Dragon Magus 1: A Progression Fantasy Saga Read online

  He had just enough time to raise his arms and block a roundhouse kick. The sheer force of her shin against his forearms bent and bowed Raphael’s draconic armor. His bones creaked alarmingly.

  He was torn off his feet and sent flying through the night air. Raphael brought up his hands, ignoring the aching numbness that ran through his forearms, and wrapped his palms around the back of his head. If he crashed his skull into a rock, he wasn’t sure if he’d recover from such an injury.

  He never got to find out. Something cold and metallic swept him out of his flight, arresting and then overwhelming his momentum as it pulled him upward into the sky. The metal object tilted, then, dumping him from its flat surface, before it dipped once more to snag the back of his collar.

  Raphael found himself dangling in midair, held aloft by the scruff of his neck on the leaf-shaped tip of the floating sword.

  Chapter 6

  The elf had one hand placed in front of her chest, two of her fingers extended with the rest tucked in toward her palm. A faint blue light pulsed from the back of her hand, where Raphael now saw she wore a silver bangle.

  “That was great!” she cried. “Your name is Raphael, right? You should come join us! You’d be an amazing Hell Drake!”

  “And be someone like Fenix?” Raphael grunted, struggling for some leverage he could use to free himself from the elf’s sword. The massive blade swooped him closer to her. Just as he thought he’d acquired a handhold he could use, the sword dipped once more and dumped him unceremoniously at her feet.

  She helped him up and flashed her dazzling smile once more. “Well, maybe, or you could be someone like me!”

  “I can’t be like you because I’m not a girl like you,” he retorted, simply for the sake of voicing some back-talk.

  The elf cuffed him stingingly over the top of the head. Raphael was alarmed at how he hadn’t been able to stop her from doing that.

  “You’re also not an elf,” she said. “Don’t be stupid. You know what I mean.”

  Is she that much stronger than me? Raphael fought to keep a grimace on his face, but deep down, he was excited at the notion of a world filled with formidable opponents. A few years ago, he’d gotten into numerous brawls with bullies and street thugs, most of whom were full-grown men, and he’d trounced them all, which meant no one had dared fight with him since then.

  “I lost this fight,” he blurted. “I’ve only ever lost fights to Koshi.”

  “Koshi? Is that your combat trainer?” the elf asked. She barked a laugh and clapped a hand on his shoulder. “With a name like that, I’d expect him to be. Well, he’s done an excellent job, if so. I’m not just talking about how strong and fast you are without using any magic, though that’s another whole set of questions. And then that semi-visible armor of yours. I had a feeling it was pretty tough and wanted to test it, so I did. If I hit a full-grown man like I just hit you, he’d be all over the place—literally.”

  Raphael opened his mouth, trying to get a word in, but she kept talking, drowning out his words with hers. “Also, your battle instincts are astounding. You figured out that Fenix would teleport right behind you, and you decided to attack him from a distance with his own spell instead of pursuing a melee engagement.”

  With that, she finally paused, obviously expecting some kind of response from him.

  “He seemed to be the kind that didn’t like being uncomfortable and preferred to attack others from behind.” Raphael shrugged. “Also, he could blink here and there faster than I can run, so trying to catch him wasn’t going to work.”

  “See what I mean?” The elf drew her hand from his shoulder and slapped him heartily on the back. “You’re a bit rough around the edges now, but with a bit of polish, you’ll become one of the greatest mages of this era! So come on! Sign up with the Hell Drakes, and we’ll go punch people in the face everywhere together! It’ll be great!”

  “I’m not going to go anywhere with a stranger,” Raphael said.

  “Oh, right. I haven’t even introduced myself yet.” She laughed again and slapped the heel of her palm against her forehead. “My elf name is really long, and it's a bit of a pain to say, so just call me Sylvia, instead. And you’re Raphael, from what I can piece together. Great! Now that we know each other, you can be my apprentice! Let’s go!”

  The elf seized Raphael by the wrist and began pulling him after her.

  “What? Wait!” he protested. Things were happening so quickly and so confusingly they made his head spin and his thoughts scatter. He tried to pull free but found that her grip was far too strong for him to break, even with the might of the Second Brazier. “Let go! Are you trying to kidnap me?”

  Sylvia looked over her shoulder at him. A wide, terrifying grin spread across her face.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Help!” Raphael cried. He cast a frantic look at Eliza, who’d been observing the entire exchange in stunned silence. “Go get Koshi! Tell him I’m being kidnapped!”

  “Koshi? Your combat trainer? Is he also your father? Where can I find him?” Eliza asked, her eyes wide and panicked.

  “Koshi is…”

  “Here,” Koshi said, stepping from the shadows and into Sylvia’s path. “I was wondering why you were so late, Raph. Looks like you’ve had an interesting night. Come along home, then. I’ve set aside some apples. We can have those after dinner.”

  Sylvia froze in her tracks. The grin on her face widened. “Wow! It’s been so long since someone actually managed to get the drop on me. You must be his father. Perfect. I’m taking him as my apprentice. Come visit us at the Guild once in a while. Alright, have a good evening, now.”

  “No, you’re not.” Koshi’s silhouette blurred. Raphael blinked.

  And suddenly Raphael was standing a short distance away, Koshi right beside him. Somehow, Sylvia was flat on her back.

  “That was a good throw,” she declared, before tucking her body in and hopping back to her feet. “I saw it coming, and it still got me. I can see where your student learned that particular party trick. That’s some very nice close combat expertise, old man. Especially when you didn’t use any magic to pull it off.”

  Koshi ignored Sylvia entirely. His face grew somber as he noticed the scrounge-worm’s remains. “Poor thing. It deserved better.”

  Raphael wiped the back of his hand over his eyes and nodded. On his foraging trips, Koshi would give the scrounge-worm a spare apple every time they met, and it would caper around in delight as he and Raphael worked.

  “Wherever the Beast God might bring you, may He give you all the apples you want, little one,” he said.

  As Raphael watched, a glowing amber sphere emerged from the wreckage of the scrounge-worm’s body and hovered a few feet off the ground. It was roughly the size of his fist. He glanced at Eliza and Sylvia and immediately noticed the greedy light that had come into their eyes.

  “A Spell Core, and a pretty sizable one at that! Very nice!” Sylvia whooped, confirming Raphael’s suspicions. Rubbing her hands in glee, she stalked over to the amber sphere and reached for it.

  But she didn’t manage to touch it. Koshi was somehow there, too, his fist clamped around her wrist.

  “No. Leave it be,” he growled. Raphael was shocked at the look of sheer anger and pain on Koshi’s face. All his life, Raphael had never seen Koshi so upset.

  “What’re you talking about, old man?” Sylvia snapped. “If we don’t cast a Harvesting spell on the Core in time, it’ll disintegrate. That would be such a waste. Think of all the Spell Dust a Core this size will yield once it’s been ground down. I’ll be happy to split whatever gold I can get for this. You certainly look like you could use it.”

  “No!” Koshi shouted, the rage in his voice taking Raphael aback. “I will not stand by and let you commit such desecration on an innocent creature!”

  Night had truly fallen, and the only sources of light were the pale moon, ambient illumination from the distant city, and the radiance washing softly o
ff the Spell Core. Even then, Raphael could clearly see how Sylvia’s eyes turned cold and hard. Deprived of all its earlier mirth and jolliness, the delicate, arching planes of her cheeks and brow now looked truly inhuman. Her face was still strikingly beautiful, but its alien nature had become much more obvious.

  Raphael wasn’t the only one who’d made such an observation. Glancing at Eliza, he saw that she, too, had flinched from the cast of the elf’s features.

  “You’re one of those misguided fools and cultists who think using Spell Cores is evil,” she hissed, in a voice filled with contempt. “I don’t have any time for your nonsense. Let go of my wrist. Now.”

  Koshi met her gaze, looking up to do so, as the top of his head barely came to her shoulders.

  “I will not let you do this,” he said. “You are a vile, cowardly creature, a betrayer of life and the natural order.”

  As Sylvia exploded into motion, Raphael heightened the Dragon Meridian’s light as much as he could. It honed his senses just enough for him to see her yank her hand free and throw a punch aimed at Koshi’s face with blinding speed and bone-shattering force.

  But Koshi caught the blow in his palm, letting the impact play out on the golden scales of light that now rippled across his limbs and torso. He twisted Sylvia’s fist around, caught her wrist with his other hand, and spun on his heel.

  Koshi hurled the elf high into the air, sending her tall, slender frame tumbling head-over-heels toward the moon.

  Sylvia’s sword streaked to its owner, catching her feet on the flat of its blade and arresting her flight. The elf hovered in midair, balanced perfectly on six feet of enchanted steel.

  “Now you’ve made it personal, old man,” she snarled. “I think I’m going to kill you.”

  “You should open your throat and the veins on your wrist, instead,” Koshi replied, “so that in your last moments, the clarity of pending death might aid you in lamenting your lost honor.”

  Sylvia’s shriek of rage was chillingly inhuman. She dove downward on her sword, its tip pointed directly at Koshi’s heart.

  “Be careful!” Raphael cried. “She’s really strong!”

  “He’s right!” Eliza added, her eyes wide with desperation. “You can’t fight her! Her magic—”

  “Watch closely, Raphael,” Koshi replied with a smirk. “Focus the light of the Dragon Meridian on her forehead, heart, and abdomen. See for yourself just how foul an abomination she is!”

  He obeyed, as he always did whenever Koshi told him to do anything. And then he saw it: there were dark, gaping vortexes, about the size of his thumb, on the parts of Sylvia’s body Koshi had mentioned. Sparkling dust of all colors swirled into those vortexes, and it was soon evident that they somehow fed the colorless field of energy encasing Sylvia’s body.

  “What’s that around her?” Raphael asked.

  “Spell Dust,” Eliza explained. “Mages of all sorts take it into their bodies through their Vectors, so that they can cast spells.”

  Koshi rolled his left shoulder inward and slipped past Sylvia’s plummeting blade. The sword sank nearly three feet into the ground. The elf hopped off her weapon and kicked out at Koshi with both of her feet. He blocked with his left forearm, then blasted her backwards with a flex of his draconic armor.

  Sylvia flipped over in midair and landed in a low crouch, her feet digging furrows of broken rock in the ground. She brought her hand in front of her chest, index and middle fingers extended with the others tucked into her palm.

  Her sword tore itself from its earthen embrace and sliced toward Koshi. He caught it between his palms, but the sheer force of the blow staggered him into several backpedaling steps before he could regain his balance.

  “Spell Dust is more than that, girl,” Koshi said, glaring at Eliza and Raphael as he held Sylvia’s sword in place. “Spell Dust comes from the ritual desecration of Cores, the manifestation of a worthy creature’s life-force. Instead of letting a Core’s originator return to the natural cycle of mortality, mages trap its spirit here, prolonging its suffering.” Koshi gritted his teeth, exertion making his voice waver.

  “That’s just superstition!” the elf protested, her speech similarly strained as she fought for control over her weapon. “If a beast is dead, it’s dead. What we do with its Core doesn’t matter to it anymore. It’s just like eating a chicken.”

  “I can see a fledgling mage believing that,” Koshi said. “But you’re an elf. You’ve likely been alive since before the era of the Chimeric Dynasty. You know that old magic, True Magic, once graced this world. Your people were the greatest practitioners of it, not this vile abomination now used everywhere! I pity you, elf, for now I see you’ve been lying to yourself more than others.”

  Sylvia‘s only response was another shriek of rage. She clasped both her hands together and intertwined her index and middle fingers. Her sword spun down its length, as if it were one of the small drills Koshi used to fix clocks, forcing him to release it. He threw himself into a backflip, arcing his body away from the blade as it scythed wildly through the air.

  As Koshi landed several paces away, Sylvia parted her hands, so that her left remained in front of her chest, while her right hung by her waist, both with their index and middle fingers still extended. Her sword flew back to her side, hovering at the ready.

  “There’s no true magic left…” she said, so softly that Raphael could barely hear her, even with his senses bolstered by the Dragon Meridian. “Not anymore.”

  Something that might have been a soft sob rolled from her lips, but the moment passed so quickly Raphael wondered if he’d imagined it. She stood, the crooked grin he’d come to recognize spreading across her face.

  “You might bite your tongue, old man, talking so much during a fight,” she sneered. The tip of her sword angled itself at Koshi’s head once more.

  Koshi was breathing hard, but his eyes remained bright and fierce. He gritted his teeth and nodded to Raphael.

  “I see you’re wearing draconic armor, Raphael, so that means you’ve lit the Third Brazier. Well done,” he said. “Now, let me show you the power of the Fourth.”

  Chapter 7

  Koshi roared and thrust out his palms, fingers clawed. Golden light began to coalesce within his grasp. It lengthened and solidified into an incandescent arc. Raphael whooped in wonder as a golden longbow manifested in Koshi’s hands. Koshi raised and drew it. An arrow of light blazed into existence, nocked and ready.

  “Draconic weapon,” he grunted, his voice strained. “Makes sense that this comes after draconic armor, doesn’t it?”

  “That’s amazing, Koshi! You’ve never shown this to me before!” Raphael cried. “So if I ignite the Fourth Brazier, I get a bow like yours, too?”

  “If that’s your weapon of choice,” Koshi replied. “I favored the bow, back in the day.”

  “That’s… that’s the Sunkiller Bow,” Sylvia muttered, her eyes wide with awe. “And you said your name is Koshi? You can’t be him, can you? The Dragon Knight of Lucario?”

  “Your father is the Koshi the Dragon Knight?” Eliza demanded, grabbing Raphael by the collar and shaking him. “But that’s not possible! That would mean he’s many hundreds of years old!”

  “I… I never knew…” Raphael said. He’d always known that Koshi was amazing, but he’d never imagined that the man who’d raised him was a hero of myth and legend. Many years ago, he’d run into Sister Superior Amalia at the marketplace and asked her about Koshi’s past. She’d said that Koshi was likely a retired guardsman who’d been injured in defense of his King and country. Raphael remembered being so proud of Koshi, then.

  “Well, well, well.” Sylvia threw her head back and laughed. “What a stroke of luck! I came out here to collar a delinquent subordinate. Instead, I ended up having an invigorating dance with a charming youngster and then getting into a fight with his legendary father.”

  “Knowing who I am, you still wish to continue?” Koshi asked.

  “Of course
!” Sylvia replied. “This is going to be fun!”

  “Beat her up, Koshi!” Raphael cheered.

  “It’s not going to be entirely one-sided,” Eliza broke in. “Dragon Knight or not, Sylvia is among the Hell Drakes’ most powerful mages. They call her the Vorpal Dancer, and she single-handedly ended the Ogre Wars twenty years ago by slaying the Ogre King and all his sons. If Koshi is a legend of a bygone era, then Sylvia is a legend of today.”

  Eliza was about to say more, but the words died in her mouth as Sylvia brought her hands together again and began a low chant. Purple ribbons of light swirled around her arms. Raphael was reminded of the light Fenix gave off when he blinked from one place to another.

  “That’s Shadow Magic!” Eliza gasped. “Of the highest kind!”

  Dozens of copies of Sylvia’s sword appeared behind the elf, hovering just above her shoulders. They weren’t made of steel like the original. Rather, they dripped darkness like ink off their blades. Sylvia thrust her hands out, and the shadowy swords hurtled forth, seeking Koshi’s flesh.

  Koshi loosed his arrow, drew again, and loosed another in rapid succession. His hands moved so quickly that Raphael could barely perceive them as little more than blurs, even with the light of the Dragon Meridian. Koshi’s twin arrows of light burst into a swarm of smaller glowing darts that intercepted Sylvia’s swords.

  Where shadow and light met, a chain of explosions ripped air and stone asunder. Raphael placed himself in front of Eliza, shielding her from the shockwave and stray shards of broken rock and cascading dirt with his draconic armor. The battlemage fell, screaming and clutching her ears, but Raphael forced himself to keep his eyes open, to watch Koshi’s fight.

  Sylvia conjured wave after wave of shadowy swords, and Koshi struck them from existence with his blazing arrows. The two circled each other as they battled, trying to find an advantageous angle of fire. Koshi glided across packed dirt and hurdled uneven terrain with more grace and speed than Raphael had ever seen him unleash.