In a land far from the Salt Waste, in the Southeast of the continent, in the border between the Discontented Lands and the Dwarven Lands, a village of two hundred people stood.
Almost every single one of the two hundred inhabitants was outside on the day the Hero fought a dragon to defend their village.
“Kill him! Rip off the monster’s head, Hero!”
The dragon is clearly a female, thought Samara. And it would be kind of fucked up to kill such a young one… if he even could.
Chad parried another blow from the dragon’s claws with the holy sword he held in his right hand, then swung at the dragon’s right leg with the axe he clutched in his left.
The dragon tilted her head and caught the axe on one horn, then inhaled through one gnarly, flared nostril, in a dead giveaway that she was about to use her fiery breath.
The Hero sheathed the holy sword in an instant, grabbed the dragon’s mouth with the hand he had freed up, and held her mighty jaws shut even as flames struggled to leak out through the sides.
The dragon beat at Chad’s head, shoulders, and arms with her wings, but the Hero held fast, ignoring the relatively mild pain while keeping an eye out for the limbs that stood waiting to strike, all four legs and especially the tail.
They twisted and writhed around each other, neither holding a clear physical advantage, until the dragon managed to break free. She let loose a reduced burst of flame, much of her fury exhausted already, and Chad managed to dodge. A couple of unfortunate villagers’ homes caught fire, but they went to work extinguishing it immediately. The juvenile dragon’s flames weren’t nearly as dangerous as an adult’s would be.
Chad paid it no mind and continued trading blows with the dragon, his axe and sword ever ready to break bone, even if they seemed to have little or no capacity to hack through tough dragon scales.
This was pretty representative of how the fight had been going thus far. Neither party had managed to do any lasting damage, and each had prioritized avoiding injury over trying to go for a killing blow.
As if both sides knew this fight was not truly important for them.
That baby dragon is trying to stake out her territory, and she has to have some idea in the back of her mind that Chad will be gone soon enough, Samara thought. As for Chad…
The paladin couldn’t keep a slight, sad frown from overtaking her lips for a moment. She turned back to face the villagers who stared after the Hero with such hope in their eyes.
Maybe we will actually solve a problem here. Maybe it won’t be like everything else Chad touches. He leaves so much unfinished…
His magical knowledge was rudimentary. His religious instruction had never been properly begun, despite the fact that the High Priestess had dispatched her own sister to minister to his spiritual needs. Even his close-combat training had only been half-completed.
Just the fact that he had the highest potential out of every individual in the world, by sheer virtue of a god-granted class, gave him a lot of leeway to behave badly, act in an undisciplined manner, and flout the order of behavior prescribed for one with his role.
As Samara started to turn and face forward again, she saw it.
A carrier pigeon descended and landed on Black Hailgrim’s arm, and as he grabbed the message tied to its leg and looked up, his eyes and Samara’s locked.
What is it? she thought.
The older man’s expression darkened as he glanced at something on the paper. He hadn’t even opened it yet, and he was giving Samara anxiety with his mannerisms.
It must be from my sister. That’s the seal he would find most ominous.
She ignored the Hero and the dragon shouting and roaring at each other, a cold certainty settling into her gut. She started walking toward Hailgrim.
What sort of emergency would make Asha write to me out here? The temple will never get the pigeon back, so it must be at least important…
It seemed like a small thing, but there were perhaps a couple hundred trained pigeons available in the whole of the Kingdom at any given time, and if this one had found the Party of Heroes, it was likely that there were a dozen more looking for them in other, less likely directions, to ensure that the message arrived.
Finally, Samara stood before Hailgrim, her eyes searching his. The older man’s face had gone carefully blank. He did that sometimes, made himself unreadable.
“From your sister,” he said, extending his hand with the note.
The paladin saw the wax seal was broken after all—had he read it while she was nervously speculating about what the paper might contain?—and that the insignia did indeed match the High Temple of Astara.
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.
What sort of trouble are we in, Asha? Samara thought.
She began to read the note silently to herself. She was so used to reading through the code that was used for the Party of Heroes that her brain instantly translated it without issue.
“To my beloved sister, the Paladin Samara, of the Party of Heroes, I hope you are well. Unfortunately, I bring most ill tidings of a threat that demands your immediate attention.”
As she kept going, her eyes widened, and her hands began to shake.
“The Goddess has sent me a vision of a figure, the Defiant Necromancer, who threatens all those who oppose his patron deity, the God of Death. If the Defiant Necromancer is allowed to reach full maturity as a dark mage, I see his hordes of undead washing over Enh like a great wave, continuing over the entire Kingdom and into the Empire. I see a monstrous end to all the things we hold dear.
“As the Defiant Necromancer grows more powerful, I see him razing temples to the Goddess and War God Vika, sowing doubt and discontent throughout Abadd, and destabilizing the order of the world. I see the Defiant Necromancer arising from among the beastfolk, springing up from the Salt Waste like a weed of the desert.
“As much as I respect the Nietian Royal Army, I believe that only the Party of Heroes, with responsibility for destroying evil across Abadd wherever it is found, can properly remove this threat to everything sacred. I beseech you to return to Niet and find him. I know that you can prevail upon the Hero and the other members of your group to address this challenge. Please, find the Defiant Necromancer and bring me his head, so we may know peace.
“With love from your older sister, High Priestess Asha of the Great Temple of Astara”
Samara swallowed hard as she finished reading.
No big deal, then, she thought sarcastically. Just the end of the fucking world. And you… have a lot of confidence in me, huh?
“You already read it?” she asked Black Hailgrim.
He’d been reading through this code since before she was born, after all. Hailgrim had said it hadn’t been changed from the one used for the previous Party of Heroes.
He looked down at her, his eyes searching hers for a long moment this time, before he gave her a small nod.
“Thought it might be for me,” he said with a thin smile.
She returned the smile and shook her head.
Sure you did.
“Don’t ever change, old man.”
“Who are you calling old, brat?”
“Did you ever… When you were questing with the previous generation’s Hero, did you ever encounter a dark mage whose class had the ‘Defiant’ modifier?”
Hailgrim frowned again, then shook his head slowly.
“Do you know what it means?” she asked.
“Trouble.”
That was the annoying thing about Old Man Hailgrim. He could be so laconic at times that Samara wasn’t certain if he was wiser and knew more about a subject or if he was almost completely ignorant and simply getting by on the feeling he gave off, of an older and more experienced man.
He had joined the Party of Heroes this time as an older mentor figure, because he had been a part of the previous generation’s Party of Heroes… and because Asha had raised a large sum of money for a pension for him, to be paid out after he retired from questing once again. It was a bribe in all but name, but he had taken the responsibility of training and mentoring seriously.
Besides Chad, he was the only male member of this generation’s Party of Heroes. The Hero had insisted on recruiting mainly beautiful young women, which worked well enough when there were people like Ice Princess Cecilia, Swamp Mage Mischa, Sword Saintess Elara, and Astrid, the Rose of Sarda, ready to join him for the prestige or simply because Chad was good looking until one started to get to know him.
But it had also led to him having to accept a fairly junior paladin like Samara instead of getting a more experienced comrade. Even though, as she had explained to Chad when he tried to hit on her, she had taken a vow of celibacy and needed to maintain that in order to retain her powers, he still preferred having her around over someone who would be objectively more useful.
“Aesthetics,” he had answered when asked why. “Like having a pretty flower in the room.”
That didn’t exactly make her feel like a valued individual member of the team.
Especially not when he started treating her differently because he knew she was out of reach.
“What are you thinking?” asked Hailgrim, breaking into her thought pattern.
“I was thinking…” She turned away and looked over at the Hero again. He was still swinging his weapons at the dragon, sweat pouring down his brow.
The beast let out a little roar, beat her wings against the ground, and retreated a little bit. Samara could tell that she was trying to gain distance so she could unleash her flames properly again, but fortunately, Chad could tell too.
He charged across the short distance that separated him from the dragon, and she, seeing his determination and vigor, flapped her wings twice more and took off.
“Well, I’ll be,” said Hailgrim, rubbing his chin.
“You’ll be what?” Samara asked, frowning.
“I don’t think the dragon is coming back,” Hailgrim said, watching how the winged reptile moved through the air. “I guess our boy won this round.”
Sure enough, the dragon continued to gain ground, and she made for the mountains that marked the beginning of the Dwarven Lands.
There was a moment of confusion on the ground. The villagers didn’t know what to make of this outcome. They had asked the Hero to slay the dragon who was stealing their livestock and making demands on their allegiance, asserting territorial claims over the land they lived on.
Instead, Chad had fought her until she fled.
Was that a victory? She would surely be back.
In such a circumstance, the first reaction would set the tone for the rest of the responses to come. The Hero knew it well, from experience.
“Yes!” He pumped his fist in the air and jumped up and down. “Yes!”
The village erupted in cheers.
Valid reaction from Chad, I guess, she thought. Hailgrim’s always telling him that any fight you walk away from is a kind of victory.
“Maybe now that the dragon is gone, I can talk to him,” Samara muttered.
“Doubtful,” said Hailgrim, frowning slightly again.
“Well, I have to try…”
Or, on Patreon, right now.
