Dragon's Tale 60 (Patreon)

“Dear Pico,” the man riding the Nemean lion spoke with a confident smirk, under the illusion that everything was under control. “Let me repeat my earlier offer. Our school needs a skilled trainer like you. Why don’t you switch employers.” He stopped for a moment, letting out a chuckle. “It’s not like you have a job for too long in any case.”

Once again, I didn’t bother trying to say anything. Unlike his attitude toward the disposable guards, the man’s attitude toward Pico seemed genuine, which should make betrayal a viable option. In a way, his betrayal would make my life much easier. I would be able to use my magic without any pesky witnesses. 

Not alive ones, in any case.  

Pico said nothing at first, just took a half a step forward, as if trying to defend me against the first charge of the lion, which ruined that plan. I sighed in disappointment. 

 I had no illusion about the reason for his action, of course. His loyalty was toward the Dacian School, and not me. He was only defending me because I was a literal asset to the school, a prized stallion. Still, while oftentimes I could be opportunistic, I had my own personal boundaries, and rewarding loyalty with betrayal was not one of them. 

Unfortunately, keeping Pico alive meant that I couldn’t use any explicit spells. I didn’t want to bet that he would keep my secrets from Master Antonius just because I had saved his life. He clearly saw his life as less important than his loyalty to the school, and he couldn’t just assume a secret mage between gladiators didn’t have any evil objectives toward his school. 

I didn’t, of course, but it wasn’t something he could be certain of. 

When in doubt, run, I decided. Suddenly, I grabbed Pico’s arm and started dragging him inside the cave. “What are you doing?” Pico asked, shocked. The rider, identified as Antony by Pico, looked also shocked enough to fail to react at that moment. After all, from his perspective, he already won. 

“You think you can run?” he growled in anger and raised his hand, trying to cast a spell. The earth started to swell, as if it would close out our path. 

Excellent, I thought even as I flared my magic, just subtle enough to delay his spell a second. He was just a mage, weaker than I had been when I had been in the middle of my training with my grandfather, so interfering with his spell without him being aware was a simple task. I had no doubt he had other abilities. The fact that he was able to ride a Nemean lion suggested that, but in an elemental spell, it was easy to trick him. 

We found ourselves locked in a cave, with an earth wall rising in our wake. “Let’s move deeper. I could feel the fresh air. There must be another entrance,” I said, loud enough to be heard by our attacker. 

I wanted him following us in the cave, after all. It was the easiest way to limit his advantages. 

“Keep your mouth shut,” Pico gasped in anger, unaware of the reason I wanted to alert our enemy. I shrugged. An old man shouting at me for my mistakes was not an unfamiliar feeling. 

“Sorry,” I said even as I used a subtle spell to reinforce the rock wall that was just created by our opponent, making it easier for him to take us down, trying to goad him to use a dangerous spell. 

His magic hit the cave once, enough to dislodge a few dangerous rocks — only to be deflected by my own magic, conveniently — but the rock wall stayed in place. “That fucking wall!” he shouted in anger, his voice easily cutting through the rock.  

“He seems a bit rash,” I said mockingly even as I moved deeper into the cave, and Pico followed. The cave didn’t have another exit, but at least it was deep enough for me to hide that fact for a minute or so, which was all the time I needed to launch the next part of my plan. 

“As the heir to his school, he had a smooth life,” Pico said dismissively. “Young people always expect things to go in their way.” 

I just chuckled at the surliness of my trainer, but before I could say anything else, the cave shook again, showing Antony’s renewed determination to hit. I let the rock wall dissipate at his third hit — any more, and even he would be suspicious — but not without another little gift. I triggered a partial collapse on the way, so that if he wanted to follow us, he either needed to stop riding his lion, therefore solving my problem of killing him without raising suspicion, or try to widen the entrance, and give us time to escape. 

And if he took too long enough opening a safe passage, I could create an exit, using his spells creating a tectonic reaction as an excuse. 

But I wasn’t expecting a loud roar, strong enough to rattle my bones, followed by a crashing sound. Apparently, my opponent chose a different direction, using his battle pet’s supernatural strength to forcibly create an entrance. 

Moron, I thought even as I cast another sneaky spell, weakening the walls of the cave, hastening an inevitable collapse of the cave, before grabbing Pico and hiding in a corner, creating a small magical cover around us to make sure we would survive. 

Just in time, as the rocks started to rain down on us. “Mars burn it,” Pico growled in disappointment as he watched the stones falling down. 

“We’re in the gods’ hands now. Whatever happens, happens,” I said calmly. It was easy to be pious with the ability to stop the collapse. 

Despite the collapse, I could hear Antony’s pained cries and the lion’s angry roars. Neither his magical talent nor his beasts weren’t enough to completely protect him from the collapse, it seemed. 

“Lucky,” Pico whispered as the collapse settled, with a large air pocket around us. “There’s enough air for us to survive until Master Antonius sends a search party, to get our bodies for funeral if nothing else.” 

I nodded, glad that the situation passed that easily, but another cry from above ground suggested that we might have jinxed ourselves. “Find their location, you stupid animal,” Antony cried even as I felt his flare of magic, aggressively spend his mana. I wondered how he discovered we weren’t dead yet for a while, until his words revealed his motivation. “I want their corpses strung on top of the city walls. I am wounded because of a worthless slave and a peasant. It’s unacceptable.” 

“Wow, angry much,” I said while Pico stiffened, feeling as Antony’s mana flared to the limit. Digging a cave as hastily as he was trying to do was not a simple magical achievement.  

Even in touchy noble standards, Antony seemed to be the hasty kind. I would have understood trying to make sure we were dead, but wasting all of his magical strength just to get our corpses. As the spells he was casting felt closer and closer, I prepared myself to act. 

If he wanted to die, I had no problems giving him that. Unfortunately, his beast was a barrier to that. Luckily, I still had the sleeping bear in the cave, and he was closer to Antony’s spells. I cast a spell to awaken it back, and another spell to empower. It was a hasty, useless way that would end up in the death of the bear in minutes, but that was not relevant. 

“Kill it,” Antony cried the moment bear pushed into the surface, directed to attack Antony. I directed the bear to escape on that instant, betting on Antony’s vindictiveness. “Chase it,” Antony cried again, sending his lion to follow the bear, leaving himself defenseless, unaware that he had signed his own death warrant as he continued to dig. 

Arrogance was a costly mistake. 

The moment his spell arrived around us, opening a path, I charged forward, my blade glistening under the bright sun. “You’re still alive,” Antony gasped in shock and started casting a spell. To the credit of his training, this time, he was using a simple defensive spell, impossible to miscast for someone in his skill. 

So, his eyes widened in shock the moment the spell failed to come together. “You!” he gasped, realizing the source of his constant misfortune was my intervention. 

Pico burst out later, unaware of the reason for Antony’s shock. “Don’t kill him,” he cried in panic, trying to warn me against the crime of killing a noble. 

I might have been willing to grant that request. Unfortunately for Antony, his mind decided to work at the worst possible moment, amounting to an unwitting betrayal. Discovering my abilities was his mistake. He tried to reach his mana to cast an emergency spell, only to realize it was completely out of reach. His eyes widened, realizing the extent of my strength. What I had been doing, directly shutting down a mage couldn’t be done by another mage, no matter how strong. I had to be a sorcerer. 

Unfortunately for him, the slash of my sword came a moment later, getting rid of his head. 

Before I could talk with Pico about the death of a noble, however, a mad roar reached to my ear. 

Maybe Pico had another reason for his request other than protecting the life of a noble.