Magma Dragon's Heir

75th of Season of Fire, 59th year of the 32nd cycle

Much like Newt's teacher had expected, the plains below were overrun, saurian gathering and heading north, avoiding the mountain. Unlike the humans, the beasts seemed to have forgotten the passage of dragons.

"What now?" Newt asked Stronggrow as they observed the hordes of saurians moving north, only the most aggressive fourth and fifth realm ones attacking the castle.

"Now we wait. You did what you could and made sure they didn't attack in the early days when crossing the mountain seemed preferable to heading towards the dragons. Things are back to normal, and that we can handle."

Under normal circumstances, they should have been able to weather the siege alone, fighting an occasional fourth realm beast at most, but with the reinforcements, all was under control.

"And what about the dragons?" Newt asked.

"We can't influence the dragons any more than we can influence the weather. What do we do if an exalted beast comes out of the jungle?"

Newt didn't like the question. Nor did he like the fact that at some point an exalted beast really would leave the jungle, once the humans delved too deeply into its depths.

From what he had read, humans had pushed the border well over two hundred miles into the saurian territory before the current onslaught, and the resulting carnage was bound to be horrible.

"I'll go and see how my brothers and sisters are doing." Newt finally understood why the order insisted on its people calling their peers brothers and sisters. After sharing life and death on the battlefield, there was no other way to call them.

Newt had barely taken two steps when a roar chilled his spine and froze his legs.

"All right, you useless maggots! Glorious Brightscale is in charge of you lot!" A winged serpent half a mile long descended from the clouds above the valley. The huge monster had approached with no one being the wiser.

Newt heard Stronggrow gasp for air, but couldn't spare the attention to look at his teacher. His eyes were locked on a familiar shape. The flying snake's body was thick enough to swallow a house easily, and it sported two clawed forelegs with four fingers each, similar to thumbless hands ending in talons.

While much larger and of different coloration, Brightscale shared winged Magmin's general body shape and proportions, even if it dwarfed him.

"And why is there a human dwelling still standing over there?" Brightscale pointed at the Salamandra clanhold with its taloned finger.

Stronggrow stiffened further, but Newt drowned in ice from the terror that question caused. Lord Flameax had returned, and he was at the castle. He could definitely handle the presumably peak fifth realm dragon, since Newt could see it radiating scalding mana, but what of the hordes of other creatures? There were more than enough gathered at the valley to drown them in numbers even if Newt ignored their realms, which he couldn't.

A light hiss came from not a full step behind Newt. "You shall obey your orders, Brightscale, and pretend you haven't seen anything here."

"As you command, My Lord," Brightscale roared, but without the rage and haughtiness Newt had sensed the first time.

The dragon's words didn't help ease Newt's mind one bit — quite the opposite, they pushed him into full-blown panic. Newt slowly turned around and came face to face with Magmin. A common magmin serpent, void of mana, coiled at the tower's window, vivisecting Newt with its gaze.

"My grandfather's aura lingers heavily on you," the serpent hissed, shaking Newt's heart and soul with distilled terror.

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Meanwhile, Stronggrow somehow failed to notice the horror standing not five steps away.

"You need not fear me, little critter," Magmin's grandson continued. "I sense no curse nor resentment coming off you. Whatever my grandfather gave you was given freely and willingly. Were you the one who drew the cosmic fire? I smelled a guardian, one who shielded you and obscured the trail by zigzagging towards the heart of your lands until the trail grew faint enough. It had taken a day and a night before I realized I was being played."

How long has he been watching me?

"I've been observing you for twelve days now, considering what to do about you. A part of me wishes to snatch you and present you to my mother; another wishes to vaporize a lowly invader for crawling along the path I fly. Choices, choices," the snake hissed, flicking its tongue.

"What would you do in my place? An invasive species appears in your land, causes trouble, and damages your home every now and then, slaying your livestock and servants alike. Hmm? What to do? What to do?"

The snake smiled a familiar hungry smile, no amusement in its cold, reptilian eyes as they nailed Newt in place.

"At least introduce yourself, Invasive One My Grandfather's Will Tolerates."

"I'm Newstar," Newt stuttered. "Magmin calls me Newt."

The snake's vertical pupils narrowed to hair-wide lines, its body coiling further. Bits of ground stone trickled from the window, turned to powder by the serpent's furious reaction.

"You will be wise not to speak my grandfather's name with such a casual hiss before others." The snake paused before accenting his hiss. "They may lack my self-control."

In the background, saurians roared, and the ground shook as countless tons upon tons of flesh moved to invade the empire, ignoring the insignificant castle atop an insignificant mountain that was once their species' object of fear and veneration.

"Now, little Newstar. What am I to do with you? Your soul certainly lacks the ability to resist even a scale of will my grandfather must have invested into his legacy. That means you have somehow earned his approval. Killing you seems excessive and disrespectful of my seniors, but I am not sure how my mother would react to seeing one of your wretched kind with her Sire's brilliant fire burning inside. Yes, bringing you back seems like a bad idea. Killing you seems distasteful and unfilial, and I can't just let you go."

Magmin's grandson doodled with the tip of his tail, drawing a snake in the hewn rock as if it were sand.

"I am under orders to find you and report to my mother, but merely following her orders while ignoring the intent behind them is a good way to get eaten. Yet all my options are wrong." The snake poked at the wall a couple of times, like making a point of tapping a finger, but leaving holes behind.

"Do you have any suggestions?"

Newt shook his head, his mind so infested with panic he couldn't form coherent words. The snake could kill him and level the castle, along with everyone inside, faster than Newt could blink.

"Of course you don't. I expected more from my grandfather's choice, but you can't help your base species without more evolutions. Even then…" The snake sighed. "Now, here is what I propose. I will play along with my older brother's search, return home, and then discreetly discuss things with my mother, if she's willing to listen to me. That's what I'm going to do."

The snake stopped destroying masonry and pointed the tip of its tail at Newt, who felt the poke, despite there being a good foot between him and the snake.

"You seem to like this place, have family and whatnot around. That's all well and good, and I appreciate someone taking care of their family, believe me, mine is a bother, but we still look out for each other until someone needs eating…

"I digress. Anyway, you are going to be here in one hundred years, the next time this little punitive expedition takes place. My mother will have decided by then what she wants to do and how we should handle you."

Magmin's grandson stopped talking and looked at Newt, who remained silent.

"Do you understand me? Will you be here the next time I visit?" The question poked at Newt without the tail even moving.

"Yes," he struggled to answer.

"Good. In that case, we are in agreement. And just so you know, I have smelled everyone and everything around this place." The frivolous hisses suddenly turned searing and sharp like daggers burning their meaning into Newt's soul. "Should you fail to make the appointment, I will make it a personal point of honor to eradicate every single sentient creature I have sensed here today, including their every last living offspring until you present yourself before my mother."

There was no threat in those words. It was a statement of fact, brutal and unrelenting, and Newt knew the dragon in snake's skin would do it without a hint of remorse.

"I'll be here."

"Good. Great. Sunny. In that case, our business here is concluded. Make sure not to die until the next time we meet, since that would prove truly tragic for everyone you have struggled to protect these past few days. A wasted effort, intent, and all that. Now, I got to go. I have to tell my brother my master plan to track you down has failed, like so many others. See you soon."

The snake winked and disappeared.