MantleCon 1081 AE Workshop

Edit: Okay, looks like this missed the deadline, even if it was hypothetically posted from a factory ship in the Bering Strait, lingering on the very border of the international dateline... unless you’re also willing to believe there was a four hour lag spike, and furthermore are a staunch advocate of the postal acceptance rule under extremely novel circumstances. Konig, if you need me to delete the post, just say the word.

At any rate, I forgot to add a brief explanation for the story. Basically, it’s based on two small pieces of lore from the GW universe: firstly, the fact that by the year 1079 AE only Peacekeepers could tame drakes, and secondly the eventual emergence of drakehounds as a mainstream hunting companion for Krytans. Admittedly, incorporating the latter involved a little creative licence on my part as it’s part of the GW2 canon, but that’s almost the point – it’s supposed to be something of an origin story, and it makes sense that it’d find its roots in a time when drakes were at their least popular in the eyes of the Krytans.


The First Drakeslayer

It was painful enough for the Village Elder to see three of his wards dead. To also endure the presence of their murderers, who struggled to suppress smirks even as their leader theatrically staged an inquest, was almost too shameful to bear. Nevertheless, they had demanded his presence, and they had already demonstrated the cost for defying them. The man leading the mercenaries leered over the youngest of the dead villagers, nodding sagely at the fisherman’s knife in her hand, before straightening his back and turning to the Elder.

“Well. It’s regrettable that it came to this, of course, but at least the criminal was brought to justice.” He nodded yet again, agreeing with his own wise sentiments, before continuing. “A great shame that she felt herself above the law, though it seems judgement was delivered summarily.”
“Pardon my ignorance, Sir, but...” The Elder started.
“Please, call me Sathar...“ The man flashed his teeth, smiling disingenuously.
“Pardon my ignorance, Sathar, but I’m still not sure what crimes the other two committed.”
“Alas, their deaths were a direct consequence of the dissident’s unprovoked violence when she resisted arrest. As the criminal mauled the drake handler, we lost all control over the reptile as it tried to defend its master. Regrettably, the drakes have trouble telling one villager from the next, so if one resident fights...” He spread his other arm, gesturing to the other listless bodies.
The Elder looked to the pitiful weapon still clutched in the dead girl’s pale fingers. Its tip couldn’t have held more than a few drops of blood on it. One bandit gets a scratch, three villagers get senselessly slaughtered; the message was delivered with all the tactless brutality the ‘Peacekeepers’ were renowned for. Their leader carried on with his farcical commiserations.

“The drake will be destroyed, of course. Oh, I know it seems like a steep measure, but the protection of the Krytan people is our first priority. Ah, but there is one silver lining in all this, however...”
“Please, do share.”
“The drake handler has made a full recovery.”

*

Six months can be a short span for some – so short, it scarcely exists. For the villagers, the memory of those murdered still seared like a branding iron, as painful as the day it happened. For soldiers in the civil war, it was an indistinguishable addendum to the bitter stalemate between the White Mantle’s might and the Shining Blade’s cunning. For the Peacekeepers, it was little more than a blur as they wallowed in their borrowed power.

For Suharto, however, a great deal had changed. Where he had once been an apprentice – an untested novice supposedly unworthy of advancement - he had since elected to become his own master. In the intervening months, he had trained relentlessly under his own tuition, vowing to become a fully fledged trapper so that when Fate called on him to deliver his vengeance, he would be prepared. At last, that night had come. There were storm clouds smothering the moon to hide him from enemies. There was rain to dull his quarry’s senses. There was thunder to muffle their death cries.

Pausing on the outskirts of his village, he did a final rundown of his equipment. He hefted his weapon – an eel spear with its prongs hammered into a single tapered point. Crude, perhaps, but undeniably effective. He checked his trap components. Each was snug in its allotted pouch, enabling him to assemble his deadly snares even in the dark. Finally, he checked on his most recent acquisition – Saul, the tracking hound. It was, unquestionably, a fine animal... but it was also a reminder of his rather unofficial graduation to the ranks of trappers. Traditionally, tracking dogs were gifted to trappers when they redeemed their apprenticeship. Having never formally qualified, however, Suharto wasn’t entirely sure what he was supposed to do with Saul once he got it. Nevertheless, it had felt fundamentally wrong to declare himself a trapper without first acquiring a hound (even it was his own coin that bought it in the end). Unable to think of anything better to do, he ordered the dog to stay put, and watch for anyone approaching. The hound’s eyes glimmered with intelligence, but not obedience. The animal usually understood commands, it just rarely agreed with them. Fortunately, Suharto had also learned how to deal with the animal’s impertinence – he repeated the command in a stern and forceful tone, and then quickly turned around before the dog had a chance to openly disobey him.

He ignored the animal’s grumbling as he stepped silently into the thick undergrowth, making his way towards the river inlets. So what if the canine element was a little lacking? His spear was sharp, and his traps were merciless. He was a trapper... and the drakes were the predators no longer.

*

The night after the murders took place, the air buzzed with activity as every soul in the village stirred for their midnight ritual. The menfolk, for their part, gathered outside the massive walls of the communal warehouse, bottles of whiskey clutched fiercely in their hands and each wearing a grim scowl as if it were warpaint. It was local tradition that the genders be separated for their respective wakes, yet paradoxically it was also a show of solidarity. Any boy who was old enough to drink attended, as did any man still young enough to walk. Curfews and martial law be damned - they would face their grief together. The women would no doubt have their own ways of mourning, where they would embrace the heartbreak and, very briefly, let it overcome them. The men preferred to numb their senses with alcohol before handling sorrow. Both rituals required a certain degree of privacy, lest one sex mistake the other’s form of grieving for weakness.

Amid the ranks of farmers and workers who marched to the warehouse were Garan, the village trapper, and Suharto, Garan’s apprentice and friend. Neither guessed that their respective roles were mere days away from desertion. The village Elder was also there, his features wretched with shame as he waited for someone to blame him for the deaths that had occurred, but he needn’t have worried. The men might have acknowledged him as a skilled mediator of disputes, but in truth few saw him as a leader, far less a protector. Instead, they turned to their fellow villager Osro whenever crisis struck. Technically he held no more authority than the next man, but the respect he commanded was beyond compare. Not only did he possess the kind of strength usually reserved for oxen, but he was also gifted with the stoicism of mountains. Osro, they were sure, would steer them right.

As always, honouring the dead was the easy part. The Elder would call out the names of the departed, and the men would raise their drinks in bleak toast to their memories. The next part – discussing how to handle the cause of the tragedy – was slightly trickier. The attendees merely mumbled to their neighbour or held their tongue altogether, until at last one of the farmers had imbibed enough to speak his mind to the gathering at large.

“I wish it’d been quick. They deserved better than that. Not spending their last moments being gored open by some half-trained monster in their own home.”
“It’ll always be like that, though. It’s part of the peacekeeper tactics.” All eyes turned to Osro as the big man spoke. Sensing he had their attention, he carried on gloomily. “It keeps their hands clean,” Osro rumbled, “It gives them an intermediary to act through. If a peacekeeper kills a villager for no reason, that’s murder. Even the Mantle can’t put a spin on that. But if a dangerous animal slips loose and does it for them, well that’s barely even negligence. The whole thing’s just an unpleasant accident. Justice demands nothing more than a stern word. ”
“Justice? Hah!” The protest was issued from the anonymity of a shadowy corner.
“I meant Mantle justice. An air of righteousness and empty gestures. An act, but an important one as it covers up the rot beneath.”
“Why the drakes, though...” Garan whined miserably. As usual, Osro had the answer.
“There are plenty of drakes around, and they’re an untapped resource. If all you care about is beating an animal into submission, they are ready-made beasts of war.” He sighed wearily, his hefty frame deflating. “But more importantly, they’re also symbolic. Only the Peacekeepers know how to train them, so it’s a representation of power.”
“Well, we should just get rid of the drakes.” There were a few troubled murmurs from the rest of the group as Suharto made the suggestion, but he forged ahead recklessly, spurred on by the liquor burning his throat. “They’re a pest like any other! I say we wipe them out and force that bandit scum to...”
“Suharto, shut up!” Garan hissed. He glanced around nervously, as if an inquisitor might leap out of a haystack beside them. The man had been on edge all evening. “The Peacekeepers would hang you for poaching before the day was out, you idiot. We can’t risk it.”
“Hmm.” Suharto growled sullenly, his anger blindly stumbling from one target to the next. “How does Osro know all of this anyway?” The comment drew a few reproving glares, but the man himself merely sighed once more before answering the challenge.

“They tried to recruit me.” He stared thoughtfully into his bottle as he murmured away. He shifted uneasily as he spoke, suddenly aware of the number of eyes watching him. “They offered me a pile of gold and easy power, and assured me that I wouldn’t have to hurt anyone. Not directly. But I refused.”
“Hah!” Another villager raised his drink in salute, his voice filled with pride. “If they thought they could buy off Osro the Ox, they don’t know what we’re made of! Am I right lads?”
“Don’t kid yourself!” The massive enclosure fell into a stunned hush as Osro tersely rebuked the flattery. A sudden quiet dragged on uncomfortably, and for a while the big man tried to ignore the questioning glances boring in to him, as if pretending his outburst had never happened. At last, his nerves snapped and he rounded on his followers, shame-faced and angry, his words barbed and eyes glowering dangerously. “I gave up much and gained nothing. I made the wrong choice!” He rose to his feet in a single powerful motion and starting storming towards the exit. He faltered as he reached the threshold, before lurching around to sweep a hand across the warehouse, gesturing like some aspiring thespian. “Look around you. See what I see. I picked the losing side.”

A dreadful silence settled over the group as their former leader stalked off. When tremors had levelled their village, it had been Osro who championed the reconstruction effort. When a Tengu arsonist tried to set fire to the granary, Osro had snapped its neck with his bare hands. When whispers of the undead advance reached the village, it was Osro who’d laughed defiantly at the suggestion to evacuate. In their eyes, he had been a shining example of what every man should aspire to be.

But it seemed there were some trials that were too formidable to stand against, even for their champion.

In the weeks that followed, it became clear that Osro’s fall from grace had shaken the men far worse than they cared to admit, and despair started to worm its way into their hearts in the weeks that followed. Suharto was no exception; in the village’s darkest hour, his hero had become nothing more than a sneering, derisive doomsayer disgusted at his own foolish loyalty. He’d also lost Garan as both a mentor and a friend as he watched the man wither into a grovelling boot-licker who caved into the Peacekeeper’s demands without so much as a grimace, forever terrified that defiance would cost the life of another villager. Like all the rest, Suharto fell to despair... but where it ate away at the hearts of the other villagers like a disease, it turned his to stone. Hate, not fear, took root. Within days the colours had faded from his world and food turned to ash in his mouth. There was no weariness at the end of each day’s labour, nor satisfaction at a job well done – just a desperate, petty hunger for vengeance. Vengeance he could not attain alone, however.

A born trapper, Suharto’s mind worked with through a process of slow, methodical logic rather than sudden flashes of inspiration. He knew, for instance, that there was a limit to what one man could physically do against his enemies. Fighting the Peacekeepers directly would be useless; they were too many, he too few. A lone renegade could act as a saboteur, starting fires and slaughtering work oxen in the dead of night, but in the end that would hurt his fellow Krytans more than his enemies. He could become a spy – after all, he knew the lands better than anyone, and he could move through the marshes or trees like a ghost – but what would that achieve, when there was nobody to report to? Ultimately, it would be useless for a single person to pit their strength against that of an entire army, and wasteful to even try.

But then, some things did not need hands to lift them or shoulders to carry them. An idea could soar past the mightiest army. A symbol could pierce the thickest fortress wall. If he couldn’t retaliate directly, he’d win his victory through more subtle means. Suharto had said that the drakes were a symbol of the Peacekeepers; C had pointed out that anyone caught poaching would forfeit their life. They both made excellent points, though if the latter had been calculated to dissuade Suharto, it failed to do so. After all, had there ever been reward without risk?

*

Even before he arrived at his intended hunting ground, Suharto had told himself to be patient, to spend as long as it took – minutes, hours, days – to pick the perfect drake from the pack. He needn’t have worried, however, as Fate would guide his eyes to his mark in mere moments. On the edge of the little inlet, a solitary drake stood apart from the rest of its brood. Its back was to its peers, its attention instead focussed on the surrounding vegetation, seemingly waiting for a challenger. Waiting for Suharto. That settled it. He vowed to slay the beast, as Fate had clearly ordained for them to meet in battle. He studied the reptile thoughtfully for a few moments. In decades to come, he wryly foretold, people would still speak of Sir Suharto’s first kill.

Fate aside, a more objective spectator might have seen other reasons for Suharto to pick that particular drake: it was, without a doubt, the smallest of its kind, its weedy limbs had yet to grow claws, and when it called to its brood it gave a strange, sickly bleat instead of the customary roar. If it stood alone, it was almost certainly because it was uncomfortable around bigger, deadlier, proper drakes. Had this hypothetical spectator said as much to Suharto, though, the trapper would’ve pointed out that they simply had no sense of Fate. He knew all about Fate, after all; he’d felt it once before.

Suharto cupped his hand to his lips, and gave a low, warbling croak. The effect was immediate; the lanky beast suddenly tensed up, sensing that there might be might be a quick snack nearby, and glanced hopefully into the gloom where Suharto was hiding. A second fraudulent croak was all the enticement the young drake needed. It surreptitiously swivelled its eyes around, making sure none of its seniors had noticed the siren call of easy food, and quietly started to slink towards the source of the noise. Suharto could hardly believe his success – Gods be praised for giving them bellies bigger than their brains! All he needed to do was to lure it further back, away from the surrounding ponds and riverbanks, where it would be properly isolated. A drake might not see humans as food, but they would still attack them on sight. Best to take them one at a time, Suharto assured himself. Slaying the dread-serpent before him would be heroic enough by anyone’s standards. It’d be sufficiently inspiring for others, and he’d have won his small victory against the Peacekeepers. Engaging two at once, however, would be suicide... even for a knight-to-be.

*

There were plenty of perfectly legitimate reasons to buy a dog, Suharto reminded himself for the thousandth time. The most common stemmed from the fact that only the Lionguard were permitted to carry weapons in Lion’s Arch, so it was common practice for merchants to have large, angry dogs to act as private security. That said, even villagers had occasional need of various canine breeds: clever ones for herding livestock, gentle ones to accompany children, vigilant ones to act as lookouts. He was just buying it for the last reason, almost certainly. That’s why trappers needed dogs. He certainly hadn’t trekked all the way to the city without a travel permit just to appease his clueless vanity.

Even before he arrived in the city, Suharto had told himself to be patient, to spend as long as it took – minutes, hours, days – to pick the perfect hound from the pack. He needn’t have worried, however, as Fate would guide his eyes to his mark in mere moments. In a little enclosure all of its own, his future companion was already waiting for him, displaying its unbridled ferocity to the world at large. With fire in its growl and unwavering energy in its gangly limbs, the lolloping canine had set about inflicting its wrath on every object within reach. It shredded its sackcloth bedding with grim determination. It tore through a thick leather glove, recently appropriated from the last person unwise enough to pat it. It had even made surprising progress in chewing through the cane stalks of its enclosure in the short time Suharto had arrived. He watched the dog approvingly as it waged its manic rampage of destruction – the animal practically oozed divine retribution. An objective, philistine observer might’ve also pointed to the heavily reduced price tag tied to its enclosure, but Suharto considered the dog’s... vigour to be an asset. It was a crusading force of righteousness, just like him. It would make a worth mascot for his hunts; it needed only an equally heroic name. That could come later, though.

Honest to a fault, the dog breeder has gone to great pains to point out every possible flaw in Suharto’s choice of hound when he expressed his intention to purchase the segregated animal. It (or ‘he’ as she’d addressed the animal, as if it were human) was constantly restless. It was a useless watchdog. If it was merely destructive then, it’d grow into an uncontrollable monster in the very foreseeable future. All her words fell on deaf ears, however, as Fate had intervened.

There was only a momentary pang of doubt as Suharto took custody of the teething engine of destruction, but it passed the moment he started to walk it home. Without so much as a word from its new master, the dog was dutifully trotting beside him rather than dashing in front or dragging behind, and everyone knew that was a sign of a good (or even perfect) dog. The fact that it was busily chewing through the leash while they walked was entirely irrelevant.

*

Even in the dark, Suharto could work quickly. His quarry was just behind him and seemingly at a loss, bleating mournfully in the hopes that the illusory toad would reappear. A single scythe of his trowel cleared away a small ditch to plant his traps. He quickly rammed a peg into each corner, as his master had shown him a hundred times before, and wound the tripwire between each one. Stakes were loaded, and a trigger fixed. His work complete, he glanced back up. The drake was gone.

He blinked in disbelief. Had it given up, and headed back? Visions of defeat and despair reared up, but he quickly forced them back. He just had to think. They’d been running parallel to the riverbed the entire time. If it had given up, it wouldn’t have gone far. He carefully pushed through the undergrowth, heading towards the river. A wave of relief washed over him when he saw a solitary drake fin poking out of the water. Fate!

There was no way the creature would hear his calls over the rain at that distance. Fortunately, he’d prepared for just such eventualities as well. Retrieving a hunting sling from his boot, he kept his eyes on his quarry while his fingers groped around – mindful of the tripwires, of course – for a smooth rock to load. That close to the river bed, he knew it wouldn’t take long to find one. Sure enough, his fingers brushes against slick stone half buried in the dirt. He twisted the pebble free and slipped it into his sling. His aim, as usual, was perfect. The little missile shot through the air to slam into the drake with a satisfying thump. He waited for the result. For the slightest of moments, the water dipped down as the mass beneath shifted quickly, and then the surface erupted into a geyser of churning froth and cascading rivulets. The creature’s back broke through the water and kept rising. Its shoulders cleared the waterline entirely. So did its flanks. Then its belly. A flash of lightning briefly illuminated the drake in all its terrifying splendour. Elaborate, razor sharp horns crested its skull like a royal crown. Its roar drowned out the subsequent thunder, causing the lesser serpents to scatter. The monstrosity thrashed around, pivoting to face the source of the attack, baleful eyes and wicked teeth leering towards Suharto.

The blood drained from Suharto’s face; he’d got the wrong drake. Definitely the wrong drake. Fate had not chosen that drake because Fate was terrified being violently torn limb from limb.

He watched, almost mesmerised, as the matriarch lumbered towards him with deceptive speed. As it neared the water’s edge, a powerful lurch carried it onto land, the sheer force pulling a column of water after it. Without as much as a pause, it then veered itself two massive steps off course to circumvent the little ditch; older and wiser than most, it had learned of the tricks human hunters used. In another gargantuan pace the drake lurched within throwing range of a spear. Suharto knew he should do something – anything – but suddenly discovered he couldn’t move, not to run, not to fight. The drake glided closer still, its enormous frame impossibly nimble atop its powerful legs. There wasn’t enough distance left to try bolting anyway, even if his legs started responding once again. Suharto’s heart hammered in his chest, watching his nemesis close in. As if caught at the end of an invisible tether, however, the drake halted abruptly. A quick dash would’ve closed the distance, but instead it merely stood its ground. It slowly swayed its massive head from left to right, its forked tongue flicking out to taste the air, its eyes almost level with the human’s. Suharto began to wonder whether he’d even manage to raise his weapon when the creature pounced. The head swayed again in a slightly larger arc, its eyes sliding off Suharto. There was a growl, followed by another, larger sweep. What was it doing?

Realisation swept over Suharto – it couldn’t see him! The darkness, the rain... he’d specially waited for such conditions after all, knowing the reptile’s senses were at their weakest then. The drake’s gaze swept right over him without as much as a flicker of recognition. Suharto took three very careful, very quiet steps backwards, moving only after the head had swung past. He suppressed a shiver as lizard eyes glanced over him yet again. Four steps that time. He’d take five steps next time, and then he’d almost be in the clear. The massive head began to swing back...

There was a flash of lightning as their eyes met. For a sickly instant, neither of them moved. The drake’s jaws then snapped open. Suharto started to run.

With all his immaculate cleverness, Suharto had already worked out an appropriate escape path before setting out. If a person stuck to hard packed earth, barrelled through ferns and finally weaved between the orchards surrounding the village, it was entirely possible for a human to outrun a drake. Unfortunately, it was one thing to carefully plot out a route in broad daylight. It was another entirely to follow it while charging through the undergrowth in the dark. Less than a minute into his terrified flight, the ground suddenly disappeared from under Suharto’s feet. He fell, and the earth rose up to meet him with a painful slap. Some unseen force plucked the spear from his hands, and another rolled him sideways away from the weapon. His senses reeled, wasting precious seconds, until he finally became aware of a steady stream of water rushing over him. He tried to push up, and the earth simply sank downwards to compensate. A wild thrashing brought his head above water, only to confirm his worst fears. A wide trench of crumbling dirt surrounded him, with water gushing down the centre – he’d blundered into the riverbed. Idiot!

A crazed panic gripped him; the drake would be in its element in the riverbed, and he could barely walk! It was going to catch him! He glanced around desperately, hoping to find some kind of deliverance amid the rain and mud. The wan moonlight glimmered off something metal. His spear! If he could brace it against the ground, he could impale the beast using its own weight when it leapt down – its underside wasn’t armoured! He scrambled on all fours, the cloying mud grasping at his limbs as they sank into the earth with each step. A jolt of dread twinged his heart as he got closer. He’d somehow managed to plant the weapon almost vertically into the mud as he fell, and it had plunged into the dirt like a stake until only its tip was visible. A frenzied scrabble closed the distance, and his feet struggled for some purchase amid the rushing water and muck – there wasn’t much time! His fingers curled around the spearhead and heaved. His weapon, his only lifeline, remained firmly stuck. The slurping mud refused to give up its prize without a fight. Gods be damned! He risked a quick glance over his shoulder and saw the as it drake crested the embankment, its head twitching quickly as it scanned up and down the river. Suharto raked frantically at the dirt, heaving aside three, four, five handfuls of silt. He just needed a few more seconds to free the spear...

A sharp hiss told Suharto he’d been spotted once more. A second glance confirmed it; the serpent crouched low, bunching its muscles for the coup de grace. The drake hesitated for a fraction of a heartbeat, its eyes flicking between the spear and the human, dimly aware that its enemy was rapidly marshalling his defences. With a final roar it leapt from its lofty perch, four plumes of grass and dirt marking the spot where it launched its enormous mass. For that singular instant, Suharto’s fear left him – there was no longer any place for doubt or emotion, just a cold analysis of what he needed to do to live. Suharto tightened his grip once more and heaved with all his desperate strength against the spear, pitting his boundless will to survive against the very earth itself. There was the briefest of deadlocks as the two primal forces competed. The spear started to budge and then, with little more than a quiet popping noise, snapped off in his hand. Suharto blinked, taking a moment to appreciate the magnitude of the disaster. He glanced to the sad little scrap of wood in his hand, then over to the drake as it soared towards him. The treacherous mud held his ankles in place. His fear returned unabated.

*

Six months can be a short span for some – so short, it scarcely exists. Granted, those six months had been slightly longer for Suharto, who had resolved to make the change from apprentice to trapper in that time, but it was longer still for Saul (hound, not hero) who’d made the transition from pup to adult without anyone really noticing.

The passage of time had vindicated the dog breeder’s competence, as one by one her predictions about Saul had come to pass. His restless energy meant that he’d always be source of chaos, not order, and when coupled with his constant yearning for company, his was role as watchman was doomed to fail on that stormy night. But for all his obvious failings, there were also subtle virtues. Cords of lean muscle and tough sinew lined his slender limbs, making him an unexpected force to be reckoned with, and his senses had grown as keen as a razor. Fine though these traits were, Suharto would learn (as every owner does, sooner or later) that a dog’s greatest gift was not in its body, but in its soul – in its unwavering loyalty, in its steadfast companionship, and most of all in its human empathy, which teetered on the supernatural.

As his vigil dragged on, Saul (hound, not hero) paced around nervously, a thousand little warning signs nagging ceaselessly at his thoughts. The hairs on his back itched with dread. His nerves simmered anxiously. His teeth ached with bloodlust. As his worry mounted, he raised his nose to the stars and sniffed, trying to confirm his suspicions. Sure enough, the fey sense that dogs posses answered Saul’s summons, and told him one thing with absolute certainty: his master wasn’t just gone, he was missing, and something in the river was to blame. When thunder shook the night air once more it was echoed by a wrathful growl, quieter but just as pure in its ferocity.

*

As the reptile’s body blocked out the stars, the opposite bank exploded with a screech of canine fury and a second silhouette shot out like a dart. The two shadows collided with a damp smack, their forms invisible amid the gloom. The smaller one disappeared against the night sky, and the larger one coalesced back into a drake on its unerring course towards Suharto. It thundered into him full force, crushing the air from his body and half burying him against the wall of grasping mud. Too slow, Suharto tried to heave an arm free to try and fend the monster off. The behemoth’s head slammed into his shoulder, its sheer weight to pinning him. He felt the prickle of razor sharp talons starting to dig into his stomach.

It was too late; even if help miraculously showed up, the drake needed only to twitch its paw to disembowel him. Suharto’s mind frantically raced for solutions that didn’t exist. The pressure of claws grew a fraction heavier. Time seemed to stop altogether as his eyes met the drake’s baleful glare, and with a sickening wave of horror Suharto’s methodical, logical mind concluded that he was going to die. For a while everything was completely motionless as a rising dread swept over him; it gave him time to despairingly curse the gods, his own stupidity and, while he was at it, Saul the dog.

Time seemed to drag on endlessly as Suharto waited for the beast to make its move. They were not renowned for toying with their prey as cats were; was it just the adrenaline making everything run in horrific slow-motion? Despite potentially being a millisecond from death, another odd little thought nagged at Suharto’s mind – the rain. It was still pattering away busily while he and the drake lay motionless, the predator and prey locked in a standstill the moment before the kill. That was... strange. Slowly, very slowly, he willed his chest to take a shallow breath. The drake didn’t move, its hate-filled eyes still boring relentlessly into him. He prodded it with a finger. The beast was as still as a painting. Moving as delicately as he could, Suharto carefully started to slide out from under the creature’s weight. For a sickening instant the drake started to shift – Suharto froze, working only his lungs so he could scream hysterically – but the creature merely toppled onto its side as its weight shifted, before sinking into the bubbling creek. His heart still hammering frantically against his ribs, Suharto quickly weighed up his options while he got the last of his scream out of his system. The sane thing to do would have been to run while he had the chance. Then again, it’d been a long, traumatic night for Suharto and he was sick of being rational. He heaved himself free of the cloying mud and sloshed up through the silt and water, his nerves frayed to breaking point as he lifted a shaking hand to shield his eyes from the driving rain. If it was going to eat him, fine. He just wanted it over already! As the quaking man closed in on the prostrated drake, the muddy little riverbed was illuminated by a timely flash of lightning. Two things leapt to Suharto’s attention: a ragged tear in the drake’s neck where its throat and arteries had once been, and his loyal hound as it trotted through the water to its master, its muzzle painted scarlet with steaming blood.

Suharto’s brain slowly processed the facts, almost too scared to accept the good news. The dog must’ve torn the brute’s throat out when they collided mid-air. The drake was dead by time it landed on him. The drake was dead, and he was alive. He was... victorious? Who cared! He was alive!
Delirious with reprieve, Suharto howled maniacally as he waded over to throw his arms around his unexpected saviour. A warm, bloodied snout nuzzled him enthusiastically in return while a tail whipped at the water amid frenzied wagging. Ignoring the lashing rain and gurgling rush of water, the two partners in crime were content simply to celebrate their small victory there and then with a cacophony of wild barks and shouts, lording over the freshly slain drake.

So what if it had four legs instead of two, and wouldn’t be knighted after all? The first Drakeslayer of Kryta had arrived.

As you might’ve guessed, it was originally intended to be the first half of a two-part story, but lousy editing and poor management on my part meant there was neither room nor time to even attempt the second half, where the protagonist and Peacekeepers invariably clash on more direct terms. In the end, there wasn’t even time to trim and polish the first part (again, my own fault... especially in light of the deadline extension) so the end result is more than a bit shambling and drawn out – apologies for that.