Dragon Hunter

Chapter 13: Noriquien

Thankfully his kidnappers had grabbed everything when they took him, allowing Cooper to retrieve a pair of denim jeans, socks, and his boots. Because, as soon as the wyvern was dropped, the other six dragons attacking the city immediately began looking for him. Breaking off their attack, they quickly began a search grid starting at the cavern's far edge.

Tugging on his remaining boot, Cooper stood and accepted his rifle back from the gray colored elf holding it. And saw that ironically he was the same one he had head butted earlier.

As he took the weapon, he nodded in thanks.

"No ill feelings?" he said.

"None," the elf replied through his mask with a nod of his own. "It was well-timed. I would've done the same."

Cooper nodded once more in acknowledgement. Then he was stepping back to the ledge's lip.

As expected, the remaining dragons were furiously working their search grid. Which was good, because that meant they were leaving the city alone.

Bringing the crystal fifty back up, he was about to sight through the scope when a presence appeared against his left side. Right handed, it wouldn't interfere with him firing the first shot, but it would as he moved to track secondary targets.

So Cooper looked to see who it was. And frowned when he discovered it was none other than the high priestess herself.

"High Priestess?"

"The magic you wield is ancient and powerful, dragon hunter," Vannea began, speaking a little breathily as though she were very excited. "I can feel it emanate from your body."

"Okay. But why are you standing so close?"

"To feel as much of that power being exercised as possible with clothing on," was her prompt and unreserved reply.

"Uh, okay. But be careful; I need to move side to side to track dragons that are moving quickly. I don't want to hit you."

"Understood," she said, leaning in just enough to brush against him with her body. "Good hunting, my lord!"

Holy shit. Cooper grit his teeth as he forced himself to be calm and his heart to slow down, a challenge with Vannea's flawless form brushing against him. He could only hope it wasn't a deliberate effort to distract him. Then the crystal fifty was up and he was sighting through the scope.

It took a couple seconds to find it: the furthest dragon from the ledge. If he wanted to generate some misdirection here, he'd have to do it by convincing the highly intelligent beasts that he was somewhere else. And the best way to do that, was to shoot the furthest dragon in the hopes that they'd think he was over there, shooting at the nearest dragon.

The crystal fifty hummed and he watched through the scope as the crystal round traveled the couple of kilometers to its target.

"The Vaen city had a magical shield, yet Eska does not," he had just enough time to observe before the dragon went limp in mid wing stroke and dropped out of the air.

"Is there a reason for this?"

"The Vaen are one of the high elf races," Vannea pressed against him so she could quietly explain directly in his ear. "All throughout the Garden the high elves excelled in magic use, utilizing it to power technology, heat and light their cities, and move freely about the Garden with their portals."

A squeeze of the trigger and he began waiting for another dragon to drop. Maybe he should pull them closer. Then he could get them all at once. Then he pushed the impulse aside; a single blast across the ledge would kill them all. It was a risk too great to take.