Legacy of the Dragon Ch. 03

Lucas shook his head as he brought his sword to his hip. "They're not men."

Khrazar arranged his fellow slavers around himself with his commands. "Qazdol, Meisnan, Gezlok, and Gighdas, kill the old one in the steel suit. Erdas, Ozhal, kill the skinny one with the long hair. Ondas and Mazdiq, with me. We'll kill the leader."

"Thought it would be a little longer before we spilled blood together," Colton said softly, quiet enough that the slavers could not hear.

"Afraid not," Lucas replied.

"These aren't great odds."

"For now. Just need to bide time."

"Stay on the move," Ser Barristan said. "Don't let yourself become surrounded. Keep them in front of you."

That was the last they were able to speak. The slavers shouted and charged them.

Steel crashed and clanged as sword struck sword. Men yelled and hollered as droplets of spittle and sweat flung about. Lucas and the others managed to fend off that first clash, but only that. The swarm of slavers and swinging steel forced them to separate and retreat. True to Khrazar's commands, four slavers pursued Ser Barristan, two pursued Colton, and the final three, including Khrazar, pursued Lucas.

Lucas fought as he fled and fled as he fought. The grass crunched beneath his feet with every backwards step. Sweat dripped from his hair onto his face. He kept his head on a constant swivel, ensuring the slavers stayed in his vision. There were three swords to his one, and it was all he could do to backpedal and parry each strike as it came. His steps were smooth and swift, and his hands no less so. Each moment a sword came his way, his own sword was there, meeting it in the air, creating a song of steel.

Lucas greatly wished he was wearing his armor, but he wasn't about to try to run inside the house and bring the slavers with him. He would have to manage as he was. Caution would have to rule him.

When Lucas spotted what looked to be an opening, he chanced a lunge at one of the slavers, the shortest one, Mazdiq. The slaver only barely managed to bring his curved sword up against Lucas's, redirecting his strike to slice the air beside his head. In the short moment of that one lunge, the other two slavers had circled to Lucas's sides. Lucas darted away and brought his sword back just before Khrazar's blade could bite into his outstretched arm.

Moments later, Lucas had retreated to the side of the stable. The wall was a shield, an angle he could not be attacked from. The slavers were still upon him, never slowing. "Fight like a man, cunt!" the third slaver, Ondas, shouted at him. Ondas lunged and brought his blade in a heavy sideways swing. Lucas avoided it with ease, and the edge of the slaver's curved sword bit deep into the stable's plastered wall with a crunch. Ondas yanked once on his sword, but it did not come free.

What came next happened in a flash of motion. Lucas shot forward and brought his sword down hard. The sharp steel of his blade cleaved through the wrist of Ondas's right arm, splitting both flesh and bone. Blood sprayed out from his stump limb, painting the pale plaster of the stable bright red. Ondas screamed, but when Lucas swiftly brought his blade again and bit it into the side of the slaver's neck, he quieted.

Lucas stepped away as Khrazar and Mazdiq swiped the air where he once was. Ondas collapsed onto the grass, dead. His severed hand still clutched the stuck sword.

Khrazar gave his slain companion only a brief glance.

The slavers rushed Lucas with a renewed vigor. Lucas's eyes flicked from side to side as he defended their onslaught, his sword shooting left and right to meet steel with steel. Some parries were much too close, and when the clangs of steel were by Lucas's ear, they were almost deafening.

Before long, the slavers had forced Lucas onto the beach. Soft sand rustled around his feet. The angry Summer Sea's strong waves rushed noisily nearby, grasping as far over the sand as it could reach. Still Lucas retreated, waiting for an opening, parrying the strikes that had to be and dodging those that didn't. He was pouring sweat. His shirt was damp against his back, and his hands were soaked.

Then, in one of his steps backwards, Lucas's foot caught on a small rock hidden in the sand, and he fell onto the flat of his back. He hit the sand with a thud that took the breath out of his lungs. The slavers rushed forward and thrusted at him. Lucas tucked his sword flat against himself and rolled as fast as he could. Twice he heard the sound of steel sticking into sand.

Lucas scrambled onto his feet. As he arose, he held the grip of his sword in only one hand. The two slavers fast approached. When they drew near, Lucas threw into Khrazar's eyes the fistful of sand he'd grabbed when he was on his back. Khrazar clutched at his face and staggered away, grunting in pain. He fumbled for the waterskin at his belt. Mazdiq looked at Khrazar. When he looked to Lucas again, he found Lucas charging him.

Lucas unleashed an assault upon him, flush with feints and furious thrusts and cuts. Now it was the slaver who backpedaled. When Lucas brought a slashing, diagonal cut, Mazdiq swiftly met his sword. Their sharp blades crossed and stuck as edge caught against edge. Lucas let his arms fold as he went forward, bringing his body to Mazdiq's. Mazdiq spat at Lucas's face when he came close. The saliva hit his cheek. A waste of an attack. Lucas had a better one.

Lucas released his left hand from his locked sword and wrapped the freed arm around Mazdiq's hands, trapping them. For as long as the slaver held his sword, he was ensnared. Lucas spun away and twisted Mazdiq's sword till the slaver's wrists could not bear to bend any further. Mazdiq dropped his sword onto the sand, and the moment Lucas felt the weapon fall free, he spun around to face Mazdiq and slashed the slaver below the navel.

The blade cut deep, slicing Mazdiq's shirt and splitting open his belly. His innards spilled out from the gaping wound. Mazdiq clutched at them with both hands as if to keep them inside, but he could not. He collapsed, falling first to his knees, and then to the flat of his back. Lucas wiped the spit from his cheek.

When Lucas heard boots stamping in the sand, he spun around and parried the coming blow from Khrazar. It wasn't a clean parry. The sharp edge of Khrazar's blade found the smooth broad of Lucas's, and steel then hissed as the slaver's sword slid downwards. When Khrazar's blade arrived at Lucas's crossguard, the slaver tilted his sword forward and drew the blade across the back of Lucas's right hand. Pain shot through Lucas as Khrazar's steel opened his flesh.

Lucas stepped away and glanced at his hand. Blood rushed from the wound and seeped down to his wrist. Lucas opened and closed his injured hand on his sword, testing it. He could still feel it, could still grip with it. He could still fight.

Lucas's eyes flicked up at the slaver. Khrazar wore a wicked grin, pleased with his work. He played with his curved sword, effortlessly spinning it about. Then, at the end of one of his sword's spins, he abruptly charged.

Lucas didn't let his wound slow him. He fought with the same speed and ferocity he had before. He met the slaver's sword with his own each time the slaver struck at him. Steel sang over the sound of the Summer Sea's waves as Lucas and Khrazar danced across the beach.

Then, for the first such time in the battle, Lucas feinted a lunge but then took an extra step and twisted his strike into a horizontal slice. Khrazar had sidestepped the lunge and the lunge only. The farthest few inches of the tip of Lucas's sword cut across the side of Khrazar's torso, rending cloth and flesh. Blood welled from the wound. It wasn't deep enough to disable him, but it was deep enough for him to feel it.

Khrazar winced as he clutched at his wound. His grin was gone. "You should've taken the coin, Westerosi," he hissed at Lucas between gritted teeth. "I'm going to make that girl suffer after I've shackled her. She'll remember me for the rest of her life. I'll bleed her for every drop of mine you've spilled." He took his hand from his wound and showed it to Lucas. His palm was slick with a sheen of red. "Blood for blood," he said.

Lucas slowly shook his head. "She won't even know your name when you're dead. You're nothing. You'll die as nothing."

Khrazar's face twisted into something awful, a hideous and horrific scowl that only a crazed fiend from a nightmare could create. He let out a manic shout and charged.

When Khrazar came upon Lucas, he attacked with a frenzied speed he hadn't yet shown. Khrazar's curved sword flicked out at Lucas like the tongue of a snake, with slices and thrusts that a blink would've missed, coming high, low, from the left, from the right. When Khrazar slowed and winded up a mighty strike from Lucas's right, Lucas readied himself for it, but when the slaver's arm uncoiled, his sword dipped down and sprang at him from below.

Lucas shifted his sword to parry it, but for the first time, his hands weren't fast enough. The middle of Khrazar's blade caught hard under Lucas's crossguard. Lucas's hands, slick with sweat, could not keep hold of his sword, and the force of the strike tore his sword from his grip and flung it far away.

Lucas began to backpedal, but he was already leaning from the force of the disarm, and he tripped and fell flat on his bottom. Khrazar came down on him in an instant, shouting from that hideous scowl, bringing his blade.

But Khrazar's shout was drowned out by a roar, and a blur of red and gold tackled him to the sand. Lucas whipped his head to the left. A few yards away, Khrazar was on his back. Rhaegon stood atop him, his ruby scales shining under the setting sun, his golden wings spread far and wide. One of Rhaegon's muscular claws pinned Khrazar's chest. A low growl rumbled from the dragon's throat as he looked over the slaver. A rope of saliva drooled from between his tall, sharp teeth.

Khrazar's eyes were wide. There was true terror in them.

Lucas gave the command. "Dracarys." It was High Valyrian for: 'Dragonfire.'

Rhaegon opened his maw. A red light glowed at the back of his throat, like the first flicker of a furnace. Then came the flames.

Khrazar screamed as a stream of blood-red dragonfire rushed from Rhaegon's maw and poured over his face. His curly hair burned away, incinerated to ash. His olive flesh scorched into a charred black. His eyes boiled till they burst.

The charred flesh smelled same as any rack of meat roasting over an open flame. But the burnt hair smelled rotten.

When Khrazar fell silent, Rhaegon darted his maw down, sank his teeth into the slaver's head, and then twisted and pulled. With a series of sickening pops, Rhaegon beheaded him. No blood flowed from the blackened stump of his neck. The veins and arteries were cauterized, burnt shut. Rhaegon cocked back and opened his maw, letting the scorched, severed head fall down his throat, swallowing it whole.

In the distance, at the homestead, Dreamwing and Skyshark descended from the sky, breathing gouts of their colorful dragonfire, spewing streams of white and blue. The screams of slavers rang out across the land.

Lucas's heart was racing, and his stomach felt like a knot of twisted flesh, but somehow, he kept some amount of presence of mind. When Rhaegon looked his way, Lucas pointed to the homestead. "Sēnagon tolvys!" he shouted. It was High Valyrian for: 'Kill them all.'

Rhaegon promptly launched and took to the sky. The dragon flew to the homestead and descended there. He disappeared behind the stable as he joined his siblings in the slaughter.

As Lucas's nerves settled, he felt a blazing anger arise in its place, burning hot in his chest. He was trembling with rage. He pushed himself to his feet, grabbed his sword from the sand nearby, and stormed over to the man that dared to try to take his life and enslave his wife. He stabbed the corpse again and again, grunting with each thrust.

When his crazed anger abated, Lucas kneeled and cleaned his blade of blood with the slaver's shirt. "Headless cunt," Lucas muttered. "Died too quick. Deserved worse." He stood to his feet again. When he remembered the others, he turned and hurried off.

The slavers' screams had been hushed to a deathly quiet by the time Lucas came to stand in the middle of the homestead, between the stable and the house. The dragons picked at a few charred corpses, tearing away the occasional limb to devour. Ser Barristan and Colton stood at each other's side looking over the carnage. Their chests heaved with breath. Their swords were sheathed. Colton's clothes were darkened with sweat, and his long hair was slicked against his neck. Ser Barristan looked only slightly less ragged. His armor had earned some scratches and dents. Lucas was thankful that they both seemed unharmed.

When Ser Barristan saw Lucas, he hurried over to him. "Are you injured, Your Grace?" he asked.

Lucas sheathed his sword in his scabbard and showed Ser Barristan the cut on his hand, his only wound. "I'll have Clare clean and dress it," he said. Then he lowered his hand and met the old knight's eyes. "I'd be dead right now if you hadn't been training me," he said.

Ser Barristan smiled at him. "Then it's good that you were wise enough to ask it of me."

Lucas shook his head, suddenly stricken with gloom. "He beat me," he admitted quietly, almost in a whisper. "Their leader. He was going to kill me when Rhaegon saved me."

Ser Barristan put a comforting hand on his shoulder. "Eight months of sparring isn't much, Your Grace. We'll keep at it. We'll have you sharper yet."

"Gods that was great!" Colton whooped, laughing heartily. "The smug savages were so bloody confident. I warned them it wouldn't be pretty, didn't I?" When Colton turned around, Lucas saw a split in the back of his shirt that bared a tall, bright-red cut. The blood that had oozed from the cut was smeared with a sheen of sweat.

"You're wounded," Lucas said. The cut looked like it should've been abominably painful.

Colton turned to face Lucas again. "Am I? I can't even feel it. I imagine I will next morning though."

Lucas let out a weak laugh. "I imagine we'll all be feeling a lot next morning." He looked over the corpses strewn about. "Gather them in a pile," he commanded. "I've a plan for disposing of them."

Ser Barristan and Colton obeyed and joined Lucas in piling the corpses and spilled viscera into a large heap, including those that had been cut down away from the homestead. It was a grisly sight. Lucas's stomach turned as he looked upon it.

"Rhaegon, Dreamwing, Skyshark," Lucas called out for them. They approached and faced the pile of corpses. Dark blood dripped from their maws. "Dracarys," Lucas said.

Shimmering streams of dragonfire poured over the pile of corpses. It was a dazzlingly colorful inferno, shot with red, orange, yellow, white, and blue. The combined blaze was hotter than all the seven hells. Lucas could feel the heat of it upon his face, even standing from afar like he was.

When the dragonfire finally ceased and the last flame flickered away, all that remained was a pile of black ash. Then, without a command, Rhaegon stretched his wings and beat them in one great flap. The resulting gust blasted the ashes and sent them sailing far into the wind.

Lucas strode to the slavers' cart. The two horses attached to it had whinnied wildly when the dragons breathed their fire, but they had since calmed. Lucas was not sure what should be done with them. At the side of the cart, near the front, was a pull-down door with a latch. It was fastened shut with a steel deadbolt. Lucas pulled the deadbolt aside, grabbed the latch, and yanked it down. The door came free vertically and thudded into the grass. There were descending rungs on the back of it, and it formed a sort of staircase when opened. Lucas climbed the steps and entered the cart.

Inside were no fewer than a dozen terrified women in chains, shackled at their wrists and feet. Their chains connected them all. When they saw Lucas, they chattered fearfully in a tongue he didn't understand. It wasn't Bastard Valyrian, nor the Common Tongue of the Seven Kingdoms. It was perhaps Dothraki. They indeed looked like women of those horse people, with their copper skin, almond eyes, and black, very long hair. A few looked to be around thirty, but the majority were much younger. The youngest looked to be twelve. They all wore tattered rags. They stunk of body odor and of things even fouler, of urine and feces.

How long have they all been chained in here? Lucas wondered. He wouldn't let himself imagine Daenerys in those chains, stewing in her own filth. He would slaughter thousands more slavers if it would mean that fate never befell her.

"I'm not here to hurt you," Lucas assured them in Bastard Valyrian. He spoke both gently and loudly, ensuring his voice could be heard over theirs. "I'm here to free you. Come on out." He gestured towards himself with his hands. They quieted somewhat when he spoke. Likely understanding his hands better than his words, they slowly arose and cautiously stepped towards him, following him out of the cart. Their chains rattled noisily as they walked.

Lucas went and stood in front of the dragons. As the women and girls stepped out of the cart, one by one they saw the dragons, and one by one they fell to their hands and knees. They bowed their heads and began babbling again in their tongue. Eventually, they were all bowed in a line in front of Lucas.

"What are they saying?" Colton asked as he came to Lucas's side.

"I don't know," Lucas said, glancing his way. "I don't speak their tongue. I think it's Dothraki." Lucas looked to the women and girls again. "Do you any of you speak Bastard Valyrian, or the Common Tongue?" he asked as he alternated languages at the end.

One of the bowed heads finally looked up from the earth. "I speak Bastard Valyrian," the woman said. She was the eldest among them. She looked to be in her mid-thirties. She was a plain, homely woman. Her hair was rough and wiry, and her eyes were small and sunken. When she spoke, the others soon hushed themselves.

"What is your name?" Lucas asked her.

"Charri," she answered.

"Charri, stand to your feet." She did as Lucas asked, watching the dragons with nervous eyes. On her feet, Lucas saw that she was a short woman, noticeably overweight, with a soft, sagging swell in her belly that did not seem to be carrying a child. "Tell the others that the dragons will not harm them," Lucas said. "They're the reason you've all been freed."

Charri turned to those around her and spoke to them in their tongue. Then, slowly, the others joined her and stood to their feet. Many of them continued to gaze upon the dragons, awed by the sight of them.

"Where are the harpy men?" Charri asked as she glanced at the various splatterings of darkened blood on the grass.

"Ash on the wind," Lucas said.

Charri looked to the north, where the Summer Sea's breezes were blowing. Then she looked to the dragons. When her eyes finally returned to Lucas, she nodded.

"I'll have your chains struck from you. It might take some time, but when that's finished, you'll all be free to leave," Lucas explained. "I suggest you take the cart and horses with you. We've no need for them. We might have some fish to send you on your way with as well."

"You have our eternal thanks, dragonlord," Charri said. "If there is anything we could gift you in return for this, you shall have it."

"No repayment is needed. All I ask is that you tell no one of this place. We want no more company here. Will you swear that to me?"

"I swear it on the sun, the moon, and all my ancestors in the night lands," Charri said. She spoke again to the others in her tongue. They all looked to Lucas and nodded.