home

search

Dual Encounter

  It was over, we had won crushingly.

  The only thing left was to clean up.

  Immediately after my declaration of victory, it was quite obvious what the next course of action should be. And this was probably what we were needed for in the first place.

  Gale knew it too, so he got in the very front and flared his wings at the frozen MudWings.

  "Surrender!" He demands with a happy-angry voice. Clearly he was excited for this part.

  What choice do they even have at this point? The answer came quickly judging from how they all drooped.

  He even continued on to command them take us to their leader.

  Well, it was understandable they don't even know if they should. But we're going to find them eventually anyway.

  And it didn't take long at all for them to put their circumstances together and comply.

  Commander Ashwind still led us forward, even with all those cuts and bruised scales.

  I was getting some scary glances too, probably because I patted his snout. I don't recall needing permission to do so.

  Strangely, the MudWings were still only being attentive to the other dragons and not any of the humans.

  Everyone already considered them with disdain, and it didn't help for them to so obviously continue their blatant disregard for the humans. Of course, our dragons were more irritated by it than the humans, so it was almost like the MudWings were just asking to die by keeping that up.

  But regardless, it didn't take long to be greeted by a palace built as if floating over a lake.

  The dirt-colored dragons scrambled away as soon as they were allowed to.

  Getting in was not a problem, practically the entire ceiling was just open and exposed to the sun.

  We flew right in.

  Of course, now we had to stumble around until we found the right room.

  We seemed to have landed in some kind of hatchery with eggs strewn about.

  It was crazy they didn't even put glass over the hole in the wall. Anyone could just come in and out.

  We could have just shattered every egg in sight and kept moving.

  But there was still some hope that maybe they simply had a horrible leader, and maybe they weren't just worthless people-eating monsters.

  We filed through the mud-lined corridors, occasionally encountering a dragon which needed to be restrained.

  Nothing could so much as delay us before we arrived at what was a definite throne room.

  It was clear who was in charge: The huge dragon with gemstones encrusted onto their head and ankles.

  I was usually pretty good with recognizing gender at a glance, but this one was just so big I could barely conclude them as a she.

  Sure it was harder to recognize features on dragons, but it's their fault for being brutes...

  Commander Ashwind might have had a problem with just her, let alone the others on the sides.

  But we had plenty of dragons with crossbows ready. Those bolts were terrifyingly large, and they would probably easily take down the smaller dragons in one shot.

  The presumed queen, however, would probably take a few shots if they weren't perfect.

  Ashwind was still just a bit smaller, but he visibly hated them even more than anyone else.

  I gestured Gale and he put me up on Ashwind's back.

  From here I actually had an angle on the dragon's eyes.

  I nocked a precautionary arrow on the left side of my bow and aimed carefully in case I had to use it, visualizing the perfect shot as if it had already happened.

  I was always a bit more accurate with the left side.

  "What are your demands?" The dragon seems calm, but it's hard to hide minute details such as an anxiously flicking tail.

  She understands quite quickly. That was good.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  Gale was the only one here that could really respond. Well, I could respond, but I haven't practiced trying to make those sounds much, and it's not the most pleasant for a human's throat.

  "I'm not in charge of deciding what our demands will be." Gale answers. "I'm just here to translate your agreement to surrender."

  "But why? Why are you doing this?!" The dragon blurts out before even giving her name.

  Gale was completely serious, and growled before responding with the opposite of an answer.

  "Why?! How are you asking why, after murdering so many scavengers?!"

  Ah, he used what must be their word for humans. Well, we thought it meant the scavenging kind of scavenger before those first dragons used it to refer to humans.

  "What? If this was about resources, we can pay reparations..."

  "REPARATIONS?! HOW DARE-" Gale snarls and has to be physically held back.

  Though I had a suspicion they wouldn't have held him back if they could understand.

  The queen slinks back slightly while trying to continue.

  "Why are you attacking us over animals?"

  What?

  "W-Who are you calling an ANIMAL, you beast!" I scream and rasp my entire throat out just to pronounce it as loud as possible.

  Seeing that stupified expression makes me even more fucking pissed off. On all of them!

  "You... talk?!"

  Flash was once again leading his friends through a rainforest hell. Though it didn't feel like he had any right making decisions.

  The rainforest itself was way safer than this thin border where it turned into a swamp, for some reason. But they were also paid for speed, not just their consistently safe arrival.

  It was pitch black. The conditions were in their favor this time. At least, they should be.

  The sound the carriage made was a problem, but aside from that it would be easy to scatter and retreat. They wouldn't even lose progress.

  They were mainly using hand-pulled carts.

  The group could probably fit more than what they could safely get on a boat to The Indestructible City.

  Those damned sea dragons were much more consistent at being obstacles.

  The frames were light, the wheels were padded as well as they could be, but it wasn't like they could completely eliminate the noise.

  But, with this land route, they could just hunt on the way instead of needing to preserve and waste space on food. Though fire was also still a risk.

  Now that he thought about it, how did those stupid lizards supposedly build grand palaces but not recognize them as equals when they could create fire and cook things? He guessed people that called them simple flying sharks couldn't be far off.

  Flash was getting distracted, but the familiar surroundings around him jolted him back to reality.

  This was where it happened. He could tell the others knew that too.

  They were quite optimistic with how easy it should be to make it across the clearing this time, since it wasn't even that big.

  He checked every little nook before even considering going through this time, until he was looking in the same places over and over.

  "Calm yourself, Flash. You know the last time was a coincidence, it's not worth it to waste our time going around..." Snow interrupted, and somehow convinced him to move forward.

  That's exactly what they did, but Flash wasn't feeling it.

  He was just filled with a constant unease. He begged whatever higher power to give them just this. But whatever higher power was cruel enough to force them into this existence seemed not to care.

  They weren't even halfway across before they were blocked by the towering shadows of two enormous dragons.

  It was completely dark, yet just with the weak moonlight they created an endless void of shadow.

  Contrary to everyone else's reactions, he couldn't even feel the panic or fear.

  "No. Not again!" He managed to mumble, seemingly defeated.

  Snow and Wart both immediately drew and released their bows with an impressive speed.

  Flash didn't care; they would be useless anyway. There was no way those hunting bows would do anything.

  He didn't even know why he wasn't running, or why he was bothering to look at his doom.

  Did it matter what color they were? Perhaps Wingwatchers would be interested in a night dragon with white patterns, but he couldn't care less. He would come off as crazy if he tried to explain the strange look in their eyes, though.

  Flash could only despair in place, as the pair of dragons seemingly flinched as the arrows hit them and simply bounced off.

  He couldn't even imagine why they would even react. Surely they knew it wouldn't do anything.

  Snow stayed for some reason, but Wart got himself together and started running as soon as the feeble desperado failed.

  One of the dragons quickly darted after him, and Flash figured it would make it easier to accept this.

  Instead of a violently quick end, this situation only served to confuse him further.

  It was like a frighteningly deep voice was coming from out of nowhere.

  "Please be calm. I'm not trying to hurt you."

  Flash even looked around for someone else, despite the logic being clear who it had to be.

  But he really didn't want to believe it. Not that.

  Who would want to believe those things are perfectly capable of higher-order thought, yet still eat people alive? That's worse than the flying shark theory no matter how much evidence there was against it.

  "Hello?"

  But this dragon only got more insistent and closer to their frozen bodies.

  "We are different from those monsters you hide from. Very different."

  Flash didn't really have a choice but to hope he wasn't having some dying dream or nightmare. Somehow he managed to ask something stupid. Asking a dragon of all things a question sounded like something stupid in its own right, but...

  "What about my sister?" He just blurted out without context or thought.

  Even if he assumed they were really talking right now, they looked nothing like the ones that took her anyway so it'd be a stretch to even think they would know anything from just that.

  "Oh! I think she might be the one that got saved yesterday." The dragon trails off, almost to itself.

  Flash was shocked that it even knew when it happened, maybe he really could be the luckiest person in the world.

  The other dragon came back with Wart struggling and crying in its talon. Maybe he would have just been crushed if he annoyed a 'normal' dragon with all that thrashing.

  "This little guy doesn't want to listen to me at all. He just keeps running away when I let him down." It complained.

  "Maybe he can tell you're the dumb one by the way you breathe down his neck like that." The first one bickered back at it. "Maybe you'd do better if you didn't call him like some kind of pet."

  Flash and Snow were both lost, but when the first dragon brushed its wing against them to apparently demonstrate that touching was okay, the physical sensation made it clear this was real.

  Flash had no idea what to expect, but given how ready he was to accept a horrible death, this wasn't that bad at all.

  Though he wasn't sure whether to call Wart normal or below average, as he was still pushing against a cage of wings while trying to escape.

Recommended Popular Novels