I lied, Interlude: Vakanth

Ulal storms through the streets. The buildings to his sides barely more than washed out colours flying by. The smile on his face is wide, sinister and most of all terrorizing to everyone who manages to see it. In contrast his eyes are focused on a single goal in the distance, the government building where the important women are kept. If some of the innocent males or by standing women die then that is unfortunate but no loss on the long run. On the other side if the important people die he loses a chance.

However he spins it, to the males of this city this looks like a move in favour of Estara. What he needs is a way to show them that he is just. At least pretending to be. Judging the females that have been exploiting the cheap male labour for their whole lifetimes is a good start to do so.

He turns a corner to fast and has to run at the wall of a house for a bit before jumping back on the street. To the panicked men around him he is nothing more than a flash. A few people down the street try to form a wall and stop him. “Big mistake.” Ulal snickers and jumps at them. He rips down the three people in the middle, another ones head of with his tail and then electrocutes the rest in one fluid motion before continuing his sprint.

Left, Right, Right, Forward, Culling down another wall of flesh and then jumping over a small building. He enters an alleyway and rams the metallic claw into the stonewall. Pulling himself upwards he lands on the rooftop and then continues his sprint less interrupted, although with a few more jumps.

Finally he arrives at the castle. Not even bothered by subtlety like Alratha was he blows down a wall with a fireball and jumps inside while the smoke still obscures the view. Like a sharpened scythe, he mows down the opposition inside. Breaks through one room after another, then he suddenly stops.

“Wait…have I taken a wrong turn?” He asks himself and looks around. He wanted to get to the dungeon but instead he finds himself in front of the governess office. “Must be force of habit.” He mumbles. “Well, I wanted to look inside anyway.”

He opens the door. He finds around twenty men gathered around an armour. It is a badly reforged female knight armour that was painted black afterwards. It doesn’t even has the slightest resemblance of Ulric’s armour of midnight. Though recreating something that has the same brutal elegance as that thing has is likely impossible for most people.

“Are you not going to attack me?” Ulal asks as he walks into the room, the axe relaxedly laid across his shoulders. “Not unless you attack us. Vakanth has told us about your coming.” One of them, a fairly broad man who is busy sharpening his sword, says. Only one of them is actually praying in front of the armour, the rest is training their bodies our maintaining their equipment. “It is his teachings we follow.” Another one says, “The weak must serve the strong and in turn the strong must protect the weak. You are stronger then we are. We would serve you.”

Ulal chuckles, “Oh really. Well, I am not one to pass up that offer. Did you rape any of the women?” They shake their head, “We don’t harm those that need protection. Although we killed our fair share of guards.” The only one that is praying stands up and turns, he holds an idol. It is a crude wooden carving of a dragon with burning red eyes.

A high pitched, whistling tone fills Ulal’s ears, an ashen taste fills his mouth. He is about to sink into a flashback. He needs to get rid of these people before that. He can’t show weakness. “Great. Go to my city then, we welcome all with common sense.” The men nod and quickly pack their things and leave. Once they close the door behind them Ulal gives into the headache. He closes his eyes and when he opens them again he is somewhere else, not in control.

“…and Jalkal, these are the twenty Demonlords I promised.” A harsh, commanding tone. A woman. Asha. The memory shows a wide room with twenty summoning circles in a row. Each of them containing a Demonlord, standing proudly at three metres, axe in hand.

“Then I will fulfil my end of the bargain.” Jalkal looks down at the puny human. The warlock is covered in furs, as he should be. After all they are far up north. “You fight him and I will send you the soul.” “So it is written down. So it shall happen.” Asha affirms and the flashback fades.

Next he finds himself climbing up a mountain. His giant hands claw into the mountain, his feet ram into the stone to create new holdings for the Demonlord under him. It is cold, humans would perish at this height, but Jalkal is fine. Finally he grabs the edge of the cliff and arrives at the mountain top.

Up there is nothing. Just ice and stone covered by snow. A very interesting formation of ice. The other Demonlords arrive one after another, each summoning their axe. They can’t see their target but they can feel the magic in the air. Only the strongest beings on this world are able to bend and concentrate magic around them like that.

The formation of ice moves a bit, cracks running along it as something enormous underneath it stirs. From the nearby snow a talon rises, a few metres away a tail, then a second talon. Finally the red dragon raises its horned head from the depth and roars.

“I was having a good dream.” The dragon says, his voice brimming with power, “When I felt your impure presence, demons. What do the Five want from me. From Vakanth.” “Your soul.” A Demonlord grunts and storms at the Dragon, the other Demonlords following his example. “A futile effort.” Vakanth roars and takes a deep breath. A moment later white fire envelopes three Demonlords, burning the demonic essence out of them and leaving only empty husks with coal skin.

Jalkal rams his axe into the dragons talon, drawing a little blood before being packed by the same talon and pressed to the ground. Vakanth’s mouth above him is wide open, about to breath another wave of white fire and erase his existence when two other Demonlords hit his head with their axes. They get stuck in the hard horns that adorn the creatures head but force him to move nonetheless.

“This is getting interesting.” Vakanth says and throws Jalkal into a nearby rock formation, where the Demonlord lies, stunned, for a moment. Another one of his brothers hits the ground beside him shortly after. Then a wave of snow buries them both as the dragon flaps it’s giant wings. Jalkal manages to protect himself with his own wings, enveloping himself in them. When he opens them again he sees Vakanth struggling against the other Demonlords, who have finally surrounded him.

Jalkal jumps into action. The battle continues for days, then weeks. Neither side getting tired, neither side backing down. Vakanth is covered in small cuts and a wide wound runs along his shoulder, however he has also managed to kill all but three Demonlords, including Jalkal. “This is it then.” Vakanth says, “Indeed, Dragon.” Jalkal says as they clash a final time. It seems that Vakanth had hidden a power reserve for all the time as he suddenly moves with extreme speed, nailing down the two Demonlords to the sides of Jalkal before his giant jaws snap at him.

His teeth sink deep within Jalkal’s neck and he thrashes the Demonlord around until his teeth have ripped out the flesh. What seems like a grievous and life ending injury is actually what saves Jalkal’s life. As the flesh separated from his body he is thrown down the mountain, falling several hundreds of metres before landing on the hard surface below. The damage he has taken is not enough to kill him but also so high that the energy he has been given to remain in this world is depleted by them. As Jalkal fades from this dimension he hears the earth shaking, triumphant roar of the red dragon.

Ulal pulls back into reality. He sees the idol, the praying man has left it at the foot of the armour. Taking a deep breath Ulal gathers his magic strength in his mind and sends a psychic scream over the land. No one can understand the word he is saying, no one can even make out where or from whom the scream comes from. Hundreds of years later scholars will still ask themselves why on this day in November of 1253 so many people suddenly got nosebleeds. However the one person, rather the one being, that Ulal wants to reach picks up the call.

“You do not need to scream, Demonmagus.” Ulal feels the world around him change again, this time however, it is the influence of a godlike being and not mere memories being recalled. The room blurs away until he stands in a void, the head of the red dragon directly in front of him. The burning eyes stare at him. “I can always see you. If you want to talk a prayer would suffice.” Ulal blows air out of his nose, like he will ever pray.

“So we meet again Vakanth.” The Dragon tilts his head in surprise. “I did not expect you to feel my presence in the collar.” Vakanth misunderstands the greeting entirely. “Then again, neither did I think you would succeed in your ambitions.” Ulal would love to correct him right now but he has questions that are more urgent.

“No one did. Whatever. Why are you here, where are the other dragons and more urgently why the fuck did you create a religion around Ulric?” A rumbling noise echoes from the Dragons chest, Ulal needs a moment to realize that Vakanth is laughing.

“Not even respect for Dragons. I have expected as much after what you did with Hayth but still this is refreshing. We disappeared to give you mortals a chance to unleash your potential, seeing what you and others have managed to do I can say that this is a triumph. For your other questions, I wanted to create a counterweight to Saeletra’s influence and the Drakain spreads his will.”

Ulal just assumes that he means Ulric by that. “Saeletra is real? What is she?” “That is not for me to reveal to you. However, I will affirm that she exists.” Ulal clicks his tongue and points his axe at Vakanth. “Do I have to try and beat the answers out of you?” He asks. Again the ancient creature laughs with a rumble, it sounds like a landslide. “If you ever fought a Dragon you would know that even the idea is ludicrous.”

“I have fought you before.” Vakanth’s head pulls back a bit and he looks at Ulal a bit more intensely. “Me, that being Jalkal, and 19 other Demonlords fought you in an era long past. The battle lasted for weeks.” Vakanth ponders for a bit. “No. I do not remember.”

Ulal can feel the Demonlord inside him turmoil in anger. “What?” he asks in an icy voice. “I can’t remember every futile attempt the Five make on my life.” Vakanth defends himself and inspects his claws with boredom. “Twenty Demonlords you say? Sounds like a short lived amusement.” “We wounded you!” Ulal says and swings his still pointed axe in front of the creatures nose. “I sometimes allowed my adversaries to do so. It refreshes their morale and makes for more interesting fights.”

Ulal is at a loss for words for a moment, his demonic pride heavily wounded. Finally, his rage breaks and the world turns red. “Okay, listen here you overgrown lizard.” Vakanth looks surprised by the sudden outbreak. He expected Ulal to be irreverent, but not to actually insult a living, breathing Dragon. “I will not stand here and let you say that I, that being Jalkal, am weak. You scaled kids nightmare with your mind games. If you don’t meddle in the affairs of mortals anymore why do you intervene for Ulric while I have to save my own ass from that indecisive fucker Hans that is spying over my shoulder constantly? Legendary creature, don’t make me laugh, you are nothing more than a hypocritical magical stain on the worlds fabric.”

Vakanth tries to get an explanation in as Ulal takes a deep breath but before he can do anything the Demonmagus hits him over the head with his battle axe. Although his head moves down a bit the axe can’t cut through the Dragons scales. “I need a new Dragonbone, you will do nicely.” Ulal growls and jumps into the air to gather more energy for the second cut. Vakanth catches the axe in his teeth and wrestles it from him with a yank of his neck.

Ulal lands on his feet a few metres away. “The Five themselves will not face me and you dare strike at me?” Ulal suddenly gets pulled to the floor on all fours. He looks down and his eyes widen when he sees bindings of pure green metal that have materialized around his limbs. ‘Creating refined Orichalcum from nothing without runes?’ The Demonmagus is shocked, creating Orichalcum in and of itself should be impossible, the energy and mental fortitude to create refined one…

“How amusing.” Vakanth is glowing with glee. “You are no Drakain but you are strong in your own way. This is exactly why I wanted to watch you mortals for a while.” Ulal tries to get back on his feet, not willing to kneel in front of the Dragon. He has fought himself back halfway up when Vakanth nonchalantly gestures with his left talon, doubling the weights on the Demonmagus’ limbs and forcing him back to the ground.

“Ulumtethra would like you, he has just as short a fuse. He is also a very deep sleeper so a few millennia will go by until you two can meet. You amuse me so I will let you of alive this time.” Vakanth starts to blur and fade, “Be warned however: Don’t step into Ulric’s way to spite me, or next time I won’t be so forgiving,”

Ulal finds himself back in the governess turned shrine, on all fours in front of the armour representing Ulric. “Look at me, I am super powerful being by birth that never had to try and amass any power.” Ulal angrily mumbles as he gets up. “See how I can punish these mortal, isn’t it funny. Oh, I know, hey fellow Dragons, let’s not meddle in the affairs of humans anymore, maybe they do a few interesting things. Of course I mean by that, that we should meddle whenever we feel like it because we are immortal lizards with wings and nobody can punish us.” Ulal looks at the idol at the feet of the armor. He grabs the crude carving, stares at it like it is somehow responsible for all that is annoying in this world and then crushes it in his left hand. “Arrogant fucks.”