Chapter 12

Marian and the dragon-rider raised their swords. I could see the hate in Marian’s eyes as she stared the other woman down. Her hand gripped her sword tightly. In a flash, both women charged at one another. The sound of swords colliding rebounded in the room. It was such a loud sound that it made my ears ring.

The dragon rider laughed as she swung her sword at Marian who fielded the blow. Marian’s scowl deepened on her face as she yelled out and attacked the other woman. The dragon rider easily dodged all of Marian’s attacks. With each collision of their swords, I would let out a disappointed sigh. I wanted Marian’s attacks to hit the dragon rider.

It felt weird to want that. This was not a video game where I could watch a sword strike a character down. This was real life. I knew that if Marian struck her that the dragon rider would be injured and that Marian would kill her. Did I really want to watch someone get killed? Yes, the dragon rider had destroyed this village and killed probably all of the women here but did I really want her to die?!

When I was younger, I had a bully in primary school who picked on me every day. One day he had pushed me into a puddle of dirty water. I was drenched from head to toe in that dirty water and watched as he laughed with his sidekicks. When I got home and after I cleaned myself up, I prayed that he would die. My anger was so deep that with all of my being, I wished death upon him. That was the only time that I had ever really wanted someone to die.

Later that same night, I woke up feeling guilty and said a prayer that he would not die because I was afraid that it might really happen. I must have prayed over and over undoing the original wish for his death for hours. The next day, I actually let out a sigh of relief and was glad to see that he was still alive when I saw him in the hallway. He gave me a suspicious look as he saw the happy smile on my face.

Marian let out another loud yell and swung her sword at the dragon rider’s midsection. The dragon rider fielded the blow and hit Marian in the side of the head with the hilt of her sword. Marian let out a cry of pain.

“Did that hurt, elf?” The dragon rider asked her with an evil laugh. It was a laugh that I had heard many times in anime shows from diabolical villains. The dragon rider was enjoying toying with Marian.

I looked over at Faye who was watching the fight intently. I could see that her hands were trembling hard on the table. I wondered why Faye did not shrink down to her pixie size and fly away but I knew the answer to that already. After only knowing Faye for about a day now, I knew that she was very loyal. She wasn’t going to fly off and leave us to our deaths.

“Faye, what do we do?” I whispered to her.

Before Faye could even respond, the dragon rider looked over at me after dodging another attack from Marian and kicking her aside. Marian stumbled and fell into a pile of rubble. “You can do nothing, boy. The Demon Queen wants you and you are returning back with me to her castle. There is nothing you can do. You are hers, now.”