Chronicles of Klept: Chapter XXVII
The square erupted. In screams, in motion, in chaos. Guards scattered like kicked-over chess pieces, some trying to rally, most just trying to survive. The Damaged Buttholes, who had already saved the harvest festival from deranged cultists and, unbeknownst to the general populace, prevented an outbreak of undead from overrunning a nearby hamlet, now found themselves protecting Dawnsheart’s citizens by actively engaging with an angry dragon. In the middle of the town square. All while the stars continued to disappear from the sky, casting an unusual darkness across the valley.
Usually lit by a scattering of half-hearted lanterns and the occasional yawn from a passing guardsman, the square now blazed with considerably more enthusiasm – mostly due to the building that was currently on fire.
Watching the guards attempt to extinguish it, shout to check if anyone was still inside, and very clearly try not to get involved in the dragon fight raging just a few metres away was, if nothing else, a masterclass in divided attention. They looked like men tasked with putting out a bonfire using cups of Sulker’s Fire, which for the record, is both extremely flammable and mildly hallucinogenic in large enough doses, all while pretending not to notice the house-sized lizard throwing tantrums behind them.
I can’t say whether it was due to wonder, awe, or fear – but two guards stood frozen near an upturned apple cart until Trunch roared at them to move.
“Townsfolk – get them out of here!”
Din pointed toward a group of people cowering under an awning. “Go!”
One guard nodded, snapped out of his panic, and began ushering people down a side street. The other squealed, dropped his spear, and sprinted in the opposite direction, wet-trousered and unashamed.
I had no idea where to stand. Or what to write. There’s something uniquely awful about peering through a window as your friends take on a dragon. I just clutched my journal and tried not to die.
The screams outside weren’t theatrical – not the kind you hear in stories, long and poetic and full of meaning – these were the real kind. The messy, panicked, lung-ripping ones. You could practically smell the terror. Or maybe that was just the burning storefront. Hard to tell.
Travok stood beside me, leaning on the desk, his knuckles white around the edge. He said nothing. He didn’t need to. You could feel the weight of his silence – heavy, sharp-edged, filled with the unspoken ache of old scars and a leg long gone. If he still had both, he’d be out there. Swinging a hammer, shouting at the sky, daring the dragon to hit him harder. Instead, he stood beside me. Watching.
Tufulla fidgeted beside the window. “Perhaps,” he began delicately, “since we are… unlikely to tip the scales of battle, we should consider seeking shelter…”
(A crash.)
“…somewhere further away,” Tufulla clarified.
A guard had flown through the window.
He had spun once, hit the floor, and skidded to a stop with a clatter of armour.
Osman hadn’t said much since being told he wasn’t going to the castle. But his sulking was aggressive — like a teenager with a vendetta.
He looked at me now, smug. “You’re still here, Klept. Shouldn’t you be out there helping your friends?”
I blinked slowly. “I would, truly. But this room actually has a better vantage point. Far less dodging. Far more intact limbs. Improved field of vision. And unfortunately – ” I gestured to the scorched hem of my robe, “ – church robes are surprisingly flammable. We lost Reader Berin last year to a regrettable altar-candle incident.”
“Yes, a real pity,” Tufulla sighed, glancing at my journal. “He had excellent handwriting. Legible, even.”
Redmond glanced over Tufulla’s shoulder and grimaced.
“I’m told some could read it without divine intervention,” Tufulla added, as if stating widely accepted scholarly fact.
I snapped my journal shut, tucked it under one arm, and glowered at them.
Hothar watched the smoke rise through the broken window, nodding solemnly. “That’s because they’re a synthetic blend,” he said. “Not natural fibre. It’s what gives them that holy-shine finish.”
I turned to him. “I’m sorry — what?”
He gestured vaguely. “The robes. It’s the sheen. They shimmer. People trust a shimmer.”
“Right,” I said. “Of course. Why wouldn’t we compromise safety for sparkle.”
“It’s also a budgeting issue,” Redmond called out, halfway through testing whether he could fit behind a bookcase. “Natural fibres cost more these days, and the church needs to rein in its spending.”
“Ah,” Tufulla exclaimed, “That explains the itch.”
Brenne opened her mouth, closed it again, and moved to a different corner of the room.
Yun knelt beside the crumpled guard. “He’ll live,” they said quietly, pulling some herbs from a pouch and placing them on a large burn on the soldier’s side. “But if we’re not fighting… we can still help.” They motioned Svaang over, guiding his hands to replace theirs on the wound. Then before anyone could argue, Yun was out the door, already shouting instructions to the guards trying to carry a bloodied comrade through the ash and flame.
“Still,” Tufulla said, extending a hand towards Brenne, “perhaps we’d be safer downstairs. In the cache.”
Redmond nodded without a word and began edging toward the adjoining church while Brenne and Tufulla exited the room.
Hothar lingered in the centre of the room, unmoving. The firelight danced across his face as he looked out through the broken glass — not at the dragon, but beyond it. Past the flames. Past the square. Somewhere quieter.
“I once told a sapling,” he murmured, “that the fire would not reach it. That the forest would shield it. That the old trees would hold the line.”
He paused, the crackle and roar outside filled the silence. His shoulders rose and fell with a slow, heavy breath.
He turned toward the window. “I told them not to go to the castle,” he said. “Told them it wasn’t worth it. That the fight had cost too much already.” Outside, Day drove his blade upward with impossible precision, while Carrie launched from a toppled cart.
Hothar’s voice dropped to a whisper. “But maybe I was wrong about that too.”
He smiled softly.
“They’re not old trees,” he said. “But they’re holding the line.”
Then, with a grunt that seemed to carry the weight of immeasurable regret, he nodded once to no one in particular, and mosied in Tufulla’s direction.
Svaang, lifting the unconscious guard, grunted toward Osman for help. Together, they half-dragged, half-carried him out of the room.
But Travok didn’t move.
He stood at the shattered window, one hand braced on the sill, staring out into the firelit chaos. The dragon’s roar shook the glass, but he stayed still.
“You’re not coming?” I asked, motioning to the door.
He didn’t answer at first.
Then:
“No more hiding.”
He didn’t look at me, just clenched his jaw.
“They broke me in that damn castle,” he said. “Took my leg. Took my nerves. I’ve been hiding in that tavern ever since. But I’m done with that.”
The firelight flickered against his face.
“I can’t fight. Not anymore… But I’ll damn well bear witness.. So I can remember. So I can tell the others what they did.”
I turned to go, but his hand gripped my arm — firm, insistent.
“You need to record this.”
Outside, the dragon roared. The square was on fire. Another star went out. I unsheathed my quill.
Most people in their lifetime will never see a dragon. A handful might glimpse one in the distance, or stumble across a burned-out hillside and wonder. Fewer still will live to tell the tale.
And yet here it was — alive, immediate, and visibly seething.
They had killed its rider.
Worse — they had tried to deceive it. Shape-shifted. Mocked it. Lied with the soft confidence of people too small to understand the size of the insult they’d offered.
Now, the dragon stood, firmly planted in the centre of Dawnsheart’s square like a god prepared to pass sentence. It was enormous. Not ancient, not fully grown, but adolescent in the way a hurricane might be considered ‘a bit of weather.’ Head cocked slightly, it watched as the group approached: weapons drawn, daggers and arrows already in flight. It watched not in curiosity, but in insulted disbelief – like a noble at the opera who’s just realised the orchestra is made up of hyperactive children.
Wings half-spread in a show of dominance, tail coiled and uncoiling with venomous intent, claws gouged deep in the cobblestones, ploughing the stone and rising to its haunches. It could have ended them already. It knew that. So did they.
One breath. One flash of heat, and this square would become a crater.
The buildings, gone.
The guards, ash.
The group, a smear of soot and misplaced bravado.
But quick death would be mercy. And mercy was not on offer. There was one intent: pain.
Intense.
Excruciating.
Deserved.
This wasn’t a hunt. It wasn’t battle. It was punishment.
The group approached, weapons raised, spells at the ready. But they were insects and the dragon was going to pull their wings off, one by one.
Travok whispered, “This is where legends are made,” voice low with mourning — the kind that spoke not of fear, but of a man who wished he were out there.
“Defeat a pack of gnolls, or commit a lovable act of antiestablishmentism, maybe you’re lucky enough to get a pie named after you.”
He let out a slow, wistful whistle.
“But take on a dragon…”
He shook his head with something like awe.
“No matter the outcome — your name ends up in a ballad. Sung for the rest of time.”
“Even if they lose?” I asked.
Travok smiled.
“Particularly if they lose.”
I nodded slowly, eyes flicking to the square outside. Through the smoke, beyond the flames, past the broken carts and overturned market stalls. The people of Dawnsheart were watching.
From alleyways and torched doorways. From behind barrels and wagons and cracks in shuttered windows. Not just guards and soldiers, but bakers, blacksmiths, and children clutched by trembling arms. Those who had fled now turned to watch, distant enough to feel safe, foolish enough to believe distance would matter.
Dawnsheart, and by extension the entire valley wanted to know if this ragged band of lunatics — these misfits and martyrs and mismatched blades — could actually do the impossible. Could stand against a dragon. Could win.
And the dragon knew it too.
Its movements grew slower, more deliberate. Head turning just slightly toward the furthest corners of the square. Not to strike. Not yet. But to be seen.
To demonstrate to everyone, what happened to those who dared.
Carrie, airborne and fluttering near the dragon’s head like a particularly insistent gnat, was a flurry of celestial motion and aggressive music. Her bagpipes screamed a note that could melt glass.
Apparently, it also amused dragons.
Its head whipped around, nostrils flaring, teeth bared in a grin.
“Magic like that won’t work on me, little bug,” the voice a blend of forge bellows and stone scraping against stone.
She dodged a swiping talon, grinned back, and pointed skyward, as a storm of glowing wisps surged down from nowhere, dancing along its scales in a cascade of burning starlight.
“That’s okay,” she chirped. “This kind clearly does. Every day’s a learning opportunity.”
The dragon snapped at her.
She veered hard and crashed through an awning with a string of impressively creative profanity.
She reappeared moments later, dusting herself off with all the indignation of a schoolteacher shoved into a bush, cupping her hands to shout:
“Hey, Buttholes. Aim for the shiny salamander!”
The dragon snarled.
Low. Guttural. Affronted.
As if salamander was a slur of the highest order.
Its tail whipped. A flick of scale and fury. Day was caught off guard and flung like laundry in a storm.
Carrie caught the full follow-through mid-taunt.
She didn’t fly.
She folded.
A puff of glitter. A crunch.
And then she was part of a bakery wall.
Wikis had loosed three arrows before most people had time to blink — each one fast, precise, and utterly useless.
They glanced off the dragon’s scales like pebbles hurled at a cathedral.
One ricocheted off its foreleg and a guard across the square suddenly found it embedded in his thigh.
“Sorry!” Wikis called.
“It’s fine!” the guard shouted through gritted teeth. “Not your fault! You guys are doing great.”
She nocked another arrow, frowning, just as Day, groaning, slid to a halt beside her.
This time, she aimed almost straight up, toward the thinning stars above. The arrow vanished into the dark.
Then it came screaming back down, glowing faintly.
It struck the dragon’s back and exploded, scattering barbed throns across its wings and shoulders in a glittering cascade.
The roar that followed wasn’t surprise, it was offence.
Like it couldn’t believe something had actually impacted.
Wikis exhaled. “That’s better.”
The guard across the square passed out. Yun, fresh from helping pull another to safety, rushed to his side, dragging him several feet back.
Wikis reached down to help Day up.
“This one’s gonna be a bit harder than those fish guys,” he wheezed holding his side. Then he charged – sword raised, runes crackling in the air.
He moved with unnatural speed. A blur of steel and braid, darting between the dragon’s legs and launching into a spinning strike beneath its jaw.
The blade connected.
A flash of motion. A spray of dark crimson. The dragon recoiled with a snarl, fangs bared in frustration.
Then it brought its taloned foot down — fast, deliberate, furious.
The blur of motion stopped.
Day lay crumpled and bloodied beneath its weight.
The dragon snarled. Then twisted.
Its foot ground down as it turned. Not in malice, not in hesitation, but as an afterthought.
Day coughed – a wet, rattling sound, and blood splattered the cobbles.
The dragon’s attention moved, slow and dangerous, toward its tail as Din’s hammer cracked against a scale with a sound like stone on steel. Umberto roared and hacked, teeth bared, rage and fury seething from every pore.
Yak sprinted toward Day, who turned just long enough to give a weak thumbs-up before vanishing in a puff of shadow. He reappeared several feet away, steadying himself on a stack of remarkably intact produce crates, just as Yak thrust a small bottle into his hand and kept running.
Day uncorked it with his teeth and downed the contents in one go.
Yak didn’t wait. He was already on the dragon’s foreleg, plunging a dagger between its scales. Then another.
He climbed — inch by inch — toward its back, scaling a mountain made of hate.
The dragon roared in outrage.
Its body writhed.
Its tail lashed.
Din was flung across the square, plate mail shrieking against the cobbles.
Umberto, through sheer rage and will, held on. For a moment.
Then the dragon twisted to snap at Yak.
Its tail came down hard.
A sickening crack as stone shattered.
Umberto’s grip broke — on the axe, on the tail, on everything.
The weapon clattered across the stone as the impact hurled him through the air.
He landed without grace. An angry tangle of limbs and barely functional loincloth, stopping just shy of the shattered window where Travok and I stood.
Across the square, Din rose from the cobbles, his armor scratched and dented, his beard smouldering and afloat, mouth moving in either prayer or profanity. It was hard to tell beneath the dragon’s roar.
The dragon had Yak.
It had torn him from its back, snagged him by the robe’s hem, and now held him dangling — a furious, flailing morsel.
Din raised his hammer skyward in invocation.
A radiant anvil shimmered into existence above the dragon’s head like a mark of holy punctuation.
With a shout, Din brought the hammer down.
The anvil followed.
It collided with the dragon’s snout just as it flicked Yak toward its waiting jaws, its planned snack rudely interrupted by a celestial anvil to the face.
The crack echoed. The dragon reeled and staggered.
Yak hit the ground in a perfectly timed, perfectly executed tumble that ended in a crouch, blades already drawn. Graceful. Intentional. Infuriatingly stylish.
It was as if Trunch had calculated for this exact moment to happen.
As the dragon stumbled, a volley of dark, writhing energy exploded from Trunch’s fingertips and slammed into its flank. The blasts struck like battering rams, driving the creature sideways, off-balance atop the shattered remains of the town square’s fountain.
Another crash from Din’s summoned anvil.
Another eldritch pulse from Trunch.
Then Din brought his hammer down on the dragon’s forefoot with a divine roar. Bone cracked. A talon shattered.
The dragon screamed.
A howl of fury, pain, and disbelief — neck snapping upward toward the sky.
Two arrows struck true, embedding in the softer scales beneath its jaw.
I turned to see Wikis on a nearby rooftop, already drawing another. Her face was calm. Focused. Dangerous.
Day carefully placed the empty potion bottle on the crates, then turned.
For once, he didn’t look polished. Or calm. Or even vaguely smug.
He looked annoyed. He looked hurt.
His braid was coming undone. His robe was scorched. His eyes burned.
Muttering something under his breath he reached inside his robes and withdrew something small and sharp-edged. Whatever it was, it sparked.
A moment later, so did the dragon.
Lightning tore from Day’s hands and lashed across the beast’s flank. It arched in pain, muscles convulsing, claws raking the ground as its body twisted in agony.
Yak, daggers in hand and clearly determined to start his dragon climb anew, suddenly paused mid-step.
He looked at the dagger in his hand.
Then at the seizing, crackling, electricity-wreathed mass in front of him.
Then at the dagger again.
With a muttered curse and a look of personal disappointment, he shrugged and hurled both blades instead.
The first bounced harmlessly off the thigh.
The second found its mark, lodging deep between softer scales near the hip.
The dragon snarled.
Yak sprang back, tossing in a couple of backward somersaults — because Yak — and landed gracefully beside Day, arms folded.
“Teamwork makes the dream work,” he said, casual as ever.
Day didn’t respond. He was sweating with concentration, lightning still arcing between his hands and the dragon in a furious, crackling tether.
Yak raised an eyebrow. “Shocking.”
He patted Day on the head. “Keep it up, big guy.”
Then, with a chuckle, he dashed back into the fray.
Carrie fluttered over to Umberto. When he didn’t react to her gentle nudging she slapped him across the face and yelled.
“Get up you angry bastard. You’re not going to let an over grown lizard get the better of you are you?”
He blinked and began to stir. Looking around she glanced through the window.
“Klept? What are doing in there? Let’s not go back to being the useless tag-along. Get out her and help.”
There was a clang and a shout as Yak ducked under Day’s lightning stream and Din’s hammer clashed against the Dragon’s hide.
“As I explained to Osman just moments ago, unfortunately, church robes aren’t made from fire-retardant materials. I’m afraid I’d be more of a liability out there.”
Umberto rose to his feet and turned toward the window.
“I knew there was something off about that guy,” he snapped.
“Sorry — what?” I blinked.
“Osman,” he said, like it should be obvious. “Now it makes sense. You said he was –”
There was a thunderous roar from the dragon as it received a spiritual anvil to the chest. The walls shook violently. The last of the glass shattered from the window and rained down around us.
Next to him, Carrie clutched her ribs, turned red with laughter, and leaned in to whisper something in his ear. Umberto rolled his eyes and gave a resigned shrug.
“No. I said I wasn’t –”
Another roar. The sound of rubble smashing into Trunch’s direction cut me off.
“Is it mental or physical?” Umberto shouted over the din.
“Pardon?”
“Osman’s…” he glanced at Carrie, who was nearly doubled over, “… impairment?”
Travok yanked my collar and pulled me down as a heavy chunk of debris slammed into the wall.
I popped back up, dazed. “His what?”
“I mean,” Umberto called out, “it’s probably physical — but honestly, could be mental too.”
Carrie lost it. Howling, snorting, useless.
She and Umberto dashed off toward the fray.
I turned to Travok, frowning.
“He thinks you said Osman is…” Travok raised a brow delicately, “…special.”
Realisation hit me. “Oh gods. No, I didn’t … I said my robes weren’t …”
But Umberto was already charging headlong into battle, scooping up his axe along the way.
Travok just grinned.
“They’re starting to get it,” he said. “Starting to fight like a team.”
Still reeling from the miscommunication, I watched. He was right. They were working together now. Using each other. Waiting. Trusting. Different strengths. One target.
And the dragon, was beginning to feel it.
Carrie returned to fluttering around its head.
“Seriously?” she yelled. “This is all you’ve got? I’ve seen chickens with more fight in them!”
She blew it a kiss.
It winced.
She winked. “Oh, did that hurt?”
It fumed.
Umberto’s axe slammed into its haunch.
“We killed Dominic twice, you know,” he snarled, ripping the blade free.
It seethed.
Lightning still arced across the square from where Day held firm — face strained, arms trembling, robe scorched.
A bolt from Trunch slammed into its ribs.
“He died face-down in an alley,” Trunch growled. There was more venom than I’d ever heard from him.
It boiled.
Arrows peppered its flank from Wikis’ rooftop perch.
Din’s anvil struck from above, forcing the dragon’s head downward — straight into Din’s waiting hammer.
“So I brought him back with a spell,” he grunted.
It reeled.
Yak slid beneath its belly, carving a vicious line with his shortsword as he passed.
It writhed.
“And I took off his head,” Umberto huffed — then buried the axe so deep he couldn’t yank it free.
It howled in pain, fury, and utter disbelief.
“ENOUGH!” The dragon roared, its wings snapping open.
The gust hit like a storm front. Dust, ash, and debris exploded outward in a choking wave. The ground shook. The few remaining market stalls shattered. Stone crunched beneath the force.
Day’s lightning connection severed mid-stream as he stumbled backward, coughing, arms shielding his eyes. The magical hum that had tethered him to the beast vanished like a snuffed candle.
The others were thrown like ragdolls across the square, scattered by the shockwave. Din slammed into a cart. Carrie tumbled skyward, thudding into the cathedral spire. Trunch disappeared in the smoke. Yak landed in a slide, already reaching for a blade. Umberto grunted as he hit stone and bounced.
Then seconds of silence.
The wrong kind of silence.
The air grew heavy. The dust began to glow with a sinister, embered shimmer. Shadows danced strangely in the thick haze. The temperature rose. Instantly and horrifically. From somewhere within the swirling ash, light bloomed, blinding and white-hot.
And then … Dragonfire. Dust, ash and smoke gave way to vengeful, searing flame.
A torrent of incandescent fire screamed across the square, incinerating wood, melting iron, turning stone to glass. Shutters ignited. Flags disintegrated.
The scream of fire drowned out everything.
The Chronicles of Klept 