Dragon Hunter

I'll fight them off

Patton would be upset that he hadn't stayed safe.

The green fog slowly began to fade, but Roman didn't dare to move.

There was a dragon in here with him. He had no idea which species.
Sure, it was just a baby but even young dragons could cause fatal injuries, if you weren't lucky.

And luck didn't seem to be with him today.

He heard a growling to his left, at the same level as his head.
The damn thing could either fly already or climb.

To his feet the dragon rider began to stir.

Another growl above his head.

Then suddenly the rider moved, grabbing a whistle attached to his armour and blowing into it.

A sharp high-pitched note ripped through the air and Roman moved to cover his ears out of reflex.

The door burst open and the Stinger crashed into the ground just metres from the knight.
Roman stumbled backwards.

The man on the Stinger pulled the other rider onto the dragon and slipped off in one fluid motion.

The Stinger turned and flew out onto the market place again.

Roman focused on the man infront of him.

Hopefully the others could take care of the Stinger.
His job right now was to keep Terf alive and kill the dragon baby - preferably without dying himself.

The rider was holding only one of his knives, his other hand was digging through his pocket.
His stance was tense and despite being unable to see his face Roman knew that the man was watching him too.

He was fully prepared for the rider to pull out one of those smoke bombs or a weapon.

Instead he pulled out a small bundle of herbs and held them out to the side.

Roman tried not to show his confusion at the action.

A cooing came from above and a small green dragon jumped down onto the mans arm that gave in slightly under the weight.
The dragon baby crawled towards the rider's hand and sniffed at the herbs.
Another delighted noise and it carefully pulled at the herbs and chewed on them.

Roman couldn't help but stare.

How could something that would inevitably grow up to be a monster be this... gentle?

Almost even cute?

It was still chewing on the last few leaves when it began to climb in the other direction, towards the rider's head. It jumped up with a flap of it's wings and scratched a little at the leather of the man's helmet. Another cooing noise left it's beak like mouth.

The rider hummed.

The dragon seemed delighted at the response.

It reminded Roman of a human baby babbling and their parents answering.
It took him a moment to realise that that was exactly what the rider was doing.

He should have ended it.

Should have killed the rider and the dragon then and there, while both were distracted.

But he didn't.

He just watched.

He let the man go.

Let him run out of the building with the dragon on his shoulder.

For a moment all he could do was stand there and stare at the door, watch the flames slowly die.
What was left of the heavy wood was deep black.

Dragons were supposed to be monsters. One of them had killed a teenager today.
Why had the baby been like that?
He had heard of people getting their hands, fingers, toes and ears bitten off by freshly hatched dragons but never had he heard of flappy, still useless wings and coos.
His mind wandered to newborn deer, with their too long legs, trying to find their balance.

A cough made Roman jump.

Terf was slowly regaining consciousness.

Roman kneeled down beside him: "Are you alright?"

"Fine," the other man groaned and sat up slowly. "What happened? Where's the egg?"

Roman was about to answer when he realised that he couldn't. At least not the truth. So instead he bent the truth into something that wouldn't cost him his title and job.

"It hatched before I could get to it," he began. "One of the riders grabbed it and got the one you fought out. It happened too fast, I couldn't stop them. I'm sorry."

Terf shook his head.

"It's fine. You did what you could. Are you hurt?"

Roman shook his head and helped Terf get to his feet.

"A few bruises maybe but otherwise I was lucky."

The two man stumbled out onto the market place.
The sun blinded Roman and he had to blink a few times before he could see anything.

"How many dead?" Terf asked loudly.

"Two of our soldiers and the new kid," Duven reported. "No critical injuries. Mostly small burns and cuts."

"From the Stinger?"

"Its rider."

Roman perked up at that.

"He was using Stinger thorns as blades," he recalled.

The colour drained from Duven's face.

"Dammit," Terf cursed. "We need to get the injured back to the castle as fast as possible before the poison starts kicking in!"

Quietly he gritted out: "Let's hope it's not the bad kind of Stinger."

Roman pulled himself into the saddle and tried to get a picture of how many people had been cut.

If they were lucky the blades were made of the thorns of a Stinger with knockout poison. In that cases they'd only be asleep for a few days.
Torture poison would cause extrem pain for about a day and the deadly Stingers were know for causing a slow and painful death.

He could see four people with slashes in different places.

Four potentially dead men.

The ride back to Cijan was hurried and too fast for the horses but they couldn't afford to take that into consideration at the moment.

Patton wouldn't like that either. And Logan would add that it was irresponsible.

Roman tried to force the thoughts of his lovers out but only ended up adding fuel to the flame.
He missed them.

Back at the castle the Injured were brought in and Terf took Roman with him to report their failure to the king.

The man sat in his throne and listened closely as Terf reported up until the point where he had passed out and Roman repeated his lie.
He dismissed them with anger in his voice but didn't yell.

Roman wasn't sure if that was better or worse.