Chapter 22 

The Veckenna short sword was designed by the Dwarves in the Second Age around 1017 R.o.D. The blade’s name means Five Fingers or a Hands Span, which is how wide the blade is at its base. The weapon was used for defensive purposes and was worn horizontally across the small of the back.

Day 146 Smeltesday

Over the course of the next two months, things had gotten hectic. Classes entered an entirely new level of difficulty. I was failing social studies miserably despite tutoring from Rose and Nel. History was now incorporating acts of the order in relation to other large events. Yes, I know that King Raffin the Third of Hersha was assassinated, ending his tyranny and dissolving the nation, but why do I need to know that his killer was Sarah Baker, who was a member of the Silent Heart Sect, and the method was a henbane and mandrake tablet that was slipped into his morning pills?

Mathematics had moved from geometry, which I understood, to trigonometry. When will I ever need to use sine, cosine, or tangent outside of the classroom? And if I didn’t understand the need for those changes, the tactics and martial combat classes were even worse. Don’t get me wrong, the reason for understanding the need for a wedge formation in small unit tactics made sense, but I was terrible in any position they put me in. I just didn’t have the battlefield awareness necessary to function at any feasible level.

But classes kicking into higher gear wasn’t the only issue I had to contend with. Apparently, after I showed up those four would-be attackers, the entire student body of slates not only took note of me, but they made it their business to put me in the dirt. A couple of the assaults were intentionally lethal, too, but luckily, those were only one-person attacks. I got a reasonable sense of what I could and couldn’t handle after I got my ass whooped for around the ninth time. Depending on the size and skill of my opponents, I could handle at most four attackers. So after I learned that limitation from plenty of visits to the medical center, I took to the good old-fashioned turn tail and head for the mountains tactic. I seemed to have quite the talent for outmaneuvering the larger groups. But then again, I also found some rather odd and unpleasant evasion routes. Slipping through windows or air ducts, hiding in refuse bins, and burying myself in moldering food and waste in case they actually checked inside the bins. 

After the first time I got cornered in a dead-end, I added a grappling hook to my gauntlet. The ‘hook’ wasn’t a standard type. The prototype that I designed was a symmetrical, six-armed apparatus that looked something like a squid when launched if a squid released angled spikes to anchor into surfaces. That little piece of tech saved my bacon more than a few times in the past few months. But it still didn’t stop me from getting whooped.

By month’s end, I had scored a grand total of sixteen Martial Vector points, three Hit Vector points, twenty-four Escape Vector points, and nineteen Craft Vector points. I got fantastic at evading packs of angry opponents real quick. But for as many points as I scored, I lost just as many fights. It got so bad that I was attacked in the middle of classes and not just during lunch or in passing periods.

But on that day in martial combat class, we were being paired up to dual each other with no other choice. The winner of each pairing would receive one point. I point in class, not in the vectors, to clarify. We would trade partners in a round-robin pattern. I had already won one fight and lost two others. At that moment, they had paired me up with Nel, so I didn’t have to fear for my life, thanks to the fragments. 

She swung at my throat with a training dagger, forcing me to step back. I retaliated with a roundhouse kick aimed at her ribs. I kept my training longsword in a position to easily slip back into a guard stance, even as I threw my kick. Her response was to step into the kick, closing the distance and taking the strike against her shoulder and forearm in a block. As I retracted my leg to maintain my balance, she wrapped her blocking arm around my calf and yanked hard on my leg, forcing me off-balance. I toppled forward, arms pinwheeling in a futile attempt to keep myself on my sole foot. My weapon slipped from my grip but I had an impulse idea. In quick thinking, I jumped with my remaining foot, pivoted in mid-air, and drove my free foot into Nel’s solar plexus. Against anyone else that would have driven the wind from them like a cannon, but not Nel. Given that seventy percent of her body was metal, wires, and tubes, it only knocked her back, staggering and forcing her to let go of my leg.

I felt a brief moment of success until I slammed against the training ring’s floor, my head bouncing off the hard surface like a rubber ball attached to a willow switch. With my metaphorical bell rung, my vision blurred for a few moments. I tried to blink my eyes back into focus, but my loss was announced by a cold metal surface pressing down on my cheek. From the shape, I guessed it was Nel’s foot. My guess was confirmed when she wiggled her toes mockingly.

“Okay, okay. I get it. Can you please let me up?” I asked, trying to pull her sole off my face. After a moment of resistance, the pressure left my cheek, skin sticking to the arch and peeling off with a faint sound like velcro. I sat up, rubbing my cheek, which I knew was a bright red. 

“You did good that time, Ive.” came Nel as she offered down a hand from atop her proverbial throne of domination.

I grasped her forearm and pulled myself up. “Clearly not good enough. That last move was stupid. I got my leg back only to play wallball with my skull. Not a good deal.” I dusted myself off and looked at the ceiling as I gave a melodramatic sigh of disappointment. 

At the start of the month, our class was taken from the outdoor training field to a new training area. Under Aegis Hall, at sub-basement level three, was a wide-open space the size of the footprint of the building. Our class was only in one corner of the room, which was filled with sparring circles, the walls covered in training weapons. The rest of the room comprised various training environments and a couple of different obstacle courses. 

“I’ll give you that.” Nel beneficently granted me with an unladylike shrug. “But your reaction time is getting better, and you’re watching your opponent’s chest instead of their eyes. That’s some great progress compared to when you started at the academy.”

“The reaction speed has only improved because there are only so many blows to the head you can take before you learn, ‘gee, my head shouldn’t be in the path of attack’. As for watching the body, that bit I picked up from Rose. She does this weird thing with her eyes when you look into them while sparing. It’s almost like momentary hypnosis, but only for just long enough for her to clock you in the side of the head and rattle your teeth. When I stopped looking her in the eyes, I realized I could predict an opponent’s actions by how their torso moved.”

Nel flashed me a mischievous grin that spoke of knowing something more than was said. “Are you sure that’s why you’re looking at her chest and not those B cups that jiggle and jump?”

“WHAT?!” I exclaimed, “NO! No, no, no, no.” I refuted the claim vehemently, shaking my head frantically and waving my hands even more frantically. “I swear I am not a perv.”

Nel nudged me in the ribs with an elbow. “I’m only messing with you, Ive. I know that teenage boys have a very strong fascination with the opposite sex. It’s only natural. Speaking of natural.” Nel cupped her titanium tits and looked into the distance with envy written on her face. “I’ve got some serious boob envy against Rose.”

“What!” I hissed in shock. “I don’t need to hear this, Nel.”

“Oh, come on, Iver. It’s normal for girls to judge each other's chest size and compare them to their own. Do you have any idea what I would give to have a chest that jiggled instead of rattled? It’s just not fair.”

“I- I'm sorry?” My words were half apology and half question. “If I could help, I would.”

She eyed me for a long moment, her fingers still wrapped around her steel breasts. I watched as she flashed me another mischievous smile, and I suddenly got very uncomfortable under the flint of her gaze. “Actually… I think you can help me.”

“What? How?” I really didn’t like where this was going.

“I want you to make me a pair of squishy boobies.”

“What?! No, no, no.” I took a step back as I waved my hands in denial. 

“And why not? I thought we were friends.” She accused, even as she made an over-exaggerated pouting face. 

“We are! But I don’t feel comfortable making anything like that. Besides! I have no idea how boobs should feel. I’ve never touched one.”

“That’s an easy fix. You’ve got a longing for Rose, so if I ask her to let you touch her tattas for the sake of science, I doubt either of you would say no. Plus, you can ask her out at the same time.”

“I’VE GOT A WHAT!?!” I shouted, my face flaring like a blast stone thrown into a bonfire. My heart raced faster than if I had been fighting for my life. I was so embarrassed by what Nel was saying that if given the chance, I would have chosen death over facing any more of that onslaught.

“You heard me, Iver. You’re thirsty for her. You’ve got a crush on her. She makes your heart go pitter-pat. I think you know what I’m saying. In fact, I bet you write bad poetry about her some nights, longing-” She gave an exaggerated swoon. “-to give them to her, but you’re scared she’ll turn you down.” She pressed on, forcing me to take step after step back until my back was against a wall. She wore a smirk of pure malicious joy at my obvious discomfort even as I tried to hide my face in my hands. I had no means of fighting back against this kind of attack. I was hopelessly outmatched by Nel, and she knew it. When Mystagogue Kellennar called training to a halt, I was about ready to kiss his boots regardless of how angry or hateful the Ceangar was.

“LISTEN UP!” commanded the small man, his scarred hands cupped around his mouth. “Circle up! We’ve got a special guest.”

As the class moved to follow the command, I took a moment to pick up my training blade. As we, as a class, formed a half-circle around the Mystagogue, we saw who our special guest was. Mysteriarch K stood beside the instructor, their stature in sharp contrast to each other. As always, the Mysteriarch was dressed in her odd robes, with those strange combat high heels on. She looked at the class with a kind smile on what was left of her face.

“Good evening, class. I just wanted to check in and see how you all were doing.” She turned her half-nightmarish face to the instructor, “Are there any training examples you wish to display? Any outstanding students that excel in any one form of training or another?”

Kellennar punched his chin between his thumb and forefinger as he dragged his gaze across the whole of the class, looking at us one by one. I noticed his brow raise by the smallest amount as he looked at Mallrimor, which made me uncomfortable in a manner completely alien to how Nel was making me feel. When his eyes settled on me, and he grew a devious smirk, I felt my stomach drop. In all the martial combat classes Kellennar led, he always picked me out for one failure or another. Kellennar seemed to make it his goal every class to make me look like a fool and make me miserable. He frequently paired me with the more skilled students and told them not to hold back. He even had gone so far as to threaten my opponents with punishment or failing scores if they didn’t break my bones. He made it no secret that he hated me because of my species. His harsh treatment was partly what I had to thank for me being somewhat successful at fighting. His motto for me I took to heart was ‘get good or get dead’. 

For some strange reason, my thoughts came back to what Nel was talking about. Did I like Rose? I mean, she was funny. She was also always nice to me and willing to help me get better at combat training as well as attempt to help me with social studies. She was insanely talented in melee combat and unbelievably dexterous and agile. While I was muddling over this train of thought, I was vaguely aware of Kellennar saying something to the Mysteriarch. I shook my head to focus on the current moment.

“Do you have students ready for that kind of training? They haven’t even experienced phantom weapon combat yet.” asked the Mysteriarch.

“Trust me, ma’am, these are some of my best students.” He said somberly before turning to the class and barking out names. “Featherfall, Stonefange, Glennbark, Bonehunter! Front and center!” 

Mallrimor, Kesher, Gellar, and Brecken, the Viletempt Boys as I knew them, hurried to stand before the Mystagogue and Mysteriarch. Kellennar stepped forward and addressed the group. “Put up your weapons, boys, and go select new ones from there.” He pointed to a blank section of wall ten feet long that split in half horizontally and folded over to display glimmering weapons. As one, the thugs set aside their current tools of pain and picked up new ones from this collection. Brecken took a bastard sword, Gellar took a longsword and short sword, Kesher took a two-headed war axe, and Mallrimor took a rapier.

I knew what was coming, and my fears were confirmed when Kellennar barked out my name. “Maverick! Front and center!” 

As badly as I wanted to groan in agitation, I only let out a single long exhale before stepping forward. My mind kept coming back to Rose even as I stood before the headmaster of the academy. What was wrong with me?

“Alright, boy. Set your weapon back on the rack.” As I walked over to the weapons display, I thought about Rose. I was vaguely aware of myself mounting the longsword back on the wall. I shook my head again and turned to select a weapon from the wall that the others selected from. I turned around to find Kellennar standing right behind me. I jumped back in panic, my mind fully in the moment then. I had almost stepped on what very well could have been the angriest man I had ever known. he shoved a weapon flat into my gut and said. “You’re using this.”

I looked down at the weapon as I grasped it. The strange sword was the length of a short sword, but the shape was all wrong. The blade was almost comically wide at the guard, tapering down to a point. The whole thing was an isosceles triangle with a guard curved upward. Where other blades would have a divot in the center known as the fuller, used to reduce metal used and strengthen the structure, this one had three fullers, the metal rising and falling like tides across the blade.

“What is this thing?” I asked Kellennar in obvious confusion.

“It’s a Dwarven arming sword called a veckenna, you twit.” He snarled. “Now, meet the others in the center of the room.”

I made my way to the center of the room, turning the blade over in my hand. I had been trying to get used to using a long sword because I felt comfortable with its length, if not its weight. I wanted to keep my distance from opponents while having the versatility to use it with either two hands or one hand, freeing up the use of my gauntlet. This thing was almost as heavy as the longsword with half the length. I knew he gave me that weapon to throw off my game and make me look like a fool in front of the Mysteriarch.

I swung the weapon a few times as I walked to get a feel for the weight and balance. As I slashed and twirled the sword, I wondered what Rose would do with this weapon.

I shook my head, trying to clear it of this nagging thought that clung to my mind like static. I needed to focus. Unless… Maybe if I could look at the question from another angle, I might be able to answer it. So the question wasn’t ‘Do I love Rose?’ The question to start with is, ‘Do I know what love is?’ I loved my father. But that wasn’t the same kind of love you would have for a spouse. Oh, gods, Rose as a wife, now that was a scary thought. I suddenly pictured her in an apron with nothing under it. My face flared again, and I slapped myself to shatter the mental image. What was that? I wasn’t a perv. But Rose was rather attractive. Her fur was fascinating to look at, and I wondered how soft it was. But I needed to answer this question before I got to the center of the room. I had already made a good distance, even with my racing thoughts skewed in a direction that was less than helpful. 

Do I know what love is? Well, I enjoy her company and care about her, but I also enjoyed Nel’s company and wouldn’t think twice about stepping up to aid her. But I felt like Nel was more of a sister to me, and while I was close to Rose, she just wasn’t a sister. She was something else. I did have a form of affection for her, and my heart raced at the thought of holding her hand or… more. I stopped my mind at the thought of hugging. I wasn’t going to let it go too far down that train of thought.

I entered the center of the room, a concrete environment with varying levels, obstacles, and protrusions. Across from me were the other four, the rest of the class forming a rough circle around the field. I needed to come to a decision about Rose at that moment, or it would ruin my focus for the match.

I took a ready stance, only to hear Kellennar grunt in the negative. “No gauntlet for this one, Horn Boy.” 

I cursed and pulled off my primary tool, tossing it to Nel before turning back to face my opponents. Now was the time to do or die. Did I love Rose?

Yes.

My heart skipped a beat at the realization. My heart skipped that beat at the worst moment as the Mystagogue started the match. Brecken charged at me. Arm pulled up for an arcing swing aimed at my head. My legs locked up, and my guts turned to water when I realized not only that I couldn’t sidestep the swing but also that I had honest feelings for Rose. I forced the thought out of my mind as hard as I could before I leaned back. As the bastard sword swung at me, its gleaming edge closing in on my throat, I fell backward. I slammed against the ground on my back, the blade sailing overhead, its wielder forced to spin with the swing to keep the blade in hand. I closed my eyes, took a long breath in, and kicked the Orc in the knee as he turned away from me. He staggered, taking a kneeling pose. I rolled onto my chest and pushed myself to my feet, taking a ready stance.

Rose could wait. Now was my moment to surpass my limits. In all of my fights and point scores, I had never scored a point against any of these thugs other than the fluke when I saved Ferris. Every time they tried to ruin my day, I turned tail. They were the reason I had so many Escape Points. But that streak ended there and then.

Kesher came in on my left, Gellar flanking on my right, and Mallrimor came head-on. I only had moments to act, or I’d get caught in a wave of metal, meat, and hate. Inspecting my surroundings, I noted a hump of concrete meant for cover, not five paces to my left. I made a dash for the mound as the three closed in. I lept atop the hillock and vaulted over the Dracose as he tried in vain to redirect his momentum. I landed in a crouch and turned to face the oversized lizard. At that moment, I decided to give him a bit of shame.

As he stopped, I jumped, slamming both heels down on his thick tail. He let out a bellow of pain, and I upped the ante by kicking out his rear bent knee joint. Since his legs were digitigrade, I guess that would have been his heel. Regardless, at that moment, I couldn’t care less what it was called, only that it gave me a snap. His bellow turned to a wail of agony. But he wasn’t out yet. He spun on his knee to swing his axe at my waist. Being the moron I was, I was still balanced on his tail, so as he spun, it was blind luck that I toppled yet again, only this swing almost grazed my horns. I hit the floor and rolled toward the Dracose, swapping my grip on the veckenna to hold it point down. I hooked one of his arms by the elbow with my blade and pulled as hard as I could manage on my back. I pulled him off-center, and as he hit the floor, I leaped to my feet. I took a heavy stomp down on his throat, a reminder of when I broke a wooden training blade against his trachea.

Gellar closed the distance between us like lightning. Swift as a wolf on the prowl, he came at me with a longsword pulled back to strike, a short sword tucked under his right arm for a quick deflection in case I lashed out. I let him make the first strike, even as I kept an eye on Mallrimor and Brecken, one circling around for an attack from behind, the other still climbing to his feet from my blow to his knee. As Gellar brought the longsword down in a chop aimed for my left collarbone, I caught the strike on the flat of my blade, deflected the momentum away from me, and with a twist and pop of my wrist, I forced the High Elf to drop his dominant blade. His response was swift. He pivoted his front right foot and threw a sweeping kick at my knees, forcing me back. I reversed my blade back to upright even as he pressed the advantage with a slash from his remaining blade. I managed to get my veckenna between me and the strike. The edge of his blade struck the flat of my own with a resounding reverberation I felt up my shoulder. As he drew back for another attack, I pivoted and thrust the pommel of my weapon into his sternum and forcefully dragged the contact point down, causing the nerves in the center of his chest to light with pain. He snarled in discomfort and took a step back. But he wasn’t fast enough. I followed up my pommel-sternum-rub with a push kick in the very same spot to the no doubt cracked cartilage. I felt something in him pop as I landed the strike and sent him flailing to the floor.

I used the force from the kick to propel me backward towards where I last saw Mallrimor. I turned on my heel to face the feathered slither-spine as I came at him. His eyes went wide with surprise as he saw me coming at him. I flashed him the same cruel grin he had given me so many times before. I saw him panic as he staggered back, flinging his free hand up to cast a firebolt. The shot went wide, grazing my right shoulder and scorching the fabric of my uniform. He was going to get in some serious trouble for using magic in a martial match during class. But I was going to be the first to punish him for these months of pain and fear that he put me through. I was going to take the price out of his hide.

I lunged at him, aiming to stab him in the lung as best I could with a training blade. He’d live… probably. But I misjudged the distance, my mind using the length of a longsword to judge distance, not the length of the veckenna I currently wielded. This miscalculation caused me to stagger, giving Mallrimor the chance to sidestep the sad excuse of a charge that I had thrown at him. I whirled to face him, blade at the ready. Mallrimor came at me with a panicked slash. I parried the rushed and sloppy strike and aimed a kick at his knee, forcing him to step back, his dominant foot now behind him. He would be more inclined to fight defensively, meaning all I needed to do was break his guard.

His blade had the reach advantage, but it was light. While that would make his strikes quicker, it also meant that he had to work that much harder to block against heavier weapons like mine. With the weight advantage, I pressed the attack. I struck again and again, forcing him back step by step as he desperately tried to deflect every blow with the whole of his body. His semi-hollow bones no doubt felt the strain.

I reveled in the power I held over this boy who had made my life at the academy a living hell. But I was shocked out of my revelry when I got a sudden sense of danger. I whirled around to see what I was about to face. I turned just in time to see a bastard sword blade hurtling toward my ribs with bone-shattering speed. Only one thing I could do. I dove to my right and rolled. Head over tail, one, two, three times before popping back to my feet. I realized I should not have made that last roll because my inner ear fluid was in a tizzy, causing the room to wobble. I shook my head to straighten things out. The room stopped dancing just in time for me to see Gellar rushing me. 

I cursed aloud as I sidestepped his first attack. I was hoping that I had put him down for the round. At least Kesher wouldn’t be coming after me any time soon. Now it was the High Elf who pressed the attack on me, forcing me to play defensive. I blocked and dodged each strike that came at me until Brecken came at me from my left with a downward chop aimed to cleave me in twain. I threw myself between the Orc and the High Elf. For the second time in only moments, I was forced to dive for my life, all three weapons barely missing me by the breadth of a hair. I tumbled away in a controlled roll. This time, I didn’t try for the extra distance. I needed to be ready to act on impulse.

The three closed in on me from three directions, each with eyes brimming with lividity. I backstepped to keep them all in my field of vision, veckenna at the ready to parry any incoming attack.

Gellar and Mallrimor rushed in as one, their steps timed and measured with each other’s. Gellar swung with two horizontal strikes aimed at my chest while Mallrimor thrust at me with his rapier. I made to take another step back to get some distance, but my back hit something hard. I had no choice. At this distance, Gellar’s short blade would miss me by a few inches, but that still left a long blade from him and a thrust from Mr. Pigeon. I could only block one. I made up my mind. Technically, what I was about to do wouldn’t work in an actual fight, but this was only practice, and I was not about to go down easy for these trogs. I swapped my blade into a reverse grip in my left hand and brought it up to intercept the slash. The blow resounded through my arm and chest like a gong being struck. I didn’t have time to think about that, instead focusing on deflecting the tip of the thrusting rapier upward with the flat of my palm. I waited for the right moment and thrust my palm at the tip of the blade at an upward angle. I felt contact, but things went wrong, horribly wrong. I watched in horror as the tip of the blade passed through my hand like a plasma blade through a block of fat. The blade was only barely thrown off course by the puncture of my hand, but it was enough not to get kabobed.

The meaning of this crashed into me like a landslide of granite. They were using actual weapons. They were honestly trying to kill me. And I thought this was practice. I was outnumbered and facing death with little more than a toy weapon to defend myself. I hadn’t had to face multiple lethal attackers till now. I was going to die. I was going to die. I was going to die. Through the hysteria came a single word. My mind was drowning in panic, on the brink of insanity, the entire world seeming to hold still. A world of living statues, as a single word, broke the madness.

No.

That single word crashed through a cage of dread and hysteria like a shot from a mortar cannon. No. I would not die this way. There was still so much I had to do. I had something to make right and someone to make dead. I was not going to fall to this pack of halfwits with a penchant for cruelty.

As I felt my will harden into a blade all its own in my mind, something sparked inside me. The feeling was hard to explain. Like I had a new limb that I had never known about, a new part of me that was waking up, being drawn from. I felt power, scorching, searing hot, and in its own way magnificent, rushing from this unknown part of me, running down my arm and into my wounded hand.

Suddenly, time came back to its normal pace. I had enough of my mind to kick Mallrimor off me, pushing him away, taking his loathsome blade with him. Blood spurted from the hole in my hand, crimson, thick, and hot, gushed from my hand as a pain that had nothing to do with power dominated my mind. I hunched over, curling in on my hand, screaming in agony. It was then my will snapped into place. The mental tool shaped of hard titanium slipped into a machine of action that was in my mind, completing the device. I lashed out, arching my back and raising my face to the heavens, my scream of pain melding into a war cry of pure rage. I flung my wounded hand out from left to right in an arc, splattering the floor and Gellar with my life fluids. That spray of crimson burst into a spatter of raging crimson flames. Gellar staggered back, dropping his long sword to swipe at his burning uniform. 

I slammed one foot forward, my posture feral. I charged Mallrimor like a raging beast, my wounded hand held out beside me, alive with flames the color of blood. Later, if I were being totally honest in telling the story of what happened, I would have to say that I felt like I was in a dream. All at once, everything mattered, and nothing mattered at all, just as everything was real and whole and, at the same time, ephemeral and fragmented. I felt like I couldn’t die. It was my dream, after all. If I died in my dream, I would just wake up. Since this was a dream, I would just have to take out some aggression.

I felt a sense of deep satisfaction seeing the look of absolute terror on Mallrimor’s face. Before, he was scared of me hurting him and making him look like a fool. Now he was faced with someone whom he had bullied for months and had just been blessed with myst about to take true, righteous retribution. 

Mallrimor made to defend himself as fast as he could, summoning a ball of flame at the end of each of the fingers of his free hand. He threw the hand out before him and shot each of the flares at me in a frantic panic. I was dimly aware of a burning in my left thigh, right side of my chest, and right shoulder, but it mattered little at the time. That pain was so minute next to my hand that they were easily forgotten.

I closed the distance in less than a heartbeat. He lashed out with another thrust from his rapier, but his form was sloppy. I slipped under the strike and almost got nose-to-nose with him as I wrapped my burning hand around his wrist. I held on tight, squeezing as his flesh seared and sizzled. But I wasn’t done yet. In a move I learned from Rose, I rammed the crown of my head into the bridge of his nose, my horns blackening his eyes. As he recoiled from the blow, I reversed my grip on his wrist, half-turned away from him, finishing the turn by sweeping his right leg out from under him. Before he could fall, I fully turned away from him, used my shoulder as a fulcrum, and threw him to the ground in a shoulder throw. For a finishing touch, I stomped a boot against one of his wings, snapping the frail bone as I wrenched his arm around to pop his shoulder and elbow out of their sockets.

I was dimly aware of his screams as I just stood there, mind numb, hand throbbing. I don’t know when, but at some point, I let go of Mallrimor’s wrist. My head spun, and I noticed splatters of crimson flame littering the floor. Was that all my blood? That’s a lot of blood. That’s probably not a good thing. I looked down at my flame-encased hand, turning it over and back, noticing that my flesh wasn’t burning. I swung my head to the onlookers, the motion making the world trail in blurs. I found Nel and flashed her a grin that I would later be told looked both mad and drunk and gave her a thumbs up with my burning hand, my motion flaring pain in my palm. I began to stagger away from the scene when I felt a vice grip my neck. My windpipe was squeezed shut instantly as I was lifted off my feet. With the entire weight of my body pulling at my neck, I could feel my spine straining to keep my vertebrae together. I was turned to meet a very large, very scaly face. For a moment, the only thing passing through my fogged brain was that his eyes were the same color as the flames that littered the field. Then he squeezed harder, straining my neck even as I began to feel oxygen-starved. I hopelessly beat my fists against his arm, slapping feebly with what little strength I had left. In a last-ditch effort, I clutched the side of his face with my burning palm. I had enough presence of mind left to dig my thumb into his lizard eye. I must’ve done something because I heard a bellow of pain as I was dropped to the floor. The last thing I saw were several sets of boots rushing towards me, one set of them elevated.