The Wounded Dragon

The witch Sephera, accompanied by her bodyguard Nadir, is asked by the town of Gidure to deal with the problem of a feral dragon, tormenting their city.

Sephera knelt upon the fallen pine, under the leaves of its nearby brothers. Its smell inebriated Sephera's lungs, closing her eyes as she caressed the orange moss growing on its dead bark.

"This seems right: Northern sunset Moss," Sephera whispered, as her right hand slithered towards her belt, grabbing the handle of a hooked knife. With the carver in her hands, the young black-haired woman scrapped away clumps of orange moss, grabbing and housing them on her laps.

At each quick movement of the blade, Sephera pulled away more and more clusters of lichens, until an orange humid cushion rested on her white baggy trousers.

With enough moss taken from the fallen tree, Sephera put her knife back in her belt, hidden by a long blue coat, as she slipped her left hand into her pouch, dangling from her shoulders. From the abysses of her patched bag, Sephera dug out a wooden bowl, putting the latter on the muddy ground. After gathering all the moss, Sephera put all of her findings inside the wooden vessel, pushing and crushing the orange filaments until they became flat. As the wind of the incoming night ran through the pines, Sephera searched again in her pouch, grabbing and taking out a vial filled with a dense purple liquid.

While Sephera was occupied with her mixture, the figure of a lean bronzed man appeared from the depth of the forest, covered in blue shrouds and with a curved sword dangling from his left side.

"Well, I have found nothing to eat in this grove. Just moss, spiders and worms. We will have to wait to our arrival at Gidure."

Sephera uncorked the vial and poured that viscous goo upon the orange lichen, ignoring the man's arrival.

"For the Great Snake, I'm from the Oren Deserts! I hunt Sandworms, not berries or forest rats!"

The man sat right next to Sephera, sighing and resting his bearded chin on his right hand, taking a long look at the young woman's concoction.

"I guess that's not fire,Sephera, or food."

Sephera smiled at the shrouded man, as the moss absorbed all the purple fluid, fuming pinkish vapors before changing into a violet-colored paste.

"While you were busy 'hunting', Nadir, I looked for some Northern Sunset Moss. I heard it has some interesting properties when mixed with some of my reagents."

"Does that stuff creates fire?"Nadir asked as Sephera took a long sip of the potion.

"No," Sephera replied, gulping and hiding the disgusting taste within her mouth.

"But I heard it can make you ignore hunger and thirst for a week."

Sephera offered the bowl to Nadir, with a contrived smile occluding her nausea, something the latter noticed.

"You can take it all, I'll rather starve through the night than using any of your witchcraft."

"Well, it's your loss. This taste delicious," Sephera lied, feeling her stomach closing and cramping as she ingested the entirety of that bowl.

"I'm going to take care of the fire. It's getting cold out here." Nadir said, rising from the fallen pine needles and mud.

Sephera looked at the sky, tinted with the purple colors of dusk, as she put away the bowl inside her bag.

"How far away are we fromGidure?"

Nadir snorted, gathering pieces of dry grass.

"Just half a day. Usually, it doesn't take that long, if you are with a caravan."

"And how is the place? Are they friendly towards Desert Witches?" Sephera asked as Nadir put the dried fuel at his feet, grabbing a few rocks in the meanwhile.

"Well, they have asked for your help, but that doesn't mean much. They just need a witch for theirproblem."

After dragging a few rocks in a circle, Nadir grabbed the dried fuel, putting it at the center of the ring of stones.

"And the problem is the..."

"Dragon. I don't know the details, but it would explain why I didn't find anything to hunt,"Nadir replied, taking out his curved sword and touching the moss-covered trunk of the fallen pine with its blade.

"Well, I guess a dragon may be a justifiable reason to call some hateful witch," Sephera replied, narrowing her eyes as Nadir chipped the branches off the fallen pine with quick and imprecise slashes of his sword.

"We are lucky the forest hasn't been burned to cinders," Nadir said, sheeting his sword and grabbing the results of his woodcutting.

"Not really. Dragons choose volcanic or barren territories instead of forests so that their fire wouldn't spread and reveal them to predators."

Nadir chuckled, surprised by Sephera's knowledge.

"Interesting. Never knew about it," Nadir replied, arranging the wood in a pyramidal shape above the circle of rocks.

"Now, time to light this fire."

The blackened marble of Gidure's gates invited Sephera and Nadir into the city. The once splendid cobblestone road was reduced to a simple amalgamation of ash and pebbles, while the walls once protecting the city from invaders were nothing more than heaps of bricks and rocks.

"Well, surely something has passed through here. I've heard Gidure was the diamond of the north," Nadir remarked, keeping his steady left hand on his sword's handle.

"How was it before?" Sephera asked, jumping her wary gaze around the red-roofed houses of the city, shaped like giant lanterns.

"It wasn't burnt down, for one thing," Nadir replied, massaging his belly and yawning, showing a tranquility Sephera could not replicate, yet keeping his sword ready to battle.

"For the Great Snake, I would eat an entire village and take a nap under a storm."

"I'd offered you the potion, but someone was a little bit picky about my witchcraft," Sephera replied while the sound of muffled steps reached her ears.

"That was before spending the night in the dark. I guess the fuel and the wood were too wet," Nadir said, ignoring the inhabitants peeking from their glassed windows, observing the two strangers like frightened cats.

Sephera knew she had been observed since their arrival at Gidure. And yet the lack of any interaction made her skin shudder, expecting something, anything, from the people who called for her help.

"Where is everyone?"

"I don't know, Sephera. Quite dead for the diamond of the north. The dragon must have done a real mess," Nadir replied, as a lance struck the gravel in front of his feet, causing him to unsheathe his blade.

"Stop where you are, strangers!" shouted a distant voice, as a group of iron-clad men blocked their paths, armed with bows, broadswords, and spears.

Sephera clicked her fingers, diving her hands inside her poach, as she tried to figure out the intentions of Gidure's inhabitants. Her orange eyes jumped from soldier to soldier, finding a stern terror inside their ash-covered gaze as their weapons trembled from their arms. They were tired and fearful, seeing enemies in everything.

"I've heard a dragon is rampaging the land, is that true?" Sephera asked, recognizing the fire of a dragon from a simple look of the soldiers' melted and deformed weaponry.

"You are the Witch from the Oren Deserts?" the same voice asked, emerging from the crowd of soldiers, belonging to a wrinkled wan man.

"Yes, she is," Nadir replied, interrupting the desert witch, something that annoyed Sephera, sighing and grimacing at her friend.

"Never thought a Desert Witch would speak the Common Tongue," the old man replied, dragging his crimson garbs on the charred ground, with a wide grin emphasizing his wizened face.

"Why wouldn't I? Only hollow dwellers ignore the Common Tongue, did you think that low of me?" Sephera replied, watching the man laughing as he walked right in front of her.

"I thought much worse, to be honest, but in reality, I just find amusing you bothered to learn our language."

Sephera felt a veil of aggressiveness from the man, scouting the former with hazel unblinking eyes.

"Well, I should at least show the same kind of regard. I'm Archdeacon Samuel: Gidure's sorcerer and governor."

"I'm Sephera, and this is my bodyguard..." Sephera pointed at his friend, sheeting his blade and giving a slow bow.

"...Nadir," Sephera continued, bug-eyed by Nadir's attitude towards the people who almost killed him.

"We are at your service, Archdeacon. Tell us about this dragon and we will slay the fiend for you," Nadir said, stupefying Sephera even more, speechless by Nadir's actions.

"It's going to be a little more complicate than that," Samuel replied, scratching his grinning mouth.

"More complicate than a dragon?" Sephera said, looking at the charred remains of the city, the secluded inhabitants, and the battered soldiers.

"It is indeed a dragon, but I don't want you to kill it."

Sephera arched her left eyebrow, waiting for the archdeacon to continue.

"I want you to bring it back."

Sephera looked at Nadir, both puzzled by Samuel's words, asking with incredulous words,

"Wait, bring it back? What do you mean with bringing it back?"

The archdeacon chuckled, turning away and replying to them,

"Follow me."

Samuel moved his tall legs towards his soldiers, the latter following him like dogs.

"Did you know we had to capture a dragon?" whispered Sephera to Nadir, the latter muffling some suffocated words, showing surprise and confusion by frantically gesticulating.

"I knew they had a problem. Never thought it was about dragon fetching!"

Sephera arched her eyebrows, scratching her nose ridge under the stress of the discovery.

"Would you two follow me? All of your questions will be answered."

The two silently agreed to follow the archdeacon, moving with his soldiers, towards the inner parts of the city.

"Gidure is an antique city, Sephera. Built on the bones and the crypts of the first men. A few lands could say the same, and you know why?"

"Mere luck?" Sephera replied, sensing the bits of arrogance in Samuel's words, interested more in reveling in his words than explain the disaster to the witch.

"Sorcerers," Samuel said with austere tonalities, peeved by Sephera's words.

"My ancestors founded the city when mankind was still young. You can imagine why it was difficult for me to call the aid of a witch."

Sephera arched her eyebrows, sighing, before asking, with faked ignorance and sarcastic tones,

"Difficult? Why?"

Nadir, meanwhile, kept looking at her with a shaking head, showing signs of worriment.

"A witch's power is fueled by nature, its spirits, and its turmoils, letting out any kind of control upon the self in favor of the savage world."

"And a sorcerer?" Sephera asked, walking upon the unscathed cobblestone of the inner part of the city, towards a charred and roofless dome in the distance, where all the soldiers and the archdeacon were directed.

"A sorcerer uses their mind over nature, binding those spirits to their own will. We don't lose ourselves to those feral humors."

"Binding the nature spirits? Oh! So like a witch?"

The archdeacon stopped his walk, turning towards Sephera, the latter gulping and widening her eyes, almost regretting to have spoken without thought. Almost.

"You must excuse her, us, archdeacon!" Nadir interrupted the two, vomiting out a chuckle to ease the conversation.

"She doesn't know the ways of civilized people. She hasn't even got a meal or a good sleep in days. She is out of her mind."

Samuel looked at both of them, wiping his lips with his tongue, before continuing his walk towards the distant cupola.

"Thank you for backing me up, Nadir: really helpful," Sephera whispered, in a sarcastic and angered tone.

"I just saved our lives, Sephera," Nadir replied, as the archdeacon returned to his speech.

"So, as I was saying before your interruption, Gidure's sorcerers have always put their own powers over nature's creations. And so did I."

The archdeacon pointed his right hand at the burnt dome, alluring Sephera's attention towards it.

"It took half of my youth and all my knowledge on binding spells, but in the end, I did it: a prison without bars, created for one single creature."

"A dragon?" asked Sephera, continuing her walk towards the charred prison.

"Yes, a dragon," Samuel replied, guiding the two at the empty gates of the dome, as the soldiers stopped outside.

"But not a simple dragon." Sephera followed the archdeacon inside, seeking any detail on the prison's nature, finding only cinders and melted clumps of iron among the chiseled pillars.

"I wanted a weapon. A dog ready to protect our city. So I looked for a dragon nest on the plateau, knowing it was a breeding ground for them."

Samuel guided the two through what once was a gigantic carved door, reduced now to a pile of metal frames, to what was the dragon's prison.

"Through years of selective breeding, magical modifications and conditioning, I created the perfect species of dragon, bound by magic to Gidure and its safety."

"Get to the point," Sephera replied, unnerved by the old dragon home, consisting in a jungle of chains, spikes and cow bones sprouting from the sands.

"The dragon belongs to me. I spent all my life to create it, and I won't let that beast fly away from me."

Sephera spent some minutes looking around, feeling her bones trembling and her heart thundering at the sight of all those chains, while Nadir, untouched by that scene, asked the archdeacon,

"Where can we find the dragon?"

"My beast took residence in the home of its ancestors, in the plateau outside Gidure."

Sephera wandered around the dragon's prison, as her skull started to burn and shudder at the sight of a series of spears, sprouting from the sand and surrounding the area.

There was something hidden withing their metal, bursting out with red sparks and smoke. Even without touching them, Sephera's senses could feel the pain inflicted by those instruments.

"What are these spikes?" Sephera asked, stuttering, as their power started to reach for her.

"Restricting pylons, built by me. They forced the dragon to stay here and obey me. They just need a simple vibration to release the binding sorcery."

Sephera walked away by those instruments, as the archdeacon slapped his hands, asking,

"So, are you two willing to help me?"

"What is in for us?" Nadir asked, looking at Sephera, trembling and crossing her arms, displaying her discomfort.

"You will be accepted as Gidure citizens..."

Nadir waited for Samuel to end his words.

"... and a carriage of Meteoric Spice. Precious stuff. One ounce of that could buy you half of our land."

Nadir face radiated with an enlarged smile, replicating his bow to the archdeacon.

"We will bring that beast to its rightful home, archdeacon Samuel."

"I like your enthusiasm, warrior from the desert, but I would also know how will you accomplish such feat?"

Sephera was not able to imitate Nadir's joy, asking Samuel, with inexpressive sobriety,

"We will need your pylons, three of them, and some rope."

The ashen gusts of the plateau sang an inviting epithaph for Sephera and Nadir, arching the witch's nose with burning smell.

"This must be the dragon's den," Nadir remarked, unsheathing his blade, preparing to face battle.

Sephera was unnerved, feeling the cinders of the wasteland burdening her lungs, as well as the eyes of the dragon on her flesh, waiting for her distraction.

"Are you sure this is going to work?" Nadir asked, watching Sephera dragging three of those sparking lances under her right arm and a long rolled-up rope under her left arm.

"No, but I didn't come up with anything better," Sephera replied, watching Nadir taking a long sip from his canteen, cooling down his fiery blood.

"Would you help me with those?" Sephera asked, throwing spears and rope over the ashen ground.

Nadir didn't reply, focusing on grabbing the pylons and planting each one of them in a particular spot. All of them at the same distance from one another.

"Good, now the rope."

Sephera threw one end of the rope to Nadir, unraveling the cord while passing it around the spears. At each one of them, a knot was made, until the rope formed a perfect triangle, with the spears at their vertexes.

"Why the dragon has not attacked us?" Nadir asked, waiting for the imminent beast, clenching his sword even during the creation of that trap.

"Why should it even shows up, that's the real question."

"What do you mean?" Nadir asked as Sephera searched in her pouch, scavenging for a good minute while replying,

"Dragons don't stay near their predators. When facing danger, dragons usually prefer to flee to other territories or inside caves than fighting."

"So do you think it's strange for a dragon to attack Gidure?"

Sephera stopped her search, taking out a canteen and opening its cap.

"If the archdeacon's tortures were as bad as I think they were, yes, it is strange for a dragon to come back."

"Maybe it wants revenge," Nadir replied, as Sephera's canteen vomited out a pair of drops, and nothing more.

"Dragons don't feel revenge. It would be like a dog wanting revenge against its violent owner."

"I don't know, maybe captivity made him unfit for this life," Nadir replied, piercing the sky with his gaze.

"I don't know. By the way, can I borrow your water?" Sephera asked, putting her canteen back in the bag.

Nadir crinkled his eyes, clenching the flask attached to his belt.

"I need to wet the rope or the archdeacon's magic won't conduct," Sephera continued, reaching for Nadir.

"I'm starving Sephera, now you want to take my water? How on the Great Snake will we return back home without water?"

"Just give me the canteen, we will ask for some water back in Gidure," Sephera replied, as Nadir sighed out of anger, throwing the canteen at her.

Sephera uncapped the canteen, pouring some drops of water over the rope triangle, turning and turning until the container was emptied of its liquids, surprising Sephera of its capacity.

"There sure was a lot of water in it."

"I know, right? Could you imagine drinking that? Crazy right?" Nadir replied, with his tones enraged by his hunger and incoming thirst.

Sephera ignored Nadir's words, putting the canteen in her handbag while taking out a small bottle of orange liquid.

"Now time for the fire. You get ready to hit the spear when I tell you"

"Fire, you can create fire?" Nadir shouted, wide-mouthed and glare-eyed.

"Well, I'm not creating anything. I'm just using drops of Pyrocaster to allure the dragon with some fire. "

"No, I mean, you could have always used that? Even yesterday?" Nadir continued, planting his word on the charred ground, waiting for Sephera's answer.

"Now you want my witchcraft? You know how much volatile is Pyrocaster?" Sephera shouted, with that orange bottle jumping from right to left hand.

"You could have offered some help at least!"

"Are we having this conversation right now? With a dragon incoming?" Sephera shouted, shaking the bottle and awakening a fiery light inside the liquid.

"You owe me a meal, Sephera."

Sephera was ready to reply to Nadir's lamentation, only to have her mind brought away from the entire speech by the same painful sensation she felt at the dragon's prison.

"Nadir, have you touched the pylons?" Sephera asked, feeling her heart stopping and starting again, each time more painful than the last.

"Still changing the subject Sephera? why don't..."

"Nadir, shut up. Something is coming."

Nadir stopped his words, gazing upon the pylons, surrounded by red bolts, as the ashes of the plateau awoke to an incoming storm.

The spears started to vibrate, filling the air with electricity, as the sky clouded itself with cinders and red thunders, beckoning the arrival of Gidure's fiend. As the ruins and the ashes of the plateau occluded the heavens, red bolts converged above the triangle of spears, burning away the rope.

Sephera watched the sky, waiting for the beast, as well as stepping back, unconsciously preparing to run away, hearing labored roars growing stronger and closers.

Nadir, contrary to Sephera's fugitive attitude, grabbed his planted sword and prepared to battle, standing and waiting for the archdeacon's monstrosity.

"Nadir, get away," shouted Sephera, as the blinding flames of the beast cut through the clouds, falling like a meteor towards the thundering spears.

As tendrils of fire reached the charred ground, Sephera dashed through the ashes, grabbing and pushing away Nadir, saving his life from the impending death.

As the flares took dominion of the plateau's fields, the black talons of the flying beasts cut through cinders and fire, landing. Sephera rose from the ground, covered in ashes and dripping sweat from the heat of the fires, as her eyes crossed the four blinking red lights appearing from behind the clouds of cinders.

"I told you to get away," Sephera said, gasping and lending Nadir a hand, as the dragon screeched the ashes away, revealing its black rocky skin, scalded and tarnished by the archdeacon's magic. Sephera froze herself, as the dragon stomped, jumped and puked its fiery spit on the spears, occluding the sunlight with its torn wings in an attempt to scare the invisible enemies created by the tortures. And when the pylons were all melted and buried by ashes, the dragon stopped in place, letting its supple tail squirming like a worm, while gazing upon Sephera and Nadir with its four red eyes.

There were no words for Sephera to spill, nor thought to spare in face of the beast. Her hands moved without thinking, throwing the Pyrocaster at the dragon, covered in flames the moment the glass lid broke. But that wasn't enough, not for the dragon, as the scales treated the flames like soil treats water. After roaring its infernal breath to the sky, the dragon found a reason to attack them, for they were alike the archdeacon and its magic.

With its talons scratching the ground, the winged demon prepared to charge at them, while Sephera tried to think about a new plan within her adrenalin-fueled brain. Nadir, on the other hand, prepared himself for the creature's attack, raising his sword in the air like a war banner, screaming with the tongue of his native land.

A foolish act, under Sephera's perspective, as she gazed at the dragon, searching for a weak spot to use against the beast. However, Sephera's mind found itself in a stalemate, as the dragon jumped towards them, bending wind and air.

The witch jumped away from the dragon's wake, while Nadir, heated by fury, charged the beast like a warthog against a hunter. As the beast clawed its way towards Nadir, the latter knelt and rolled, avoiding the fiend's wrath and ending behind its back. With sword in hand, Nadir swang the curved blade with swiftness and rapidity, attempting to slice away the spiked tail of the dragon.

Sephera witnessed Nadir's actions, knowing that his sword would have been useless against the dragon's scales. She had to look for something to subdue the dragon. It was in that moment that Sephera saw the red sparks emerging from the dragon's chest, diffusing through bolts to where the pylons once stood.

With shivering ideas in her mind, Sephera beheld Nadir's fighting, shouting his name, only to see the warrior launched away by the tail. Nadir's flew next to Sephera, while his blade pierced the soil in front of her right leg, almost limping the witch and yet aiding her plan.

With her shuddering right arm, Sephera grabbed the sword, watched by Nadir, crawling and clenching his chest, grimacing out of pain and fear for the witch's life.

"Give me my sword, Sephera, I can still fight," Nadir muttered, watching Sephera running away from him.

"Sephera, don't leave me here!" Nadir shouted as Sephera's leg muscles hastened through the ashes, leaving behind the dragon's cries and her friend's supplication. Sephera stopped her feet, feeling the painful burning waves of the archdeacon magic nearby, scratching her bones.

The spears were still active, still imbibed with magic, yet Sephera's eyes could only find a puddle of liquid metal, bubbling with sparks and red bolts.

Ignoring the searing pain of the puddle's heat, the witch submerged the sword in the molten pylons, watching the edge deform as the hilt burnt her right hand. Sephera clenched her teeth and closed her eyes, enduring the torture as her ears were deafened by the dragon's screech.

Sephera watched the blade mutate into a deformed ensemble of barbed needles, conducting the archdeacon's magic to the handle, changed into an unformed clump of metal. When Sephera felt the archdeacon's magic running through her arm, she raised the sword to the tumultuous sky, letting the bolts of lightning run through the blade, yet never touching her skin. Armed with her last stand against the dragon, Sephera turned towards the beast, hoping to find Nadir still untouched. However, Nadir was nowhere to be seen.

Only the shrieking dragon remained, screaming its embers towards the glittering storms of cinders. Maybe Nadir escaped, maybe he saw her actions as a betrayal and ran away, thought Sephera, ignoring the worst scenario, as it would never help her against the dragon. Sephera dragged the sword upon the ashen soil, attempting to run with that hunk of malformed steel cumbering her pace. She wasn't a warrior or a knight. She had barely taken a sword in her lifetime. Yet, what she had to do? Wait to die in a corner? Sephera was not that kind of person. She didn't wait for death to come knocking at her door, trembling like a rabbit in its burrow. Fear walked with her, not against her. Always guiding her mind to strike at the right moment. Sephera grabbed the sword with both hands, raising it to the tormented sky, shouting out fury and pain.

"Dragon!"

Sephera clanged the blade to the ground, calling forth the bolts from the dragon and forcing out a scream from the beast.

The blade and the dragon connected through sparks, harrowing the beast with the memory of its captivity. Anger now ran through the fiend's veins, propelling the dragon towards the witch. Sephera sensed the creature's rage, swinging her sword in uncoordinated slashes, releasing bolts towards the dragon.

The creature landed in front of her, tortured by the archdeacon magic, grasping for air. Sephera hesitated for a second, only to remember the fires of the dragon and the consequences of her mercy.

The witch attempted to slash its frontal legs, hitting its neck and covering the dragon in a veil of bolts. Sephera flailed the sword again, caressing the beak of the dragon with her weak slashes. Yet the mere touch of the blade sent the dragon in an ocean of pain, forcing the beast to fall on his belly. Sephera was winded, feeling her heart exploding and her lungs burning with ashes and fatigue. Her neck bloated, while her head started to spin, exhausted by the fight. But the dragon had not been defeated. The debilitating pain inflicted by the witch inflamed the creature's mind, driving it to toss Sephera away with a swing of its right wing. The strike separated Sephera from her sword, falling nearby a mound of cinder, as she fell on her back, defenseless against the dragon. Sephera rose from the ashes, surrounded by stabbing pains around her trunk. Covered by the cinders of the beast's passage, Sephera crawled towards the sword, stopped by the dragon's talons, trembling from the sparks running through its body.

Sephera was paralyzed, watching the dragon's throat gleaming with blazes, surrounded by bolts. Even with fear at her side, she failed. And yet, Sephera's mind could still not give up to let death finish her. She stared at the sword behind the dragon's paw, anguishing her mind to find a way to reach the mound of cinder, knowing that any sudden movement would have enraged the dragon. And as the dragon's flame blinded her gaze, Sephera closed her eyes, enraged and frightened of having let death win. As fear still lingered around her mind, Sephera opened her eyes one last time, witnessing the mound of cinder trembling and breaking. Under Sephera's gaze, a humanoid figure emerged from the ashes, grabbing the sword and dashing towards the dragon within the blink of an eye. Sephera recognized that man, dressed in grayed blue shrouds, dancing with his blade as he sliced the dragon's wing with ease and swiftness. It was almost like a dance, hitting the legs of the dragon while running under its shining belly.

"I thought you had escaped. I guess hiding under the soil was a good plan," Nadir said, spitting out muddy ashes while continuing his fight against the bolt-covered dragon. Sephera, however, could only focus her sight on the blinding red light on the creature's belly, pierced by a rusted piece of metal. With her senses back in her mind, Sephera shouted for Nadir, gasping for air yet still dancing with the blade,

"Nadir! Give me the sword!"

"What? Right now?" Nadir mumbled, kneeling and asking for air, while continuing to strike the dragon's scales, making the beast's unable to respond to his attacks.

"We won't have another chance, come on!" Sephera shouted, still waiting under the dragon and its thunderbolts, gazing upon the spike of metal emerging from the beast's stomach.

Nadir harked Sephera's words, giving one last strike, before throwing the sword at Sephera. The witch rose from the ground, with sword in her hands and ash on her skin, charging towards the belly of the beast and striking the spike with all the strength she had. The moment the blade touched the spike, its edge shattered into a million shards, surrounding the dragon in a tempest of sufferance. The bolts surrounded its tattered wings, denying the dragon its flight, forcing it to the ground. With its belly facing the clouds, the dragon clenched its talons, crawling and fighting for air, under Sephera's dilated pupils. The fiend was defeated, and yet Sephera didn't find comfort in this notion.

"This is why it kept coming back," Sephera muttered, as the gasping Nadir walked next to her, wiping some of his ashes on the former's shoulders.

"This is for taking my sword."

Nadir made a supple smile, something Sephera was not able to replicate, watching the dragon squirming in pain.

"They have already tried a plan similar to ours, using the pylons, but it didn't work."

"What are you talking about?" Nadir asked as Sephera approached the dragon, ignoring its fearful shrieks.

"It escaped, they intercepted it and tried to submit it with the spears."

Sephera jumped on the dragon's belly, watching the spear piercing its scales, as Nadir widened its eyes to the witch's recklessness.

"One of those still embed in its chest, restraining it near Gidure. This is why it is still attacking the city: it can't, the spike won't let it."

"You shouldn't get near that thing."

Sephera ignored Nadir's last words, grabbing the brittle end of the spike and pulling it out from the dragon, freeing the creature from the archdeacon.

"Sephera, what are you doing?" Nadir shouted as Sephera jumped off the creature's belly.

The dragon rolled on its fours, shrieking at the witch, yet not attacking her.

The dragon curved its neck, growling a submitted cry, before spreading its tattered wings and jumping away from the plateau, towards the clearing skies.

"How on the Great Snake are we supposed to catch it?" Nadir shouted, running towards the fleeing dragon.

"We aren't," Sephera replied, walking away from the battlefield.

"We were supposed to catch it, Sephera."

Sephera turned towards Nadir, with a frozen visage and unblinking eyes, replying,

"I was supposed to solve their problem, not to fetch them a dragon. So I did"

Nadir sighed, keeping his infuriated gaze on her.

"It won't attack them anymore, nor it will never return to this forsaken city."

"And the Archdeacon? What are we going to tell him?"

Sephera returned to his steps, followed by Nadir, longing for answers.

"Nothing, because we are not going to Gidure. We are returning home."

"Sephera, wait, you are not thinking straight!" Nadir ran to the witch, the latter still keeping her walk, unchanged by the former's words.

"Thinking straight? I would rather die in the desert than accept gold from that worm."

Nadir was bewildered, having never seen Sephera like this.

"What happened?" Nadir asked as Sephera stopped.

"You couldn't feel it, Nadir, you are neither a witch nor a sorcerer." Sephera turned towards Nadir, crossing her arms, still clenching the broken spike.

"But I could. I could feel the pylons' magic, and the pain that beast had to endure, even after breaking out of their prison. It was just..." Sephera interrupted her speech, moving her gaze away from Nadir's.

"You can leave if you don't want to come with me. They will probably pay you. If not the archdeacon, some of Gidure's people would."

Sephera knew Nadir was just a guard. He didn't have anything to do with this, he just went along for a possible payment, no matter how painful that truth was to him.

"Sephera..."

"Take this." Sephera gave the guard the remains of the spike, as a farewell gift for his protection.

"As a proof of your hunt, or whatever. It may work as a sword since I destroyed yours."

"What if the archdeacon asks about you?" Nadir asked, grabbing the spike with unsteady hands.

"Just tell him that he was right: Sorcerers and witches couldn't be more different, and I'm glad they are."

With those last words, Sephera walked away from Nadir, towards the untouched ashes of the descending plateau and the forests below. She knew he had nothing to do with her change of mind. Nadir went for the money, and he would stay for the money. And yet, Sephera heard the heavy steps of the guard behind her, and his tired voice, shouting,

"You still have to pay me, Sephera."

The witch turned towards Nadir, trying not to smile for his decision, replying,

"Wouldn't Gidure give you something?"

"Well, We were supposed to catch the dragon and I really don't want to face an entire city's fury."

Sephera sighed, as Nadir walked beside her.

"You know we don't have neither water nor food?"

"Well, I guess I would try some of your witchcraft for a chance."

Sephera laughed, still trying to hide her joy in not having to do the road back home alone. With the ashes of Gidure's sins left behind their backs, Sephera and Nadir walked towards the cold forests of the north, to the unkind desert that birthed them.