The Dragon's Prize Read online

  “I’m listening…”

  Bang.

  “You just keep shooting them.”

  Bang.

  “That’s what we were just doing, right?”

  “Right.”

  “We’re screwed…”

  “Hey now.” Sandra thought about it. “Yeah, we’re screwed.”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay.”

  “Let’s do it.” Mira screwed her face up in a grimace and nodded. She looked confident. Ready.

  “Alright!” Sandra hoped she looked just as confident.

  Bang.

  Sandra tensed her muscles, waiting for the next hit. When the guards backed up to get some momentum, she would strike.

  Bang.

  Sandra burst through the door with a vengeance. She came swords-first, slashing, thrusting and jabbing with abandon. She cut through the first two guards like butter. The next two were still shocked by the death of their friends when she cut one’s head off and stabbed the other in the gut.

  Arrows whizzed by her head and the next two were dead. Sandra looked back and saw Mira standing in the doorway, dropping two crossbows and going for two more.

  Good girl.

  The rest of the guards were more prepared, but Sandra was consumed with violence. She was a flurry of death, marching into their ranks with single-minded purpose. There were too many. They would cut her down eventually, so she aimed to take as many with her as she could. She gave up defense to advance. Cuts came through, slashing her cheeks or finding their way past her breastplate into the leather guarding her sides. She ignored them and pressed on, spinning away from the damage to bring her sword in a vicious arc.

  The paladin’s magic helped, cutting through chainmail like skin. She couldn’t break swords, but if the mercs weren’t wearing plate they might as well not be wearing anything. She was careful with the short sword, aiming it for chinks, gaps and joints, but with the long sword she just kept hammering at them.

  It was their turn to fall back. Blood filled the alley, running between the cobbles and splattering across Sandra until she imagined there wasn’t a clean spot on her. It coated her swords and made the air taste like copper and death.

  The mercs started to get less and less enthusiastic about fighting her as the bodies piled up. They had trouble finding footing amongst the dead from their previous advance, and now the alley was littered with bodies. At least half weren’t dead, but they didn’t pose a threat either. They lay on the ground groaning, holding entrails in or applying pressure to nearly-fatal wounds and hoping that someone would get to them soon with medical attention.

  The living mercs slipped and slid on the blood of the fallen, and Sandra used that to her advantage. She had no qualms about standing on the corpses, and they actually provided better footing than the slick cobbles.

  Arrows sang mercilessly through the air. Some came towards Sandra, most of those missed their mark, but most sought the lives of the mercs with hungry intensity. Mira was out of preloaded crossbows, but had enough bolts from the supply in the house that she could just shoot without worrying about running out.

  Finally Sandra found herself at the mouth of the alley, standing amongst a pile of the dead, and facing another thirty guards who stood in the square with swords at the ready. They looked apprehensive. They knew that if she came into the square she’d be dead, but they also now knew that if they came into the alley they would be dead.

  One brave one came forward, testing Sandra with a thrust to the gut.

  Sandra was not in the mood to be tested. She slapped his sword aside with the short sword, hammered him in the face with the hilt of the paladin’s blade, and then stabbed him in the throat.

  “Alright. Alright!” Sandra kicked the body away from her and growled at the remaining guards. “Is this worth it?”

  “What?” Only one spoke, but they all had the question on their lips.

  “You think you can take me!?” Sandra was breathing heavily, and threw back a bloody lock of hair from her face. “You’re probably right!”

  “What?”

  “Do you want to die doing it? You were promised easy pay and a life of luxury!” She kicked one of the bodies so it rolled over, its lifeless eyes staring up at the living guards. “Is this worth it? How many more will die? Ten? Twenty?” Sandra pointed her magical sword at the one who was speaking. “You? How about you?” She pointed at the guard next to him.

  “…” Some were shaking their heads. Others were muttering.

  “Leave! Leave now!”

  “No!” A guard dressed in fancier armor walked forward, head high, and shouted over Sandra. “Get her! Kill her! She’s only one woman!”

  “Two!” Mira let a bolt fly from behind Sandra. The captain barely ducked to the side and the bolt hit someone else in the face. That guard went down screaming as it pierced his cheek. He would probably live, but it looked very painful.

  “Okay… okay! You want to fight me?” She pointed at the captain with a fist full of sword. “If you ask them to throw away their lives on my blade, shouldn’t you do that same?”

  “Yeah!”

  “Get her captain!”

  The general rumbling of the mercs seemed to agree with her sentiment.

  “I…”

  Sandra stepped forward, brandishing her swords. She put effort into breathing heavily and looking tired. She was tired, but she hammed it up a little to make herself appear weak.

  “Come on. I’m just one woman.” She stopped to suck in an especially deep breath, then let it out. Blood streamed off her in rivulets, steaming in the cold night air, and she wiped some from her eyes.

  The captain rushed forward, and the guards fanned out into a makeshift semi-circle behind him. Sandra could see that he knew what he was doing and didn’t fall for the bait of his false charge. At the last moment he stopped and brought his sword around in a sneaky arc that would have caught her off guard if she assumed he would be like the others.

  Sandra blocked and countered . He parried, countered, sidestepped. She followed his path, knocking away blows and trading her own in when she could. His style was basic, but tight and his footwork was clean. They circled three times around the square with the sound of cheering guards in their ears, testing each other. She scored a few minor victories with the short sword, making painful but shallow cuts on his arms and legs, but couldn’t get through with the long sword. He’d seen the damage she could do with it and wisely focused his defense on keeping it away.

  Sandra felt herself getting tired as the fight wore on. The exertion of the earlier battle, coupled with the focus needed to stay away from his sword work, was taking its toll.

  He could see it, too. He was waiting, biding his time, letting the weight of the metal on her finish her off.

  No.

  She was not going to let him.

  As she deflected one of his swings high, she lashed out with a boot. It was a risky move. He wasn’t expecting it.

  He ‘oof’ed as she kicked him in the stomach, then ‘eek’ed as she stabbed him in the leg. She was inside his guard now, where neither of their weapons would do much good, so she head-butted him. It hurt, but he stumbled backward blinking and shaking his head, trying to clear the cobwebs. She didn’t let him.

  She swept his feet out, then fell on top of him with her knees planted firmly in his chest . Even with the armor, she drove the wind out of him. She stabbed her short sword clear through his sword arm, pinning it to the ground and rendering it useless.

  Sandra could have stopped there.

  She could have killed him cleanly. Cut his throat.

  “I yield!”

  She hit him in the face with the hilt of her sword. Again. Again again again! She lost herself in the moment. For Mira! For the paladin! For Sandra! She hit him and kept hitting him.

  The helmet rolled away.

  Bone, blood and brain sprayed out in a gory fountain.

  He stopped moving.

  Sandra k
ept hitting and hitting him until the metal hilt of her sword started clanging against the cobbles.

  “Sandra?” Mira’s touch on her shoulder was cool. Calming. Grounding.

  Sandra stopped pummeling the ground, but she wasn’t done. She leapt to her feet and mock-charged the remaining mercs. As one, they backed away from the madwoman covered in the captain’s brains.

  “Who else!?” She was shouting. “Huh! Who else!?”

  No one stepped forward. In fact, they all stepped back.

  “Me!” An archer, maybe the only one left, stood up on a roof. He loosed an arrow which Sandra casually batted out of the air with her sword.

  Mira wasted no time and put her own bolt into the archer’s throat. He choked out a scream and fell to the street below with a bone-crunching thump.

  “Who else!?” Sandra stopped shouting for a moment to just breathe. She sucked in huge gulps of air, rising to her full height, then let it out in a whoosh, nearly doubling over in the process.

  In out. In out. In out. As her body moved with the breathing, blood rolled off her and stained the ground.

  The mercs stared at her like she was an avenging god made flesh.

  “Good! Drop your weapons!” To a man, they dropped their swords. “Now leave! Leave! Any of you left in town in the morning will be killed.”

  “Our…”

  “Do what you want with the dead, but remember.” Sandra met as many of their eyes as she could. Most turned away before she got the chance. “Here in the morning and you’re dead too.”

  They fled.

  Sandra waited until they were out of the square and she was alone with Mira before sinking to her knees. She jabbed the tip of her short sword into the dirt between cobbles so she could lean on it. She gulped down another beautiful lungful of air, then let it and the rest of the energy out of her body in a long, wracking sob.

  *

  Sandra didn’t know how long she cried. She sucked in great gulps of air, then let them out again in heart-shaking sobs. Her shoulders rose and fell in ragged gasps and she keened to the night air. She didn’t know what people looking at her would think: a blood-soaked warrior leaning on her sword and sobbing like a child? She didn’t care.

  Tears streamed down her face, hot salty tears making tracks through the caked-on blood, and she could feel her nose running. She briefly considered wiping it, but the thought of scraping blood-soaked chainmail across her face made her reconsider.

  At some point Mira put her arms around Sandra’s shoulders. It felt good: warm and comforting, reminding her that after the inhumanity of the night there was still something right left in the world.

  “Come on.” Mira whispered gently in Sandra’s ear. “We still need to deal with the monsters who started this mess.”

  “The… ah-ha.” Sandra had trouble finding her voice through the sobs still choking her throat. “The… trolls are dead, hon.”

  “Not the trolls.” There was secret steel in Mira’s voice. Had that always been there, or had the horror of the night tempered something inside her? “The mayor and his daughters.”

  “And?” Sandra looked up at Mira, wondering what brought the bitterness when Mira mentioned the mayor’s daughters. What happened while Sandra was tied to that post in the troll camp?

  “Don’t worry.” Mira wiped some of Sandra’s tears away, smearing crimson liquid across her palm. “You’ll fix it.”

  “Right.” Sandra took a deep breath to try and steady herself. It helped to suck in air without sobbing it back out. “Right.” Another. Another.

  Finally, she felt human.

  Using her short sword for leverage, Sandra stood up and looked around the square. Some villagers had trickled out of their houses to come see what happened, but so far none dared to enter the gruesome battlefield which was the square. Sandra didn’t know what to say to them, so she stood as straight as she could and marched toward the mayor’s house. She briefly considered leaping in the fountain to clean off the blood, then decided against it. She would make more of an impression on the mayor like this. He didn’t see her kill the mercs, but he would see the aftermath.

  Sandra stopped as they reached the mayor’s door. She looked back at Mira, who had one crossbow in her hands and another slung across her back. Both were loaded.

  “Ready for more killing?”

  “They might leave quietly.” Mira looked hopeful.

  “They might. We have to be ready for the worst case.”

  “Okay.”

  “He ran off with about four guards, so the worst case is we have to kill seven people in their home.”

  “Eight. The butler.” Mira’s face was calm and blank. It was impossible to tell what she thought of the situation.

  “Right.” Sandra gave her friend one last, soul-searching look, then turned to the door. She wasn’t emotionally stable right now, so she wasn’t in the best state to help Mira come to terms with what happened.

  She shoved all of that away and focused on the door.

  Sandra didn’t knock. She stabbed the paladin’s sword into the door’s three hinges. There was no fast way to get through all of the various locks on the thing, so this was the best alternative. With the hinges shattered, she kicked it. The door buckled but held on the first kick. It sagged inwards on the second. With the third it gave way, wood splintering and cracking from the violence, and Sandra strode into the hallway.

  She couldn’t believe that once she worried about tracking dirt onto the expensive carpets. Now she walked in all her bloodstained glory down the hall. The butler came rushing forward. To stop her? Wordlessly Sandra held up her sword. He nodded and pressed himself against the wall, giving her as much room as possible to get by. When she got to the other side of him, she heard the distinctive thunk of a crossbow firing and the butler slumped down the wall, leaving a wet trail of blood behind him. Sandra turned to look at Mira, questions written on her face.

  “He was going for a knife.”

  “Thanks.” Sandra looked down. He did, indeed, have his hand on the hilt of a knife. Bastard.

  Sandra walked down the hall and kicked open the doors to the dining hall. The mayor was there, huddling against the back wall with his daughters held in his arms. Sandra couldn’t help but notice that he’d positioned them so they were between him and danger. Sure enough, there were also four guards stationed around the room. They’d pushed the table on its side and shoved it against the wall, so there was a straight, clear dash between where Sandra came in and the mayor. It also provided an open field for them to flank her.

  Everyone recoiled in horror at the sight of gore-soaked Sandra standing in the door. She stepped forward to allow Mira to stand in the doorway, with the crossbow aimed over top of Sandra’s shoulder.

  “I’ll say this once. Your captain is dead, along with half your compatriots. The trolls are dead. There is nothing for you here. Leave. Leave before morning and you’ll live.” Sandra’s voice was quiet and flat. With the heat of battle gone, it felt like it had more weight this way.

  Two guards immediately threw down their swords and ran out the side door of the hall.

  “You cowards! Bastards! You’ll hang for this!” The mayor shouted after them as they ran.

  “And you.” Sandra glared directly into the mayor’s eyes. He flinched and looked away. “I should kill you for what you did to me. What you did to Mira.” Sandra pursed her lips. “I won’t. I offer you the same deal I offered your mercenaries.”

  “No. No! You can’t… you can’t do this! You’re a guard! This city is rightfully mine!” He was shouting still.

  “No. This ceased to be your city when you exploited it for your own gain.” Sandra waved an accusatory arm at the opulence of the dining hall, at the piles of food which lay discarded on the floor by the up-ended table. What had been casually thrown out could feed half the city for a day. “What you’ve done is inexcusable, and I will not let you get away with it.”

  “You… you’re a guard! You hav
e to uphold the king’s law! And by that law, this city is mine!”

  “Wrong again. I was a guard.”

  “You said…”

  “You said it was a potion of bull’s strength.”

  “I…”

  “Betrayed me! Mira! Your people!” Sandra was yelling now, too. “You’re a worse monster than those trolls!”

  “You can’t talk to me like that! Guards! Get her!”

  The two guards looked at her, unsure of how wise it would be to follow the mayor’s command.

  “Get her!”

  The guard who stood immediately between Sandra and the mayor took a step forward. He didn’t make a second step. The crossbow thunked and a bolt caught him in the eye. His head snapped back with the force of the impact and he fell to his knees. In slow motion, he toppled to the side and started to bleed out of his eye socket onto the plush carpet.

  The daughters shrieked.

  The second guard took one look at Sandra’s face, then threw down his sword and ran out the side door as well. Sandra nodded and started to walk toward the mayor and his daughters. A desperate fear gripped his face and he tightened his grip on his daughters, pulling them closer in front of him and tighter against his chest. They barely noticed, there were too busy shrieking in terror.

  Sandra stepped over the dead merc and pointed the tip of her sword at the mayor.

  “Wrong choice.”

  “No… no! Wait! I give up! I’ll do what you wanted.”

  “You had that chance.”

  “I… no!” The mayor shoved his daughters forward, toward Sandra. They cried out and stumbled on the unsure footing of the carpet. It looked nice, but was not meant for ease of movement. Sandra hadn’t yet decided what to do about them, so she stepped around them and let them fall on top of the dying guard.

  The mayor ran for it. Sandra gave chase.

  It was not a long chase.

  The mayor was not a fit man, and was puffing for air before he even left the dining room. His legs were working as fast as possible, given strength and speed by fear, but Sandra’s stride ate the ground whole.

  He made it through the kitchen and halfway to the stable door when she caught up to him. There was no ceremony to what she did. She stabbed the paladin’s sword through his back, stopping him in his tracks. She had no desire to see him suffer, so she brought her short sword around and sliced his throat. His keen of pain was cut off by the movement: she struck so hard that she cut through not only his artery but his vocal chords too. He choked on a torrent of blood, which sprayed out of the new hole in his neck and re-painted an expensive piece of art bright red.