The plan was simple. Kese - being faster than Raan - would keep watch on the tunnel to the python's lair. Once it emerged and began coiling around the boar corpses, she would fly in, snatch the Roses, and flee. And while the python's attention was on her, Raan would push the boulder over the cliff to - hopefully - crush the giant monster and if not kill it outright, then at least hamper it enough that the two dragons could finish it off.

  There were a lot of things that could go wrong. They both knew it. If the python was more interested in hunting Kese than consuming the meat that had been delivered to it, or if it was quick enough to catch her when she tried to grab back the Roses, or if its strength exceeded even their generous guesses...

  On the cliff, Raan heard Kese's warning growl, and took up position behind the boulder, bracing himself against it. It was nearly twice his size, and they'd had to leave it a foot or two away from the edge of the cliff to stop it simply rolling down early. Some near-misses on the way over had shown that once it built up even a little momentum, neither of them could stop it. It had only been good fortune that had stopped it falling into the ravine where they would never have been able to retrieve it.

  He heard the rustle of scales rubbing against rock. Realised he was holding his breath and forced himself to breathe, waiting for Kese's signal.

  The wound from the boar's tusk had reopened itself as he pressed his shoulder against the boulder. He ignored the pain and the blood running down his leg.

  "NOW!"

  For a moment Raan thought they had made a horrible mistake and vastly underestimated his strength. It wasn't like when he'd tried to push the boar matriarch back - he might have lost that contest, but he'd been able to tell it was close.

  Here, though, there was no living creature pushing back against him, just the sheer weight of the boulder and the tiny lip of stone it was caught on, and it felt like he was trying to push a mountain.

  He had no idea how long he was struggling, nightmarish visions of Kese getting snatched out of the air by the unrestrained python because of his failure stabbing into his mind.

  Then the lip of stone cracked and broke, and the boulder rumbled forwards, gravity and the slope at the edge of the cliff taking it, and it plummeted down and Raan almost followed it before he managed to catch himself, looking around frantically for Kese -

  Only for her to crash into him as she streaked up, sending them both tumbling backwards as waves of flame erupted up after her. Even through the roaring flame he heard a crunch, and the flames cut off abruptly.

  "Are you okay?"

  "Aside from someone getting in my way and almost getting me roasted, you mean?" Kese retorted. The excitement in her eyes took any sting out of her words, and he was sure his expression was no different.

  The two disentangled themselves and crept back to look over the cliff. The python might have stopped sending flames up at them, but that didn't mean it was dead.

  Another sheet of flame blasting up towards them rewarded their caution as the python let out a furious hiss that felt like it shook their bones. The boulder had only barely hit, the giant snake having dodged at the last moment - but it had hit, and the last piece of the python's tail was now trapped in the ground, where the boulder had driven it into the stone like a nail.

  The fact that the impact seemed to have barely hurt the python, merely trapped it, was not an encouraging sign for their attempts to hunt the beast. But dragon claws were far sharper than any rock, and as the python abandoned its attempts to burn the two dragons and coiled around the boulder to lift it free - something neither of them doubted it was more than capable of if given the chance - they sprang, not just gliding but diving, beats of their wings accelerating their motions, and crashed simultaneously into the python's body just below its jaws.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  Even for the giant python, the impact of twenty tons of high-speed dragon was something it couldn't just shrug off, and their momentum was enough to slam its head into the ground. But when they tried to bite it, its scales bent under the force of their jaws but didn't break, their claws skating harmlessly off as they scrabbled for purchase on the python's body.

  Kese managed to get up to the back of its head, hooking her wing talons into the one part of its body that she could get purchase on - its jaws. Raan saw what she was doing and followed suit, catching its lower jaws where she had its upper jaws, as much using its mouth to anchor themselves as they were trying to stop it biting either of them as it thrashed around.

  It was a good thing that for all its size it was no more intelligent than any other monster. If it had been smart, it would have ignored their struggles and freed itself before turning on the two young dragons with its full strength able to be brought to bear. But even if Raan and Kese hadn't really hurt it at all, their talons in its mouth were certainly annoying it - annoying it enough that it just kept writhing, slamming them time and again into the ground but more through accident than intention, and not with enough force to seriously hurt them.

  And even if some of their attention was focused on keeping its vicious jaws under control, they hadn't stopped clawing and biting at it, and while a single attack might not have been able to break the python's scales, the concerted hail of blows were starting to deform its scales.

  One of the scales on the back of its neck came loose enough for Kese to hook the claws on her hindpaw into, ripping it free. The python let out another snarling hiss as the two dragons managed to hurt it seriously for the first time and thrashed harder, trying to twist in on itself to close its jaws on her, and Raan yelped as he was shaken free from his grip on its neck, dangling from its jaws with his wings as he struggled to regain his footing as the snake slammed its head down towards the ground, and he pulled one wing back to shield himself -

  And the snake twisted at the last moment and crashed to the ground with him under it, and his wing crunched, and white-hot pain ran through his body and he half-roared, half-screamed in pain. A moment later the snake raised its head again, still lifting him with it by his good wing, and he managed to dig his claws into its buckling scales and start tearing and biting at the exposed flesh beneath with a savagery that was as much fury as it was pain and fear.

  He had no idea how long the python kept fighting. At any moment he expected it to manage to force them back enough that it could strike its scales together, but every time it got close they managed to score another wound and distract it.

  By the time it finally crashed to the ground and stopped moving, he'd almost forgotten about the pain in his wing thanks to the myriad of other pains in his body. He flopped down besides the corpse of the python, too tired to even try to eat it to restore his strength - and then the pain came back and he dug his claws into the ground to stop himself from crying out.

  Kese landed next to him, panting. She looked as haggard as he felt, bleeding from various wounds from the snake's sharp scales. Her gaze was fixed on his injured wing. He didn't want to ask how bad it looked. "Please...tell me that there really is a mature Rose in there," he panted.

  She glanced back towards the tunnel, hesitantly. "Are you...sure you're going to be...okay here?"

  "I'll be...fine. Nothing's...going to come here right now."

  He wished he had gone after her after a few minutes. Not because he was worried about her particularly, but rather because without anything else to focus on, the only thing he could think about was the pain in his wing.

  He stumbled towards the python's corpse and ripped a bite out of the snake's neck. It burned in his mouth, but not in a wholly unpleasant way - though maybe that was just because it was a good distraction from the rest of the pain he was experiencing.

  He only managed a couple of mouthfuls before Kese reappeared. "Was it...a Rose?"

  She poked a claw into her storage bag, opening the seal to the internal space of the bag, and a great gust of hot air rushed out of it, making Raan yelp in surprise and recoil. "Elder Beolkyax said this would be the hardest thing for me to find of all the Mortal stage reagents," she said. "Even harder than the ones where he didn't even know of a Domain where they could be found."

  "And you found it...on the second day." He forced a grin through the pain. "If you keep doing this well, maybe...you'll make it all the way to the Seventh Forging."

  "I only got it because you were here," she pointed out, quietly, rubbing her head gently against his uninjured flank. "Thank you, Raan."