Dragon's Truth

2. Dragon's Truth Miah Baker Copyright © 2015 by Miah Baker All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher. Published by Mybard www.mybard.com

3. The beast glared at her, its noxious breath assaulting her senses and wreaking like the inside of a sewer. Maureen straightened her shoulders and hefted the heavy claymore sword over them. She could do this. She’d been training her whole damn life for this attack, hadn’t she? The dragon in front of her in the abandoned alley loomed large, its olive green scales glistening in the moonlight and its yellow eyes gleaming at her. She steadied herself one extra second before she swung. She had to admit that dragons were so much more massive in person than what she’d read about or been lectured on. This one could eat her in probably three bites. The large Scottish broadsword she carried swung wide, an arc of deadly precision, but the dragon leaped into the air with speed that was almost impossible for the human eye to follow. Maureen didn’t even bother to watch for where it was landing. She shut her eyes and let herself follow her senses as she’d always been taught. The wind rippled around her and the stench of dragon breath was a better beacon for the beast than any blur of movement. She swung again, eyes still slammed shut, and she felt her sword make a connection. Opening her eyes, Maureen smiled. Her claymore had made solid contact with the dragon’s flesh and was embedded deep in its shoulder. Viscous black blood gushed down its side, and the monster roared deeply. She coughed at the onslaught of foul breath and nasty spit, and was eternally grateful this was the type with a poisonous bite and without fire breathing abilities. The ignio types were the ones to be avoided at all costs, the ones that left more dragon slayers dead in their wake than any other. Thanks to the efforts of scores of dragon hunters, many from her own family over the years, the ignios were almost extinct. Still, Maureen was already far too close to comfort next to the venato. This close to a fire breather? She’d be charcoal briquette, no kidding. The dragon was still shrieking, and it was obvious that even with a broadsword buried deeply in its flesh, that the blow wasn’t fatal. Maureen swallowed and pulled with all her might against the hilt. Then she swore lividly when the blade wouldn’t budge. “Shit!” The dragon turned its head and tried to bite her. She dropped the sword’s hilt and rolled toward the left. Hopping up, she looked around her in the darkened Boston alley for anything she could use as a weapon. Beside her was a dumpster and a few broken down cardboard boxes. Off her right shoulder was a fire escape stair rail. It was made of wrought iron, which put it above cardboard or hiding in trash in Maureen’s mind. Dashing with all she had left, she ran and dove behind the railing of the stairs. She kicked against the iron as hard as she could, hoping to dislodge a rod that she could use to shove into the dragon’s chest or eyes. In the meantime, the dragon reached her; its maw was snapping shut inches from her feet as she kept kicking in vain against the metal. Maureen pulled back in just enough time to keep her left foot intact. Desperate, she reached to her left and groaned when she grasped the jagged edge of a broken beer bottle. She hurled it at the dragon’s eye and cursed again when it didn’t even faze the beast. Damn it, Maureen was going to die and she wasn’t even going to see her eighteenth birthday. Then an arrow whizzed through the air and embedded its dragon’s tooth head in the chest of the monster that had just been trying to eat her. More arrows came in a volley, piercing the animal’s side, eyes, and chest. Blood was flowing freely now and staining the concrete of the alley black as ebony. Maureen hopped up and took advantage of the dragon’s death throes to pull

4. her claymore from its shoulder. The heft of the blade seemed worse than it normally did. Even at a shade over six feet tall and years of training, a sword that huge was always a challenge for a woman to wield. The dragon made one more ear-splitting scream, then it stilled and its eyes froze wide open, a legion of arrows piercing through them. Turning, Maureen sighed when the two huge men and the lithe woman came to stand in front of her. The two guys were huge, close to 6’6, and easily could have been contestants in those insane strongmen contests where guys carried tires and beer kegs for football fields. The only real way to tell them apart, even if they weren’t technically twins, was that her older uncle, Robert, preferred to stay clean shaven while his younger brother, Bruce, had a long beard that would make Thor jealous. Her mom looked a lot like her, like she might look after twenty plus years of dragon slaying (if she were that lucky) had hardened her body into one lean muscle. The one obvious difference beside their ages were her mother’s green eye and the burned flesh on the right side of her face and hand. Seven years ago, her mom and dad had gone to clear out the nest of a couple of ignio dragons. Seven years ago, only her mother had come back, and, even then, not all of her ever really had. It was her mother who offered out her hand, palm up, and shook her head. “You need to give me back your weapon.” “Mom, I can explain!” “Now, Maureen,” she said, grasping the claymore and bending with its heft before passing it to Uncle Robert. “That was a bad showing.” “It’s not the real test! This was a surprise, sure. I didn’t think a field test today would mean an actual freaking dragon, but I injured it! I got some shots in.” Her uncle leaned the sword against the wrought iron railing. The clang of its metal against the bars sounded more ominous than it should have. “You embedded your sword on the second strike in the dragon’s flesh and lost it. Then you ended up trapped with nowhere to regroup and no decent contingency plans. If this wasn’t a controlled scenario with the three of us as back up, you’d be dead.” Uncle Bruce sighed and offered her a small smile underneath the fur overgrowing his chin. “You did get in a good blow, Mauri. That’s true. That’s more blood than I ever drew in my first test.” “Don’t encourage mediocrity,” her mom countered. “You were sloppy and over confident and you would have been killed in a normal hunt. You know that. I’m ashamed that’s as good as you could do after almost seven years learning under me.” “I’m not that shocked,” Uncle Robert said and everyone stilled. Uncle Bruce took a step back and held both his hands up in the air. Looking between the two, he said, “I’m Switzerland. I’ve said that long ago. I’m not getting into it.” Her mom glared back at her older uncle and her expression became feral. “You have something you want to say to me, Robert? Maybe something that wouldn’t undercut me in front of my child and protégé?” “Fiona, I have to say what you know I’ve always had to say…” Maureen’s stomach churned and, despite the stench of dead dragon, it was the fight that was making her nauseated. It was the same drama every time, and she loathed it. “Dad would still be dead if you or Uncle Bruce had gone down with him. Everyone knows that.”

5. Uncle Bruce had the decency to blush and look down at the ground. “No one ever said that, kiddo.” “You always say it. You think me and Sean can’t hear it, but we can. It feels like every holiday and before every hunt you guys double team Mom about why my dad’s dead. Get over it. You think I suck at hunting? Maybe you all should get your shit together.” “Maureen!” her mom said, even though she winked her remaining eye at her. “Language. Still, your trial is coming up in a few weeks. When Father Murphy sets you into it, there won’t be back up.” She sighed and just barely kept herself from rolling her eyes. “I know.” “Then, you should also know,” her uncle Robert said, voice as gravelly as ever. “That this is an adolescent venato. A mature male would be three times as big.” Her knees almost gave out from under her. It was harder to be glib when something that huge was revealed to her. “Jesus. I’m never going to pass.” “You are,” her mom said, slinging an arm over her shoulder. “I’ll see to it.” ** “You look beat, Mauri,” Alex said as he sat down next to her on their favorite patch of grass outside the cafeteria. St. Mary’s High School let seniors eat outside on nice days, and this was the nicest they’d had since winter began. March was almost over and it was only a pea coat kind of day. She was sitting, cross legged, over an old wool blanket she stashed in her locker just in case of nice weather----a Boston early spring rarity. The only drawback was that sitting like this made her freaking itchy wool uniform skirt ride up. Still as tired as she was from her (spectacularly) failed field test, Maureen looked like a beauty queen next to Alex. The guy was pale, sweating pretty hardcore on his temples and forehead, and his eyes were bloodshot. If she didn’t know him as well as she did, she’d have said he was jonesing for a fix of something, probably meth. Maureen frowned but opened her lunchbox. She’d told her mom every day since the middle of February in sixth grade that she had to have strawberry Pop-Tarts in her lunch. That was a lie for Alex. They’d become fast friends as co-leads in The Music Man. It was then, she’d discovered his love for Pop-Tarts and started packing them. In turn, he always brought her matzah ball soup when his mom made it. Theater had been a blast, in middle school and they’d both been darn good at it. However, while he’d had the time to stick with theater in high school, she’d focused her attention on playing field hockey. Much of that was to her mother’s dismay. After all, running midfield didn’t prepare one to slay dragons full time. She’d always countered running was running and that she’d get good at dragon killing regardless. Now, after a baby basically had almost bitten through her, Maureen wasn’t feeling so cocky. “So,” she said, holding out his favorite treat. “What did you get into last night?” He shook his head and her jaw dropped. In years and years---even before her father had died---Alex Richman ate Pop-Tarts from her lunchbox. It was like a constant of the universe: the sky was blue, water was wet, and Alex ate his weight in strawberry Pop-Tarts if you let him. “I’m not really feeling pop tarts right now.” She noticed he didn’t have any tray or food with him at all. Hell, he had his hands shoved so deep in his pants pockets, there’d be no way for him to carry anything either. “Then this is a lunch without lunch thing? Where’s your back pack?”

6. “Uh,” he said, arching his neck to look around. “Can we go somewhere less obvious?” She chuckled and hopped up. “We’re finally going to have all that wild monkey sex that everyone gossips about us having anyway?” “You wish, Mauri,” he said. Some days she really did. Where Alex had been thin and gawky when they first met, shorter than she was at eleven. Now he’d grown into a very attractive guy. He was even taller than she was, which was no small feat when you were over six feet as a girl yourself. Broad shouldered with bright blond hair and eyes as blue as her own, Alex didn’t look a thing like his Jewish heritage would have led you to believe. Of course, he’d known he was adopted since he was in at least fourth grade, had always been open about it as well as about his desire to find his birth mother when he turned eighteen in July. Still, he wasn’t some gawky sixth grader anymore, and she often found herself staring a moment too long at his lips or his strong arms and wishing they could be more than friends. That wasn’t really an option. Dragon hunters married within the other clans of hunters. Civilians didn’t marry into the life, and they certainly weren’t told about the war between dragons and humankind. They weren’t allowed to know that those beasts were hiding in plain sight, shifting between human and dragon forms as they pleased and abusing that ability to hunt and eat humans. In other words, even though Alex was her best friend. He knew nothing about the real her, as it had to be, and he never could be told. So anything that she fantasized about while alone in the girls’ bathroom on the third floor, that everyone used to lock off and make out in…well it would all have to stay a fantasy. “Hey, you coming?” he asked. “I have something to tell you and I can’t have an audience.” Concerned, she hopped up and followed him quickly into the theater arts lab. She didn’t even care that her blanket and food were left behind. He was scaring her. Sneaking into the wings behind the stage, Maureen and Alex then sat down on the ground. Frowning, she reached up to touch his forearm but he shrank back. “I don’t think you want to do that.” “I don’t understand,” she said, still puzzled by his insistence on keeping his hands in his pockets. “What’s going on? Did someone die?” He sighed and looked at her, really looked in her eyes for the first time that day. When he did that, it broke her heart. She’d never seen him cry before and, while he wasn’t now, his eyes were definitely watery. Alex broke eye contact quickly as if it pained him to have her look at him. “Okay, now I’m getting even more scared,” she said. “What’s up? What’s wrong with your hands, Alex?” “You…you promise that you won’t scream or freak out?” “I didn’t freak out that time you licked a flag pole because Brad Smick dared you too and it took the nurse, a bunch of hot water and two hours to get you free. That was pretty nasty.” He laughed but it came out as a strangled sound, not at all like his normal cheerful chirp. “This looks worse.” “Show me,” she said, squeezing his forearms again. “I’m not going anywhere, you know that.” Alex didn’t answer but, instead, pulled his hands from his pockets. She forced herself not to breathe heavily or freeze in shock. Fear? Maureen was extremely hard to freak out. It went