When the expedition finally arrived at the mountain range, Leo had already become the empress’s personal cook. The principles and techniques he used were quickly picked up by the others and their dishes were as tasty as his, but the empress decided to monopolize the ‘chosen’ of the Gods and keep him at arms length at all times.
To Leo’s great surprise she took over his habit of eating enormous amounts of food and sometimes the boy even got a feeling she was trying to out-eat him as if it was a competition. Luckily the infinite exercise they got on the way prevented her from loosing her fit condition and, in addition, she continued to spar with the guards daily even further honing her skills.
Sadly Leo soon lost any hope of escaping after they wondered the mountains for a few days while hunting goats and mountain lions and then decided to turn back. The council members unanimously agreed that if the God wanted to, they would’ve showed themselves by now and any attempts of looking for them was a waste of time.
Currently they were preoccupied with the part of the legacy of the God called ‘cookbook’ that most likely had fallen in the hands of the Southern queen. It was obvious that the dumb male-slave who only knew how to eat and sleep hadn’t grasped all secrets the book contained and it was pivotal to acquire it as soon as possible. In addition, everyone wanted to study the divine language and scripts as soon as possible.
The group had already turned back and reached the forest line, when after setting up the camp during dinner the empress, probably out of boredom, turned to Leo and asked, “Are you certain there were no divine recipes in the book?”
The male-slave after full day of traveling with the heavy weapon on his back didn’t manage to hold back sarcasm and snickered, “Even if there were, do you think one needs a divine method to cook a rabbit, deer or partridge? It’s not like there are dragons or phoenixes to hunt, are there?”
The next moment he regretted loosing self control and breaking rules number six and seven at the same time. He lost vigilance while being next to a woman and spoke too much and as a result despite being dead tired had to strap the Cleaver on the back again and follow the fired-up empress and the confused group of her subjects.
Even though it was already dusk, she ordered to break the camp and immediately depart towards the west. No one, of course, allowed themselves to display any displeasure, in fact, many soon became as excited as their leader. Leo soon overheard the reason – as it turns out in the middle of a swamp a couple hundred miles from their location lived a creature called ‘swamp dragon’, at least it had lived there few decades ago. No one knew for sure, but since the location was ‘almost’ on the way back to the capital, the empress immediately decided to take a slight roundabout route and see what the dragon meat tasted like.
To the male-slave it didn’t make much difference since it didn’t matter which way he had to travel. In addition, he was rather pleased he could continue to ‘work out’ by carrying the Cleaver while his daily needs were taken care of by empress’s elite guards. After wondering around the eastern mountain range, Leo noticed he could go close to five-six miles without taking a break and actually felt somewhat proud. Not so long ago he almost died under the Cleaver’s weight, but now he already felt he could soon try swinging it around.
Unfortunately his dreams soon were crushed into dust. Few days later they arrived to the region the ‘swamp dragon’ resided at and to his great horror Leo learned that the laws of nature applied to any person no matter their strength.
Yes, he could lift the Cleaver and yes, he could even slowly jog with it on the back, but it fully depended on the solidness of the ground beneath his feet. The moment the group stepped into the swampy region, every step Leo took his feet sunk in knee deep. It was so bad he could barely go few hundred yards without needing a rest. In addition, the air felt heavy to breathe, probably because of some poisonous gas discharges from the swamp, and the clouds of half inch sized mosquitoes made the travel an unbearable torture.
Seeing male-slave’s struggles, the empress sent out few guards to scout the dragon’s whereabouts as well as mark the safest travel route. Marking did help a lot, but despite that Leo still managed to get stuck waist-deep multiple times a day. Fortunately he never stepped in any of the countless quagmires on both sides of the trail although a thought of intentionally doing it passed his mind now and then. But the more time went by, the worse it got.
After two days in the swamp Leo realized that for the first time in his life he honestly wished he could die on the spot. He was dirty, tired and itched all over and it seemed that the bunch of women were set on torturing him to death. It became so bad he began to hallucinate and dream of Anna and the rest of his former commando squad. Fortunately his mumbling was mostly in the main dialect of the Immortal Alliance therefore the excited Dalina could only take notes of him dreaming of washing the goddess again without any chance to ever understand a word.
On the fourth morning Leo was woken up by a strange earthquake. The ground kept shaking and the pools of water covering quagmires were covered in tiny ripples as if a tribe of giants were having their ritual dance somewhere in the vicinity.
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“The dragon!” Dalina woke up at the same time Leo did and shouted, waking up the rest of the camp.
Only now Leo realized there were only six people present – he, Dalina and her regular four guards. Being so tired he didn’t notice the rest had charged forth the previous morning and from what it looked like already began to hunt the mythical creature.
Dalina, of course, felt left out even though watching over the male-slave was her primary responsibility. She also wanted to take part in killing the dragon, therefore she mercilessly kicked the boy and barked, “Hurry up!”
Her trusted aides quickly packed and were ready to go within a heartbeat, and watched Leo strap the Cleaver on his back with condescending eyes.
Even though one could feel the intensity of the fight from the shaking ground from afar, it took almost half a day for Dalina’s group to get to the site. There, to Leo’s great horror and Dalina’s excitement, they saw a turtle in a size of a house defending against less than sixteen or so people.
They had encircled the huge reptile, trying to deliver it death by a thousand cuts. Obviously there was no way anyone could ever break it’s shell, therefore they tried to injure its head, legs and tail in hopes it would bleed out at some point.
Everyone, the turtle, humans and the field of broken trees were covered in blood – both turtle’s and human. Few of the elite guards were lying in pools of blood, more precisely – they were stomped into pools of blood indicating the turtle also had its small victories during the prolonged fight.
“Don’t move!” Dalina ordered and smacked Leo’s head the way she had already done it multiple times that day, “Stay here and don’t move!”
Afterwards she and her guards rushed forward to join the fray.
Leo watched the five newcomers joining the encirclement, but just as they arrived the turtle in a lightning speed that didn’t fit its enormous size dashed few yards to the side and bit one of the guards. Her back was snapped like a thin branch and her upper half disappeared in turtle’s jaws and was instantly swallowed. The bottom half stood there for a few moments and then fell with a soft thud, waking up the startled attackers.
“Watch out! It’s incredibly fast!” One of the hooded council members shouted towards Dalina, “Try to inflict bleeding wounds – that’s the only way we can take it down!”
The fight had went on since the previous morning when right after the sunrise the empress and her group directly attacked the beast. After suffering their first losses and realizing they will not be able to defeat the ‘dragon’ easily, humans decided to slowly guide it towards the reinforcements that were already in the swamp and after an exhausting battle that lasted through the night, finally reconvened with Dalina and her guards. Unfortunately one of them was instantly lost.
Despite the loss, the decision to let Dalina join the fight turned out to be a correct one. Like a wasp she continuously dashed forward and immediately retreated, bit by bit hurting the turtle and only the empress could keep up with her speed.
After observing the fight for a while, Leo realized that actually her imperial majesty has been the one to injure the turtle to its current state while the rest of the group mostly performed supporting roles. In Leo’s experience, apart from cultivators, in Dreadlands there has been only one person who could actually match Dalina’s and empress’s speeds – Anna.
But contrary to the goddess and Dalina, the empress actually had an incredible physical strength. And while Dalina managed to sometimes leave shallow cuts on the turtle’s tail, after each successful empress’s slash, another bloody wound opened on one of the turtle’s legs accompanied by loud, high pitched squeaking ‘roar’ of the ‘dragon’.
Of course, the turtle itself had incredible reflexes and both Dalina and the empress countless times barely evaded turtle’s jaws or tail, but with the two of them attacking the reptile from opposite sides soon the tired beast found itself at disadvantage.
Humans, on the other hand, could finally have a breather. Since they didn’t have to move turtle anywhere, they only followed it’s movements keeping the encirclement and avoiding casualties while the main damage was done by only two attackers.
Turtle, of course, realized who the main threat was, but found it impossible to do anything to them or run away. It did look rather impressive when the huge, building sized reptile charged hundred, hundred fifty yards away, trying to shake off the attackers, but unfortunately the annoying pests surrounded it few moments later.
Despite the reinforcements the fight continued till dark. Humans lost only two and fortunately for the Vidas family both puddles of blood were made of their guards. But in terms of blood the turtle had lost countless times more, in fact, Leo wondered if it had some strange blood generator under its shell or there were special reserves, because currently everything within two hundred yard radius was covered red and the surroundings reeked of this metallic, slightly fishy odor. Despite that the turtle continued to resist proving it was worthy of the title ‘the swamp dragon’.
Just when Leo began to look for a place to have a safe nap, the empress shouted, “It’s going to hide! Get ready!”
Apparently this happened the last night as well, but this time the attackers were not caught unprepared. On contrary, as it turns out, they were waiting for it – the moment the last rays of sun vanished, the turtle did one last charge, trying to get away from the hateful humans, but when they surrounded it again, it suddenly hid under its shell, making any attempts to attack it futile.
“Dalina, fall back hundred yards or so and try to catch your breath! The rest – you know what to do!” The empress shouted and fell back herself, creating a safe distance between her and the reptile.
Dalina followed the suit, but the rest of the group almost as if they had practiced it before, quickly made dozens of torches and lit few of them up around the turtle that currently could be easily taken for an earth mound. Afterwards everyone fell back just like their leader, drank some water and rested for a bit, and then gathered around the turtle gain.