. The human turned his eyes away and backed a few steps, trying to make her feel safer. He smelt of pity, anger quickly forgotten.
“...I can always cook again. Please, do not make that face.” The last part mutters that her sensible ears picked up.
“...if I hire you, you will protect me, right?” She scratched her face, trying to stop her tears before they started in earnest. She had been defeated and thus she would act a dragon. If that was the only thing the human wanted she would accept.
“That would be my job, yes.” Softness had come back to his tone.
“...and how will you take the scales?” She couldn’t stop herself from asking.
“Don’t they sometimes fall? Those are enough.” Indifference now, as if he had stopped carrying already. He returned to the bonfire and started to check the pot.
She started to look around, her early decisiveness forgotten already. Her mind was separated into two factions, one who wanted to believe and act her pride, and another that wanted to simply run away. Before she could reach a conclusion, a bowl of stew came into her eyesight.
“Eat first and sleep after. You do not need to answer now.” He kicked his frozen cloak and grabbed it like a sack, acting more like a plank of wood broken in two. Mumbling, “How much will it cost another one…”, he returned to his resting position against the tree and fell asleep fast.
Her vertical pupils fixated on the human in front of her. He had treated her and was willing to let her go. Her hands being warmed by the bowl, she made his choice.
…….
“Argh!” Thug woke up screaming, his hands trembling. Both alertness and nausea crashing into him at his sudden movement, he got up as quickly as possible. The sun hadn’t even come up yet. “Nethers.” His right hand lunged for his wineskin, grabbing it with desperation. The panic and slowness of his thoughts increased to the maximum once he felt it empty. Starting to hyperventilate, he wondered for the hundredth time if he should drink his keepsake, a bottle of Fire and Stone, a beverage made for rich dwarves. His hand stopped, like always, before grabbing it. Breathing out, only then he realised he had awakened the dragon pup, and was looking at him with subsiding fear.
“...are you alright?” He had smelled foul. Now it had turned into regret and embarrassment, even if some of the stink remained.
“Stamina potions are a pain in the but.” Thug shook his head. Trying to lighten the mood, he looked at the sky, searching for an excuse, searching for anything. ‘How can I lose my marbles in front of a kid…’. He gave up. “Let’s get moving. I need to finish a job.” An edge in his voice still remained.
“...okey.” The dragon pup reluctantly got up, her body still craving sleep.
They travelled in silence. After two hours, the morning sun graced them with its light, warming the cold winter morning. Even if the east of the Empire was known for its mild climate, it still could get unforgiving on winters. As they traversed through the forest, the pup had now the leeway to indulge in curiosity, sniffing nearby flowers, looking at the animals and plants, and asking some questions. She had gotten so engrossed in it that she had forgotten her fear.
“That’s a Hope. It’s an edible flower. Its name comes from a legend involving Dice, Goddess of Luck.” Thug didn’t realise he was smiling as the dragon slightly opened up to him. His headache was getting worse still, and a part of him wanted her to shut up. “It is a nice history. She had gotten into a fight with Ka…” Coldness shattered his last words, and his hand dashed towards his short sword.
The dragon, quick on the uptake, crouched and hid at the side of a bush.
“Stay there.” He whispered
Her ears hadn’t caught a sound, but her tongue catched the rancid smell of the yellow goblins.
Thug stalked forward, dodging a rope trap in the ground and taking refuge in the shadow of the tree. He quietly unsheathed his short sword and grabbed a dagger. ‘They should still be three hours away. Bastard motherscrewers of explorers they are! Lying on the damned reports…I am going to teach them how to…’ Seeing a greenish eye, his left hand sprang into action, launching its dagger. The aim true, its pointy end found the brains of the first hobgoblin. While the dagged flew, he jumped forward and outside the tree, on which three arrows embedded themselves into.
Rolling away, he parried a club strike coming from behind another tree. His left hand punched its windpipe, crushing it, and with a kick he created some space from himself. ‘A tree in front of me. One a metre and a half to my eight’s, Another three away to my six.’. He jumped to his right, dodging two arrows, but he had miscalculated his jump a bit, moving too much forward and ending in front of another hobgoblin, hidden in ambush in another bush. As it jumped out roaring, the creature of two and a half metres appeared an inescapable tower of muscles and yellow skin.
He parried its downward strike with too little leeway. Noticing his opponent was armoured but without helmet, his left hand dashed to his chestplate, opening a chest and grabbing an egg size object. Jumping backwards again to dodge an horizontal follow, he crushed his hand made tool and launched its contents to the eyes of the hobgoblin before crouching as low as he could. The pained screams of his opponent as his eyes were attacked by crushed pepper and glass dust diminished as an arrow found its stomach. The second missed both of them.
Thug recovered his standing position and ended its agony with a quick stab to the neck. Turning backwards, he saw that the last three hobgoblins had ended all pretences of an ambush. Unsheathing another dagger, he bent his knees a bit to ready himself. The three hobgoblins, while uncertain of how to approach, decided to surround him. His left hand feinted a throw to the middle one, causing the hobgoblin in front of him to back away and defend himself and the two at his sides to rush in.
Thug darted to his right again, rushing from where he had come and parrying the hastily made strike of his surprised opponent, quickly guttering it. Now back to the second corpse near the tree, he circled behind the tree to obfuscate their vision and climbed the tree as fast as he could.
The two yellow skins tried to do the same motion around the tree, one from each side, and almost attacked each other once they collided after finishing their rotation. They turned to look around, not realising that because they couldn’t climb the tree it didn’t imply that their prey wouldn’t be able to. A dropped dagger ended their delusions as it dived into the right collar bone of one of the two, making it drop its wooden club. As the second looked upwards, the falling Thug impaled it from above with the force of a jump from a height of five metres. The impact drove both Thug and its body to the ground.
The last yellow skin jumped onto Thug before he could disentangle himself. Punching his back, only his leather armour stopped his scapula from breaking. Thug jabbed it in the face as he turned, trying to face it. His hit turned its head away, but not for long, and the monster immobilised his shoulders with his healthy arm and tried to bite his neck. A knee to its genitalia made it lose strength, granting Thug the opening to headbut it, creating enough space for him to unsheathe another dagger and stab it under its head.
Its corpse fell onto Thug, who was hyperventilating. After a few seconds to recheck his breathing, he grabbed the corpse and pushed it aside. Patting its red blood drenched armour, he shook his head. ‘If I see the captain of the scouts I am going to beat him up and throw him into a damned well! Usual hunting grounds my ass.’.
His chaotic mind, assaulted by the early migraine, didn’t notice the last hobgoblin sneaking. A hit to his skull made him fall to the ground, having almost cracked his skull open. Disoriented, his vision failing him, he rolled to the wrong side, colliding against the tree. Desperation fueling his movements, he defended with his short sword. The force behind the second downward hit knocked his short sword off his hand, but it had given him time. His left hand grabbed another “egg” and directly crushed it against the hobgoblin face.
It started to thrash around, wielding with wild abandon its club and making Thug dart to the ground. He waited until it broke against the tree, the pain in its hand and eyes causing it to crash backwards. Like a tenacious beast, it continued to wrestle against nothing in particular until Thug stabbed its face with his short sword.
A different kind of headache building up, he walked to retrieve his daggers before tripping on nothing and falling. ‘How severe is it? Do I have the money to replace the healing potion?’ He didn’t risk it. After drinking the potion, the wound started to slowly close. If he had internal damage he would be dead meat in a few hours, so it was more up to Dice’s choice. Both of the head pains started to wear off.
“You can come out.” His voice had lost its earlier edge.
The dragon pup left the bush, slightly trembling and looking with apprehension at his head.
“Everythings fine.” Having recovered his last dagger, he started to cut the right ears of the hobgoblins.
Smelling lies, but not daring to dwell in the topic, she nodded.
“And, between all this, do you have a name? I can’t just keep calling you ‘you’.” Asked Thug.
Her tone lowered. She did her best to not conjure that scene on her mind, that memory. “We are only given names when our mothers recognize our feats.”
“Huh. By the way, I am Thug, your average mercenary.” Having finished his job, pockets full of ears, he stretched his back. “What do you think about Hare?”
“Hare?” She didn't understand what was happening.
“I think it fits you. You can always drop it later.” Finishing his stretching and now caressing his head, “Damned yellowskins. Now I need the bath for real.” Gazing back, he saw Hare, unmoving. “You alright?”
“Ye…yes!” She nodded. ‘Hare…’
……………