CHAPTER ONE
THE COWARDLY DRAGON
THE sky was a cloudless, rich blue sea in which the relentless midsummer sun was centre-stage. It was the kind of sun that sent rainclouds and shadows running, induced nasty sunburns and brought waterfalls of perspiration wherever it went. Today, as it shone down ruthlessly on the city markets, it prided itself on living up to all of its reputations.
The infamous drought may have been in its third year of rainless terror, but that wasn’t about to stop merchants from setting up their assortment of brightly coloured stalls, tents and booths; it also certainly wasn’t about to stop the endless throngs of people from crowding around, through and, in some more extreme cases, on them.
It was such a normal summer event on an ordinary summer’s day, with the usual multitudes of people doing the normal market kind of things. In a pessimistically foreboding kind of way, it was like the calm before a storm, or the chaos before a slightly more chaotic chaos. (Because not only was ‘calm’ definitely not the best adjective to be used when describing the market, but there was also no chance of a storm coming; not on that sun’s watch. Not even a metaphorical one.)
In the centre of this market-chaos was a young woman with long golden-blonde hair and blue eyes that shone like sunlight reflecting off the ocean. The simple gray and blue robes that she wore revealed far less than the get-up that was usually sported by your average contemporary fantasy heroine, but luckily for her, ‘average’ and ‘contemporary’ were not words that Florence aspired to have herself described with.
Possibly the most striking, eye-catching and head-turning feature about Florence was the large sword strapped to her back. The metal of the blade was blindingly shiny in the bright sunlight; the red rune that glowed like the inside of a furnace only added to its radiance. A large ruby was embedded in its hilt – that thing alone was enough to raise eyebrows, as its value in gold was enough to fund a small army. Overall, the sword had an aura about it that screamed ‘wealth’ and ‘power’. Just the way Florence liked it.
She was currently pretending to be bored, as she gazed over a selection of fancy ‘jeweled’ rings on a stand in front of her, and doing a bad job in trying to look like she wasn’t eavesdropping on two men several stalls in front of her. Luckily for her, however, they were too busy arguing with each other to notice.
Through the gaps in the crowds of people, Florence saw a half-view of one of the men – short dirty-blond hair; tanned skin; plain wooden bow and a quiver of arrows slung over shoulder – shake his head and place a plain-looking short-sword back down on the table in front of him. In reaction to this, she saw the other guy’s pale face frown as he also shook his head and the thick night-black mane that covered it. The hair stuck up everywhere – obviously, it hadn’t heard of growing downwards.
“Andy, I know you have this moronic fancy for ranged weapons, but I honestly think a sword might be handy to have as well. Even if it’s just a small one.”
“No.” Andy sighed. “It probably won’t. You already have the only sword that can kill Elias – why would we need another? My bow is fine, Menka.”
Menka snorted. “Your bow won’t be much use for god-killing, either.”
“Yes, but you never know when a bow might be of use.”
“That’s exactly why you should get a sword!” His raised voice drew the attention of several nearby market-goers, most of whom just rolled their eyes and moved on, but Florence could see that she wasn’t the only one now listening in on the conversation. Personally, she didn’t blame them. Not only were they talking so loud that it was half-impossible not to hear them, but their dialogue was too interesting and fruitful to turn a deaf ear to, anyway.
The strange pair – Andy and Menka – were actually the reason why she was at the market in the first place. One night ago, she had overheard them in a tavern as they talked about drought-ending, powerful swords and god-killing. Enticed by such adventurous ideas, she had decided to follow them, and had been doing so ever since.
Don’t judge her, but she had this wild idea that if she could somehow show them her worth, they would offer to let her join them in their crazy god-killing and world-saving quest. It was better than what she was doing, which was wandering around the city, failing to find mercenary jobs because of her gender. Florence was okay with her sword and fairly skilled in the magical arts (at least in her opinion she was), but the kind of people she dealt with had egos far too large to pay a woman to do their dirty work. Sexist bastards! She would show them!
Menka frowned and Florence assumed it wasn’t from the sunburn that was quickly forming on his overly pale face. But before she could hear him speak, the merchant – whose rings she was pretending to look at – addressed her.
“Do you see anything you like, darling?” His brown eyes sparkled hopefully at her as he readjusted the bandana that held his brown hair in place.
Florence snorted. “Who are you calling 'darling'?”
“Why you, of course! I have this ring with a blue sapphire over here, the colour would suit--”
“Be quiet!” she ordered him, straining to hear what Menka was saying.
But the merchant continued, causing her to grind her teeth together in frustration. “If you don’t like anything you see here, I’ve got plenty of stock in these crates, or I could always--”
“For the sake of the gods, shut up!” she cried. Andy and Menka disappeared from her vision behind a rush of people, and she wanted to set fire to the merchant's table and haul it at him – even though it technically wasn’t his fault.
“Have I displeased you?” His voice was now laced with confusion. “Such a pretty face, I’m sure I can find--”
“Yes, you have displeased me!” she yelled. “Now shut up or I’ll cut you!” He actually listened this time. The crowd parted and Florence saw that the men had gone from the sword-selling table. She wanted to throw something, namely the merchant, but she settled for making a threatening gesture at him with her fist before hurrying off.
Finding two people in a crowd is an act that has often been referred to as 'needles, searching and haystacks'. For good reason, too. It didn’t take Florence very long to figure out what this good reason was. Once you lost somebody in a crowd, only divine intervention could ever help you find them again.
Unfortunately for her, all of the gods currently in charge of divinely intervening were not paying attention to her. They were instead focused on another corner of the earth: where a muscle-infested young hero needed a random meteorite to conveniently land on top of the dragon he was fighting, and thus free the way to the princess. Florence would have to rely on the help of something else.
But what else was there for heroines to rely on for intervening these days? Well, it turned out there were more things than divine beings... that also started with a 'D' and came from the sky.
It wasn’t immensely huge, but it was impossible to miss. Covered with scales, horns lined its back and the tips of its large leather wings. It had lots of teeth, all sharp and coated with soot, which was a sure indicator that it had an affinity for breathing fire. Yes, it was a dragon.
Whatever a dragon was doing landing in the middle of a midsummer city market, Florence didn’t know, but the dragon did. It seemed to know exactly what it was doing: snorting steam and the occasional puff of ash from its nostrils as it flicked its long and sinister face, eyes darting and searching through the crowd.
Florence looked around, suddenly confused as to what the hell was going on. The sudden appearance of said dragon in the crowded market was kind of like dropping a basket of wide-eyed puppies into a group of girls, but with less cooing and way more running and screaming. She could barely see or move more than an arm’s length in front of her when the crowd got started, due to all the rushing and panicking. She drew her sword. The sound of it being pulled from its sheath caused the crowd to move away from her on instinct, which gave her enough room to run forward in the opposite direction that everybody else was running. That was the way she figured the dragon would be.
What Florence didn’t get, was why everybody was running in the first place. Dragons were a rare occurrence these days, thanks to all the show-offs in the fancy armour. People should be honoured to see such a powerful beast. It didn’t matter if it was dangerous, she was gonna get a closer look.
‘Besides,’ she thought, ‘I bet killing a dragon would look really good on my résumé.’
The crowd cleared out pretty quickly, and while darting between the now-abandoned stalls, Florence was able to get an unparalleled view of the dragon. Its scales were a deep maroon colour, darkening at the tips. But what it was about this particular dragon that stuck-out most in Florence’s mind was what its attention was focused on. Its pupils locked and its head reared-up at two men who stood about twenty metres from her: one aiming a bow at the beast, and the other wielding what appeared to be a very rusty sword. Intrigued and slightly bemused, she edged closer.
“Of course,” she muttered as the pair came into closer view. It was the duo from before: Andy and his crazy-haired friend, Menka. Any odd thought involving them being a normal pair of travellers was thrown out the window in Florence’s mind. As she crept nearer, she couldn’t help but feel that she was stumbling upon something way bigger, and much more world-changing, than she had first thought.
But she didn’t mind at all. All this world-altering epic-adventure stuff was totally Florence’s ball-game, so she stepped in-line beside the duo. The dragon briefly flickered one of its obsidian orblike eyes over her before rolling it back to Andy and Menka, giving her no more attention than one would give to an extra chip in an appetizer.
Andy, however, turned his head in her direction and raised an eyebrow. “What are you doing?”
“Same as you,” she smoothly replied, keeping her eyes fixed on the dragon. “Protecting a market full of innocent people from an evil dragon.”
“Err,” said Andy, while Menka just laughed. “That wasn’t exactly our prime intention. But okay.” He then turned back toward the dragon, leaving Florence to wonder two things: a) what were they doing here, then; and b) why hadn’t the dragon attacked yet?
It seemed that Menka was wondering the same thing as her, as after several seconds of silence, he sighed and said: “Well, dragon? Are you gonna attack us, or what?” He impatiently twirled his sword around in the air, while rolling his eyes.
“My master sent me here to kill you.” Its voice wasn’t like Florence expected it to be. She was expecting something epic and slightly terrifying – like the sound of grinding coals, or the rumbling of a dormant volcano. What it sounded like instead was kind of like the pubescent boy version of these sounds: its voice reaching a high crack as it spoke. It almost made Florence cringe in embarrassment for it. Andy and Menka just chuckled.
“Well,” said Menka, in between laughs, “your master must not like you very much, then.”
“What!” cried the dragon, sounding outraged to have heard such a thing. “My master loves me very much, thank you!”
“No,” Andy said with a snort. “If he sent you against us, he mustn’t like you very much at all.” He laughed and Florence frowned, not getting the joke. “Say, who is your master, anyway?”
“I would never tell you--” Its voice broke again on the end of the word ‘you’ and it hung its head for a moment, a slight scarlet blush tinging its cheek-scales. “I would never give you such information!”
“Well, I think you look like a dragon from the fire realm. What do you think, Menka?”
“Or at least one of their descendants,” replied Menka. “This dragon is too young to have come from the realm of fire itself. However, I have a feeling that you are the fire god’s dragon.”
“Don’t you mean ‘dragons’?” Florence asked. “Doesn’t he command a whole legion of fire-dragons?”
This made both Menka and Andy break into hysterical fits of laughter.
The dragon just roared at all three of them. “No! I’m the only one!”
“Ah!” cried Andy. “So you are his dragon!”
“No!”
“So...” Menka chuckled. “The God of Fire. How is our dear friend Elias, anyway?”
“I’m done talking!” roared the dragon, before rearing up on its back legs. It looked a bit shaky, though, in Florence’s honest opinion. Its jaw wobbled, and she saw the scarlet return to its scales.
Andy sighed. “Look, you don’t have to attack us if you don’t want to.”
“Really?” asked the dragon, its lower lip wobbling. Florence snorted at its patheticness, while Menka just rolled his eyes, like he dealt with this kind of stuff all the time. “But Elias will probably kill me!”
“Then fly away or something.” Andy shrugged. “Go find a hot dragon chick and make a nest or something. It’s none of my concern.”
The dragon nodded its head in agreement, blushing again. “Some of those water-dragon chicks look really cute. But I really must go back to my master.”
Menka snorted. “Have fun dying a painful death, then.”
After Menka’s words, the dragon took off into the sky, dragging its now not-so fearsome tail after it.
Florence snorted. Well, that was fun, wasn’t it? Here she was, hoping for an exciting life-or-death battle with a real and fearsome dragon. Pffff – 'fearsome', her ass. That thing looked like it was going to wet itself. She was actually starting to feel ashamed about having to face such a cowardly creature.
“Well, that was lame,” Menka commented after the dragon had gone. “I can’t believe you let that thing get away. Such a wimp. We should have killed it on account of being such a shame to its species.”
Florence chuckled, agreeing with the dark-haired man.
“There was no need,” said Andy. “Elias will probably kill it for us when it returns to him. Elias loves killing things.”
Menka nodded and Florence found herself confused as to how they knew the God of Fire so well, but she felt like it wasn’t the time to ask.
“Well, I think you should kill the poor thing and put it out of its misery,” said an unknown but slightly masculine voice.
Florence looked around wildly for the source of the new voice, while Andy and Menka both sighed in unison.
“That was my sword,” explained Menka, holding up the rusting sword for Florence to see.
She winced as flakes of corrosion fell off and landed on the pavement around his feet. “That thing... talks?”
“Yes, it does.” He then angled the sword towards its scabbard and it screamed in anger, obviously not liking the idea.
“Don’t you DARE put me back in my sheath!” it cried. “Come on! I haven’t even said much. I was trying to nice and act all civil and stuff...”
Menka continued to put it away, despite its protests.
“Ah! Fu--” Its voice cut out, being fully inserted into its scabbard.
Seeing Florence’s perplexed expression, Menka laughed. “Don’t listen to that thing. It’s just a useless hunk of metal. It doesn’t actually have anything useful to say.”
Florence nodded, feeling more confused by the pair with every passing second.
Andy glanced around them.
The market was slowly coming back to life after the sudden disappearance of the dragon. People came out of their hiding places and merchants went back to their stalls. Some of the crowd headed towards the trio, mixed looks of adoration and fear on their faces.
Andy sighed at the oncoming group. “This is the part where we make a quick getaway.”
“Why?” Florence asked.
“Because...” Menka chuckled. “Being the hero gets very old, very quickly.” He turned to leave, but then he twisted his face back to Florence at the last second. “You can come.” When Andy raised an eyebrow at him, Menka rolled his eyes. “You were going to follow us anyway, like you have been for the last day. You may as well come.”
Feeling slightly embarrassed to be caught but glad to be allowed to join them, Florence clipped the sword back onto her back and stepped into line between the two as they quickly exited the market.
“Wait, she has been following us?” asked Andy.
Menka chuckled. “You really need to pay better attention to your surroundings, Andy.”
“How did you know I was following you, though?”
He turned and grinned at her, showing her two rows of flawless white teeth. “By paying attention to my surroundings, of course.”
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