Chapter 4: Chapter Four: The Meet-Cute

            Horrified, Leo stared for a quarter of a second.

            Then his brain kicked in.

            Leo stood and leapt upward in one smooth motion. He grabbed a branch of the nearby tree, ran up the side of the trunk while holding it, and landed on top of the thicker branch it was connected to. The dragon hopped slightly to try to catch him, but it wasn’t enough, as it obviously didn’t jump full force, for fear of going over the edge and into the ravine. The beast’s claws whiffed through the air right where Leo had been.

            Leo pulled out his sword from the sheathe as the dragon circled below him.

            The beast was slightly larger than Leo’s wolf buddy from the forest, but the dragon was obviously far deadlier. Its bronze scales were sturdy. It had fearsome claws and teeth, enough to rival any similarly-sized dinosaur from a Jurassic Park movie. The dragon also moved with a bit of agility, which surprised Leo. It wasn’t like an alligator. The movements of its body reminded Leo more of a Tiger.

            The dragon stared up at Leo, its wings fluttering across its back.

            It was still quadrupedal, and it couldn’t seem to reach high enough to directly attack Leo on his branch. Instead of trying, the beast lunged for the tree trunk. The whole tree shook as the dragon dug its claws into the bark and yanked itself upward.

            Leo stared, fascinated and horrified in equal measure, as the dragon unhooked one claw, and with a huff of effort, managed to hook it a bit higher, pulling itself upward.

            Why isn’t it flying?

            The beast had leathery wings. They flapped sometimes, to help the dragon keep balance, but they clearly weren’t helping the dragon defy gravity. Leo steadied himself on the branch as the dragon shook the tree again as it continued to climb.

            Leo thrust his sword downward, hitting the dragon just below its eye. The sharp point of his sword—the only part not ruined from his fire-making activities the previous night—managed to pierce the scales from the force of the combined upward lunge and downward thrust, and Leo drew blood on the dragon’s cheek.

            The dragon dropped off the tree, hit the ground awkwardly, and cried out in Middle Averian, “By Merdrek’s Teeth, that hurt!”

Shocked, Leo decided that this world would never stop taking him by surprise.

            “Wait, you can talk?” Leo asked as the dragon rolled to its feet.

            “Of course I can talk, interloper elf!” The dragon growled. “I’m a dragon, a far wiser, and more intelligent, species than any stupid mortal race. Now get down here so I can eat you!”

            “Wait, you know I can talk, too, right?”

            The dragon glared at Leo with its aquamarine eyes, one eye ridge raised. Despite having never seen a dragon before, Leo knew that he had just witnessed the “Are you an idiot?” dragon facial expression.

            Leo blushed. “I just mean, we’re both sentient creatures. Why would you eat me? That seems, well, evil. Like Saturday-morning-cartoon-villain evil. Not to mention rude. And cliché.”

            The dragon sat on its haunches. “Okay, great, we can both talk. Now stop doing it. I hate it when prey talks. I feel all icky about killing things that try to have conversations with me. I don’t like doing it.”

            “Yeah, that icky feeling is your conscience, I’m pretty sure,” Leo quipped. He leaned against the tree trunk for more stability. “And on that note, I’d like to take this opportunity to tell you that I’m a great person. Really great. I was working on a project to provide fresh water where there isn’t any. It would’ve helped millions of people, including my girlfriend, who’s lost now and needs me to find her.”

            “Stop that!” the dragon shouted. “You’re making this weird.”

            “I’m also really kind to children and cats.” Why isn’t it just flying up here? Or using a breath weapon? Can’t dragons breathe fire? I want to ask, but I don’t want to remind it of its options.

            “Knock that off!” the dragon bellowed. “Get down here and fight, coward! Face me like a man!”

            “I’m gonna pass. This tree is really comfy. I might just live here. Plus, you should be a bit quieter. I saw a harpy over the side of the ravine. I don’t know how things work in this kooky world, but in my mythology, harpies are bad business.”

            The bronze-scaled dragon flashed its fangs.

Leo rubbed at his chin. “Also, honest point of clarification—are you challenging me based on my gender, or on the fact that I’m human? Because I’m an elf now, apparently.”

            “What did I just say about talking?” the dragon yelled. “The less I know about you, the easier this will be for everyone. And of course I know you’re an elf! I just called you an elf! That’s why I’m trying to kill you! You think that just ’cuz my sire is missing that you can walk up and take his hoard back!”

            Great, I’ve stumbled into some pre-existing, Lord of the Rings version of a soap opera. All I need to know now is that his dad was created before the world was but also left his mom for a younger dragon. Fantastic.

            Before Leo could respond, the dragon walked to the trunk of the tree and slammed its tail into it as hard as he could. The tree, despite being an unimpressive specimen, hardly moved.

            The dragon looked over the rounded edge into the ravine, then started backpedaling.

            What the…?

            Screeches, half-bird, half-enraged-woman, filled the air, and three harpies came flying over the edge of the ravine.

            The dragon turned to run, but the harpies somehow moved like real birds, despite being bat-like and not aerodynamic. They flew past the dragon and then swung back around, swooping down on him.

            Two harpies raked their talons along the dragon’s side, but the third headed for his face, claws out. The dragon tried to hop upward, and it caught the harpy with a bite around its midrift. The harpy screamed, but the dragon was bowled over, rolling toward the edge of the ravine. It managed to hook its front claws into the ground as it slid over the edge, arresting its movement, with only its backside hanging over the cliff.

            It flung the disemboweled harpy backward into the ravine as it scrabbled ineffectually, trying to get its back claws onto the top of the cliff.

            But then the two harpies landed on its back and clawed at it furiously.

            Perfect! Leo thought, delighted, as two wrongs made a right.

Leo didn’t want to waste his good fortune. He dropped down from the tree and prepared to run back to the forest, where at least the lethal creatures didn’t seem to be actively gunning for him.

            The dragon called out in pain, its voice laced with terror. “Help! Someone, please, please help!” It scrabbled its back legs on the wall of the ravine, trying desperately to climb up, but failing to do so.

            Leo, feeling incredibly idiotic, hesitated. “Just let go and fly, you stupid jackass!”

            “I can’t fly! It’s like a mile down! I’ll die!”

            Oh, for the love of Jove…

            Leo turned and rushed back, sword in hand. The dragon tried to fend off two harpies while clinging to the ground with its two front claws, its back claws still off the edge.

            But the harpies were still on the dragon’s back, beyond the reach of its head. They were attacking the dragon viciously, ripping scales lose and clawing at the flesh underneath. The dragon yelled and roared, but it sounded more like screaming. And Leo saw blood already pouring down its back.

            Leo ran over and aimed at the back of the nearest distracted harpy’s head. Then he swung for the fences. His weapon was dull and chipped, but at this range and with a two-handed swing, a perfectly smooth steel pole would have done the job.

            His sword hit the harpy in the back of her skull with a sickening crunch, and the harpy pitched forward into the ravine, off the dragon. Leo received a notification about the damage, but he told the info box to go away as soon as it appeared.

The other harpy let out a screech and flew off.

But the force of the swing caused Leo to stumbled forward to the edge of the ravine, which collapsed around him. He immediately twisted, agile as a cat, and slammed his sword point down into the cliff edge that hadn’t collapsed. He jerked once, swinging by a single hand over the miles-deep ravine, terrified of the fall as he glanced down.

There was a faint reddish glow at the bottom. Leo also detected a strong scent of old blood and something he couldn’t identify wafting up from it—a more concentrated sense of whatever evil had first alerted Leo to the presence of this ravine.

“Thank you!” the dragon said.

Leo couldn’t ever remember hearing more heartfelt appreciation.

“You’re welcome,” Leo said, barely paying attention as he ran his feet up the side of the cliff and managed to worm back onto the ground at the top.

The dragon wasn’t as agile. It remained half off the edge, still trying to pull himself up.

Leo moved back a few feet. The dragon couldn’t seem to get enough leverage to get its back legs onto the slope.

Leo heard screeching, glanced around, and then yelled himself. He dove away as the harpy narrowly missed him with talons extended as it zoomed past. Leo’s dive hit the dragon’s claws, who yelled out. “You’ll kill us both!”

You are reading story Elf Empire at novel35.com

“Yeah, yeah, trying to save us here,” Leo said distractedly as he managed to stand again.

The harpy wheeled around in the sky, and Leo figured he had mere seconds to think of a plan. He grabbed his sword, almost losing his balance as he yanked it out, then, carefully braced, jammed it into the ground just in front of the dragon.

He ducked behind it as the harpy made another pass.

Then Leo stood and stomped hard on the cross guard of the blade to drive it deeper into the ground. He braced himself gingerly against his sword with his feet and right hand, and held the left out to the dragon. “Use me to pull yourself up enough to get your back feet on the ground. And be careful. Those claws could ginsu an elephant!”

The dragon spastically lunged forward, similar to how it had climbed the tree, and grabbed Leo’s arm. Leo screamed as a claw dug into his flesh, despite his warning, and noted the ‘three damage’ notification, then dismissed the box from his sight. But the dragon managed to pull itself about a foot forward with Leo bracing himself, just enough to in fact get a back foot onto the cliff top.

The dragon let go of Leo, whose arm wept blood, and raced away from the ravine, its claws scrabbling at the ground. As the dragon passed, it grabbed Leo with its curved tail. Leo let out an “oof” of exhaled breath.

The harpy shot through the space where he had just been, screeching.

Leo was pulled along for a few feet before the dragon let go of him. He fell to the ground, looked up, and saw the harpy diving again. But as it came in, the dragon turned and roared, and the harpy fluttered her wings, frantically wheeling around.

“Let’s go!” the dragon cried, rushing into the forest that they had both come from, north, away from the ravine.

Leo rolled over and stood, gasping at the pain in his arm, and scurried after the dragon.

The harpy flew above them, screeching. And, for some reason, the harpy also grossly defecated and tried to dive bomb them. It missed and then turned away from them as Leo and the dragon ran deeper into the forest away from it.

They didn’t stop running until they reached the small river Leo had been following since his arrival in this mad land, even though Leo was pretty sure he and the dragon could have taken the harpy out now that they were on solid land. They collapsed to the ground, Leo sitting and the dragon just lying down with a thump.

As they sat there, panting, the dragon turned its head to Leo. “Hugh.”

“What?”

“I’m Hugh,” the dragon—Hugh—said. “Well, technically, I’m Huetilopoctlicae of the Storm Vale, but everyone calls me ‘Hugh.’”

It should be short for Hugh-moungus, Leo thought.

“Leo—never Leonard, that’s my dad—Evans,” Leo responded.

“Leo.” Hugh worked his mouth as if chewing on the name. “Leo’s a good name. Thank you, Leo, for saving me when you didn’t have to.”

“Sure. I had to punch my ‘good-deeds’ card, anyway. Insufficient number of cats saved from trees in the last three-sixty-five. You know how it is.”

Hugh tilted his head to the side, and Leo got the distinct impression of confusion. “You shouldn’t save cats.”

Leo didn’t respond. It didn’t seem like the kind of thing to respond to.

Hugh continued. “I can’t not go after my sire’s hoard, but I promise I won’t attack you or anything if you go for it as well, and if you beat me there, I won’t try to take it from you. If I get it first, I’ll give you enough to set you up for life, okay? I mean, how much can a mortal need, anyway? Don’t you guys live for, like, decades at the most or something? Like flies?”

“I have no idea what hoard you’re talking about,” Leo said, too tired to respond with his usual snark. His arm was still leaking blood in rivulets as he sat on the ground, and he took his already completely mistreated shirt off and started tearing it into strips. “I also don’t know where it is. And I don’t care to. I just want to get home so I can get back to my life—I actually had a lot going on, and the longer I’m gone, the greater the chance my old life will be gone forever.”

Hugh perked up at Leo’s denunciation of the treasure. “Where do you live?”

“Earth,” Leo said. “And for the record, I have no idea where that is in relation to this place. I was summoned here.”

“Oh, well, if you were summoned, you probably came from another dimension,” Hugh responded, then he lay down on his side and stared up at the dark sky. “I don’t actually know anything about the other dimensions, or any details about how to get to any, but I’ve heard that every dimension is connected to Toth, eventually. We’re the base world. So you should be able to get home, someday.”

            Hugh butted his head against Leo, almost knocking him over, despite the fact that Hugh was upside down. “Also, sorry about your arm. That was, you know, uncouth of me. I didn’t mean to do it, but, I, um, lost control at the last moment.”

            “Uncouth, huh?” Leo laughed. “I suppose that’s one way to put it.”

            “Hey, be nice.”

            Leo finished tightening the strips of his shirt around his arm in a makeshift bandage. “It’s hard. My arm hurts.”

            There was a brief pause, while Leo formulated his questions.

But ultimately, no matter how fascinating everything else was, only one question really mattered to Leo. “Okay, so, just like with my status sheet, there’s so much to unpack from my brief interaction with you that I’m just going to focus on one thing. How do I get to another dimension? Ultimately mine, but let’s just start with the basic process. I know you said you don’t know much, but tell me what you do know.”

            “Well, I mean, there’re a couple of known gates, but only the gods and a few extremely powerful creatures can travel the worlds between without access to the gates. I know you can do it, I’ve heard all the stories. But I just don’t know how, I’m sorry. I don’t have any knowledge beyond that, seriously.”

            Well, that wasn’t fruitful.

            “Okay,” Leo said. “I guess I’ll go to a second subject after all. Why can’t you fly?”

            The dragon hesitated a long time.

            Finally, Hugh answered, “I guess you did save my life, and you deserve to know. I was born with an, um… well, a defect. Dragons can fly, but it’s only because of our natural magic. Something as strong and dense as us couldn’t fly unless we were, like, basically all wings. But most dragons have some Air magic inherent to them.”

            “Makes sense,” Leo said. “Especially with what I saw those harpies doing, since they acted like fighter jets. No way that bat-human combination was remotely as aerodynamic as what they pulled off.”

            Hugh snorted. “No idea what that means, but I get your meaning, friend Leo. Those weren’t harpies, though. They’re technically demons, although I don’t know enough to know what kind. Just that they’re incredibly weak ones. But there are stronger ones deeper inside the ravine, where the magic that leaks in from the shattered gate below can sustain them.”

            “Wait, a gate? As in, a portal to another dimension? I thought you just told me you didn’t know where any were.”

            “I don’t,” Hugh said. “I just told you, the gate is shattered. But the place where it weakened the, I don’t know, the wall between worlds, I guess, remains. Besides, the gate was connected to the Blood Abyss. Trust me, that wouldn’t get you headed toward home anyway.”

            Blood Abyss, huh? Leo remembered the smell, and the sense of something utterly wrong about the place. Yeah, I don’t think I want to go there. In fact, I’m sure of it.

            Hugh snorted. “That ravine is called ‘the Demon Scar.’ It’s from where Grakith Demonborn, some orc they called ‘Elf-breaker,’ managed to trigger the gate when you guys and the orcs were fighting, like, maybe fifty or a hundred years ago. I’m not really sure. It was before the dragonflight, when my sire finished off the elven kingdom and claimed its treasures. He also chased the orcs off, though, so it was kinda fair. I know about my sire, of course, but all that stuff from before he got here is kinda fuzzy. I wasn’t the best at history.”

            Great. I get the defective exposition to my new world, Leo thought to himself, sardonic to the last.

            “Okay, so, you never got the magic to let you fly?” Leo asked, returning to the earlier topic.

            “Yeah. I have Earth magic. Most dragons don’t get a magic until much later in life, but I got mine as a baby. But my connection to Earth magic was so strong that I lost access to the natural magic of Air. Which means I can’t fly.”

            Hugh laid his head back on the ground and heaved a huge sigh. “And I lost access to my breath weapon, since storm dragons use lightning.”

            “And lightning is part of Air magic, I take it?” Leo asked. Not Fire magic, since lightning is plasma? Air and electricity have little to do with each other…

He had a brief moment where he was so overwhelmed by the weirdness of it all that he couldn’t focus. I cannot believe I’m having this conversation, like it’s perfectly normal to be asking a giant, sentient lizard about the rules governing magic.

“Wait, sorry, can you repeat that?” Leo asked.

“I said, yeah, Air magic is everything for storm dragons. But I got Earth magic instead.”  Hugh, still on his back, waved all four of his clawed feet in the air. “Lucky me!”

Leo laughed at the childish display. “Well, I’ll tell you what, Hugh. How about we make a deal? I’ll help you get the treasure you’re looking for, and you help me get home. Well, first I need to figure out if Audrey is in this world and get her—then get us both home. How does that sound?”

“Who’s Audrey?”

“My girlfriend, kinda.”

You can find story with these keywords: Elf Empire, Read Elf Empire, Elf Empire novel, Elf Empire book, Elf Empire story, Elf Empire full, Elf Empire Latest Chapter