Dragonkill

Dragonkill

Brandon Sharp

Foreword

Amongst the many dragons that inhabit Lavonia, only one has ever caused me problems. Necronight, a mountain dragon inhabiting the Scape Mountains behind Leechlow, had been terrorizing my city in the subtlest of ways that I detected it almost too late. Unfortunately for the dragon, I did detect and stop it by taking his life. Such is the penalty for disturbing me.
- Selevar Travla, the Black Hand 1925

Chapter One

The first Day of Dragonkill, as it was later dubbed, in Leechlow began just as any other day. A powerful wizard had been discovered practicing magic within the city without a license. I had to retrieve him myself because my underlings were too afraid of his power. Had it not been for the fact that I needed witnesses to the sentencing, I would have destroyed him in his home. I brought him back into my castle, into the main foyer, where he stood before me, shaking, begging for his life.

He was one of the remaining members of an old family in the city, all of which had served me diligently. I was surprised to hear reports of magical lights flashing from within his house when all the other members of his family had been warriors. I investigated the matter, knowing that no magic-user made his or her residence there and discovered him conjuring a demon from the Abyss. I stopped him before he could proceed with it and shackled him with my magic. Bound and unable to anything but hate and fear me, he was dragged into the castle, where a full cabinet of eight black and gray-robed mages awaited to punish him.

“You are here today, Endawin Allina, son of Falodin Allina and Sherea Allina, to answer for the crime of using magic without either a license or being in the service of the Black Hand,” the head of the group announced. “How do you plead?”

“G-guilty,” he sputtered. Sweat from his fright streamed down his face and onto the floor to form a mini saltwater lake.
The answer clearly surprised the judge because he raised his eyebrows so far that it was impossible to tell where they ended and his head hair began. “That answer makes you answerable for the aforementioned crime, which is punishable by death. You realize this, don’t you?”

“I-I do,” he said, finding his voice a moment after what was at stake settled in. He was shivering so much from fear that he was vibrating the floor beneath me. Looking down upon him, I saw the fear in his eyes that I had put into so many others’. Yet through that fear, I could also see a grim determination. He would fight us all if they sentenced him to death, I knew. I considered this for a moment and then decided to let the events play themselves out. “Then, I Ballean Thorndoan, head of the Cabinet of Justice here in Leechlow, sentence you, Endawin Allina, to-”

“Wait!” I interrupted.This caught the judge off guard, yet didn’t fail to irritate him. “Need I remind you at every hearing, Selevar, that while you are the public ruler of this city, you do not have the right to undo our decisions?”

“No, you don’t, Honorable One. Yet, I do have the right to speak in this man’s defense,” I stated.

“What? After you brought him here to answer for breaking a law that you instituted, you wish to speak on his behalf?” Ballean asked incredulously, letting his gavel rest upon his forearm, as if it alone had the power to decide the fate of the world.

“Yes, I do,” I answered simply – much more simply than the judge had wanted me to, judging by his fired-up visage. I continued, forestalling anything he could have said, “You have it on record of three wizards who have reformed their ways to take up service under the city of Leechlow, all of which had either killed or attempted to kill another person, correct?”

“Where are you going with this?” he asked, seeing that I had a plan of attack.

“Answer my question and you will see,” I goaded him as one would a mule, trying to get him to continue with the battle of words.

“Yes, but I don’t see how anything could be reformed about this man, a miscreant by nature, judging by the sheer evil and secrecy of the spell he was casting,” he said, thinking he was winning.

“The head of the cabinet at that time didn’t see how you could have been reformed out of all those crimes, did it?” I attacked. I knew I had found his soft spot. From there, I would launch my assault upon him, tearing him down, piece by piece, until he had no choice but to pardon the wizard’s crimes.

“True,” he said, his voice dropping in sonority, knowing that if he sentenced this man, he would most likely put himself at risk of attack from the other cabinet members.

“Then why shouldn’t he be given the chance to change his ways and take up service under the city?” I delivered the deathblow.
Disheartened at not getting a chance to outwit me, he sunk back in his chair, racking his brain for any law that would prevent such a thing. He stayed in this position, occasionally looking up from under his black hood to stare at Endawin, who, after seeing that I was going to win, had calmed a bit and ceased to sweat, before closing his eyes and thinking some more. Becoming impatient, the lady cabinet member beside him, newly elected to her post and unaccustomed to the judge’s little ‘thought naps’, poked him in the side to urge him to move forward with the sentencing.

He shook his head, clearing away the haze of his Deepthought, an ability that was acquired by judges who had served as arbitrators for decades, and scowled at the young woman for interrupting him. Yet, she was not alone in her opinion, and the other members, some of them older even than him, sternly looked at him for taking so long.

“Not guilty,” he said simply, not sounding in the least bit as if he had just awoken from a nap. He rapped his gavel on the wooden table in front of him in a spot where he repeatedly did so, looking at the huge dent in it. “Endawin Allina, you are hereby cleared of all charges associated with your crime of practicing magic without a license and summoning a demon from the Abyss. You are released into the custody of the city of Leechlow, to do its bidding until the Appointed One, the Black Hand, deems your sentence served to its fullest. We’re finished here,” he concluded, resting his gavel upon the table.

The harsh sound of wood on stone could be heard throughout the chamber as the mages pushed their chairs backwards and filed out of the room. Ballean swiped his hand over the area and caused the tables and chairs to somersault in the air and disappear. While he did so, he gave me a look that suggested I would die if I crossed him. Normally, I wouldn’t have tolerated such disrespect of my magical stature and fought him in a magic duel right there, but the rest of the cabinet was there. He would definitely not be the one to make the first move and would incriminate me; he was daring me to attack him. Yet, being the sound-minded person that I was, I ignored his taunt and turned to face Endawin.

I said to the mage, “Rise.” As he did so, I began to wonder if he was going to be able to stand because the preceding events had drained him of his vitality, probably more thoroughly than the death sentence would have been able to. I continued to order him, though with gentility, “I spared your life because you may yet be of use to me. With your previous defiance forgotten, you are now a member of the Leechlow city workers, under my control.”

I began to explain the benefits and rules of being my servant. “Now that you are in my service, you may use magic within the bounds of the city whenever you deem it necessary. You may also feel free to wander about the castle at will, unless I or any other senior staff member orders you otherwise. Lastly, as a servant of the Black Hand, you are required to wear the black robes.” Immediately following edicts, black robes bearing my infamous Black Hand replaced his brown ones. “You are dismissed until I have need of you again, at which time you will be transported to my side, so be prepared.”

As he turned to leave, I grabbed him by his arm and pulled him close to whisper in his ear threateningly, “If I see any more rebelliousness come out of you that is directed toward me or the city, I will punish you with immediate and without-trial death. Are we at an understanding?”

“Yes,” he answered weakly, at just having his life threatened again.

The wizard bowed, expressed his undying thanks, and left. I, too exited the main foyer, bound for the Room of Conference. Scribblespell was to meet me today to discuss something about my sending poison down the River Long.

Chapter Two

During the meeting, Scribblespell had hinted that I was about to have control of my city ripped from my hands by an unseen foe. Of course, he immediately disappeared, as he liked to for “dramatic effect”, as he termed it.

I became somewhat paranoid from that point forward, making more people than usual scurry as I passed, giving them threatening looks. I hoped to send the message that I would not be defeated in my own place by a foe. These people who ran didn’t worry me. It was the people who walked up to me as if they knew me well and began speaking to me as if we had more than a master-servant relationship that scared me. Such happenings occurred only with five members of my staff, and only two of those did such things regularly.

The most unsettling of these encounters was when Endawin boldly walked up to me and asked for some very secret information. Only an hour before, he had been shaking in fear of what I had promised him. It was at this point that I began to see the truth in Scribblespell’s warning. Someone was mind controlling him, by the glazed look in his eyes and the stiffness of this gait.

Not wanting to give whoever was controlling Endawin a chance to escape his mind, I led him into a tale I used solely for the purpose of entering someone’s mind to distract them while I wormed my way into their cranial catacombs of knowledge. Slowly, I began entering his mind, looking for traces of mind-controlling magic. I was passing through a part of his most distant memories when the visage of a dragon appeared where there should not have been one.

A dragon, I thought. Fear washed over me in waves so cold, not even the Shaunea Sea’s gelid waters could compare. I knew there was no way I could defeat such a creature without help, and since it was controlling my servants, I would definitely be no match for it. I knew it had to be close and a mountain dragon by the looks of it. It was in the Scape Mountains, located just behind the city, most likely.

Just as slowly and carefully as I had entered, I left the mage’s mind. Finishing my story and giving him the information he wanted, I sent the mind-controlled Endawin off with a deadly smile. After all, of what use is vital information to a dead dragon?

Chapter Three

I would need to hike to the dragon’s lair, wherever it may lie, since it would no doubt have wards against magical intrusion. Since none of my subjects could be trusted, I pulled a favor with one of my friends, the Blackestmaiden. We had had a relationship in the younger days of our lives, going from place to place, selling ourselves as mercenaries. Then after one job, one in which I had sacrificed the life of an innocent child, she left me to go out on her own. I don’t know why she did so, but I can assume it had something to do with her unknown past. I regained contact with her forty-seven years ago, when she had founded her group of all-female magic-users, the Blackmaidens, only twenty nine years after I founded my Black Magic Society here in Leechlow.

When she was ready to enter, I lowered a portion of the teleportation field around the city, allowing her access. She appeared in my spell chamber minutes after I called for her and waited until I had restored the shield. She stood there in all her exotic beauty, looking at me as one would lustfully look at a lover.
I knew now was not the time to indulge such desires; we had work to do. I had gathered the information on how to combine several magics to form a spell that would utterly destroy a dragon from within. Through all the texts I read, none said that anybody had ever completed the spell, all having died trying and only their notes surviving. It was a chance I had to take, or I would die anyway, the victim of a dragon.

Such a friend the Blackestmaiden was to risk her life for mine. She walked over to stand beside me at the oaken table I used to prepare such things as spells and potions and began taking ingredients to the spell out of the single pouch that hung at her waist. After laying them onto the table, she pulled back her midnight-hued hair into a unicorntail. I did the same, as any impurities in the mixture of ingredients would render the spell useless and possibly put our lives in danger.

We set to work on the spell with the knowledge that we might have little more than two hours to finish it. By then, the mountain dragon would have discovered I knew of its plans and was taking bold actions against it. Its plan would include strengthening the field of magic around the city so that neither of us could escape, then sending all my servants against us.

I summoned a cauldron to the table, filled it with water, lit a magical fire beneath it, and began adding ingredients as directed from a book I found in the ruins of the Forestshroud Temple. The Blackestmaiden moved about the chamber, gathering more things with a Firemane-like grace, swaying her hips to and fro as if to mesmerize me.

She returned with her arms full of magical items to be added to the spell. We took turns, each of us dropping one item after another into the cauldron. Bravely, we decided to add some of our own designs into the spell, since what the other mages had done hadn’t worked. We held our breath for a long while until it was clear that nothing horrendous was going to occur. After we had finished, we had only to cast one final cantrip that would complete the dragon-slaying spell’s creation.

Embracing each other as we had so many times before, we began the spell that would fuse a bit of our combined magic with the magic of the spell. As we were chanting the spell, I noticed the perfume she was wearing that smelled of aged Lusterloothian silver wine. Oh, how I missed being with her like this! I began to have thoughts that we could satisfy our lewd desires and then once again realized when she released me with completion of the spell that that couldn’t happen now. We smiled at each other, knowing that we had successfully created the first Dragonkill spell.

We wasted no time in congratulating each other on a job well done and set to the task of filling as many vials as possible with the magic, then magically stoppered them all. We would take only two of these with us, as any more dragon-dangerous material would undoubtedly be felt by any detecting magic the dragon had around its lair. After retrieving one wand each from the far wall, we left my spell chamber and exited the castle, bound for the Scape Mountains.

Chapter Four

As we walked through the city, people looked at us as if we had sprouted extra heads - again. We passed many of my servants, some of which were hiding in the shadows, looking at us frightfully, wondering what two of the most powerful magic-users in the world were doing walking through the city together. Some whose curiosity could only be suppressed by an answer approached us and asked where we were going. These we sent off with the promise of slow death should they ever do so again.

I was unsurprised to see Endawin come boldly strolling over to us. Due to his previous success, the dragon must have assumed it could retrieve even more information from me through this servant. I decided it would be best if I sent the dragon a message that said it couldn’t pull the same trick twice.

Looking at the mage with cruelty, I cast a deleterious sleeping spell on him. Through personal experience I knew that the dragon would be unable to see through him, as well as think he was dying, due to the pain inflicted by the spell. He would, however, only be sleeping a deep, painful sleep.

Knowing that the dragon would already be gazing through another’s eyes, I teleported Endawin back into the castle to prevent any unwanted eyes from seeing it. I left a small fire burning where he once stood, just to assure the dragon that I had killed him. Sure enough, another of my servants came running up to us to get the answer that Endawin could not with whatever cajolery it could muster. We quickened our pace and exited the city, ignoring her as we usually ignored those less powerful than us.

Chapter Five

A minute after leaving Leechlow, we began our ascent into the mountains. Small animals scattered as we traveled along the dirt path. Only a few trees grew in the Scape Mountains, and they looked as if they would die in a few years’ time, so scarce were the nutrients they needed. Boulders rolled down the slope by us with such rapidity that as they passed us, they whipped our faces with dislocated fragments and wind.

Not much sooner had we entered the mountains than we came upon a parting of roads. We immediately knew which way was to the dragon’s lair when we looked down the right and saw what appeared to be a mangled human’s corpse. As we passed it, we had to cover our noses because the stench was overpowering. I was surprised to see who it was; the mage Endawin lay on the ground at my feet as he had so many times before.

I began to wonder how he could have arrived here and then realized the dragon must have used one of my other servants to wake him and then have him come up here to meet his death.

“Be ready,” I warned the Blackestmaiden. “It knows we come its way.”

“That knowledge shall not avail it,” she spoke for the first time in her smooth-as-silk voice, since arriving. We moved onward, undaunted by the grizzly sight of the wizard’s mutilated corpse.

I wondered, though, if the dragon was already on its way to us, ready to break our bodies upon the mountains. We carried along, travelling around too many cliffs to count, with the same number of near-death experiences, for another hour, becoming increasingly tired from hiking. We had picked as good a spot as one could expect in mountains such as the ones we were in and decided that we would stay the night here and resume the hunt in the morning. It was only when we had made our beds and lay on the verge of sleep that we heard the roar, followed by the flapping of massive wings.

Chapter Six

The dragon came from above and was upon us in mere seconds, by which time we had already raised our magic shields. I pulled the vial of Dragonkill magic out of the belt at my waist, ready to use it should the Blackestmaiden’s fail. It had either smelled or used its magic to find us because it searched for a moment to find us before homing in on our location. It dove downward and then stopped to hover above us, pushing us back with every beat of its wings. We struggled to stand where we were, for if we were pushed back into the mountain, we would have limited mobility, which would ensure death for them. “Know, humans that you trespass upon the domain of Necronight, Lord Mountain Dragon of the Scape Mountains!” he roared grandiloquently.

“It sounds as if somebody has inflated his ego,” the Blackestmaiden stated bluntly, hoping to enrage it and lower its defenses.

I smiled at her sardonic humor, something she had always been good at. Then I looked up at the brown dragon and yelled, “So, you are the dragon who seeks to wrest control of Leechlow from me?”

“Correct,” it said simply, as if there could have been no other answer. I hadn’t planned upon having to kill you, but since Scribblespell forewarned you, I see now that I must,” he said, opening his maw to reveal three rows of sharp teeth on top and bottom.

“I see,” I said slowly. “So you planned to use me as a puppet, using my influence to increase your wealth and power?”

“Of course,” it said, becoming irritated at my feigned ignorance. “For what else are humans good, besides holiday meals?” it asked, smiling, thinking back upon a previous occasion.

“Lots of things,” I began to explain. “One of which happens to be slaying dragons,” I retorted. Necronight immediately lost his smile and took on a much sinister look.

“We shall see how apt you are at slaying dragons,” he said as he prepared to attack us.

“Know that your blood shall stain and your body fall upon these mountains!” I yelled defiantly, beginning a spell. The dragon plunged downward, sending a spray of rocks upon us from its mouth. These, the Blackestmaiden countered with barely a swipe of her hand.

I sent steaming balls of water up into his face, causing him to turn swiftly upward, buying us precious time. “Get ready,” I told her. She pulled the vial free of her belt and prepared to unleash the magic contained inside. She looked within at it, hoping the sparkling, blue light of the magic would be enough to stop the beast.

When the dragon once again began its descent, this time with magic ready to spew from its mouth, the Blackestmaiden raised the vial high and removed the magic stopper.

At first I began to wonder if the potion would work. My faith in the magic was restored when I saw a blue light gathering at the mouth of the bottle. With a force that pushed her to the ground, the full fury of the Dragonkill spell was unleashed upon Necronight.

The magic seemed it was the kind to hit its target full force, but then it curved just before hitting the dragon. As we watched, the blue light enveloped it, coursing over the dragon as ants crawl over dropped food, seeking any avenue inside his body. It touched every part of Necronight and then simply disappeared in a blinding white light.

Chapter Seven

Neither of us could understand what had gone wrong. We thoroughly checked that we had done everything correctly during the creation of the spell. We had put in the exact amount of spell items, read the directions twice before following them, and had even cast anti-error spells over the cauldron. With no time left to dwell upon the past, I began to remove the stopper from my vial, hoping that this one would be different, and the spell took effect.

A rumbling as great as that of the summer thunderstorms rolled over us out of the dragon. Then I understood that the magic had needed time to penetrate the dragon’s scales and course through its entire body. Had he not been as caught off-guard as we were by the seemingly ineffectual spell, we would have been dead. Necronight writhed in the air, unable to escape the magic. He remembered us somehow in his throes of death and began to descend upon us again.

We had no idea how the spell would react to other magic touching its victim, so we didn’t dare risk hurling any at it. With mere feet between us and our attacker, in one final explosion, the dragon burst apart, spewing gore all over the mountains. Pieces of its smoldering body fell to the ground with a resounding thud.

Elation filled me, as I knew that I had been a part of the first successful Dragonkill spell. I looked at the Blackestmaiden, who was smiling for the same reason. We hugged each other, knowing our peers would envy us for this information and beg us to teach them. “You were right, Selevar. His blood did stain the mountains.” We looked into each other’s eyes a moment longer, each knowing what the other wanted. Yet our desires could not be satisfied when there was work to be finished. We turned and headed into the mountains further to find and pillage as much of the dragon’s horde as we could.

On our way back to the city, I sat Endawin’s body ablaze, as was customary among wizards. We returned to the limits of Leechlow, bade farewell and departed, she returning to Hallded to begin preparations for revealing Dragonkill. I entered the city, followed by my half of the dragon’s horde. I noticed how people ducked into the vacant alcoves as I passed and smiled to myself. Leechlow was definitely mine.

Afterword

I hope you enjoyed reading this tale of my younger years. The Blackestmaiden and I went on to make many thousands of silver pieces with Dragonkill. To this day, we remain two of the most powerful magic-users on Lavonia, thanks to that spell. After this event, I set up additional wards around my city, preventing anyone from mind-controlling people within it. It is ironic, however, that since I helped create the spell, no dragons have dared bother me, thus making the spell defensively worthless to me. Then again, a dragon may foolishly decide to attack the city, and I’ll simply retrieve one of the vials and kill it. Or, I may decide to go on a dragon-slaying excursion. Either way, I’m happy.

- Selevar Travla, the Black Hand 1925