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Riz’s neck cracked as his entire body craned backwards, body tensing with a primal fear that nearly overrode a whole year of adventuring training. Seconds ago, Kalvaxus had been— well, still taller than him, but who wasn’t? Now he was bigger than his apartment, more comparable to a part of the landscape than a person. He cast a shadow over the whole gymnasium, wings tinting the spotlights blood red as they fought through the leathery skin. There was a loud cracking noise as he stretched his brand new— or perhaps very old— body parts. “Yes,” Kalvaxus hissed. The words were accompanied by a heavy flow of smoke, drooling from his mouth in thick steaks before diffusing to smog up the air. “Yes, this will do quite nicely. It’s good to be back!”
“Are you my dad?” Gorgug shouted from the floor.
“What?” Kalvaxus’s head whipped around to face him. “Wh— Why would I be your dad?”
Gorgug shrugged, averting his eyes. “I just— you gotta ask, you know?”
“You absolutely do not ‘got to ask’!” Kalvaxus roared. “Ugh, I thought rogues were supposed to be smart. You know, the last last time I ravaged this land, the most powerful wizard in the nation and the fucking queen showed up to fight me! This time around, what do I get? The dregs of the adventuring academy? The fucking loser patrol?”
“Maybe you’re just weaker and more pathetic this time around,” Fig called.
“Oh, says the girl who drove so many people away she had to make friends with her own shadow. At least this idiot—” he flicked his tail at Gorgug, nearly knocking him off his feet— “has the common sense to know nobody wants to see him!”
“Excuse you!” Fabian said. “Do not speak to my friends like that!”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Kalvaxus sneered. “Are you going to get your Papà to come get me in trouble?” Fabian flinched a little at the insult— huh. Wasn’t he supposed to be the most confident, unflappable person in their party? “Or are you going to call down divine wrath on me instead? Your family handed everything to you on a silver platter, and it’s still not enough— you have to beg someone else for spells, too.”
“And you!” He whirled around to face Kristen and Adaine, both paralyzed by the dragon fear that Riz had only barely shook off. “Let’s see, a wannabe healer who hangs out with rotting corpses, and a bard who couldn’t even persuade her own family to love her. Oh, I’m just quaking in my boots.”
Finally, he turned his eyes on Riz. “And a ball.”
The hairs on Riz’s back bristled. “The ball, bitch.”
Kalvaxus smiled, all smug confidence and leering cruelty. He lowered his head to almost rest on the ground in front of Riz. “I’ll tell you what, ball,” he sneered, smoke seeping out between his teeth and bringing tears to his eyes. “I’m sure your more… literate friends read that spell of binding to you, but let me give you a little refresher. I was forbidden from harming Solesian citizens.” His smile grew wider, lips curling back to reveal teeth like jagged white stones in black gums. “Your father was in the foreign service, and he got himself burned. They stripped his citizenship.”
Riz blinked. Deep down, part of him knew what Kalvaxus was saying— the part of him that was baring his claws for him, that was itching to bury them in his scaly flesh— but the leap from implication to understanding was too broad. He was paralyzed, forced to listen as Kalvaxus finished speaking, delivering the punchline to his grisly setup. “Devouring him was the—“
Riz blacked out too fast to comprehend the rest of the sentence.
He came back to himself halfway up Kalvaxus’s chest, his claws wedged beneath sharp scales, his arms drenched to the elbows with hot dragon blood, his chin dripping with froth. He’d lost his shoes and half his suit (right down the middle, his left sleeve and coattail burned and brittle), and the air was rough with smoke. Burns and cuts he hadn’t noticed receiving started to sting in the fiery air, compounding with a throbbing headache.
Riz felt the clear, driving strength of his rage leave him as it all drained away, leaving him gasping for breath. His legs shook, slipping a bit from Kalvaxus’s armored scales as he took a swipe at… someone. Riz looked over his shoulder as best he could, hoping to spot Fig and somehow communicate that he needed her help, now, but he couldn’t see anything very clearly as Kalvaxus swung him around. One of his hands dislodged, and Riz yelped as he was suddenly left dangling from one claw. “Fig? Gorgug?” he called desperately, forgetting everything Porter had told him about not telegraphing plans to enemies. “A little help here?”
“Looking for someone?” Kalvaxus’s voice boomed. Riz flinched away, hissing. It was like being directly in front of the amps at the Black Pit, if the amps were several stories tall and wanted to kill you. A smooth and wickedly sharp talon pierced through what was left of Riz’s jacket and shirt and into the flesh of his back, picking him off the dragon’s chest like a tick. The floor, already dangerously far below him, sank even further as Kalvaxus haphazardly swung him around. Riz thrashed and growled, his claws slashing at nothing even as his stomach lurched from pain and nausea. “Go on, ball,” Kalvaxus growled. “Let’s see. Where are your friends?”
Riz blinked the stars out of his eyes and peered down at the floor so, so far below. Between the burned floors and half-melted party decorations, it was hard to pick out anything else. Why weren’t his friends fighting Kalvaxus?
Actually, why couldn’t he hear anyone?
Then, his eyes raised from the ground below his dangling feet to the walls. Fig, slumped against the wall, a trail of rusty blood painted from halfway up the wall to her lolling head. Fabian, crouched next to her, praying over her without much success. Kristen lying crumpled and ignored in the corner, which probably meant she was beyond help now— Riz swallowed back bile. He couldn’t see Adaine or Gorgug. Hopefully they were just better at hiding with the others.
“Well?” Kalvaxus whispered, scaly lips close to his head. Riz coughed on the noxious fumes. “See what a good job you did protecting them?”
“Fuck you.” Riz struggled, his body swinging from Kalvaxus’s talons. It sent waves of fresh pain through his back, his body dropping an inch as his skin tore. His heart was thundering in his ears, his head pounding with pain and fury, but he couldn’t rage. His brain was much too foggy for that kind of single-minded focus now. If he had a second to recalibrate— a few heals and a rage shake—
Kalvaxus chuckled low, twisting Riz around until his enormous head was all he could see, like the front of a truck bearing down on him. “Now you’re starting to sound like your good friend Fig,” he said. “Taking up the mantle now that she’s knocked out?” Riz couldn’t respond in any way other than a high-pitched growl. “You know, I thought barbarians were supposed to be strong, but you’re hardly more than a speck. A little pipsqueak. Your father had no idea he was going into a fight, but he still fought more bravely than you. Then again, maybe he thought he had a chance to beat me, while you most certainly have none.”
Riz clawed the air uselessly. His muscles tensed, his blood rushing to his extremities, begging him to fight. He was exhausted, he could feel every bruise and cut on his body, and he could still think, so it wasn’t a rage, but it sure felt close to one. If only he was a few feet closer. He could bite Kalvaxus’s tongue right out of his mouth and shut him up for good. “Ooh, I see I’ve struck a nerve,” Kalvaxus gloated. “You know, it was quite rude of you to stop listening in the middle of my speech. Your father was much more perceptive. That’s something I miss about my old empire. Your kind used to be much better acquainted with fear.”
“I’m going to claw your eyes out,” Riz snarled. They took up his entire field of view now, yellow and slitted like a goblin’s but completely inexpressive, like an ordinary stupid lizard’s, scaled up a thousand times in size and hate.
“Aww, are you upset?” Kalvaxus chuckled, and then Riz couldn’t see at all, his vision obscured by sweltering grey smoke. “Does it make you angry that all goblins are good for is being slaves or food to superior creatures? Are you going to go into a rage?”
Riz sure felt like it. The pain was dull now, but his other senses had never been clearer. Every disdainful note in Kalvaxus’s voice rang through his mind again, and again, and again. It was the pealing of some dreadful bell, the pounding of a drum— a summons to war, a chance to avenge every life he’d taken if only he could get within melee range. “Well. It’s admirable that you’re trying to kill me, I suppose, but let’s face it, you aren’t really hero material. So, I’m going to eat you, and then I’m going to eat all your insipid little friends, and then I’m going to raze this pathetic excuse for a nation to the ground while your precious little halfling friend dies of exposure outside my lair. And there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”
Kalvaxus lifted Riz up, up, out of the haze of smoke and ash, his jaws yawning below him like a flower of teeth. Riz twisted and thrashed on instinct, his already ruined coat ripping more. He dropped and spun on a rope of fabric, swinging to face the door to the gymnasium just as it slammed open, police officers crowding the entrance, guns lowered, hesitating to announce their presence to the monstrous creature inside.
His mom pushed to the front— she was always the bravest one of them, the only one he could depend on to protect him— but froze as her eyes met his.
Her eyes widened into twin yellow moons, pupils narrowing to thin black lines, mouth moving without making any sounds.
And then
Riz
fell.
He wasn’t raging. He was furious, a cold fury, hard as ice, that left no room in his brain for any thought or emotion other than I’m going to KILL this man. No room for fear when the light got swallowed up, closing into a thin line between razor-sharp teeth. No room for disgust when he was dragged into a throat large enough to fit his body without chewing, but only barely, wet flesh trapping him in a pocket without air, too tight even to curl up into a ball. No room for regret, for crushing sorrow that his life was going to end before his fifteenth birthday, snuffed out in the furnace-hot entrails of a monster bigger than his apartment, thundering with the beat of a heart bigger than his body. His only desire was to fuck this dragon’s shit up, and the idiot had given him the perfect vantage point to do so— the inside of his body, where there were no armored scales or fiery breath to protect him from Riz’s claws.
A powerful wave of muscular movement dragged Riz down, almost crushing the last breath he’d managed to take out of his lungs. Somehow, though, Riz held fast, his ribs straining but not buckling under the pressure. He lodged his claws into the wall of meat surrounding him, fingers popping through hard cartilage and sinking up to the knuckle in the soft surrounding muscle. Blood spilled out, scorching like a sudden too-hot shower, but Riz’s fingers curled reflexively, keeping him lodged in place.
Around him, Kalvaxus stilled.
Riz was still moving downwards, individual muscles stronger than his entire body dragging him along, but his claws held fast in Kalvaxus’s flesh. Instead of being dislodged, Riz tore straight, parallel lines down Kalvaxus’s esophagus, drenching himself in even more blood. His chest was starting to ache, stale air insisting to be let out, lungs begging him to breathe, but Riz could hardly care. He grinned wide, and tasted iron and sulfur seeping between his teeth.
Not so fucking strong in the inside, are you?
The heartbeat crushing Riz on all sides was getting louder now. Faster, too. He vaguely registered a sense of vertigo as Kalvaxus (probably) swung his neck around wildly— maybe looking for the source of the shearing pain inside him, perhaps, but he wouldn’t find Riz with his sight. He practically vibrated, a mixture of fury and sick satisfaction keeping him lodged firmly in place, even as gore and saliva made Kalvaxus’s throat even slipperier.
The flesh around him surged again, but upward this time. Kalvaxus wasn’t trying to swallow him anymore, he realized dimly—he was trying to cough him up. Riz almost laughed. He could feel the sweltering heat of fire breath trickling down from above, but not quite able to reach him. Why, after all, would a dragon need to swallow its own fire? Riz withdrew his claws for half a second, during which Kalvaxus nearly managed to dislodge him in a wave of smoky breath— he kicked hard, slipping back down as Kalvaxus’s throat spasmed and bracing his legs against the cartilage so he couldn’t be moved again. Riz pressed his claws together into one dagger-like shape, then jammed it back into the gash he’d made, plunging his hand up to the wrist in his flesh.
Kalvaxus’s neck whipped around in a panic with Riz inside, the speed crushing him in a vice. His lungs burned, stale air seeming to claw his chest even as he clawed Kalvaxus. Riz couldn’t see enough in the dark, bloody caverns of his body to know if his vision was blurring, but he felt his other senses going foggy around the edges— the taste of blood dulling in his mouth, the thundering of Kalvaxus’s heart growing echoey in his ears even as it grew more frantic, the boiling heat dimming to a fuzzy blanket wrapped around his mind. He was so tired. It would be so easy to give up.
But Riz didn’t fucking sleep.
A sensation cut through the haze of hypoxemia. Blood beat rhythmically against his fingertips as Riz sank his arm deeper into Kalvaxus’s body, almost up to the elbow. His palm pressed against a strong, stringy cord, thick as a hose but clearly organic. A vein. If dragons had them, probably the jugular. He knew from anatomy class that slicing that would end any creature that wasn’t already undead. At the same time, his claws brushed something much stretchier, much more supple than meat, but armored on the outside. If he clawed through the skin, he might make a hole large enough to breathe through.
But then again, he might not.
Riz only had a split second to make the decision.
He knew what he had to do.
He knew who had ripped his family apart. He knew who kept his mom up at night crying. He knew who had taught him he was nothing but a monster at nine years old.
Summoning the last of his strength, Riz wrapped his claws around the stretchy vein and, like a sickle reaping wheat, pulled back.
A gush of boiling hot blood enveloped him. Muscles spasmed around him, uncoordinated, unable to pull him in any direction. Riz’s arm stayed lodged firm in Kalvaxus’s flesh, but he didn’t have any more strength to claw and dig and tear. Crushing vertigo hit him like a car as Kalvaxus finally collapsed, his body slamming to the gymnasium floor.
The thundering beat rushing all around him slowed, then stopped.
The last of Riz’s breath left his lungs, forced out by the weight of a dead dragon.
And then—
A sudden burst of coolness, barely caressing the tip of his outstretched claw. It was faint, so faint, but he’d been so burning hot that it cut through the haze between life and death. Riz’s hand twitched, just barely, and then there was more coolness, enveloping his hand, something solid and alive wrapping around his wrist, its grip firm but not pulling.
Maybe it was just his imagination, but it made Riz feel a little stronger.
The coldness sunk in deeper, caressing his arm, then his shoulder, then his face, and it came with the tiniest pinprick of light. Riz coughed up hot, syrupy dragon blood, spluttering. Air. The cold thing was air, and there was more of it, the gash in Kalvaxus’s throat growing wider as consciousness suffused his mind in angelic euphoria.
And the thing wrapped around his wrist, dragging him out through the slit, was a hand.
“Come on, breathe, The Ball, I got you. I got you. I pulled you out once, I’ll pull you out again.” Riz did as he was told, choking down oxygen as fast as he could and hacking up flecks of blood seconds later, fighting to keep a breath down. His eyes blinked open and it was all too bright, the glare of the spotlights, the glint of Gorgug’s machetes and Fig’s sword tinted with gore as they carved the scales around him, never letting the metal brush his skin, the brilliant glow of being out after being swallowed up, he had been about to die —he could feel his chest tightening, seizing, a too-late panic stealing his breath— “No, stay with me. You killed a dragon, man, you did it, you got him. Luck be a lady, let The Ball be okay, please, please —“
With a shove that felt like moving bags of concrete, Riz forced his head through the gap. Immediately, there were more hands on him, on his arm and under his shoulders, tugging him out through the jagged wound in a rush of mucus and viscera. Riz slumped to the ground, blinking in the light. There were so many sounds out here, people talking over each other and growling and sirens and prayer and the ripping of flesh.
“Mrs. Gukgak,” said a voice he could now recognize as Adaine. Riz sat up, his body peeling reluctantly off the floor, leaving a patch of sticky congealed blood where he’d been laying. His mom was still tearing into Kalvaxus, feet away, her teeth clenched so hard it looked light they might shatter. Her mouth foamed with blood and spit. “Mrs. Gukgak! He’s out! We got him out, you can stop now.”
His mom didn’t listen, even when Riz dragged himself over and draped himself across her back. He was getting her uniform all messy, but then again, she didn’t like being a detective much anymore, and the front of it was soaked with gore anyway. He wrapped his arms around her, barely strong enough to close his grip. “Mrs. Gukgak!” Adaine shouted again, and this time Riz felt a tide of arcane energy in her voice. Sklonda shuddered, rage abruptly leaving her body. Her hand raised, tremblingly, to pat his face where it hung over her shoulder, and then she was spinning around and hugging him with such force that for a second, Riz felt like a little baby, and she was the strongest thing in the world.
“Oh,” she murmured, and burst into tears.
Riz didn’t have the energy to cry. He just curled up tight as she stroked over his filthy, clotted hair, her tears carving thin lines in the blood coating his neck. “My baby,” she sobbed. “Oh, I thought you were gone, I thought—“
“He killed Dad, Mom.” Riz was honestly shocked at the sureness of his voice— quiet and rough but perfectly clear. “He said he ate dad, so I killed him. I ripped his throat out.”
Rather unsurprisingly, this just made Sklonda bawl harder. “Don’t you ever do that again.”
“Get eaten by a dragon?” Riz asked. She just nodded. “… I’ll try not to.”
It’s almost funny that he can’t guarantee that. He’s an adventurer; shit happens. But for now, they’re alive, and nothing else matters.