AA227 - Dragon (Patreon)

The dragon stepped into the vault and looked them over contemptuously.

“Human,” he said, looking at James. “Human,” he repeated, looking at Mitsue.

He hesitated over Suki. “Close enough to human,” he decided. He looked over at Shugen and raised his eyebrows. “Oni. That will be a rare treat. Three humans, an oni and a fox, here to steal my treasure.”

“Actually, we—” James started.

“Quiet,” the dragon ordered. “It’s rude for food to talk. Hmm. There’s someone else… outside.”

He took another step forward.

“Attack,” Mitsue said, and James leapt forward, just as they had practised, his sword lighting up with as much of the green light as he could muster.

Mitsue didn’t move, but his swords did. They extended and twisted, like whips with a mind of their own. The quicksilver blades curved to attack from two more directions, timed to hit at the exact moment James did.

The dragon batted them aside. He blocked James’s sword with the back of his right hand, while his left fended off one of Mitsue’s attacks. The other blade, curving around behind, was countered by the dragon’s tail. It wrapped around the blade, threatening to wrench it out of Mitsue’s hand. Sparks flew as it slashed across the dragon’s scales, but to no avail.

James managed to cut through the scales on the dragon’s arm, but the result was only a small cut that healed while he watched.

“The food has fangs. Interesting.” The look on the dragon’s face suggested he wasn’t as pleased as he sounded. “But not as interesting as whoever is out there. Why don’t you go fetch them for me?”

He lunged forward, moving almost as fast as Harue did. With his armour on, James could see the attack coming, but he couldn’t move fast enough to get his sword in the way. The dragon slid past James’s glacial attempt at a block, grabbed him by the breastplate, and threw.

James smashed through the vault door, taking a blow to his back that forced the breath out of him. He bounced twice on the floor before landing at the feet of the guards they’d effortlessly bypassed before.

The guards stared at him, then looked back to where he came. The black-scaled dragon strode arrogantly out of the ruins of the door. His tail lashed back and forth, holding off Mitsue’s attacks.

James tried to get up, but he couldn’t. Everything hurt.

The guards took off running.

“Wise of them,” the dragon commented. “I rarely bother to distinguish between different humans, and they deserve to be eaten after failing to stop you.”

He looked around as he walked forward, out into the street. “Now, where are you? Invisibility won’t hide you forever.”

“I am hiding from no one, fool.” Kana ripped off her talisman. She was already transformed. Her dragon form, ten metres of muscular snake-like coils, was floating in the air above the street.

Suki caught up to James and helped him into a sitting position. Mitsue assumed a guard position in front of him.

The dragon glanced over his shoulder at them, but dismissed them as a concern.

“Your mother will be glad to have her wayward daughter returned,” he said. “Should you survive this, I will take you back to her and petition to have you as a concubine.”

“Bold words, from a walking corpse,” Kana said, and spat lightning at him. The bright, acintic light lashed out at him and—

—was swallowed by shadow. The dragon laughed as he was surrounded by darkness. It ate the lightning and concealed him for just a second before his new form burst out of it.

Like Kana, he had a long, snake-like body, covered in thick armoured scales. While her scales were black mixed with blue, his were entirely inky black. He was also twice her size.

“That… isn’t good,” Mitsue said.

“We need to help her.” Suki helped James to his feet. The pain was receding with each breath he managed to take.

“Any idea how?” he asked.

“Um… Shugen-sensei? Is there a way sorcery can affect this battle?”

Shugen stared at Suki, and then at the pair of dragons, who had entered physical combat. Lightning still crackled around Kana, battling for dominance with the Shadow that wreathed the bigger dragon. James didn’t think it was going well.

In the distance, he could hear shouts and screams, but they seemed to be getting further away. It sounded like the rest of the village was heeding the guard’s example.

“Against one of the Great Lords?” Shugen protested. “I suppose I did swear eternal loyalty to Kana-sama… but are we sure she wouldn’t be happier as a concubine?”

“Yes,” the humans chorused.

“Surely the greatest sorcerer in the world isn’t short of ideas?” Suki added.

“Of course not!” Shugen exclaimed. “I… that is… I suppose we could do something about his element.”

“Go on,” Suki urged. Shugen gulped.

“Well, it’s a bad match-up,” he explained. “My Lady’s element is Lightning, which is Fire-aspected. His element of Shadow is Yin-Water, which weakens her. If she were to switch to the pure darkness that is the other part of her heritage, she would be fine, but… she doesn’t want to do that.”

“Why not?” James asked, but Shugen ignored him.

“Let me see your swords,” he said to Mitsue.

Mitsue kept his attention on the fight, but let one of his swords curve around in front of Shugen.

“Yes, yes,” the oni muttered. “Strange as it seems, these are Yang-aspected Water. If you use them on his Shadow, it will weaken it.”

“They slid off his scales without damage,” Mitsue objected.

“Yes, dragon scales are resistant,” Shugen agreed. “Strike where his aura is thickest—or at gaps in his protection.”

“I see,” Mitsue nodded seriously.

“As for you,” Shugen said, “The magic you bear is beyond me. If you are strong enough, it will overcome him. That is all I can say.”

“That’s good news, I guess,” James said. He felt recovered enough to fight again. “What are you going to do?”

Shugen scowled. “I suppose I can make some Earth magic talismans. If we can surround him with them, they will… stabilise his Shadow, prevent it from avoiding the destructive force of her Lightning. So try to keep him in one place.”

“Will that be enough?” Suki asked.

“It will… help,” he replied evasively. “Whether or not it is enough is up to your muscle-bound companions.”

“Fine then,” James said. With a thought, his sword was wreathed in green flames. “Ready?” he asked Mitsue.

“Always,” his friend replied.

They rushed forward.

“This is my fight!” Kana yelled.

“We’re a team! Don’t you forget that!” James shouted back. That was all he had time for, because then he was fighting the dragon.

He quickly realised he was outmatched. The dragon was faster than them, stronger. Fighting all three of them was no problem for him because he flew in the air, freeing up all four feet and his tail to cover their attacks. Not to mention his bite… and his breath.

For a moment, James thought he had died when the world winked out. Darkness engulfed him, blocking his sight of the fight and putting him in his own little world of darkness. Then his armour burned bright, and the darkness went away.

The dragon made a frustrated grimace and turned its attention back to Kana.

I thought I said not to mention the breath, James thought.

James fought. His sword did damage, the green flame cutting through scales and drawing blood. He wasn’t able to do lasting damage, any more than Kana could. Her claws were digging in, and her lighting was scouring more effectively now that Mitsue was cutting away the shadow… but nothing seemed to stick.

“Mitsue! Look out!” James saw the dragon’s jaws turn towards Mitsue, but the ninja was already moving. A torrent of black shadow shot out to engulf him, but it enveloped only empty air.

I wish I could do that, James grumbled to himself. Not only was Mitsue faster on his feet than James was, but the extended reach of his blades meant he could stay further away, giving him more time to dodge.

James had to fight in close quarters, which seemed to be the dragon’s specialty.

Is that really true, though? James wondered. It was the fire on his sword that was doing the damage, after all. Can I make my flame longer?

He didn’t have a chance to finish the thought, as he barely brought his sword up in time to parry a devastating swipe from the dragon’s claw. He tried to riposte, but—again—only managed a shallow cut.

This isn’t working, he thought. We can’t keep this up forever, and he… can. I hope the spell Shugen’s working on will work.

James could hear Shugen shouting something, but fighting the dragon took all his focus. He couldn’t spare a scrap of attention to listen to the demon.

Then a golden light shone out from behind him, lighting up the village street in bronze.

The dragon snarled wordlessly.

“That’s mine,” he growled.

James hopped back to get a look at what was going on.

“Was it?” Harue said. She was wearing armour that looked a lot like what James was wearing, except that it was glowing gold. “You shouldn’t have had a security system that was absolute pants, then. You even told me how to get past it!”

Harue was casually holding the handle of a manriki-gusari that looked identical to the decoy one in the vault. The weighted chain hung down, dragging on the ground.

James was almost positive you weren’t supposed to carry them like that.

The dragon made to use its breath on her, but was forced to reconsider, as Kana resumed her attack. Mitsue followed shortly after, and James forced himself forward as he realised he was letting the team down.

The pressure was a little less now, because even though Harue hadn’t joined in, most of the dragon’s attention was fixed on her.

“Insolent fox!” he shouted. “I will peel you out of that armour and roast you on a stick!”

“Nuh-uh!” Harue jeered. “That’s not gonna happen because now I’m the Holy Golden Warrior of the Prophecy!”

“There is no such title,” the dragon snapped. He lunged for Harue, but James managed to hold him back. Kana flew up and attacked from above, keeping him on the ground.

“Oro? Looks like someone hasn’t been keeping up with the latest Propheteer’s Gazette!” Harue taunted. “Don’t you know that nine out of ten prophets prefer a kitsune for their prophesied hero?”

Distracted, the dragon failed to properly block Mitsue’s blade. The flexible water knife slipped in between the vulnerable scales of the dragon’s belly, causing him to howl in pain.

Harue continued her jibes.

“Possible side effects include: Crippling feelings of self-doubt; Overwhelming regret; and getting all your gold stolen! Hey, Kana, check this out!”

She flicked a single, glittering, gold coin into the air on a high trajectory in Kana’s direction.

“You dare!” the all-black dragon screamed.

“Mine!” Kana declared and caught it in her mouth.

“I will kill you all!” the dragon snarled. “Kill you, eat you, burn you!”

Black shadows boiled off him, attacking in every direction. They were burned off by the green light of James’s armour, but the ground around him was pitted and eaten away, as if by acid.

Mitsue’s water blades drove back and forth in a furious dance to shield him from the onslaught, but he was forced to fall back as fragments made it past his defences. The smallest drop was enough to eat through his clothes and make him hiss in pain.

Kana took the brunt of it. A torrent of the caustic black shadow engulfed her as the dragon combined his breath weapon with the dark miasma that roiled off his body. She wreathed herself in lightning, but the shadow ate away at her protection. Then it burned its way through her scales, causing her to scream with pain.

Then Harue struck. She moved so fast that James thought she shot a laser at the dragon. It wasn’t until it wrapped around the dragon’s neck that James realised that the yellow, glowing line was the chain of Harue’s manriki gusari. It was much longer than before, seemingly able to change its length at will.

The dragon howled in outrage and snapped his head back, tightening the chain. His black breath was cut off, allowing Kana’s lightning to explode around her, throwing off the dark miasma.

Kana screamed, consumed with rage and pain. She fell on the bigger dragon, tearing furiously at him with her teeth and claws.

“Now!” Shugen cried.

James jumped. He’d forgotten about the sorcerers. Now the amber light, shining with a painful brilliance from their talismans, drew his attention.

Shugen and Suki had crept about the edges of the fight, placing their talismens on the walls of the buildings surrounding them. Now, they activated one each and raced to different locations to complete the encirclement.

Sensing danger, the dragon tried to lash out, but Harue had a chain around his neck. Kana, too, was proving to be a distraction he couldn’t ignore. James realised that he was letting the side down, and raced forward to attack.

Incredibly, even the three of them together weren’t enough to hold the dragon down, not for long. The golden chain started to slip loose; the scourge of Kana’s lightning was cut off when the dragon got a claw around her neck. Another claw fended off James’s sword.

But it didn’t take the sorcerers long to dash a few yards and slap their palms down on some paper. Two more talismans lit up, and the light now formed a rough square.

A tenuous orange field sprang up around all the combatants. It didn’t feel any different to James, but the dragon hissed with displeasure.

“You think you can contain me? Arrgghh!” The last part was snarled as the field started to take effect. The miasma coming off the dragon… solidified.

The diffuse edges of his aura turned into dust, while the thicker parts that had escaped Mitsue’s blows… crystallised. The freely flowing caustic shadows that had surrounded him fell to the ground in jagged chunks, unable to cause harm or shield him.

Kana’s lightning burst free again. He still had a grip on her throat, but it leapt from her claws, even as they were raking furrows in his scaled flesh.

Harue entered the fight. Her chain slipped free from the dragon’s neck, so she hooked it around his tail, and then dashed around him, tangling his legs and body as much as she could without getting in everyone’s way.

“Filthy creature!” the dragon snarled. “You think this will—Arrgghh!”

Shugen and Suki activated two more talismans, increasing the intensity of the field. But what caused the roar was Mitsue again slipping his blades into the dragon’s belly.

I need more fire, James told himself. The fire is what cuts, not the sword.

He tried to visualise it, even as he furiously laid into the dragon’s flank. A bigger sword, one more suited for fighting something this big. One that could make more than just shallow cuts.

Suki activated a seventh talisman. Shugen was only a hair behind, pausing to chant, “Bāzhòng Zhèndì Fēngyìn” as he activated the final talisman. The field flashed, almost blinding in its brilliance. Even the miasma closest to the dragon was solidifying now, forming a hard layer of crystals against his body. It protected him, some, but it also restricted his movements, making his struggles even more frantic.

“You can’t—this won’t—” the dragon shouted. Pinned and constricted as he was, he was still a match for them. “I’ll break—”

He managed to somehow slip a foot out of Harue’s golden chains. That foot reached up and grabbed Kana, slamming the smaller dragon to the street.

This was the moment it would all fall apart, James knew. The dragon was still entangled, but he could fly. Fly right out of the sorcerous field, dragging Harue along with him. The fox was strong and fast, but she weighed less than James. The dragon could lift her easily.

He needed to do something, and he only had one idea.

Burn, he commanded the sword. Burn hotter, bigger, longer—deeper.

Something gave way inside of him, and he knew it was going to work. He planted his feet firmly, raised his sword, and cut.

In the moment that he swung, the green flame shot out about six feet, doubling the length of the sword. Based on principles of magic James had no hope of understanding, it didn’t weigh anything, but it was solid. It cut.

The howl that came from the dragon was deafening. Mitsue staggered back, his face pale. Suki dropped to her knees with her hands over her ears. James and Harue were protected by their armour, and Kana was too furious to be stopped by mere pain.

James’s blade had cut deep. It wasn’t a mortal wound—too far down the body—but one of its legs had gone limp, and blood was pouring out of the cut. It got all over Kana as she swarmed back up onto the bigger dragon for the next round.

“Kill—kill—kill you!” she snarled, almost entirely beastial. James wondered if she could even hear herself. He hoped her ears healed before he needed to talk to her.

The black dragon was having trouble throwing her off—his lower half wasn’t moving properly, and his main focus was on James. James was moving, angling for a shot higher up the body, and the dragon was thrashing about, trying to keep Kana between him and James’s blade.

He must have forgotten about the pinpoint accuracy of Mitsue’s attacks.

The water blade curved in from the side, staying hidden until the last moment. The dragon had time enough to blink, but even a dragon’s eyelid couldn’t stand up to a direct strike. The dragon flinched as his eye exploded out of its socket, jerking his head back.

James saw the moment, and he took it. The flinch took the curving neck just within reach of his longer sword. He swung, urging the blade to get even longer. It didn’t, but it was enough. The blade sliced through half of the dragon’s neck.

He fell. Not a slump, the magic holding him up ended abruptly, and he fell to the ground like a rock. It was enough to break Kana out of her frenzy. She’d bitten into the dragon’s black-scaled flank—bitten hard enough to take a chunk out of him. Now, she ripped that chunk out and chewed.

She looked around at the others, slowly getting to their feet, while she finished chewing. The rage faded from her eyes. Then she spoke.

“Where is the rest of the gold?”