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Dragonblooded
Chapter 26

Chapter 26

Sheilah stumbled away from the gigantic dragon, limbs weak, weariness dragging at her whole body. Her chest burned with the pain from the impact earlier, and her arm was wrenched and slimy.

She stumbled over a small stone and nearly tumbled off the cliff, barely catching herself before she fell. She stared down at the still-smoking shelf she’d shared with Fialla; a small pile of her arrows had fallen down there.

She eased herself down and picked up her arrows with trembling fingers, stuffing them into the quiver that hung from her belt. She looked back up at the cliffside where she’d fought the dragon, and wearily dragged herself up, the aching burn of her broken rib making it difficult to breathe, to move.

Once she reached the top, she eyed the dragon, which was still shuddering and spasming unnaturally.

She’d done something to it. She wasn’t sure what it was she’d done, but she knew she’d done something.

She dragged herself up the back of the dragon and dragged her father’s sword out of the dragon’s back. A freshet of blood began jetting from the beast; she knelt and let the blood gush into her mouth, drinking as much as she could.

Her vision went weird, her head felt like it would detach from her body; her body felt hot and itchy, numb and tingly. There was a great roaring in her ears, and she fell forward into the bloody wound in a faint.

Her dreams were strange and filled with all sorts of baffling things she couldn’t understand. She slept, bathing in the blood of a Tyrant Dragon, and dreamed terrible dreams of subjugation and conquest, soaring through the air, defeating all those that stood against her. Her dominion was unquestioned, her will was unbending and for a thousand, ten thousand years, she ruled with a fist of molten flame.

Then The Voice reached out to her. She didn’t know who or what The Voice was, but it excited and terrified her with what it promised.

She agreed, and then she sank deeper into sleep, the deepest sleep reserved for those who truly need it.

When she awoke, the dragon was still twitching and bleeding from the wounds she’d inflicted on it.

Her vision was weird, colors and details seemed to smear and blur when she turned her head. Whelpling blood was intoxicating, dragonling blood addictive, this dragon’s blood was scrambling her senses beyond comparison. Her whole body thrummed and tingled, she seemed weirdly conscious of her breathing, her head pounded with her heartbeat and it was hard to focus on anything.

Her gaze fell to her father’s sword, splattered with dragonblood, and slowly, carefully, she tried to pick it up, but missed her reach by a good margin. She stared numbly at her hand, streaked with drying blood. She opened her hand, closed it.

Yeah, hand still worked.

She reached down again, concentrating all of her focus on her hand.

She felt the tattered wrappings on the grip, and she studiously closed her hand, gripping the weapon in her hand.

An idle thought, as distracting as a mosquito humming about her ear, wondered if she would lose her father’s weapon if she took her eyes off of it. It didn’t make sense, it was irrational, some part of her insisted that she didn’t need to look at something to know it was in her hand, but it was so difficult to focus, to concentrate. If she let herself get distracted, she’d-

She came back to herself as she pitched off the back of the dragon and hit the ashen dirt.

Again.

She tried to push herself upright and realized she was death-gripping her father’s blade in her fist.

What came next?

A storm of images, feelings, ideas, faces whirled through her mind as she sat upright.

She was supposed to do something.

Where was she?

She looked up at the steel-gray skies, the heavy clouds of ash and filth, and blinked, confused. Where was she?

She looked around herself- dirt and ash, tumbled rocks, the trembling, quivering body of a dragon-

“Dragon!” She shouted, pushing herself to her feet. She stumbled backwards and hit a stone outcrop and a blast of pain wracked through her chest.

Her delirium faded with that impact, splintery shards of pain pushing back the fuzzy clouds that puffed through her mind, threatening to overwhelm her.

“Right.” She grimaced. “Focus, you idiot.” She spat through ash-streaked lips.

She used her father’s blade to cut into the dragon’s armpit, the vulnerable gap between shoulder and ribcage, and forced the blade down and through. Blood gushed out again, and she drank again, but this time, there was no sense of disorientation and disconnection.

She carved her way into the dragon’s chest, where the massive heart still twitched spasmodically. She cut the thing free and wondered how she was expected to eat the whole thing, considering its size.

She settled herself down and began to eat.

She ate and slept, woke and ate, slept and dreamed, woke and ate, she wasn’t certain how long it took for her to devour the entire thing.

From time to time it seemed like someone spoke to her, but if they did, it didn’t make sense, and she didn’t care, anyway.

She awoke some evening, some morning; she had lost track of time again. She pushed herself to her feet and wobbled. It felt weird somehow to stand on two feet. Her vision seemed weird, and there was a bizarre sense of everything around her, as if she knew where everything was around her without looking.

She looked around herself, and noticed a half-elf sleeping next to her for the first time. She felt like she should know who the half-elven girl was. She licked her lips and tasted strange metals on her tongue.

She looked around herself, and then back down at the girl.

The girl would know what she should do.

Yes, that’s right. She just needed to command her. Subjugate her.

“Wake up.” She croaked, and then coughed. Her throat felt parched. Wasn’t there.... She searched her memory... water? Ah. Yes. Water. She was suddenly very thirsty.

“Hey.” She demanded. “Wake up.”

The girl turned over in her sleep and then opened her eyes and looked up at Sheilah.

“Are you... you?” The girl asked, some strange expression on her face.

“Who do you think I am?” She shot back. “Give me water, puny thing.”

The girl suddenly rolled to her feet and backpedaled away, eyes wary.

The gall.

“Give me water, creature.” She repeated. “I have commanded it.”

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Her will was strong; she reached out to the girl, a wave of dust and ash stirring as she moved. The girl suddenly slipped and fell to her knees, eyes wide and fearful.

Good.

“Water.” She repeated, and the girl fumbled a waterskin from her belt and pushed it towards her.

Her hands felt strange as she picked up the skin- at least she had proper talons. She struggled to manipulate it with her hands, finally popping the cork and guzzling the water. By the Tyrant she was so thirsty!

When her belly was full she dropped the waterbag, no longer interested in it, and turned back to the fallen Tyrant Dragon. There was something she was supposed to do, wasn’t there?

There was a noise behind her, but before she could turn her strange body around, something slammed into her from behind and knocked her to the ground.

Tyranny only lasts as long as the one with the fist. The moment you lose your fist, I will be there.

Sheilah opened her eyes and looked up into the face of Fialla.

“Did you have to hit me so hard?” She complained.

“Are you... you... again?” Fialla asked.

“For now, it seems.” Sheilah replied. “The other... is waiting for me to slip.”

Fialla nodded. “I feel it inside me too. It keeps wanting to get out.” She paused. “It’s absolutely terrified of what’s in you, though.”

“Help me with the teeth and bones?” Sheilah asked, and Fialla let out a chuckle with a dubious expression.

“Those teeth are huge, Sheilah. How are you going to get them home? And the bones?”

“I’ll drag them if I have to.” She replied. “Do we have a way out of here? I don’t think I can climb down the way I came up.”

As she said that, she experimentally rolled her shoulders; the horrible grinding, splintery pain had vanished, leaving behind a dull ache.

Fialla nodded, and then helped Sheilah cut one of the massive teeth out of the dragon’s mouth. While they were working, Sheilah found she was able to retrieve several of her arrows, which she stuffed into her quiver.

For the Clan of the Dragon, their weapon of choice was a weapon ground from a tooth of a dragon, a tooth that had been flame-tempered to be stronger than steel, ground to an edge that would not break or dull or chip. The knife or sword or spear or whatever was sheathed in dragonbone, a material that was used to bearing up the crushing weight of a dragon. The bone of choice was typically a fingerbone, though in the instance of a spear, one of the armbones was taken instead.

In Sheilah’s instance however, the dragon’s tooth was larger than had been collected before. The average sword in the Redstone was a bit longer than the forearm, but the tooth she hacked out of the Tyrant Dragon came up to her shoulder.

“I’ll stick to tradition.” Sheilah joked with Fialla. “I’ll take a fang, and one of the finger bones.”

“That’s still a lot to drag. What about the hide?”

Dragonhide was used in making their first clothes as adults. It was part of the rite of passage from childhood to adulthood, from someone that relied and depended upon the tribe to someone that protected and defended the tribe.

The bones, the teeth, the heart, everything about them, from within and without was Dragon, an inseparable tie to the Great Mother Tyrant, the Totem of their Clan, the proof of an inseparable bond stretching back countless generations, all the way to the beginning.

Sheilah shook her head.

Fialla prodded the thick, heavy hide and used her knife to lever up one of the scales, huge and thick. It was impossible to use as leather.

Sheilah used her father’s sword to carve her family symbol in front of the dragon to show proof of her kill, and then, using strips of dragonhide, bound her trophies together and they began the long trip back home.

The way down from the cliffside was actually pretty easy because there was a nearby slope that Sheilah wasn’t aware of, given her unorthodox approach. Still, they had a long way to go to cross the Ashlands, plus the long trek back through the mountains and the long journey across the Redstone back home to the territory of the Dragon Clan.

“We could have come up this way; much easier.” Sheilah complained, rolling her eyes at Fialla. There was still a strange sense of awareness that she hadn’t had before, a sensation she wasn’t used to.

“I- I don’t think that I could have done it, sister.” Fialla replied in a low voice, head down, eyes on her toes. “I would have run away.” She whispered, but Sheilah heard her anyway.

Sheilah didn’t need to ask Fialla about her own hunt; the girl had her own bundle of dragonhide, the tip of a dragon tooth peeked out from it.

The journey to the Burning Lands, it was explained by her father, was meant to hone your mind and prepare your body for what was to come; the long trip back was to give you the chance to regain possession of yourself. It was easy to lose yourself in your Totem’s power, which was dangerous not just to yourself, but also to the people around you.

It was especially important to those of the Dragon Clan, who were considered the apex of the clans. Great power required a strong will to keep it in check.

The massive parts of the dragon weighed heavily on the girls, who had to drag them behind. Fialla’s tooth was enough to craft a long dagger, or perhaps a short sword; Sheilah’s was perhaps the largest tooth ever collected.

As far as Sheilah knew, not even Adlan, champion and her own great-great grandfather, had slain a Tyrant Dragon.

She wanted to experiment with her abilities, but they were too new, and the feeling of the Tyrant within her too strong to risk it, but she didn’t get a choice in the matter.

Supremacy was nothing like it had been before. When a massive Glass Spider clattered across several boulders towards the two girls, something boiled out of her with a searing heat, pushing away dust and ash away from her, washing over the shimmering arachnid, sending it into paroxysms of convulsions while a heady, giddy sense of superiority washed over her. The world lit up with vibrant colors, prismatic hues she’d never seen before as her heart quickened in her chest, hands clenching into eager fists. There was an almost overpowering urge to race towards it and tear it apart. She tore her gaze away from the spider, and hit the ground on her knees as the heady rush drained out of her, colors bleeding back into the monotonous grays and browns of the Ashlands.

Fialla stumbled away from Sheilah, eyes wide, trembling and gasping, hand on her chest, coughing and spitting dirt, struggling to keep her footing.

“I just...” She mumbled as the Glass Spider, much larger than the horse and cart the Stormheim intruders had used to steal into the Redlands, curled in on itself.

“I just...” She tried again, but she couldn’t find the words. She vacantly gazed about her, and then down at her hands. She unclenched her fists, watching the dark crescents in her palms fade.

“Fialla-!” She twisted, looking for her shadow.

The half elf offered her a half-shrug, and a complicated expression that troubled Sheilah more than anything.

“It just wants to come out.” Sheilah complained.

Fialla nodded at that. “It’s so hard to keep it in check.” She agreed. “Let’s go home.”

The two girls discussed Calamity as they carefully picked their way across the broken landscape.

“My father told me that I’d probably want to try that most of all.” Fialla opined. “He’s not wrong- I really do want to try it- but I really want to wait until we get back to the Dragon Terrace, first.” She added. “It’s supposed to take so much out of you, and there’s too much out here-” She gestured around them, “to risk it.”

Sheilah nodded, but her own father had told her that it didn’t matter what was sensible, when you were new to the powers of the Dragon, you wanted to try them as quickly as possible, indifferent to the risks and dangers.

“Strong will.” Sheilah grimaced, determined to keep in the urge to unleash her own Calamity.

“It might be necessary to fight our way through the remaining giants.” Fialla reminded Sheilah as they struggled up the long slope towards the passes. “I don’t think it’d be wise to do it while dragging this load.”

Sheilah nodded. “Obviously. But are they even there? Have they moved on? I think we should scout them out before making any sort of plan.”

Fialla rubbed her chin thoughtfully. “I haven’t spotted any tracks from the other clansmen. Should we wait for them? Attack the giants in numbers again?”

Sheilah squatted down and took a sip of water. Fialla joined her, but there was a noticeable distance she’d put between herself and Sheilah; either the half-elf was struggling to master her own gifts, or she was simply terrified of Sheilah’s own.

She felt lonely at that prospect. Fialla was her shadow, a comforting, teasing, and sometimes obnoxious part of her life she’d grown used to having, and her obvious distance upset her, especially given the straightforward and passionate vow she’d made ... previously. How long ago? How long had she spent next to the Tyrant’s corpse, devouring its heart?

“Do you think we can take a peek without getting spotted?” Sheilah asked curiously.

“I don’t know.” Fialla replied, and then patted her chest. “The Dragon wants out, and...” She shook her head. “It’s so hard to control!”

Sheilah sobered up at this. She knew the struggle as well. The Dragon did not want to be denied. It did not want to sneak. It wanted to demand, it wanted to crush everything before it, anything that stood in its way needed to be brought low, scourged with fire. Only the strong survived.

“You live and die by your own strength.” Sheilah muttered, clenching her fist to her chest where a furious fire burned.

Suddenly, the Dragon seemed to quell within her, calming down and settling itself within her; a strange sensation that prickled through her whole body.

She looked to Fialla.

“You live and die by your own strength. That’s what my father has been saying since the very beginning. Now I understand the meaning.”