Page 34 of Until the End of Ever
LUCIAN
It took a moment to understand what I’d walked into, between the thick fog of smoke, the various screams coming from different directions, and—was that a child bawling their eyes out?
Well, I hadn’t expected a stroll in the park after Gideon’s emergency beacon was activated, especially given the nature of his current mission, but this was a mess. I was glad I’d talked Kleos into staying behind.
Rather than attempting to use my vision in the gray mist, I let my power feel the strands of life around me. No children. Kids had a distinctive taste, restless, unsettled, and full of life. I’d say it: children were probably a succulent prey to drain, objectively. Not that I’d ever tried.
I couldn’t differentiate life forces by gender or age; what stood out to me was the level of power. With time, I could grow familiar with specific presences. Gideon, I recognized instantly, somewhere to my left. Silver was also easy to identify, because of her specific lack of power. In the street of a mortal city, she would be impossible to distinguish from a regular human. Here, she stood out.
Both were alive.
My mind scanned the rest. Two attempting to leave, and another two nearby, one of them hurt.
And then there were the dragons.
Had I not known what I was walking into, my first guess would have been that we were facing the magical equivalent of a sumo wrestler. The energy evoked enormity. Not an endless, powerful pool like Kleos’s, shielded and mysterious, but an honestly humongous amount of normal energy.
I could sense everyone’s rough positions, but that didn’t give me much of an idea about the current situation. I looked through my breast pocket, wishing I’d had more time to prepare.
I always packed the essentials, of course, but my regular kit wasn’t specialized for dragon hunts.
By luck, I found what I was after, though I rarely bothered with the vial of golden liquid. I threw it to the ground and cracked it under my heel, turning away first.
Sunlight burst out of the broken glass, illuminating the foggy view. We were on a mountain by the looks of it, so my guess was that we’d left the Alps. The Pyrenees, perhaps? The peaks surrounding us seemed both greener and less frigid, which suggested a lower altitude. I was too used to living on top of a high chain of mountains to feel a difference in my breathing, but there was something unfamiliar in the area.
As I’d already gleaned, two guys dressed in Guard uniforms were running away. The valley gave a clear view of their progress, so they’d be easy picking for any enemy. A man I’d seen once or twice was checking on a girl, unconscious on the ground. Before last week, I would have found the trickle of healing magic adequate, maybe even impressive, as I was so unused to that craft; but after witnessing Kleos in action, it was barely passable.
Silver was running upon the dorsal of a gigantic beast, reddish brown, with eyes taller than the minuscule girl. I wouldhave been surprised, had I not seen the insane chick launch herself at Python literally yesterday. What was a dragon after a god?
Stillwater, one of the elder protectors, alternated between hopping out of the way of gigantic feet and talons, and shouting, “We don’t want any trouble! Really. Hell, we can help you catch elk, or mountain lions, or whatever you’re after!”
Gideon, for his part, assisted Silver in her endeavor to royally piss off the magnificent beast. While she played hopscotch on his back, he proceeded to stab his foot with his daggers, in order to distract it when the meter-long teeth seemed to get too close to the pink-haired idiot.
Thankfully, Gideon seemed to understand that the only way to handle this was to actually attack. The two others had adopted evasive maneuvers.
The liquid light was already fading, but I still managed to catch the shadows of more magnificent beasts flying overhead, circling some distance away. They’d no doubt spotted this mess and decided the dragon could handle it alone, or they would have approached. Everything I’d read was adamant that dragons were both protective of their hordes and thoroughly disgusted with individual weakness. In short, if Red couldn’t handle three annoying ants, he deserved a bit of humiliation. But the moment they thought he was in danger, they’d switch gears.
“Are you honestly playing with it?” I mused, genuinely confused by the strategy.
“Speak for yourself!” Silver screamed, narrowly escaping the ridges on the tail the creature flicked to get her off its back.
“Daddy!” Gideon said, finally noticing my arrival. “Did you bring snacks?”
I couldn’t quite recall who had come up with the asinine nickname first, but I needed to add murdering them to my to do list.
“What the hell are you trying to accomplish? Other than annoying the fuck out of a bloody dragon?”
“We are opening communication!” Alden announced, before shouting another desperate, “Really, we have wonderful curly haired sheep up in Scotland. I know a guy. Say the word, and we’ll relocate you to a much better, supervised hunt!”
The dragon roared in annoyance before reeling back to spit waves of fire again. More ashes and fog clouded the air, soaking into my every pore.
All right, that was it.
Aiming for Silver, still visible, as high as she was on the dragon’s back, I started to race up the dorsal ridges. Easier said than done. The thing wouldn’t stop moving, determined to throw off the annoying bugs on its back.
When I reached her, I knelt, grabbing hold of two scales. “Keep the talons and fangs off me!” I demanded, not bothering to wait and see if she complied.
And then I feasted.
