Dragon Tale 04 – Mortal
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I lifted my dragon-head helm and placed it over my brow. It protected the top and back of my head, with wing-like fins that covered my ears, while leaving my eyes and mouth exposed. My newest piece of armour, a red chain shirt that rested between my breastplate and tunic, made up for a little of the slack. It stretched down just low enough to form a short skirt that covered my hips and high enough to protect most of my neck. Were it normal metal, it would be uncomfortable at best where it touched skin, but this chain did not chafe nor chill nor rub me raw. It sat exactly where it was needed and did not otherwise disturb the skin and fabrics underneath it.

I looked across the rooftops and saw Grendel doing the same, her heavy grey armour hid most of her body, but not her messy dark hair or blue eyes. Our prey lurked somewhere below us, hiding in the side streets between the buildings.

The dragonblooded was an ugly beast that stood on two legs like a man. It had scaled skin and stood too tall, with a thick tail and a twisted face. This one wore dirty rags to better hide itself in the city, probably taken from a farmer or beggar long dead. A single dragonblooded could kill ten men in a fight, but it would eventually be overwhelmed by the community. To avoid that fate it and its cohorts hid and schemed and preyed upon the weak.

But not this one. At least, not any more. I nodded to Grendel and dropped from the roof with sword in hand. I landed in an easy roll and entered a long stride. Grendel fell to the opposite end of the alley. The monster stood between us, no longer hiding.

It raised a rusty iron sword, no doubt looted from the corpse of some poor soul, and let out a hiss-like screech. It charged towards me, swinging wildly. One slash of my own sword was all it took to slice its blade in two. My second swing cleaved into its neck and beheaded the beast. I wrapped the corpse in my cloak and purified its cursed blood by fire, then turned towards Grendel and nodded. She gazes skywards already, ready to find the next creature to hunt.

Grendel was not like Fenja. Grendel was not quite like any Valkyrie I had come to know over the years, but she was most definitely not like Fenja. That isn’t to say that there were no other Valkyries like her, but she was the first of her sort who I had met and quite probably the last.

And what was Grendel’s type? She was obsessed with the hunt. I suppose the same could be said for all Valkyries, but in Grendel’s case it was the game of the chase that thrilled her. The euphoria she felt when she executed the draconic. She held no higher purpose or justification in her actions. That may, perhaps, not sound the most heinous of crimes, but I believe it is essential for a Valkyrie. Its because of Grendel that I now think that. Without something to ground us, we Valkyries forget what’s important all too easily.

There were two dragonblooded with crude spears and a third with a woodcutter’s axe. They, like the last group and the one before that, were hidden away in a forgotten recess of the city. This time they made a lair of an abandoned warehouse near the docks. The roof appeared to have caved in in the middle, where the frame for a large sunroof had been haphazardly pried loose. It gave the structure the appearance of instability, but the corners still seemed sturdy enough. We stood on what remained of the rooftop and assessed the structure’s depths from above.

Unlike the last time, monsters were not alone. A woman in a dirty coat sat in the shadows of the ruined roof. She was tied by a length of rope to a support beam, where she huddled over her young daughter. From the size of her, the girl couldn’t have been older than five. Perhaps a meal saved for a latter time?

Whatever their purpose here, it did not matter. I knew I would save them before they met that fate.

“I could just bring the whole building down.”

“No, look there.” I pointed. "there are people inside. We’ll have to do this the hard way.”

“Will we though?”

I gave her a long, hard stare.

“Yeah, right, I suppose we will.”

Without speaking another word, we positioned ourselves to drop down on the dragonblooded. I dropped first, silent but for the pop and crackle of my sword as it blazed to magnificent light, blade pointed downwards in the hopes of catching a monster with it under my feet. Grendel followed right after me. She let out a war cry and jumped with hammer held high, falling supernaturally fast to collide with another dragonblooded.

The creatures reacted to Grendel’s call, looking up and scattering, collecting weapons and finding better positions from which to fight back. Grendel’s prey was too slow to escape her and became paste upon the ground, but mine was quick enough to get out from under me. I hadn’t worked together with Grendel long, but it irked me that our timing was off all the same. With a sloppy swing I managed to slice off the end of the creature’s tail before landing hard on my feet. My armour absorbed the impact, but I wasn’t as fast as I would have been had I rolled out of the fall instead. The dragonblooded escaped from further flames and headed deeper into the building’s recesses.

I walked over to the woman and her child, conscious not to get too close for fear of burning them with my radiant cloak. I sliced them free of their bindings with a single cut where ropes met pillar.

“The monsters will soon be dead. Until then, stay under the sun. They will not return here with me about.”

I flashed the pair a smile before turned away from the them to assess the floor. The surviving dragonblooded had fled deeper into the building, which I could now see was full of derelict machinery and trash. Grendel had gone after them, more eager to destroy them than to save their victims. I frowned at the thought but said nothing, heading into the building myself.

The shadows danced around me as the flames of my cloak and sword scattered flickering light upon my surroundings. I could hear the faint sounds of the hunt, of Grendel’s chase and battle, towards the building’s north side. I trusted her to handle herself and turned south to search there instead. My search was soon rewarded as a dragonblooded flew around a derelict machine, brandishing a pipe.

I easily stepped out of the way of the clumsy attack, allowing my cloak to wash over my assailant. I passed to the side and retaliated with an underhanded slash but the creature was jumping back before I had the chance to start my swing. It kept it’s distance this time, flesh black and red from where my cloak had caressed it.

Were I not in a factory, I would have simply overwhelmed the monster with fire. As it was, I needed to use a little more finesse. I held my sword between my hips with both hands, blade pointed towards its face. If it attacked, I would cut it down first. If it made a feint or threw something, I would cut that down and then it. If it fled, I would slice its back in two.

It chose to try to flee. I pushed off the ground with the legs of a Valkyrie and closed the distance between us in an instant. With a single slash I opened a cut from neck to tail. A cut deep enough to carve into bone and boil its intestines. I left the body to smoulder and returned to the light.

Once there, my blood ran cold.

Standing in the center of that open area was the Mother, held back to front by a fourth dragonblooded, the one who held the axe and who I had failed to kill before. That axe was now pressed to the Mother’s throat, the monster’s other arm wrapped around her torso. I couldn’t see the little girl at all. I could only pray that her mother had sent her off to hide before being captured herself.

When the dragonblooded saw me, it hissed in a language I couldn’t understand. The meaning was clear enough all the same. “Stay away, or else.”

It backed away slowly, dragging the mother every step of the way. It inched towards the darkness and probable escape. I didn’t move. I could kill it easily, but not before it killed its hostage in retaliation.

The monster was on the edge of the shadow now. In another dozen steps, it would be out of sight. Would it release the mother when it got away, or kill her? Maybe it would continue dragging her along, having realized her for some sort of bargaining chip. Each possibility made me more sick than the last. In hindsight, I’m not sure any would have been better than what actually happened.

A spear came hurling from behind me, out of the darkness. It crossed the area lit by the sun, passed through the mother’s belly and traveled into the monster’s abdomen. Time seemed to stand still for all of us, looking at that scene. I couldn’t process what I was seeing as the mother went wide-eyed, hands grasping on the weapon that now impaled her. The lizard dropped its axe, sagging where it stood and unable to separate from the woman it held a moment ago.

Grendel followed the spear she had thrown, warhammer held in both hands and stretched out behind her. She touched the ground only once, just in front of the pair, to gain leverage for the coming blow, then swung. Her hammer hit the spear like a nail and drove it through and into the wall behind them. The dragonblooded itself collapsed into a puddle as its insides were liquidated.

The mother was little better off. Her bloody corpse fell to its knees, and then the ground, a hole the size of both my fists together where intestines should have been.

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