Dragonslayer

... this being the story of a wizard, the fifth part, continued from Dragon’s breath ... it began in Return of the wizard.

Gaining his bearings once again, he sits up briefly, then lies back down in his room in the tower, his torch sconce on the wall slightly askew from his re-entry back through the window.

Unscathed from the dragon attack, and the dark Goddess enticing and bewildering him through its flames, her having attempted to immolate him into ash.

He himself flew through the window, remembering his mother at the time.

His back aches a bit, pulls his hand away from it, green, dark green.

Great, a bit of blood, he thinks.  Slightly contaminated from an overuse of magic for protection.

The flames had been hot, but his will had prevailed, provided the protection he needed.

His shoulder on his opposite side now aching him.  His grey cloak blackened and slightly torn there.

He had called down lightning, and it struck him and the dragon.  In need of slight mending, he thinks.  Myself and this heavy thing.

He sits up more gingerly, his head swimming a bit this time.

He blinks his eyes momentarily, and finds himself sitting heavy.

Heavy on this stone floor of his tower.

The earth begins shaking, and he fights panic.  The tower violently shakes.

It all stops then.

The corner of his eye catches the dark beast flying away, looking behind itself as dark clouds begin to gather.

The beast not dead, but defeated, and deterred at least this time.

The window curtain begins to toss and blow freely as a darker wind starts to tease and pull on it.

Momentarily, eyes through the dragon, a rough and scaly mind, hatred, just hatred, and the instinct to kill.

Flame cast before his new eyes, the eyes of the dragon.

DRAGONSLAYER! it roars, flames pummeling the air.

The wizard just regaining his feet finds them shoved backwards along with the rest of him.

The force of the dragon's will finding its purchase this time in the killer of its kin.

A dream within a dream, he thinks.

Shards from his broken mirror litter the floor, caught in his beard and greying hair, cutting him slightly as he starts extracting pieces.

What to do about this?

The dragon far away, but ever so near in its hatred.

Thus he began weaving his spell of concealment, the wizard creating a better world to see outside as his life slowly ebbed.

Preserving his life cycle in the process.

Copyright © 2022, Mark Newlon

(Continued in Darkened doorways.)