Dragonslayer, Inc.

The first night was pretty terrible.

I began to realize the full extent of what I had done, and I panicked. Fear- true fear- something I had never felt even among the worst and most pitiable emotions that had flickered through my mind over the years, coursed through my body.

Running off was a very foolish decision. I had no food, no water, and no shelter. At first, I was glad it wasn’t raining. I didn’t want to get sopping wet. But then I got thirsty, and I begged for some rain. It didn’t come.

I scrounged around, looking for a puddle to drink out of. The water in most puddles is disgusting and unsavory, but I didn’t care. I was dehydrated.

Why didn’t I drink a glass of water the night before? That would have been the smart thing to do, and that’s what I would have done had I known I’d be gone from home for much, much longer than couple hours. But even if I had, I’d still have been thirsty. It had been over a day since I left. The body can only take so much before it needs water.

I was a terribly unprepared traveler. When I went through my pockets, looking for spare change, I couldn’t find any. Thus, even if I happened upon a store out in the middle of nowhere, I wouldn’t be able to buy anything.

Desperate, I turned around, facing the direction of my hometown. There was still time to turn back. I would have been in bad shape by the time I got home, but I would have been alive. I probably would have been welcomed with open arms by sister and mother alike. They would have hugged me and cared for me and talked about how much they loved me. All I had to do was pull the trigger.

But I didn’t.

I turned back around, walked another quarter-mile, found a soft place to lay down, and fell asleep. I was impulsive then. There was no way I going to turn back. I had made my decision, and I was going to face the consequences, whatever they may be.

As much as I shake my head in disappointment at younger me, I admire his guile and determination. It took guts to stay out there. Granted, it also took stupidity and naïveté, but it took real, genuine courage.

The next morning, I made my first objectively good decision since I started the trip. I decided to sleep in the middle of the day and travel at night, when it was cooler. My problems didn’t go away, but they became easier to deal with.

On the third night, it rained. I was euphoric. I couldn’t very well collect the rain, saying as my attempts to find a pot or jar lying around had been unsuccessful, but I drank up every drop I could. I drank it off my clothes, my book, and my legs. When the storm ended, I sloshed around looking for puddles, and I found a few. The water in them was both atrocious and quenching.

My life was saved. I was starving, but my life was saved. There was a little voice in my head telling me I could make it all the way to Andes, the capital city and the site of the Dragonslayers’ headquarters.

I wasn’t sure I was good enough to become part of the Slayers, and I wasn’t sure they’d let me in even if I were, so I buried those concerns and focused on completing my journey. It became my only goal.

On my sixth night of travel, I arrived at a town. It was no bigger than Natura. I had been there before, once, but I didn’t know my way around. I didn’t know where all the best restaurants and hotels were, but that didn’t matter. It wouldn’t have mattered if I knew the names of every street and business in town. Without money, there wasn’t much I could do.

Sleeping I managed easily enough, but eating required swallowing my pride and scrounging through trash cans like a vagrant. I was lucky I didn’t pick up a disease. A couple passersby deliberately looked away from me, and a couple of parents hid their kids from me, but no one stopped me or insulted me, no one except an arrogant nineteen-year-old rich kid who would later become my best friend.

“Run off. You look disgusting. Take it to another city, pal,” he shouted in his distinctive baritone voice.

I spun around. I wanted to make sure he wasn’t a cop. He wasn’t.

He was that young Slayer I had been watching on TV the day before I left. That day seemed like a million years ago, but I immediately remembered him. “You’re a Dragonslayer, aren’t you?” I said.

“Who wants to know, you?”

“Yeah.” I stepped toward him. He brandished his rapier. “So I’m right.”

“What of it? Have you come to offer your respects? I’m not giving you an autograph unless you clean yourself up.”

I gritted my teeth. Here I was, meeting one of my heroes, and he was an entitled brat. I wasn’t gonna let him walk all over me.

“It’s nice to know you’re offering autographs, but I wasn’t asking for one,” I said. “I’m a fan though. Can you give me any tips on how to join the Slayers?”

“In your dreams. You’d be lucky to find a hotel room.”

“Now you’re asking for it.” I brandished the upper half of my broken katana.

“Where’d you find that?” He clenched his weapon. “The side of a street?”

“Here’s the deal: if I win, you give me enough money for a hotel room and some decent food.”

“What do I get if I win?”

“Why should you get something? You should win. You’re the professional.”

“I’ll destroy you.”

And so I, a teenager who had never been in a swordfight, fought an actual Dragonslayer. If I had been in my right mind, I would have freaked out. Thankfully, I wasn’t, and I stayed calm.

He went for the first blow. I dodged to the right, and his rapier sailed over my shoulder. I heard it cutting through the air, and determined to not let it cut into me, I took the offensive. There was no way I could win if this dragged out, especially not with a broken blade, but I thought if I set the pace and came after him swinging, I’d have a chance.

I swung at his chest. He blocked me. I grunted. This was not going to be easy. I had seen sparring matches between Slayers before, but this was more than that. I didn’t want to kill him, and I hoped he didn’t want to kill me, but one of us- or maybe both of us- was going to get seriously hurt.

For the next few minutes, we took swipes at each other. Twice, our blades met, and we tried to overpower each other. I lost both times, and he was able to nick me on the shoulder and the stomach.

Until that day, I didn’t know what it felt like to be hit by a blade. I wish those days of innocence had lasted longer.

A searing pain runs through your body. That’s the first thing you notice. Then it feels like your future’s being stolen away. You don’t have control over your life. The other person and their sword control you. All you can hope to do is steal that control back, but as you try to do so, you can’t shake the thought that you’re gonna bleed out and die before you get the chance.

My breathing got harder with every passing minute. I knew my chances of winning this fight were getting slim. My opponent was relentless. My only chance was to catch him off-guard. Summoning up what little energy I had left, I went for a full-out blitz.

Surprised, he got flustered and swung wide to the right of my body. I capitalized and struck him in the side. He fell down, but before he hit the ground, he thrust his rapier forward and slashed me in the leg.

The ground around us was covered in blood. It wasn’t a lot of blood, but it was enough to seep into the cracks in the pavement. Feeling like my leg was on fire, I was forced to take a knee. I heard a soft splash. It took me a second to realize I was kneeling in a puddle of our blood.

We would be fine. We knew we would be fine. But that didn’t make our wounds hurt any less. He got to his feet first. Clutching at his side, he said, “I was wrong. You’re not bad for a vagrant.”

“I’m not a vagrant,” I responded.

“Whatever.”

“Are you gonna give me money?”

“I didn’t lose.”

“C’mon, man. You’re a Dragonslayer. Help me out.”

“Fine.” He whipped out his wallet and put a fistful of bills into my hand. “That enough for you?”

I looked down at the money I had been given. My jaw plunged. My eyes grew to the size of saucers. I had never seen that much money. Granted, I didn’t grow up rich, but it was still a lot of money. It was enough money to buy most anything I wanted.

“Are you serious?” I asked him.

“What? Do you want more? You’re not getting it.”

“It’s not that at all. How are you so rich?”

“You think I’m rich? You really are a vagrant.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Ironwall earns in a day what I earn in a month. The system runs through him. A couple months ago, he bought a private island. That’s how rich he is. The system’s rigged.”

“Poor, pitiful you.”

“Don’t patronize me. I’ll take that money back.”

“Not on my watch.”

“Give it to me.”

“No.” I held it out to the side, away from his reach.

“I’m not that rich.”

“You’re richer than I’ll ever be.”

“You want to join the Slayers?”

“I do.”

“Get yourself a decent sword and you might have a chance. They’re looking for openings.”

“Where would I find a good sword in this city?”

“Why would I know?”

“Can you help me find one?”

“Nope. It’d be too out of my way. Ask someone for directions. I bet they’ll know.” He limped away.

“Hold up. We’re both hurt.”

“So? I’m not going to the hospital.”

“We’ll go to a convenience store and get bandages and medicine. I’ll pay with the money you gave me.”

“I don’t have a problem with that.”

After we limped a couple hundred feet to the nearest store and snagged what we needed, I told him I was starving. He said he didn’t know any good restaurants. I told him how long I had gone without eating. He said, “You’re pathetic,” and gave me a roll he had in his pocket. I devoured it like it was the finest meal I had ever eaten.

Even looking back now, that was an unusually tasty roll. It wasn’t stale or crusty. It wasn’t too small or too light. It was flaky, filling, and delicious. The mere thought that a Slayer was rich enough to have a roll like that sitting in their pocket instead of sticky old candy or rotten sandwich crusts reinforced my desire to make it to Andes.

It wasn’t just about the money. It wasn’t just about the opportunity to be well-off for the first time in my life. It was about the opportunity to make my mark on the world, to forge my own identity.

For the first seventeen years of my life, my defining trait was my love for the Slayers. I couldn’t write. I couldn’t dance. I couldn’t act. I was decent in school, but I wasn’t particularly academic. I wasn’t athletic. I wasn’t a big science or engineering nut. When I thought about what I wanted to do with my life, which wasn’t often, I always thought about being a Slayer.

So I suppose you could argue it was inevitable that I treaded down this track. But even if that’s true, it sure didn’t feel inevitable to me then. It felt strange. It felt alien. It felt like I was stepping out of line, breaking the world order. I didn’t dwell on these feelings a whole lot, but they were always swimming around in my mind.

Having someone I could talk to, even someone who didn’t like me very much at the time, put me at ease. And so the Slayer and I traded barbs for the next half-hour as we walked around the city, searching for a hotel I could stay at. I was surprised he agreed to come with me, but I think he was feeling kinda guilty. When I asked him where he was staying, he said, “The Dragonslayers’ Hostel. It’s really fancy, but it’s only open to Slayers. You can’t stay there.”

I was disappointed, and I looked it, so he took pity on me and said he’d help me find a hotel. We eventually found a decent establishment. It was in the back corner of town. It wasn’t particularly fancy, but the rooms were spacious, and the staff was courteous.

He could tell I had never booked a room before, so he helped me through the process. It was fairly simple, the kind of thing I only needed to be shown once. I thanked him for his hospitality. He brushed off my compliment and headed for the exit.

“What’s your name?” I asked. “You never told me.”

“It’s Machen,” he said quietly. “Yours?”

“Coran.”