The Ballad Of A Semi-Benevolent Dragon

Chapter 10: The Dragon Is Impressed

The giant serpent slithered toward the village. The paltry walls of the human settlement would do little to keep him out. He would smash right through them and then gorge on the humans within. The ruins would become his new home, and he would bask in the rich currents of magic that flowed through the area. He would grow stronger and surpass the limitations of his present form. He was so close that he could almost taste it. And once he ascended, only the dragon would be strong enough to stop him. But the dragon never stayed awake for long. Soon, the dragon would slumber once more, and the serpent would be free to continue growing. Perhaps one day, he might even have the strength to challenge the dragon. Yes. That was a pleasing thought. He would tear the dragon's heart from his chest and swallow it whole.

Behind him, the lesser monsters waited for him to make his move. All of them were weak, but their numbers made them useful. In exchange for not devouring them, they served him. They would wait outside the village and catch any of the humans who tried to flee. And if they failed and allowed some of the humans to escape? The serpent had no need for useless servants. He would eat the failures as a warning to the others.

Hissing sharply, the snake ordered them to get into position before rushing toward the village. He struck the wooden wall and went right through it. Eyes gleaming with malevolent joy, he was about to break open the closest house to feast on the occupants when his instincts screamed at him to dodge. For a split-second, he considered ignoring them. What could possibly threaten him now that the dragon was gone? But those same instincts had allowed him to rise above the other monsters. It would be foolish to ignore them now.

He dodged.

And the ground where his body had been exploded.

The serpent drew back, his body coiled and ready to burst into motion as deadly venom dripped from his foot-long fangs. As the dust cleared, a human stood up. She had black hair and violet eyes, and the moonlight revealed a scowl upon her face.

"Damn it. I was hoping to kill you with that attack." Her gaze drifted to the ruined section of wall. "That is going to be a hassle to fix. I'll have to apologise to the headman for not killing you before you could break it."

The serpent glared. Kill him? Was this foolish human insane? He had faced humans before. None had wounded him in decades. His scales were thick, his coils were strong, and his venom could kill within seconds. And yet... the serpent felt the first stirrings of unease. He reached out with his senses, expecting to feel the usual pathetic reserves of magic that he'd come to expect from humans. Even the strongest of his previous foes had possessed only a fraction of his power.

This human was different.

She had more magic than any human he had faced in the past. However, she still had less magic than him. He gave a low hum of amusement. This human must have grown quite conceited. Yes. She was stronger than other humans, so she must think that she could beat him. How foolish. How naive. How absurd. He would kill her and then devour her, and her strength would become his strength. A fitting end for such a fool.

The serpent readied himself to strike. He used a trio of fifth-order spells to enhance his speed, strength, and agility. He had not lived so long by being careless. He would crush this woman in a single blow!

"Are you going to stand there all night, or are we going to fight?" The woman made a disgusted sound. "I really thought you'd come sooner. I'm missing sleep right now. Hurry up and attack, so I can kill you." She made a face. "Does snake even taste nice? I should ask the villagers about it. Oh, I hope one of them is a chef. If I have to eat another charred monster..."

The serpent could tolerate her insults no longer. The only person who would be eaten would be her!

With one final hiss, the serpent lunged. His form was perfect. His speed was unmatched. The woman died before she could even realise what had happened.

Or so it should have been.

Instead, the woman looked right at him, violet eyes gleaming in the darkness, and then she smiled. Something swirled into existence around her, a power the serpent couldn't quite see or understand, and then she vanished. The serpent missed, and he turned to find her only to realise that she was standing on top of his head.

"I really don't want to break my sword, so this will have to do." The woman raised a fist-sized rock over her head. That strange, inexplicable power swirled into existence around the rock, and then she brought it down.

BOOM.

Antaria bit back a curse.

What the hell had she been thinking? Enhancing herself and then hitting the giant serpent over the head with a rune-enhanced rock had seemed like a great idea right up until the damn thing's skull had exploded in a shower of gore, covering her in a mixture of shattered bone, blood, and brains. There would be no cleaning these clothes out. She was going to have to burn them... unless she could convince Doomwing to clean them or maybe teach her a basic rune for cleaning. There had to be one, right? She doubted regular magic would be enough to get rid of the stains and the stench.

As the serpent's body toppled to the ground, she took a moment to estimate its length. The villagers had been right. It was roughly a hundred feet long. Before meeting Doomwing, she would have been terrified of facing a creature like this on her own. In fact, she wouldn't have felt confident facing it unless she had dozens of soldiers and mages at her side.

Now look at her.

She wasn't scared of it. She was pissed off that she'd made such a mess while killing it.

On the upside, it looked like the serpent's fangs had survived. She didn't know if she could turn those into weapons, but it was probably worth trying. If nothing else, she could use regular magic to preserve them and then stab stuff with them. She wasn't a weapon smith, but it shouldn't be too hard to turn the fangs into daggers or perhaps the tips of a pair of spears.

"Are you... okay?" The question came from William, the headman. For an old fellow, he was quite brave, and he had been the first to emerge to see if she was all right.

"I'm fine. Just mad." Antaria scowled. "My clothes are ruined, and you'll have to fix that part of the wall." She paused. "Sorry about that."

"It's... it's fine." William nodded quickly. "This serpent could easily have killed us all."

"Yeah, well, it's not over yet." Antaria grabbed what was left of the serpent's head and began to drag it behind her as she walked toward the hole in the wall. "There are a bunch of monsters outside. I'm going to speak to them."

"Speak to them?" William asked.

"Doomwing told me that monsters tend to get smarter the stronger they are. The ones outside should be smart enough to understand what I'm saying. I could kill them all, or..."

"Or?"

"You'll see." Antaria grinned toothily. "Just wait here."

She walked out of the village and stopped where all the monsters could see her. None of them were as strong as the serpent she'd just killed. The smallest of them was roughly the size of a grown man whilst the largest were many times that size. One of them opened its mouth to howl only to fall still and silent when it saw what she was dragging along. With a derisive snort, she tossed the mangled remains of the serpent's head onto the ground in front of her.

It was a mess, but she was sure they could understand what it was.

"I killed your leader with this rock." Antaria held up the rock she'd used in her other hand. It was still smeared in gore. "And now I'm going to give you all a choice. I can kill the rest of you with this rock, or you can do the smart thing. You can kneel. There is a lot of work to be done around here, and you all look pretty useful."

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The monsters all resembled larger, magically altered versions of animals she was familiar with like wolves, bulls, tigers, snakes, badgers, and birds. For this area to prosper, they would need beasts of burden. So why stick to mundane beasts when monsters were so much stronger?

"You followed that overgrown snake because he was stronger than any of you." Antaria kicked the remains of the head. The monsters flinched away from the resulting spray of gore. "Now he is dead, and I am the one who killed him. Follow me instead. Do as I say, and I will see to it that you have all the food you need. If other monsters attack you, then I will kill them myself." She glared, and the magic within her pulsed, seething in a bid to emulate the terrifying menace that Doomwing exuded so effortlessly. "Are you afraid of the dragon?"

The monsters refused to answer. Instead, they looked away, cowed at the mere mention of Doomwing.

"Good. That means you aren't stupid." Antaria put her hands on her hips. "But you don't have to worry about him. You are beneath his notice. However, he is my teacher, and he has ordered me to improve these lands. I have no intention of disappointing him. Those who obey and aid me have no reason to fear, but those who choose to oppose me will die." She spread her arms. "Choose. Will you obey, or will you die?"

The monsters looked at each other, and then one of them charged toward her. It was a tiger the size of a house. Magic gathered around it, a pair of fifth-order enhancement spells turning it into the equivalent of a living avalanche. Antaria had grown adept enough at absorbing and circulating magic from her surroundings that she could have killed it in hand-to-hand combat without using a rune. But she didn't want to kill it. She wanted to massacre it, so the next time any of the monsters thought of rebelling, they'd remember what happened and decide it was better not to test her patience.

She wove a pair of runes around her rock and then threw it as the tiger sprang toward her.

The tiger hit the ground and rolled to a stop in front of her. There was a hole in its skull, along with a much larger one from where the rock had burst out of its body. Antaria smiled and then scowled as she realised that she now had no idea where her rock was. Damn it.

"He chose to die." Antaria knelt down and then picked up another rock. It wasn't quite as large as her original rock, but there was a decent weight to it, and the way the monsters flinched away when she stood and brandished it at them was oddly gratifying. "Does anyone else want to die, or will you obey?"

Doomwing watched through his construct as Antaria led the now obedient monsters toward the village. They trailed after her like ducklings, too afraid to do anything more than obey. The headman, William, stared at the procession in disbelief, and the expression on his face only grew more amusing as she explained what she had done.

Doomwing was pleased. No. More than that. He was impressed.

He had expected Antaria to kill the giant serpent without much difficulty although allowing the wall to be damaged had been a miscalculation on her part. She'd also been clever enough to use another weapon instead of her battered sword. Although she could have used a rune to reinforce her sword, the weapon was already in such poor condition that it was only a matter of time before it broke. He'd have to get her a better one, albeit not one so good that she came to rely on it instead of her own abilities. Hmm... perhaps he could teach her a basic rune for restoration. It was the very first healing-oriented rune that Elerion had ever learned, and it worked on inanimate objects too.

He had expected Antaria to kill the rest of the monsters. It was what Elerion had done when put in a similar situation. He had seen the threat they posed, and he had eliminated them without hesitation. It had been an impressive showing of strength and decisiveness. However, Antaria needed a work force, and the monsters were far stronger than the villagers or their livestock. Even the weakest of the monsters could pull loads that would normally require a team of oxen. Moreover, some of the monsters could fly whilst others could burrow beneath the ground. All of them had potential uses.

A normal human would have looked at the monsters and decided that it was too dangerous to keep them around. But Antaria was no longer a normal human. She understood, in some visceral way, that the monsters didn't care who led them so long as their leader was the strongest and was able to provide what they needed.

The monsters would work. In exchange, they would receive food and shelter. If they were threatened, then Antaria would kill their enemies. It was a simple way of viewing the world, but it had worked for them so far, and Antaria had proven she had the strength to lead by slaughtering the giant serpent and then the giant tiger. Of course, her mount, Swiftstride had decided to show himself, and the winged unicorn was now throwing his weight around in a bid to make it clear that he was next in the pecking order after Antaria. However, Doomwing could already see several of the monsters eyeing the unicorn speculatively. None of them were stupid enough to think they could beat Antaria, but the unicorn was not nearly as scary. It might be possible for them to snatch his position.

Hmm... Antaria would have to make clear what sort of competition she would allow, which should be interesting.

Satisfied that Antaria had the matter well in hand, he shifted his attention back to his current location.

He had flown south after leaving his territory, and his destination was already visible on the horizon. When Mother Tree had chosen her path, her daughters had followed in her footsteps. They had shared her fate. Only the seeds she had released just before her death had been spared. They had not committed any crimes, so Doomwing and the others had been reluctant to exterminate them, not least because doing so would condemn what remained of the elves to death.

In the end, they had settled for watching the newly sprouted Daughter Trees to see if any of them wished to follow Mother Tree's path. A few had, and they had been dealt with. However, the majority had chosen to be more reasonable, either because they genuinely disagreed with Mother Tree's actions or because they were smart enough to realise that emulating her was a death sentence. The oldest and mightiest of those Daughter Trees was the dryad who had adopted the name Anthracia.

Unlike most of the other Daughter Trees that closely resembled Mother Tree, Anthracia was different. Her leaves were as burning embers in appearance, and her bark was the black of scorched wood and the grey of ash. She was a living reminder of Mother Tree's fate, both as a warning to her sisters and an admonishment to those who had slain her mother. And she was strong. She had grown taller and stronger than any of the others, and the elves who had sworn themselves to her were the greatest of their kind that still remained in the world.

Doomwing was not small. He was roughly a mile long, yet compared to Anthracia, he was tiny.

Staring at the towering tree rising high above the dense forest that spanned the horizon, Doomwing smiled. She was a little over four miles tall, and already he could feel her power stir at his approach. It had been tempting to leave this visit until the end, but there were plants he needed from her domain, along with a few tree folk he was interested in recruiting. It was better to handle this now before his journey wearied him or aggravated him into saying something unwise.

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