Avarax wiggled the stubby toes of this new experimental form, marveling at the sensation of mud squishing between them. How humans walked without collapsing in ecstasy was just one of the many questions he planned to answer today, along with an age-old conundrum: which tasted better, orc flesh or human skin?
The dragonstone in his chest pulsated wildly as he looked up and scanned the fields. People hunched over, hands working in the swampy flats, pulling up weeds from neat rows of greenery. One of their voices had drawn him here from his lair thousands of miles away, yet now the sight of so many made his stomach rumble. A veritable buffet, and one he could finally enjoy now that they weren’t so tiny that they’d barely register on his taste buds. He strode to join them, feet sinking into soft loam with each step.
The cool breeze tickled his scaleless skin, sending it erupting in dozens of little bumps. A shiver ran up his spine. The sensation was more satisfying than the taste of humans… albeit, it had been several millennia since he’d actually eaten one.
His eyes roved over them, looking for one as plump as the so-called princesses they used to offer him as tribute. Not a single one looked like more than a skin bag of bones. All thin and lanky, with dry, lean muscle.
His nose wrinkled. Whether it was the fertile soil or the people themselves, the stench smothered his appetite. His gullet twisted, threatening to rebel like the peasants he’d kept when he was a much younger dragon.
Heads jerked up, no doubt easily, considering the small size of their brains. Eyes widened at his approach. Several pointed at him and whispered among themselves, while others averted their eyes. No doubt, even in this puny form, he still projected majesty.
One with a wrinkled face cleared its throat and pointed. “Put on some clothes!”
Clothes? Avarax looked them over. Of course, unlike him, they had wrappers. He’d seen many different kinds over the ages, from soft satin to steel rings. With soft flesh instead of scales, they apparently felt the need to cover themselves. These here wore roughspun sacks, which might leave fibers between his teeth.
“I said, put on your clothes!” It tilted its head at an impressive angle for a creature with so few neck bones. “Who are you, anyway?”
Avarax squinted at the bushy white caterpillars above its eyes, which jiggled and slanted upwards. It was a new experience to see a human up close from this angle, even if his new vision wasn’t as sharp. He reached over and ran a finger over the bug. It prickled his fingers.
The human’s hand shot up, covering the insect. “What, you’ve never seen eyebrows?”
Avarax raked his gaze over all the people gawking at them. They all had these so-called eyebrows, one above each eye. He brushed a hand over his own forehead. Apparently, he had them as well.
“The poor thing.” A trilling voice called from behind the onlookers.
It was a beautiful voice, and his dragonstone vibrated with it. The voice was what had originally drawn him to this place. Avarax craned his pitifully short neck to see who had spoken.
An even thinner human pushed through the crowds, a bucket of water sloshing in the crook of its arm. Like the princesses from his youth, this one had mounds on its chest, albeit much smaller.
Avarax patted his own chest. Finding only tiny, dark circular bumps, he looked at the newcomer.
Its face was also rounder and smoother than the others gathered around, and surprisingly not as filthy. “This man must have travelled from down south. Look how dark he is. And his eyes are so round.”
The others murmured and nodded.
Avarax studied his arms, then looked at the others. Indeed, his skin tone was the same hue as the bronze weapons humans had used before they’d learned how to work iron, whereas these people were more like the faded gold coins near the bottom of his treasure pile. Of course, he’d modeled this form off the people who lived not far from his lair…who, in retrospect, had a darker complexion than these, and were certainly much darker than the sickly pale ones who’d once worshipped him as a god and offered him fat princesses.
The wrinkly-faced human took off a layer of its clothes. With an outstretched arm and an upturned snout, it offered the swath of cloth.
Avarax snatched it up and draped the fabric over his shoulders.
“Your head is supposed to go there, not your arm.” The one with the pleasant voice giggled. It came forward and helped him adjust the rag.
The rough threads chafed, sending exultant tingles all over his body. A dangling appendage between his legs stirred of its own accord. Unlike his arms and legs, which moved with ease, this one only twitched when he tried to control it. He looked up.
The human’s face flushed an interesting shade of red. It stepped back, tone turning serious. “Uh, just wrap the shawl around your waist.”
Avarax reached for one of the mounds on its chest. “I don’t have these.”
“Pervert!” It screamed and slapped at his hand.
The smack stung his sensitive flesh, a pleasant burn not unlike his breath.
The others surged forward. The first one growled. “You can’t do that to a woman!”
Man, woman. The words would explain the physical difference between human males and females. She was different from the others, who shared his current form. The appendage between his legs must be a proboscis used to mate. His thoughts strayed to the only other dragon left in the world, who lived not too far from here.
His lips twitched of their own accord. Yes, if everything else felt so good, he’d have to experiment with mating while in human form. Still, without wings to flare or a long neck to lock and pop, the mating ritual would be impossible to initiate.
He’d have to do it his own way, using his far superior intellect. He pointed at her. “Let’s breed.”
Her face scrunched up, forming nearly as many wrinkles as the first man. Her eyes widened.
That was it! Their mating ritual. Avarax contorted his own face, then opened his eyes as far as they would go. Even then, the visual field was still so narrow. It was a wonder that primitive humans, when they’d first clawed their way out of the primordial soup, had survived predation from beasts higher on the food chain.
All the men backed away, their expressions likewise contorting.
Forehead forming furrows, she cocked her head.
No doubt his overtures were working. Avarax imitated her movement, ensuring he tilted his neck at the same angle as hers.
The furry caterpillars above her eyes—eyebrows—clashed together like a duel between two rams he’d once witnessed before a snack of scorched mutton chops. “Are you mocking me?”
“Mocking?” Avarax sighed. For an inferior species, humans were far more complex than they seemed at first glance. Apparently, they were capable of a few more expressions than just fear and awe. “Of course not. I just want to mate.”
Her face managed to turn a darker shade of red, somewhat comparable to his normal scale color. She backed away.
The men closed in, forming a living barrier.
They wouldn’t be living for long, if they defied him. With a wave of his hand, his dragon magic compelled the men to part like trees splintering beneath the gush of his wings. The woman stood at the end of the aisle, mouth agape in a typical human expression of fear.
Grinning, Avarax took a step toward her. Even if the mating ritual had failed, it was nothing a little more magic couldn’t compel out of her.
“You! Back to work!” a guttural voice behind him barked.
A loud snap cracked the air. Pain seared across his back. Exquisite agony, like that time, eons ago, when some fool knight had loosened one of his neck scales with a lance, and he’d had to pick it loose. Running his hand over the scar on the side of his neck, he turned around.
A stocky orc in skin-tight, fine mesh armor raised a whip. Its blunt features twisted on its round, turquoise face.
Curse that limited visual field and the pitiful human nose and ears. Even in its heavy boots and metallic armor, it had approached undetected.
The whip snapped down again.
Avarax snatched it out of the air. The cord filaments stung his palm in a most gratifying way.
The humans’ collective gasp was followed by silence. Then they erupted in cheers.
The orc’s mouth twisted in a snarl as it dug its boots into the ground and yanked on the whip.
Avarax held firm. He started pulling back. At long last, here was a chance to see if orc tasted like wild boar.
Retaining its hold on the whip, the orc reached for the weapon at its side.
The humans cowered back.
Avarax took a deep breath, sucking in the ambient energy around him. His dragonstone stirred. He released it with a single syllable of Shallow Magic. “Zzzzt!”
The electrical discharge crackled down the whip. The orc’s body went rigid as sparks fizzled through it. It collapsed to the ground in a smoldering heap. The aroma of burning orc flesh, usually so enticing, nearly sent his weak little stomach into rebellion.
Silence.
Then murmurs.
Behind him, the humans whispered among themselves.
“Did you see that?”
“Unbelievable!”
“No, it’s just as the Elf Angel said.”
Avarax looked back. “Elf Angel?”
The wrinkled leader nodded. “He must have trained you in magic, just like he taught some of us.”
Avarax’s nostrils flared, an interesting sensation given how small the human snout was. The insult! As though elves could teach a dragon anything, except maybe how to trick others into doing their dirty work for them. In any case, they’d all fled into hiding several millennia ago, after they’d lost the war with the orcs. If one was masquerading as an angel now… “Who is this Elf Angel?”
The man searched his eyes. He lowered his voice. “Aralas, of course. He’s preparing us for the rebellion against the orcs.”
Who would’ve thought humans even cared about freedom? In his much younger years, they’d always been content to serve him. The orcs had kept them fed over the past dozen centuries, in exchange for them working the land. What more could they ask for? “Ara-who?”
The leader leaned in. “Aralas. He’s been teaching us to evoke magic through artistic endeavor. What is your people’s special affinity? You moved so fast, I would guess it was warrior magic. Then again, whatever you did to the Tivari looked like you channeled divine power, or sorcery.”
The list of his talents was too long to relate in the hours left in the day. No matter, one thing was clear: the elves were up to their usual mischief, misleading humans about the nature of magic. Still, it might be fun to watch them try and rise up, only to be squashed under orc boots. The grin on his human face was coming more and more easily.
“We need to hide the body.” The man pointed to the orc, who was now surrounded by other humans like ants scavenging a roach carcass.
“Why don’t you do that.” It might be easy to vaporize the body, but it would be even more interesting to see if the humans could actually conceal the corpse without their masters finding out and exacting revenge. And if they failed, well, the punishment might be enjoyable to watch as well.
Now where was the female? No matter how satisfying it was to receive the adulation he deserved, he hadn’t forgotten about her, and her wondrous voice. Avarax searched among them.
They were all males, and the pathetic scavengers that they were, they were now stripping the orc of its equipment. He spun one of them around. “Where’s the female?”
“Mai?” Lines formed across the man’s forehead as he cocked his head, apparently wanting to initiate the human pre-mating dance.
Other male dragons from Avarax’s youth had taken pleasure in each other. It hadn’t particularly appealed to him, but to each his own. He patted himself over and decided he wasn’t equipped for whatever this man wanted, anyway. He waved him off. “The female.”
“Her name is Mai.”
So they had actual names, even though Mai sounded strange. It might be a hard sound to make with his dragon mouth. “Yes, where did she go?”
The leader turned and beckoned. In a low voice, he said, “I think she went to practice evoking magic through music.”
“A Dragon Song?” Could humans even use such ritualistic magic? The only human sorcery he’d ever seen was long ago, from a so-called shaman, who’d tasted particularly good. Then again, it was this Mai’s voice which had drawn him to this place. There was more to this female than just a chance to experience human mating. “Where is she practicing?”
The leader shrugged. “She’d disappeared several months ago, and just came back. Her parents would know for sure.”
Avarax looked up at the iridescent moon, never moving from its place in the heavens. If one thing could be said about its appearance after the orcs established their dominance over this world, it made telling time and direction convenient, for those who really cared about time in terms of hours. Now it waxed to its fourth crescent, indicating only a couple of hours before sundown. She’d be back around this time tomorrow, and so would he. He started to turn around.
“Wait,” the leader said. “Please. We would be honored if you join us for dinner, meager as it may be, to learn what the other tribes are doing to resist the Tivari.”
Dinner. What had started out as a quest to retry human flesh, and taste orc for the first time, had now become a chance to experience new flavors. If odors and tactile feelings created such ecstasy, there was no telling what human food would taste like. Eating with them might also present the opportunity to see this Mai again.
The wondrous sensations of walking on two feet soon became quite tedious on the arduous trek through the fields toward the humans’ village. His human ears, though much weaker than his dragon ears, ached from the incessant buzzing of humans pestering him with inane questions about this hopeless rebellion.
In all his previous interactions with their miserable race, their sounds had been limited to screams, and the occasional pleading for life. Who knew they talked so much?
He turned to the leader. “Is it much farther now?”
The old man tilted his head, in what was hopefully not part of a mating ritual. “We’ve only walked twenty feet. Considering how far you’ve travelled from your homeland…”
Avarax snorted. He’d teleported to the edge of the field, after feeling the ripple from Mai’s voice in the soundwaves from afar. “Yes,” he answered, “but you can imagine how much these hackles hurt after such a long distance.”
The man pointed to a ramshackle collection of straw huts. More of the vermin scurried about, including what looked to be two or three litters of human hatchlings. Dirt was smudged across their faces, and their disheveled hair looked as if birds had nested in their heads.
Avarax shuddered. If his human form were as vulnerable to disease as theirs, there was no telling what digestive distress he’d suffer from eating with them, let alone eating one of them. “Will Mai be there?”
“She’s probably still training. I can introduce you to her parents.” The man winked. “You can ask them for her hand.”
“Her hand?” It might be delicious, but it wasn’t what he wanted. Not now. His proboscis stirred again.
“Yes,” the man said. “Just think, all you’ll need is their permission, and not the Tivari, once we overthrow them.”
As if they had a chance. This Elf Angel Aralas was setting up the villagers to be massacred. Avarax shook his head, catching sight of more humans with mounds on their chests. Perhaps he didn’t have to wait for this Mai to experience mating.
The scent of something roasting yanked his head in the opposite direction. The sensation of walking might have grown wearisome, but now, this smell beckoned. He pushed ahead of the humans, following his nose through the sprawl of hovels. In what looked to be the center of the village, several dozen males lined up at cauldrons.
“Make way, make way,” the elder yelled. “We have a distinguished guest. He killed Cleric Pyuz.”
A silence fell over the crowd. Fists in palms, they bowed.
The strange little hairs on the back of his short neck stood on end. The dragonstone in his chest pulsed. Ah, the adulation!
“Please, sit.” The leader guided him with an open hand to a fallen log, where a few other men sat. They all beamed as they made space. Others bowed low as he passed. One draped more coarse cloth over his shoulders, while another offered him two long sticks.
A female, with white hair and a chest that looked more like a rockslide than mounds, ladled out colorful chunks from the cauldrons and into a wooden bowl. She spooned a glob of white onto another dish. Head bobbing so fast that it was a wonder it didn’t fall off, she approached. She bowed low and proffered the two bowls. “It isn’t much, but we are honored to have you here.”
Taking the dishes, Avarax studied the contents. One looked like a hill of maggots, all stuck together, and smelled nearly as sweet. The other had orange, yellow, and white cubes. Like the white stuff, the most succulent scent wafted from them. “What is this?”
“Rice. Stew. We eat the same thing almost every day. I’m sorry if it’s bland, but—”
The aroma was too enticing. Avarax lifted the bowl of rice to his mouth and sunk his teeth in. The sweetness tickled his tongue with warmth and tender moistness. It was far better than blackened human flesh, or at least, his memory of it. His eyes rolled back in his head as buzzing filled his brain. “I’ve never tasted anything so delicious.”
Some of the females looked on him with adoring eyes. When they whispered among themselves, though, none of their voices sounded as pleasant as Mai’s.
“There’s no need to be polite.” The leader waved his hand back and forth. “This is probably quite tasteless compared to—”
Avarax poured the cubes into his mouth. Too large to swallow, they yielded even to his blunt human teeth. Each chew caressed his mouth and tongue with fireworks of different flavors.
The elder coughed.
Soup dribbling from the side of his feeble human jaws, Avarax turned.
Around him, the people gazed at him with expressions of wonderment. The elder held up the sticks, with some of the white stuff pincered between it. “We eat with chopsticks.”
The women covered their mouths and giggled, yet it looked like they all wanted to engage in the mating dance. It would be easy, but not nearly as rewarding as if he saved his human virginity for Mai.
He looked down at the chopsticks. Try as he might, they refused to obey his command. Curse the clumsy human fingers. No wonder these people were so skinny.
“It’s all right. You must use different utensils. We are just happy you enjoy it.”
Avarax nodded. “It is delicious.” It really was. “What is the meat called?”
“Chicken.”
Chicken! They proliferated even more than humans, apparently. Avarax looked at the others, using their chopsticks so dexterously. Their portions were much smaller. A lesser being might’ve felt guilty, but he deserved to eat more.
The elder’s irises roved back and forth. “Please, don’t hold back. You are our honored guest.”
Avarax studied some of the human hatchlings. They looked at his food with expectant eyes, like his own littermates when Mother regurgitated a part-digested elephant for them. A pit formed in his stomach, and it didn’t quite feel like hunger. He lowered the accursed chopsticks.
The elder sighed. “We don’t have much. The Tivari take most of it to the pyramid. They’ve told us for generations that it is an offering to our Creators, but Aralas taught us that it’s all a lie.”
The orcs had duped humans into believing gods had created humans to serve them; now, this Aralas was replacing one lie with another. “Just what did he say?”
The leader raised that fuzzy eyebrow. “He didn’t tell your people?”
Avarax let his gaze bore into the man, snuffing out all suspicions with Dragon Magic. “No. Tell me.”
The elder’s eyes glossed over. A smile formed on his face. “Yang-Di, Lord of the Sun, created humans as a gift to his consort, Guanyin. They watched over us and protected us, until the Year of the Second Sun, when Yanluo blinded us from the truth of Their Love. We turned from Them and were conquered by the Tivari. Yet Their love for us endured.” He pointed to the iridescent moon. “They left their son, Moshen, to keep watch, waiting for when we were ready to repent.”
Avarax almost choked up his food trying to keep from laughing. It sounded like the humans were trading in one master for another. In a choice between elves or orcs, at least the orcs would make sure the humans didn’t starve.
Shouts and screams, mixed with guttural barks, erupted from the edge of the village. A hush settled over the cooking area as everyone around him set their bowls and chopsticks down and exchanged glances.
“Tivari Templars!” someone yelled in the distance.
The leader’s eyes bulged like someone had wrapped their claws around his neck. He jumped to his feet and grabbed Avarax’s hand. “We need to hide you. They’ll kill you.”
As if they could. “Why?”
“Do they let you to visit other villages where you come from? We’re not allowed.”
Who knew? Avarax shrugged, the motion rather easy with human shoulders. “Don’t worry.”
The ranks of orcs closed in, herding men, women, and whelps alike, toward the center of the village. The people murmured. Several of the females sniffled.
Avarax counted twenty orcs. The villagers outnumbered them ten-to-one, yet cowered as if they faced a dragonling. With such cowardice, how were they ever going to rise up?
One of the orcs stepped forward, the sheen of its mesh armor sparkling in the firelight. When it spoke, its accent snarled like a pack of angry dire wolves. “Line up. Where is Cleric Pyuz?”
The human elder motioned Avarax to the back row of humans before he stepped forward. He dropped to his knees, pressed his forehead to the ground, and then looked up. “Master, Cleric Pyuz said he was going to the next village over. We didn’t dare question him.”
Avarax chuckled. Not a bad answer for an old man, but no doubt, the orcs knew—
The orc commander held up a crystal sphere with swirling lights. “Liar. He is somewhere around here.”
The elder’s voice cracked. “I swear, we haven’t seen him.”
“If you don’t tell us what happened, we will slaughter all of you.”
Avarax shuffled on his feet. While it might be fun to watch the orcs in action, it risked him losing Mai.
“Let us first offer our harvest to the gods, so that they may look favorably upon us in the afterlife.” The elder banged his head against the ground several times.
Stalling for time. The old man could think on his feet. Or on his knees, as the case may be.
The orc commander snarled. “Kill them all, on my command.”
His underlings drew their weapons.
The humans sank to their knees. Crying mothers shielded whimpering children.
All the groveling left Avarax the only one standing. All orc eyes fell on him.
“Impertinent!” The commander stomped forward, its boots clopping on the hard-packed dirt. Yanking a serrated combat knife from its sheath, it grabbed Avarax by the shoulder and drove the blade towards his gut.
The metal snapped on his skin.
The orc stared at its shattered blade, gawking. Everyone fell silent. Some of his underlings even lowered their weapons.
A grin came unbidden to Avarax’s lips. He reached out with his hand and crushed the orc’s windpipe. Eyes bulging, it clawed at his neck and gasped for air. Then it crumpled to the ground.
The rest of the orcs exchanged surprised looks before locking eyes on him and leveling their weapons.
“Azkoth grz lokin zzt!” Avarax uttered. Energy surged from the ground and through his legs. It mingled with the dragonstone in his core and coursed through his arms. He extended his fingers. Bolts of lightning arced out, lancing through the line of orcs. They collapsed, frail bodies caught in fits of seizures. It might’ve been satisfying, had it not been so easy.
One by one, the humans lifted their heads, looking first at the dying orcs and then at Avarax. Excited chatter erupted all at once.
“With power like that, we will overthrow the orcs!”
“He might be as powerful as Aralas!”
As if an elf could even begin to match his power.
Many approached and bowed low.
The village elder guided an old man and woman over. “Master, Mai’s parents wanted to meet you.”
Fists in palms, the two bowed low. When they raised their heads, the father said, “Master, you have saved the village. We would be honored if you married our daughter.”
As long as whatever married entailed included mating, it didn’t sound bad. Avarax grinned. “I want to see her now.”
The mother shook her head. “I’m sorry, Master, but the Elf Angel took her to the pyramid to train.”
Avarax frowned, finding it required several more muscles than a smile. “Which pyramid?”
The father cocked his head, in what was decidedly not a mating ritual. “Is there more than one?”
Stupid rubes, of course they wouldn’t know about the other ones all over the world. Which meant Mai must’ve gone to the nearest one. Avarax’s forehead bunched up of its own accord. Getting to the pyramid would be easy, but the other dragon lived very close to there. There was also an elf of some power, as well as Mai herself, whose voice resonated with his dragonstone. Certainly he could overcome them all, but it risked an injury; perhaps a chipped claw. “So she will be back tomorrow?”
The mother bowed her head. “She said she would be back in a quarter of the White Moon.”
A week. Not much time at all.
Having lived nearly fifty millennia, Avarax sometimes spent centuries asleep. The passing of decades felt like a blink of an eye as the years zipped by. Yet, waiting for Mai’s return to her village, just a single quarter cycle of the White Moon seemed to last a tortuous eternity.
In that time, he’d teleported the length and breadth of Tivaralan, mingling with humans to find out how far discontent with orc rule spread. True to what the village elder had said, the Elf Angel Aralas had travelled far and sown seeds of insurrection among all the tribes of mankind. For their part, the orcs mistook them for isolated uprisings, and not a widespread rebellion about to boil over.
In his journeys, Avarax had encountered many females of different skin coloring and hair, most who would’ve willingly mated with him. Makeda, with thick black hair and skin as dark as the bitter beverage her people drank, had the makings of a halfway decent sorceress. Olive-skinned Tatiana could reasonably see the future, even if she couldn’t tell she was talking to a dragon in man’s clothing. With swords as bronze as her complexion, Vanya fought with unrivaled speed and precision…for a human. Rust-toned Willow Beauty commanded the animals and forces of nature nearly as well as a juvenile dragon.
Still, none had connected with his heart like Mai’s voice had. He saved his human virginity for his inexorable reunion with her. The torture of waiting would make it all the sweeter. Perhaps as sweet as a wild boar roasted in apples.
At long last, the day arrived. Avarax scanned his treasure pile, searching for the perfect outfit to wear. The villagers thought he was a magician, but the wizard’s hat in his collection was blood-stained. Instead, he settled on the ceremonial gold cuirass, which had belonged to a so-called prince. A quick, hour-long look in a gilded mirror let him know just how handsome he looked. Yes, the human body he’d created couldn’t help but be perfect and dashing—a reflection of his normal form, one which he found he didn’t really miss.
Pulses rippled through the world’s energy fields, harmonizing with his dragonstone, and yanking his attention from the mirror. Her voice, calling to him over thousands of miles. At long last. A shiver ran up his spine. With a word of magic, he slipped through the ethers.
He rematerialized at the edge of her village.
In the middle of a couple hundred stampeding orc soldiers.
Fleeing.
Source unseen, Mai’s voice carried like a raging storm over the staccato clop of orc boots. Mingling with the strums of some stringed instrument, her notes rose and fell, like ocean waves. The melody reverberated in his dragonstone, sending vibrations through his skinny arms and legs and turning them to jelly. Escape, the song whispered to some primal urge, like the hatchling’s instinct to avoid its father, lest it be devoured.
It took all of Avarax’s willpower to slog through the magic toward the village, brushing off any orc which might’ve careened into him. The closer to the huts he came, the louder her voice sounded as it reached crescendo. It was amazing to think someone so small could evoke music with such intensity, rivaling that of a young dragon.
Avarax worked his way through the hovels to the center of the village. Like cornered vermin, the humans cowered behind the cauldrons and log benches. Yet standing at their head, Mai stood with a straight posture and squared shoulders—the perfect stance for channeling a Dragon Song. In her arms, she cradled a pear-shaped string instrument with a fretted neck.
His dragonstone raced. His human hands and feet quivered.
Certainly it wasn’t the Dragon Song affecting him. It was Mai herself.
Though plain and lanky compared to the voluptuous beauties he’d met over the preceding weeks, she looked more vibrant than the first time he’d seen her. Dirt gone, her face glowed, while wind tousled her hair.
Her large eyes widened as they met his, and her music came to an abrupt stop. Never breaking her gaze, she staggered back several steps. Her parents stood from the huddling mass of cowards and came up beside her.
“It’s okay,” the father said. “He’s the one who destroyed the Templars.”
Mai turned to him, eyes never leaving Avarax. “That’s probably why the Tivari came back today, to investigate. Revealing my power just now may have taken away the element of surprise. Without that, the rebellion doesn’t stand a chance.”
“I will protect you,” Avarax said. If the orcs dared to assail his lair, dared to harm Mai, he’d immolate each and every one of their outposts.
She shook her head. “This isn’t about my safety, it’s about the future of humanity. You wouldn’t understand.”
“The Tivari!” someone shouted.
“They are regrouping,” said another, voice trembling.
The humans’ collective wail would make a banshee hang her head in shame. The clop of orc boots marching in unison grew louder.
Mai’s hands tightened around her instrument. “I stopped the song too soon. It won’t work as well the next time!”
Avarax reached toward her. “Come with me. I will save you.”
“I can’t let my friends and family die.” Her eyes pleaded. “You can save all of us. Show them your true form.”
True form…she knew. But how? No matter. “If I do this, will you come with me?”
Mai fiddled with a loose lock of hair. Her eyes strayed past him, to where the orcs must be approaching, and then around them, where the pitiful humans scattered like a disturbed nest of cattle.
At last, she took a deep breath and bowed low. “Yes. Please.”
“Tzrf,” he uttered. His human form morphed, the gold cuirass popping open as he grew. His size swelled as arms bent into forelegs and wings sprouted. Hands and fingers curled into talons, while his tail sprouted, thickened, and elongated.
Humans and orcs froze in place, gawking and screaming as dragonfear took over. They shrunk in relation to his expanding size. In just a few seconds, he straddled the entire village and surrounding fields. Now the bipedals weren’t much taller than the length of his shortest tooth.
Avarax sucked in a breath. The oxygen ignited around his dragonstone. His roar rocked the earth and sent a fireblast into the midst of the orc troops. They didn’t have a chance to scream before being reduced to charred corpses. A lucky few who happened to be on the edge of the flames crunched under his forefoot.
In two steps, he cleared the village and turned around. His dragon eyes, so much keener than his human ones, picked out Mai from the simpering mass of humans. He reached over and plucked the musical instrument out of her arms with the tip of one of his talons, and flicked it away.
“No!” she screamed. “That was a gift from Aralas.”
She wouldn’t need some silly elf toy where they were going. He swept her up in his claws. She easily fit inside the pocket of his palm, which would protect her from the thin air and biting cold of high altitudes.
He coiled his hind legs and vaulted skyward. Spreading his wings, he flapped a few times. Down below, the gust from his wings kicked up dirt and knocked people off their feet. Over the mountains they flew, the cool air caressing his scales. After a week in human form, it felt good to be a dragon again.
Mai squirmed around in his foreclaws for much of the flight, on one occasion poking her head out from between two of his fingers. It almost tickled, enough that he considered teleporting them the rest of the way.
He thought the better of it. Very few humans had ever flown, and survived to talk about it. Finally, she crouched down into his palm and enjoyed the unique experience.
Clearing the mountains, he sped over the plains of Vanya’s bronze-skinned humans until they at last came to his mountaintop lair. His dragonstone pulsated faster now, as he descended in slow circles. Soon, very soon, they’d be locked in a passionate embrace. No doubt he’d relish in what would be a virgin human male’s time-consuming climb to mating bliss.
He shot out his wings to slow their descent, and landed on the platform he’d carved from the mountainside. Holding Mai close to his chest, he crawled into the darkness, which her weak human eyes couldn’t penetrate. Her heart jittered in concert with his dragonstone, echoing the resonance of istrium radiation from deep within the mountain.
He opened his foreclaw and she tumbled out onto the rest of his treasures. It was amusing to watch her pat blindly around the floor, hands probing the gold. Perhaps he’d one day teach her to feel how gold magnified istrium vibrations and fueled a dragon’s growth and power. Perhaps such skill was beyond a human’s puny intellect.
“Trszk,” he said, drawing on Shallow Magic. The cavern flared into brightness.
Her mouth gaped as her head swept over his collection, sparkling in the magic light. She gasped.
A grin came unbidden to his face. He gazed into her eyes. She might not be beautiful compared to some of the humans he’d met over the past week, but her naiveté was so adorable.
She stumbled back several steps, clinking as she fell into a pile of coins and sent them scattering. Her breaths came out short and ragged.
He laughed. No doubt, the magnificence of his true form aroused her. No matter how complex humans thought they were, they were still governed by their base instincts. It was time to exploit that. “Strip.”
Propping herself up on her elbow, Mai pulled the sack tighter about her thin shoulders. If she were trying to entice him with her female bumps and mounds, it wasn’t working: it only brought out the hard edges of her bones. In any case, she clearly didn’t understand that it wasn’t physical attraction that made her so alluring.
He’d have to help her understand. He extended a talon—of course, it was as large as her, and in any case, no matter how glorious his dragon body must have been in her eyes, it wasn’t equipped for the task at hand.
“Frzt,” he uttered. The amplified istrium radiation coursed through him. His beautiful form shrunk. His splendid wings shriveled and hardened into shoulder blades, and his chiseled haunches contorted into hips and legs, while his muscular forelegs transformed into lanky arms.
Once complete, he looked down at her. Way down. Something was wrong; he was still twice her height, even on two legs. He studied his hands and feet, only to find them still red-scaled and shaped like his usual claws, only smaller.
In his still-wide angled visual field, he caught his reflection in a gilded mirror. Though bipedal, he stood in dragonoid form, with crimson serpentine scales, and gleaming horns extending from his handsome dragon face. His tail protruded from his rear, ending in a spaded tip. Apparently, he hadn’t quite mastered the transformation into a human body yet.
He cursed to himself. He wouldn’t be able to test his human virility just yet, not with his mating proboscis coiled up inside him. She would be disappointed. He snuck a quick glance at her, still lying on her side with the rest of his treasures.
Indeed, her body trembled with need, eyes glassing over in arousal.
He had to satisfy her now. He reached out with his tail and wrapped it around her ankle. A quick tug brought her closer. Reaching out with a claw, taking care not to cut her with the tips, he grasped her wrists and helped her to her feet.
Her breathing came heavier. He brought his face close to hers, to initiate the ridiculous face sucking he’d seen humans of all cultures do as part of their pre-mating ritual. Her heart beat faster, their vibrations resonating with his dragonstone. They were made for one another. A human and a dragon.
It was time to complete his transformation into human form, to give her what she wanted. “Frzt,” he muttered.
Nothing happened.
The connection between her heart and his dragonstone interfered with his link to the ambient istrium radiation. It was amazing how she, a human, could affect him.
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She wanted him, yet it didn’t seem appropriate, or even possible, to consummate that desire in this form.
He grinned. Perhaps like the rest of her kind, she reveled in serving a master. “You will entertain me.”
The sweat on her brow brought out the redness of her cheeks. Perhaps she found the lair too hot. He extended a talon to the neckline of her sack and drew it down, ever so slowly, so as not to cut her. The roughspun fibers yielded.
“Let me sing to you.” Her voice, trilling with power, called to his dragonstone.
It had been so long since she’d spoken, he’d almost forgotten what her glorious voice sounded like. That connection, even in his current dragonoid form, sent waves of ecstasy up his spine. No telling what a song could do. “Sing?”
She nodded with such enthusiasm, her head might wobble off. “A song like you’ve never heard before.”
Her voice was already like none he’d ever heard. The way it linked to his dragonstone, it could probably amplify his power even more than a year of sleep among his treasure hoard would.
As soon as he released her arms, she grasped the cut down her neckline and pulled the edges together. Perhaps her throat needed to be warm in order to sing. Eyes never leaving his, she shuffled on her feet.
“Well?”
Tears of joy filled her eyes. She must be ready to perform for him, to share the beauty of her voice. Blinking away the tears, she sank to her knees and pressed her forehead to the ground. “Glorious Avarax, you honor me by hearing my song.”
Yes, yes, of course. Now if only she would get on with it. His body tingled from tail to horns, needing her voice. Just as his dragonstone belonged to her, he could use the connection between them, even more easily than with other lesser beings. “Rise,” he commanded with a Dragon Song.
Compelled, she rose to her feet. Still, she was stalling, dangling the bait of her song in front of him like a bloody cow carcass. His dragonstone buzzed like a comet strike shaking the ground. Each claw trembled in anticipation.
Then she raised her voice in song. Dozens of notes lifted in rapid succession, like raging air currents in a typhoon. It was amazing to think the human mouth could produce such a combination of chords. His dragonstone wobbled, and his legs with it.
Then it slowed. His eyelids weighed down, growing heavier with the lull in speed. A nap would be perfect now. Except then he would have to wait longer to lose his human virginity. He forced his eyes open.
The tenor of her voice deepened, promising sweet bliss. His tongue shot out over his teeth, nearly cutting on their sharp edges, rousing him from drowsiness.
She closed her eyes, even as his strength built. Her voice connected to his dragonstone even more than istrium radiation. His very essence shivered at the sheer power.
Then the music switched. No longer a torrent, it eased into calm, like a breeze above the ocean. It spoke of…love? Humans he’d observed in the last weeks spoke of it, but it seemed foreign, strange. Yet now, perhaps it made sense. In this moment, he would do anything for Mai.
His eyelids sagged. His shoulders slumped. With one last flutter of his eyes, his knees buckled.
Waking up without wings perplexed Avarax even more than the purple light that flashed at the entrance to his cave. The glimmer danced among the precious metals and gemstones, which towered above his uncharacteristically small size. A rumble shook the cavern walls, punctuating his rude awakening.
It had been a pleasant nap. Now someone would die for disturbing him.
He looked among his horde, searching for his most valued treasure.
Mai was gone.
Her scent lingered, but in impossibly minute traces.
He thought back. Her voice had resonated with the universe, harmonizing with the vibrations of his own life force. Its vibrant tempo, like the torrent of river rapids, had lulled to the dripping of a melting icicle. Heavier and heavier…
Mai must have sung him to sleep!
Surely it couldn’t have been intentional. She loved him.
He wrapped his consciousness around the dragonstone in his core, the almost-infinite source of energy all dragons had. Its pulsations meandered lazily, like a winter stream before the spring melt. It couldn’t have been an accident. She’d tricked him.
He’d track her down and demand an explanation. Uttering a word of magic, his bipedal form morphed. His size swelled as arms bent into forelegs and wings sprouted. Hands and fingers became talons, while his tail thickened and elongated.
Ah, it felt great to be a dragon again! He stretched his limbs and spine to work out tight muscles. Sufficiently limbered up, he snaked towards the cave opening to investigate. Night hung over the land, cloaking the world in darkness.
Another flash lit up the sky. He tracked it to its source, hundreds of miles to the southwest. A column of purple fire streaked down from the heavens, annihilating stretches of a sprawling port city of domes and minarets.
A city that had not been there when he went to sleep.
How long had he slumbered? Shrugging his shoulders a few times, Avarax loosened his wings. His claws tore into rock as he coiled his hind legs and then vaulted skyward.
Flight! The cool night air streaked over his wings. The last time he’d flown, he had held Mai in his claws. Why had she betrayed him?
Higher and higher he flew, reacquainting himself with a land drastically different from the one he remembered.
Cities and towns: hundreds of them within his far-reaching sight, oases in wide expanses of farmland. Not ghastly Tivari orc outposts, glaring out from the mountains, nor even the graceful spires of elven citadels melding with their surrounding forests. But rather, the centers of human populations he had seen as a younger dragon, from when their civilizations had grown from nothing more than a collection of mud huts to stone towers and castles.
They must have overthrown their Tivari masters while he slept. Like all bottom feeders, humans had a way of proliferating when left unfettered.
His dragonstone sank. There was no way they could’ve expanded so fast within Mai’s lifetime. Given how little of her song echoed in the pulse of the world, hundreds of years must have passed. The one whose voice connected with him more than any other must be long dead and withered to dust.
He’d search out her descendants and demand answers. He’d wreak vengeance, if it was so deserved.
Still far in the distance, another blast of energy pulsed down on the city, obliterating the levees restraining the Western Ocean. An inexorable tide crawled across the low-lying lands and swallowed up towns and villages.
Hell rained down from the heavens—destruction and suffering. Humans deserved as much. Avarax laughed, belching blue sparks from his snout. He started towards the source of the blasts to get a better look, maybe to start searching for Mai’s descendants, but then stopped mid-air. With his energy pent up, and with no telling what threats could have arisen while he slept, he’d need to regenerate. Investigating the devastation would have to wait.
Veering northward, he streaked towards Celastya’s lair. Even if he could only draw on a trickle of energy, he was more than a match for her. He would rip her open and swallow her Flaming Pearl. The thought had crossed his mind over the millennia, but instead he had regularly mated with her and eaten her clutch of eggs to gradually increase his potential power. He didn’t have the luxury of time now.
Ignoring the sporadic flickers of purple in the skies behind him, Avarax scanned the landscape below. The plains first rose into rolling hills before vaulting higher into mountain crags. Nestled in a valley, Teardrop Lake glimmered a pale blue, even in the dark of night. The light from the three moons gamboled in its ripples, the reflections dancing across Celastya’s hidden cave entrance.
He hovered by the opening. Stronger or not, it would be foolish to fight her in her own lair. He would have to coax her out. His voice echoed across the valley, shaking the mountains. “Celastya, out with you! It is time to mate again.”
If only he’d had a chance to mate with Mai.
Shaking the thought out of his head, Avarax listened. Celastya was inside. He could hear her shrink back, smell her fear. He would roast her alive and pick through her charred remains for her Pearl. He took in a deep breath and belched into the cave.
Only a few sparks fizzled out—enough to incinerate a human, but only a tickle to a dragon. His frustrated wail sent the mountains shivering. He clawed at the cave mouth, ripping rock away.
A burst of reds and oranges erupted high in the heavens, just above the iridescent moon. A roar tumbled across the lands, the shockwave pushing him back from the cave.
Celastya darted out. She glanced at him with her luminous blue eyes. Her wingless, slithering form undulated past as she levitated close to the ground. Light from the White Moon sparkled off of her silvery scales before dark clouds billowing out from Mount Ayudra blotted out their sheen.
Avarax gave chase, the gusts from his wings splintering trees below. He barreled into Celastya, sending her careening into the loathsome Tivari pyramid still standing by the shores of the lake.
Its stones cracked as she rebounded off the walls. He drove his claws toward her, but she darted away, and he ripped into the pyramid’s stonework instead. His talons lodged into something deep in the rock, sending a searing shock through his body. Curse the Tivari for ever building the vile structures!
Avarax tore his claws free and resumed his pursuit. Celastya flew over the mountains and towards the shore, and then skimmed the ocean as she streaked towards Jade Island.
The fool thought she could channel the island’s latent energy. Of course, he could, too. Perhaps it would energize his dragonstone, reinvigorate it a little more.
Mountains along the closed end of the horseshoe-shaped island shielded a port town at the head of the bay. A smooth metal arch, engraved with runes of elf magic, spanned the mouth of the harbor. The arch hadn’t been there before, but now Celastya coiled herself around it.
As he approached, she unwrapped herself, moving free just in time to avoid a swipe from his foreclaw. With a graceful spin, Celastya twisted around him and tangled up his wings. The air dropped out from beneath them. Wind roared past as the ground rushed up to meet their tumbling bodies.
They crashed into the shore with a jolt that shook the island, and her strangling grasp around him eased. She seized his forelegs in her own claws, but Avarax was still much stronger. He raked a talon across her neck. Bright blue blood spurted out. They struggled for dozens of minutes, toppling statues and buildings as they thrashed around.
“Avarax!” A bold voice called his name, and he turned to see a puny elf. He radiated power far out of proportion to his size. Far greater than any other elf. Maybe he was related to the supposed Elf Angel who’d taught Mai; or, given the elves’ long lives, one and the same.
Though smaller than one of Avarax’s fangs, the golden-haired elf dared to lock gazes with him. He began to chant. The vibrations of his voice, similar yet different to that of the slave girl from before, rolled over him.
The power of the dragonstone lurched inside of him. A dull ache blossomed into searing pain as his bones broke and reformed. Hulking muscle shrank and impenetrable scales softened. His forelegs and claws withered into arms and hands, his hindquarters transmuting into legs.
Several excruciating moments of transformation later, Avarax rose on wobbling humanoid legs, a scant head above the elf whom he’d dwarfed just minutes ago. He looked down at his naked, frail body.
A human! The most pathetic of sentient beings. His skin tone was the same as when he’d met Mai.
Avarax scoffed. This silly trick might buy them time, but he would pay them back tenfold. He uttered the words to restore his dragon form.
Nothing happened.
What? His morale melted away. Instead of a roar that would compel a mortal to obey, his voice merely shouted, “What have you done?”
“Made you wish you had stayed asleep for another seven hundred years.” The elf whipped out a narrow longsword.
Avarax felt its power, knew that it held a magic enchantment. His new tiny heart rattled against the narrow confines of his scrawny chest. Was it in fear? He hadn’t experienced that emotion in several millennia.
He closed his eyes as the tip pushed into his chest. The blade made a divot into the thin flesh covering him. It didn’t even cut the skin.
It barely tickled.
A magical elvish blade should have stabbed through a human with ease. Avarax held the elf’s shocked gaze. In that second of silence, Avarax sensed the dragonstone inside of him. It pulsed as feebly as before, yet it still held all the potential energy of a dragon. He spoke a word of power, sending the elf hurtling back into the sand.
He spun to see Celastya bearing down on him. He slammed his fist into her swiping claw. She recoiled and winced.
Avarax laughed. Even in this pitiful form, he was still a dragon. He punched again. He hit nothing but air.
Celastya, the elf, and the horseshoe island were all gone, replaced by wind-driven snow on a mountain top. Ice sizzled and melted beneath his feet.
Where had they gone? Or rather, had they sent him?
He evaluated his dragonstone. The elf’s ward dammed up its power. The trickle of vitality left wouldn’t sustain his dragon form, at least not for more than a few minutes.
Condemned to be a human!
No matter. Find opportunity in disaster, Mai’s tribe of black-haired, yellow-skinned humans said. Before him lay a new world infested by inferior beings. Even without his dragon form, his superior intellect would allow him to rule over such a weak-willed, borderline intelligent species.
And when he did, he would find the slave girl’s bones and recreate her.