"Dragon Maiden" by Rita Martins R. Silva

         "I’ll go catch some fish from the river. I’m hungry and I can’t trust you to spare some of your food for me." Xeyra said and left the clearing. Theran made a snorting sound that she still heard but he didn’t see her turn back. She was getting used to his dark humor and his teasing, it seemed. Well, she also liked to tease him and others and he didn’t complain, did he? He smiled sheepishly as he prepared himself for a little sleep. He loved sleeping under the sun. Xeyra wouldn’t be very pleased when she came back and found him asleep but the sun was so perfect for a nap.

         The all too familiar sense of a spellcaster near hindered his rest. But, if was feeling magic near was because some sort of spell had already been cast away. With all his senses sharpened, the broad dragon rose to his large feet and prepared himself for whatever was about to happen. His nostrils flattened, trying to find a hint of a foreign scent but there was nothing near that he could detect. He suspected that the spell that had been cast was preventing him from catching whoever or whatever was coming by smell. So he sharpened his hearing and his vision, while digging from his mind his spells. He had a bad feeling about all this.

         His mind kept thinking of a spellcaster that he knew of that might be after him, some enemy of his. He couldn’t think of none that hadn’t perished already or that was, he thought, far away from this land. It could be just an old wizard crossing the forest and trying to keep away from wild beasts and other predators that could exist in the forest... but his instincts told him that this was not the case.

         That left hunters. But hunters didn’t use magic (though, if they did, they would be far better hunters than they thought they were) and they certainly wouldn’t bring a magician to a forest to catch a prey. They worked alone, being ever so stupid to think they alone could defeat a dragon, one of a kind of the oldest creatures that had ever inhabited the land. It made him laugh with despise whenever one of those pitiful humans dared to confront him. All of them were brainless.

         Except for Xeyra and all of the Dragonmaidens. They were the only humans, since the War, that had kept faithful to the old ways, the only that weren’t seeking glory at every opportunity, the only in which a dragon could trust his or hers life unconditionally. Theran trusted his to Xeyra; but not to any other human.

         His golden eyes glanced at the oak and pine trees surrounding the clearing, searching for any kind of movement. He thought about flying away but he liked that place and he wasn’t going to flee like a coward. He would stand his ground and protect his territory as well as himself. Dragons don’t run from anything, especially from humans. But the aura of magic startled him and made him more aware of this new challenge, if it was a challenge indeed. He might be worrying over nothing. But carelessness was never a word one would use to describe a dragon, and certainly not this dragon in particular.

         Suddenly, Theran caught a hint of movement over some bushes a few paces from him. He looked at it for a moment, uncertain if he should expel some of his fire at it or wait to see if something would jump or crawl out of it. Nothing happened. The movement stopped. Theran only knew that someone or something was there due to the faint magical aura he detected. Then he saw, from the corner of his eye, a human form behind him, with a long sword dashing to him. With his large and heavy tail, Theran squashed the foolish human that was trying to attack him. But his tail hit a hard surface, instead of the fragile bone structure of a human. The dragon knew then that this was the spellcaster and that he had just cast a spell to protect himself from his attack. A dragon slayer that knew how to use magic. That was something unheard of before, at least, after the Wars.

         Before the breaking of alliances between the races due to the Wars, everything was acceptable, nothing was impossible. Even dwarves held something of a respect for lower species, as they called much of all the races there were, especially the trolls. The elves were united as one people and they contacted with all the other races, instead of hiding away from the world in their own land, prohibiting anyone from ever entering their territory. Theran liked the elves, being them one of the oldest races inhabiting the land, among the dragons. He could also understand their distrust towards the other races as their land had been one of the most devastated during the time of the Race Wars. But they shouldn’t be so damn pathetic with their intentions of protecting what were theirs. They ended up acting like superior beings, better than any other people in the land, including their cousins. It often gave Theran a headache when he talked to an elf about these subjects. They were as hard-minded as rock. Better yet, as steel.

         While his mind drift around with his thoughts and memories, and he tried to protect himself from the magic user, Theran didn’t notice the second hunter approaching and only when the man’s sword cut through his flesh did he acknowledged his presence. By then, his front had been slashed and a line of red shiny blood dripped from the cut. It was deep enough to disorientate Theran for a moment. It gave the hunter/spellcaster, time enough to cast another of his incantations. Theran felt his eyes starting to close as a magic tiredness fell over him. For a moment both him and the hunters thought he was going to succumb to sleep but the mind’s determination of a dragon is more powerful than many could imagine. With a spell of his own, Theran annulled the previous and, with a roar capable of scaring the most fearless being, he lunged towards the second hunter, the one that had cut him, and he smashed him under his foot. The sound of crashing bones echoed throughout the clearing. Theran lost no more time with that human and faced the other hunter. Almost immediately the human attacked gracefully and with pure strength. He didn’t hit the dragon but he kept trying while Theran used his tail to throw him powerful blows. The human was amazingly agile and very determined as he dodged and jumped over and rolled sideways, thus avoiding every of Theran’s attempts to bring him down. This was a talented human.

         For the first time in his life he knew he needed help and he cursed Fate for having sent Xeyra away when he needed her. Now he could use her help. The human was good and he had surprised the dragon. Hunters didn’t work in pairs or in groups, only alone. Even more important, hunters weren’t magic users. Yet this had exceeded every one of Theran’s expectations towards such matters, towards such predefined ideas about hunters. If he fell down in this combat, the hunter would have deserved it, though Theran didn’t want to help the human achieve his goal anymore than he wanted to take a nap now. Again, he thought about flying away from there but his honor wouldn’t allow it. Even dragons had honor and he wouldn’t break those codes being a coward. He was a fair representative of his species and he wouldn’t betray them.

         With one of his wings, Theran finally was able to hit the human, but it didn’t do much damage as the human had cast a protective spell over himself. Theran could revoke such spell and was readying himself to do so (while, at the same time, he kept his guard up) when the human lunged awkwardly towards him, almost stumbling into the ground. What kind of attack was that? What had happened to the natural elegance of this man fighting style? His mind away from the blocking spell he intended to cast for a moment, he leaned to see what had happened to the human. It was his fatal mistake.

         With a owl, the hunter slashed the dragon’s body and while he was still recovering from the shock and the pain, he plunged the sword into his chest, until it reached the heart, in a blow not immediately fatal but that would kill him painfully within some hours, at best, within a day. The sheer stupidity of his defeat rushed through Theran’s mind as his broad form hit the floor with a thud. He stayed there, unable to move as, even with just a breath, pain flowed through him. His strength was slowly leaving him and he knew it was his end, if not now, then soon.

         Then a piercing scream echoed through the air. The hunter, still with his sword inside Theran’s body, took a blow in his right arm from a sharp sword, handled by a seemingly enraged woman that run to him with an almost preternatural speed. Rhanon was able to retrieve his weapon and protect himself from the next set of blows, but his mind was elsewhere. Who was this woman and why was she fighting him. Didn’t she realize that there was a beast near them? Didn’t she realize he had just killed, or nearly killed the monster? Was she protecting him? But why? No human, with his sanity intact, that is, would ever protect a dragon.

         Except those of the legend. His mind’s voice told him, bringing up memories of what he had learnt with the wizard.

         "Before the Great Race Wars, there was a breed of human women, warriors in the making, that held an unbreakable alliance with the Dragons." The old wizard had said. "Those who remember their existence believe such alliance has never been broken, not even with the Wars. They were generally known as Dragonmaidens. Fierce warriors whenever one of their Dragons was in danger. They would fight to the death to protect them." Then he had added, as a more personal note. "I, for one, don’t believe they still exist. Their fellow humans exterminated them. The reason, according to them, was that they were possessed by the Dragon Demons. Nonsense. All nonsense."

         Rhanon had never believed that humans could ever befriend dragons and he had never once adhered to that idea. Now, he realized how mistaken he had been as this woman, a very young and amazingly beautiful woman, was attacking him, a fellow human, over the life of a monster. He found himself fighting for himself harder than he had needed while fighting the dragons himself.

         "Why are you fighting for such creature?" He asked, trying to bring her to reason. He had never killed a woman before and he didn’t want to start with such a young and attractive one. "They don’t deserve to live. They are a plague to our land. I don’t want to fight you, woman. Let us put our swords down and we shall share the prize for the killing of this beast."

         "A plague?" Her voice was hoarse with hate and disdain. "Share the prize? Beast? I pity you that think of yourself as the one with the right to live. If there is a beast in here, then it is you that are it. I see no other monster before me."

         And she attacked him again. With a sigh, Rhanon prepared himself for a spell. He hadn’t come this far to be killed by a woman. It was him or her. She would have to perish.

THE END