Dragonslayer, Inc.

“Wait for me.”

It was Steph.

Dawn had just given way to day. The sun was a semicircle riding the horizon. The twelve of us were well-rested and ready to embark on the grandest quest of our lives. Our eyes were bright. Our minds were sharp. Our reflexes were dexterous.

Just as we were about to step out of the city, she came running up to us, panting and hyperventilating. Her face was the color of Mina during an eclipse. The look of pure determination in her eyes struck fear and admiration into my heart.

Ironwall said, “I thought we’d agreed that…”

“There is no way I am being left behind,” she interjected, getting up in his face. “It doesn’t matter if I’m in training or not. I’m talented. I’m sharp. I’m experienced enough. In any case, I have a lot more of a right to be here than this newbie.” She pointed to me.

“Sweetie,” said Machen, “it’s just…”

“This is very simple. I don’t care what your plans are. I’m gonna join this group. If you want to stop me, pull out your weapons.” She brandished her twin swords.

“Let’s take a vote,” I said. “Those who want her to join, raise your hands.”

Eight of us raised our hands, including Machen. Ironwall tried to complain, but democracy got the last say. Steph joined. We were now thirteen.

You take things for granted when you’re younger. As I look back on that incident, I am surprised it didn’t go horribly wrong. Our journey could have been over before it started, mutating into a giant bloodbath.

While I’m not so foolish as to claim I’m the reason it turned out all right, I will say I handled myself surprisingly well. I’m not a diplomatic person- never have been, never will be- and pressure does funny things with your head, especially when you’re a seventeen-year-old coming out of a major crisis.

All I’m saying is things could have- and maybe should have- turned out worse than they did.

I’m glad Steph joined. She brought with her laughs, jeers, salty comments, and a surprising amount of thoughtful introspection. There are sides of her I never would have gotten to see if she hadn’t come with us, and the sides of her I’d already seen, I grew to like more.

But I’m not just glad she joined because she was good company. I’m glad she joined because if she hadn’t, I would be dead, and so would Machen.

We turned toward the sunrise and got on our way. Deka was still in the air, but it was setting quickly. We had a lot of time to work with. When I brought up my idea of sleeping during the day and traveling at night, Ironwall took a break from grumbling about Steph to say, “It’s not that far to Drens. It’s a resting spot for Slayers. We’ll arrive in a couple hours. There, we’ll find cars waiting for us, which we’ll drive to Gesen. Last I checked, that’s where the dragon’s going.”

“Wow, so we’ll be able to end it already?” asked one of the Slayers. “I didn’t expect that.” She wasn’t young, but she had this layer of childish optimism about her. She reminded me of a happy-go-lucky aunt.

“If we’re that lucky, I’ll buy myself a lottery ticket. Likely, the dragon isn’t there, and even if it is, the odds of us slaying it right then are low. Gesen won’t be the end. It’ll be the first step.”

When we got further down the road, I asked, “What’s Gesen like?”

“You’ve never been there?” Ironwall responded.

“No.”

“You’ll see what it’s like when you get there. We’ll be arriving shortly.”

Not long after, we found ourselves at Drens. The sun tucked behind a bulky cloud, obscuring the resting spot. Then again, there wasn’t much to obscure. While I didn’t expect much, I expected a facility that reflected the opulence the Slayers loved to associate themselves with. What I got was a rundown station that resembled an old frontier outpost left to rot.

“Do… When was the last time anyone was here?” asked Steph, testing a creaky wooden door.

“It doesn’t look the best, I’ll admit,” said Ironwall. “Ninety, a hundred years ago, it was thriving. Everything changed when the road between Gesen and Andes was paved for cars. Dragonslayers would drive from one city to the other without stopping. This stop became practically worthless. Of course, as Andes’ streets are no longer usable, it is now a point of interest. What was old has become new again.”

“How do you know about it?”

“It’s been used once in the last fifty years. That one time was by us- me and four other Slayers. We were exhausted from our pursuit of that hundred-and-fifty-foot behemoth. The rest of our party had already died. We needed some time to rest, to put ourselves back together. We were going to lie down on the grass, but then we found this place. It gave us shelter.”

He took us to the cars. They were very old cars, older than any of us by decades. Except in movies, I had never seen cars that old. I felt like I had stepped into a time machine and traveled to a different era.

“Do these still work?” I asked.

“Yes, actually,” Ironwall answered. “I tested them last time I was here, and I doubt much has changed since then. If they lasted all those decades, one more’s not gonna make much of a difference. That Litriol’s good stuff.”

“What’s Litriol?” I asked.

The others started laughing.

This was yet another thing I didn’t know because I didn’t undergo training.

“Remind me why we keep this guy,” joked Machen.

“That doesn’t answer my question,” I retorted.

“You act like you’re something special. You act like you’re gonna change the world. You act like you got something unique to say. But you don’t know a thing.”

“I’m not falling for the bait. I’m not gonna get into it with you. Just answer me.”

Steph asked me, “Do you know why we don’t use guns?”

“I never thought about it,” I answered.

“Do you know why our weapons are so powerful?” she asked.

“I never noticed they were. I just thought you Slayers were that good.”

“Not even when you were using them?”

“I’m not exactly myself when I’m in action. If you’re confused by that, don’t worry: I am too.”

“Do you ever make sense?” imputed Machen.

“Litriol is… I’m not quite sure what it is,” said Steph. “It’s basically liquid magic. It’s the reason we’re as powerful as we are. It’s the reason we’re able to slay dragons so effectively. If we could use it with guns, we would, but it only works with melee weapons… and cars, apparently.”

“It comes from Miyok Forest,” added Ironwall. “You should go there at night. In high concentrations, Litriol glows in the dark. The reserves of it we had at HQ were enough to last us another three hundred and fifty years. Of course, thanks to the dragon attack, we lost nearly all our supply. The original Slayers extracted the stuff by the bucketload. They also destroyed a good portion of the forest. From their accounts, Miyok used to be a ‘place without compare’ and ‘the only great wonder of this world’. I’d love to have seen it back then. But those times are gone, as far gone as the days when this place looked respectable.”

“Is there anything you want to show us before we leave?” asked the aunt-like Slayer.

“This spot holds bad memories for me. It reminds me of the nadir of my life. Let’s get going.”

Foolishly, I said, “But shouldn’t it hold good memories? Didn’t you just say you got to rest here?”

“Well, it doesn’t hold good memories, Coran,” he gruffly replied, “and if you go through what I went through- and I hope to the moons and back you don’t- you’ll understand.”

With that, he started up the best-looking of the cars by speaking a password to it, then drove off. The rest of us piled into the other cars. I rode with Machen. He drove, mostly because he was the only one who knew the password.

“Another thing they covered in training?” I asked.

“More or less.”

“This is starting to get on my nerves.”

“You should have asked for training. It’s not like they would have turned you down.”

The path to Gesen was bumpier than the path I walked to Andes, but it offered no real problems. Every now and then, we’d have to dodge an animal or pothole, but that was it. The immensity of this continent is much more manageable when you’re driving. The land’s a piece of fruit ready to be devoured. You can take a bite here and a bite there and still have time enough to tip your head back and lap up the juice drizzling down your cheek.

I must have looked out my window over fifty times during that trip. I’m glad I did. It was my last car ride for a long time. I saw rock formations and herds of red-coated antelope and pristine lakes and soaring birds with giant silver wings. There were plateaus and hillsides and valleys, each different from the last.

The further we went, the less powerlines we saw. Civilization eventually seemed to disappear, only to reappear by the end of the day, when we closed into Gesen. It was though a magician had waved their wand and caused modernity to vanish into thin air, then realized he missed it and waved it back into existence.

We pulled into a parking lot in Gesen. Before we got out, we watched the sun trickle across the sky before finally settling down into the deep mouth of the horizon, where it sat, crouching, for a few precious seconds before fading away and letting the somber curtain of semidarkness take its place.

That night, we stayed at the fanciest hotel in the city. Ironwall paid for our suites, saying, “I know you can afford it. This my treat.”

My suite was on the seventy-fourth floor. There were three beds, all of which I rolled around in. There were six recliners, all of which I snuggled up in. There was food already prepared, which I ate. On the light switches, there were several options. I chose ‘Candlelight’.

I spent hours absorbing the immutable radiance of that suite. There was a lot I didn’t know back then, but I knew I likely wouldn’t be sleeping in a lot of five-star hotels in the foreseeable future. We would be roughing it, and we would be roughing it in winter.

Around midnight, I uttered a long yawn. I knew it was time to sleep, but I didn’t want to leave the majesty of this glorious night, so I wandered down to the lobby, where I smelt a most tantalizing aroma and followed it to the restaurant, where a group of snazzily dressed affluent twentysomethings were enjoying a midnight feast of cocktails and steak.

I was welcomed with open arms by the leader of the group, a woman by the name of Mali Matrin, a name she was quick to give me. She was an heiress, a businesswoman, and someone who had been pretending to be an adult since she was a tween. This information she was not so quick to give me, but it was not hard to glean. I have never been good at reading people, but she was easy to interpret.

Downing a cocktail, I sat on a stool. It was a high-class stool, and it was comfortable, so I didn’t get up for a while. I made conversation with the group, which was on a whole enraptured with me. I’d like to think it was because I was a charismatic and interesting individual, but more likely, it was because they were bored and tired of talking to each other.

However, they were genuinely fascinated with my story. I told them why I became a Dragonslayer, and they listened. I told them about walking to Andes, and they listened. I told them how I met Machen and Ironwall and Steph, and they listened. It was cathartic.

Our session went on. When I talked about leaving my sister behind, they cried. When I talked about killing that dragon with Ironwall’s dagger, they gasped. When I talked about hiring those six limos to follow my limo, they laughed. I smiled. It was nice having an audience.

After all other topics had been exhausted, they asked me about the dragon attack. Not wanting to dredge up a part of my life I had finally gotten away from, I attempted to excuse myself, but they insisted.

Mali passed me a rusty-colored cocktail. “It’ll help,” she said. “It’s the strongest thing they’ve got.”

“Or I could leave.” I was too tired and entranced to be angry, but there was some edge in my voice.

“What was it like? What’s the damage? We’ve been watching the news, so we know it’s bad, but how bad is it? Please tell us.”

Being a kid with questionable judgment, I sat back down, drained the cocktail, felt the numb sting of alcohol rush through my body, and opened up.

To this juncture, I had avoided disclosing any deeply personal details. That quickly ended. While my memories of the latter part of that night are blurry, I sincerely believe I spent more time pouring out my soul than talking about Icithan’s attack, though in my defense, the two are not completely unrelated.

My words struck disquiet into their eyes. By the time I finished saying my piece, a cloud of discontent and desolation had settled in over the restaurant. Shrugging my drunken shoulders, I said goodbye to the twentysomethings- whom I would never see again- and wandered up to my hotel room.

It was not the best way to end my last night in a fancy hotel.