When he saw the armored man coming, Anker felt his heart leap into his throat. Hidden in the branches of a low fern, he began to tremble. Coronice noticed his tension, and she tried to wrap an arm around his shoulder to calm him down, but Anker pushed her away. Although he could not perceive any sympathionic flow from his enemy, the mere sight of the ethereal knight accompanied by his maid was a terrifying omen. Against such an adversary, Anker felt completely naked.
The white armor bore the emblem of the Kingdom of Ferlonia. Anker remembered its sinuous lines and ornaments, from the dispatch of his first mission. He knew its deadly hollow and rifled spears, light as javelins, with long, pointed blades, like colichemardes. He had studied each of the six types of magical projectiles that could be materialized inside the drums embedded in the removable grips when they were wielded as rifles.
Anker stared at the burgundy handkerchief tied to the hilt of his sabre, as if to remind him of his Vow, and gritted his teeth.
The glittering ethereal armor that had set in motion the events that had taken him so far from his homeland was finally within reach, but it was also unattainable. The object of desire that Anker had fought so hard for seemed to have become the most likely cause of his demise.
Was Dioryl the one wearing it? One of his henchmen? It made no difference. The man was invulnerable, and neither he nor Viryl had a plan to stop him. They had never even considered that possibility. Now they could only run like rats… but where?
The fake knight reached the door of the glass dome, inserted the key into the lock, unlocked it, withdrew the key, opened the door, inserted the key from the other side, closed it again, and prepared to give it a couple of turns.
What happened in the next few moments was pure chaos. Each of the actors on the scene, however, had very clear ideas about what their role was and what action to take next. Anker was the only exception.
It all started with a blast that originated in Dioryl’s chest and knocked him back to the ground. A sticky grenade, Anker would later realize. It had been delicately applied on the hard surface of the armor plate, in a way that had prevented Dioryl from noticing.
As the bomb exploded, Viryl's figure materialized behind the greenhouse door. He flung the door open, and rushed at the coward who had robbed him of his weapons, perfectly unharmed but still stunned by the surprise attack.
As Viryl straddled his fallen foe, Coronice sensed that she would have no better opportunity to make her escape. She grabbed Anker by the wrist and ran toward the exit. Anker let himself be led without resistance, confused by the sudden events. Coronice pushed Anker out, took the key out of the lock, slammed the door behind her, and locked it again.
As Coronice dragged Anker out of the greenhouse and Viryl savaged Dioryl, Neltunia dropped to her knees, clasped her hands together, and began reciting a prayer.
“Oh Malsenial, sovereign of the desert, you who conceived the divine twins Ilixanthia and Yothosep, mother of all gods and all creatures, assist your beloved son in the hour of tribulation and let the breath never dry in his throat… ”
The metallic click of the lock triggered a reaction in Anker, who seemed to shake off his state of terror. “Hey, that was Viryl,” he observed, pressing his face to the glass and pointing to the bald man who was holding a javelin to the throat of his armored opponent. Seeing his ally as he pluckily confronted their extraordinary foe, Anker managed to find a shred of determination and turned to Coronice: “What are you doing? Why did you lock him in? We have to go help him!”
"No way, you idiot! We have to think about escaping! It may already be too late, but we have to try!" the girl shouted.
“We can’t abandon him!” Anker retorted, then lunged at Coronice, trying to wrest the key from her hands, “Give it to me! You can run away on your own!”
“You will die! And after he kills you both, he will find the door open and come looking for me! I can’t let you go!” Coronice insisted, turning her back on Anker and clutching the key to her chest protectively.
While Anker and Coronice wasted time bickering, Viryl was performing a complex and error-free operation in the greenhouse. He had been protected by the armor he was now trying to break for more than two-thirds of his life, and he knew all of its vulnerabilities. The junction between the gorget and the breastplate was one of the easiest joints to pierce, and it was the only one that gave access to a vital point of the opponent. The end of the javelin had already been loaded with the last explosive crystal Viryl had in his possession, and, having wedged it precisely at the point of least resistance, he held it firmly, ready to detonate. Dioryl flailed around in an attempt to free himself or fly away, but Viryl was immovable, like a mastiff on its prey. The fallen knight gave the impulse, and the tip exploded, burning a bloody hole in the Grand Master's neck and windpipe, and the javelin was hurled far away.
Meanwhile Neltunia, in a deep trance, repeated her chanting prayer over and over.
“Then lock me in with him!” Anker howled, as he wrapped Coronice in a fierce embrace in an attempt to gain possession of the coveted piece of metal.
“That’s enough!” Coronice screamed, struggling, then brought the key to her mouth and swallowed it. “If you’re so keen to get yourself killed, disembowel me and get it from my entrails!”
Anker glared at her, almost unable to understand the madness he had just witnessed. “You… damned magpie. You are completely crazy!”
Viryl had been wounded by the shards that had been thrown off the ethereal armor, but he seemed to feel no pain. He had to finish off his miserable enemy. So, before the blow he had dealt was healed by the Exoplion, he began to sink heavy blows into the bloody cavity with his other javelin. His intent was to dislocate Dioryl's cervical vertebrae and sever his spinal cord.
Viryl was convinced that victory was in his grasp, and he expected the ethereal armor of the false knight to disintegrate at any moment, so with implacable ferocity he paced his thrusts. But the seconds passed, far more than those necessary for a brain that no longer receives oxygen to shut down, and Dioryl did not die.
“Mad or not, you have no choice but to listen to me now,” Coronice hissed at the knight.
But Anker ignored her, distracted by the battle unfolding in the greenhouse. He muttered in shock, “It looks like Viryl won: he’s ripped open the armor plates and landed a killing blow. And yet that bastard’s Exoplion won’t deactivate. What’s going on?”
Coronice followed Anker's gaze, and for a moment her eyes shone, as if a new and entirely unexplored universe of possibilities had opened up before her.
"I told you, didn't I? Neltunia is a healer and as long as she continues to recite her prayer Dioryl cannot die," the girl explained, "the pieces of his corpse would tend to reunite even if they were scattered to the four corners of the world. If you want to help your friend, you must kill her first."
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
Anker digested the concept, and turned to the priestess of Malsenial. He studied her carefully. She was a beautiful woman. Her breasts were generous and her straight, silky wheat-colored hair rested softly on them. Her eyes were closed and her hands were clasped in supplication, which was carried out in a monotonous and repetitive voice. Her skin was far too exposed in the harsh climate. Her amber arms were bare to the shoulders, as were her thighs to the toned buttocks, not at all protected by the short white silk dress.
Once he had brandished his saber, Anker stood before her, ready to decapitate her with a single, clean slash. He would not make her suffer.
The chant gave a sudden start, and Neltunia was shaken by a sob and a rapid inhalation. Then the prayer resumed, in the same rhythm.
The tip of the curved blade slumped down. He couldn’t do this. Anker couldn’t execute this defenseless woman in cold blood.
In the greenhouse, the situation began to reverse. Dioryl raised both arms and grabbed the spear that Viryl was repeatedly pushing into his neck with both hands. With unexpected strength he lifted it and brought it down next to his face. The spear stuck in the damp, clayey ground. Viryl didn't even try to retrieve it, instead he preferred to sink both hands into his enemy's open wound and began to tear it apart, as if he intended to take his head off with brute force. But Dioryl landed a punch on his side and grabbed the leather hood of his armor, and rolled him to the side, finally finding himself astride the fallen knight.
“What the fuck are you waiting for?!” Coronice exclaimed, worried about the turn of events.
“I… I can’t kill her,” Anker justified himself, giving Coronice a look with shining eyes, as if he were on the verge of bursting into tears.
Coronice pushed him aside and shouted, “Look, you idiot! That’s how it’s done!”
And she rushed at the priestess, knocking her to the ground. He bit her neck, and greedily tore off pieces of flesh, which he spat out as soon as they came off. In a few moments Coronice's face was a mask of blood, and Neltunia didn't even moan.
Anker gagged and turned away from the cruel and abominable slaughtering. Distracted by the events, he had momentarily forgotten what kind of monster the raven girl was, but that knowledge came back to him instantly, all at once.
As Neltunia's corpse lay limp in her death grip, Coronice stood up and shook her head with satisfaction, squirting away the crimson liquid that was splattering her face and hair. All in all, she was happy to have taken the life of that lowly whore with her own hands. Then she turned to the greenhouse, and she did not like what she saw with her predatory eyes.
Viryl had wriggled free of Dioryl’s grip, and was now on his feet, unleashing a flurry of punches on the enemy. The Grandmaster's ethereal armor had already regenerated, and the blood he'd spilled from his throat was drawing a red tie across his white armor.
Coronice cursed herself for not having acted on her instinct to flee immediately. “You imbecile,” she said to Anker, “you hesitated, and we lost our only chance of winning.”
Anker took a step back, staring at her in horror.
Coronice licked her lips, savoring the metallic flavor that assaulted her taste buds. “You know what? I’ve done more than I was supposed to here. Bye-bye!”
Anker didn't try to stop her. He let her run, and watched her disappear through the archway that interrupted the perimeter of the residence.
Dejected, the knight shuffled with heavy steps towards the glass wall of the greenhouse to witness the final stages of the battle taking place inside.
Viryl and Dioryl were dueling with their fists. For the moment it seemed like there was a stalemate, but it was clear that the battle was going from bad to worse for Viryl. His knuckles were bleeding, and his one-eyed face was swollen. Yet he did not give up, and for every punch he received he gave another.
Anker could do nothing but stand there, watching his friend being mashed to a pulp. Then a huge black shadow obscured the moon and stars.
A dragon is born from the fusion of a reptile and a remora. A dragon's weak point is the latter, which nests in its heart. If you want to kill a dragon, you must pierce it in its chest.
So the Rat King had said.
Yet the abomination that had appeared in the sky and floated on the slow beats of its boundless wings in the center of the courtyard was too out of scale to suppose that it was mortal. Pierce its heart? Where was the heart in that chest that seemed like the keel of a galleon?
The being dropped onto the tempered glass dome, which shattered like a thin sheet of ice under the weight of a boot. A shower of crystals fell from the sky, and the false knight welcomed it into his white armor, spreading his arms and raising his head, while the long scaly tail of the reptile rested around him, enveloping him in a loose embrace. Viryl, pierced by hundreds of shards of glass, threw his last punch. Dioryl received it full in the face, without moving half an inch. Then he summoned a spear-rifle in his right hand, and fired a paralyzing bullet point-blank into Viryl's abdomen.
When Anker saw the dragon fall from the sky, he turned and ran with all the energy he had left in his body toward the archway that led out of the courtyard. He was still far from his destination when the shockwave knocked him to the ground. He spun around, and lay on his back. The monster's flaming yellow irises towered over him, cruel and inescapable. With the strength of pure survival instinct, he tried again to turn, stand, and run.
Through the archway that was his only hope of salvation he saw three more dragons galloping by, though considerably smaller than the first, as big as adult Vespertine Bears. One of them had Coronice's left arm in its jaws, the rest of her body still attached, dangling lifelessly.
Exhausted and desperate, Anker could not bear that last vision and fainted.
*****
“What a mess…” Dioryl stated, admiring the havoc wrought around him. He was talking to himself, or perhaps to the dragons, or perhaps to his defeated foe who in turn, rigid on the ground, contracted in a painful spasm, could only cast him vengeful glances.
The dragon hatchlings he was so carefully raising in the terrarium were doomed to die. They had no chance. The stage of development they had reached was not nearly enough to allow them to withstand the harsh winter climate of the Varanaches. And fixing the greenhouse would take months and dozens of zecchini, if not hundreds. Perhaps in the summer he would be able to start over with a new brood.
They would not be happy about that setback.
The condition of the business he had took so many years to build was even worse. Only ashes and a few embers remained. Of the five esoteric cults he had had under his yoke, one had been completely annihilated, another had lost its leader, and another had rebelled.
Separated from its limbs, even the head, the Dragon Lodge, would have lost its credibility. Perhaps his very role as Grand Master would have been called into question. Another sedition to be smothered in blood.
The Axazeloth sect was the only one that still seemed to be doing well. But it was all appearance. The Doctor Maximus was still looking for his ideal receptacle in the gaol where he had been placed to conduct his experiments, and he had never achieved any concrete result. And they were starting to show impatience.
Dioryl sighed.
Even his most trusted servants had deserted him. Coronice had proved useless and then she had betrayed him. Neltunia was dead. Her corpse, lying lifeless in the debris, looked to the sky with blank, staring eyes.
If he had survived the ambush, he owed it to her. She had been, without a doubt, the most useful pawn he had ever had in his hands.
A fit of anger made the Grand Master flare up, and he thrust a kick into Viryl’s side, who could do nothing but receive it, helpless. “You’ve cost me dearly, you filthy bastards. I know that life can’t always go smoothly, but you’ve been a real disgrace. And you did all this for a fucking piece of stone. I should have been much more drastic when it came to dealing with you.”
Dioryl shook his head. He had to get a hold of himself. Thinking about it clearly, his options had been limited from the start. He had been forced to uphold his end of the bargain with them , because without the bargain he would never have been able to take command of the Dragon Lodge and everything else. After that he had considered the most logical and proportionate decision from time to time, and those tenacious bastards had always managed to survive. The only true mistake he had made was trusting Coronice so blindly. If that freak of nature had done her job right from the start, the avalanche that had led to the disaster would not have come loose.
But by now there was no point in crying over spilled milk.
All that remained to be done was to fly to safety and rebuild. And to give each of those three pricks the most painful punishment he could imagine, tailor-made for them. Perhaps it was a waste of energy. A nod would have been enough, and the gigantic reptilian paws of his pet Fuscus would have crushed them to the ground.
But Dioryl could not refrain from a much more sadistic revenge. In one day, the fruit of almost a decade of work had been taken from him, so he could not accept that the suffering of those three would end in less than an instant.