James Maxey - Greatshadow

Infidel leapt to where the harpoon had fallen. It jutted up from the boards of the deck. She snatched it free, spinning around, racing toward Aurora, splintering the snagged board that had caught the rope. She wordlessly snatched the freshly coiled rope from Aurora’s hands and jumped over the edge, flying from the Black Swan toward a still intact piling. She landed on this and leapt again, giving chase to the retreating dragon, who now spun slowly over the area where the other dragon had fallen. The sea still boiled furiously. The dragon again cried out; this time the thunderous roar had an edge of grief to it. The beast turned its head upward, flapping its mighty wings as it steered back toward the distant volcano. The whole south slope was aflame now, the forests forming the world’s largest bonfire as the pyroclastic flow slipped through the once lush jungles.

Infidel landed on a final piling before deciding she was close enough. She dropped the coil into the water, wrapping the last few inches around her wrist. The beast was low over the waves, the down beat of its wings brushing the surface. She reared back with the harpoon, the weapon comically long compared to her. When she let it fly, it flashed through the air more swiftly than an arrow. The dragon grunted as the harpoon buried itself in its flank, but didn’t look back. It flapped its wings again and flew higher, as the rope trailed behind it. Infidel grabbed hold with both hands as she was snapped into the air. She clambered up the rope like a monkey on a vine. The dragon tilted its head back, aware of her weight. It sucked in air and exhaled a long cone of flame, engulfing Infidel. For a second, she couldn’t be seen at all in the conflagration. Then, her hand reached out of the flame, grasping onto the hind-claw of the dragon just as the rope disintegrated.

The flames faded, revealing Infidel clasped by a single hand onto the middle nail of the dragon’s hind-claw. Her clothes were mostly burned away; her skin was flushed red, like she had sunburn, and it broke my heart to see that her long, flowing tresses were mostly gone, singed down to a frizzled mess. Her eyes were set in a look of determination.

The dragon wasn’t impressed. It flexed its claw forward, bending its head toward her to bite away the unwelcome passenger. As it opened its jaws, Infidel swung her body back and forth, dangling from the claw. The creature’s mouth glowed with the fading remnants of its flame. I saw a flash of light as the well-honed blade of my bone-handled knife was revealed in Infidel’s free hand. She swung forward, leaping into the beast’s open jaws, clearing its teeth. The creature’s mouth clamped shut.

Suddenly, I was alive again. Not ghost alive; I was physically whole once more, popping into existence inches above the dragon’s snout. Unlike my previous manifestations, this time the laws of gravity applied. I slammed into the dragon’s scales, sliding down its snout, scraping my restored flesh on its raspy hide. I cut my hands trying to grab hold. The scales were like flakes of razor-sharp volcanic glass. I screamed as I left a trail of blood down its snout, but caught myself at last, my foot coming to rest on the ridge of its nostrils.

My stomach twisted as the beast lurched through the air. The ground seemed impossibly distant. I felt certain I’d been restored to life only to face a second death. But… why? How had this happened?

Suddenly, Infidel’s fist burst through the skin only a few feet down the snout from the dragon’s eyes, my bone-handled knife firmly in her grasp. The dragon’s blood bubbled on the surface of the blade, quickly boiling off now that it was exposed to air. Infidel’s whole arm tore through the skin, followed by a shoulder, then her bloodied head burst through. The blood boiled on her skin as well as the knife. The creature shuddered, then went limp in the air; whatever Infidel had done to it had apparently been too much to withstand. The beast’s snout tilted down. I could see water far below; at some point, we’d come back out over the bay. I was thrown free of the beast’s nose, my naked, bleeding body tumbling in the air. As I spun, I looked back toward Infidel, who was gawking at me, her eyes wide.

“Infidel!” I shouted, straining my hand toward her.

“Stagger?” she whispered.

Then, the last of the fresh blood vaporized from the knife, leaving only a crust of black gore. The wind once more passed straight through me. I was suspended in mid-air, no longer in the grip of gravity. Light passed through my vaporous fingers.

“Stagger!” Infidel cried, her eyes frantic as they searched the air where she’d last seen me.

Then the dragon hit the water, and I plunged beneath as well, my ghost still tethered to the knife. The sea was black as ink, full of the stirred-up silt from the tidal wave. My vision was all but useless, unable to make sense of the images that flashed past me. The dragon’s hide seemed to be crumbling, breaking apart into bits of black and red gravel. For half a second, I saw a flash of Infidel’s torso. There was something long and rope-like wrapped around it, covered with cup-sized suckers. The water roiled, and a giant eye flashed past me, the size of a dinner plate, glowing with a golden phosphorescence.

Then, suddenly, Infidel and my knife were back above the surface of the water. She was wrapped in the tentacle of an enormous squid, at least sixty feet long. A second tentacle held the soggy, sputtering form of Reeker.

Infidel raised her knife to stab at the tentacle that held her, but stopped herself before she thrust the blade down. The dragon blood had been washed off by her plunge into the bay. As the last bit of pink water ran down the handle, I faded once more, invisible even to myself.

The squid’s tentacles gingerly placed Infidel onto the wrecked roof of the Black Swan. She was, yet again, buck naked save for a ring of ruined leather that had once been the too-short skirt. Aurora rushed to her side, snatching up the half-charred flag of the barge and draping it over Infidel’s bare shoulders before Reeker had recovered enough to ogle her.

“That was really damn impressive,” Aurora said. “But… who was up there with you?”

“What?” asked Infidel, running her fingers through what was left of her hair. The longest bits were only a few inches long.

“For a second, I thought I saw someone else clamped onto the dragon’s snout with you. Were my eyes playing tricks?”

Infidel turned pale. “I thought I saw… I thought…” her voice trailed off. “It was just some poor sailor. He… he fell.”

Menagerie dragged himself up onto the roof, human once more. The squid tattoo that had once been dark black upon his neck had faded to a barely visible gray-blue outline.

He collapsed against what was left of the mast, staring up toward the still bubbling volcano. “I guess the king’s dragon hunt has been cancelled.”

Infidel shook her head as she, too, looked at the raging mountain. “I don’t think so. Greatshadow has just been suckered. Those ships were decoys; I’ll stake my life on it.”

“You’re probably right,” said Reeker, wringing water from his hair. He looked at Menagerie. “So, anyway, I quit. I’m done with dragons. Infidel can be the third Goon.”

“You aren’t quitting,” said Menagerie. “You signed the contract.” He tapped at a section of cursive text on the left cheek of his buttocks. “Didn’t you read all the terms? You’re in this until Greatshadow’s dead, or you are.”

Reeker sighed, then muttered something underneath his breath.

“Hur hur hur,” said No-Face.

Infidel laughed as she contemplated Menagerie’s skinny ass. “I guess that’s one way of discouraging people from studying the fine print.”