Dance of the Dragon (5)
Attila hauled in the chain with a body slicked in blood. Thud. The dragon's jaw, which had hung slightly open, snapped shut once more.
Attila asked,
"I hate it myself, but how does it feel? Being bound by the rope?"
The moment the dragon found itself face to face with a savage grin.
The dragon felt
a very unfamiliar emotion.
That emotion could only be called a sense of crisis.
"Oh. The boss lent a proper hand."
The one who said that was Orion. With the exceptional eyesight unique to an archer, he was looking down on the scene from far away.
"The situation looks good."
Bulging eyes that seemed ready to pop from their sockets. All around them, mottled blood vessels protruded. It was a strange constitution.
"The way they look at the boss has changed. If his heart had its way, I imagine he'd want to cheer for them."
The gazes had changed ever since Attila stood against the Kairan Clan Head. Those gazes had deepened gradually, and now, at this very moment, they reached their peak.
Before, it had been admiration. Now it was awe. These were men who didn't merely revere martial might but worshipped it as blind faith, and they had fallen deeply enthralled by Attila's power and spirit.
"Your goal has been achieved, Lycaon."
Just as he had wished, Attila had succeeded in winning renown. Curious about Lycaon's expression, Orion glanced over to find him wearing his usual, indifferent look.
Orion could sense no humanity in that expression.
—The man gives me chills.
Orion clicked his tongue and spoke.
"I thought it was over back when the dragon was circling the sky, but the damage was less than expected."
"We had luck on our side. Had our luck been bad, an army like that one would never have been forged."
Lycaon rose from his seat. His gaze was fixed on the distant battlefield—a battlefield so far away that his own eyes could never confirm it.
"A million-strong army isn't necessary for dealing with a dragon. A thousand men. Two thousand at the very most. Anything beyond that number is meaningless—when facing a beast that flies through the sky and breathes fire."
Mindlessly increasing their numbers would never enable them to counter a dragon's attacks, after all.
"I suppose so."
"Think about it. Within the conditions I've laid out, the ones gathered over there are the finest legion on the Steppe."
"The finest legion on the Steppe, you say?"
Grandiose words, but there was some truth to them.
The Wilderness King, the Steppe's foremost hunter and its greatest archer. And at his side, the brilliant strategist who advised him, and Tamugai Ushun, a general who could hold off a hundred alone.
Though neither of them knew it, Muran—the woman called the Sword Saint—was also on the battlefield. She had taken on the duty of protecting the evacuees at present.
All the while deeply frustrated by the reality that she could not fight the dragon herself.
"The Wilderness King and his men certainly deserve to be called a legion."
"And the elves alone are that formidable. Just consider the centaurs who joined this operation."
And what of the forces the centaurs had prepared?
No clan head of any standing had failed to come down from the mountain.
All the renowned centaur martial houses had assembled, and moreover, the 'Golden' of the Wilderness and the 'Radiant' of the South had joined the operation.
And there was Attila, too.
As far as Lycaon knew, he was the strongest centaur on this land.
"The elves' greatest strength and the centaurs' greatest strength, gathered in one place."
—If not these people, then who could possibly hunt a dragon?
"The very fact that a force of this caliber has assembled in this remote mountain village is nothing short of a miracle."
Short of the Great Khan summoning the clans together, a force like this would never gather.
"You're right."
Orion nodded in agreement.
"If the Wilderness King hadn't been struck by the whim to visit this place, Ainuwail would have burned."
Lycaon muttered, stroking his chin.
"Of course, escaping without any real damage is an encouraging outcome."
It was a result that exceeded his expectations. By Lycaon's calculations, the damage should have been catastrophic. Many would have died, and Ainuwail would have been left in ruins.
Lycaon could not hide his disappointment.
—A shame. Had it come to that, the centaurs would have lost their holy ground.
Their kind's resentment and desperation would have grown severe.
—Desperate creatures are easier to handle.
Lycaon preferred handling a starving beast to handling a well-fed soldier.
"...In the current situation, I can't expect such a future."
In Lycaon's mind, there was only one reason it had not come to pass: an unforeseen variable.
"A human born beyond the Steppe, changing the Steppe's future. Quite a curious turn of events."
"What are you muttering about?"
"Just talking about the little runt."
The runt meant Vesta. As far as Lycaon was concerned, he was the hero of this dragon hunt.
"Still full of tricks, that one."
Lycaon, too, had been a remarkable gladiator in his day. He knew that Vesta had induced suffocation in the dragon.
—If you can only seal a creature's nose and mouth, you can bring down any strongman. The moment you seize its throat, strength loses all meaning.
Take the strongest human in the Empire, for instance—even Theo Baranthios would be no different. Seal his airways, and you could kill him without expending any effort at all.
—Is a dragon any exception? Call it a mighty being that transcends human reckoning; so long as it lives and breathes, it cannot escape the limits of a living creature.
Every movement requires oxygen. Even thought itself. A creature on the verge of unconsciousness could hardly be expected to fight properly.
Had the dragon's nostrils not burned, it would never have landed—and there would have been no reason for its flames to weaken.
Vesta's judgment had been sound. Far more effective than hammering away at an armored monster with spears and blades.
"And he was the only one who could have done it."
If not Vesta, who could have driven the dragon into a corner? Who could have clamped its throat shut?
It was the Khan who had hurled Vesta into the sky—but it was the bestiarii boy who had snuffed out the fire.
"If it hadn't been for the runt, the dragon might have achieved its purpose. Even if it hadn't, half that legion would have burned."
Despite his own calculations proving wrong, there wasn't a trace of displeasure in him.
"If the dragon is to die, it would profit us most for the boss to be the one who kills it."
Mars.
Should that opportunity fall to another, I pray it finds its rightful owner.
And that right, by all accounts, belongs to a bestiarius.
Having sealed the dragon's jaw, Attila raised his spear in his other hand.
"They say a dragon's hide is like plate armor."
Living creatures, as a rule, possess bodies capable of fighting their own kind. A dragon, therefore, is a life form designed to battle other dragons.
To withstand the bite force and claws of another dragon, a dragon's hide had to be something special as well. With human strength, so much as wounding that hide was a struggle.
"Then what of the eyes?"
The dragon did not answer. It merely showed extreme vigilance. Smoldering flames burst out between its teeth with a sharp hiss.
"When you slaughter livestock without an axe or a hammer,"
Thud. Attila's step shook the ground.
"you bore a hole in the head first. Push a piece of iron into that hole and stir it about to your heart's content. Do that, and even a massive yak drops on the spot."
The tip of his spear gleamed with sinister menace.
"Since you look difficult to bore a hole into, I'll make do with your eye sockets."
Kieeeeee—!
WHUMP—
The dragon whipped its tail. The power packed into that strike was nothing short of devastating. If the blow had been allowed to land, even Attila could not have escaped unscathed.
So he pulled the chain taut and held fast. He moved by leveraging the strength of the dragon's own neck. Crack. The tail merely splattered a few centaurs who lay sprawled across the stone floor into a gruesome mess.
Thud. Having evaded the strike, he advanced one step further.
Attila was savage—and at the same time, remarkably composed.
Guooooo—
The dragon let out a low growl and bowed its head. Attila pulled the chain even harder. The slightly parted jaw clamped shut with a snap.
The dragon took a step back. Attila did not rejoice. Thud. He intended to kill it.
He knew nothing of the true circumstances behind this incident. And so he regarded the mother dragon as nothing more than a maddened beast.
"I like beasts that bite people. Because that is your nature, and your worth."
The closer Attila came, the further the dragon retreated.
"And because I like it, I make certain to kill it properly."
Kiaaaaaaaa—!
The dragon shrieked and spread its wings—just as a bird cornered on the ground puffs up its body to face its foe.
With its wings unfurled, the dragon's sheer size was staggering. It made even Attila, who boasted a colossal frame, feel like an insect.
Thud. But Attila showed no wavering. He simply pressed forward.
Behind Attila, countless centaurs came surging in. Their number was at least in the hundreds.
Every one of them was an expertly trained slaughterer. They ate grass and grain, and so they had no need of their prey's flesh and blood. Which made them all the more thorough.
That fact sent a chill of terror through the dragon.
The dragon leaped from its spot. With its breathing already labored, it was not the right choice.
But because it felt it had to flee, the dragon took to the air.
Attila, watching its body lift away, let go of the chain with a look of disappointment.
The dragon flew at low altitude, but before it had gone far, it plummeted back down onto the plateau.
The centaurs began to move once more.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
The dragon felt the tremors they made.