Predator [ON HOLD INDEFINIETLY]

6: The Broken Seal

Daemo'cch's den is in the middle of its seasonal cleaning when I arrive. The Keepers have cornered him against the left wall in a large semi-circle of infinity symbols etched into the slopping mud. He absolutely hates them for confining him and voices his displeasure with roars released in bursts, the sound jarring to the ear. The three den hands on each side of the swamp hold on to each end of a long sturdy pole. A net is connected to the pole and it drags through the water, catching all the filth and guts and limbs from Daemo'cch's meals in the past three months.

Brandishing my whip as usual, I approach Daemo'cch's confinement quarters. I am not within fifty feet before his head snaps up so violently that the swordfish he is tearing into makes a sickening shredding sound as he dismembers it in one movement. His eyes zero in on me, swirling with a building realization, a discovery, and finally a fury so hot it stops me in my tracks. His eyes are firmly locked on mine.

Daemo'cch rears back, letting his weight fall back to the earth with a frightening boom and he stretches his neck towards me, as far as the infinity signs will allow him, and roars. It is a sound I have never heard in my entire life. No dragon has made a scream so raw, so loud, so full of a passionate anger, resentment, that I'm nearly knocked on my back. His wings are stretched to their extent, rising far out, seeming to envelope the whole world so that he may devour it. His phantom senses are on full power, surging at me, making me dizzy, and - for the first time in twelve years - distilling a faint dread in my heart.

I see the ground right beneath my feet bubbling with acid and it eats at my legs down to the bone. Slimy, midnight black eels shoot out of the mud, eye sockets empty, mouths open to reveal incisor teeth ending in a fine, narrow point, leaping at me, burrowing their fangs into my neck and arms. A darkness presses in on me, suffocating me, making me lose all sense of reality and urges me to let go of my petty life. I am a nobody, my life means absolutely nothing and no one will mourn my death if I were to leave this world.

And then Daemo'cch is suddenly right there. This time, I am knocked back - several yards away. The air abandons my lungs, leaving me to scrabble at the dirt, aching to suck in oxygen. Daemo'cch stands over me, his muzzle wide as if he was going to rip my intestines out, still screeching. I curl into a ball and cover my ears. It takes me a second to realize that I cannot breathe because Daemo'cch's poisonous gas is leaking out of his throat, engulfing my dying body. I have no idea where my whip is and I am at the Black dragon's haunting mercy. I never dreamed that I'd find myself in this position.

Then, as if from a great distance, I hear one of the Keepers scream, "JALE!" and a flash of metal streaks across my vision.

My golden whip.

I grasp it, my life depending on me being able to wield it, and I muster enough strength to snap the gold on Daemo'cch's right foreleg. He pulls the limb back, enraged. I take the opportunity to roll away, whip sparking viciously with magic.

Everything happens in a blur: I'm suddenly on my feet, the whip shooting forwards powerfully, twisting and twining all around Daemo'cch's body. The whip splits several times, like branches on a tree, and they tie him down so completely that he can't even come up from his painful crouch.

He's still screaming, though.

Blood and sweat streak my face, bile and fish guts soil my clothes. I'm out of breath, can barely hear my own leaping heart, and my breathing is so painful that I think for a moment that I'm actually going to die just trying to breathe.

"What . . . is it, Daemo'cch?" I pant out, hard.

His glower is so precise that I worry he can set me aflame or that he'll break through every spell I'm pushing on him right now. I'm wheezing out every binding spell I can remember and then go ahead and make a few of my own for a good measure.