Grumpy Dragon Daddy by Milly Taiden
Tyla
He had me dead to rights, Tyla thought with excited disbelief as she rushed out from between the dragon’s hind legs, swinging her sword as she went. Why did he hesitate?
What did she care? He’d made a fatal error. Emphasis on the fatal. Now it was her turn. She opted for a new battle strategy, charging away from the dragon into a dense grove of large white oaks. She hoped the dragon would be much less able to maneuver his huge body surrounded by these old, heavy trees. That would give her an advantage.
She raced to one of the trees and leapt. Her enhanced strength launched her high up. High enough for her to grab a branch and swing herself up and onto it, all while keeping her sword on her. Still clutching Tearbringer, she climbed up several more feet and hid herself amid some of the tree’s thicker clusters of branches and leaves.
Calling upon her training, she slowed her breath and her heart to a normal pace and practiced a form of ‘silent breathing’ one of the slayer-witches had taught her. It allowed her to breathe in and out quietly enough that a dragon’s excellent hearing would have a hard time pinpointing her.
Then she waited.
In a moment, the tree shook with the vibrations of the dragon’s approach. A squirrel that had been resting amid the branches near her suddenly scurried away and leapt several trees away.
The dragon’s long neck slinked into Tyla’s view. She watched him take in and assess the forest. She could see the brutish animal thinking things through.
Not a comfortable spot for you, is it? She thought, mimicking what she knew he was working out. Still, you don’t want to let me go. You hesitated. Maybe because you were toying with me. Maybe because you didn’t expect me to be as good as I am. Either way, you know you have to destroy me.
It is what you and I were destined for. One of us must kill the other. There is no other way.
The dragon’s head slipped out of view, and, for a moment, Tyla feared she’d misjudged the dragon.
She waited for several heartbeats, hoping he would return.
Then the hairs on the back of her neck stood up, and she realized her error almost a moment too late.
The dragon had taken another route into the densely packed area of trees. One that took him behind her. He gave out a deafening battle roar as one of his taloned paws ripped through the canopy in which Tyla hid.
She barely managed to leap from the limb she was on before a talon like a battle-ax demolished it. She reached out and managed to grab another thick branch from a neighboring tree. Clutching it with one hand while the other held Tearbringer’s hilt, she swung herself to yet another thick limb. She found her balance, crouched low and turned to face the dragon.
He’d made a lucky guess, she realized. He hadn’t known she was in that particular tree. He had just been striking wildly at the canopy, hoping to make contact, and was continuing to do so, still. She had retained the initiative.
She lowered Tearbringer’s point, getting it ready.
The dragon was exhausting itself in its blind thrashing through the trees. Finally, he stopped his indiscriminate assault and took stock of the trees and the destruction he’d rained down on the forest floor. Then, he stood up on his hind legs and began peering into the higher branches to see if he could spot her.
Tyla saw her opportunity. Up on his back legs like that, she had a clear eye on the soft patch in his scales. One well-timed hurl and she could send Tearbringer straight into his heart!
She lifted Tearbringer over her head, preparing for the throw.
Yet, she hesitated. Something was wrong.
Suddenly, the world seemed to turn upside down and inside out on her. She had the strangest sensation of flying. As if on the back of a dragon. Specifically, the one she was about to kill.
What’s more, she was filled with a kind of joy she did not understand or recognize. Her heart swelled with an emotion she refused to acknowledge.
Then she was falling, sliding off the dragon’s back and…
… and she was once more in the tree, sword high.
She felt dizzy and nearly slipped from the branch. Tyla braced herself against the tree trunk.
Meanwhile, as she had been experiencing whatever that was, the dragon had turned slightly from her. Her window to strike his heart was gone.
Tyla grit her teeth. Her blood boiled. She needed this kill.
Fuck it. I’ll just hack at his scales until Tearbringer shatters every one of them!
It was a ridiculous idea. An even worse strategy. She didn’t care.
Just as she was preparing to attack, however, she heard voices. The dragon must have heard them, too, and his keener senses pinpointed the direction they were coming from better than hers.
She followed his eyes. Through the dim light and the leaves, she could see park rangers leading a small group of armed men and women. National Guardsmen, she thought.
“It was coming from this way,” she heard a ranger say.
Then, the dragon spoke. It was a whisper, but it carried very clearly to her.
“We must honor the Scaled Curtain, dragon slayer,” he said.
“Yes,” she said in a voice that was barely above a whisper, but she knew he would hear.
Then, as though he’d never been, the dragon disappeared into the woods again. Tyla slipped out of the tree and back to her original hiding spot to retrieve her things.
There were two things that dragons and slayers agreed on: they lived their lives devoted to the others’ destruction, and there was no reason for normal humans to know about their war. Hence, the agreement of the Scaled Curtain.
Secrecy over a kill.
As Tyla ruefully hid Tearbringer back in her backpack and prepared to slink out of the forest, she was painfully aware that her entry into the Elite Templars would have to wait. Still, she was bewildered by her own actions. Or lack of action.
Why did I hesitate…?