Siege: The Rider's Dragon 02, page 1
Siege
The Rider's Dragon 02
Deacon Frost
Obsidian Tome LLC
Copyright ©2023 by Deacon Frost
All rights reserved.
No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Afterword
Other Books
Nemesis: current rank, D0. Potential Rank, S0.
Breakdown of current ratings.
Mental D3
Lethality C8
Defensive C9
Physicality C9
Magic —
Classification: Vizier. Subclassification: Companion.
Nemesis closed the display in frustration. It hadn’t changed, despite the beasts he’d killed, the cores he’d devoured. He hadn’t managed to break into C-rank. He should have, by every metric he should have… except he couldn’t find the right spirit beast to improve his Mental score further.
His rumble caused the scales along his throat to vibrate and disturbed a few birds, which promptly flew from the trees around him. The black dragon forced himself to calm as he carefully shifted to get his legs under him. His wings were pressed tightly to his sides, and the harness across his back was strapped securely in place. Harper, his partner, reached down to rub her hand along the thick plates covering the base of his neck.
‘Hey, keep cool. If we lose the element of surprise we might never find this beast again,’ she warned, using the telepathic bond he’d formed between them.
Nemesis swallowed his frustration and closed his crimson eyes. His breathing slowed as he forced himself to meditate for a few moments. Earlier, he’d wrapped his mind in layers of shielding to block any form of psychic scanning. If not for the soul-deep bond between himself and his rider, he wouldn’t have been able to speak with Harper silently at all.
‘I know. But we also know that capturing a monkey-king is almost impossible. This is a long shot… and my acid will destroy it if I hit it squarely,’ he replied.
The potency of his venom had grown significantly since his Lethality stat had achieved C-rank. His corrosive spray could melt its way through solid steel, and a few drops was all it took to kill a human. In truth, his venom had grown strong enough that the carcass of his kill could wind up completely dissolved if he misjudged the amount he spat. Twice he’d taken down a spirit beast that could have help his mind develop… and each time realized the core had been destroyed by his own corrosive power.
Tracking down a new target had taken weeks, and he only had two days left if he wanted to return to the outpost in time for Kaia’s birthday. While he wasn’t opposed to skipping the human celebration entirely… Harper and Min had made it clear it was an important event.
Humans and their sentimentality. Can’t they see that my rise in power is the greatest gift I could offer Kaia? By reaching C-rank I’d gain the ability to crush her enemies… all enemies. But no… they insist that I be there for cakes and… singing.
He blew a hot gust of air from his nostrils, and then froze. The disturbed leaves before him had parted to reveal a humanoid figure crouched at the base of a bamboo thicket. At first glance the figure looked human, tanned skin covering much of its body with white-furred bracers, greaves, pauldrons, and a long mane of white hair about its neck. Closer inspection revealed the truth: the fur wasn’t clothing, just the remnant of its fur covering.
The creature turned and Nemesis saw it was a male, male enough that Harper flushed with embarrassment. The monkey-king had crystal blue eyes, and it—he—held a glowing fruit in one hand. He chewed on the gourd-like natural treasure and scanned the wilderness for signs of danger.
Nemesis was hard to conceal, his body large and powerful. His midnight scales absorbed light and made the darkness around him thicker, yet a thirty-foot-long patch of black in the middle of a bamboo forest tended to stick out. Before he’d set out a few weeks prior, Kaia and Talia had crafted a few formation flags that were meant to direct the eye away from him, which Harper had carefully positioned around his body. The dragon held in his breath as he waited to see if the monkey-king would penetrate the C-rank formations.
When those clear eyes passed over him and the spirit beast resumed eating, Nemesis relaxed. Harper let out a tiny sigh, and he felt some of her tension ease.
‘Do you want to take in the monkey’s cock more, or shall we begin our hunt?’ he teased. The flush of returning embarrassment had him grinding his fangs to avoid laughing outright. She punched one of the scales on his neck.
‘Shut up, you lizard! It just caught me by surprise. I didn’t think it would be so small… especially compared to those big hairy balls.’
Nemesis sent mental laughter through their bond, then carefully stretched out with his telekinetic powers. Harper opened the trunk built into his saddle and lifted the barrier that held their cargo secure. A month ago he’d had sharpened turtle shells to use as razor-edged projectiles in that trunk. While they’d been potent weapons against low D-rank beasts, they weren’t strong enough to cut into more powerful creatures. Many of them had ended up cracked and useless when he’d recovered them from the fight with the crocodile.
Min had suggested a change, so now his trunk was filled with soft padding and thinly sliced wood formed into small square containers. Each was stuffed with wool, and inside those slots rested globes of thin glass. Harper’s alchemical concoctions—in this instance, potions—were meant to put something to sleep. He wrapped his power around the delicate spheres and began lifting them into the air.
The trunk could only carry twenty of the globes, since the padding took up much of the room. Testing had shown that each potion could knock out a weak C-rank creature… though Harper warned that they weren’t as powerful when applied to the skin, as opposed to tricking something into drinking them.
The monkey-king they’d tracked was new to the area. A rare evolution of the spirit-age, the beasts were intelligent, but lazy and arrogant. When they reached the peak of their power they were capable of ruling huge stretches of wilderness. The tricksters were just as intelligent as humans… and were also cunning warriors.
This one’s aura had taken to disrupting the sentry formations they’d placed to warn them of the orcs. Over a half-dozen spirit talismans had arrived at the base to alert them of an invasion. It had taken the group days to realize the beast was intentionally setting off the formations. He seemed to find the inscribed flags fascinating, and he’d stolen half of them.
Nemesis had spent the last six days planning this ambush. The monkey-king had humiliated Artax and Min, and had then easily escaped the inferno Talia had triggered in an attempt to kill him. The beast had demonstrated the ability to create mental illusions of surpassing power, as well as duplicate himself.
Instead of confronting him directly, Nemesis had searched for natural treasures that might draw the beast to him, then settled in for an ambush. The serenity-melons had been difficult to spot among the bamboo, and Harper hadn’t been happy to leave them unharvested. She’d said the fruit would have done wonders to create purification potions… which was why the monkey-king would eventually seek them out.
Now, Nemesis carefully lifted twenty glass spheres into the air and moved them up above the monkey-king. The ape finished the first gourd and bent down to claim another. There were only five in the patch, and Harper had warned Nemesis if there wasn’t at least one left for her after the hunt, he’d be sleeping alone for a month.
That threat barely flickered through his mind as he got the potions into position. A flex of his mind shattered the bottles and his control claimed dominion over the fluid within. The dragon sent it down as cloud of rain upon the monkey-king.
The spirit beast’s head had snapped up at the sound of glass breaking. Blue eyes shot open wide as he saw the rain falling. Nemesis watched as he grasped one of the bamboo stalks and kicked the base to snap it free. The monkey-king spun the stalk like a staff and a gust pushed the falling fluid upward, trying to disperse it.
Nemesis refused to allow that to happen, and his mental grip was indomitable. The droplets broke apart and grew smaller
The primate let out a screech of rage and spun the bamboo stalk down to slam it into the ground. A half-dozen more monkey-kings sprang into existence around the original and they began jumping back and forth, swapping places. Nemesis ignored that, focusing on covering the entire area with potion.
Harper, meanwhile, had thrown the first of her javelins. The shaft of wood vibrated as she infused her metal mana into it. The inscriptions Talia had crafted powered up while the weapon was in flight. By the time it reached the monkey-king, the javelin’s charge was active. The bamboo spun and effortlessly struck the javelin aside—which set off the inscription within.
Exploding, the javelin sent splinters of wood and iron through the bamboo clearing. The spray of shrapnel was too weak to do any lasting harm… but was perfect for bursting the illusory monkeys dancing through the stalks.
The real monkey-king arrogantly spun his staff as he turned to face Harper. The concealment around them had broken the moment their target had realized there was an enemy about. His eyes pierced their defense, spotting them effortlessly.
Which gave Nemesis a perfect view of his face when the monkey-king saw he was up against a dragon.
Shock, alarm, confusion—his arrogance vanished in the face of a true predator.
Screaming, the monkey-king spun his staff to deflect Harper’s second javelin. The spirit beast worked to conjure new illusions, yet the second of distraction had caused him to make a misstep. He’d forgotten about the rain.
Nemesis showered him and the three clones he’d created in enough potion to knock out four weak C-rank beasts. The fluid that struck the illusions simply passed through and splashed across the bamboo, and the droplets that hit the monkey-king dyed his fur a bright green and slicked it to his skin. The ape staggered. His nostrils flared as he sucked in a breath in surprise, which simply drew the fumes deep into his lungs.
Nemesis lunged.
Racing forward, his jaws clapped shut where the monkey-king had been. The spirit beast had leaped and come down on the back of Nemesis’ head. His staff lashed out, the bamboo splintering as it struck hard scales. Nemesis, his eyes closed, twisted his neck to try and rake the inner edge of his horn across the agile primate. The monkey-king responded by running back along Nemesis’ skull toward his neck, clearly intended to run down the dragon’s back and escape—
And then promptly slammed face first into Harper’s fist. When she drew her hand back, Nemesis saw metal had coated her body. She then snapped a kick out that caught the monkey-king in the jaw and sent him tumbling to the ground.
Nemesis, following instructions from Harper’s mind, stepped to the side and slammed one foreleg forward and down. His claw effortlessly punched through the monkey-king’s stomach and pinned the ape to the ground. Blood sprayed into the air… and then the beast faded from sight.
Nemesis lashed his tail around in an arc that shattered the trees he’d been hiding among. The debris caused the stumbling form of the monkey-king to reappear. The spirit beast’s eyes drooped—it was struggling to remain awake. His body fell to one side as he dodged a piece of trunk larger than his own body.
Harper’s javelin speared through his thigh and nailed him in place. The steel head drove into a fallen tree, and while the monkey-king broke the shaft, Nemesis snapped his jaws shut around the beast’s head.
The clop of his jaws closing echoed through the forest.
This time Nemesis felt the hot blood fountain up against his jaw, and he tasted the coppery fluid on his tongue before he rolled the head to the back of his mouth and swallowed. He curled his neck and scooped the body up between his fangs, flopped onto his stomach, and began chewing.
“Wow, I really thought I’d punched him. Those illusions were strong,” Harper said.
She slid down his shoulder, and then hopped off his forearm onto the ground. His rider showed no squeamishness at the blood along his jaw as she planted a kiss on his muzzle. She winked at him, then drew out her harvesting tools and headed for the bamboo.
“Did any of the melons survive?” he asked.
His words came out a bit muffled, since he had to use his tongue keep an arm from falling out of his mouth.
“Don’t talk with your mouth full… and I think at least two of them did,” she said.
Nemesis enjoyed watching her crouch among the bamboo. Her leather armor molded tightly to her rear, and the muscle she’d continued to put on had filled out her slender frame. Harper was still petite, yet now she radiated a sleek sense of power that he found cute.
She is fierce… for a humanoid, he mused.
She pulled a bundle of fibers from her belt and shook it out to reveal a mesh bag. Soon she had three gourds hanging from her hip. He didn’t blame her for looking pleased with herself… though pride turned to wariness when she came back with the broken remains of the last melon.
“Eat this,” she insisted.
Nemesis squinted at the yellowish rind and its green flesh distrustfully. “Why?” he rumbled. He was stalling, not wanting to eat the fruit—the monkey-king had stepped on it. He had no desire to eat something an ape had stomped. He pointedly ignored the fact he’d literally just swallowed the same ape’s legs.
“Because it will purify the mana you’re absorbing, and probably increase the effectiveness of the core!”
Nemesis let out a rumble that vibrated the land around him… yet he knew she was right.
With a resigned sigh, Nemesis opened his jaws and let her place the chunks of melon on his tongue. The sickening sweetness clashed with the salty blood he’d been enjoying, and it was all he could do not to spit it out. Harper saw the flex of his jaw and smacked her hand onto the tip of his nose.
“Swallow! Do it.”
It took three tries before Nemesis managed to get the broken melon down; Harper stared expectantly at him the entire time. He forced himself to keep his jaw clamped firmly shut until she was satisfied the risk of regurgitation was gone. When she started rubbing her hands along his jawbone, he relaxed.
‘I hate eating fruit in my true form,’ he complained. Her expression was a mix of sympathy and amusement, the same emotions he felt pouring off her like a warm fire.
“I know, but trust me, it really will improve your cultivation. You don’t want to risk missing C-rank, do you?”
It was a point he couldn’t argue, so he chose to retain his dignity and remain silent. For some reason that increased her amusement. She began humming as she walked along his neck and then climbed his foreleg to mount his back. He twisted his neck to stare at her when she strapped herself into the saddle.
“Come on, we have a birthday party to get to!” she said.
Nemesis did his best not to roll his eyes as he turned his face to the sky and bunched the muscles in his legs. With a flex of his body, he hurled himself skyward. His wings snapped open and swept down, the gust flattening the bamboo stand and broken trees surrounding him.
The dragon didn’t even notice the destruction while he flew away.
Nemesis had only been flying for about an hour when the cramping started. His muscles tensed, then pain caused his bones to tremble. His body spasmed, and his flapping faltered as the muscles that anchored his limbs locked for a moment. Harper made a concerned noise, clinging tighter to the straps.
“What’s going on?” she yelled.
‘Wretched melons!’ Nemesis snarled across their bond, then he dove.
His stomach began to gurgle and Nemesis felt the urge to vomit tickle his throat. He locked his jaw, not wanting to lose the meal he’d eaten. The power in his stomach thrummed, subtle pulses of energy that radiated out from his belly. His long practice at containing the power in his body was threatened by the growing need to purge.
He set down on a grassy plain, just past the outer edge of the forest. Small trees, tall grasses, and the occasional boulder marked the terrain, though none of it came higher than his shoulder. He hit the ground so hard his body slid and he crushed a tree beneath him before he skidded to a stop.
An annoying scratching dragged against his stomach as something clawed at him from beneath. Nemesis let out a threatening rumble, dropping his body weight repeatedly to smash the tree and whatever had been living in it. He had no idea what it was, but the scraping stopped.
