Dragonheart Core

The last time Akkyst had faced the War Horde, he had won, and he had been broken for it. The stone-wurm had taken his eye, his ear, and the Magelords' home—it had been a victory, but not one he thought fondly of. It had brought him his evolution, and had tried to kill him in the process.

It would not be so this time.

The dungeon had already gone below, their connection lingering with thoughts of another enormous beast drawn to move at the War Horde's command; so this was up to him.

Akkyst bellowed—through the storms and the surge, the sound echoed like a warcry. Every Magelord answered, hands held aloft with mana sparking like lightning overtop; their grey-tipped tails lashed, whipping the stone. Their last home had been lost to them in fire and destruction; this one would stay theirs, no matter the army before them.

It wasn't only goblins. They poured through the entrance, hollering and brandishing spears, but those several heads taller marched alongside them. Still pale green but with cords of grey hair and angular faces, claws akin to daggers, clutching spears and clubs and weapons unfamiliar. Larger, more powerful—an evolution.

And others; filling in the ranks were beasts, slow and lumbering with crystalline growths over their backs and filling in the gaps between limbs. Not taller than him but close enough it was worrying, particularly with a weight that shook the stone as their feet plodded into the ground. And in the far back, slower than all the rest, a twisting, reeking mass of translucent blue-grey, hissing like acid. Stronger than any beast he'd seen in the War Horde's collection.

But they would all fall.

Akkyst pushed off and ran—the entrance was not above on any of the islands, starting right in the underground where the Magelords lived, and he had to hardly move for three heartbeats before the first goblin reached him. One of the evolved variety, up to his shoulder instead of his chest, roaring with black eyes wide.

He ducked under the swing of its club, runes flickering in the corners of his eye, and sprang for it. Its blow glanced off his back as he rammed his bulk into its chest, something cracking under his strength, blood splattered his fur. It reeled back, croaking, and he sank his fangs into the marrow of its neck; heard its spine crunch until its eyes faded.

Akkyst raced on, thundering over the stone; the War Horde flooded into the land. The Magelords barked their own warcry, lightning sparking to their fingers—it roared through the approaching ranks, leaping from head to head as Bylk guided the destruction to its peak. They had grown since their last fight, and this time, they were not alone.

The bladehawk, screeching, rust-red feathers knifing through the clouds; mist-foxes bleeding in and out of sight; the stormcaller sprite summoning winds to whip like gnashed teeth; the storm eel snaking down with fangs bared. A home in harmony together.

The War Horde didn't care. They poured inside, jabbing spears into the flanks of their commanded beasts to incite them into a fury of fighting, unbothered by the corpses beginning to stack over the stone. Akkyst became a whirlwind around the base of the broken island, forcing all to fight him instead of advancing up to the next floor, uploading the dungeon's safety. Though they were outnumbered, they would not lose.

And then the War Horde stopped coming through.

Akkyst paused for a second, flicking half a goblin's ribcage off his paw as he angled his half-cut gaze to the hole. It yawned into the surrounding mountains, dark as a gullet, but the streaming wave of bodies ceased. No more. Still the ravaging horde present, but no more.

This– wasn't enough.

It also wasn't the time to think, as another squalling goblin came hurtling through the mist for him. He spun, letting the spearhead wedge itself into his fur—runes by the dozen floated off, telling him the type of wood and stone and bone and twine used to hold it all together—and the goblin fell back, her wide ears flaring. He cleaved her in half with a single swipe of his claws. She toppled to the ground in a splatter of crimson.

But then he looked again to the entrance, where no more goblins emerged.

Nearly a hundred boiled through the dungeon, screeching and hollering and waving their spears, and the beast alongside them—but that wasn't enough. It wasn't the numbers he remembered from his time under them; even if every goblin that had attacked the Magelords had died, that still wasn't enough to decimate their ranks to this number.

Where were the rest of them?

Distraction would be the death of him. So fixated was he on the empty hollow of an entrance that he missed the stone quaking beneath his paws until it erupted.

Something burst from the rock, rubble scattered to the far reaches—Akkyst bellowed as jagged claws dug into his underbelly, thrown back, weight thundering to the ground. He scrambled back, shaking free the dust.

The beast before him was akin to nothing, taller with enormous forelimbs and a twisted insectoid build. It chittered and hissed at him, a coalescion of spines and claws and chitinous armour of a sandy amber-gold. Its eyes, bulbous and oddly hollow, set overtop a grasping pair of mandibles. Every rune floating off his fur was unfamiliar, an entirely new opponent to face—but he was familiar enough with fighting to know what to do.

Its attack had been intended to destabilize him—but he was rather too large and the creature seemed startled by that, hesitating to press what it had thought would be its advantage. Akkyst moved instead.

The stone trembled with the echo of footsteps as he raced, weaving around scattered spells from the Magelords and dust raining from overhead. It reared as he approached, bulbous eyes glinting, claws braced.

Akkyst ducked under its swipe, fur cleaving with rippling runes. He ignored that to snap at its leg, at the spindly connection between armour and joint; it howled with this buzzing, arcing sound like struck metal as he tore its back leg clean off, greenish blood oozing through his teeth. It tasted foul. He spat it out.

The beast wailed, skittering back with its myriad limbs and listing head. Its mandibles cracked on empty air, spines rustling as if in wind. Not a thing used to being hurt.

But Akkyst had made a legend for himself for hurting the unhurtable.

He lunged for it, pressing the advantage—runes for pain and fear floated around him, though the creature's hollow eyes stayed unreadable. It clashed its claws together, ducking and bobbing as its weight no longer spread evenly. He slammed into its front, shoving past the bracing of its claws. It howled, swiping at his face—it kept staring in his eye like it wanted something to happen, like he should be weakening, but he pushed on unhindered, and it didn't seem to know what to do with that.

If unleashed, it would cleave through the Magelords in a massacre. So he wouldn't allow that to happen.

Akkyst crashed his bulk into its side with the leg, buckling under the weight; it collapsed, thrashing, and he carved his claws into the joint of its other leg. The limb bent and twisted, not severed but crippled, and it spasmed on the ground, still wailing with its chittering voice.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

He bent and crushed its head between his teeth. Mana flooded through him like a tidal wave.

But there was no rest for those in battle, not when the Magelords were the ones at risk—Akkyst straightened, shaking out lingering pains until he could ignore them. In the absence, another goblin sprang at him, howling frustration; he slammed it to the ground in an explosion of viscera, head twisting under his claws. The war thrummed through him, every thought focused on the next body ahead, on the next fight brewing in the wake. He was one of thinking but this was where his body was meant for, for protection, for defense–

"Akkyst!"

Bylk, his hands raised imperiously over a cluster of the crystalline beasts—but one knobbly finger jabbed towards a figure in the back, with a staff raised above his head. No different than the others, beyond a collection of stone armour bolted over shoulders, but the staff was out of place, tall and jagged. Familiar.

The staff of the leader.

Akkyst ran.

He thundered over the stone, islands high overhead shaking as he neared their bases. The mist clung to his fur, spinning off in silver runes and intricacies, but he only had eyes for the target; for the one commanding the others. It wasn't an evolved goblin, merely one of the ones that barely came up to his chest, the ones he had been so scared of long ago.

The goblin's black eyes widened as he approached, swinging the staff in his direction. But Akkyst ducked under the weak swing and slammed his face into the goblin's chest.

He flew backwards like hit by an avalanche, sprawling over the ground in a tangle of limbs. Akkyst thundered forward and reared back, planting one paw over the goblin's torso, bones creaking beneath. He thrashed, scrabbling at his thick fur, and–

And talked.

"This ain't all," he snarled, clawing heedlessly. "Don't matter—there's more—you're gonna die–"

Akkyst paused. He decreased the pressure, feeling the goblin's rib shake and flex under his weight. "What?"

Confusion flashed through his black eyes at hearing his own tongue, but the leader ignored it in favour of hissing. "There's more. You think–" he coughed, phlegm stained black through yellowed teeth "–this's all we got? It ain't. We got more. We're jus' waitin'."

Victory, gleaming through his gaze.

"We're already below."

A moment of confusion—Akkyst stared at him, runes swirling in his periphery. The goblin ratcheted back as if to claw at his remaining eye.

Akkyst ripped his head off. It was disgusting. He spat it out.

He clambered off the corpse, shaking blood from his fur—the War Horde hardly seemed to notice their lack of leader, still pressing onward, but their numbers were a fraction of what had been. Everywhere he looked, Magelords were tearing through their ranks, lightning called like air in this mana-rich land. The crystalline beasts quailed underneath it, impervious to physical attacks but not to mana, shredding through their earthen armour until it splintered like shards of glass around their feet, baring pale flesh and blank eyes. Even the viscous creature in the far back shook and shuddered under their attacks, piercing its insubstantial flesh like the bladehawk's feathers. Akkyst left those to the Magelords and continued carving through the goblins, evolved and not, unstoppable as an avalanche. Cuts scored themselves over his flanks and back but it meant nothing, not when all he needed was one attack to end their lives; to glut his fill on their mana and continue marching. He was not the beast that they had taken; he was not weak anymore. A lifetime ago, he had killed a stone-wurm; these goblins were not a threat.

The din of battle started to quiet; still warcries and bellows, but less, silence stretching through the mist. Akkyst gnawed another evolved goblin's head off, crunching its spine between his fangs, and spun—and saw one more goblin, small and diminutive, a spear aimed to his chest with trembling claws. Her face, pale. Eyes wide.

Memories.

Runes flooded off his fur, quicksilver understanding; they rippled off the water like quartz-lights. He remembered her. She had been one of his keepers, back in the War Horde, when his existence had shrunk to a single cage filled with dozens of other creatures all crammed together in a space too small for them and starving. She had battered at the bars, laughing, dragging them out when they were needed for patrols and uncaring whether she brought them back. He remembered her.

Akkyst pulled back his claws and crashed his paw into the side of her head. Gently, almost.

She still crumpled, spear flying from her grasp with a croak of dismay. She crashed to the ground in a tangle of limbs, gibbering, clawed hands pressing over her face and ears flattening to her skull. Far from the nightmare she had been.

It wasn't pity, because Akkyst remembered her spear through his flanks, the way he was kicked to the front lines to die as needed so the War Horde could expand their ever-growing territory, he could remember the terror he felt as his fellow beasts were made into corpses for a war none of them wanted—but looking at her now, he could not feel that same rage. That same all-consuming mindlessness that had pushed him to his hind legs and bared his fangs.

It wasn't pity. But it was, perhaps, understanding. He had been small and she had been terrifying—now he was large and she was terrified. A reversal of what had been. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

The runes, floating off his fur to drift over her huddled form. The constellation of answers he didn't yet know how to read.

Then, as Akkyst pulled himself out of reverie and stared at his home, he found the battle concluded.

Goblin corpses stacked to brush at the clouds overhead, blood spilling like river deltas over the stone. The crystalline shards from the beasts' armour scattered underfoot, the liquid from the sluggish beast hissing as it corroded through the ground. Already the Magelords began to pull their fallen brethren out of the piles for mourning rituals, but their number was significantly unreduced, while none of the War Horde were left standing.

It had been a fight, yes, but to call it comparable to the previous battle was a lie. They had grown much; they were not so easily defeated.

Akkyst shifted his gaze down until he looked at the goblin between his braced paws. She stayed curled up, unmoving, but he could hear her breathing in sharp pants through her teeth.

He remembered, vaguely, her calling him a coward.

Footsteps—he lifted his head to see Bylk walking over, eyes half-lidded and arms swaying. Then he caught sight of the last survivor, and he sneered. His tail, grey-tipped, lashed at the ground; though his limp was pronounced and all the myriad jewels strung through his ears were dull, there was an anger in his expression that exhaustion couldn't quench. There was no love in him for the War Horde, not after what they had done.

"Last straggler, eh?" He said, a remaining spark of mana crawling up his hands. "You want the honours?"

Akkyst shifted, cuts stretching over his legs as he adjusted their position. "Not yet."

Bylk's sneer deepened. "They ain't the type for mercy," he said grimly. "You can offer it to 'em all you want, but they'll never give it back. No reason to spare one."

Akkyst shook his head, ruined ear twitching. She still curled beneath his weight, all limbs tucked in; no tail, no magic. Pale green skin instead of black striped blue.

"Not mercy," he said. "Questions."

Bylk tilted his head to the side, eyes sharpening. "What kinda questions?"

Akkyst splayed his feet, centering his mass so that she had more room to breathe; she twitched, one long, shuddering movement over her curled limbs, but didn't attempt to stand. Not the most intelligent, he knew, at least after his alliance, but she had come running into a dungeon shouting about Growth, the same name as the Magelords. A monster on their side, one smaller than the stone-wurm but no less destructive, an army the same size as before; he didn't understand why.

This ain't all, the War Horde's leader had snarled. There's more.

We're already below.

"This wasn't their full attack," Akkyst said, voice gravelly.

Bylk blinked. He glanced back at the dungeon, at the myriad stacks of corpses and all the gore left after the battle. But the number there was similar to what they brought against the Magelords back when it was a massacre waiting to happen. Not when they were threatening an unknown disaster and calling it the Growth.

"Ah, hells, you're right, ain'tcha?" He finally said, weary. "Rock and rubble, I wanted it to be. Wanted to know we were finally stronger than those bastards. But this ain't their proper strength."

"No," Akkyst agreed, gaze drifting back to the goblin. He wished it had been the leader kept alive, one more likely to know, but he would take what he could. "And I'm going to figure out what happened."