The Deadly Pursuit

It was the king of the skies.

No one could hold a candle to it, whether it was the birds that had been in the sky for millennia, the harpies that lived in the high mountains, or the demons and their ancestral magic that lived in seclusion in their regions.

By its extraordinary physical strength, it reduced rock to pieces.

With its burning breath, it transformed an entire village into a pile of ashes.

With its roar, it made anyone who crossed its path tremble with fear.

In short, it was the ruler of these inferior beings. Nothing was more important to it than itself.

That was the way the dragons usually think. These beings were born to rule all life, at least that's what they thought. They claimed to have the power of life or death over those they ruled. Not all dragons were like that, of course. But the pride of a dragon was inevitable.

He, who had now lived more than a hundred years, believed himself to be the most powerful creature in the world.

However, it knew that among its brothers and sisters, it was only at the bottom of the ladder, especially when it had to compare itself to the Great Ancestral Dragons. It was no match for them. But, apart from them, who could stand up to it? No one.

It was all the more unacceptable for it to have been humiliated by this Elf female who had cowardly attacked it while it slept. It considered this species to be inferior, but even insects had the means to be irritable. It understood this. That's why it was its ''duty'' to punish this wretch and make her understand that she should never have attacked it.

However, one thing preoccupied it.

As it had been flying over the forest for a few hours now, a noise had caught its attention. Looking a little closer, a strange beast ridden by a Human male was moving through the valley at an unsuspected speed.

"How is this possible?" it had asked itself as it saw this animal moving so fast that it would be difficult, even for it, to catch up with it.

It had never seen such an animal before. It shone in the sun like a jewel and the Human male who accompanied it was dressed as a knight.

Then it asked itself: "Why did this Human male venture out here, alone on top of that?"

For a moment, the dragon hesitated. Perhaps it was a trap. But after it thought about it, the answer it got was no.

The dragon relished the situation. A new prey had appeared in front of it and was just waiting to be picked. And since it had nothing else to do at the time, it decided that an appetizer wouldn't hurt it. With this in mind, it set out on a hunt.

However, despite the dragon's few attempts, the prey would not be caught. Indeed, the animal was swift. It avoided its attacks with such ease that the dragon felt humiliated.

Unfortunately, the animal quickly fled after that and took refuge in the forest.

Let's not worry about that ! The dragon was in no hurry. It knew that sooner or later the animal would come out to drink, as did the other lower species that came to drink the water from the river below.

Moreover, the Elf female had not yet come out of her hideout either. The dragon could sense her presence through its keen sense of smell, but it also knew that the female was as lively as an eel. Several times it had tried to catch her, but the forest was the Elf female's domain, not its. Therefore, it had decided to bide its time.

Everything had to come to an end sooner or later.

And then, the next day, the Elf female had reappeared before it, her confident gaze ready for a last stand of honor before her inevitable fall.

It was time to settle the score with her once and for all.

It spat out its flames from the inside of its gullet and the fire spread over the ground as well as the trees, reducing the area to ashes in no time at all. Yet the Elf female was still not dead. Worse, she continued to shoot at it without stopping.

As it was about to land to face her, a humming sound was heard deep in the forest.

The dragon recognized this sound. It was the sound of a strange animal being ridden by a Human male he had met the day before. Luck was finally smiling on it.

Suddenly, the Human male had stopped at the level of the Elf female and they were exchanging words —the language they were saying— so that finally she decided to accompany them.

Soon after, the strange animal came out of the forest and rushed down into the valley with the Elf female on its back.

"Have they allied themselves?" it wondered.

The dragon knew this tactic. It had faced Humans several times and sometimes they allied themselves with others to be stronger. That was the only way the weak could face the strong. But it was strange for an Elf female and a Human male to ally. From memory, the dragon knew that both of them didn't get along, and even sometimes the latter chased the former. What deal did they make to overcome their hatred of each other?

"It doesn't matter, they will die anyway," it thought as it chased them.

***

As soon as they left the forest, the trio passed in front of the great dragon who was about to crush them with its imposing mass. It was at this moment that John could distinguish the scaled skin from the monster that glistened in the sun.

To be honest, the dragon was simply huge, and he could hardly imagine such a creature living in his world.

"Me too," Nyfeirg replied compassionately.

The Elven widened her eyes at the same time.

"What did you say... nai... fagu?" she asked puzzled.

"I was answering John," Nyfeirg replied. "Besides, stop using Vous with me, I hate it," she added in a serious tone.

Myra was slightly startled but did not answer. What did Naifagu mean by 'I was answering him'? He had not said anything yet.

For his part, John, who was driving, was contemplating the beast he had just passed.

"John..."

John came to his senses immediately and accelerated. The motorcycle picked up speed quickly as it sped straight down the valley.

They first crossed the river and then continued where their instincts told them to go.

The dragon, who was a little angry, started to hunt. It wanted very much to get rid of those insects that dared to challenge it. It quickly flapped its wings and gained height so that it could observe them more easily.

As it rose into the air, one thing forced it to change its mind: this metallic insect was very fast. Perhaps it was not as fast as himself, but it could easily compete with it.

Its pride took another blow. The dragon roared with anger and rushed at them.

John just drove along, listening to Myra's warnings as she watched the dragon approach from behind. She took an arrow from her quiver and drew her bow while aiming at the monster. The problem was that this Naifagu was shaking all over and, because of the excessive speed, it was very difficult for the Elven to aim. Nevertheless, she managed to aim at the dragon and fired her arrow.

The dragon saw the arrow coming and dodged it by a hair's breadth with a twist and then returned to its original position. It prepared to spit out its flames and opened its mouth wide.

"Watch out!" cried Myra, widening her eyes. " it's going to attack!"

John was slow to react because of the translation, but he managed to avoid the worst. The flames poured on the ground, only a few centimeters away from them. Myra swallowed as she saw death at close range. She could not help but curse the Human before her.

"Are you trying to kill us?" she shouted angrily.

However, it was Nyfeirg who answered.

"Don't blame my partner," she said in an icy tone.

The Elven tempered her emotions. She didn't want to incur Nyfeirg's wrath and she couldn't really blame John either since he didn't speak her language. However, she couldn't help but venting her hatred that swirled in her heart either.

John was trying his best to keep them from dying, but he had no idea which way to go either.

"Go that way," Myra said firmly, pointing to a part of the valley.

John nodded and then headed where the Elven had told him to go. Meanwhile, the dragon was back at it again.

Seeing that these insects did not let themselves die meekly, it repeated its attack.

It spat out its flames again, but once again the insects narrowly avoided them. The Elf female continued to stare at him in panic. The dragon was enjoying her dismay and decided to move closer to them.

The motorcycle was speeding and its engine was howling through the valley. John could do nothing but drive with the threat of the dragon in mind.

"It's getting closer!" warned Myra while preparing another arrow.

She aimed at the monster and fired when the monster was close enough. The arrow went straight down the side of the animal and hit its scale carapace. Unfortunately, the arrow could not penetrate the animal's thick armor and bounced sadly before falling back to the ground. The Elven clicked her tongue with annoyance as a slight smile appeared on the dragon's face.

It approached and opened its mouth wide. Its objective was clear: to brutally cut the bike's passengers to pieces.

Suddenly, John pulled brakes, which caused the machine to lean forward abruptly. The unexpected Elven hit John violently but managed to hold herself back by using her back as a support.

John felt Myra's breath into his neck and shuddered slightly. For her part, Myra shouted a lot of insults in her language until the motorcycle regained its balance.

However, this reckless action prevented the trio from meeting a fatal fate as the dragon, who could not perform the same movement, passed them with an expression of amazement. Indeed, it did not expect its prey to slow down all at once. It took again height and turned back, but the insect it was chasing took the opportunity to accelerate and distance himself in a short time.

After recovering from her emotions, Myra glanced behind her and saw the distant image of the dragon gradually getting closer. She had to confess that even though the action of this Human had been dangerous, it had the merit of avoiding them to die at the same time. However, she did not forget his evil and dark nature. The Human might have been acting in good faith, but that did not mean that he was devoid of bad intentions. In the end, their current relationship was simply short-lived connivance that would disappear once Myra's goals were achieved.

"All the same, I have to admit that this Nai... Naifagu is faster than I imagined," Myra thought during this time. "We've already come so far when it would have taken several hours on horseback... It's almost scary."

The valley stretched for several hundred kilometers across the region. It was such a wide place that it would have taken several weeks of intensive walking to cross it. The river that undulated through it had its source on a steep and immensely high mountain that could be seen for miles around. It was the highest mountain in the region. Its peak sank into the clouds and was covered with snow all year round.

At the moment, the trio was heading towards it, but it was so far away that even flying as fast as a dragon, it would have taken several days to reach it.

As the motorcycle drove along without slowing down, John could watch the animals move away from the river and take refuge in the heights or in the groves that were present. However, what attracted his attention most was not these but the strange creatures that had positioned themselves on the steep cliffs.

The creatures resembled lions but had mouths that were out of proportion to their bodies, and their tails were terminated by a green flame that flickered with every movement. Like herbivores, they seemed to move in packs.

Seeing the danger they represented, John wished he would never meet them and looked ahead.

"How far does this monster intend to pursue us?" John asked puzzled.

"The farther he goes, the better," replied the thoughtful Elven.

"And then what? Is that all?"

"That's... That's good enough already! Just follow my indic—.... Look out, here it comes again!"

The dragon interrupted their conversation with a ferocious roar. Its wings were beating the air with ardor, but the dragon was getting tired... Myra already knew that it was weakened by their previous pursuit.

The dragon blew out its flames again, but again, to no avail. Fortunately, John was getting used to it and managed to dodge it in time.

The chase went on for quite a while. However, as they approached the first part of the valley, Myra told John to turn off and head for a range of sharp peaks. These peaks encircled part of the valley and stretched out into the distance towards the towering mountain. The only problem was that to reach it, one had to cross a large precipice that ran along with the mountain range. There were several accesses, but they were very far apart from each other.

"Go there," Myra said, pointing to a bridge in the distance. "If we can cross it, we'll be saved."

The Elven looked behind her but was panicked at the same time. Indeed, the dragon that was chasing them had disappeared. She looked frantically left and right, but she couldn't find it.

"Where?

She had a bad feeling. Here, the voice of the forest was weaker, almost inaudible. Normally she would have to be in the woods, but again, each forest had its own voice, its own identity. The forest, where her native village was located, was dignified because it was a forest covering a large area of land. If Myra were to give it humanoid form, she would certainly give it the form of a woman in her forties. On the other hand, the nearby forests were closer to adolescence, or even childhood, than the other way around.

In a treeless place such as the one they were in now, it was difficult to perceive these voices. Nonetheless, she was able to feel the rustle of the forest they were heading towards, but these were far too faint to be heard distinctly. It was like walking with two people on the edge of a stream and having a conversation: the closer you got to it, the less clear the words were.

Myra didn't know this at the time, but the forest was warning her to turn back because she was in imminent danger.

As they were approaching the bridge, John noticed that it was mostly made of wood. It looked a lot like the bridges you see in the movies, with two large ropes attached to the trunks of the trees on either side of the cliff. Large wooden planks were arranged perpendicular to the ropes and evenly distributed between them. The bridge looked worn and John wondered if they would be able to cross it safely.

"Where is the dragon?" he cried without looking behind him.

"I can't see it anymore," Myra exclaimed in panic.

"Too bad, we'll see it later!"

Myra could hear her heart beating heavily in her chest. Something was wrong, she was sure. The dragon couldn't have just disappeared like that, but where was it?

"Can we really cross that bridge?" John asked worriedly.

"It should be all right..." the Elven whispered hesitantly.

John wasn't reassured, but he didn't really have a choice.

He slowed down out of fear that the vibrations would destroy the bridge and walked over it.

All was quiet around them, the only noises they heard were the Nyfeirg engine and the cracking of the planks. Despite the weight of the three adventurers, the bridge held firm.

"Everything is going to be all right," Myra whispered apprehensively. "We're only halfway there..."

The distance to the other side was gradually shrinking, it was only a matter of time. Yet, at that moment, a roar echoed from the depths of the precipice.

"Hum—..."

No sooner had Myra had time to scream than the bridge were rising like a wave before yielding under the force of the impact. The impact was so violent that the bridge tore and broke into a thousand pieces. In the rush, the passengers were ejected on the other side of the cliff.

At that moment, time was as if suspended. Myra watched the dragon passing in front of her eyes as she was seeing herself being carried away like a dead leaf in the air, totally helpless. At that moment, she caught John's eye, but he disappeared from her sight in a blink of an eye.

The Elven and the motorcycle then landed on the other side of the precipice and crashed to the ground suddenly before rolling over several times and finally being stopped by the trees a little further on. As Myra's consciousness was fading away, she saw a Human fighting with his bare hands with a rabid dragon, and the two of them were rising into the air like two demons ready to kill each other.

"Un...believable..." she whispered before she fainted.

John, on the other hand, was struggling with all his strength not to fall and had instinctively grabbed the only thing that passed before his eyes.

One of the ropes on the bridge was wrapped around the dragon's neck like a leash. The dragon, panicked by the presence of this human, struggled with all its might and quickly gained height. However, John did not give in and held on as best he could. His fingers and feet slid along the skin of the great reptile and only the strength of his arms prevented its deadly fall.

When the dragon noticed that an unwanted passenger had invited himself onto its back, it began to twirl violently to make him fall, but the insect was tenacious. Moreover, the dragon could feel tiredness taking over him. He had to get rid of this insect absolutely and as quickly as possible.

Suddenly, the dragon managed to contort itself sufficiently and John was swept up in the air.

His world was turned upside down and John felt his body was rising into the sky like a balloon. During this moment, which lasted only a few seconds, he thought about what he had experienced. He had just gone through a similar experience, was he going to die again?

"No! No way I end up like this !"

He was now determined to do everything he could to survive. At the same time, the dragon was coming straight at him, its mouth wide open and determined to finish him off.

The dragon and the Human came closer and closer, and in a few moments, their fate would be decided. However, against all odds, the Human managed to grasp the arrow firmly planted in the dragon's orbital cavity. When his fingers grasped it, the dragon could not help but roar with pain as the arrow moved through its bruised flesh.

It reopened its mouth that was about to close on the Human and moved in the air in pain.

John grabbed the monster's neck again and did not let go.

The dragon was struggling again, but the rope tightly wrapped around his neck was tightening again.

The dragon's eyes rolled upwards violently. It stopped flapping its wings and flew straight up the mountain. John, seeing death coming, struck the dragon to wake it up. The dragon suddenly regained consciousness and flapped his wings again as he was seeing the mountain approaching rapidly. The two opponents escaped death and overran the mountain range. However, the dragon tried to kill John again by crushing him with its jaw.

John reacted immediately and pulled on the rope with all his might, which again strangled the dragon, which momentarily lost control of its body. However, this brief moment caused them to fall again and they ran aground violently on the steep mountainside. The dragon flapped its wings like a retard, but the fall caused it to fall on its back, crushing one of the two wings accidentally.

The dragon's imposing body tumbled down the mountain, taking John with it in its fall. Even so, John managed to protect himself by using the animal's body as a shield. They both continued to race down the mountain as the dragon tried to carve John with its gaping mouth. John had great difficulty avoiding the angry animal's fangs until a huge shock ejected him into the distance, while the dragon, which had just been impaled by a particularly sharp spike, gave up its last breath after having had its heart pierced.

With his body spinning like a comet, John spotted a forest below. It was the same situation as last time, it was the end of him. He knew his luck had turned for good.

He protected his face and closed his eyes immediately.

"Shit!"

He heard the sound of branches breaking under his weight and leaves rubbing against his body. Several branches came whipping him, each time failing to cut him in half, then he felt a great shock again when he landed on the ground and his consciousness collapsed at once.