“Dragon! Dragon!” the alarm bells along the walls sounded as the sentries shouted at one another. All in the town reacted immediately, moving to take shelter and gather enchanted arrows to fire at her.
Path looked down at the town, tipping her wings a little to take better advantage of the late-spring breeze, watching the crescent-shaped town come to life beneath her. As they should, they surely know they have violated our truce. As the first arrow curved at her and fell into the bay beneath her, she sighed. I suppose I should give them something to focus on; it would be irritating if they cracked one of my scales with their weapons.
She was not that afraid of the humans, elves, or dwarves in the town; she had magical and physical might over all the beings within the walls. However, they were many, and she was one. They were not allies, but they had not been enemies either. Today I shall remind you to consider whether you truly want me to be your enemy, Path thought as she tilted her forest green-scaled wings and dove sharply toward the western side of town. The crescent shape was from being against the beach and having a curved western wall to protect the town on the land-facing sides.
From the battlements and towers on that wall, they took shots at her, understanding the situation perfectly as she turned over in the air to dodge an arcing ballista bolt that splashed into the ocean behind her. It was the western wall that she targeted, taking a deep breath in as she got near so she could roar and spray an aggressive blue fire over a huge stretch of wall.
The wood and stone of the wall was well-cured and weather-aged. An air dragon would have had to breathe hot fire to catch the timber, but she was a water dragon, and her breath sunk into the gaps and frosted, cracking things under their weight and causing the wall to sag and threaten to fall in on itself.
She kept her eye on that area. Good, it looks like I did not catch any little human things in that. She huffed; after all, she did not want to give them actual cause to become proper enemies with her. She beat her wings hard, knocking red clay roof tiles from buildings as she got herself back up in the air so it would be harder to hit her.
As the spring breeze shifted the steam from the hissing ice-flames, her flames jumped from the walls and spread through the buildings near it. She was pleased to witness most humans scrambling now to deal with the immediate stimulus of the blooming ice threatening their walls and town.
As she raised herself out of most arrows’ range, she would watch the pandemonium beneath her, listen to the screaming about dragons and fire, and even more yelling about her arrival, and locate the lavish temple of a goddess. In her aerial view, she could see wooden and straw structures that leaned in on themselves, as if crushed under the immense weight of an ethereal fate’s boot, and not too far away from those, houses erected of stone, jeweled windows, and crafted tile work roof… but the temple outshone it all: it was carved of fine white stone, all the windows were tinted with exotic colorants, and the roof was all meticulous stone and carved white wood. The thing was like a patch of pretentious snow that wouldn’t melt on the otherwise vibrant green landscape… and she’d never understand the fascination with giving over so much of one’s own wealth and power to some fluffy being that probably barely had time to care about you.
These insolent little beings had crossed her one time too many. They were little more than parasites she allowed to coexist with her in her domain, and it seemed they had forgotten that detail as time had passed. No amount of foolishly pandering to some useless goddess who couldn’t possibly care for them was going to halt her calculated ire.
She landed on the roof of the building, roaring out more silver-blue flames until the wood splintered, and the icy devastation rained like water into the building. She pushed her paw through the opening, and closing her eyes to protect them from the flames, she pushed her cold-proof upper body through the ceiling, and looked around.
Glittering, on a pedestal, was the object they had dared bring right past her without so much as an offer of peace and tribute. It was an obscenely bright amethyst, cut into a dome and polished until it reflected all around it in its deep purple depths, inset into polished silver on a white-gold chain. This was principal among her irritations with these pests, that they had dared bring this here without proper tribute, something that had never dared to do before now, which was likely linked to what truly had infuriated her. These little rats thought they had a shepherd and ally. It was more than past time to deal with that.
As she shifted her weight and wriggled in order to force a paw down into this building with her, she saw a priestess praying in a corner, and a young priest taking up one of the ornamental swords from a stand and thinking whether he should charge her - and she turned and stared at him, forcing him to look into her silver-gray eyes, and then, she grinned, showing him all her pretty white teeth. Go ahead little one, you actually certain you want to come over here?
Exactly as she expected, the silly thing quelled, stepped back, and she went back to what she was doing, which was crushing the fine, costly display glass, and taking that stupid little amulet in her claws.
The wood framework within the building creaked in protest under her weight and the corrosive ice, and she knew it was time to get down, or there would be a whole dragon in the middle of this temple with all kinds of stone piling down onto her, and that was not an idea she relished.
She squirmed back out of the hole that she made, and then hopped forward a bit, climbed and broke off the lone spire and took to the air. The power of her wing beats took off tile and thatch from roofs of surrounding buildings, and she used one paw to pull the chain around her thickest digit, one that functioned close to how a human’s thumb, and settle it like a ring on her claw. That should send a clear message not to forget me, or I will retaliate, she thought with some satisfaction.
Once she was high enough for arrows to struggle to reach her, she would glance back at the temple and the town in general. The screaming should have drawn the invader out by now, she thought. The thought of it made her smile with wicked anticipation. It was only a little that she was angry that these humans saw fit to try to bribe a goddess to love them and ignored her. It was that ignoring her that had infuriated her. The shepherds had brought their flocks and herds closer to her cave, and the travel had increased on the roads, and all the while, the peace offerings had ceased. What gave them the audacity?
She had seen a few stray gold scales about the domain, and at times, when the wind was right, she could smell it: another dragon. These people thought they had a dragon-protector that could take her on.
Naturally, what they deserved now was the fight they thought this other dragon could handle, and when she solved it, there’d be no more of this flippant nonsense. She took a deep breath, cramming air into her lungs, and to make sure that the crumbling buildings and scene she was setting got the attention it deserved, she shrieked her fierce battle cry that made several humans in the area freeze or duck instinctually, and which Path heard echoing back at her from the hills. If this stupid gold dragon didn’t come, nothing would get the coward to confront her, and she’d just have to hunt it until she killed it. Still, this was a battle cry for a showdown, and any dragon would answer it.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
She watched the shadow of her wings swallowing up farmhouses that ringed the outskirts of the city, and huffed. She might have considered tolerating this other dragon that she could barely detect, but not when she was running around bolstering up the humans and the elves to act out. Not when she was running about acclimatizing the vermin to the presence of a dragon.
She took herself toward the forests that she hunted in, so she would know the area better and have advantage within the fight. Besides, it is a pretty shiny. Even if I’m wrong about there being another dragon, then it has more than justified harassing the humans.
So, she flew toward home. And flew. Then, she slowed her pace, waiting, flying, waiting… it simply was not possible that she was mistaken, was it? She had seen the golden scales - it had to be another dragon. Her success started to dissolve into insecurity and ill-temper that did battle with one another. I was not mistaken, she told herself. I was not mistaken. I wasn’t. There’s another dragon here.
But, her mind invented causes for there to be dragon scales - perhaps someone had made armor of some poor bastard, and she should have been worrying about a dragon hunter. A successful dragon-slayer, and she was perhaps announcing to him or her where she lived with this little stunt. That would explain the overconfidence of the farmers and hunters. She remembered a story about an aunt that had been lured into a human trap that had been laid with gold for her and killed; she felt paranoia settling over her.
No, I smelled the dragon. I know there is one. When the wind changes, I can almost tell where it is. She turned a circle, heartbeat considerably elevated as her anxieties gnawed at her… but finally, oh, the relief she felt, as she heard the faint roar of a dragon also looking for a fight. There you are. I knew I was right!
Exhilaration filled her and was even more potent and bright in the pit of her chest because it replaced the paranoia of the story she had invented to explain the wait that had felt interminably long, but as she saw the fire in town still crackling in spreading ice behind her, she realized she had merely been a little impatient.
She adjusted the artifact on her claw so that it would not come off so easily. Let’s do this, she thought, roaring back to the dragon, taunting him or her to come get her. She flew slowly, as if lazily, in the direction of the roar, and soon enough in the evening sky, against an almost golden sunset, smokey blood shining in the clouds of smoke, she picked out the blue silhouette of the approaching dragon. She braced herself, excited for the fight.
That was where things started to go wrong. The dragon was a little bigger than her, but Path had taken on much bigger dragons than herself before, so she was not deterred. The other female bellowed at her, and bore down on her, claws extended as if to rake Path with them. Path threw out wings, fanning them to almost stop her in the air, and she turned herself almost perpendicular nearly nose to nose with the other dragon. She couldn’t help but smirk as she inhaled to disgorge extra frosty breath for this adversary.
A little too late, she saw the sly smirk on the blue-scaled face of the invader - a little too late to stop inhaling, as the other dragon breathed out an intensely scented pink plume of smoke.
Path realized the mistake instantly; she had thought the dragon had spent her breath on the last roar, and so she had not guarded in the slight against a breath weapon for herself.
No no no no… Path thought as she tried to exhale what had already entered her lungs, but she could already feel the cloying tingle of the life-magic laced chemicals rushing through her blood steam. She grunted; the world seemed to swim before her eyes as the nebulous sickly sweet tingle of the breath weapon dispersed through her.
She knew she had to fly back up; she needed breaths of safe air, and she needed to get out of this fog. Normally, it would have been no issue at all to turn over in the air, but she could feel through the tingling in her brain that she was having a hard time telling up from down; the world was rocking. Just watch the ground, just watch the ground, that’s down, she told herself, turning over - confusion flooded her; the ground still came at her from the wrong direction. How was it that the ground was not down? She turned harder into herself; she had to get upright, and she had to get her wings out! She had…
There was a tremendous crack of a tree that gave under her weight as she struck it from fairly high up, and then a sharp sensation in her wing that she couldn’t quite place - had she even extended it? The world was swimming in a blurred haze in her vision. How did this happen?
I am not this weak,she insisted to herself. But deep in the pit of her stomach, she was afraid; she could practically hear her mentor lecturing her - the first to land the best blow always wins.
Tremendous weight settled onto her back; the blue dragon must have landed on her, smashing her into the ground - hot pressure on her neck, heat - cracking sounds. She’s biting me. The thought seemed like it came from far away, like someone with an outside perspective of Path was telling her that she was getting the scales on her neck chomped through.
Path reared up, and then screamed - the pain in her wing became intense. She turned an uncomprehending gaze at an impossibility - a tree between the two central membranes of her right wing. The two things couldn’t be occupying the same space; it simply was not possible. She could not comprehend it.
Her wing comprehended it. The pain that sizzled through her was all but blinding, and combined with the discombobulation of the magic in the breath she had taken in, made her want to just faint.
Claws took her attention away from this puzzle of gruesome reality as she felt them rake deep along her ribs as the other dragon tried to smash her rearing body back down to the ground. That dragon was bigger, and she was really heavy. Rage settled through the drugged muddle she felt, and she inhaled deeply, turned her head back, screamed again, and this time in the dragon’s face. She spit up a shower of bladed ice shards on her breath over the monster’s eyes, mouth, biting jaws… and against Path’s own exposed flesh. Several scales cracked and broke away the scales and stuck a few of them into her own flesh and frost-bit it. Somewhere in her jumbled thoughts, she knew that if this dragon was better at fighting, she would have grabbed Path closer to the head.
The mistake not to grab her by closer to the head had been followed by another as her enemy screamed in pain and staggered back, clutching at her face. Hah, didn’t close your eyes, and now I blinded you. The thought felt like it came through layers and layers of gauzy haze. Even watching the dragon clutching at her own face… or maybe it was faces, Path couldn’t tell clearly, and she was aware that she felt incredibly faint.
I am not fainting in front of this idiot, she thought, trying to lift her wings up to fly away sent jolting, reeling pain through her. She was faced again with the puzzle of her wing and the tree occupying the same space. This time though, she understood, with horror, the tree had gone through the fragile membrane of her wing.
The world spun and she felt herself go light-headed; she was going to faint. She took deep, desperate gasping breaths and clung to consciousness like a drowning person. She couldn’t let it go at any cost; she would not faint here where she would be in so much danger. Great big tears rolled from her eyes as the world settled again.
She reached over with her paws, grasped the tree, and broke it. The sudden jerk that followed tore her wing more, and she flumped forward, gray and red sparks trying to swallow up her hazy vision… but took more gasping breaths, filled her lungs with air, and clung tenuously to consciousness.
She lifted her wing free, and then vomited and dry-heaved, only to be tackled down again by the blind dragon that had recovered enough to feel wrath at her lost vision, and Path heaved out a miserable, crushed sound as she was pinned down.
But the other dragon was off-balance from being deprived of a whole essential sense, and Path heaved her off under a monumental effort and sunk her teeth into the tail that she could still reach - amazed she hit it, because it almost seemed like there were three or four of them, and bit into it until it threatened to come off. Her enemy tried to retreat from the biting sensation in any direction that she could, so Path heaved herself at the other dragon, half-staggering and half-ramming into her opponent with her full body weight, chest first. It knocked the blue dragon down, and Path moved to pin her.
The vile beast cried out plaintively and breathed out a huge cloud of that vile pink substance. Path stumbled off of her and hopped-hobbled away.
I am going home, she thought, moving to try to take to the air, but her body would not cooperate and she squeaked out from the movement in her wing. This is the worst ever, she thought about the whole situation. But, all she wanted, all she really, really wanted, was to go home. She was humiliated, mangled, and drugged. As much as she hated it; she was forced to admit that she was too hurt to keep fighting and kill this tricky intruder with the breath weapon the life-magic dragon had.
It’d just have to be enough that the horrid invader had been blinded. Besides, Path would get better with some time; probably, her attacker wouldn’t. Or at least, that is what she told herself about her wing.
So, the proud green dragon gimped her way home, pride and body battered.