Dragon Tale 06 – Battle
22 0 0
X
Reading Options
Font Size
A- 15px A+
Width
Reset
X
Table of Contents
Loading... please wait.

At this point in my story, I wandered for the time. I felt I had no right to live in that place any longer and the townsfolk certainly wanted little to do me after the destruction I took part in. Perhaps they would have tolerated my presence for the protection I provided against the Dragonspawn, but they deserved better.

So I left. I travelled from place to place, helping where I could and slaying dragons where I found them. It was a lonely life, sprinkled with sporadic but exciting meetings between other Valkyries. I can think of worse ways to live, but I wouldn’t call it good. Whatever the name, it was a rut I allowed myself to fall into. There’s no telling how long I might have stayed within it, unaware of the walls I had surrounded myself with, were in not for the rock that jostled my wheel from the track.

That rock was the horde. An army of Dragon-kind that was posed to descend upon a town with no means of defending itself. It had gathered suddenly, just as it would quickly disperse once its mission was complete, and no other Valkyries knew of it. It was a massive enemy and one which I would fight alone.

I collected myself, standing before that horde, contemplating the settlement I would soon fight to protect. It was on the top of a hill, with a swamp to one side through which the horde approached. That marsh was dry for lack of rain in the summer months, though at dusk the day was not hot. The rain would soon return and flood it with new life, or it would but for the poisoned blood that it would bath in on this night. With time, perhaps, the poison would be washed away and that life would return.

The time of day made no difference ot me. My ornate, copper-coloured armour shone with the many-coloured light of my fiery cloak. Each piece was hard earned and each reflected its own distinct fire. The greaves and bracers which let me move like an ember on the wind. The pauldrons, received for silencing a howler, held the crackle of a campfire ready to suddenly blaze into a bonfire. My breastplate, the very first piece I earned, and the chain shirt that lay beneath, both held inner flames. Even the newest piece in my collection, a pendant which held my braided hair beneath my dragon-head helmet, reflected a dispassionate blue hue.

Not everything was bad. There had been a good times for me. Times of camaraderie and joined purpose. I thought of the other Valkyries. Those like I had once been, who stayed and protected the places which raised them. Those like Fenja, who wandered the lands like I now did and their reasons for doing so. I even thought of the sort like Grendel, who hunted more than just the draconic.

Becoming the last sort was how I had earned my warhammer.

It was certainly a hard life, but it was one I still refused to regret. Though I certainly would come to regret some of the choices I had made afterwards, I still truly believed, as I do now, that I would never regret the choice to become a Valkyrie. I had chosen to live by following my ideals, to live to be a hero. I certainly wasn’t always successful in that goal, but I could not possibly have done better had I chosen to deny the call instead of answer it.

A distant roar. The horde was on the move. I moved to meet it as a blazing torch on the horizon.

I charged into the mass of dragonblooded with my longsword in one hand and my hammer in the other. My very presence burnt at the twisted flesh of any monster who came near. The mob was too thick and too numerous for any tactic to be of much use against it, so I hit it with raw power instead. Every swing of my sword incinerated another evil beast. The flames of that pyre reached out to lick at the sides of those around it and only the creatures around those fires were able to escape the burning tide of flame.

The Warhammer was less useful in this regard. It was a little too slow to strike with in the melee, so I used to to deflect blows instead. Its impressive weight was nothing to my empowered arm, but a formidable barrier to any who tried strike me. Each weapon which met it came away broken and shattered.

Still the horde pressed on. Endless bodies trying to smother me in an attempt to overwhelm me with numbers. To wear away my endurance, to land one lucky hit. I knew that I had limits. I knew it possible that I may not outlast this grinder, but I was confident that I would be able to decimate the horde, perhaps even shatter it, before my reserves risked running dry.

The last of the first wave burnt to ash at my feet. The remaining Dragonblooded were hesitant to come too close. These had begun to surround me, creating a circle which gave me wide birth. The drakes and the devoted, less twisted than their dragonkin brothers but all the more monstrous for it, began to barrage me from behind this line. Some used fire, which washed off my shroud like a summer breeze. But others roared lightning, or cutting wind or searing light. Those blasts, I needed to avoid. My armour would weather the worst of the assault, but some damage would come through. I could scarcely afford any damage that didn’t allow me to deal a fatal blow in return.

Dancing about the clearing, ignoring the occasional dragonblooded who was pushed inside, I momentarily extinguished my sword and took hold of my hammer in both hands. I leapt over a stream of lightning and brought its head down to meet the ground.

The dried mud of the swamp cracked and popped as the impact radiated out from me. The hammer sunk deep into the floor, a shallow crater forming as that surface mud absorbed the hammer’s force.

The second impact deepened the crater and widened it, sending silt and dirt and ash flying away from me in every direction as the harder earth beneath became exposed to the air. The soil in the air momentarily blinded my attackers and they doubled their assault in response. All manner of breath attacks flew over my head, unaware of just how much the ground had fallen beneath my feet.

The third blow caused the earth to shake, a distant roar to the nearby village but a violent vibration here. Soil split apart as rocky outcroppings shot up from beneath. More soil still fell into sudden pits where solid stone had previously rested beneath. The earthquake may have taken a few dragonblooded with it in the chaos, and injured a few more, but its true value was in the disruption it had caused.

Between the shifting ground and blinding dirt, the drakes could not track me well enough to aim their deadly breath, while the front line that was meant to contain me was instead thrown into disarray by the same effects. I easily leapt into their midst, burning all who came too near with my cloak as I targeted the foes capable of attacking me from a distance.

The first drake collapsed with a single strike of my hammer, the impact piercing deeply into its body and liquidating its insides. The second and third met similar fates. By the time I reached the fifth, the last of the aftershocks had begun to subside. It was the eighth that was prepared to meet me in kind.

The light-breather, with yellow-white scales and painful shafts of light leaking from the gaps in its jaw and nostrils. All around me Dragonblooded were becoming pyres as my cloak sought them out, but this drake’s scales seemed resistant to my less concentrated flames. I swung my hammer at its maw, but it unleashed a shaft of light which repelled it with physical force. More light followed as I dodged about, paying special attention to where its maw was pointed to avoid its almost instantaneous breath.

I needed to end the monster quickly, or risk allowing its allies to surround me once more. I threw my hammer into the ground, soot-covered stone, at its feet. The stone split in two and shifted, one half sliding further into the ground. I reignited my sword and jumped at the beast, too slow. A sudden burst of light struck me square in the breast, pushing me back into the ground. My feet slid upon the dirt until they could dig themselves deep enough to hold in place, but they did hold. My body tensed and, for the first time in years, I could feel a burning sensation on my chest as the light seared into my armour. When the light finally ended, I was still standing there and I still held my sword, which quickly carved into the drake’s breast. It, too, would turn to ash.

More dragonblooded now lay burnt and broken than stood. I had slain most of the drakes and the breath of those that remained posed little threat to me. A swarm of wyverns still remained, the bloated sort that spit poison but whose boney growths provided little armour, plus whatever elites were hidden among scattered forces.

I was worn. My body felt bruised all over and I felt a twang of pain in my chest with each breath I took. Yet even despite the sores, I felt big. Rather than fade with my body, my inner flame seemed to swell to new radiance.

I howled at the remaining swarm, feeling every bit as wild as their screeching. I reached deep into myself and watched as my cloak shifted colours and draw in upon itself, becoming more intense as I forced it to a point upon the tip of my burning blade, a blade which itself had gorged upon so much wild, yellow flame that it now swelled to the size of a horse-slayer.

I braced the weapon on my shoulders, one hand near the hilt-guard and the other touching the pommel, bending my knees and turning my body in anticipation. I swung the blade and it grew longer and longer, exploding with new fires as it stretched to many times its previous length. The arc of my swing was parallel to the ground and its reach was so great as to cover every monster that stood or charged or ran before me, a full quarter turn of my body.

The massive blade released my cloak and returned to its original size with just as violent an explosion as the one that had created it. Before me not a single wyvern remained, only an unblemished field of ash, grey and snow-like when the wind picked it up.

Whatever few enemies remained now fled. Their weapons were abandoned and they thought only of survival. In the coming days, I remember thinking, I would hunt them down. For now, I only wanted to rest, content in knowing the town had been saved.

And yet, even though I thought of rest, I still felt the largeness of before. I was restless and full of energy where I should have been too exhausted to move. My cloak billowed around me like a pyre flame, glowing easily now with a heat that I might have struggled to maintain in the past.

This is the end of part two. Mostly I feel like this part is missing the things at the front. An extra chapter to see how Anna wandered before she reached the climatic battle would be nice, but mostly I think what it's missing is characterization for Grendel and how Anna interacted with her. As it is, Grendel is sort of just introduced to do a bad and then get killed. I'd prefer if she were a more complete character in her own right.

 

0