Chapter 11: Dragon Rider

Iden dragged the body up the tunnel, the pristine armor that it was still wearing clanking as it scraped against the rock. He felt the chill wind against his face, the air becoming cooler and fresher, the light of the sun bathing him as he reached the mouth of the cave. He pulled the dead Paladin out onto the outcrop, the wind whipping his hair, and placed his foot on its breastplate.

“Guess I should ... say a few words,” he mumbled. “I didn’t know you, and you didn’t know me. Can’t say that I’m too sorry about what happened, on account of you trying to murder me and all, but I hope you’ll find peace in the afterlife. I feel like there’s a lesson to be learned in all this. Maybe something to do with tolerance, or perhaps with taking advantage of numerical superiority. I wanted to leave you guys in the cave so that your friends could find you and give you a proper burial once we’re gone, but ... you’re starting to smell, so ... off you go.”

Iden rolled the body off the outcrop, where it tumbled down the snowy mountainside, settling in a heap with the three others. They were already being covered in a dusting of snow, they would probably be buried before tomorrow.

He brushed himself off and retreated back into the cave, arriving at the main chamber to see Isabelle sitting beside her pile like a giant dog begging for a treat, clasping something daintily between her giant claws.

“Alright, the last of the Paladins is ... gone,” he said. “What have you got there?”

“This is a rare book indeed!” she said excitedly, her spiky quills rattling with what might have been an expression of glee. “It’s difficult to determine its exact age, but it was penned sometime during the late magical period, which puts it at around four hundred years old. It’s a book of spells, written in the blood of a frost giant. I’d recognize that smell anywhere, even after all these years. The magic in the blood imbues the reader with a limited form of the creature’s power.”

“That’s how they were able to snuff our your magic?”

“Cryomancy, yes,” she replied with a nod. “They used it to quell the flames in my belly for a time. I’m amazed that such an artifact survived all these years, what else do the Paladins have stashed deep in their vaults?”

“What about this thing?” Iden asked, stooping to retrieve the odd pike. It was surprisingly light, impeccably balanced, the hilt made from a decorative alloy that he didn’t recognize.

“Dragonhorn,” she said solemnly. “One of the only things sharp enough to pierce a dragon’s scales. It was sourced from one of my fallen kin. Imagine someone murdering a relative of yours, and then sharpening their femur with the intent to kill you with it, and that’s about how seeing a dragonhorn weapon makes me feel. We should consider ourselves lucky that they didn’t have dragonhide armor, it would have served as much more effective fireproofing.”

“Want me to toss it?” Iden asked.

“No,” she said with a shake of her head. “I would prefer that the Paladins never recover it. Just place it in the pile with the other weapons.”

He walked over to the mound of treasure and placed the pike atop it. The neat pile had been somewhat scattered during the fight, there were coins spread throughout the entire cave. Returning them to their rightful place was going to be a real chore.

“So how are you going to move all of this stuff?” Iden asked, appraising the mound of treasure. “You said so yourself, there’s no way to get this much treasure down the mountain.”

“Contrary to what you might assume, this cave is not my first lair,” she replied as she looked up from her book. “I’ve moved my hoard several times over the centuries. No matter how remote my choice of abode, mortal farms and settlements always seem to encroach upon it sooner or later. It’s not an easy process, and it requires locating a suitable destination first, but it can be done.”

“So you’ll need to find another mountain with a large enough cave? Then what?”

“Then I’ll box everything up in wooden crates, and make several trips back and forth. We dragons are stout creatures, we can carry a great deal of weight on the wing.”

If she could carry a cow, then it wasn’t hard to imagine her transporting its weight in loot. Even then, it was probably an arduous process. It was impossible to estimate how many tons of gold was actually in the cave, or how many trips would be required.

He stooped to investigate the weapon pile. They had stripped the Paladins of everything but their armor. As nice as it would have been to get his hands on a full set that wasn’t covered in dents and scratches, walking around in what was essentially a Paladin’s uniform was a bad idea. It might fool the uninitiated, but if he happened upon any real Paladins, they would see through his disguise immediately. The only way that one of their brothers would have parted with their armor was if he had killed them, and they would respond in kind.

What he could keep, however, was one of the short swords. They were distinctive in their design, but as long as he kept it sheathed, it shouldn’t draw any attention. His own sword had been slagged by Isabelle’s magic, the blade remaining bent and misshapen after it had cooled. He lifted one of the swords, the shining steel glinting under the torchlight, the hilt decorated with a carving of an eagle’s head. For self-professed keepers of the peace, their gear certainly was extravagant. In Iden’s opinion, most of their coin would be better spent feeding the poor, rather than gilding their armor. He picked up the scabbard too, securing it about his waist. This one was nicer than his, and it had no special Paladin markings on it that might give him away.

“Be a dear and put this on the shelf with the others, would you?” Isabelle asked. She brought her long tail up and used the tapered end to manipulate the spellbook, taking advantage of the appendage’s immense reach to pass it to him. He took it, wary of her sharp quills, and made his way over to the shelves where he placed it with the rest.

“Looks like you came out on top in the end,” he said, stepping back to appraise her collection. “You’re up two artifacts, and they’re down four Paladins.”

“I suppose that’s one way of looking at things,” she replied. “Well, this is unusual...”

Iden turned to see her digging through her pile of coins, sending great handfuls cascading down its slope. She hooked her claws around something, dragging it free and toppling it onto the cave floor. It took him a moment to realize what he was looking at. In order to escape the magical net that had bound her, Isabelle had bathed herself in flames. Her tough scales were impervious to her fiery breath, while the webbing had burned away, but she had been lying atop her treasure pile at the time. Her breath had apparently been hot enough to melt a clump of the gold coins together, resulting in what almost looked like a lumpy, golden tree trunk in both appearance and size.

“The melting point of gold is far lower than that of steel,” she muttered, pawing at the strange sculpture. “I suppose I’ll have to smelt this into something else.”

“It’s getting pretty late,” Iden said, stretching his arms above his head and yawning widely. “We should probably sleep fairly soon, but all this slaying of Paladins and then dragging them around has me rather hungry.”

“We should both eat,” she replied with a nod of her massive head. “I’ll need the energy if I’m going to heal my wounds, and the Paladins surprised me before I could partake of the meal that I brought back after my hunt.”

“What did you catch?” Iden asked.

“Well ... perhaps ‘buying without express permission’ would be a better word for it than ‘hunting’,” she chuckled. “I brought back a couple of cows, their carcasses are packed with snow in my ... pantry. I’ll go fetch them.”

She dropped to a four-legged posture, walking across the cavern in the direction of one of the side tunnels. Her footsteps made the ground shake beneath Iden’s feet, and he watched her as she passed him, her gait reminding him of a giant horse. His head scarcely reached her shoulder, and she had so much sheer mass that it was more fitting to compare her to a building than any living thing that Iden had ever seen. The immense muscles that held her body aloft rippled and flexed just beneath the surface of her shining hide, the fat deposits on her soft underbelly and thick tail quivering with every step, and he found himself transfixed once again by the jewel-like quality of her scales.

He never quite got used to how large she was, even if her transformations were now routine. It was so much easier to get his head around a nine-foot humanoid, rather than a thirty-foot beast that had almost nothing in common with the human form, and yet Iden found her far from displeasing. There was a certain grace to her movements that made it hard to look away from her. Despite the strength that she radiated, every twitch of her tail was moderated, every step of her padded feet measured. If he were to scatter the ground with chicken eggs, he doubted that she would break a single one.

She vanished into the tunnel, reappearing a couple of minutes later with two carcasses. They looked like dairy cows, not unlike the one that she had butchered for him previously, their white hides patterned with black splotches. She had one of them clutched in her jaws, and the other was clasped against her chest with one of her forelimbs.

She hobbled into the room with a three-legged gait, releasing the livestock, letting them fall to the cave floor. They wobbled with the thunderous impact, and Iden could have sworn that he heard their bones breaking. She carried them with such ease that it was easy to forget how much they weighed.

He took up his seat at the mahogany table, shifting his weight to get comfortable in the comically elaborate throne as she butchered one of the animals for him. She sliced its flank open, using the claw on her index finger like a butcher’s knife, carving him off a choice cut. She speared it on her talon, then cooked it with her breath, searing it to perfection in only a few seconds. She placed it before him with a wet slap, Iden wasting no time as he dug into it.

“This is the first time that I’ve seen you eat anything,” he mused, pausing to fork another piece of roasted beef into his mouth. “Do you cook yours?”

“Of course,” she replied, “I’m not a savage.”

Isabelle hooked her curved claws deep into the second cow, dragging it clear of the table, Iden watching curiously as she took a deep breath. She opened her mouth wide, shooting a jet of flame from her throat, the heat of it searing the fur from the cow’s hide in the blink of an eye. The flames splashed against the rock around it, its flesh becoming charred, the skin crisping. She gave it a second, shorter blast, then stopped to appraise her cooking as it smoked. The sight reminded Iden of a pig that had been cooked over a spit, but far larger. He had seen them prepared that way once or twice during his stays at war camps, where they had been eaten communally by the soldiers.

Iden had expected her to cut the carcass into smaller pieces with her serrated teeth, but he was surprised to see her open her jaws wide, scooping the cow’s massive rump into her mouth as though she was picking it up with a shovel. Her head was almost as long as Iden was tall, but even that was not large enough for her to get it all into her mouth at once. As he watched, her maw widened, almost as if her lower jaw was separating into two halves. Her teeth sank into its seared flesh, her jaws working to drag it deeper into her throat, the upper and lower sections moving independently of one another. When the cow was about halfway into her mouth, she raised her head off the ground, her snout pointing at the ceiling as she used her meal’s weight to help take it deeper.

The muscles in her long neck began to drag it down, he could see them flexing in waves. The cow was fatter than her neck was thick, and he could make out its outline as it traveled down her gullet, soon only its head and forelegs protruding from her maw. It was like watching a snake devour a mouse, or a duck eating a morsel of bread, but on a frighteningly large scale. When she was finally able to close her jaws, the only evidence of the cow was the bulge in her long neck, the muscles still working beneath her scales. Eventually, that too vanished. It wasn’t hard for Iden to imagine a stomach large enough to accommodate the animal residing somewhere inside that massive body.

She glanced over at him, and he realized that he had frozen with a forkful of meat suspended an inch from his mouth.

“That was, uh ... unexpected,” he said as she bared her teeth in a grin.

“Trust me, mortals do plenty of things that we dragons find distasteful.”

Iden returned to his meal, trying not to think of the fact that he had been very close to suffering the same fate as that cow during their first meeting. Or at least, the first time that he had met Isabelle in her true form.

She lay down beside his table like an oversized cat, her forelegs crossed neatly as she watched him eat, the tip of her long tail waving back and forth idly. Iden realized that he could hear her breathing, her lungs alone must be as large as he was.

“So, where are you going to sleep?” he asked, gesturing to the pile of curtains and gowns with his fork. “You’re a little too big to fit in the bed now.”

“Perhaps I’ll sleep... ‘around’ the bed,” she replied, glancing at her pile. “I usually sleep curled up around my treasure. It brings me a kind of peace to feel my valuables against my scales, like I’ve created a protective wall around them.”

“You won’t roll over and crush me in your sleep or anything, will you?”

“You’ll be quite safe,” she replied with a chuckle.

“I have to say,” Iden added as he finished up the last of his beef, “you cook a great steak.”

“That’s an attractive trait in mortal pairings, isn’t it?” she asked. “The female is expected to cook, to maintain a home. Feathering the nest, they call it.”

“That’s the way of things,” Iden replied, rising to his feet and setting his cutlery down. “Is it different for your people?”

“Not terribly,” she said, standing and walking beside him as he made his way over to the pile of sheets. She walked slowly, matching pace with his comparatively tiny legs, her head facing him on its flexible neck. “Romance between dragons can endure lengths of time that see mountains rise, and civilizations fall, or it can be as fleeting an encounter as those that you once boasted of. In either case, the task of rearing children usually falls on the female. A dragon will lay a clutch of anywhere between six and a dozen leathery eggs, each one roughly the size of a melon. She is then tasked with keeping them warm, and eventually with feeding the hatchlings.”

“Would you sit on the eggs like a chicken?” Iden asked.

“Heavens, no. The eggs must be kept at a steady temperature, and the best way to achieve that is by setting fire to the nest, keeping it toasty while they develop.”

“Sitting on eggs to keep them warm surprises you, but setting their nest on fire is routine?” Iden chuckled as he sat down on the pile of luxurious fabrics. “Wait ... a dozen eggs?”

“You’re wondering what will happen after we consummate our union,” she replied with a toothy grin. The pile of fine fabrics that had served as their bed was situated at the foot of the treasure horde, Isabelle planting the trunk of her massive body beside it to his left. Her long tail coiled around beneath him, so long that it rose up on his right, her long neck and her head completing the circle. He found himself nestled within a wall of scales, surrounded by Isabelle on all sides. She let her head rest on the sheets to his right, taking up as much space as her human form’s entire body would have. It was her way of sleeping together in spite of their massive difference in size.

“It had crossed my mind,” he admitted, hooking his fingers behind his head and lying back nonchalantly. “If what you say is true, that humans and dragons can ... bear fruit, then what will our offspring look like? What will they ... be?”

“Worry not, Iden,” Isabelle replied. Her head was so near now that he could reach out and touch her scaly cheek, her eyes as large as his fist. They were stunning up close, like fire opals polished smooth, an ethereal glow emanating from somewhere beyond her reptilian pupils. She had eyelashes, he realized, although her eyelids were covered in fine scales. “Not only would our children be healthy, but they would also be stronger and longer-lived than any human before them. Their dragon’s blood would imbue them with magical abilities not dissimilar from my own. I promised you an army of children, did I not? Six, or maybe even twelve in one fell swoop should fulfill that promise.”

“But ... what would they look like?” he asked. “Would they be dragons or humans?”

“A little of both. Their kind has been conceived before, in ages long past, though they were rare even then. They appeared as stout men of mortal form, their fingers clawed, their hides covered in tough scales. They were not unlike how I appeared to you last we made love, but that is their natural state, not a result of a partial polymorph.”

“And will they be able to change their shape, as you do?”

“So that they might mingle amongst the mortals without fear of persecution, you mean? Yes, and so too shall they have mastery over flame, they need never fear its heat.”

“At least we won’t have to worry about them burning themselves on the stove,” Iden mumbled.

“Your children would have the potential to be great warriors, able to best even the most renowned mortals in combat, their natural attributes making them almost impervious to harm. They would also make admirable scholars, their longevity allowing them to travel the world, to record history as it happens. Their intellect and their magic would make them as demigods. A mortal could not ask for more in his offspring, no parent could be made prouder.”

“But a dragon could ask for more,” Iden said, his eyes turning to the sheets. “Are you sure that you want to go through with this? I don’t feel like I’m bringing very much to the table here.”

“Oh, but you are,” she replied with a smile. “If I am the last of my kind as I suspect, then my only chance to bear children is through you. The circumstances of our meeting were unique, there may not be a second mortal man who has cause to cross paths with me, and fewer still kind-hearted enough that they might come to see me as more than just a monster to be destroyed. If I am not alone, then there are so few of us left that I might well spend the rest of my life searching in vain, suffering from a terrible loneliness all the while. Without you, Iden, none of this would be possible.”

He looked up to see one of her massive wings extending, the leathery skin covering him like a canopy, sealing him within her scaly prison. The membrane was so thin as to be almost transparent, letting pass a little light from the torches beyond, illuminating a network of veins that spread out like the branches of a tree.

“Perhaps it has escaped your attention,” she added, “but it is not gold that I guard tonight.”

“Are you saying that I’m your treasure?” Iden asked, cocking an eyebrow at her.

“If you want to be blunt about it,” she chuckled. “Your prose will need some work yet if you mean to claim the mantle of warrior poet.”

“My aspirations might have shifted somewhat,” he replied. “I’m thinking of something more along the lines of ‘proud father of an army of children’. The poetry can wait.”

Isabelle laughed, her hot breath blowing the sheets by his feet. She watched him with her smoldering eyes, their glow illuminating her face in the gloom.

“You sound eager to get started, Iden, perhaps it would be unwise to keep you waiting any longer...”

He flinched as he was engulfed in flames, his racing heart slowing as his mind caught up with his reflexes, reminding him that her fire wouldn’t harm him. His clothing burned away to leave him nude, Iden all the more aware of where her eyes were looking due to the light that they cast. She played them over his naked body as he lay on the silken sheets beside her head, her massive tongue wetting her lips.

“N-now?” he stammered, “I don’t know if-”

“Don’t be afraid,” she purred, the low tones of her voice seeming to resonate within his very bones. She lifted her head from the sheets, hovering over him, her long neck snaking out of sight such was its length. “I’ll be ever so gentle, I’ll treat you like you’re made of glass. You find my true form pleasing, isn’t that right? This needn’t be a rushed affair, we could take our time, enjoy one another. If that’s what you want, of course.”

“I can’t even imagine how this is going to work,” he chuckled nervously, “so take the lead.”

“You’re willingly handing the reins to me?” she asked, her sharp teeth flashing as she smiled down at him. “I never thought I’d hear you ask that of me so ... plainly...”

She opened her jaws as Iden watched, her long, winding tongue sliding past her lips. It was easily as long as the span of his arm, flat and wide, with a tapered tip. The pink flesh glistened with a thick layer of saliva, making its smooth surface almost reflective. Sagging strands dripped from her mouth, escaping between her pearly teeth, her hot breath washing over him.

He felt it flop against his belly, surprisingly heavy and warm, its texture akin to satin that had been drenched in honey. Her saliva was so viscous, leaving a slimy smear on his skin as she dragged it lower, the muscles in his belly tensing reflexively when it passed over them.

Her silken flesh brushed the tip of his glans as her organ roamed lower, and Iden realized that he was hard despite the proximity of her razor teeth and the threat of her fiery breath. The last time that he had looked down that maw, she had been ready to swallow him whole. How their opinion of one another had changed since that fateful day.

She began to paint his shaft with her tongue, batting at his member more clumsily than he was used to. Her thick organ dragged across his inner thighs, soaking his groin in her bubbling slaver, matting his pubic hair as her dexterous muscle flopped about. Their difference in stature was now such that she was having a hard time gripping him and coiling around his shaft in the way that she had before, but Iden wasn’t complaining. It almost felt like someone was dragging a warm, slimy towel over his lower body.

Her lips were now too large to purse around his glans, and so she brushed them against his erection instead. They were as soft as pillows, lined with the same fine scales that were present on her underbelly. She pressed them against his thighs and his stomach as she kept up her licking, kissing him, her oversized lips linked to his skin by strands of her warm saliva. There was so much of it, clinging to him with an almost jelly-like consistency. He was momentarily alarmed to feel her teeth brush his skin, but they were smooth and unexpectedly dull, not at all as sharp as knives as he had assumed. There was no way that they would pose any danger to him unless she applied a great deal of pressure.

Iden lay back, surprised by how good it felt, flinching as the flat of her winding tongue dragged from his balls to the tip of his member. He reached down, his hands finding the end of her snout. She had incredible strength, even the subtle movements of her head so powerful than they could have knocked him over easily. The blue scales here were smaller than those on her back and flanks, closer to the size of small pebbles, creating a pleasant texture beneath his palms. He could feel the muscles beneath her hide moving as she breathed, her nostrils blowing warm air across his chest, each one large enough that he could have fit his fist inside it.

She began to lap slowly, dragging her tongue from the base of his member to the tip, pressing his erection against his stomach as she licked. Her rhythm was slow, her tongue wide enough that it completely covered his shaft, spilling over onto his stomach to tickle him with every glance. He wasn’t sure what to do with his hands, letting them rest on her nose as her massive head rose and fell with the motion. Rather than the flurries of licks that he was accustomed to, this was more like one, continuous sensation. Her tongue was as long as his outstretched arm, and so the process of her dragging the slippery organ up his shaft took a good few seconds, its velvety surface setting every nerve alight as it scoured him.

She succeeded in gripping his member finally, folding her tongue around it like the fat coils of a snake, piling one on top of the other. It reminded him of when she had gripped his cock in her wonderfully smooth and chubby tail, her tongue was almost as large as it had been. But now, instead of cool scales, he felt feverishly hot flesh. She was able to encompass him effortlessly, Iden looking down to see the heavy coils moving as they tightened and flexed, her control over the muscle incredible. He could feel every twitch, every spasm as it slithered around him, the layer of drool that coated it gluing it to his skin and making her contact slick. She made no attempt to stem the flow of saliva, letting it droop from her lips in a sagging web, raining down on his lower body as she poised there above him. It wasn’t that she was drooling profusely, no moreso than a human in the same situation at least, but her size meant that there was so much more of it.

Her glowing eyes rose to meet his, a pang of pleasure coursing through him at her merest glance. Her gaze was so intense, almost predatory, her reptilian pupils dilating into larger circles like the eyes of a cat in the darkness.

Her tongue was larger and clumsier than that of her prior forms, but something about its weight and strength made up for that, its silky surface gliding against his shaft as she licked him from every angle at once. In many ways, it felt like was buried to the hilt in a warm vagina, but she had far more control over her tongue than any woman did over her loins, Iden’s toes curling as her damp flesh slid against his skin in maddening spirals. Much like her tail, she alternated the speed and pressure, Iden never knowing what to expect next. It was captivating, he couldn’t focus on anything else, his fingers digging into her snout as she stroked.

Iden felt her tongue unwind from his member to leave it bobbing in the air, dripping with her saliva, her scaly lips planting kisses on his torso as she roamed higher. She reached his face, looking down her long muzzle at him as though she expected them to embrace, quickly realizing that they were far too mismatched.

They chuckled in unison, Iden reaching up to run his hand along the underside of her jaw, as there was no cheek within reach. The skin beneath it was loose and leathery, small, horn-like structures tickling his palm.

“Yeah, I don’t think that will work,” he said, the lingering euphoria from her licking still sending jolts of pleasure coursing through him as he lay beneath her on the sheets.

“Naysayer,” she chuckled, parting her lips. Her tongue wound its way towards him, brushing against his red cheek to leave a slippery trail, poising in front of his mouth as though she expected him to meet her kiss. Her organ was too thick to have any hope of fitting. His eyes tracked a rope of her clear, glistening slaver as it broke away and fell to his chest, Isabelle’s glowing eyes full of anticipation as she peered down at him.

Iden opened his mouth, the dragon maneuvering the very tip of her tapered tongue inside, where it met his own. If they had been mismatched before, the difference was now comical, but her gentle licks and flurries were no less measured and gentle. Her embrace was slow, doting, the barest tip of her tongue enough to fill him to capacity. Iden did his best to return her affections, her saliva dribbling down his cheeks, the metallic taste of her flesh tingling his taste buds. He reeled as she licked the roof of his mouth, sliding against his inner cheeks, pressing his tongue flat. She was a little too large for the finesse that she had displayed previously, there was no hope of her coiling her tongue around his in a spiral again, or of her deftly drawing shapes on his palate.

Instead, the excitement came from the sense of strength, of power. She could have lifted him with that thing, she could have forced its length down his throat and split him apart, but she didn’t. She was indeed treating him like he was made of glass, all of that brute strength restrained for his benefit, her movements so slight that they were little more than twitches from her perspective.

The warm breath from her nostrils blew his hair as she breathed, that smoky, pleasant scent filling his lungs. She smelled like the cherry wood that was sometimes burned to flavor meat, there wasn’t a hint of carrion on her breath despite her recent meal.

When she drew back to let him catch his breath, their tongues were joined by a thick rope of her saliva, large enough that smaller droplets traveled along its length to rain to his chest. It broke in short order, Iden finding himself covered in it, warm and slick. He tried to wipe the goo away, finding himself with a handful of bubbly fluid, abandoning his efforts and resigning himself to his sticky fate.