Desecration of the Sky

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley.

According to local archaeologists, the Lohsaari Valley became a common home to dragons roughly eight hundred years prior to Mareck’s birth. Why did they choose this particular patch of land for their mating, their hunting? Was it the proximity to the nearby lake, which many prey animals would use for watering? Was it the openness of the area, so they could not be trapped by potential hunters?

This question held the fastest in Mareck’s mind. Mareck’s career and his life were in danger of ending at that moment, and he was thinking about draconic trivia.

“The plan is sound. It’s going to work,” his messaging spell whispered into his mind. “You’ve worried enough about the details.”

“That’s great, because if I screwed something up, then a lot of people are about to die,” he thought back to it. “Continued.”

“I copy.”

“Flash the reflector again, I want to see how far you’ve moved.”

Up atop the nearby cliff roughly a half-mile away, Mareck squinted his eyes to look along the edge. After a few seconds, a sparkle of light glinted at him repeatedly on a steady, half-second rhythm.

“Flashing now,” the messaging spell clarified.

“I see you,” he responded. “Still no signs?”

“You’ll all be able to see it when it arrives. Flare is ready—will fire if non-target entity arrives.”

Non-target entity—A euphemism so cold and corporate masking such terrifying ambiguity. Mareck had been having nightmares about this day for at least two weeks by now, and at least half of them had involved whatever that “non-target entity” could be.

“How long is this supposed to take?” an older man’s voice asked, off to Mareck’s left— the voice of Commander Drenten, Mareck’s commanding officer.

“It could take the entire day, sir,” Mareck said. “We used a random variance interval to distribute the bait so the target wouldn’t be able to detect the trap.”

The only visible movement amidst the sun-bleached clearing was that of a selection of cows, wandering toward the river to feed.

“When this operation goes south, I wanna be in the room when the execs rip you a new one. I still can’t believe Lutthikof approved the budget for this travest—.”

“Target inbound!” Mareck shouted, parroting the words from his spell-message. “I repeat, target inbound! Secure camouflage, now!”

A deathly silence fell upon the mesa. Save for the gentle saunter of the cows and their occasional moo, the landscape appeared as a flat, deadened vista of dirt and sand, with a muddy river running past the southern edge of the valley.

The rush of wind was incredible.

An enormous dragon dove down from the skyline. It fell from the heavens as a scarlet spearhead, piercing down through the cloud layer with the elegance of an eagle and the haste of a bullet.

As it approached the ground, its wings launched open, catching the air and halting its descent in an instant. It touched down gently upon the dirt and propelled itself forward with the claws of its thick, muscled reptilian arms.

The tyrant descended on its bovine prey with a shower of blood.

Sweat dribbled down from Mareck’s face.

The platoon awaited his command.

The beast was not quite in position, but it could leave at any time. If it were female, the likelihood that it would carry its victim away to feed its young was terribly high, wasting the entire day’s worth of preparations with no guarantee another would come to take its place.

Mareck breathed a sigh, and accepted the circumstance.

If death were his fate, he would meet her with open arms.

Mareck’s arm curved up into the air, raising his pistol into the air and pulling the trigger.

The shot of the flare was deafening.

Out of the empty mesa, the platoon appeared. Squadrons of humans and their equipment shredded their arcane invisibility, revealing no less than one hundred men.

The dragon understood, in an instant, what it had done.

A hail of gunfire began.

Mounted pepperbox firearms began unleashing their salvos from either side of the beast. Musket balls tore through the dragon’s wings and pelted its sides, centralizing the creature in a storm of steel and smoke.

Of course, it wasn’t enough.

The dragon leapt upward to ascend, preparing to carpet the crowd in its furious wyrmsbreath—only to impact against a ceiling.

A magical barrier had been formed up above. A glance at its surroundings revealed the trap the predator had walked into—mages on all sides of it, encasing it from up above to prevent its hasty retreat. Its wings were already shredded from the gunfire, but it could still limp away before it would be overwhelmed—at least, had the sky been clear.

The worst of it, however, had only just begun.

“Engage suppression!” Mareck shouted, his voice booming from its magical amplification.

The titanic reptile turned toward the voice to douse the speaker in flame, only to meet with a shower of freezing-cold water. Four leather tubes led out from the river, held by no less than a dozen humans each, magically expelling the water’s heat out into the open air before it was belched out toward the winged monster. The dragon’s fire roasted the humans surrounding the hose, but a metal shield had been constructed at the front. Even while molten iron dribbled down onto it, the hose would not cease its jet of frozen agony.

“Execute debilitation!”

The lacertilian autarch felt its body failing. Too much of its blood was dribbling down its sides and its body temperature was dropping too quickly. It dragged itself toward the speaker, the dark-haired human gripping the hose, bellowing out orders, soaking himself in his own sweat. The lizard grabbed the shield at the front, tearing it away like wet parchment, reaching out with one clawed appendage to grab at the man’s face—

Boom!

Crack!

A cannonball smashed into the dragon’s left leg. The bone shattered, dropping the dragon’s left side down into the dirt.

Boom!

Crack!

The second shot impacted against the beast’s ribs, smashing through the bone and impairing its breathing.

As its consciousness began to fade, the saurian devil could feel chains being thrown around its back and buckets of water being splashed against its sides to keep its body heat from rising again. Mareck dragged the hose backward, keeping eye contact with the beast as it fell to the ground, its eyes sliding slowly shut.

The men erupted in cheers.

Hauling their prize into the mobile reservoir took roughly two hours.

A red dragon’s body produced an immense amount of heat. This was the source of its wyrmsbreath, its primary tool for self-defense and, if necessary, hunting. As a result, a dragon’s body was acclimated to staying at high temperatures virtually all the time, and lowering that body temperature would force it into a state of hibernation, essentially “tricking” its physiology into a state of long-term rest.

This meant that the only way to safely transport and keep a live dragon would be to keep its body temperature as low as possible. The easiest way to accomplish this was to submerge its body in a massive pool of water and continuously cool that water using an entire team of mages. This process was expensive and time-consuming, not just to transfer the dragon to and from the reservoir, but to build and maintain this reservoir and keep the mages on staff. When it came to dragon-catching, Mareck knew that Lutthikof Incorporated would spare no expense.

As the platoon of soldiers wheeled the enormous reservoir back into the city of Zirosoko, towed by a team of horses and held aloft by a wooden wagon which would have broken if not for the extra support provided by multiple levitating steel plates underneath, the dragon’s head stuck out from the reservoir to allow it to breathe. With its body temperature kept so low, its mighty blast of flame would be reduced to a warm breeze if it dared try to attack.

Its head lulled side to side, stirring from its slumber.

“Target is awakening, reduce temperature!” Mareck called, walking in front of the reservoir to keep from adding his body-weight to the strained wooden platform.

The beast opened its right eye and inspected its surroundings. The first thing that caught its gaze was Mareck, his hands twitching in case he would have to begin using his own magic to suppress the creature.

Its eye drooped as the cold redoubled. Its jaw fell open to allow its voice to flow out from its lengthy neck, still trapped inside the tank. The sound was deep and rough, a terrible baritone. It spoke Orban, so that Mareck could understand it.

“You are a worm, and I am a hawk,” it mumbled. “Be grateful you have found a log to wriggle underneath.”

After it finished speaking, its mouth drifted shut and its head rested atop the wood underneath so that it could return to its blissless slumber.

“Mission accomplished with few casualties, just like the lieutenant proposed then, eh, commander?”

“Looks that way,” Drenten muttered.

The head of research and development for Luttikhof Incorporated, Quintin Kamphorst, continued to look over the brief report with a kind of glint in his eye, a smile growing on his face in between puffs of his tobacco pipe.

“I can’t believe we’ve been squirreling you away in security dealing with petty criminals!” Quintin continued.

“Thank you, sir,” Mareck stated, his tone neutral, his back straight and his hands locked behind it.

“You’ve obviously done a lot of thinking about our energy projects, and wasting talent like yours just doesn’t make a lick of sense to me. What do you say, Drenten? You think Dirk would be willing to give him up?”

Drenten’s face remained stoic, but it was difficult not to notice the tensing of his jaw.

“I believe that Lieutenant de Jaeger would be an asset that Lutthikof’s security department would feel the loss of quite deeply.”

“Ever the diplomat. Well, to be honest, I don’t give a damn how Dirk is gonna feel—I’m gonna talk to the higher-ups about putting you on the research team for the Generator Project. After all, it’s thanks to him that the project is underway at all.”

“Thank you, sir,” Mareck replied. “It would be an honor.”

“I told you it would all work out.”

“We got lucky,” Mareck mumbled, taking another sip from his glass. The drink within was colored blue, and the glass had a slight enchantment to it that would produce light from the bottom, making the liquid glow.

“You don’t give yourself enough credit,” his sister responded, mixing her own drink with a polished metal stirring stick. “You captured a dragon.”

Lilian “Lilith” de Jaeger, his adopted sister, had a head of white hair and two crimson eyes. The uncomfortable accusation that they received so often was that they were dating or married, as they looked nothing alike—Mareck’s hair and eyes were brown and he was something close to a foot taller than her. His family adopted Lilith at a very young age, even though they couldn’t afford to do so.

“I captured a dragon with millions of gold in equipment, supplies and manpower,” he grumbled.

“What, do you think you could have done it without that? Were you supposed to use a net and some rope?”

“They told me at the damned board meeting exactly what I figured they were gonna say—the budget was over-inflated. If R&D can’t make something out of it, then I’m done.”

“The company’s already made something out of it. The PR’s been incredible. Lutthikof did the impossible—they not only fought a dragon and won, they took it alive. I heard a few people gossiping about it just on the way here. Even if R&D doesn’t work out, security would pay you double to get you back.“

Mareck rolled his eyes.

“All I’m saying is, don’t stress about it so much,” she soothed. “You can focus on the big picture tomorrow, but tonight, you can afford yourself a little celebration.”

She held her glass up, and he limply raised his own to clink against it.

“Cheers,” he grunted.

“Another round over here, please!” she called.

Mareck waited for the waiter to arrive and leave before he spoke again.

“Can I talk about something, just sort of as a hypothetical?” he asked.

“Sure.”

“What if this is wrong?”

“... What do you mean?”

“I… I dunno. Y’know what, forget it. It doesn’t matter.”

“Why? What is it?”

Mareck let out a sigh.

“Look, I just… I’ve been thinking a lot lately about… I dunno. I’m not naïve, I know what Lutthikof gets up to, I know that none of the companies in this country makes their profits off of helping kittens out of trees, I just… wonder if I’m doing the wrong things for the wrong reasons, y’know?”

“You’re doing what’s right by yourself, for yourself. What’s the problem with that? Everyone in the world does that.”

“Maybe you’re right. Just feels—”

“How’d I know you were gonna be here?”

The voice behind Mareck felt like an iron hammer being dropped through a pane of glass.

“What can I do for you, Commander Drenten?” Mareck said, as he shot up from his chair to shake his commanding officer’s hand.

“For right now, nothing, son. Just came here to congratulate you for today, on not only your success, but on your promotion, too.”

“You know that I haven’t been officially promoted to anything, sir. I’m just temporarily working with the research-and-development department—”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, nothing’s on the books just yet, but with that ambition of yours, you’re gonna go a lot further than arresting punks out in the streets,” Drenten gave Mareck a toothy grin. “Hey, why don’t you come with me back to our table for a minute? Dirk and the rest of the district commanders would love to congratulate today’s dragonslayer in person.”

Mareck’s gaze bounced between the six-foot-seven tower of meat and his sister twice. Lilith did not meet his gaze, as she was too busy glaring a hole through Drenten’s skull.

“Of course, sir. Lead the way.”

Mareck set his drink down on the table and stood from his seat, smoothing out his suit and adjusting his cravat.

Drenten led Mareck away from the outdoor balcony they sat at, away from the beautiful evening light of the eastern desert skies that highlighted the distant peaks of the Taalund mountains. Mareck followed him into the bar’s smoky interior, weaving his way between the tables occupied by corporate executives, each adorned with enchanted suits whose intricate rune-work patterns gave them vibrant glows of purple, red and blue.

“Y’know Mareck,” Drenten whispered, as he slowed down. “I hate to interrupt your night and all, but there is one thing I’d like you to do for me when you leave, if it isn’t too much trouble.”

Mareck was not scheduled for another shift until the afternoon the next day. Mareck gritted his teeth.

“It’s nothing big, it’s just… y’know the Arsinian demon hunter’s Academy, right? Far east side of town, dumpy little building?”

“What about it, sir?” Mareck asked, hiding his exasperation.

“Well, they haven’t been meeting their quotas for a while, so Lutthikof has the right to oust them in a week by order of the Conglomerate. I had to tell them today, but with the whole dragon thing, I just couldn’t find the time to send a courier out, and I’ve got a big meeting later tonight. You think you could do it for me?”

“Sir, how is it my responsibility that—”

“Here’s the man of the hour!” Dirk Karsten shouted—the security chief for Lutthikof Incorporated, seated at the table in front of them. “How’s the title of dragonslayer suiting you?”

“I didn’t actually slay the dragon, sir. We had to capture it as a research aide for the—”

“That’s Lieutenant de Jaeger for you, gentlemen. Any man that can capture a dragon alive can, without question, kill one. I suppose you’ve spoken with Quintin today already?” Dirk asked, motioning to the man across from him at the circular table, pipe still in his left hand and a champagne glass in his right.

“I was trying to get Dirk here to see reason and let me headhunt you,” the research head replied with a smile. “You’re a popular man tonight, de Jaeger.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Alright, I think I’ve dragged you along enough, Lieutenant,” Drenten added, with a sickening smirk painted across his face. “Mareck here had a lovely young lady, and I’d hate to keep him any longer.”

Drenten shook Mareck by the shoulder, then patted him twice and shoved him away from the table.

“We’ll have to speak some other time, then. Good luck tonight, de Jaeger!” Karsten called after him. Mareck’s face remained contorted into a look of disgust even after he emerged back out into the evening light and the scent of tobacco smoke was replaced by the fresh air.

Mareck sat back down, and within a few seconds, he’d drunk his full glass.

“I gotta go, Drenten dumped some work on me again. It won’t take long, but it’s across town,” he said, as he stood up and double-checked the table to make sure he’d collected his belongings.

“Do you want me to come with you?” Lilith asked.

“May as well let one of us celebrate in peace. I’ll see you later, okay?”

Mareck slapped a few platinum coins on the table and turned back to the entrance, heading back out into the city of Zirosoko.

As the sun dipped beneath the horizon and the evening blue sky darkened, the backlit sign outside the bar caught Mareck’s eye. It was at least twenty feet long and attached to a tall building, so really, it was hard to avoid looking at it.

It was an image of a woman in a blue dress against a pastel-pink background, with a wide smile on her face.

A caption stretched across the image in solid-white text, just underneath her face:

“BE WHO YOU WANT TO BE.”

Mareck had spent more time than he had ever liked to on the eastern side of Zirosoko. The buildings were run-down and falling apart, the streets smelled like rotten food or feces, the peaceful night-time quiet would occasionally be broken by a gunshot—it was a terrible place to live. Mareck would know, seeing as how he spent most of his childhood there, and spent even more time patrolling it as a security officer in his adulthood.

He knew the path to the Arsinian demon hunter’s academy well enough. He’d never been inside, but he’d seen it before and had passed by it a great many times during his patrols. All he had to do was walk up to it, nail the message to the door saying they had a week left before their eviction, and that would be that. He didn’t know anyone who worked there, and he didn’t give a damn what would happen to them—it was Neyfrah, after all. If they couldn’t meet their quotas, then they didn’t deserve to live there anyway.

Mareck turned down the last alley shortcut he knew of to cut into the square that the Academy building occupied. It was a fat little structure on a slope, giving it space for a basement that opened up beneath it. Outside of the building was a burnt-up, deadened grass courtyard surrounding it on all sides with the occasional training dummy dotting it, some of which had been knocked over or filled with arrows.

Mareck walked up to the wrought-iron gate and looked through its archway toward the entrance.

All he had to do was walk up and nail the missive to the door, but that matter became much more complicated when his eyes landed upon the woman sitting next to it.

She was tilting, gently, back and forth, in a rocking chair next to the door. Her hair was black, and her eyelids were shut tightly as she rocked back and forth. As Mareck peered through the arch, her eyelids opened to reveal a pair of green eyes underneath.

“Hello there,” she said, giving him a little wave. “What can I do for you?”

The common language of Neyfrah was that of Orban, the language of Neyfrah’s mother country, Orbeau. In contrast to Mareck’s accent, her syllables were longer and more continuous, making her sound like she had something of a drawl.

He cleared his throat.

“Good evening. I am Lieutenant Mareck de Jaeger, security officer of the Corporate Conglomerate Nation of Neyfrah as sponsored by the Lutthikof Corporation. I have been ordered to—”

“Well, hello, officer. Would you like some tea? We do not have very much, but you are more than welcome to come inside.”

“... No, that won’t be necessary, ma’am. I’m just here to inform you that—”

“Are you sure, officer? It may be cheap, but I have been told that I make a delicious cup of tea.”

“I promise that won’t be necessary, ma’am, I am simply stopping by to inform you that—”

“Oh, I’m terribly sorry, I’ve been interrupting you, haven’t I? You came all this way to deliver a message and move on, and here I am, blathering like an old woman. Please, go ahead.”

Mareck narrowed his eyes, noting that the “old woman” in question was probably twenty at the oldest. He let out a sigh.

“I am here to inform you that the Arsinian demon hunters have been failing to meet their expected monthly quotas, and thus, are losing their authority within the city of Zirosoko. As of this point, the Arsinian demon hunters are no longer authorized to take on demonic threats within the city, and are expected to vacate this public property at the end of this week.”

The woman had closed her eyes once again, gently rocking back and forth in her chair.

“Hmmm….” she hummed. “You said you were an officer of the Conglomerate…”

“Ma’am, I delivered—”

“ … but you aren’t wearing a uniform. Why is that?”

The sound of chirping crickets and the occasional barking dog in the distance filled in the silence.

“If you want proof of my authority, here,” Mareck offered, as he pulled out his security badge and showed it to her.

“I don’t doubt that you’re an officer, officer. I was asking you why you aren’t in a uniform.”

Mareck could see the smirk on the woman’s lips. She still hadn’t opened her eyes again.

“I was attending a celebration earlier tonight, but was informed that this message had not been delivered to your organization, so I was ordered to—”

“What kind of celebration was it?”

Mareck paused.

“… I’m not at liberty to answer that question, ma’a—”

“Oh come now, officer, I imagine it isn’t classified. Was it a wedding?”

“… It was in the news, ma’am. The Lutthikof Corporation captured a dragon as part of a research project. I was attending that celebration.”

“Is that so! What was the name of the young man who led that capture, anyway?”

…

The woman’s smirk spread out into a full smile.

“Wasting my time won’t keep your organization from closing down in a week, ma’am,” Mareck called, as he turned to walk away.

“Whatever you say, Lieutenant de Jaeger!” she shouted after him with a giggle.

Mareck turned back down the alley to proceed back to his home. He rode a horse the majority of the way there, but the last stretch of the trip was too tight to navigate through with a mount, so he simply tied it to a post and walked the last half-hour.

As he walked, he noticed something strange. The roads seemed darker than when he walked the same route a few minutes ago. The torch sconces that lined the streets were no longer lit up like they were just moments ago, and, on closer inspection, some of them even emitted the smoke of a recently extinguished flame.

Why would someone bother going through the streets extinguishing torches? Even delinquent children wouldn’t bother with something that meaningless and ineffectual. It was probably just the wind, but even still, Mareck could not deny—it made his walk back significantly more eerie.

After ten minutes, he noticed a second oddity. The sounds—or rather, the lack thereof. The occasional barking dog, the chirping crickets, the whining of cicadas—all of those sounds were gone. The only sound he could hear was the whistling of the wind through the buildings around him. While the eastern side of town was far from safe, he knew it well and he was armed—even still, he couldn’t help but feel a little uncomfortable. He patted his left hip to ensure that his sidearm was still with him, and flexed his magical muscles to remind himself of the power he could summon if the need arose. Those two things did precious little to quell the rising anxiety in his gut.

What was there to be anxious about?

It was just a street at night. Mareck de Jaeger, of all people, had no right to be afraid of the dark, considering he had faced down reptilian death a handful of hours ago.

Why, then, did he feel so certain that something was following him?

There was no reason to turn around.

He did not need to check to see that something was behind him, because he knew that there wasn’t.

If something had been behind him, he would have heard it.

Turning around would only slow him down.

Slowing down would mean he wouldn’t get to sleep as fast.

That was why he didn’t want to turn around.

He was tired, after all.

So very tired.

He was not certain when his walk had turned into a run.

He was not certain when he had begun hearing that gentle thump-thump-thump behind him.

He was not certain why, when he reached the end of the alleyway, he decided to turn around.

He ripped his gun from its holster and pointed it down the empty sidestreet.

Nothing was there. Of course nothing would be there. He was certain of that.

He was not certain, then, why he felt a sudden humid sensation coming from above him.

As he turned to look up, toward the gaping, empty maw of the creature that had been following him for the last few minutes, he wondered:

Why was it that he would have to face death twice that day?