Dragon's Tale 96 (Patreon)

As I managed to reach the agreed meeting location, a certain small blind alley between a butcher and a large residence, just with enough foot traffic not to make her presence entirely shocking. 

However, it seemed that our little trick didn’t work, as rather than finding her in place, I found the corner empty, but with recent signs of battle. 

She either got caught while waiting, showing our little subterfuge was not enough. 

That, or she had been caught while she was distributing the dragon hearts, and had been followed to see where she would go. 

I closed my eyes, trying to detect her location. It was hard to detect where she was with the ongoing chaos — though, considering I engineered said chaos, I didn’t have much room to complain. 

But, my enhanced magical detection capabilities helped me again. I closed my eyes, and after a little pause, I managed to feel one of the closer battles had a significantly different feel. 

A sorcerer, fighting against two mages. 

Or more accurately, a sorceress. 

The soft, malleable nature of Xia’s mana was very easy to distinguish thanks to my abilities, but even without that, I could have easily identified her. After all, I couldn’t imagine any other sorcerer or sorceress actually having trouble against two ordinary mages, no matter how tired the sorceress in question was, or how skilled were the attacking mages. 

I followed the direction, the mobility of the Nemean lion allowing me to easily scale the buildings and preventing me from getting lost in the process. Which was nice, because I arrived just as the two mages were about to finish setting up a ward around her that would send her unconscious. 

She did her best to defend herself, but even using the dragon heart, she was barely able to delay that. Without my intervention, she would simply fail. 

Though, that didn’t mean the challenge was particularly simple for the attacking mages as well. Even in her exhausted state, Xia was not exactly a simple challenge. Enough that, they failed to register my presence even as we looked down from a roof. 

“Tell us where did you find all those dragon hearts, and we’ll show mercy,” warned one of the mages, yet he didn’t shout. 

His comment made me think that they were either unrelated to the little ploy, noticed Xia’s trick, or belonged to one of those target families, but decided the potential acquisition of several dragon hearts was worthy of committing treason. 

Either case, their answer was all I needed to decide how to handle the process. I dug my heels to the side of my mount, and he charged down. One of the mages died under the claws of the lion before he could react, while the second one didn’t survive the movement of my spear. 

“Long time no see,” I said with a chuckle even as I stood next to Xia, and presented my hand to her. 

“T-that’s a Nemean lion,” she stammered as she looked at the beast. “How are you still alive.” 

“Come on, this little kitten,” I said with a chuckle as I passed my hands through his mane. “He’s harmless.” 

The beast tensed under me, as while he lacked the ability to directly understand words, he recognized my mocking tone and understood enough that it was directed to it. 

Yet, rather than taking any action, it crouched down, inviting Xia to climb. “See,” I said with a chuckle. 

Xia looked suspicious, but considering the risk we were in, she didn’t have the luxury to choose, as a catastrophic magical explosion going off just a couple of streets away reminded her. 

She grabbed my hand, and I pulled her up. “Hold tight,” I warned her, before digging my heels to the side of my mount once more, and he charged forward. 

With full speed, of course, we lost more than enough time.

“You’re a madman,” she cried in panic as her arms wrapped around my waist desperately as we jumped over the buildings. 

“We’re in a hurry, sweetie. It’s not like we have lots of options,” I explained as we continued to charge. 

“When are we going to take a turn, then,” she said as we got nearer the walls. “If we get too close to the walls, they might attack us while we charge for the gates. 

“Why gates, when we have the opportunity to take a shortcut,” I said as I encouraged the lion to go even faster. 

As we got nearer the walls, the sparse amount of soldiers that occupied confirmed that it was the correct choice. 

Ironically, such an attempt would have been suppressed much easier in any other city under the republic, but Rome historically didn’t allow the presence of a permanent army, was afraid of political interventions, and relied on Patrician families’ own forces to defend against any incursion. 

Most of the guards actually belonged to the patrician families and other civilian organizations, and currently, they were all pulled into the city, to assist their own factions. 

So, we jumped over the wall with ease — though one wouldn’t believe that if they listened to Xia’s fearful cry as her grip around my body tightened further, the soldiers that were responsible for guarding the walls, busy fighting to get the treasures we spread around. 

All around, an excellent plan, I thought as we left Rome, and the growing chaos, behind. 

Oh, quite a few soldiers tried to follow us, accompanied by some mages, but under our circumstances, nothing less than several Sorcerers could prevent our immediate escape. 

And the forces of the city couldn’t even spare one Sorcerer, let alone half a dozen. 

“We’re going the wrong way,” she said after a couple minutes. “The sea is on the other side. We’re going toward the mainland.” 

“I know,” I said as I encouraged the lion to move even faster. “That’s the part of the diversion,” I explained. She said nothing else, though it was not just about her acceptance of my strategy, but also her exhaustion. Suppressing the aura of all those weapons and dragon hearts, even for several minutes, clearly pushed her near her limit, and the following battle or the excitement of our escape didn’t help her any. 

We stopped only when we arrived at the side of a river, one that was flowing fast toward the river. I hugged Xia and stepped down. “I can walk myself,” she protested as she looked at me. 

“Well, you can. But can you swim unassisted?” I asked as I pointed at the raging river. She didn’t answer, which was enough to show her position. 

I smirked before I turned to my mount, looking at him with a soft nostalgia. Our little relationship started rocky enough, but for better or worse, he was the pet I owned the longest — as living as a bastard, I never dared to adopt one, knowing it would be killed by my uncle to make me feel pain, or by my grandfather, to make me tougher. 

I certainly would have loved to bring him with me, but even if I didn’t need to use him as a distraction, a long sea voyage was not something for a lion. 

Certainly not for one that rivaled a small elephant in terms of size. 

“Go and hide in the mountains, and try to stay visible,” I ordered, though words were rather unnecessary, as I used the signs I taught him while I trained him. 

It let out a loud roar, then turned and left. 

Well, at least it would be almost impossible for him to get caught in the mountains, I thought sadly.  

Soon, we were alone on the side of the river. 

“Do we have to?” Xia asked as she looked at the raging water, cold enough to make her tremble even as we stood near it. “The sea is bad enough, but the river looks freezing cold…” 

“That, or we stay and have a nice discussion with the Consul about how we didn’t mean to create a riot in his capital,” I explained, which was all she needed to let out a sigh. Then, I grabbed her and jumped into the water, letting the raging waters carry us to the sea…