Stronghold City Draft

Chapter 18

"I just realized something," said Ezekiel. Bastion's ears pricked up. "I just noticed how much of an oxymoron the name 'Lord Anarchy' is. Think about it. 'Anarchy' means the absence of a leader. And yet, Anarchy is a leader." Bastion laughed. "Not wrong. But I wouldn't say that to his face. He'd probably bite you." Ezekiel laughed. "Sounds like a thing he'd do." The reptile got a serious look in his yellow eyes. "If I'm being honest, I don't like Anarchy. He seems horrible and... cold. When he locked his eyes on me for the first time, it felt like the temperature of the air around me dropped. I've met hundreds of chupacabras in my lifetime. Many of them are now rugs and blankets and coats, but I've never met one like Anarchy. One who wants domination." Bastion's warm body shivered from underneath Ezekiel's back. "I'm so sorry. Did I really forget to tell you I used to be a fur hunter? That's why I have the gun." Bastion spoke. "It doesn't bother me that much, to be honest. You're not anymore, and you wouldn't hurt me anyways. Besides, there are plenty of chupacabras here that I wouldn't be sad to see draped over a bed or mounted up on a wall." Just like saurians and dragons, Ezekiel knew that not all chupacabras liked each other. Some were nice, and some were mean. He had been surprised to initially discover this after getting to know Bastion for the first time. For most of Ezekiel's long life, the height of his interactions with chupacabras had been listening to insults and swear words angrily yowled at him before he silenced the animals forever with a single shot of his gun. Life in Stronghold City could not be more different than life in Solis.

"Your Majesty, we have a gift for you." Anarchy turned his head in the direction of the two chupacabras standing in front of his throne. One was holding something in its forepaws, but Anarchy couldn't tell what. "We found this rare scorpion out in the desert. It can't be anything but a dream-scorpion." The chupacabra holding the thing in its paws held it out for Anarchy to inspect. It was a huge dead scorpion, larger than a month-old chupacabra pup. It was almost entirely black aside from the brilliant red pincers and stinger. This was a dream-scorpion alright.

The Solarian giant scorpion, Macroscorpio solaria to scientists and dream-scorpion to chupacabras is a rare species found in the Solarian Desert. Growing up to one-and-a-half foot long, it is one of the largest arachnid species in the world. The venom is not very deadly to animals outside the size range of the scorpion's prey, and to canines, it is a powerful hallucinogenic drug. Chupacabras have been known to bite open the venom sac and swallow the venom to get high on the powerful drug, oblivious to the fact that an overdose can cause permanent brain damage. Anarchy peered at the dead scorpion in wonder. He took it from the chupacabra's paws and first tried to bite into the armored flesh of its back, sampling the scorpion's taste. Its meat tasted awful, and the chitin was too hard and crunchy. He sniffed at the crimson venom barb, and after a moment took it in his teeth and crunched it. The small amount of liquid was horribly bitter and it took a lot of self-control to not gag. Anarchy swallowed, and began to feel dizzy and light headed a few minutes after he swallowed the venom. He felt his vision blur and then he lost his balance and tipped over before everything went black.

Anarchy opened his orange eyes to see a brilliant blue sky loom around him, not a cloud in sight. The ground below him was rocky and hard, and his space to stand was very small. He was on a floating island. More floating islands hovered in the sky around him. Anarchy peered off the edge of his platform. There was nothing but sky below him. How could he reach the other rocky islands floating in the void? They were too far away to jump to. Anarchy had an answer. He unfurled a fine pair of wings from his side. They were enormous and strong, and they were covered in feathers like a bird, each feather a different shade of tan, giving the wings a mottled look. Anarchy beat his wings and felt himself lift off the ground. Another strong wingbeat and he was hovering over the endless blue void. He knew exactly how to use his glorious wings, and he soared through the field of rocky floating platforms like a magnificent bird. He felt as light as air as the powerful strokes of his wings propelled him forwards at a great speed. Finally, Anarchy reached the largest and highest-up of all the floating islands. It was about the size of the burrow before Anarchy's servants had begun to hollow it out more. Anarchy folded his wings to his side. Of course he had never noticed he had wings before- they fit so perfectly to his sides that even he couldn't tell they were there. He felt a slight breeze blow through his fur. The breeze was very refreshing, until Anarchy noticed it was coming from the wingbeats of a huge dark shape far away in the sky. The shape continued to get closer and closer, bigger and bigger. Anarchy felt a chill run down his spine. As the huge winged shadow gained color and detail, Anarchy stifled a gasp of horror. It was Queen Sunstone- or what was left of her. Months of her post-mortem state had taken its toll on the dragon. Her massive wings were ragged and torn, a great chunk of skin had been cleaved from her side, exposing rotten, putrid black flesh crawling with maggots, her claw-tips had been mangled and left bloody, her lips had been mutilated, exposing bare, bloody gums where teeth had been ripped out, her right eye socket was empty, a gaping black hole staring back at Anarchy, and her left eye hung from its socket limply from a few veins and optical nerves. Sunstone touched down on Anarchy's rocky platform. The horrible smell of death and decay filled the air. Was it just Anarchy, or did Sunstone look much, much bigger than she did while she was alive? The decaying dragon stared at Anarchy with her empty eye sockets and snarled. Anarchy unfurled his wings and raised the spines on his back instinctively to seem bigger and more intimidating. It didn't work. Sunstone had been huge to begin with- thirty feet from the tip of her snout to the end of her whiplike tail- but there was no doubt she was at least twice that now. Chupacabras in general were large animals, but Anarchy looked like a rodent compared to the enormous dragon. Sunstone began to pad towards Anarchy slowly. The chupacabra began to back up. "This is all your fault," the dragon hissed under her breath- if she even had breath, that was. The dragon spread her wings wide, and suddenly she and Anarchy stood in the town square of Solis. Something was different. Instead of dragons padding or soaring about the city, skeletons and decaying bodies filled the streets. The houses were run down. Blood stains were splattered all over the ground. There were chupacabras perched everywhere. Some sat on the roofs of houses, others were crouching in holes dug in the ground of the park, and others still were chasing stray dogs and cats so skinny their rib cages showed through the streets. Chupacabra dens littered the area, and all the chupacabras inside and outside looked fat and happy. No longer were they skinny, mangy, odious animals- they were plump with well-groomed coats. Anarchy looked around the town square with a look of awe. His plans to take over the dragon city- they had succeeded. He was looking at his own handiwork. Anarchy watched as a weak, starving dragon limped through the city, wings and tail dragging behind her. Her scales had lost their beautiful color and shiny sheen and were now a faded gray, and her eyes were listless. Several chupacabras ran up to the dragon, brandishing spears and stabbed the dragon through the eyes, killing her instantly. They cheered, knowing that the dragon that had just fallen was the last one left. Sunstone waved her wings again and she and Anarchy were back in the archipelago of floating platforms. "You took everything from me, even after death." Anarchy hissed. "You dragons think you're better than everyone else. You think you're so high and mighty you can go stepping all over me and the other chupacabras. You kicked us out and tried to keep us out." Queen Sunstone spread her tattered wings. "And you deserved it more than anything." She swung a massive paw at Anarchy, who just barely lifted off into the air in time to dodge it. Sunstone lifted up into the air as well. The yellow eye dangling out of its socket glared with hatred. She opened her jaws and blasted a torrent of fire. Anarchy shot across the sky, missing the orange blaze. The beats of the dragon's wings were so powerful that they sounded like thunder. Anarchy put on a boost of speed and propelled himself across the sky over to the dragon and slashed his claws across the soft, decaying flesh of her throat. No blood gushed out, and Sunstone didn't look fazed by the otherwise fatal wound at all. With a powerful beat of her wings, she created a gust of wind that blew Anarchy away. She roared. Anarchy darted by and raked his claws across the patch of rotting, exposed flesh he had cut from her back after he had slain her. This time, the dragon lifted her head and howled with pain. Two other undead dragons heard their queen's call and flew to her side from some far corner of this abyss. The first one chased Anarchy through the air, snapping and spewing fire before he had cleverly dove under its belly and raked his claws through the skin of the belly, softened by decay. Putrid black innards cascaded out, along with hundreds of enormous maggots, each the size of one of Anarchy's toes. The dragon hurtled down into the void. The second dragon snuck up behind Anarchy while he was busy destroying the first one and swallowed him whole. Anarchy was now stuck in a putrid prison of slimy, black rotting flesh, accompanied by squirming white maggots and huge buzzing black flies, presumably what the maggots grew into. The rotting dragon's stomach was very small and cramped, and the disgusting juices from the rotting meat soaked into his paws, tail, and wings. Anarchy began to dig through the belly with his paws before he realized that he would be unable to escape through the hole and fly out upside down. He began to dig up instead. Rotting strips of flesh fell onto his head, but he continued to dig until he reached a column of hard, white material. The spine. Anarchy was able to pull the vertebrae out due to the fact that the tissue of the spinal cord had begun to decay. He heard the dragon shriek and felt himself begin to plummet. Anarchy frantically dug until he saw sunlight, and burst free from the hole spreading his wings. The dragon carcass fell down into the abyss until it was gone from sight. Anarchy effortlessly glided over to the giant floating island and shook the rotten juices from his fur and wings. Queen Sunstone scowled. Before Anarchy could spread his wings and dart away, the bloodless dragon grabbed him in a massive paw. The chupacabra began to struggle violently, but it was no use. Suddenly, he got an idea. He raked his claws across the mutilated fingertips, and the dragon shivered with pain and dropped him. Anarchy was back in the air again. "Not this time," the dragon taunted. She brought her other forepaw down hard on one of Anarchy's wings. He heard bones crack and felt excruciating pain. The wing was now limp and useless. No matter how hard Anarchy flapped his other wing, he continued to plummet down, down down...

Anarchy landed on the hard floor of the cave. There was something warm and furry struggling underneath him, whimpering, squealing, and writhing. A small chupacabra walking underneath him had broken his fall. He looked up at the ledge he had fallen off, eighteen feet up in the air, and then glanced to his sides. There were no feathered wings, broken or otherwise. Anarchy understood now. The floating islands, his wings, the chupacabra-filled Solis, the undead Sunstone and her servants- none of them were real. The memory of biting into the dream-scorpion's tail came back to him. It was all a hallucination. "Are you okay?" asked a pair of chupacabras, carefully shimmying down the cliff Anarchy had plummeted from. "We saw you meandering around pointlessly, muttering things to yourself. And then you went into convulsions near the top of that cliff and fell. Are you okay?" Anarchy nodded. The hallucination still sent shivers down his spine, but it also filled him with determination. Seeing the conquered version of Solis again in his mind, Anarchy knew what needed to be done.

"Meeting," called Anarchy, standing in the meeting chamber of the cave. "As you all know, so far, we have made great progress in taking over the desert. We have broken into the dragon city and killed several dragons. But that is not good enough. We need to attack and kill as many as we possibly can in the city. We need to show them that we are to be feared."