Chương 17: Chapter 16

Mallorn the elf The sudden presence of an immense predatory lizard did many things to his primal monkey-brain. A sudden tensing and frozen evaluation of the thing currently leering at him from behind rows of lipless teeth. He had dealt with a great many predatory animals before, all of which were quite a bit smaller than the thing glaring at him with a horse sized head and sinuous body as long as an oak tree was tall.

Normally, the best tactic for dealing with a predator was to make yourself look much bigger than you were and make scary noises, then whack it with the sharp side of a shovel. No amount of 'holding my hands in the air' and 'yelling' was going to make him look bigger or sound louder than a beast this large, and he didn't have a shovel right now, so that wouldn't work. It huffed, letting another fruit-alcohol breath wash over his form and blow his hair back, moving slowly to angle one great eye at him.

Not quite in reach of a lunge to potentially blind it and flee, but close enough to get a good look at the glowing purple orb. It was pupil-less and black instead of white, a distinctly unsettling combination of features.

"What's wrong, elfling?" the great thing growled amusedly in accented elvish, somehow producing fully legible words despite the mouth barely opening and the complete lack of lips.

"Where did your little words go?" The voice was loud in a way that only massive lungs could support, a whisper that somehow made his ears hurt and joints ache. Honesty was probably going to be his best policy. He opened his mouth to reply. A moment passed. No words escaped his lips. He closed his mouth again and swallowed numbly. Eventually, he resorted to gestures and simply shrugged, eyes wide and locked onto every tiny moment the immense predator made.

A rolling, huffing noise came from between the teeth, the narrowed purple orbs twisting slightly upwards as the lower throat bobbed up and down. It took a few moments to realize that it was laughing at him. That laughter was enough to kickstart his sputtering irritation, which got his mouth running again.

"I-it's hard to respond to a sudden dragon- I- W-what is the appropriate reaction to that!?" He threw his hands up, leaning backwards and trying to get slightly away from the immense teeth and laughing eye. The back of his heel slipped just enough to remind him that he was standing on a ledge right now, and the hotspring was a good ten or fifteen feet below him. The laughing pulled shortly to a close, followed by another amused huff, drenching him in the scent of fruity alcohol.

"You're wearing something that belongs to me, elfling, divest yourself of it," the dragon growl-hissed, leaning forwards, great claws scraping along the ground as the neck coiled on itself. The head stayed uncannily still as the bulk of the great lizard coiled in this fashion. On one hand, that would leave him naked. On the other hand, he wasn't about to disobey a dragon when he was holding its property.

He stripped off the improvised parka at once, and briefly looked around in a panic as he searched for a place to put it that wasn't just 'the floor'. Another hiss made him abandon that attempt and made him simply drop it before him, raising his hands and taking a step to the side, away from it. One immense wing pulled forwards, letting him glimpse a sort of secondary clawed hand structure at the end.

This was in combination with what looked like a fully articulate claw structure on a standard set of four limbs supporting the immense serpent, which had a great many fascinating implications for biology. The wing-claw took the tapestry up daintily, before pulling it over to drape across a shelf of rock that looked perfect for something large like a dragon to lounge upon.

"Now what were you thinking, when you laid your little thief-hands on mine, elfling?" the dragon hiss-huffed, dragging itself forwards and planting claws in the cave wall to loop around him in a most intimidating fashion. He turned to follow it as it coiled around him, trying to maintain eye contact and awareness of all the scraping echoes as he did. The dragon was immense enough that he could faintly hear its heartbeat through its carriage-sized chest. Like a steady, hypnotic drum in the distance.

It added well to the intimidation of the great beast. He swallowed, letting a slightly irritated furrow take over his brows.

"I-well I was thinking I was quite cold. I had such a nice set of warm clothes- but whoever deposited me in your cave stole it from me, and left me nude."

"That was I." The dragon let its breath roll over him again, making his ears tilt back as his hair fluttered.

"You spoke so often of your hatred for ironwood- I did you a great favor by discarding it somewhere over here and there." That told him several things. First, that the dragon was indeed responsible for his abduction; second, that it had thrown his armor out somewhere; and third, that it had apparently been listening to him.

"Y-you… know about that then…" he stated, taking a half-step away and bumping into the immense scaled tail coiled around him.

"I know many things about you- little- elfling." The dragon huff-laughed once more, getting closer and using its tail to push him forwards. He stumbled as he was dragged along, barely keeping balance without touching the looming teeth before him. The terrible, scaled snout was within snapping range of his gut.

"I know your face. I know your voice. I know your smell." He flinched back as the head came forwards, then to the side. A great pinkish-red tongue slipped free of the prison of teeth and crashed against his legs, making his fall back against the tail. The tongue dragged upwards slowly, leaving saplike saliva in its wake on its way over his body until it lapped off his face and head, flicking up and then retreating into the dragon's maw.

"I know your taste." He stayed frozen for a few moments, before reaching upwards to wipe the fruit-ferment smelling and too-sticky salvia off his face. His front was practically drenched in the substance now, trailing down him like honey warmed on a stovetop. Briefly, he considered being snarky before clamping down on that instinctual response.

"I'm afraid you have me at a disadvantage, for you know these things about me, but I know very little about you."

"A lie." The growl came immediately and simply. He swallowed, brows furrowing. A one-horned dragon that he apparently knows about. That narrowed it down massively.

"... you would be Malamadr then?"

"Your wits are lacking, elfling," Malamadr hiss-laughed at him, performing another great coiling around him and forcing him to spin once more to maintain eye contact. Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon. He grimaced, before reaching up to gesture vaguely at his head.

"I have head trauma right now! I'm battered and vulnerable, and my senses were half-beaten out on the road by those goblins! If I had known I was to meet you, I would-""Oh, but you did," Malamadr growled.

"I remember your terms, little elf. As soon as the girl was delivered to Erem, you would meet with me." He stopped at that, blinking and pulling back with realization.

"... Rayne's Mistress," he stated bluntly." There was little need to have me kidnapped by goblins, if that was your doing. I had already agreed to a meeting."

"I have many needs, and some of them were furthered by your abduction," she hissed at him, pulling back and crouching in a catlike fashion. A brief huffing laugh followed, before she mockingly spoke again.

"You're a smart little elfling, aren't you? You can riddle it out on your own." He furrowed his brows, thinking through the situation as best he could. The advantage to having him kidnapped by goblins instead of meeting her cordially… If his allies thought he had been kidnapped, then they would probably ask for aid in retrieving him. Dura was a daughter of a dwarf clan, and if he had his estimate of their nature right, they'd march to help him out of honor if nothing else.

It was probably hard to follow a dragon by most means, unless the cave was already known to them. That meant they would probably head to the goblins and-"You… want Clan Gravelbrook to fight Clan Goblinwrangle?" he questioned, tilting his head.

"If they follow my captors, they'd investigate the other goblins surely- and that would bring them into conflict with one another. That would further the conflict between clans in Erem, and weaken them in preparation of another attack to retrieve your horn." The dragon tilted her head.

"One." He closed his eyes and nodded.

"That's an absolutely terrifying response, thank you." He had no idea what she meant by that- and she didn't seem inclined to speak any further, so he kept puzzling over what she was trying to accomplish. She wanted to capture him via goblins, that meant that Rayne wasn't leading him to her like had been first assumed. If the goblins had dragged him off to some previously established location, out of sight of Erem, and then she had picked him up. No one would know that she was involved in his disappearance.

It would be impossible to follow a scent through air, if she flew far enough up, which meant the only way to find him would be- The compass Rayne had, the one that could point to him from anywhere. He briefly considered this to be the answer, but stopped himself before saying it aloud. … If… if she happened to not remember to take off that tracking-spell, then that compass would be the only way for anyone to find him.

If he spoke of it, reminded her of it, then she could simply remove it and there'd be no hope at all. But if he stayed silent, and kept her distracted, there was a chance that something like that had slipped her mind and the others would know that he wasn't anywhere in Erem. It wasn't a good chance, it was possible she had already removed it, but a chance was better than no chance.

It was also possible she was trying to lure the dwarves of Erem to her cave this way, but he couldn't think of any reason that would be strategically advantageous to her. He scrunched up his face in deliberate thought, and puzzled out something else to say.

"You wanted to avoid meeting Rayne again," he got out after a moment.

"He was going to lead me to you afterwards, but having goblins capture me and picking me up yourself allowed you to completely bypass any further involvement from him. Or perhaps allowed him to maintain secrecy about who his mistress is." She tilted her scaly head the other way.

"Two." That was just as intimidating as before. He let out a fearsome sigh and started to pace, raising a hand up to chew his thumb as he tried to think of anything else. The advantages to meeting him like this…

"... It…" He stopped and grimaced, before continuing.

"It gave you an easy opportunity to strip me- to remove any arm or armor before we meet. I doubt it was to remove danger to yourself, I can't imagine that I'd be any trouble for you to gobble up even if I was fully ready, so it was to remove my ability to defend myself against something else." He snapped his fingers a few times.

"Like the wilderness between the cave entrance and back to wherever the nearest civilization is- without anything to garb myself, I'd likely die of the cold mountain winds. Without a bow, I can't hunt for myself. Without a sword, I couldn't defend myself against anything that roams. This forces me to stay in your care, or attempt an theft for supplies before heading out, and I imagine a 'curse-weaver' has everything in this cave be utterly soaked in curses to protect it." He shook his head.

"This was never a meeting, I'm your prisoner, and my prison-bars are the wilderness around your home." He turned back to the dragon in time to greet a great barbed tail, which struck his midsection and threw him back. His bruised and battered body roared as he tumbled through the air, the wind knocked from his lungs and the roof of the cave blurring in his vision.

A suspended moment later, and his back crashed against the steaming waters of the hotspring below, submerging him in the hot lake and making him flail as he righted himself. He swam down briefly, before realizing that buoyancy was carrying him the opposite direction, righting himself blindly under the pool and then swimming up to breach the surface. He gulped in air as his head passed the steaming water, legs kicking and hands coming up to brush his wet hair out of his eyes.

He staggered again as something huge crashed into the steaming water, sending a wave that pushed him away until his back smacked against one of the rock pillars. Blindly, he braced himself against the pillar and wiped the water from his eyes, blinking and eyes darting about in the pool. A clawed wing came up from the water and crashed into the rock behind him, making him flinch to the side, only to be stopped by another clawed wing coming up from the water and slam against the stone, cutting off his escape.

He returned to the center, back against hot stone and hands fumbling for a grip and instinctively twitching to a weapon. The wings flexed, the steaming water rippling as a pair of horns emerged from the water before him. One broken and one whole. He paused as he noticed how much smaller these horns were now. Horns were followed by a mane of long twisted hair, red and gold in hue. Then bright purple eyes set in black orbs, tanned and faintly golden skin, and a pair of ruby lips pulled into a tiny smirk.

This face continued to rise from the water, followed by an almost delicate neck, pronounced collarbone, and narrow shoulders. The wings ended in joints that emerged from the back. The front, meanwhile, carried flawlessly smooth flesh and an ample bosom. It was very clearly a woman, and a very clearly nude one at that.

"Three," The woman cooed at him, continuing to emerge from the water. A long, scaled, sinuous tail rolled through the water behind her, showing off its wicked barbs once more before slipping back under the surface.

"Thee right answers, such cleverness deserves a little reward~." Despite the deception, hired thugs, kidnapping, and generally terrifying behavior, he found it rather difficult to be disappointed with the current turn of events. He swallowed, not bothering to disguise his roaming eyes.

"You uhh… you could have simply asked if this was your intent, you know?" He tried an amused grin, feeling fairly unbalanced by the events of the last few minutes. She gave an amused grin of her own, her hands came up to cup his cheeks, then trailed down along his body. She pressed herself up against him, framed by the glowing crystal lamps above and the dark reflections of the water below. The angle gave him a great view of the base of her wings and tail and the small of her back.

There was a discolored patch of scales there, near the base of her tail, they looked frail and brittle compared to the robust and shiny scales around them. Next to his ear, she hiss-whispered, hot fruit-wine breath spilling over his face and neck.

"I'm not asking." He swallowed somewhat nervously. That was a very blunt declaration of intent. He was pretty sure that he'd have to kill her for it later.