11. Cornered
Astra looks a dragon in the eye...
The Lost City continues the journey of Astra, respected Head Librarian of the Tiered Library in the renown monastery Qordashi deep in the Balashilar mountains, after an attack on her home destroyed everything she knew and took the lives of people she loved. Her childhood companion, Traz, has returned after 25 years for mysterious reasons, and along with the Am’Ayat warrior Xavai they are on the run from the attackers: snow dragons and the dreaded tribe of Yosoi warriors.
Previously: Astra finds herself running out of one danger into another...
Astra pressed herself up against the tree she had crashed into, her instinct to run as far away from the beast as possible taking over the rational side of her brain. The dragon looked down at her, calm and unruffled, its massive wings spread out from its shoulders and blocking the view behind it, the bright white of its hide reflecting sunlight so strongly she had to squint.
As her brain churned back to full awareness, she looked around. Traz was crawling to his hands and knees near her, shaking his head like a dog. Then with a shout he was bowled over by Xavai who came from nowhere, startling even the dragon enough that it hopped in place. Astra barely had time to brace herself again when the men rolled up against her.
“Aaaaa! What! Why?” She yelled and pushed at them, ignoring the twinges in one elbow that suggested it had not made the trip down the shallow ravine uninjured.
Xavai slapped at her hands. “The Grail!” He said, continuing to shove a cantankerous Traz between them.
“Get off me!” Traz bellowed, but Astra grabbed his arm before he could swing on Xavai.
“The Grail! Traz! If the dragon grabs you, then you’re dead!”
That stopped Traz, who shuffled a bit to press up against her. “Oh. Right.” He looked down at the Grail, still miraculously strapped across his chest. “Maybe we can just give it to them? Because I’m not going to die for this damn thing, it’s cursed me enough as it is.”
The three of them gingerly stood up as a unit, Astra and Xavai acting as a very insignificant wall between Traz and the dragons. Astra looked up to see exactly what they were dealing with. Just outside of the edge of where she could see around the wings, a massive tree was upended, and another snow dragon was perched on it. They had to have yanked the canopy apart by ripping up the trees, even as Astra and the others were running right under them…belatedly, she thought that it had probably been a trap, the dragons who had chased them merely steering them to where an easy catch was set up. She berated herself for forgetting that dragons, for all their strangeness, were not dumb.
Finally, slowly, she looked back at the snow dragon in front of them. She had never been so close to one before and had never wanted to be. Her mind, though, was fascinated by the way its hide was delicately veined with a bright, ice-blue color and had a shimmery, silvery look to it. Unlike the fire dragon, it did not have a hard, pronounced horned shell on its head but three sharp horns in a row from the top of its head to its nose. The base of the horns was the same dark blue of the dragon’s eyes but faded to bright white at the tips. It was as magnificent as it was terrifying and was so big it could have entirely filled Astra’s library at the monastery.
Astra was still in too much pain and too rattled from her spill down the ravine to do anything but stand absolutely still and stare at it. It stared back, tilting its head to and fro.
“I’m unbuckling the lashing, Astra,” Traz warned behind her. Xavai looked back at him quickly and frowned.
“We have to give them the Grail, Xavai, it’s the only way we might live,” Astra said, pleading with him to understand.
“If we give them the Grail, they will kill us with one frozen breath.” He glowered at her for a quick moment, but then turned and faced the dragon again, one hand on the hilt of his sword but not unsheathing the weapon.
“Xavai thinks if we give them the Grail they will freeze us,” she said softly.
“He’s got a point,” Traz answered, just as softly, pushing his way between Astra and Xavai with the Grail in his hands. “Tell him to get ready to run,” he added as he stepped clear of them.
“He said get ready to — Traz!” Astra screamed as the dragon moved and snatched Traz with one of its claws, moving so fast that Astra had not realized what happened until Traz was yelling. As he flew up in the dragon’s clutches he threw the Grail out and it arced through the air. The dragon realized what was happening and it’s other claw shot out to grab it but met Xavai’s sword, which he had thrown at it like an unbalanced javelin. The sword managed to land a slight cut on its arm before falling uselessly away, just enough of a distraction to prevent it from grabbing the grail. Instead, it snapped its claw as if flicking at an ant, sending Xavai sailing into the trunk of a tree with a hard, vicious sounding thunk, like meat on a cutting board. He tumbled down, unconscious.
Astra only saw all of this peripherally. She raised her arms and caught the grail with a grunt, the impact sending her down flat on her ass. She clutched it to her chest, thinking that the next moment would see her messy death when the dragon just stepped on her to keep her still, but she felt a surge of energy burst through her, as if a rock had been thrown into water and her magic was disturbed by the waves. The snow dragon cried out in a peculiar grinding sound and stepped backwards, its massive weight causing the ground to shudder.
Astra’s mind clattered like sticks in a bronze bowl as she realized what was happening. The grail was pressed against the shawl she had been wearing from the lost city. She sat up and tore it off her shoulders to wrap the shawl around it then nearly collapsed again at the onslaught of magical feedback as the items locked together, the ancient and powerful traces of soul dust on the dragon’s talon weaving into the shawl’s spell, powering it, bringing it back to life. It was a brilliant blue again, the silver of the delicate embroidery shining as bright as stars.
The dragon reared back with a roar and that was when Astra realized that it had worked: she and the Grail had become invisible to all of them.
:WHAT ARE YOU:
The voice echoed through her head, a sound so low it could be felt in her bones. She looked around it was still only them in the little opening, no other creature had arrived, but she suspected she knew whom the voice belonged to. She scrambled to her feet, careful to hold the bundle close to her chest. The dragon cawed again.
:WHERE DID YOU GO:
Astra blinked furiously, walking backwards to take refuge behind a tree.
The dragon’s head was circling through the air on its long neck as it peered around, looking for Astra, calling out.
:GIVE THE GRAIL TO US — I WILL NOT SHAKE HIM:
Along with the words, Astra’s mind filled with the terrifying image of the dragon shaking Traz once, hard, and breaking his neck.
“Release him and I will let go of the Grail!” Astra shouted, unsure of whether they could hear her, much less understand her. She did not want to let go of the bundle in her hands for any reason, even if just to be heard, but she climbed over a large root and hid down under it in the soggy, moldy earth. It would give her a bit of coverage if she needed to detach herself from the protection spell.
“Don’t give it the Grail! It will kill me!” Traz’s voice was a shriek of fear and anger. “It will kill all of us!”
:GIVE THE GRAIL TO US:
“Let him go!” Astra tried again, more confidant that she could be heard.
The long moment of silence that followed was broken by an ear-piercing scream.
Astra shot up and looked over the root to see her brother twitching in the dragon’s claw, his eyes wide and frantic. Blood was pouring down from where the very tip of one talon had pierced his upper arm, where it joined at his shoulder, dripping as it fell over his fingers to fall on the ground below. Astra saw that another talon’s tip was right over his hip — with a simple squeeze, the dragon could disable Traz permanently.
“No!” She screamed, the sound reverberating through her head. “Let him go! If you don’t, I will run into the forest and you will never find the Grail!”
The dragon tilted its head, then looked up. It looked back down at her, but its talons shifted just enough not to threaten to pierce Traz any further. It peered at Traz, who was clearly in shock, his body shaking from the pain.
Running up the other side of the ravine to where Xavai had fallen, she grabbed his limp hand, hoping that was enough to make him invisible with her.
With its free claw, it dragged a talon through the muck of the forest floor, as if drawing something while it called out.
:IMPASSE — WITHDRAW — RECONVENE:
Then it was gone, launching up into the air with a giant gust of wind from its flapping wings, Traz still clutched tightly in its grasp.
NEXT: Empty Spaces
Thank you for reading! 🎊 I’d love your comments and feedback! ☕
Find KimBoo: Notes • Bluesky • Tumblr • Facebook • House of York