Chapter 2

Mile’s heart thumped like a drum beneath his ribs, his inhalations became deep and sporadic. Every gust blown down from those enormous burgundy wings kicked up dust and leaves forcing the scent of sulfur through his nostrils.

Monsters hadn’t been able to breach the city’s outer walls for two hundred years, but no one ever took into account that a dragon would fly this far north and right over the tall barricades.

A woman screamed, shrinking low holding her hands above her face as if it would offer protection from a beast the size of Kyle’s mansion. Quaint house fences became falling dominos as crowds stampeded from alleys and streets knocking over park benches and restaurant tables.

Like great billows, the dragon’s wings stoked the flames of chaos. Bells chimed, citizens shrieked, everything Sciendar City ever cherished was suddenly worthless in place of one’s own life. Over the discord and growing pandemonium, the great flying beast roared: the love child of a ship crashing ashore and steel being drug across chalkboards the size of an empire. Like everyone else, Miles fell and covered his ears so they would not be ripped asunder by that powerful bellow.

All were subdued into silence, and as others were urged by their fear to cautiously, quietly, stand and move forward with whimpers, Miles also came to his feet. He was left alone in the park, listening to the gurgling fountain as the dragon flew over the buildings and out of sight towards the eastern wall.

Catching his breath, he brushed aside the hair strands that had been disheveled, busying his hands with dusting his shirt and pants until they would stop shaking. It was quiet. With eyes glued to the east, he half-turned preparing to head the opposite direction in a more dignified manner than the masses had gone. After all, it seemed that the terrible lizard had vanished.

Taking his first bold step, a momentous crack and crash shook the air. Looking back towards the eastern wall, a pillar of dust and debris was rising high, and an orange glow reflected off the apartments’ and building windows like sunset. Screams started anew.

“Goddess…” Miles whispered. Black fire smoke went up, rising above rooftops.

He couldn’t just stand there. There were houses and shops: people would probably be mortified not knowing which way was safe.

He picked up a jog, heading towards muffled cries and the rising temperature. Past the grassy park and emerging from the building alley, already people were fleeing his way. And every other way. Fear seems to turn the brain off when calculating power is most needed.

“This way!” Miles shouted, pointing. Only six people out of hundreds followed his direction. The four-way street looked like a river of heads running in all directions. Angry that no one was paying attention to him, Miles grabbed the nearest man by his beige tweed jacket and shook some sense into him.

“Hey!” Miles shouted into his face. Another dragon cry came screeching over the nearby buildings. The man closed his eyes, going limp with fear, but Miles was already accustomed to the sound. There was no time dilly-dally.

He shook the man again and shouted over the dragon’s roar. The man’s eyes opened, as if beholding Miles for the first time.

“Head west! Past the park!”

Making noise in his throat, but no coherent words, the man nodded between Miles’ fists, then ran through the alley as directed when given an encouraging shove. Over and over, person after person, Miles grabbed them and yelled, and forced them the right way until a self-governing funnel of bodies were pushing their way the opposite route of danger.

But there were still more. Some lived on the third or even fourth floor of the nearby apartments and were just now touching down looking around wide-eyed and confused. So Miles jogged further ushering a young couple and little boy. There were more, so he went down the street to stop a family of five from plunging directly into the blazing inferno ahead. Yet, there were more, and by the time he had banged on a dozen doors and told every frightened, frozen person to move if they wanted to live, the crashing of buildings and the heat from spreading fires was drawing near.

Finally, the streets were empty. Having just pulled an older man from his burning house and thrust him down the pathway, Miles took a moment to wipe the soot from his face and catch his breath. Quite satisfied with his own efforts and bravery, he nodded to himself after recalling all that he had accomplished. His mouth was dry from the heat, and he was thirsty.

Things having gone quiet once more, he turned to try to find a trough he could drink from, and instead found a full-grown dragon swooping down and landing with a tremor atop the eastern wall not far away. Miles had come a quarter of a league closer to the wall with his heroics and, if the beast saw him, would likely perish because them.

Great talons crushed the wall’s bricks where the dragon now stood, framed by the high sun and haloed by thick cumulus. The scaly tail, like a whip, went ‘round and waving. As a feline it reared up, bent its serpentine head down on its long neck and opened wide sharp-toothed jaws. Clear streams came spraying from beneath the dragon’s forked tongue erupting in mid-air and scorching the earth in yellow flames with a hiss.

“Oh, goddess!” Miles gasped. A fresh wave of heat rolled down the streets ushering a sprint back the way he came. His right leg gave out, and he fell as the sky rained splinters on top of him.

Standing was no use; his leg wouldn’t work. Sitting up, he looked at his foot finding a palm-sized and jagged fragment of wood impaled just above his ankle. It wasn’t until he grabbed it to pull it out that shooting pain split all the way up to his chest. Miles winced and left it there, opting to scoot little by little as far and fast as he could. The dragon leapt down from the wall, like a cat off a windowsill, thrashing at buildings to either side as it drew closer.

It was coming leisurely Miles’ direction and he, looking behind at the impossible distance – for a crawl, anyway --, didn’t think he could make it.

A snap, like a hundred handclaps accompanied a blue man-sized light right in front of him. The brief glow materialized. Miles had heard stories of teleportation scrolls, but had never seen one himself.

The Adventurer who appeared out of thin air was a hand taller than Miles and weighed at least five bricks more in pure muscle. Beneath his chain-and-scale vest he wore a patina leather tunic, aged and broken-in by years. In his belt were tightly rolled scrolls lined at the small of his back. He also had two scrolls on each thigh and tied to each bulging bicep. The middle-aged Adventurer turned his chiseled and infuriatingly handsome face to Miles and smiled.

“Got yourself in a bit of a mess?” he teased. His breastplate bore the head of a pygmy drake insignia. Team Kistador.

“You were late,” Miles shouted over a deafening crash.

Now Miles recognized him; even though they had never properly met, Miles had seen Kortez, Team Kistador’s fearless leader, from a distance several times. Usually riding through the streets with a mangled monster carcass in a cart creating a celebratory uproar throughout the city.

Kortez knelt, and with the speed of an expert jagoff, rudely snatched the spike from Mile’s leg.

Miles’ attempt to repress embarrassing shrieks were fruitless. Blood pumped thickly through the tear in his pants.

“Mend!” Kortez commanded, without even retrieving a scroll from his belt and reading it. A warm fuzziness was followed by a tingle, and the wound closed with a pale scar. All pain receded and Miles breathed easily, being pulled to his feet by Kortez’s powerful hand.

He rested a palm on Miles’ shoulder, still carelessly smiling despite the approaching tremors made by dragon feet. “Good work getting the people out. I don’t see your insignia, what Team are you with?”

Whereas Kortez’s voice seemed to carry effortlessly, Miles had to shout. “No team! Just helping.”

Kortez looked wide-eyed and surprised. Then he leaned his muscly weight on Miles’ shoulder and laughed. “Well! You’d make a void of an Adventurer! You don’t even have a single scroll, do you?” Pulling one from his belt, he put it into Miles’ hand. His brown eyes flashed just like an older brother’s would before giving learned advice. “A Protection Scroll. Always carry a spare.”

Kortez took a step back, saluted coolly with two fingers, and said, “Leave the rest to us. Ether!” And disappeared in a blue snap.

Miles wondered how many times Kortez had practiced that dramatic exit. And if it could be mimicked.

On a four-story rooftop, between Miles and the dragon, a blue light briefly shone. And there stood Kortez along with his five companions, ready to be the first Team to kill a full-sized dragon in modern history.

The distance made any utterings from the heroes inaudible, but there were flashes of yellow, white and blue as the they invoked scrolls. Probably those of Strength and Stamina and Protection. All except Kortez had to physically read from their parchments to call upon their powers. How he was able to command magic without even looking at his pages was a mystery but alluded to his great mastery and knowledge of hidden skills.

A yellow light flashed and Kortez snatched a Greatsword incarnated out of the air, while his companions held their own weapons of choice: recurve bow, dual swords. Miles was a lot of things: a philosopher, a lover, a fighter, but no amount of awe could possibly be inspired like that of an expert Team calmly staring down a dragon, posed on the rooftops with their choice of armaments and magic.

Each Team member leapt across the rafters or teleported into their strategic positions around the mighty serpent.

Miles backed away, but wouldn’t miss this historic event even if he had to take another shard to the leg. He watched from the relative safety of a nearby alley, poking his head out to peer around the corner to witness the battle that was already at hand.

And it was going badly.

The short blonde with the recurve bow seemed to be the dragon’s target and it chased her every leap and teleport so she couldn’t get off a single shot. The whipping tail caught her mid-materializing and sent her like an arrow into a house. She immerged from the rubble with only a limp and a broken bow.

It wasn’t until Kortez came from on high bringing his heavy blade down into the scaly shoulder that a wound was made. The dragon bled a viscous pink at the incision.

Eerily human-like, the drake looked over its shoulder, reached up its claws and snatched the fearless leader. The grip was broken by an uttered spell and Kortez retreated with a blue snap.

The battle continued with Kistador more often on the defense, shielding themselves from fire-breath and tail-whips. Their scrolls just weren’t powerful enough: their Fire only blackened the dragon’s hide; their Strength, when lucky, barely upended a single scale. A Stop spell was immediately broken by the giant serpent, and in the meantime buildings crumbled from the fray.

Kistador surely had rare scrolls which could be invoked multiple times, but every parchment has its limits: one, five or perhaps ten invocations before it just becomes a worthless piece of paper. The Team was running now, rather than leaping and teleporting, and their weapon swings were slow, yet the drake hissed and was relentless weaving between buildings like a snake and striking like a cat.

The drake was huge and immeasurably swift as it swiped at Kortez, barely missing again and again. Turning, it attempted to use its tail to strike. Kortez, no longer smiling but breathing heavily through an open mouth, uttered a word and the tail bounced off his chest. Another tail strike missed, but brought the building beside him to a sway.

Instead of retreating away from the teetering brick and stone apartment building, Kortez uttered a word. There was no sheen of magic. In the instant that it took, Miles thought he looked confused. Kortez mouthed again, and still no magic.

The building creaked, cracked at its base and fell.

The last of image of Kistador’s famous leader was burned into Miles memory. Kortez reached for the small of his back, but there was a single Protection scroll missing from his belt.

The building crashed sending up a plume of ash and dust.

Shaking, Miles stared unable to swallow, clutching Kortez’s spare scroll in his fist.