The Dragon's Betrayal Read online

  And so I pressed on, existing in my strange, dreamlike state, the trees getting deeper and deeper, like some endless fractal– revealing more and more of the same, the further and further in you traversed.

  It was a searing hot afternoon one day, when I slumped down in exhaustion beside a gently babbling stream, throat parched with thirst. Even through the tightly woven forest canopy, sharp knives of sunlight managed to rain down upon me, cutting nearly to the bone, and my naked, tattooed body glistened head to toe with sweat, the trails of perspiration seeming to uncannily follow the dragons and serpents writhing in every which direction across my practically steaming flesh.

  A deer, further on down the stream, started at my arrival, its black eyes fixed upon me, anxiously straining to determine whether it should stay or go.

  I stared back at it, fighting a pang of hunger for meat– there was a kind of humanity to its eyes that made it impossible to kill the thing, no matter how hungry I was.

  Indeed, I almost felt guilty even for disturbing it as I had done. And so I turned my eyes from it, stooping down to the stream, and cupping greedy handfuls of water to my lips. The cool inundation of my parched throat was like nothing I can describe. Better than sex– at that moment, anyway.

  The water streamed along my bearded chin, and spilled along my bare chest, dripping along the lines of my musculature. In a matter of seconds I felt endlessly refreshed, and toyed very strongly with the idea of leaping into the stream, letting the flowing, crystal sweetness inundates me, and wash me away.

  I looked back up, and saw that the deer further downstream had bowed its head back down to the water. Evidently content that, as long as I was busy drinking, it could safely continue doing the same.

  I smiled, and returned to the water, taking several longer gulps.

  It was then that I noticed movement, from the very corner of my eye. I jerked my head up, and noticed that the deer was fleeing. Not merely departing, in a way that suggested that its thirst had simply been quenched, and it was therefore taking its leave. But actively fleeing, perceiving a clear and present threat to its safety.

  Somehow, instinctively, I knew. That what I had been looking for, I had at long last found.

  I had spent so long in search of it, however, that now I found myself, not entirely sure how to handle it...

  I slowly returned my eyes to the stream. I saw my reflection. I saw it hop. Scatter. Distort with the subtle rippling of the stream, in perfect synchronization with a steadily approaching boom of heavy, thundering footsteps.

  My mind raced.

  I stood slowly from the stream, trying to formulate a course of action.

  But it was too late.

  All at once, a huge black dragon ripped through the surrounding brush, its red eyes wide, its black jaws snapping at me.

  I leapt backward, fighting the instinct to transform– I felt I could easily have taken the beast, but had no desire to provoke it further.

  “Wait! Wait! Stop!” I said, hands up, vainly hoping that whoever this was would heed my words.

  The Dark One surged angrily forward, roaring as he attempted to snap me in half at the middle. I ducked and rolled out of the way in the manner of a bull fighter, missing the attack by inches, and leaving the Dark One to swoop past me, and circle back around again.

  “Don't attack! I'm not fighting back, see? I'm on your side! I'm a Dark One! I'm on your– shit!”

  I staggered back again as the Dark One darted forward, but had been so preoccupied with trying to persuade him that this time I was too slow to evade his attack. A surge of pain shot through me, his powerful teeth closing around my right ankle, so hard and so carelessly that I thought he might tear my foot clean off of me.

  I howled with pain and the Dark One snarled, thrashing his head backward, and flinging me violently through the air. The air surged around me, my body flailing uncontrollably, and my brain far too addled to be able to shift in time. I slammed into a tree so hard that it seemed it might snap at the middle– it creaked dangerously, its foremost roots pulling up from the ground, and I slid down along its trunk, feeling the impression of its bark tattooed against my back and shoulders.

  “Christ!” I said, standing shakily up– more annoyed at that point than seriously hurt. Already the Dark One was wheeling back around again, and I was beginning to recall exactly how much I had always hated these motherfuckers.

  “Alright, fine. If that's how you want to play...” I said.

  And the moment the Dark One was upon me, I transformed. It had been going for my human midriff, evidently planning to bite me in half, and my sudden transformation left it reeling for some alternative course of action. I gave it no opening for this, but promptly threw myself at him, sinking my teeth into his neck.

  I could have easily taken this guy out, him being a beta male at the very best, but I found myself tasked with the much more difficult feat of disabling him in his rage, without killing or mortally wounding him. That, I feared, may be easier said than done.

  He thrashed in my grip, and tore his claws angrily through my scales– evidently failing to notice as he stripped my hide bloody raw that said scales were as pitch black as his own, a clear sign (which I had managed to fake over the ensuing days,) that I was on his side.

  I put up with this for a few minutes, then started getting pissed, and decided to make short work of ending this. The Dark One's head jerked back, its jaws opening wide, and an emerald heat haze sizzling upward from deep within. He sought to incinerate me, but as he mustered up the strength to do so I launched myself at him, gripping him by the throat, and stopping the attack.

  I swung him around as violently as he had done me, tearing him through the air, the force of my jaws on his windpipe all but nullifying any resistance he might have shown me.

  Around and around I circled with him, then released him, throwing him through the clearing as he'd done to me. This time the trees did actually fall, several rows of them in fact, bending back at their roots as the dragon's black body smashed through them like toothpicks– his roars of pain secretly gratifying to me, even as I had to pretend otherwise for the sake of appearances.

  At last he landed on the ground in a dismal heap, weak and bloody in his human form amidst the wooden wreckage.

  Once reasonably sure he wouldn't spring back up and attempt to retaliate, I shifted back down into my human form and hurried over to where he lay to try and help him, hoping that this gesture of goodwill might ingratiate me to him, and prove that I was no threat.

  “Look, I'm sorry, I didn't want to do that,” I explained to the Dark One, whose eyes were only half open, and who I wasn't entirely sure was listening to me. “I'm here to join you, to help you. And if you could just– “

  Were it not for the afternoon sun, which I'd adamantly been damning to hell as recent as a few short minutes ago, this would have been the abrupt, unceremonious ending to my story. For it was only by the shadowy black shape of a dragon, rising up along the ground beneath my feet, that I became aware of a second Dark One, rising overhead, poised imminently to attack.

  I leapt out of the way at the sound of its roar, and missed the ensuing green fireball by such a narrow margin that the smell of my own singed hair raced into my nasal passages. The first Dark One screamed, still lying in a heap under the now burning trees.

  “No, not me you idiot!” he shouted at his comrade.

  The flame dissolved, and I hurried to transform, with no opportunity to try and calm this asshole down before he attacked me again. Once more he parted his jaws, and I mimicked him to the precise nanosecond. Emerald flames poured from our mouths, exploding in a white-hot blast as they met midway between us. The backdrop of the woods rippled and distorted as the flames swirled and licked around us. The already smoldering heat of the afternoon sun was wholly eclipsed by the searing fires of battle, the flames popping, spitting off onto the surrounding bushes and trees, causing them to begin to erupt in rapidly growing deluges of flame. />
  Again, it would be counterproductive to hurt this asshole, no matter how satisfying. Yet the longer I let this go on, the greater the risk would be of burning down the entire goddamn forest in the process of immobilizing him.

  And so, rather than continuing to match his strength, I decided to overpower him as I'd done his companion.

  Taking a deep breath, I belched forth a punishing blast of fire, like a miniature nuclear eruption. The Dark One roared with pain, and his flame shimmered from existence, the whole of his being swallowed by green fire.

  I held the flame for several seconds, watching closely, again forcing myself to sustain the attack for just long enough, despite a visceral longing to put the wretch out of his miserable existence.

  At last I relented, sucking back the flame, and watching the green fire dissolve in the air in front of me. The moment it did, the Dark One fell limply through the air, smashing into the ground, and shrinking back down into his human form at the moment of impact. His skin was blackened and ashy, but he didn't appear to be seriously injured, much to my relief.

  I started down toward him, once again hoping that by aiding him in his injury I might prove myself an ally, rather than a foe.

  This time, however, I never even had the chance to transform.

  Two more Dark Ones burst up above the tree line, barreling down on me, their jaws wide, the flame coming instantly down upon me.

  Shit! I thought, and mustered up an energy that I didn't truly have to conjure yet another emerald flame, the triadic pillars of fire colliding in midair, and knocking me back several feet from the force of the impact.

  The Dark Ones began to circle around me in a corkscrew motion, forcing me to follow their lead for fear of becoming wholly engulfed. The flames crackled and sliced through the air, leaping from the perimeter of the clearing and setting the woods ablaze– sparking the very inferno I had been laboring so desperately to avoid.

  I began to have second thoughts about my enforced pacifism. I couldn't keep doing this– taking care to disable all of them, while ensuring I kept them alive. It just wasn't working, and by the time I'd incapacitated one of them, another would simply spring up to replace him. I needed to destroy them, to take these bastards out as quickly as possible. And yet, my entire mission hinged on my doing the very opposite of that.

  To hell with the mission, I tried to insist with any real level of conviction. At this point, there was such little chance of me turning this shit storm around, I was so outnumbered, and would quickly be so overpowered, that I might as well resign myself to martyrdom. It was redemption I was after, anyway, wasn't it? What better way to redeem myself than to sacrifice my life, and take down as many asshole Dark Ones as I could in the process.

  At some point, the triad of flames dissipated as it had down before, and I now found myself surrounded by a perimeter of green fire, along with the two genuine Dark Ones. The two of them launched at me, each weak enough to overpower handily on my own, but their combined effort quite possibly another story...

  Again I felt the sharp pain of fangs and claws, digging beneath my scales. They thrashed and they tore at me, doing their damnedest to rip me limb from limb. I was weakened, more than anything, by my indecisiveness– not knowing whether to continue sparing their lives, or whether to simply kill them outright, before more of them showed up and managed to overpower me.

  As I thrashed in the Dark Ones' embrace, however, my eyes roved upward, beyond the perimeter of golden flame, and I briefly caught sight of several additional Dark Ones, making their way toward the brawl– ready to finish me off, if their comrades hadn't already managed to do so by the time they made it over to me.

  Well, then– it looked like it was now or never...

  With a mighty, vicious thrash I tore myself from the Dark Ones' grip. I bit into the first one's tail, swung him violently around in my jaws, and slammed him into the body of the second. Off they tumbled, roaring as they were engulfed by green flame, and their place shortly filled by three additional Dark Ones.

  Followed by two more.

  Then three more.

  Then four more.

  I fought valiantly. I thrashed and bit and tore, and struggled as hard as I could. But at that moment, I was descending into hell. Falling deeper and deeper into the flames, as the angry serpents snarled and hissed all around me. Tearing at me. Ripping me apart. So many of them that I couldn't tell where one ended, and another began. And the idea of resisting became like a joke, like a lone grain of sand trying to singlehandedly demolish a mountain.

  Still I fought. Eager not to go out like a whimper, but in a blaze of glory.

  I bit back, and I clawed and I thrashed. Even as my blood flowed. Even as the pain became excruciating. Even as the blinding light of the emerald inferno was eclipsed by the black mass of bodies surrounding me, pressing in on me, blotting out reality.

  The feeling was a surreal one. As though the very life force was being sucked out of me, drained from my being. Soon, I felt my body shrunken down, human again, slipping through the writhing masses, plummeting to the ground.

  I slammed into the undergrowth, too numb to even feel the impact despite the incredible fall. The earth beneath me was soaked by my blood. There was no way I would make it out of this alive. And still I resisted it, trying to press myself upward with every modicum of strength I possessed. My muscles tearing, aching, the bones in my arms surely broken. Even if I did manage to upright myself, it would be only a matter of seconds before one of the Dark Ones shimmied down, closed its jaws around my weakened human body, and ended me for good.

  And it was at this thought, and the brutal pang of something in my right arm, that my resistance at last gave way. I fell to the ground, defeated, knowing that I could go no further.

  I was in hell.

  The flames grew hotter, brighter, and would soon consume me.

  This was hell. My well deserved place, long anticipated, arrived at last.

  My flesh screamed from the heat. My body ached with pain. My very soul burned, certain that I had failed. That my redemption had been inadequate. Certain that even if I had not failed, even if I carried the plan through to its completion, it could never have been enough to save me in the first place. It had been foolish of me to believe otherwise.

  I lay on the ground, teeth gritted, almost longing for this damnation. Thinking, after anticipating it, deserving it for as long as I had, it was best just to surrender to it at last.

  A deep, profound serenity washed over me.

  I breathed it greedily in, and thought at first that it was this sense of relief. This sense of surrender, guiding me to the finish line. Making it possible for me to take that final step into oblivion, to let go in the way that I needed to.

  Only– I gradually realized, I had no desire to let go.

  I wanted to go on. I wanted to keep fighting. To cling to life, no matter how foolish, how pointless this might seem.

  And then, not sure what I might find, I opened my eyes, and discovered why.

  An angel stood before me.

  I was sure, as the flames engulfed me, that that was exactly what I saw. Her eyes focused on me with a kind of maternal intensity. A strange mix of expressions, somewhere between absolute, biblical judgment, and an inexplicably personal level of concern.

  The all-consuming pain, the resignation to death that had been my only reality in the moments leading up to now, vanished altogether. I was elevated, lighter than air, to a higher plane of existence. A plane of existence, populated only by myself, and the angel who now stood before me. Achingly beautiful, her streaked, light brown hair blowing in the wind, her skin gleaming from the emerald glow of the fire, her baby blue eyes seeming to cut straight through the inferno, their own separate and distinct source of light.

  Maybe I was already dead...

  And if that was the case, was I really in heaven, or in hell?

  Was this an angel of judgment, or one of mercy?

  Neither, I shortl
y found.

  A second figure suddenly appeared just in front of her. A man. Or, perhaps more accurately, I merely just noticed the second figure– it seemed he'd been standing there, looking down upon my broken visage, sizing up what he saw there on the ground before him.

  His eyes burned a deep, unforgiving crimson. A mane of jet-black hair flowed from his head, and his jaw was set, fixed in a stern expression, the implications of which I found to be otherwise unreadable.

  “State your business here immediately, or prepare to be executed,” he said firmly, and I had no doubt that he would live up to his word if prompted. I knew at last which of the renegade Dark Ones I had stumbled upon. Mordeos, a faithful acolyte of the fallen Ryl, evidently having taken up his mantel in an attempt to sustain and revitalize his grand and lofty vision.

  “I– My name is Iammarth,” I sputtered, struggling to breathe as the torrents of smoke poured into my lungs.

  “I know who you are!” Mordeos snapped. “That's not what I asked! What are you doing here, sneaking up on us, after all this time?!”

  I thought fast. Not so much for the lie, which I knew by heart, but for the proper delivery. How to make him believe me as urgently as possible, lest he end my life right then and there, before I ever got a chance to set my plan into motion.

  “I... I was looking for you. I wanted– to join you.”

  Mordeos scoffed, and I heard several other men laughing around the inferno, though I couldn't quite seem to make out their faces. The angel beside him continued to look sadly in my direction, her apparent concern for me touching, sustaining me, driving me onward.

  “Is that so?” Mordeos snarled with contempt. “Out of the blue. After all these months. You just appear. Happen upon our hiding place in the middle of the woods, despite supreme efforts to cover our tracks? And where have you been all this time? Since the great leaders fall, hm? With them? With the Wreckers?! With the ones who would sooner see us all wiped from the face of the Earth than profess loyalty to our cause?”