Dance of the Dragon (2)
A centaur grumbled in clear dissatisfaction.
"Do we really have to march into battle when it's not even our clan that's under attack?"
The man and his companions were moving in the exact opposite direction of the refugee column. They were not fleeing the flames — they were defying them, walking straight into the fire.
It was the kind of reckless courage only a centaur could muster.
"Damn it all. Today's a lousy day to die."
"Bullshit. Is there ever a *good* day for it?"
Of course, they were men all the same. They never broke stride, but they couldn't quite master the creeping dread rising up inside them.
"What you mean is, you'd rather grow old and die on a sun-warmed stretch of grassland."
The man clicked his tongue and let out a weary sigh.
"And when exactly were the likes of us ever going to die in our beds?"
"True enough. Ours is a fate to die far from home, sword in hand."
He had never thought that destiny miserable. Only faintly bitter, now and then.
"Still, if this business goes well, we might actually get our hands on some coin."
"That's what the chief says?"
"He does. Says he'll see every man gets his share, even if he has to carve it out of his own cut."
"That fellow, honestly. His ambitions are mountain-high, yet he's got no greed in him at all. Strange man."
One of the men snickered and turned his gaze toward the head of the column.
There stood a centaur of conspicuous, towering build — the man who led every centaur following behind him.
And also a man who had not run at the sight of a dragon.
Plenty of people begged him to join the refugees, didn't they.
Centaurs were called a warlike race, it was true — but that pugnacity did not grant them the courage to fight a dragon. A dragon was closer to a natural disaster, like a volcano or a storm given flesh.
Could you call a man brave for declaring war on a natural disaster? Most would simply call him mad.
While everyone else floundered in chaos, the man — Attila — had said, quite calmly:
The bar was high to the point of absurdity. Did one have to be prepared to battle a dragon before earning the right to be called a warrior?
He drove his people onward and took his place at the front. Then he advanced without a moment's hesitation.
How could he do it? Unable to contain his curiosity, the man drew alongside his leader.
"Chief."
"Speak."
"You're really not scared of the dragon?"
"Not particularly."
"How is that possible? You saw it breathe fire earlier. That thing can kill a man the way you'd crush an ant. How can you look at a beast like that and feel nothing?"
"In other words — you're saying the dragon frightens you because it could end you effortlessly."
"Exactly. It scares the hell out of me right now."
"Simple, then. Stop fearing death."
"Huh?"
"If death holds no fear for you, then there is no reason to fear the dragon any more than anything else."
Kweeeeee—!
"What was that?"
A cry as sharp as a spearpoint — the call of a great bird of prey. It seized the attention of every ear on the highland, which meant the creature producing it had to be enormous.
"A griffin?"
"No."
Attila narrowed his eyes and looked up at the sky.
"A black eagle. What a size."
It was an eagle of impossible magnitude. Comparing it to a griffin would have been an insult. Setting size aside, the sheer majesty radiating from it belonged to another order entirely.
"A spirit-form. And a top-rank one at that."
It was the kind of being that belonged only in myths and legends.
"Is someone riding it?"
Could a creature so magnificent truly bear a rider? It was hard to believe — and yet it was true.
On the eagle's back sat a woman.
Attila guessed at her identity at once.
"The Khan."
"The Khan? You mean the Arrow Princess?"
Yes. Ergior Ashtien was soaring aloft upon the golden eagle.
Attila, who led his people. The centaur clan lords. The refugees streaming down from the mountains.
"The Khan..."
All of them watched the sight of their sovereign rising into the sky.
"This is — this is not okay!"
Careful not to bite through his own tongue, Vesta let out something close to a shriek.
"Why? You seemed to want to fly."
The wind made it nearly impossible to hear. Ashtien wrapped her arms tightly around Vesta as she spoke.
"Try to enjoy it. It's not an experience one gets to have often."
"That's — that may be true, but!"
In truth, Ashtien had never intended to carry Vesta herself. Whatever her heart wanted, she had judged the eagle would never permit it.
She and the eagle were equals. She could make requests of it, but issuing commands was impossible.
And yet it didn't refuse Vesta.
It had granted Ashtien's request. That alone was genuinely astonishing — only the Golden Clan could ever contract with this exalted being.
It accepted a child who wasn't even an elf, let alone of the Golden Clan.
A great spirit had not rejected the touch of a human. In all likelihood, nothing of the kind had happened in nearly a hundred years.
"I chose him myself, but at this point I'm almost afraid of my own eye for quality."
"What was that?"
Ashtien leaned in and whispered at Vesta's ear.
"Nothing."
"Ugh."
Even with the wind battering them from all sides, her breath came through vivid and unmistakable. Gooseflesh racing up his arms, Vesta felt his ears burn red.
"How cute."
"Please, spare me..."
"Very well. But keep your head up. We'll be closing with the dragon soon."
"I'm not sure Ahor can reach the mountain in time."
"She's a woman with a natural-born gift for the handling of armies. Trust her, and wait."
"And Via and the centaurs will deploy beneath us?"
"Yes."
Ashtien hoped the centaurs would spread out in a wide net and harry the dragon.
"Whether my conjecture proves right or wrong..."
Little was actually known about dragon physiology. Any strategy for countering one had to be reasoned out from speculation alone.
Ashtien had focused on one fact: the dragon was a creature that flew while hauling an immense body through the sky.
That dragons crossed continents on the wing was common knowledge.
But that was not flight under the strain of fierce combat.
Out here, they can't ride the steady coastal tailwinds. The mountain winds are willful and viciously rough. Given a dragon's wing area, that means enormous strain.
From this she had reasoned that a dragon could not stay airborne for long, and needed to rest its wings at intervals.
"The centaurs, fanned out wide, will deny it that rest."
Whether they could genuinely trouble the dragon hardly mattered.
This was a cautious beast. It would inevitably grow wary of centaurs interrupting its repose.
"Sensing danger, it may abandon its erratic attacks."
She hoped for a bloodless outcome. Ashtien did not wish to see the blood of men — or the blood of dragons.
But it was precisely because she was Khan that she stood at the vanguard — the one who bled, and the one who made others bleed.
"Are you ready?"
Before they knew it, the dragon was close. It circled the jagged cape jutting out below, no doubt deliberating over how best to bring it down.
The eagle flew above it.
Vesta exhaled a long breath and answered.
"Yes."
"Good. Let's go."
The eagle folded its wings.
Piiiieee—!
A bone-splitting, freezing gale. His consciousness lurched free of his body.
A roar of tinnitus filled his ears, and the inertia of acceleration seized Vesta's whole frame.
The world went pitch black. The blood meant for his brain had flooded into his lower body. He felt as though he might black out at any moment.
And then—
"Vesta."
Ashtien whispered. It should have been impossible — this was no situation for speech, an environment where no sound could be heard at all.
And yet, somehow, her voice alone cut through, clear as a bell.
The wind...
A warm wind seemed to fold itself around Vesta. Was it Ashtien's power? Or a hallucination conjured by a mind in the act of slipping away?
It can't be a hallucination.
How could it be, when they were holding each other this closely?
Vesta's eyes flew open, and consciousness returned.
The dragon's colossal body filled his entire field of vision.
"Chief, look there."
"...Yes. They clash."
Everyone watched that single moment — the instant the eagle drove its talons toward the enormous dragon.
The dragon paid the eagle's wingbeats no heed whatsoever. Its power defied imagination; every mighty stroke of its wings set the grasses of the ground below shuddering.
In a head-on contest, there was no hope of victory. Except for one thing.
The eagle held the advantage in flight. The raging winds of the rocky highland shackled the dragon's movements, and it thrashed about like a beast drowning in water.
The eagle, by contrast, read the direction of every current and moved as one body with the wind, like any bird — astonishingly supple, and achingly beautiful.
"It's like watching a dance."
It was a sentimental observation, but this once, even Ahor found herself in complete agreement.
A dance that could be seen nowhere else in the world.
A wild tangle of flame and wind.
Without ever breaking stride, they watched that perilous choreography unfold.
"Whoa — that talon's going to connect."
The dragon lunged with its claw. A savage, brutal motion — it looked as though the dragon's foot would seize the wind by the throat and tear it apart.
The eagle, with lightning agility, seemed to slip past the strike by the narrowest of margins.
"And Her Highness on its back?"
Every eye below was locked on the scene as one.
At last—
Flame came lancing down. Fiercer than any before it — fire laden with a crushing gale.
The roaring blaze stood between the dragon's talons and the two riders, shielding them both.