Dragonslayer, Inc.

We stayed awake through the night, talking to each other. Despite our exhaustion, we didn’t want to sleep. Going to sleep seemed despicable, while staying awake seemed agreeable, so we did the latter.

It was easy to talk. It had never been easier to talk. We had both been pried open, so it wasn’t a challenge to spill out our guts. I did most of the talking, though I only realized that a week later.

When he spoke, his words sparked as they voyaged from his mouth from my ears. It wasn’t that his words meant more than mine. They weren’t any more revealing or raw or open, but the words he had spoke before- the words I transcribed for you last chapter- were, and they had not left the air. Remnants of them floated around like conductors. When he said a deep or evocative phrase or sentence, it set off these conductors, and boom- sparks.

Between swapping stories and opinions and making up stories and opinions on the spot, we would catch a look at her body, which we had turned away from. We never looked at her body at the same time, because when we were looking, we would invariably go silent, and when we were both silent at the same time, depression would creep in.

Morning twilight broke. The sky, which had been as dark as a sky could be, began to lighten into this flippant lavender.

“Our lives begin again,” said Ironwall. On one hand, his voice was hoarse and weak, but on the other, there was a notch of determination in it that I had never seen before, not from him or anyone. His eyes told much the same story. They were red- though he hadn’t cried- and they looked like they would have cracked open if not for a magnetic force holding them in place.

I checked on the aunt-like Slayer’s body. In the pre-morning light, I could see what I couldn’t at night: mainly, that her body had deteriorated further since her death. By midday, she would hardly have the form of a human being anymore. I asked Ironwall if we could bury her. Oddly, he was hesitant to the idea at first.

“She shouldn’t be buried here in the middle of nowhere,” he said.

“Then what do you propose?”

This simple sentence struck a chord with him, and he immediately switched the topic of conversation to where the hole should be dug. I gave suggestions. He gave suggestions. We came to a compromise and buried her as the upper tip of the sun grew closer to the land’s contour.

Afterward we lay down, consumed by our exhaustion. There was nothing else for us to do. We didn’t want to sleep, but we had no choice. The ground felt soft against my head. My eyes snapped shut. My heartrate slowed. My muscles relaxed. As the sun rose, I drifted away.

When I woke up, it was early evening. The aged sky that hung above me was spotted with gray, blemish-like clouds. I yawned. The events of the last few days snapped back into my mind. If it had been morning, I might have cried, but it wasn’t.

Wobbling to my feet, I relished the fading light. It had been too long since I’d woken up at this time. I was brought back to the first days of my journey, when I was scrambling through the night without any food or water on my way to Andes. Inexplicable eagerness shot through me as I surveyed the land.

I was excited. I didn’t realize it at first, but I was excited. I wanted to see Miyok and feast my eyes on an abundance of Litriol. I wanted to see if there were any lurking tribes. If there were, I wanted to ring them with hundreds of questions and pick their brains as best I could. If there weren’t, I wanted to find the center of the forest, go there alone, and rollick, knowing I was as far away from civilization as possible.

After that, I was eager to see Curam. This is a position I had never held before. I had heard stories and watched movies about Curam since I was young, and it had been the mountain of my nightmares. In my mind, I had imagined what it would be like to climb it, how difficult it would be, what tragedies would befall me. Granted, these scenarios were things of the past, and back when I obsessed over them, they enthralled rather than horrified me, but the idea of Curam as this malevolent, inherently vile place had stayed in my mind, and the thought of having to fight Icithan there didn’t help.

But that evening, I was a new person. My beliefs weren’t set in stone. They were as soft and squishy as wet concrete. For the moment, I could change them however I wanted, and I wanted to see Curam as a mountain of hope and light, so I did. I was overcorrecting, but what of it?

That volcano was the destination of my journey north. It was the place that made this incredulous quest worth it. Why shouldn’t I have pictured it as this citadel of perfection? I’m glad I did, though not as glad as I am that I took a deep breath of that twilight, hopped on my stallion, and rode north.

A flaming passion rose in my chest as the terrain shifted for the first time in forever. I got miles out from camp. Lightning struck the ground a thousand feet ahead of me, and I pounded my chest, exhilarated. For the last week, I had been building up potential energy. It didn’t feel like energy, and it didn’t energize me, but it was there, tingling in my skin and spine, and now it had been released as kinetic energy, movement energy, energy that made me feel like I could fly.

When it began to run out, I checked behind me. There were the other Slayers, far back, riding along the top line of a hill I had passed minutes ago, and they were out of breath. My eyesight has never been spectacular, but I could see them panting and turning reds and blues and purples.

Halting my mount, I chuckled. If it had been up to them, we wouldn’t have gone anywhere today, and we wouldn’t have made a lot of progress tomorrow or the next day. We would have started slow and built to a steady, brisk pace over time, and that may have been the best decision for them, but it wouldn’t have worked for me.

I have not been one hundred percent honest with you. For example, when I said there was no modern precedent for the dragon attack on Andes, I was lying, as I’m sure you know now. But I am being completely honest when I say that there was nothing that could have satisfied me save for that evening ride.

Ironwall was the first to catch up. He rode his horse with an unmatchable vigor. “Raring to go, are you?” he asked.

“Making up for lost time.”

“That time wasn’t lost.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

Steph arrived soon after, Machen on the back of her horse. “Couldn’t you pick a less dangerous time to swagger?” she asked, eyeing the lightning strikes, which were increasing exponentially.

“My love, we’ll be fine,” said Machen, smirking. “We need to get past Firecane Bay. Once we do that, we can slow down.” He expected her to smile or laugh, but she did neither.

“For the umpteenth time, don’t call me ‘your love’ or anything like that.” An edge crept into her tone, and she stared past his eyes into his soul. “I like you. You’re flawed, but I like you. You’re resourceful, intelligent, and if I’m to be honest, handsome. But we’re not in a relationship, and we’re not going to be any time soon. I’m sorry for implying otherwise during my highs. I wasn’t emotionally stable, and you weren’t either. But I’ve moved past that. It wasn’t easy. What I did was concentrate on my dreams. It made my highs and lows balance out. I can deal with them. You, on the other hand, didn’t move past your problems. If anything, you’re lapsing into a more pathetic version of who you used to be. You’re better than that. I don’t know what you need to do, but do it. Until then, don’t talk to me.”

Stunned, he began to protest, but then he looked away and gulped three times.

The winds were getting warmer. It was the middle of the night, but it wasn’t that much cooler than noontime in Rolar. The clouds were taking on strange colors and stranger shapes. I felt comfortable, but I didn’t feel safe.

Steph left her horse to Machen and hopped onto mine. “Welcome,” I said.

“I needed a break from riding.”

“Is there anything you want to talk about?”

“We could talk, or we could ride. Which do you prefer?”

Ironwall was examining Machen, who aside from his closed body language looked better on the outside than he felt on the inside. The two made a strange image: the younger man was distraught, as if life had been eating away at him for the last twenty years, while the older man was confident and unafraid, as if he had never known fear.

Despite Machen’s troubles, however, the four of us as a whole hadn’t looked better since we left Andes. We were rested and enthused. The wear that had accumulated from the journey was not gone, but it had been assuaged. In fact, we might have been better off than we were in Andes. The nervous jitters of anticipation were gone. We didn’t have to wonder what the journey would hold. We knew. We knew all too well.

There had been days when the torrent of our trip had tormented us to no end, but today was not like that. Today we leaned forward and kissed the future on the lips.

By chance, we encountered the first large creature we had seen in hundreds of miles. It was a thirty-foot-long dragon. Caught off-guard, Ironwall said, “That’s one I’ve never seen before.”

“Who has?” Steph responded rhetorically, drawing her twin swords. “Add it to the pile.” She kicked my stallion in the sides, and it burst forward.

Unprepared, I was thrown for a loop and nearly thrown off the horse. “What’s the big idea?” I said.

“The big idea? Killing that dragon. Draw that weapon, my friend.”

I had never fought a dragon mounted before, but I knew Ironwall’s dagger wouldn’t be much of a boon unless I could throw it effectively, and I couldn’t, not when the dragon’s only weak spot was its belly. On another day, this would have thrown me into disarray, but today, I merely shouted, “Anyone have an extra weapon?”

This question was directed to Ironwall, and he knew it. Clutching his left hand, he reached into his clothes with his right and found a nunchaku. “Will this work?” he asked.

“No. What am I supposed to do with one of those? I’m not a weapons master. Give me a broadsword. Where did you get that thing anyway? Is it even imbued with Litriol?”

“Now that you mention it, no. It will be, but it’s not yet. I’m sorry. My brain isn’t functioning properly.” He reached into his clothes again. “I got it off one of Arge’s soldiers. I got a lot of weapons that way, as in so many that I had to leave some behind. It’s an embarrassment of riches. I can’t wait to dip these in Litriol and take them back to Andes. Say, Stephanie, did you grab any weapons?”

“I was too busy trying to not die.”

“I forgot.”

“I know.”

He found a saber and tossed it to me. It flew through the air with the greatest of ease, spooking me. What if it flew over my head? What if it hit the ground? What if it impaled Steph? What if it impaled me?

None of these scenarios came to pass. I stole the sword out of the air with one hand, and with one fluid motion, I was wielding it, ready for action. “Today is a good day,” I said.

The battle itself was a breeze. It was natural and smooth and debonair. Once we got past how the dragon looked, we realized it behaved much like the many other dragons we had slayed. That process was not short though. I’m reluctant to call it the weirdest creature I had ever seen, but it’s right up there.

If you pressed me, I’d call it the weirdest dragon I’ve ever seen. It had eight eyes, including two on its shoulders. Its neck was covered in a ring of spikes. Its nose was too big, and its mouth was too small. Over half its body length was tail, and at the end of its main tail was a little nub of a second tail, and at the end of that tail were the beginnings of a third tail. Each of its six feet had eight transparent claws, and each of its nine wings was in actuality three rigid, smokestack-like appendages held together by sticky feathers. Strangest of all, it had these horns extending from its mouth. They were like deer horns, only they were bright red and gargantuan. At sixty-five feet long, they came in at over twice the length of its body.

Once we clipped its wings, it became much easier to defeat. We didn’t have to be evasive or clever. We didn’t have to wait for it to swoop within range. We didn’t have to chase after it. There was nothing it could do except crawl around and desperately alternate between pawing at us, whipping its tail at us, and trying to bite us. None of these attacks worked. They wouldn’t have been hard to dodge on foot, and on horseback, they were jokes.

Steph got the killing blow. The dragon was on its back, bleeding to death. Its blood was orange, and it rose up to her knees as she slogged through it. The dragon took a weak swipe at her, which she dodged and climbed onto its tail. Running past the various wounds we inflicted, she came to its heart and plunged in her swords.

We waited for a scream. It’s typical for dragons to scream when they die, but this one didn’t, and we were left satisfied but puzzled. The beast was just dead.

“Another victory,” Ironwall bellowed, having his horse rise up on its hind legs as he lifted his warhammer to clouds.

Steph was nonchalant about the business. I think of her as a consummate professional, and that image began to take shape here. After checking to make sure the dragon was dead, she flicked the blood and guts off her skin, retrieved her weapons, and leapt onto my stallion when I slowed it down. For her, there was no need to fuss.

It was midnight when we resumed our trek. “Is anyone tired?” I asked as we crossed through a sandy meadow of silver.

“That depends,” Steph responded. “How far to Miyok?”

“We’ll be there soon.”

“The signs are encouraging,” said Ironwall. “There’s a chill in the air. We’ve got to be getting away from Firecane Bay.”

Steph said, “We’re almost done. It’s hard to believe. You never expect the journey to be so grueling, but when it is, you think life’s gonna be that way forever. You have that mindset, so when it’s not, when life gets better, you’re shocked as much as anything.”

“I’m shocked we’re happy about getting out of the warmth,” I added. “Your body adapts to the cold.”

“When we first met, I didn’t think you could adapt to anything. You were just this punk-nosed kid who barged in unannounced and demanded a try-out, then came at me with this crazy story about walking to Andes from Natura.”

“You remember that?”

“It wasn’t that long ago.”

“It seems like it was.”

“Yeah.”

“What’s today?”

She told me the date, then added, “Why? Do you have an appointment?”

“Only an appointment with destiny, as Machen would say.”

“He wouldn’t say that, and don’t talk about him.”

“I wanted to know because I thought we were getting close to my birthday.”

“And?”

“It’s today. I’m eighteen.”

“Congratulations. I’m happy for you. On my eighteenth, I sat at home in a dimly lit room with a cheap cake. I would have given anything to be out in the field on a journey like this.”

“Really?”

“Like you wouldn’t if you were stuck at home? You ran off. You probably would have been more desperate than me.”

“I guess so. Actually going on a journey changes you.”

“There’s nothing like it, not even time.”

“Ironwall,” I looked over at him, “have we changed as much as we think we have?”

“More. You’ve grown so much since we left Andes. I’m sorry you had to go through this, but I have to say: you’ve made the most of it. I’m interested to see where you go from here.”

“Me too,” Steph said, staring up into the stars.

There was a confidence in our hearts that night, the kind that comes only from having survived the worst ordeals. The journey may have been painful, but we had lived. We had lived when others had not, and we had kept on riding. Befuddled hope and shining clarity collided in our hearts. We had made it through the worst storms; what was going to stop us from seeing a sunny day?

Though we weren’t at Curam yet, there was optimism- airy yet substantial and evocative- that we would get there, that we would all get there, all four of us. It wouldn’t be easy, but we had momentum on our side. We were on the downward slope, the final stretch. What could stop us?