Dragon Magus 1: A Progression Fantasy Saga Page 12

  “I would ask why, but I think I know the answer already.” Raphael shrugged.

  “You do, do you?” Sylvia growled, her brow twitching. “Why don’t you enlighten all of us, then?”

  “Well, there’s your lack of hygiene, your flippant attitude, your tendency to start fights, and…” As Raphael counted each point off on a finger, the elf loomed closer and closer, her hands pulled back into claws. “…the fact that you’re simply so powerful that people might find it difficult to shine when fighting alongside you,” he finished.

  Sylvia’s eyes widened. She dropped her hands back to her hips, and her smirk reemerged on her face. “I’m glad that you, at least, recognize what an honor it is to be in my war party,” she crowed, before breaking out into more laughter.

  “I thought she was going to strangle you,” Eliza whispered, placing a hand on Raphael’s shoulder and clutching her own neck worriedly.

  Fenix whistled in admiration. “I definitely underestimated you, Raphael. That was truly masterful. You truly do know what to say and when to say it, don’t you? If you keep this up, you’ll have her eating out of the palm of your hand before long.”

  Sylvia darted forward and flicked Fenix on the nose so hard that Raphael and Eliza winced in sympathy.

  “And you would like to have that, wouldn’t you, you lecher?” she chided. “A beautiful elf mage at your beck and call, hanging onto your every word?”

  Gasping and clutching his nose, Fenix shook his head. “I already told you. I don’t like ancient ha…”

  “Didn’t you want to show us how to use weapons, Sylvia?” Raphael cut in, interrupting Fenix before he could complete his sentence. He picked up his glaive from the floor. Thanks to the might of the First Brazier, it was as light as a broomstick.

  Raphael took a few paces away from everyone else and swung the glaive a few times, trying to imagine how he would use its blade to fend off or attack an opponent.

  Sylvia nodded. “It’s obvious you’re completely new at this, but I see you trying to apply a few unarmed combat fundamentals to the glaive. The good news is that you’re not entirely off the mark. The bad news is that you’ll still need plenty of work before you can even consider yourself a competent glaivesman.”

  The elf turned to Eliza. “Alright. The rapier looks like it’s right where it belongs, on your belt. Draw it.”

  Chapter 14

  Eliza drew her blade, brought its basket up to her face in a graceful flourish, and then swept it down again, so that its tip was leveled at Sylvia’s throat. Her left hand trailed behind her back, and her knees were slightly bent, her weight evenly spread on the balls of her feet.

  Raphael felt his eyes widen in surprise. Eliza looked competent, even deadly. She seemed much more at ease with a blade than with magic.

  Sylvia picked up one of the shorter wooden poles at her feet. She spoke a few arcane syllables. A field of pulsing yellow energy encased the stave in her hand. The elf gestured, and a similar radiance enveloped Eliza’s blade.

  “Just a simple spell I use for training. It dulls your weapon’s edge and saps its strength upon contact with a body, but it leaves a small, glowing sphere at the point of impact to mark the hit,” Sylvia explained. She assumed a stance that mirrored Eliza’s. “Of course you would be well versed in the fencing style of House Valente. I haven’t faced it in a while. Show me what you can do.”

  Gritting her teeth, Eliza performed a dazzling cross step and lunged. The tip of her blade streaked toward Sylvia’s throat. The elf slipped past Eliza’s strike and countered with a thrust of her own, but Eliza swept her blade back, its basket guard beating aside Sylvia’s pole.

  She did another cross step that changed her angle of attack on the elf. Her blade flashed out again. Sylvia moved her pole to parry, but Raphael had discerned Eliza’s thrust as a feint, thanks to the light of the Dragon Meridian.

  Eliza aborted her attack, hopped backward, and advanced with another full-tilt lunge. Sylvia did an angled sidestep that took her out of the path of Eliza’s blade. She counter-thrust. Leaning away from the elf’s pole, Eliza crossed her feet once more, but instead of another lunge, she pivoted, uncrossing her knees, lowering her body, and sweeping her blade up and across in a backhand motion.

  Sylvia parried, catching Eliza’s cut on the middle of her pole. She reached out and placed the heel of her free palm against the upper half of her pole. Using her weapon’s point of contact with Eliza’s blade as a pivot, she angled the tip of her pole so that it rested lightly against the back of Eliza’s neck. A small sphere of yellow light pulsed over the younger woman’s flesh.

  The contest was over. Sylvia was the decisive winner, but Eliza definitely hadn’t embarrassed herself.

  Both Raphael and Fenix broke out into applause at the display.

  “I’m a bit rusty. It’s been years since I last fenced,” Eliza murmured.

  “I think you did very well, Eliza,” Sylvia said. “You’re a better fencer than quite a few of the full-grown, muscle-bound armsmen in the guild. Some light sparring with me and a few days of drills will get you up to speed.”

  Eliza obviously hadn’t been expecting a compliment from Sylvia. A smile began to creep across her face, only to die as the elf continued speaking.

  “Still, because you refuse to use more Spell Dust, you won’t be able to augment your swordplay with Martial Magic,” Sylvia said. “Even the humblest armsman in the Guild can use Lowest Order Martial Magic, making them stronger, faster, and tougher, which puts them a step above your rank-and-file foot soldier in any military across the world.” Sylvia tossed her pole up in the air, let it fall, and caught it. “I hate to say it, Eliza, but unless you can do what Raphael does, you just won’t cut it on the frontlines. Skill won’t help you if your blade can’t penetrate an opponent’s magically enhanced skin because you’re simply not strong enough. Neither will it be enough to carry the day against an enemy that moves two or three times more swiftly than you do.”

  “That’s fine,” Fenix said. “Raphael, you, and I can handle all the fighting. Eliza didn’t sign up as an armsman, anyway. She shouldn’t be expected to partake in any combat. Her role lies in other areas, and I believe she’s more than proven her worth already.”

  Raphael knew Fenix’s words were meant to be comforting, but they had the opposite effect on Eliza. Forcing a wan smile on her face, she sheathed her blade and turned away. Before Raphael could say anything to her, Sylvia dropped her short pole and picked up a longer one, similar in length to his glaive.

  “Before we begin, Raphael, I need to know just what you can do,” she said. “Show me the full power you have as a Dragon Knight. Don’t hold back.”

  “Really?” Raphael asked, feeling stupid even as the words rolled out of his mouth. Sylvia was Koshi’s match in battle. He could go all out and not have to worry about hurting her. A grin found its way across his face. “Alright, then. There are eighteen Draconic Braziers. I have lit the first three.”

  Raphael drew on the full strength of his Ryu-To-Ki and let it feed the flames of the First Brazier. His muscles swelled. The glaive felt as light as a toothpick in his hands. “The First Brazier makes me stronger.”

  “Interesting. See how his musculature actually increases in size? Such a physiognomic change does not occur with Martial Magic,” Fenix noted.

  Raphael ignited the Second Brazier. The world seemed to move more slowly and more sedately. Only Sylvia appeared unaffected. “The Second Brazier allows me to move more swiftly. As I ignite more Braziers, the ones before also burn brighter. Now, I am even stronger than I was with the First Brazier alone.”

  He set the Third Brazier ablaze. Golden scales of light burst into existence, hovering just above his skin. As before, Raphael dimmed them with a thought, so that his face was visible through the Draconic Armor. “The Third Brazier gives me this armor. It’s pretty tough, and I think it has some ability to resist magic.”

  Fenix winced. “Yes. An uncharged Explosiv
e Orb can’t penetrate that.”

  Throughout the entire explanation, Sylvia had been hopping excitedly from one foot to the other. “Yes! Yes! That’s all so interesting! What’s next? What’s the Fourth?”

  Raphael shrugged. “I haven’t been able to ignite it yet, but Koshi has. It allows him to bring out that bow called the Sunkiller. Maybe it’ll give me something similar?”

  “What?” Sylvia huffed. “Then that should be your top priority! How do you go about getting the Fourth Brazier burning? And then the Fifth, Sixth, all the way up to the Twenty-Ninth?”

  “Raphael said there are only eighteen Braziers,” Fenix pointed out, sighing. “But Sylvia’s got a point, Raphael. Developing your abilities as a Dragon Knight will increase your power far more rapidly than swinging around a sharpened stick with a demented elf.”

  Raphael could only shake his head in bemusement at the sight of Sylvia twisting Fenix’s limbs in all sorts of strange, interesting directions. A sudden weight alighted on his left shoulder, and Rayne thrust its snout alongside his cheek. The faerie dragon had slipped out of his pocket and resumed its full size.

  “Magus. Braziers ablaze. Ryu-To-Ki. Burn like fire,” Rayne thought to him. “Magus. Witness my strength.”

  Rayne hurled itself from Raphael’s shoulder and charged headlong at Fenix. The battlemage, caught in a figure-four wrestling hold by Sylvia, shrieked in terror as the faerie dragon dove toward his face.

  “No! Rayne!” Raphael dropped his glaive and sprinted after Rayne, the swiftness of the Second Draconic Brazier letting him catch up in the blink of an eye. He seized the faerie dragon’s tail, but Rayne had built too much momentum for Raphael to stop its flight without causing any injury. It pulled him along.

  They zipped through the entangled Fenix and Sylvia and emerged behind them. Raphael blinked, utterly confused at what just happened even as Rayne freed itself from his grasp, and twirled in the air, its flight describing a triumphant circuit.

  “The two of you became incorporeal just now!” Eliza cried. Rayne flew to her, plopped itself into her arms, and nuzzled her cheek. “That was amazing, Rayne! Good dragon!”

  Rayne gave her a cheerful chirp.

  Sylvia laughed, planting her foot on Fenix’s face. The battlemage was an unconscious heap, having fainted from a combination of terror and being choked by the elf. “Now, that’s something I haven’t seen before, and I’ve seen a lot of things, believe me. Have I ever told you about this ogre with huge, purple and green pus-filled boils on his—”

  “Being able to phase through solid objects will definitely come in handy, Raphael,” Eliza said, pointedly ignoring Sylvia.

  “Yes, and I have a few ideas on how to use that in a fight already,” he said. “Uh, Sylvia?”

  “…it was long, thick, and it stank like… oh, yes. What?”

  “About the Fourth Brazier, the only way I can ignite it is through cultivating my Ryu-To-Ki, a special kind of energy that Koshi and I have. I’ve been working on it since I was a child, only rarely missing a day or two here and there over the years,” Raphael explained. “Seems like the only way for me to progress is to do so over time.”

  “I disagree,” Fenix said in a choked voice from beneath Sylvia’s boot heel. The battlemage had regained his senses. “You obviously didn’t have your armor in the opening stages of our fight. You only got it midway through the conflict, when put under severe duress. Maybe pressure under battle can draw out and actualize your potential. It’s not unheard of.”

  “Pressure under battle, eh?” Sylvia took her foot off Fenix and cracked her knuckles menacingly. She spun her wooden pole and uttered several arcane syllables. The yellow radiance around her practice weapon turned red. Something like a curved blade of light formed at its tip.

  Her eyes blazed with maniacal menace. “I will give you all the pressure you want, Raphael. Squeeze you till you pop, if that’s what you want.”

  In a blink, Sylvia was right in front of him, her magical blade raised high. She sliced it down, and it was all Raphael could do to raise his own weapon to block. The elf’s magical pole blasted against his glaive with a tremendous impact that rattled his arms, hurled him back, and started a ringing sound in his ears.

  Raphael thrust the butt of his glaive behind him into the gray, featureless ground, arresting his flight. He had just enough time to reset his feet before Sylvia closed in once more, this time sweeping her weapon in an horizontal arc. Raphael reversed the grip of his right hand, which was higher up the shaft of the glaive. Using his left-hand grip on the shaft as a pivot, he swung his weapon’s blade down to meet Sylvia’s.

  Cold steel clashed against magical light, and Raphael suspected that the former would have given way if not for the golden scales that flared into existence down its edge and hurled the elf’s blade away. His right-hand grip still reversed, Raphael used the cross-step he’d seen Eliza do to push his body into a lunge, the blade of his glaive leading the way.

  Sylvia beat aside the glaive with the butt of her pole, then thrust it at Raphael. He barely managed to slip his head out of its path, even with the Second Brazier burning at its hottest and the Dragon Meridian shining as brightly as it ever did.

  Raphael pushed both arms out, using the glaive’s shaft to bash Sylvia’s pole away from its perch a finger’s breadth from his cheek. The elf retracted her weapon and brought it into a spin, twirling it hand-over-hand. At the same time, she planted her feet and shifted her hips from side to side, building momentum with her pole.

  Instinctively, Raphael copied her movements, bringing his glaive and body into similar movements that harbored more and more force with every cycle. When he felt the whirling weapon hit its tipping point, he brought it around, spun on his heel, and let it cut out in a massive arc.

  But Sylvia had beaten him to the punch. Her magical blade crashed into his chest, buckling his draconic armor and tearing him from his feet. The impact smashed the air from Raphael’s lungs and sent him hurtling into the air. As he tumbled head over heels, Sylvia, Fenix, Eliza, and Rayne became more and more distant in his spinning vision.

  The elf snapped her fingers, and Raphael was at her feet, gasping for breath.

  “Within the realm birthed from the Pocket Dimension Prism, space and bearing are entirely subject to its possessor’s whims,” Eliza said, as if she were reciting something she’d read. Sylvia winked at her, then snapped her fingers once more.

  They were on the deck of the Sparrow’s Light. Several sailors muttered as they passed, but they didn’t seem too shocked. Perhaps they were used to ferrying the Guild’s mages and dealing with all the oddities that accompanied such passengers.

  “I think that’s enough for now,” Sylvia said. “We’ll do more training later in the day. Impressive, Raphael. You went from being a complete beginner at the weapon to pulling off intricate maneuvers seasoned warriors can spend a lifetime mastering. You have an infinite aptitude for combat, one beyond anything I’ve ever witnessed.”

  “Before the Braziers, there is the Dragon Meridian,” Raphael replied, after catching his breath. “It makes my thoughts bright and clear. I can remember everything I see and copy it easily. Koshi only ever had to show me each of his fighting techniques once.”

  “I suspected you had something like this going for you.” Sylvia nodded. “That wrist-throw Koshi and you like to do so much is a highly complex unarmed combat technique. Mastering it takes decades, which Koshi has had plenty of, but you haven’t. Mastering the glaive will be much easier for you than I’d thought, since you pick up advanced techniques and maneuvers so easily. But true weapon-skill lies in the fundamentals, which we’ve kind of skipped over.”

  “I’m not worried, since I’ve got you to teach me,” Raphael said, smiling.

  Sylvia gave him a thumbs-up. “Oh yes. I look forward to beating you to the brink of death again and again over the next week. It’s going to be great, kid!”

  “Wait. What?” Raphael’s smile faltered.

/>   Chapter 15

  As the sun descended beneath the waterline, its fading radiance set the sky ablaze with a stunning lightscape that was equal parts crimson and orange. Leaning against the railing, Raphael couldn’t tear himself away from the intoxicating view of a burning horizon that stretched into infinity. The world was huge, he realized, and going out to see it, one place at a time, was entirely different from reading books or listening to lessons about it. Many more equally wondrous sights awaited him.

  He took a deep breath of the fresh, salty breeze and then winced and clutched at his ribs. Sylvia had held another training session in the late afternoon, where she’d gone over some drills and routines for Eliza, then proceeded to beat him mercilessly for over an hour.

  By the time she was done, Raphael was little more than a crumpled heap on the floor. Rayne had whimpered and whined throughout the entire process, with Eliza petting and comforting the distraught faerie dragon as best she could.

  Now, after a meal of dried apple slices, the faerie dragon snored softly in his pocket. Raphael gave Rayne’s chin a gentle scratch. It purred in its sleep. The faerie dragon’s ability to phase through solid objects was amazing. He doubted that would be the last such surprise Rayne had in store for him.

  Just what are you, little fellow? he thought. Even Koshi seems a bit confused and clueless about faerie dragons, and he’s a Dragon Knight who’s spent hundreds of years among dragons.

  But the dragons were gone. In school, Raphael had learned that long ago, they’d been the guardians of the world, majestic, just, and deadly—until they’d suddenly gone mad, forcing those they’d once defended to strike them down in self-preservation. The dragons had all died, but not before they’d laid waste to everything they could reach, and they could reach plenty.

  Now, they were a symbol of terror, hated and feared by all, and as a Dragon Magus, whatever that was, Raphael was somehow connected to them.

  No wonder Koshi always insisted that I hide the mark on my back, Raphael reflected. But what exactly is a Dragon Magus, anyway? Does it have something to do with how Wormy’s Spell Core became Rayne’s egg? Eliza mentioned something about…