The Dark World

Chapter 12: Ally or foe

Cairn

I rushed out to the dragon drawing my sword from its sheath, a crazy move one might say, but if I didn’t distract it from the one bit of shelter we had I knew it would destroy it.

It looked down at me and gave a roar before flying down lower to me, the power of its wings beating created a wind making dirt fly up from the ground.

I kept my eyes on its neck watching for the tell-tale sign, I saw it, its neck bulged slightly, a sound like a rush of air, and then it opened its mouth and breathed not fire but a powerful gust of wind, enough to knock a man off his feet and send him hurtling against a rock or over a cliff edge.

I rolled out of the way just in time, Ezekiel joined my side and a minute later so did Marisoll. We all looked up at the beast and watched as it flew up in the sky twirling around at unnatural speeds for such a big creature. S.hit.

As I suspected, it created a mini tornado, actually, it created two and they moved towards us. Ezekiel grabbed Marisoll’s hand and ran with her to a safer distance, I was feeling either brave or stupid today because I ran towards the dragon as it came closer to ground level.

The tornados almost pulled me off my feet and I had to use my sword to stab into the ground and pull myself along closer to the dragon.

I reached its tail, not the best place to start, but it would have to do. I grabbed on and hauled myself onto its tail and tried climbing up, but it started swishing its tail ferociously making me have to hold on as tightly as I could, a normal man would not have had the strength, lucky for me, I was not a normal man, even so, I still struggled and almost lost my grip.

Ezekiel and Marisoll had managed to get behind the dragon and started moving closer as the tornados began to dissipate. In its fury with me, it roared and blasted more of its powerful wind from its mouth, the wind hit the wall mystic Zerena was behind, still finishing up her potions, the wall shook slightly and trembled, but it held.

I got up and on to its lower back, and both Ezekiel and Marisoll distracted the dragon from what I was trying to do.

Ezekiel had his sword drawn and was stabbing it in its foot, In its side, it wouldn’t cause much damage to a dragon, but it would certainly aggravate it. Marisoll was firing her arrows at it, some piercing it, but most bouncing off and falling to the ground unable to get past the thick scales.

I may not like the woman, but she was a clever girl, when she realised the bows were not working on its scales, she bravely went around so that she was face to face with it, she pulled back another arrow and fired it into its eye. The dragon stumbled back stunned, then roared in fury, But Marisoll was already firing another arrow into its other eye, rendering it sightless.

I was at its neck now, but froze with panic as did Ezekiel when the dragon went into a frenzy and using its talons picked up a giant piece of rubble, what once had been part of a building, and then it launched the rubble along with big rocks and dangerous debris that all went hurtling right towards where mystic Zerena was.

The wall she had been using as a shield went crashing down where she had been, and I feared the worst. A wizard such as mystic Zerena did not die and come back like the rest of us, their fates were far worse than that, their soul would be torn from their bodies by other spirits of the damned, they would be t.ortured, tormented, spirits of the damned would feed on their fears and pain before finally eating their soul and that was only if they were feeling merciful for more often than not they did not feed on the soul, instead keeping it in torment.

I rushed to reach its head and then lifted my sword above me and caught Marisoll’s eyes, she gave a nod, I brought my sword down through its head and hopefully, its brain while she fired an arrow under its chin, the arrow piercing through and into its mouth, she fired another into its neck, where the scales were softer.

The dragon roared and reared backwards, stumbling around but not falling, and for a moment, I thought we had failed, but slowly the dragon swayed, once, twice, and then it came crashing down to the floor. As its head hit the floor I jumped, and rolled off and out of the way.

I turned to look back and saw it was dead, and then breathed a sigh of relief before remembering mystic Zerena. I ran towards the rubble and Ezekiel helped pull it away bit by bit.

“Zerena!” I yelled as I tried to work faster.

“I’m quite alright, boys, you needn’t worry.” We both looked up to the sound of her voice and saw her standing on top of the f.ucking pillar, the last piece of the building that was still standing. “How the f.uck did you get up there?” I asked.

She frowned at me, she hated when I used curse words. “I am a wizard Cairn, how do you think?”

“Yeah, well, do you want to give me that handy little trick?”

“You know it doesn’t work like that.” She waved her white staff with silver patterns engraved on it and the next thing I knew she was standing beside us. I have no idea where she hides that staff, it’s big, but already it was gone and out of sight again.

It wasn’t the dragons fault that it’s mind had been poisoned by the darkness, and we did not like to kill such incredible creatures, but it was that, or die ourselves, and we did not have time as the darkness seemed to be spreading at an alarming rate, as if it knew we were coming.

We did not waste what the dragon offered, so at the very least its death would serve a purpose, a fate most dragons preferred rather than having a meaningless death, their body left to rot. We went over to its body and began carving as much meat as we could to bring with us on our travels, mystic Zerena used a preservation spell to keep it from becoming spoiled.

We removed some of the dragon scales too and applied them to parts of our armour and our shields. Their scales were tougher than any metal and any shield known to man, impenetrable, the only way to pierce a dragon was to get up close and strike between those scales, or hit its soft and more fleshy areas like the top of its head or from its chin and all the way down to its underbelly, it sounded an easy enough thing to do, but it was not, it was near impossible to get close to them and even more challenging with a fire breathing dragon or an ice dragon.

Once we were done, we carried on moving. We had been walking for an hour when we came across a small rundown village, most of the buildings were worn down, crumbling or no longer standing at all.

I didn’t think anyone was around until I heard strange muffled noises in a small house down the end, the others couldn’t hear anything, it was only due to my wolf hearing I heard anything at all. Whimpering, I definitely heard a whimper that time.

I ran off to the sound of Ezekiel and Marisoll calling out to me. The closer I got, the more I heard. Screams, a woman’s screams and a child’s whimpering, a man growling some commandment.

I crashed the door open and saw the woman on the floor bleeding heavily, her top torn open exposing her b.reasts as the man leaned over her trying to pull his trousers down. F.uck that. I shoved the tip of my blade against his throat and snarled quietly, “I suggest you move away from the lady.”

He held his hands up in a surrendering gesture and slowly moved away from her. I let him stand and led him outside away from the mother and her child’s eyes, and then I cut his head off.

He wasn’t alone, more soldiers appeared, one spotted me and yelled to his allies. Ezekiel and Marisoll ran towards them, their weapons out.

I started to run to join them, but I felt tugging on my leg and looked down to see a little girl no older than four. “Mama hurt,” she whispered, looking up fearfully at me, still unsure if I was the enemy or a friend.

My instinct as a man was to shake her off me and run to help my friends, but my instinct as a wolf was to protect the pup. Sighing I sheathed my sword and let her lead me back inside to her mother. I kicked the man’s head away as we passed, shielding her from seeing it.

The little girl was right to be worried about her mother, a pool of dark blood was underneath her back and spreading out. Turning to the child, I said, “worry not, if she succumbs to death she will simply reawaken in a few hours.”

She shook her head and whispered, “man use something, he say it hurt mummy.”

I frowned and looked back down at the woman, who was now unconscious. Before I could do the polite thing of covering her bare b.reasts, I had to check her over and see where the injury or injuries were. I tore the rest of her top open making the little girl gasp.

“It’s ok, I just need to be able to see where she’s hurt.”

I carried on looking, I couldn’t afford to waste precious time consoling the child if what she said was true. Her chest and stomach were fine, I went to roll her on to her side, and then I saw he had stabbed her in her side trying to puncture her organs, I was no doctor and had no real magic like mystic Zerena, but I used my supernatural hearing and pressed my ear against the woman’s side carefully and listened.

Mystic Zerena would know more, but I was pretty sure he had missed the woman’s organs, perhaps by centimetres or more I wasn’t sure, but I could hear them still working as they should, but there was some internal bleeding from what I could hear, hopefully small and hopefully mystic Zerena could help fix it.

I went to go and find her, but the little girl grabbed my hand with her tiny one, “no leave daddy.”

“Uh, kid, I’m not your dad and—”

“No leave daddy!”

“Ok, I’m not leaving you, but it’s important I go get my friend outside so she can help.”

I wasn’t all that in touch with my emotions, I was a cold heartless man but damn I had always had a soft spot for children, right now, she was looking up at me with big dark blue eyes, chubby cheeks, blonde hair in messy pigtails, she was a chubby kid, her mother clearly went to extremes to make sure her child ate, a good mother.

The little girl looked so lost and innocent, I knew if her mother died she would be left alone, I knew fates far worse than death, especially for women and little girls, more men like the one I had just killed would hurt her in the worst ways possible.

I bent down to her level and gave a small smile, “let me get help, ok?”

She gave a slow nod, still uncertain if my words were true or if I would just leave her here.

Ezekiel was just sheathing his bloodied sword while Marisoll fired an arrow into the last man standings head.

“Mystic Zerena!” I yelled.

She was beside Ezekiel but rushed over to me when I called out. “What is it?”

“I need your help!”