Slaughter On Paradise Beach
The dragon’s enormous shadow raced across the surface of the earth, plunging the hills and valleys of the island paradise into darkness as she flew overhead with the roar of an angry storm. The landscape bent and bowed in the rush of her speed as she beat the air with her massive wings. Each flap was its own thunderous clap, threatening to shatter the sky with its noise, as the howl of her wind tore leaves from branches and branches off trees. Even with all the blood she had lost during her battle with the sorcerer on the beach, still, she moved with the rumbling force of a typhoon.
Fly, the great beast thought to herself, faster! She was no longer in a panic, now that the shock of the ambush had worn off, instead, she was filled with a raging hunger for vengeance. She had half a mind to turn herself around and sniff the bastard out again so she could torch his rank human flesh off his dirty little wizard bones…
No, she hissed, there is no time for that. Slaying him would have to wait, she and her mate were mortally wounded, they needed to heal first. The monster’s steel had stabbed her straight through the belly, draining out her fluids while murdering her egg. She had sealed the damage up with her fire before flapping away, but there was no saving her hatchling, the villain had split the shell in two.
I will tear that magic flinger’s throat from his neck, she thought, I will stomp his face to pulp. But again, not right now. She had lost too much blood to do anything but to flee, as much as she wanted to stay and scorch.
Piss on that cursed weapon, too, she spat. The broadsword the villain used had been charmed with a spell or something, it was the only logical conclusion. How else could it have cut into her? Her scales were thicker than a thousand suits of armor. Any other blade, regardless of the metal, would have bounced off her plates like it had struck a boulder, but this one had sliced right through her without any resistance.
Her left wing had been gashed open as well, cut right down the middle from another vicious strike. She had burned it closed as best she could, just like her belly, but still, whipping it against the sky was torture. She kept doing it, though, ignoring the throb that came with every thump, while gritting her fangs, grunting, Fly, damn it. Fly!
The sword wasn’t the only magic the scum had brought with him that day, he had also pulled out a miniature cannon from the folds of his robe, catching her completely off guard. In all her years, the dragon had never seen anything like it. It was a long-barreled weapon with a finger trigger at the grip. When fired, it launched out little iron balls from the front end, but it didn’t need to be strapped to the deck of a warship or mounted to a castle wall. Instead, it was light enough to be held by hand and small enough to tuck into a pocket. Fortunately, the warlock hadn’t enchanted the metal slugs that shot out from it, not like he had the edges of his blade, that had kept the little pellets from digging into her, but still, they had chipped away at her hide, one dot-like speck at a time. Because of it, she decided to stay out of range whenever possible. A barrage of crossbows or arrows was laughable, that sort of hailstorm was a jest, but an army of those cockered little baby cannons hammering away might actually whittle her down to bone.
“Roooaaar!” Another surge of pain dipped the great lizard down below the clouds, as her tattered wing skipped a beat, but she kept slapping the wind with it anyway, as hard as she could. It was now a race against the warlock to see who could heal first, with them heading back to their lair and the evil shit-stain using whatever crystals and elixirs he brought with him. It wasn’t a question in her mind, she knew he was still out there somewhere, fixing himself up, if not reloading his strange new weapon and plotting his next attack. It was foolish to assume otherwise, humans were relentless once they got the taste of blood in them.
Hang on, she said to herself, a little woozy, almost there. She blinked a few times and shook her muzzle, but it didn’t help. She was about to pass out…
BOOM.
The air shifted underneath her, waking her up again, as her lover’s mighty flap echoed to the horizon and back. She was loud when she pounded the clouds, that much was true, but he was twice her size. When he beat the sky, it sounded like the end of the world. Sometimes it felt like it, too; his noise was always followed by a giant tornado. He was flying higher than she was, flapping a few tails behind, but the gust from his whoosh was so powerful, it kept giving her some extra lift. Every few seconds, it bounced off the earth and caught her from below, filling her sails while launching her forward faster than her own wings could ever hope to. It kept interrupting her stride, but she wasn’t complaining, she appreciated it, letting each twister take her to wherever it may, only to get back to thumping as soon as it was over. His boom was helping to keep her alert, too. Without it, she would have crashed down into the oat fields below where the tasty little goat-people frolicked.
The butchering her mate had endured had been far worse than her own, he had been slashed open gut to neck, practically sliced in half. She had done her best to weld him shut, too, before taking off, but still, she couldn’t believe he had been able to fly after that. The fact that they were both still alive was a testament to the durability of dragons, but the only way to truly ensure they stayed that way was to get back to the boiling heat of their volcano as soon as possible.
With that in mind, she kept herself pointed forward with her wings pumping, while bracing herself for the next big boom, but when it didn’t arrive on beat, she got worried. Likewise, the rush from her lover’s massive wings went quiet, as though he had decided to coast along for a moment and rest his weary self. No, she thought, swiveling her eyes back around to check on him, something is wrong. He was still there, up in the clouds, trailing behind her, but he was no longer flying. Instead, he was falling, lifeless and limp like a giant sack full of dragon meat. In the end, he had been the one to black out, not her.
No! she shrieked, but she didn’t hesitate. The great lizard rotated her wings flat, instantly hovering herself to a stop. She re-aimed her snout up above her to intercept his flailing body, then she took off in a blur, pumping harder than she had ever dared, whipping the air with her wound as if fighting a storm. The pain was outrageous, but she ignored it, focusing on catching him, while steeling herself for the grab. Her mate was incredibly heavy, descending at a steep grade, she had to time it right, otherwise she might rip off her own limb.
Now, she croaked, lashing out with her tail. She coiled herself around his torso, under his fluttering arms, even as she continued to thump. She squeezed as she caught him, too, making her grip unbreakable, but when the force of his plummeting weight pulled taut against her, it stretched her to the point of snapping, almost yanking her out of the sky. The tug was so harsh, for a moment, she thought it shattered her spine at the base of her neck, if not in several places, but excruciating or not, she could still use her wings, meaning it was probably just a sprain, not a break. Either way, “Roooaaar!”
She refused to give up, though, shaking it off with a grunt, as she struggled with his size, towing him across the sky back to their mountain. It was more tonnage than she had ever bothered to lift, which might have been fine on its own, but with her injuries, it was a problem. She immediately started sinking, lower and lower, a little more with every flap.
Stay with me now, she said, but she knew it was already too late. She was gripping her lover with the fat of her tail, right across his chest where his heart should have been beating at its strongest, but she couldn’t feel anything. A quick glance back and she saw why. The seam of his weld had torn open, probably during the big yank. He was gushing blood! If he wasn’t extinct already, he would be soon…
No, she scolded herself, do not entertain such thoughts! After all, there was still a chance to save him if she hurried, alive or not, she just needed to get there.
The terrain below her shifted from lush and full of life to barren and charred, as did the sky above. Their mountain was always belching out smoke clouds filled with ash, blotting out the sun on their side of the island no matter the hour. It rained soot everywhere, too, in a constant flurry. Most creatures found it unbearable, but they loved it. To her, crossing over the threshold always felt like passing through an enchanted portal into a magical world. In one blink, the light of day was replaced with an ugly gloom, making everything in the shadow of their home appear menacing. The air turned toxic and heavy, as well, like a thick, invisible fog. Even the birds and insects wisely avoided this part of the island; it was dead earth, nothing but scorched dirt and dried lava flows, everything was either burnt or melted.
“Roooaaar!”
So close, she thought.
The giant lizard snorted in relief as the entrance to their cave finally came into view, a big, dragon-sized hole bored out into the granite about a mile or so up the slope. It was hidden behind a thicket of lava trees that had guarded it for over a decade. The fastest way to get to the center of their mountain was straight down its smoking throat, but her busted sail would never get her up and over the peak, not while lugging her mate. It already felt as if the tendons in her wing joint were about to snap, making the cave behind the cinder grove her best option. She could crawl to that, if she had to, broken flap or not.
Once inside, her plan was simple: seal up the entrance behind her so the wizard couldn’t follow. It was probably overkill, considering that no human could endure the heat inside their nest for longer than a minute or two, much less stand the smell, but with magic in play, it was always better to be cautious than to be caught off guard. From there, she would drag her forever mate down into the bowels of the volcano and toss his body into the Lake of Fire. That was one of their pet names for the underground spring that boiled deep within the belly of their den. They also called it the Pit of Creation or the Bubbles of Healing, if not the Good Burn. He had even referred to it once or twice as their Hot Little Dragon Hole, but she didn’t like saying it that way.
The stew was heated by the magma that ran underneath it, but there were some mystical elements in that broth, as well. The scalding water down in the pit could heal a half-slaughtered fire-lizard in a relatively short amount of time, regardless of their injuries. A lava flow could do the same, but diving straight into one of those was a much more intense experience than soaking in the steam. She preferred the spa treatment, whenever possible. More importantly, there was an old legend that said the burning heat of a magma lake could also bring a dead dragon back to life. She had never seen it happen, it was just an old rumor, but true or not, she said a quick prayer to the sun-god above: Prithee, let it be so. I beg of you.
“Roooaaar!” The muscles in her wing finally gave out with one last piercing stab. It felt like being run through all over again. It crippled her, making her thump lopsided with one sail instead of two, which felt a lot like falling. The sting from the jolt flared down her spine as well, forcing her to uncoil her tail and lose her grip on her lover.
No! she pleaded as they both dropped. It all happened so fast, she didn’t even see the ground coming until, “Oof!”
She crashed hard, chin-first, her face slapping down to the earth with an echoing thwack, followed by her long snake-like neck, then her massive body which bounced, boom-boom, end over end, flipping and spinning, digging out crater-sized holes in the molten rock, all the way up the slope of the mountain to the mouth of their cave. She eventually folded over into a heap, but not before the thick of her tail smashed through the small grove of lava trees at the end of the road, dusting them all to ashen crumble.
Her lover’s girth hit the ground at the same time, but his boom was much bigger and a lot louder. He didn’t bounce either, he skidded, plowing out a deep canyon as he went, until finally, he flopped to a stop close by, but still out of reach. Not that it mattered, she only had enough strength left to untwist the kink in her throat and look over at him. Beyond that, she was too spent to even sit up, much less drag him any further.
You will always be the fire in my heart, she whispered. His spirit had faded with his pulse, long ago, before they had even crashed. She knew it to be true, even so, she continued to stare, wishing it was a lie. Oh, Red, she said.
Losing him was unbearable, she was bleeding tears, but even in death, she couldn’t help but be impressed by him. As far as beasts went, he was a sight to behold, limp or not. He was taller than a trio of mammoths stacked up on top of one another, with hard, black scales on every inch of his coat, even on his underbelly and wings. He had a mountain range of them running up and down his back, too, like a bunch of spikes poking up out of his spine; a long, thick row of whetted plates, trailing all the way from the nape of his neck to the tip of his tail, turning every speck of him into a weapon, as well as a shield. His crocodile snout was equally deadly, and not just because he could spit fire from it. His flames were backed up by a jaw full of jagged teeth; two rows of them, double-stacked, top and bottom, just like the great white megalodons out in the oceans, all of them chiseled sharp to rip flesh and crush bone. The same could be said for his claws, his talons were keened along the edges and tips to shred both meat and rock in a single swipe.
She was built more or less the same, but with sharper features and a slightly longer neck. She was half his size, which made him physically stronger, but in a fight, she was more powerful, even on his best day. Their eyes were proof enough, his were orange and red, while hers were blue, but it was also written on their scales. Their markings were hard to note because of their black coats, but whenever the almighty sun-lord up in the sky beamed her shining glory down upon them, their patterns revealed themselves like ancient runes. Her mate had dots of yellow and orange splashed across his hide, which, when illuminated, glittered like a burning star field at night. His colors meant that his exhale was a raging inferno, a deadly and terrifying thing to witness, to be sure, but her scales were highlighted with threads of blue and white. She could blaze as hot as the sun-god herself, if she wanted to, melting anything down to nothing in seconds, even the scales of another fire-lizard, which made her a rarity, even amongst her own kind. Even back when her breed had populated the earth in large numbers, there hadn’t been very many that could scorch as hot as that.
Of course, none of that mattered now, she was teetering on the edge of death, soon to join her mate in the great beyond. She turned her snout skyward to glare at the billowing black clouds above her. This is where our bodies will rot, until they are just scale and bone, she said with a growl, but that wasn’t even the saddest part. With both her mate and her egg now expired, she was officially the last of the giant fire-lizards, meaning her death would herald the end of her entire species.
The weight of that made it hard to breathe, but it also refueled her want for revenge. Bastard! The wizard had attacked them during their mid-day nap like a coward, while they had been snoring, belly up, under the hot sun. He had ambushed them at their favorite spot, too, on the other side of the Dark Forest, on a small beach full of palm trees and sand crabs. It was a little sliver of heaven unto itself, gorgeous and lush, with a big sparkling bay that was always teeming with yummy seafood. Her mate loved to dive in and pull out a hammerhead shark or a giant squid, then roast it on the sand and serve it to her, crispy and charred. That morning, an enormous swordfish had been the catch. She smiled at the memory of it, closing her eyes, even as she lay there dying at the foot of their mountain.
You stay, he had grunted, just as she had settled herself down onto the sand, I fish. There was always a low rumble in Red’s chest, no matter the noise he made, but whenever he thought words in her direction, his bass became a deafening purr. My queen.
It always made her blush, too, even if her thick black scales couldn’t reflect it, but to her, his voice was as enchanting as a mermaid’s song, although, obviously, at a much lower octave—most sea-maids were sopranos, not that she had ever met any. Still, from what she had been told, their music could easily hypnotize any behemoth into doing anything against its own will, even drowning itself. She had never lost control around him like that, but she could definitely sink into his tone and get a little loopy, if she let herself. That morning, though, instead of swooning, she had chirped playfully while patting the bulge of her egg, The little one says hurry.
He had hooted at that, snorting out a long trail of smoke rings from his nostrils as he lumbered out into the surf. Contrary to popular belief, dragons stood upright more often than not. They preferred to walk on two legs, unlike most creatures who used all four. It wasn’t a judgment on the crawlers out there, not at all, they had always just found it to be a bit more regal to be erect. The problem was her lover was so heavy, he shifted the scenery whenever he moved, no matter how many feet he had on the ground. Even solid rock was at his mercy, he left craters behind.
THUD. THUD. THUD. It was the same every morning, the coconuts leapt from the trees and the sand crabs scattered, as he tucked his wings, ran down the beach, and jumped into the bay like a moon-sized cannonball. His enormous splash always made it rain, too, while the rush of his tide flooded the beach in a hiss of foam and wash, all before quickly receding, as if it had never been there in the first place, then BOOSH! He would reemerge from the depths, moments later, his scales breaking the calm of the bay with the force of a humpback riding a leviathan.
That morning had been no different, he had even struck a victory pose in the surf before cooking up their meal. In one swift move, he had spat out the marlin from his fangs, caught it with one of his back claws, and slammed it down to the sand, pinning it there with a couple of talons to keep it from flopping away. Always the court jester, he had then stretched out his neck to cap the moment, aiming his muzzle at the sky while firing off a thick funnel of orange-tipped flames, bragging to the rest of the planet about his heroic catch.
She had laughed at the time, she always did whenever he goofed about, but it wasn’t so funny now. The dragon opened her eyes with a snort, scattering all the fallen ashes piled up on her snout. The whole reason they had claimed this island to begin with was because it was hidden. It was thousands of miles from any other land mass in every direction, just a drop in the ocean, one that wasn’t on any map, she was sure of it, at least, it hadn’t been, not until today.
She and her lover had scoured every inch of the globe together, back before the Great War of Beasts and Men, looking for a fire-mountain that had yet to be discovered, something hidden away in the middle of nowhere in a realm untouched by humans, if not unreachable by ship, a safe place where they could raise a litter of their own in secret. For her breed, the Ignitus, gestation was a long process that took decades. A lot of uninterrupted egg time near a scalding pit was required to properly rear a hatchling, which was why most great lizards never left their birth tribes, almost all of them stayed in the same mountain they were laid in, along with every other fire-breather in their bloodline, making it a bit crowded. She and Red were the rare type that preferred to be alone with one another, they were private beasts. Also, she was incredibly loud whenever they mated. It was embarrassing for her, but terrifying for anyone who heard them, so for many reasons, they had decided to start a nest of their own. They thought had chosen wisely, too, figuring their island was remote enough to grant them at least a century of peace, enough to hatch a few eggs, but they had underestimated the humans’ lust for war.
Hah. War.
Calling it that was a joke. The truth was it had been a mass extinction, followed by a successful rebellion, all started when the humans had gone on yet another crusade against her kind. It was something they seemed to do every few hundred years or so, knights would ride out en masse to murder dragons, all to prove their worth or to win favor with a crown, but it was a practice that fell in and out of fashion. For some reason, though, the last time around, the scope of the hunt had broadened to include a lot of other creatures. Suddenly, it was no longer just the giant lizards being slayed, it was every mystical beast in existence, from the ancient woolly mammoths to the unicorns with their sparkly horns, everything.
Her belly had been fresh with the same egg that was now cracked and dead inside her, when they had first heard talk of the great slaughtering. One night, a bunch of migrating feather-birds had stopped to perch in the trees on their island. Their little beaks had twittered incessantly about a genocide sweeping across the planet. According to them, it had been going on for years, too. That next morning, she and her mate had flown out to see for themselves, swearing to crush the human scourge, but what they had discovered had been even more horrifying than what the tweeters had described. There had been carnage everywhere, from the jungles to the deserts and back again, even the oceans and beaches had been filled with blood. Endless scores of enchanted beings had been dragged from their caves to be killed, then scavenged for parts. It looked like they had been harvested for their flesh, too, all of them flayed down to the bone.
Weirdly, she and Red hadn’t encountered any other dragons along the way. There hadn’t been any on the frontlines either. There had been legions of humans with horses, siege engines, and catapult machines, all clashing with trolls, centaurs, cyclops people, and more, but no giant lizards. She had expected to find her tribe, elders included, leading all the other beasts into battle, but she and her mate had been the only fire-breathers present, none of the other nests had bothered to show up. The Ignitus were known throughout the animal kingdom as the sworn protectors of every species, great and small, it was their role in nature, so where had they all gone? In a panic, she and her lover had left the war to fly back across the ocean to the mountain where she had been hatched.
The memory of what they found when they had reached the shores of her ancestors was still raw, even now, twenty years later. The volcano above the valley where she had been born had been destroyed, the front face of it blown outward, erupted from the side of its gut instead of its spout. Worse, her entire tribe had been slaughtered and dressed, not only her mother and father, but her brothers and sisters, as well as all the ancient ones—the first lizards who had been breathing flames since the dawn of all things. Her whole family had been reduced to a garden of bones in a black slick of molten rock. They had been dead for quite a while, too, by the time she and Red had found them, long enough that the jungle had already reclaimed the ground beneath them. Their skeletons had been covered in moss, as well, making them just part of the scenery instead of the great beasts they had once been. They had later learned that every nest of Ignitus had been dispatched in the same way, all in one massive, coordinated effort with hundreds of armies wiping them out simultaneously, all across the globe. It made sense strategically, taking out the dragons before going to war with the other animals meant eliminating the biggest weapons they could call upon, but the humans hadn’t counted on her and her lover going full hermit. Being uncharted had spared them from suffering the same fate as the rest of her people, at least back then.
She had wept openly when she had seen what had become of her birth mountain, but she hadn’t lingered to mourn. Instead, she had taken to the sky in a blood-rage with her loyal mate at her hip. She didn’t really recall the flight back over to the frontlines, that was all a blur, but the war itself was etched into her mind like a fossil in a stone. Upon returning, they had both folded up their wings to drop from the sky with a boom-BOOM, landing in the middle of the fight, right between the two armies, with the animal rebellion to the north at their backs and the humans to the south. Their staggered thudding shook the ground with an echoing quake, bowling over every creature in sight, both friend and foe. In the next breath, she and her mate had roared out a storm of fire, roasting the army of metal men in front of them, twenty rows deep, if not more, only to sweep those burning troops aside with their tails to clear the way for another strike. They took out a bunch of their battle machines in the process, too, knocking over a whole line of catapults and wagon carts that had giant crossbows strapped to them. A couple of the weapons had even fired while going down, harmlessly launching their rocks and bolts into the dirt, even as the contraptions themselves toppled over and caught fire. She and her mate had immediately stepped forward and repeated their move, multiple times, torching and sweeping, one battalion after the next, flinging red-hot soldiers off the battlefield in bunches, until finally some of the humans had wised up, thrown down their weapons, and raised their hands. A couple of them had even pulled out white handkerchiefs and started waving them.
The dragon remembered hearing cheers and howls from the ranks of mammals behind her, but she hadn’t been able to enjoy the moment, not with everything she had lost that day. This ends, right here, right now, she had roared, glaring at the ocean of soldiers before her, you will all agree, as a species, to an unbreakable peace with every beast that roams this earth or my mate and I will burn your entire breed to a cinder, from one end of this world to another, until there is nothing left of your kind but ash and bone.
Their blazing entrance had been horrifying enough, but it was really her speech that had ended it, if not her method of communication. Humans were terrified of using their head-voices. Whenever a beast pushed a thought to them, they got jumpy and ran, but her echo was so powerful, instead of scaring them away, it had stunned them, as if a nest of gorgons had stoned them with their eyes, which they hadn’t. Their snaky little breed hadn’t even shown up to fight. Still, the dragon’s thought-words had made all the knights tremble that day in their suits, thousands upon thousands of them stretched out across the rolling landscape, all of them weeping and pissing themselves while begging for mercy down on their knees. A lot of them just up and fainted, too, keeling over into little piles of urine-soaked iron.
She hadn’t been bluffing, either. Dragons had the ability to live for eons, they were technically immortal, so they understood the ebb and flow of nature better than most. Mammals of every size rose up from the muck all the time, only to fall back into the mud and disappear without a trace. Some creatures didn’t even last a hundred years before they vanished, but the loss of one breed always paved the way for a whole new batch of something else. Just like the old pebble-brained lizards who had once ruled the earth hundreds of centuries ago, the dinosaurs, they would still be around, if not for the arrival of her ancestors. The first of her kind, some of whom she had grown up with in her own tribe, had fallen from the heavens along with a bunch of giant space rocks. The old lizards didn’t like to talk about it much, mostly because their landing should have been a glorious event, with them finding a new home and whatnot, but instead, it had turned into an accidental slaughter. The pelting impact from their meteor shower had kicked up an earth-sized dust cloud of fire and debris that ended up annihilating almost all the indigenous life on the surface of the planet, making their grand entrance the first great culling.
Fortunately, a decent number of mammals and birds had been able to get underground and wait it out, some of them enchanted, some of them not. She knew for certain though that a whole herd of giant mammoths had survived the firestorm, as did a prowl of saber-tooth panthers, they had both been present on the frontlines of the great battle. Supposedly, a flock of pterodactyls had made it through the First Armageddon, as well, but she had never seen any of them flapping about, so she couldn’t say for sure. Still, the passing of the dinosaurs had allowed for a lot of smaller, softer creatures to be birthed in their place, some of which were quite adorable, such as rabbits and fawns, while others were hairless and gross, like humans. Even at her age, at just over a millennium, the dragon had seen the simple truth of going extinct play itself out over and over again. If she had burned all the cities of men down to scratch that day, it would have been a genocide, yes, but in many ways, it would have also been a rebirthing. All sorts of new life would have thrived and blossomed with the humans gone, there was no doubt about that. Still, no heat-bringer wanted to torch an entire bloodline, not even as a last resort, they were peacekeepers, after all. Fortunately, she hadn’t been forced to make good on her threat.
Upon surrendering, the kingdoms of men had immediately drawn up a parchment to quote, “make it all official.” It was some bizarre custom in their culture, always writing things down as if their memories or handshakes were too weak to be reliable, but they had made it a point to call it a peace treaty, which had sounded reasonable at the time. If anything, they continued to quake in terror while drafting their so-called contract, which had made them appear entirely earnest. Their hands had jiggled uncontrollably, scratching out a bunch of weird symbols on an unrolled piece of papyrus—something that they had dubbed a scroll. “F-f-forevermore sacred and equal in value, regardless of… of fur, or feather, or f-f-flesh of any kind…” It took a while for their twitching paws to scribble it all down, but in the end, they had agreed that the murder of any creature, except for food or self-defense, would be permanently outlawed, making the rules of the jungle their code to live by, as well. Even the magic-users that had been present had signed off on those terms, despite the obvious scowls on their faces, they loved warring without cause almost as much as the kings they served. In fact, her mate had been forced to chomp one of the wizards that day, when he had refused to sign the document along with the rest.
Humans, she grunted. It had only been two decades since they had pledged in ink to swear off their love of murder, but here they were, already back at it again. The ambush on the beach was a betrayal of their own scroll. She wasn’t entirely surprised, she knew they would break their promise at some point, only a wagtail would think otherwise, but twenty years was a blink! The filthy little chamber pots couldn’t even keep it together for a single generation!
What is it with them? Since the dawn of their little thumb-wiggling species, they had been emboldened with a blind lust to exterminate, even if something posed no threat, like her and her mate. Dragons were the most dangerous creatures that ever roared, that was true, it wasn’t even up for debate, but they were only violent when attacked. Still, for some reason, being the apex of all beasts had made them a coveted prize in the eyes of men.
They do have a yearning for trophies, she snarled. The hairless monkey-people really enjoyed collecting stuff. They liked shiny things best of all, even stupid rocks and polished pieces of metal, but apparently, killing a giant predator was equal to a mountain of gold in their minds. It was an arrogant way to live for a mammal with such a weak exterior. If not for their metal clothing, they could easily be squashed, torn apart, or eaten by almost anything.
Although now that she was thinking about it, wizards rarely killed for sport, that was a game for knights and no-names who wanted to become famous, which meant it had to be a royal quest, but what king sends a bearded robe to kill a dragon instead of a helmet? Whoever had ordered her slaying didn’t seem to understand history, the bold print of a treaty, or the pecking order of mother nature, much less their own titles. From every angle, it was odd.
The great beast shifted her weight, scattering more ash piles. Every muscle in her body was throbbing, but somehow, she was feeling a little less dead. The blood of the earth, she thought, yes! She could feel it flowing underneath her. The river of lava under the crust was so close to the surface near their cave that the heat from it was radiating up through the ground, giving her a boost. So was the atmosphere in general, between the smoke clouds up above and the hot breeze blowing off the volcano, she was swimming in it. None of it was healing her, it wasn’t hot enough for that, but it was giving her a second wind.
She pushed herself up to sitting and looked around, half expecting the warlock to be creeping up on her, but she didn’t see him anywhere. Although, that didn’t mean anything. Back on the beach the prick had just materialized right in front of her without any warning, all except for a small crackle of rainbow-colored light. Magic, she growled. Had the scoundrel snuck up on them like a normal human, she would have sniffed him out on approach, even while sleeping. Nothing could get within a half mile of her snout without her getting a whiff. She figured the killer must have apparated off the deck of a ship somewhere out at sea, just beyond the reach of her senses. He had probably been scooping them out all morning, too, considering that he had waited for the perfect moment to strike, shortly after they had both passed out, fat and full of swordfish.
Slash!
She had felt the pain of his first thrust, while lost in a dream. It had woken her up, only to confuse her. A wizard? It shouldn’t have mattered, but it had made her pause. So had his weapon, a giant sword with a blade that shimmered green, even as it dripped her blood, blackish red and hot. The killer’s face had been hidden under a hood, so his name was still unknown to her, but the long, dirty, white beard that spilled out from the shadows of his cloak had been more than telling, it was one of the older wizards who had survived the Great War. The scum had probably even signed the peace treaty along with the rest, they all had, except for the one that her lover had eaten, but whoever the bastard was, he was skilled. He knew how to cast a wide variety of spells without much effort, as well as maintain them over a long period of time. None of it seemed to wear his endurance down either.
The dragon had learned a few things about spellcasting over the years, one of which was that it took a toll on its user. It required a lot of effort to do the simplest of things, but the nasty little conjurer had somehow juggled multiple tricks without even blinking. He had not only zapped himself over a long distance, he had done it while holding a cursed sword. He had also moved at the speed of lightning as he fought, as if just a blur of motion. He had been bigger than most men, too, maybe three times the size, almost as tall as a cyclops, which might have been nothing. He could have just been born that way, but there was something unnatural about it, even at just a glance, almost like he was some strange new crossbreed of human-gorilla. Either way, she knew not to underestimate him. If he could do all that and still have the strength to thrust a hefty-looking blade against a couple of thousand-year-old lizards, then he was a very powerful sorcerer, indeed, as well as an extremely dangerous one.
The howl that had roared from her throat when she had woken up with his sword in her gut snapped back the trunks of the nearby palm trees, blasting away whatever birds had been in their fronds, while kicking up a twisting sandstorm of crabs. Her wail had knocked the assassin off his feet, too, sending him tumbling backward without his weapon. She barely remembered pulling the blade out of her belly, much less tossing it away down the beach, but she did recall spinning back around to face him, only to find him gone. Poof! With no one to kill, she had turned back to check on her lover, seeing him gutted on his back with his eyes begging for help and his blood pumping out. Before she could do anything, though, the killer had reappeared in front her with his sword back in his hand! Zap! It hadn’t seemed possible, but—slash!
Die, you fuck! she had roared back, even as he ripped open her wing.
The word was a human vulgarity she had heard a century or so prior. From what she had been able to glean, it meant to copulate, but the knight that had spat it at her at the time had used it in an entirely different way. “Fuck you, dragon,” the soldiering prick had said, while jabbing at her with a spear. She didn’t fully comprehend how trying to slay someone was equivalent to fornicating with them, unless the creep had intended the thrusting of his weapon to be phallic, which was just gross and deranged, but she did find the sound of the word to be rather satisfying. She didn’t want to become a muckspour and overuse it, but she had discovered that sometimes a well-placed fuck was exactly what was needed to make a point, like with the wizard that morning.
Die, you fuck! she had said, before swiping back at him with her claws, even as she felt the tear in her sail gash open.
Unfortunately, because of the bastard’s enhancements, specifically his blurring speed, he had been able to dodge her blow with just enough of a lean to spare his own life. Her talons should have taken his head off, but instead they had caught him by the joint of his elbow and shredded his fighting arm to scrap, while batting his sword away again, this time out into the ocean along with whatever scraps of his hand. The monster had screamed at the strike, his voice curdling. She remembered seeing blood spray from the ribbons of his nub in gushes and spurts, but somehow, in the same breath, he had been able to reach into his robe with his good hand, pull out a little bottle of blue liquid, and down it in a single swig. As soon as he swallowed it, his mangled wound had started to heal itself, right in front of her, the loose threads of his limb knitting back together to regrow his arm at a shocking speed.
Admittedly, she had marveled at it for longer than she should have, giving him the chance to whip out his strange little mini-cannon thing and blast her in the face with it. The white beard had been able to fire off a full load of shots before she had even reacted, she was so startled by its existence. He probably could have kept pelting her with it, too, if the weapon had come with a bigger quiver, but after a half-dozen slugs it had run dry, forcing the magical prick to halt his assault and stuff more iron balls up the butt of it.
Fortunately, in that brief pause, she had come to her senses. The dragon had quickly filled up her lungs with air, then lit the wick in her gut, while opening her throat to scorch out a burning wind of blue heat. Even then, though, the dirty little weasel had been fast enough to snap his fingers and cast a safety spell, just a blink before she could end him. The shield he had conjured had been some kind of energy dome, one that had crackled with green sparks whenever something touched it, even her fire. To her surprise, the barrier had split her blaze in half, right down the middle, forcing it to wrap around the sides, while keeping it from penetrating, which had saved him from being instantly disintegrated, but at the same time, some of her heat had found a way to slip in, even if the lick of her flames hadn’t been able to. From out of nowhere, the bastard had started to sweat, a lot, then the edges of his beard had ignited, muttonchops included, all of it slowly burning up to the skin of his face like a fuse, as the fresh threads of his regrowing arm began to unravel and peel, going back the other way. His big gray cloak had turned a little black and smokey, too, but even then, while being roasted inside his own spell, the warlock had continued to fight. He probably could have just zapped himself away, if he had wanted to, but instead, he had re-holstered his baby-cannon and whipped out another bottle of blue juice. The second swig hadn’t done much to him, though, not with her flames still pounding against his magic, it had merely staved off him taking any new damage.
She probably could have kept blazing and run his health down to nothing, but the dragon had no interest in playing by his rules, not with her mate bleeding out next to her. Instead, she had slung back her long, snake-like tail and whapped him with it as hard as she could, right in his magical dome. WA-ZAP! A giant blast of jade-colored energy had erupted from the shield, knocking her over backward in a thundering tumble, while blasting him off into the distance with his bubble. She launched him a good half a mile out over the ocean in the opposite direction of his sword, which was shark territory, but before splashing down, he had poofed away, green ball and all. When he hadn’t immediately reappeared in front of her to claim more of her blood, the dragon had turned back to her lover and sealed him up, then herself, enough that they could both take to the sky again. They had almost made it, too, but almost wasn’t good enough. Now he and her unborn egg were dead.
But maybe not finished, she thought. After all, her strength was creeping back. If she could pull it together, there was still a chance to save him, assuming the lore of the lava was more than just legend. If true, though, it could save their entire bloodline, as well as his life. Mating continuously with him over the next few millennia to repopulate their species with a bunch of new hatchlings was a burden she was happy to carry, especially if it meant having him back. In fact, she suddenly felt like she owed it to every elder that had ever come before her to at least test the resurrection theory. At the minimum, she had to heal herself, that alone would keep their breed from going extinct. In that way, it was her duty to survive.
And so I will, she thought, forcing herself up to all four claws. Let it be known that I, Zephyr Ignitus, Protector of All Beasts, Stopper of Wars, and Wielder of the Blue Flame will not die this day, not like this. I will rise, I will live, and I will seek my revenge on this wizard. She dug a fistful of talons deep into the earth and pulled herself along, carving out a three-fingered trench into the black rock, while dragging herself closer to her mate. I have a white-hot breath like lava. I can melt the steel of men with one blast from my lungs. She shoved herself to her feet. Her muscles and joints were quivering, on the verge of collapsing, but she kept stomping forward. The talons on my claws can slice through granite and stone. She couldn’t let herself be bested by one little sorcerer. She was a mighty fire-beast, the greatest warrior to ever exist, pacifist or not. She was bigger than a blue whale, more dangerous than a stampede of mammoths. A single roar from her gut could quake a mountain into a molehill. No, I am the scorch to be feared, not you.
Zephyr slung her lover’s limp tail over her shoulder and hauled his body up the final length of the slope to their cave. I will not let us die here, she said, not out in the open to picked apart by buzzards and men. She didn’t break her stride either, not until they were both deep inside the tunnel, only then did she stop to catch her breath. She stared out the entrance for a long moment, searching the barren landscape for any sign of the monster, but still, he was nowhere. Her swat should have shattered him dead, but his green dome had saved him. That sort of trickery was why she never underestimated a wizard. Not only were they heartier than they appeared to be, they also tended to carry around a lot of potions with them.
The dragon looked down at the corpse of her lover. She didn’t want to be a peaceful beast, anymore, she wanted to bite the fucker’s head off and turn his bones to ash. The warlock will pay for his wickedness, she snarled, as will any beast that fights at his side, this I swear. With that, she extended her front claws and drove them up into the roof of the cave, digging them deep into the meat of the mountain, all the way up to her elbows, then she yanked them back out, ripping down an avalanche of lava rock and dirt from the ceiling, until the whole mouth of the tunnel collapsed around them and buried them both inside.
