Defiant Necromancer (Book 2 stubbing July 3)

The first few days riding on dragon back were exhilarating.

Aoife’s stamina was far beyond that of a normal human - easily rivaling Chad’s as the Hero - so she didn’t have to stop at nightfall. While Chad slept, his mount just kept going as if she hadn’t noticed the passage of time.

The same thing happened the next night and the night after.

It was remarkable. The Dread Swamp fully disappeared into the distance, and they made it to the middle of the mountains that marked the beginning of the Dwarven Lands, though Chad couldn’t tell which Kingdom they were flying over.

The trip was the fastest travel the Hero had ever experienced, and riding Aoife didn’t make him nauseous like traveling aboard a ship would.

It wasn’t until the fourth night that the dragon actually stopped to rest. Chad was frankly relieved. He was unexpectedly saddlesore, and on the third night, he had almost fallen from her back. At that height, he imagined it could be fatal, even for him.

But Aoife had caught him - plucked him out of the air with a little chuckle - and replaced him where he’d been previously.

The Hero hadn’t slept quite as well after that, though.

When they landed, Aoife dropped Chad off, quickly hunted down a few sheep, and generally threw one to Chad to eat.

She instant-roasted two for herself and ate them in a few bites before making herself comfortable. She had a way of slowly walking around the spot where she was about to sleep, like a cat, before she settled down in one place to rest.

Chad awkwardly looked around, then quickly assembled himself a rough makeshift bed from reeds and twigs.

I think I kind of miss Astrid, he thought. She could make camping in any place a pretty comfortable experience with her nature magic. Soft leaves and vines to sleep on. For that matter, Cecilia would have probably insisted on us finding an inn to land beside instead of just letting Aoife set down at some random flat place in the middle of a mountain range. Elara would have suggested we all adapt to this cool mountain air by sleeping close together as a group… and Mischa would have altered the environment to make it warmer. I guess I got a little more attached to my party than I realized… or intended. Shit, I think I even miss Samara.

Even if she had a holier-than-thou attitude, she was always trying to make him better. Giving him educational materials to read, trying to help him connect with the gods who had granted him his powers from birth, and fighting beside him where necessary.

Well, there was no use crying over spilled milk.

Better to focus on the woman who was actually there with him.

“So, are you going to stay in your dragon form all night?” Chad asked, wiping some sheep grease from his mouth with the sleeve of his shirt.

“The form I was born with is more natural to me,” Aoife replied. “I only shifted into human form for the comfort of your companions, who sometimes looked at me as if they thought I might turn and try to devour them at any moment. Of course, you know that you could hold your own if I were to try and do that.”

“Um, right,” the Hero said. “Just… I’m kind of cold. Maybe we could keep each other warm—”

The dragon opened her mouth and breathed out a little burst of flame, lighting a patch of the landscape on fire in a circle all around them.

“There,” she said, nodding to herself. “That should keep you warm. Magical flames that will burn through the night. They will never draw any closer to you, and they will not go out unless they burn all available fuel.”

“Thank you,” Chad replied, his smile frozen on his face.

“Not a problem. I know humans are… more fragile than dragons.”

“I was relieved that you caught me when I was about to fall from your back,” the Hero admitted. “I’m not sure that fall would have killed me, but it certainly wouldn’t have felt good.”

“Oh, you should not underrate yourself,” Aoife replied. “You exchanged blows with a dragon and lived. Even bested me, albeit with my obvious disadvantages.”

“Speaking of our last clash, um… Well, you had your birthday. You came of age, right? From the dragon perspective. I know that means you’re quite a bit older than me in human terms. Have you thought about choosing a mate?”

She scoffed. “Oh, I see. Your question about my… sleeping plans was not an idle matter of personal comfort. Merely a clumsy way of asking whether I was interested in mating.”

“I wouldn’t have put it that way, but yeah, you might say that. We’re on our own now. There’s no one else around.”

“Chad, I traveled with you and your companions for only a matter of weeks, but I understand that you are willing to mate with anyone who is willing to hold still for long enough, even outside your own race.”

“Ouch.”

It might be true, but is that a bad thing? The non-pickiness relating to race, at least?

“I myself share your view. Strong offspring can come from any racial background.”

Oh?

“But I have told you that the traditional dragon process involves the female assessing the male’s worthiness,” Aoife continued. “If she does not think the male is worthy, it may become a fight. And I have decided that only a male who can defeat me in single combat qualifies as a worthy mate.”

“Well…”

I defeated you in single combat.

“You won a fight with me,” she said, agreeing with his silent thought process. “When I was already injured from fighting another dragon. I had also shifted into my human form, substantially weakening myself, in order to fight you on narrow mountain terrain. You could have killed me, so I determined that I owed you a great debt. I agreed to accompany you until we found an appropriate time for a rematch. If you and I traded blows now, though… do you think you would win? Against me in my true form?”

“Um… Hm.”

It felt like a fair question.

I didn’t really beat her when we fought at ground level. That was why I pursued her into the mountains in the first place, and she knows that. I haven’t gotten much stronger since then, since we mostly fought undead fodder enemies in the swamp. But neither has she, right? Which would leave us… roughly where we were before?

“That’s what I thought,” Aoife said, seemingly taking his non-answer for an acknowledgment of weakness. “I’m not mating with a weakling. I have waited all my life to make a choice about this. You have now evaded the challenge despite this being an ideal opportunity… but I am not impatient. I will continue to travel with you at least until we defeat this necromancer and I return you to your friends. You have time. You should wait to challenge me until you feel confident you will win.”

“Is fighting the only thing you care about?” Chad asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Almost entirely. Fighting, claiming territory, conquering, and being conquered. These are the concerns of a dragon. Each dragon forms their own values, of course, but some of it is in our blood, no matter what some of the old timers will tell you. Fighting for a just cause is just an excuse that the overly self-conscious make for fighting. Because the wholesome cleansing of battle is a good in itself. My ancestors made no such excuses. They were the sorts of dragons your ancestors would have feared. Living engines of destruction. That was why they left my egg where it hatched. They were busy. Inflicting fear and dominating others. I was born with that knowledge. Your great-grandparents would have shaken in their boots just talking about them!” She sounded proud.

“You’re pretty cocky,” the Hero observed. “You haven’t exactly beaten me either.”

“True, but you are not rushing to accept my challenge, are you?”

Chad rose to his feet and found himself just a little unsteady.

Shit, I’ve been on dragonback all this time, it’s like riding horseback for days, only worse. His muscles were stiff and stuck in an almost bow legged position.

“Is this you getting up to fight?” Aoife asked eagerly.

“Uh, no,” the Hero replied. “I’m just going to go take a piss.”

And maybe massage my legs a bit, he did not add aloud.

“A pity,” Aoife said. She flashed her fangs and seemed to wink at him - it was hard to be sure, since only one side of her head was turned his way. “I was in the mood for a meal with a little more fight in it than a sheep.”

The stream of urine that Chad produced as he relieved himself was just slightly wobbly. He told himself that it was the unsteadiness of his saddle-stiff legs, or perhaps he was shivering from the cold. His hands were certainly not shaking from fear.

***

The next few days flying on dragonback were less exhilarating, partly because Aoife and Chad hit turbulence flying over the mountains, and it reduced her flying speed to a crawl compared with what it had been. Still quicker than walking, by far, but perhaps not so much faster than being aboard a ship.

Then a storm came, and Chad had to ask the dragon to land for a couple of days until it passed.

Finally, they drew closer to the coast, and Chad thought he could see Lerma from a distance, or perhaps Dinios. Half of his party members had come from cities on the Gold Coasts, so he felt a bit of annoyance at not having them with him. They could have assured the group a lavish welcome at any one of these cities, since they were more or less royalty - in at least one case, actual royalty - in this region.

“We will have to take the long way around the Gulf,” Aoife said.

“What?” Chad asked. “That will add days to our trip.”

“Perhaps weeks,” she replied. “But I… cannot fly nonstop across such a wide body of water. That is a trivial matter for older dragons, but I admit, I have not yet grown into my full power. In a century, it will be different, but you will be dead then. The winds would make it slower than flying over land the same distance, anyway. You are not losing as much time by the slight deviation as you think you are.”

“All right,” the Hero said. “You are the expert.”

You are my only means of flight, so I must accept your choices in this area.

They spent the next week flying slowly around the coast, almost straight south, technically in nearly the opposite direction from that in which they wished to travel. The next week, they flew over the Gulf of Gold at its shortest point, from just below Caprisi to past Nezia, and began working their way along the southern coast of the Gulf.

Chad learned more about Aoife in those weeks than he had before, not because he asked her questions, but because, on such a relatively uneventful route, the dragon grew bored and started talking of her own accord.

Despite her pride at her ancestors’ and parents’ likely record as destroyers, he learned that she resented being left to hatch alone and fend for herself. He learned that she wasn’t just interested in conquest and destruction but also in being appreciated by those she would rule over. He learned that many other dragons looked down on any desire to interact with humans at all, and that she was taking some risk in the draconic community by seeking to establish her own territory within the human realms. She spoke of other lands, far beyond the coasts that they had explored - it sounded like other full continents that humanity had yet to discover - where only dragons roamed. The competition for territory there seemed to be fierce, though.

And he learned more about what she thought of him, which wasn’t always a pleasant experience.

“Frankly, you are fortunate that strength is paramount in my mind,” Aoife said when the subject had turned to mating. “If I prioritized something else, like aesthetics, shared values, or my interest in you as a fellow life form with a unique path, you would not even be the first in your party to catch my interest.”

That was annoying. Chad didn’t bother to ask if she meant Black Hailgrim or one of the girls. Instead, he chose that moment to change the subject.

“Say, what do you think that is down there?”

He pointed at where some green-skinned figures were moving. It looked like a raid on a village, somewhere around the border region between Niet, Walia, and the Discontented Lands.

“I cannot tell for certain from up here, but it looks like none of our business,” Aoife replied. “Were you not hastening to the necromancer of the northwest, so you could quickly grow capable of defeating the necromancer of the far east?”

“Yes…”

“Then we ought to continue so that we can return to your friends. If you would prefer to waste time in meaningless fighting, I am certainly happy to go and devour some ogres.”

“No, no, you have a point.”

Some instinct told Chad that he was missing something important, far below, but the dragon was objectively right.

The necromancers were the priority.