The knaves are making no attempt to hide their approach, so they must be pretty confident. I hope Waver can still turn the tables if I get caught up with the drake...
Waver was looking up at the sky as they walked, so Valor glanced up, too. It was a moonless night, so the magnificent array of stars were all the more glorious. Waver had always liked looking at stars. Stars were definitely Waver’s main subject of interest, aside from dragons, which couldn’t be called a “subject of interest” because they were people. Valor thought that in a world that didn’t need Waver’s unique talent for illusion so badly, he could have catalogued and studied the stars. They weren’t exactly sorry that they had influenced his life so much, but they thought it would be beautiful to see what he could have accomplished in that other world.
When they were far enough away from town that no one would mind a little bit of blood in the road, Waver signaled to them and they turned around together to face their accosters.
One man and two women grinned back at them, their faces lit by lanterns they were carrying. The fourth figure, the one on top of the drake, was difficult to make out in the darkness, but Valor had no doubt they were grinning too. One of the women stepped forward, two empty hands raised in the air.
“Hail and well met,” she said. “Was there some reason you didn’t want to talk closer to town? Trying to hide something from the rabble?”
“Oh, please,” Waver said. “I was hoping you would thank me.”
This was naturally the biggest advantage Valor Grotto had in a fight. Other humans could only coordinate with dragons by giving orders, but Waver and Valor could talk to them, and the humans wouldn’t even know. This may change if the world slid to the other end of the scale it teetered on, and humans understood that dragons had a language, but that hadn’t happened yet.
“Very observant,” said the mercenary. “Will you come quietly?”
Wow, you’re making this really easy, Valor thought.
“Sorry, but no. I don’t want to die. I don’t suppose you’ll tell us who sent you after us?”
The man piped up in response to Waver’s question.
“You won’t need to know that, where you’re going.”
With that, the iron drake charged at Valor, forcing them to dodge and separating them from Waver. The other three dropped their lanterns and moved to surround him, and Valor bared their teeth in frustration. But they couldn’t help him yet. The iron drake’s rider tugged on his reins, and he expertly halted his charge and pivoted to face Valor again. Valor braced for another charge, and then hauled their tail around. It was extremely difficult to lie in dragon tongue, even more so when speaking directly, so Valor had full confidence the other drake wasn’t lying.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Like an expert performer, the drake ran directly into the tail’s path. It smacked him right near his ear cavity, and he slid across the ground with way more force than Valor used. The human rider cried out in surprise and went flying into the air.
Thud.
Upon landing, the human still weakly twitched and gasped for air. Probably just winded, Valor thought. They trudged over to the human’s shadowy form and brought a claw deliberately down, crushing the human’s head and shattering their skull.
They obliged.
As they looked over at Waver, he seemed to be struggling. One of the mercenaries had pulled out a flail with a mace head attached to the end of the chain, a second had unsheathed an arming sword and had a buckler attacked to her other arm, and the third merely donned brass knuckles. All were weapons Waver had trained to counter with his guardless dagger and his main gauche, but he still struggled with ambush self defense.
Most human tradesmen would be expected to simply die in a three-on-one battle with trained mercenaries, of course, but Waver’s mother was a bonafide hero, and preventing him from being assassinated without a fight was perhaps the only means of showing affection she had any confidence in.
So, Waver ducked and weaved, his night-blue hair flying everywhere even tied up as it was, but the attrition was showing. He had several bleeding wounds from near misses with the arming sword, and bruises on his legs and arms from mistimed parries with the main gauche. He’d managed to avoid broken bones so far, but Valor could see that he was losing strength in his left arm. They jumped in without any further hesitation.
Valor’s claws slashed through the flail-wielder’s jerkin and chest. The woman immediately staggered back and took a knee as the flesh around the cuts began to blacken, but Valor took no notice. They were already goring the man with the brass knuckles on one of their horns. They tossed him aside, only to notice the arming sword heading directly for Waver’s throat.
And a wentis’s presence where Waver had been blew the swordswoman back.
Her instincts had caught her before she attacked the massive dragon, and she leapt back in fear and shock as she waited for the beast to roar.
The roar never came. In fact, the dragon had never appeared in the first place.
Waver’s boot flew out of the confusion, and he kicked the woman to the ground. He flew after her, caught her sword in the guard of the main gauche, and stabbed her directly in the neck with his other knife.
For the first time, Waver Cove killed a human being.
Valor bent down and licked Waver’s wounds, wincing at the flavor of their friend’s blood, and then lent him their neck to hold onto. He gratefully accepted, breathing heavily, wincing with pain himself.
The drake genuinely looked regretful, but his feelings seemed to be mixed as he looked over the corpses of his former master and their companions. Valor noticed, and was quick to reassure him.
Valor said nothing in response.
Valor once again stayed silent, so Waver spoke first.
Valor stared at the necrotic corpse of the mercenary they had slashed with their claws. They tried not to gag.