The Dragonslayer (title is a w.i.p.)

Chapter 6

Armin woke up feeling refresh and restored. Brashik was still asleep. Armin walked out of his room into the lobby where The Hotel Owner greeted him merrily.

"There are many traditions you'll have to learn if you want to stay here." He took him round to the door. They walked out atsThe Hotel Owner started explaining everything around.

"The infrastructure is built like it is because we believe God is everywhere and therefore everywhere must be a temple. Some Fundamentalists think this means we should invade the whole continent, but anyone with common sense knows that God is loving. We don't eat or drink until noon or after sunset, and I advise you do the same, too. Prayers happen all throughout the night so if you hear something at night it will be these services. Never walk into a door whilst pushing it open, always open it first. Never take your shoes off, no matter what. I can not stress that enough, keep your shoes on. Your animal will need to either stay off the floor or on a leash no longer than 5 feet long. Anything you see that you wish to purchase you will want to haggle over as much as possible, it's pretty much an artform. Those are the only rules you'll need to know about." He reached into his pocket, saying, "use this to get back to the hotel, and here is the gates to leave through." He handed Armin a compass with 2 pins, 1 that pointed north and 1 that pointed back to the hotel. Armin thanked The Hotel Owner and left. Once he had exited the city, he hopped on Brashik's back and whipped out the compass, heading due east to the Kreddon Desert. 

After a few hours of flying they reached the sandy dunes of Kreddon. Brashik landed and Armin hopped off his back. They walked for a while in random directions until they noticed a rock. Armin sat down on the rock ready to eat. Out of nowhere the rock started vibrating and Armin immediately hopped off and readied his sword. A low rumble came out of the rock. It started rising out of the ground. More rocks started emerging all around him. The original rock was now a humongous spike and soon he realised he had found what he was looking for. Skin emerged, and oddly the rock spikes didn't look like they should have been there, it was as if they had erupted out of the dragon. Sand trickled off its sides as it slowly rose above the ground. The brown rock spikes, littered with crystal, were all around 4 meters tall. The whole dragon was immense and Armin had to run for almost a minute to get to the head. He inevitably found the neck and tried to stab straight through it. Not a chance. The sword bounces off like it was made of paper. Its black skin was as strong as the strongest of rocks. What on earth could pierce it? The dragon moved its head, trying to figure out what had awakened it. After Armin had attacked it, it realised that Armin was on his back, so it spun around in a circle and shook violently. Armin fell off the dragon, but luckily it wasn't too far off the ground and he was mostly uninjured. The Dragon's brows were made of the same rock as its spikes, with two gigantic crystals coming out the back as horns. The Dragon saw Armin and opened its mouth, sending millions of sharp shards of rock flying, each smaller that sand but sharper than a dagger. Brashik covered Armin with his wing. The dragon stopped its deadly breath and barged forward at a ridiculous speed. Armin could no way outrun it, so he dived to the ground, while Brashik swooped upwards. Brashik came diving down into the dragon, and his beak was just hard enough to pierce the skin. The lumbering dragon let out a resonant rumble of a roar. It shook violently, hitting Brashik with its spikes and sending him to the floor, where he lay unconscious. 

Armin aimed his sword directly at the Dragon's horn and fired a massive bolt of lightning at the vast dragon. The horn loosened slightly, just enough. Armin took advantage of the rocks sticking out of the dragon and climbed onto its back. He sprinted to its head, dodging stray rock shards that the dragon was able to fire. Armin reached the head and wrapped his arms around the dragon's horn. He pulled as hard as he could, but he could barely even stay on the dragon, let alone pull it out. He needed a new plan, then he remembered that Brashik had pierced his skin, which meant that...

He sprinted as quickly as he possibly could and soon reached the wound, it was a small cut, but big enough for Armin's sword. The dragon shook as hard as it could but it couldn't really do anything to Armin. Armin raised his sword high in the air and then struck it down. It went straight into the dragon's flesh. He sunk it as low as he could. The dragon let out a sonorous, low-pitched scream. It was hurting it, but no organs were hit. He realised he had to go back to his original plan. He ran back to the head and pulled at the horn. The dragon could shake him much more violently from here. He pulled and pulled as hard as he could, but it wouldn't seem to come out. The dragon turned and thrashed about. All of a sudden Armin saw Brashik, who was lying on the floor. He got a sudden adrenaline rush and ripped out the horn. Oddly, the dragon didn't seem to be hurt, proving his theory that the rocky spikes weren't biologically attached. He kept hold of the crystal and waited for a rock shard to be fired at him. He then leaped down to the dragon's mouth and threw the crystal in, blocking the shards from coming through. The shards were deflected and bounced around the Dragon's inside, ripping them to shreds. However landing in the dragon's mouth was risky and as Armin threw the horn, he was peppered with razor-sharp rock shards. He was bleeding all over. The rocks inside the dragon kept ripping through tissue like it was grass, and inevitably a vital organ was hit. The dragon slumped and came crashing down to the floor. Armin leaped out of the dragon before its mouth could start crushing him. Armin, laden with wounds, lay on the floor and watched as the rocks of the dragon fell off and buried themselves in the ground. Before it was completely consumed, Armin used his sword in the gaps where the dragon's horns once were and filled a flask with the dragon's blood. He drank some and then stumbled over to Brashik, to give him some. Armin lay there for a while. The dragon blood slowly infiltrated the bloodstream and Armin felt his wounds closing up. Dragon's blood has extremely high intensities of protein, giving it almost magical healing properties. After a while, Brashik woke up. Brashik stood up as if nothing had ever happened and gestured for Armin to get on his back. 

They flew for around half an hour before hearing a roar. It sounded like a dragon so they decided to investigate. An orange dragon that looked like a smaller, more toned-down version of Muka-Unta. It had smaller, grey spikes, thinner skin. It was still formidable, however. Brashik weaved around the dragon's wings and tail as they thrashed towards him. The dragon turned and released a concentrated spire of inferno at Brashik. As he dodged Armin leapt off his back and onto the dragon. The dragon was much more agile than he was expecting and it was very hard to stay on. He grabbed at the spikes as he was shaken around. The dragon slapped its tail at Armin, forcing him to continuously dodge from one side of the dragon to the other. It then turned its head and shot a blazing beam of fire at him. The tail swipe and fire came at the same time, over and over again, and there was rarely much space for Armin to react. He leaped and rolled around, grabbing onto the spikes. Slowly, he made his way to the dragon's neck. He held his sword in one hand and he used the other to hold on. Brashik flew around the dragon's tail to keep it off Armin. The dragon went to bite Armin, but it couldn't turn its neck far and fast enough, so Armin's sword went straight through the dragon's neck. Brashik flew over and he hopped on. The dragon dropped to the ground rapidly, and Brashik dived down to meet it. Armin refilled his flask with the blood.  

After a while they arrived back at Dohl Gago. Armin leashed up Brashik and together they went through the streets of the city. The streets were completely empty, because everybody was at the evening services. He heard preaching, but clearly the praying had not yet started. As he slowly strolled around, he noticed the lamps automatically turning on and off around him. He had no idea how it worked, but thought it unimportant. He eventually arrived at the hotel and entered.

"Any success?" asked the Hotel Owner

"Yes, lots," said Armin, holding up the flask, "Shouldn't you be praying now?"

"I like to do that later, once I know all my guests are safe and here."

Armin went into his room. Brashik wandered into the stable and Armin went to sleep.