Death of a Dragon Slayer | Short Story

Sometimes innocence doesn't matter

“I didn’t wear the mask.” Kali planted her feet, crossed her arms, and glared at the guards. They met her refusal with hostility she couldn’t comprehend. They gave the masks to prisoners, but she worked for the Council of the Wurm. Had there been a miscommunication in the missive she’d received a fortnight ago?

The guards lowered their eyes and wings. Which wurm had done something wrong this time?

But as the great doors had been pushed aside, Kali had found herself surrounded by not only the Ancient One, Tholamus, and his son, Lacius, but the entire Council. Either the dragon in question belonged to the hierarchy, or…

“You stand before us, charge with a horrendous crime, Dragon Slayer,” Tholamus breathed, his words riding on the magick spewing from his silver-scaled mouth to engulf her small body like fog.

“I know not of what you speak, O Ancient One,” she gave him a respectful bow as she gave in to the truth spell he’d cast. “I serve you, this Council, and the humans of Threshold.”

“Liar!” screamed a voice from the shadows.

Kali tensed, her hand resting on the hilt of the gilded sword they had bestowed upon her almost two years ago. By Helsia’s hand! She had never seen the dragons like this, their wings flapping in agitation on their shoulders, claws raking stone. Whatever the matter might be, she had done nothing wrong during her tenure as Dragon Slayer.

“How many have you decimated?” Pharian demanded, his tarnished azure claws digging furrows in the Council floor, like ancient script she could not read. “How many of our numbers have you killed, puny dracopah?”

She flinched with the insult to her heritage. Her anger swirled inside her, a tiny sun growing ever hotter within her body. It had not been her choice to be born of a dragon and human coupling. “I have done nothing to warrant such disrespect,” she said, restraining the heated thread in her voice.

“She seeks riches!” the shadow-bound voice wailed. “Do you not see? She will have all our heads mounted on her walls, if we let her be!”

“Does it matter?” Kali asked, unable to hold her tongue in frustration. “You know how many I have defeated, for you have sent me on those quests. If you seek to charge me with a crime, then do so!”

A low rumble, like thunder rolling in before a storm, filled the immense cavern as the dragons whispered in their archaic tongue. Her almond eyes flickered over the mass of scaled bodies, calculating those that would be her allies and her enemies.

Betamus, the giant golden sitting alone along the rock face, would aid her, as would Allatrus, a turquoise, and Metaphenus, an emerald. But her enemies outnumbered her friends. She spotted Nephas, the haughty olive, snaking his head near the Ancient One’s small ears, and at his back, the pale opal, Karthu, fore claws urging the younger dragon closer. They were but two in a host of others.

I had done nothing! And yet the Council sat on their earthen ledges judging her for doing the work they had given her. Her body quivered with angry unshed tears, her scabbard shaking beneath her hand. There were too many for this to end badly, and to fight would be suicide. If she had learned nothing in their service, Kali knew when the odds were against her.

Tholamus raised one fore claw, and silence returned to the chamber. “Do you know of Pethas?”

She started to shake her head, but the memory of the young dragon replayed in her head.

*****

“You are wrong!” the crystalline dragon roared, the timbre of his voice sending sparkling jewels from his horde flying across his lair.

“I seek only your mate, Adelia,” Kali said, fighting the urge to draw her sword. “I have the backing of the Council of Wurm, Pethas. To hide her will only bring about your own death sentence.”

He laughed, and as more of his treasure rolled from beneath him, he lowered his great head until it was level with hers. “You cannot have her. Nor me. Not in this lifetime or the next.” He exhaled, and she smelled the magick before she saw the sparkling wind leave his nostrils.

“You will not remember either of us, little Dragon Slayer,” he whispered, his rumbling voice joining with the memory spell.

Anyone else would have stood no chance — crystalline dragons were apt mental mages — but when the Council had blessed her with the sword, they had also aided her with countermeasures to protect her from the tricks their own kind could play.

She pulled the sword, the sound of metal on metal ringing clear throughout the cavern, and with one well-placed arc of the blade, she severed the dragon’s head from his body. His giant eyes blinked in confusion as his legs scrambled atop his horde. The weight of him, so cleaved in twain, rocked the floor, and she lost her footing.

One foot caught beneath his chin, and she fought for release before he expelled his last breath. Dragons die in flames, Betamus had once warned Kali during her extensive training. Be careful not to stand before us when we pass from this incarnation.

She wedged the sword under his head, praying to Helsia, the Goddess of Dragon Slayers, for assistance. His great maw moved a scant measure, but it was enough, and Kali rolled clear of the dragon before he burst into a white-hot pyre, fifty meters of burning breath escaping his charred lips.

*****

Kali had learned as she ventured beyond his treasure trove the reason he’d protected Adelia. The female iridescent dragon had lay sleeping in one of the back chambers, her body tight around two glistening eggs.

Had the Council known she had been in brood? She had been unsure, but why would they send her otherwise? Yes, the dragon’s crimes had been great, the decimation of an entire village to the east of that lair, but if Kali had to execute the mother, then who would care for the hatchlings?

No, she had convinced herself. The Council had to know, and the lives of those two unborn dragons had been forfeit the moment their mother had torched and eaten the humans.

In the end, she had emerged covered in embryonic fluids and dragon blood.

Not all dragons died in flames.

*****

“Dragon Slayer?”

She shook the memory from her head at the sound of Lacius’s voice. “Yes, I remember Pethas. Do you remember my report?”

“You murdered hatchlings,” the mystery voice whispered through the Council’s silence.

She had grown weary of the unseen dragon. “Who is that? I will know my accuser!”

The shadows unfolded, and her sword cleared the scabbard without a thought. A crimson dragon poured from the darkness, her ruby eyes filled with a hate that had nothing to do with Adelia’s dead offspring but vengeance for her own.

“Tespa, I should have known,” the Dragon Slayer growled.

A wry grin pulled at the dragon’s maw. “You were ordered to destroy the mother, half breed. Ancestors knew she had to be destroyed, the whiny, self-piteous cow, but the brood?” She tsked, the sound grating on Kali’s ears like nails against lodestone. “What did you hope to gain with their deaths? All they wanted was a chance to thrive, to be loved and nurtured until they could fill their potential.

“But you just couldn’t stand the competition. If you could not be one of us, then why miss the opportunity to ensure they could not either?”

Kali said nothing in her defense; the futility of a response would only seem like a desperate bid to save her life. Let them believe what they want. She would not die a liar.

“See?” Tespa roared in ire, glancing around at her kin. “She does not deny it! Your precious Dragon Slayer enjoyed killing them off! Which of your broods will be next? What child of blood, sweat and tears are you willing to give her to appease her sense of inadequacy?”

The chamber filled with a tumultuous rage, accented by spiraling shafts of fire. “She has taken advantage of her creed. She used us to further her own prestige! In her arrogance, she has put herself above the Council, striking down whomever stands in her way!

“On that fateful day, she murdered not one but four dragons! I say no more! Strip her of our magick, the sword, and then?” She spun around to face Kali once more, her giant head looking down at the woman with a toothy grimace. “Execute her.”

Kali weighed the options. How easy it would be to rid Threshold of the mouthy crimson dragon. She could almost see the sword spinning, hilt over the blade, to bury itself in Tespa’s chest. But to do so, to kill her here, would only erupt in a war Kali would not survive to see.

If she surrendered, she would be fed to Chronos, the insane dragon locked beneath the Council chambers. Either way she would die, and Kali couldn’t see any way out.

“Enough!” Tholamus bellowed, his voice carrying above the rest. Tespa whipped her thick neck around, her displeasure evident in the tight lashing of her tail.

“The Council knows too well of your bias towards Kali, Tespa. You have spoken nothing but venom since she was initiated. That you hold a grudge still for a mistake she did not know she had made is disappointing.

“How long must she apologize for the death of your child? An accident in training any young dragon might have made. Shara knew the risks, and she accepted them. Why hold your rancor any longer?”

“She knows nothing of us,” the crimson dragon rumbled, one claw unfurled from clenched fists to point at Kali. “And yet you treat her as if she were one of our clan! When will you see the useless carcass that she is, the worthless thing beneath the tainted veins?

“He said enough,” Betamus whispered, her words carried by the currents created by her wings as she drifted from her perch to the Council floor.

The two females eyed each other. There was no love lost between them.

In a fight, Kali placed her gold on the golden. She’d seen her mentor tear other petty dragons to scales for lesser offenses than blatant disregard for the Ancient One. But the Dragon Slayer would not let her friend fight her battles.

She dropped the sword, and it landed with a loud clatter at her feet. She kicked it away.

Jeweled eyes watched as she stripped the magick armor off, letting her pack fall to the ground. Spell books, gifts from Betamus and Tholamus, spilled onto the rock.

“My life is not worth more ignorant battles, O Ancient One,” Kali announced, standing before the Council of Wurm in only her tunic, breeches and boots. “If you mean to execute me for crimes I did with your blessing, so be it, but I will not stand by while those among your number seek to do nothing but dig a deeper rift through your clan in my name.

“Yes, I killed the hatchlings, and there have been others who have fallen beneath my blade who were not among your chosen tasks, but each and every one knew who I was. And though I offered them an opportunity to chose life, they each chose death.

“Was I harsh, arrogant as Tespa has claimed? Perhaps, but when I came here, I was charged with a sacred duty to cleanse Threshold of the weak, the vile, the troublemakers. I have done so.

“Was I wrong? No. But if my passing appeases those among you distressed by my presence, then take my life. I have nothing else to offer.” She knelt and hung her head.

Tespa reached for her, and though Betamus followed one step behind, Kali knew her words had been for naught. As one crimson claw sank into her back, only to be ripped out again, she realized the war would continue without her.

Her presence was insignificant, and with one final breath, the Dragon Slayer of Threshold died.

---

Author Note: I wrote this originally as a short story contest entry. I didn’t win, but it did remind me I do like writing high fantasy. But are there readers for this? Let me know!