Walking out of the tailor shop, Gideon adjusted his new robes on his shoulders and gave them an appreciative shake, stretching to the sky to feel them out. Black and bulky at the shoulders, they gave him the appearance of a larger man and hung shapelessly off his slender frame. Gold cord touched the sleeves and dangled from the neck, crisscrossing his chest to the throat. The robes hung open at the front, held closed by the crisscrossed cord but flying wide at the hips so they billowed impressively as he walked. A thick yellow band at the cuffs and the lower hem proclaimed him as a lightning mage.

“What do you think?” Gideon asked.

“Gaudy,” Jet said.

“Oh, come on. They look much better than those old rags.”

Jet’s expression turned dark at the mention of Gideon’s old clothes. He stomped off down the road, ignoring the shorter man. “We’ve wasted enough time. We need to move on.”

“Fine, fine. Where are we going?” Gideon asked, following after him.

“To the True Dragon.”

“Eventually, sure, but that’s a long ways away. I mean next. The next town we’re visiting.”

“You’ll find out,” Jet grumbled.

Gideon grumbled, but Jet ignored him. He led the way to the stables behind the tavern, casting an apologetic glance at the hole in the tavern’s wall. Two horses waited in the stables, one of which he’d purchased in town. He pointed. “That one’s yours.”

Gideon looked the horse over, then nodded. “It’s a good horse.”

“Well? Get it ready to go,” Jet said, heaving a saddle off the saddle-post and onto his horse.

Gideon glanced at him, then grabbed a saddle for himself. He almost fell under the weight, but managed to force it up to chest heigh and slop it onto the horse’s back. Relieved, he let out a long sigh.

“You put the saddle on backwards,” Jet pointed out.

“Oh,” Gideon said. He grabbed the saddle and yanked it off the horse, staggering backward as he took the weight again. For a few moments, he stood there, panting, then started to heave it up onto the horse again.

Jet stopped him. He took the saddle from Gideon and settled it on the horse. “Have you never saddled a horse before?”

Gideon shrugged. “I’ve never ridden a horse before.”

“You… what?” Jet asked, flabbergasted.

“I’ve never done it and I don’t know how. Is it that surprising? I’m not some army captain. I’m a destitute mage, struggling to get by. I can’t afford horses.”

Jet blinked. His eyes dropped to the tome at his own hip, at the gold decorations and the hundreds of black pages. Anima ink isn’t cheap. Neither is mana-conducive paper, nor those gold bindings! He definitely—

But then, he had to buy the materials for his spells. I suppose it’s possible he never had money left over for a horse.

Sighing, Jet finished getting the horse ready for travel, then tied the reins to the back of his saddle. “All you have to do now is sit there like a sack of potatoes. Happy?”

“If it means I have to do less work? Always,” Gideon said, beaming.

A creeping sensation that he’d just been taken advantage of crawled over Jet, but he dismissed it. “Let’s get on the road before we lose daylight.”

The two horses clopped along, riding down the cobbled road. Gideon sat upright, enjoying the sunlight and the scenery, while Jet kept his eyes dead ahead. This man is a pestilence, but I’ve never seen anyone fell a lesser dragon like that. If anyone can take down the True Dragon, it might be him.

Only time will tell.

--

The trees rustled. From deep within the forest, greedy eyes watched travelers pass by. One after another, biding their time.

As they waited, they hissed words back and forth.

“Boss! Look at that carriage, it’s—”

“Full of grain! What are we going to do with grain, huh? Wait until it’s bread! Then, we’ll steal it.”

“Boss, look, those pretty women…”

“Look at their bodyguards! Do you have eyes? Those men could crush us with one hand!”

“Boss, boss, that… is that a dragon corpse?”

“Shit, a dragon corpse? You want to tangle with dragon-slayers? Are you nuts?”

A deep sigh. At last, one of the watching bandits perked up. He pointed out of the bushes at a pair of horses walking by. “Boss! Look at the gold on that guy’s robes. He’s got to be someone important. We can steal his gold, and then ransom him for more!”

Two cloaked men sat atop the horses, one ramrod straight, the other gazing around, a pleasant smile on his face. The second man’s cloak fell back from the shoulders, revealing gold braid and fine black fabric, while the first man’s cloak rode up slightly at the hips.

The boss scowled, pointing at the yellow band at the sleeves of the second man’s robes. “A lightning mage? Are you—”

“Look, boss. When the other guy’s cloak raises a bit—right there. The other guy’s holding his tome, and his horse is tied to the other guy’s. That mage is powerless. I bet that other guy took him hostage first… well, pity for him that they ran into us! We’ll take his hostage now.”

The boss’s eyes shone. “A fellow bandit, eh? He’ll have good gold on him, and even if we kill him, there’s no problem. Actually, boys, we could take his hostage, take his gold, and then turn in his head for the bounty! What a find, what a find! This is the one. Attack!”

A bolt of fire blasted out of the forest at Jet’s horse. He drew his sword and slashed in one movement, and a block of ice met the fire, killing it in midair. In the same instant, a half dozen men jumped out of the forest, howling, three from one side and three from the other. One threw his hand out in front of them, gesturing over and over, and a flame sprung up in the path ahead. Jet’s horse balked and reared back, prancing in fear.

“Flames against horses… these bandits know their magic,” Jet muttered.

“Or they only have one spell,” Gideon returned.

The bandits charged. Dressed in scraps and bits of leather armor, they bared rusty weapons and rotten teeth at the men. Jet gave them a disgusted look. All because the kingdom’s tied up fighting the True Dragon, idiots like these think they can act like kings on the highways?

Jet reached to his hip and loosed the tome, then tossed it to Gideon. “Show me what you’re made of.”

Gideon grabbed the book and held it tight, then stared at Jet. “Eh? I don’t want to. I don’t like killing people, okay? Only dragons.”

Ignoring him, Jet touched his chest where the pendant laid under his shirt. “Limits—release!”

Blue light shone from Gideon’s collar. Jet nodded. “Now you can kill without backlash… unless you attack me.”

“Again, I don’t want to—” A bandit sliced at his leg, and Gideon squealed and jerked his legs up atop the saddle. His eyes flashed, and lightning sparked all around him. He thrust his hand toward the man. “Die, dragon, die!”

The man fell back, and the bandit behind him crumpled, as well. Smoking black holes punched through their chest.

Gideon laughed lightly. “I’m no good at holding back…”

“Boss! What happened to the mage being a hostage?” one of the bandits shouted.

“I—dammit, fall back!” the boss shouted. Dressed in bone armor with a deer skull mounted above his head, he stood out amongst the bandits. He turned and fled, trailing the remaining bandits after him.

“The boss is mine!” Gideon shouted. His tome flipped open, black pages flying by, then settled on a page with an elongated, ovular spell circle. Sparks flew around him, as if metal ground together inside his chest. He gestured, and the sparks flew into his hand. Lightning flickered all around him, faint booms of thunder crashing in the air.

“Lightning ray! Critical cast! Die, dragon, die!” Gideon shouted, throwing his hand out. A ray of lightning appeared beside him and shot after the boss, hurtling through the air. It pierced through one of the unfortunate followers, then slammed into the bandit’s boss’ back. Thrown into the air, the boss’ final screams vanished in the earth-shattering thundercrack that followed.

Only two bandits remained. Gideon raised his hand again, but then sank back, exhausted. “Dammit, I need more time… more mana… if only my mana could come back quicker!”

“You’ve done enough. Limits, engage!” Jet shouted. Red light burned in Gideon’s collar. He swept his sword in front of him, freezing the flame barrier the bandit mage had cast into a wall of ice. The two remaining bandits veered around it, but Jet charged straight at it. Trailing Gideon and his horse, he urged his horse to leap over the ice wall.

“Whoa, whoa—hey!” Gideon toppled backward off his horse as it followed Jet’s and slammed into the ground.

Ignoring him, Jet chased after the bandits. One turned at the last second, baring his teeth as he raised his axe in a desperate last struggle. Jet leaned down and slit his throat. The bandit sunk to the earth, gurgling on his own blood. Sitting back upright, Jet called out to the enchantment on his sword, and blue-white light gleamed. The remaining bandit screamed in fear as cold gripped the air around him. A clump of ice shot from Jet’s sword and slammed into the bandit’s back. The bandit fell forward, sprawling over the ground. Jet leaned down as he rode by and neatly removed the man’s head with a slash.

Bandits dispatched, Jet stopped the horses and turned back. Gideon laid on his back in the middle of the road, spread-eagle. Snorting, Jet led the horses back to the man’s side. “Hurt?”

“Everywhere,” Gideon moaned. “Ugh.”

He hauled himself upright with much moaning and groaning, then brushed off the dust. “If only I had a dancer at my side, or maybe a singer. I could’ve taken down the whole bandit party…”

“A dancer?” Jet asked, arching an eyebrow.

“Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of bardic magic. It’s not a myth, it’s real. Certain dancers and singers really can stir the mana in the air and reinvigorate warriors and mages, it’s true,” Gideon insisted.

“I never said it wasn’t,” Jet said flatly. Internally, he rolled his eyes. Bardic magic? Bullshit. That’s just an excuse soldiers use when they get caught with whores in their tent. Though I suppose it should come as no surprise that this man hangs with such low-lives…

Gideon frowned at Jet. “Yeah, but you don’t believe me.”

Jet sighed. “Come on. Let’s move on before any more bandits decide to commit suicide via mage.”

“Wait, wait. Haven’t you ever heard of looting?” Gideon said.

“Looting?” Jet asked, raising his eyebrows.

Gideon paused, then nodded. “Right, I forgot you were a righteous type. Ahem, I mean, requisitioning supplies at a low cost from fallen enemy soldiers.”

Jet furrowed his brows, but didn’t stop Gideon from bouncing from body to body. In the end, Gideon held up a pair of metal charms.

“Not much on these guys, but look. Enchantments,” Gideon offered.

Jet took the charms. One, set into a five-centimeter-square piece of metal and crudely worked into a leather bracelet, was an intricate affair that nestled several complex magical circles around a symbolic flame. He looked it over. That’s the spell circle for Fireball. If the bandits had any magical skill, they could’ve done serious damage with that enchantment. I have no skill with fire magic, but we can sell it in the next town for a good price, he thought, tucking it into his pocket.

The other charm took the shape of a simple silver disc, about two centimeters in diameter. A hole punched in its upper edge suggested it had once been a pendant or decoration of some sort. The crude, almost brutish magical circle reminded Jet of something, but it slipped away at the corner of his mind. He held it up to Gideon. “What’s this one?”

“That one? Fluct. A long-range dark magic. Not very powerful, but with a proper vantage point, you can use it to pepper your enemies long before they see you, injure and wear them down, if not kill them. I suspect none of the bandits had any talent with dark magic.” He held out his hand toward the disk, as if expecting Jet to hand it back.

Jet looked at his hand, then at Gideon. “And I take it… you do?”

Gideon flinched. “It’s not like dark magic is evil. It’s called that because of its color, not anything else! It’s evil mages who gave dark magic a bad name. Dark magic in of itself isn’t…”

“Doesn’t dark magic require blood sacrifice?” Jet asked, arching a brow.

“S…sometimes. But that’s powerful dark magic. Fluct is innocent. Fluct never did anything wrong. In fact, Fluct rarely kills anyone. It’s less lethal than lots of non-dark magic,” Gideon argued.

“Uh-huh.” Jet put the disk in his pocket, then nodded to Gideon. “So? What else did you find?”

“That was it. The guys were penniless,” Gideon said with a shrug.

“Turn out your pockets,” Jet ordered.

Gideon gave him an innocent look. “I would never…”

Jet raised the pendant.

Scowling, Gideon turned his pockets inside out, revealing two gold necklaces, a lady’s bracelet, a dozen gold and a handful of rings bearing various gemstones. “Happy?”

“And your pants’ pockets,” Jet ordered, collecting the loot.

Grumbling, Gideon lifted his robes and turned out his pants pockets. Little had been stashed in them, but a signet ring tumbled out, along with another handful of gold coins.

Jet collected that as well, then arched an eyebrow at Gideon.

“What? Do you want me to get naked again?” Gideon asked, reaching for the cords that bound his robes.

“No, that’s fine. We’ll see if we can return any of this to its rightful owners at the next town.”

“Return… that’s our loot!” Gideon complained, scowling.

“If we take what the bandits stole, we’re little better than bandits ourselves,” Jet said, looking down his nose at Gideon.

“Let’s at least keep the coins, though. I mean, how will we even tell who’s telling the truth? Anyone could claim that those coins belong to them,” Gideon argued.

Jet walked his horse over to the bandit chief and cut his head from his neck, storing it in a sack he tied to the back of the saddle. “We’ll get enough coin from these bandits’ heads. Doubtless they had a bounty on them. There’s no need to quibble over a few stray coins. At worst, we can consider it charity.”

“Damn nobles. Almost as bad as dragons. Giving away gold? Never,” Gideon grumbled under his breath. He shook his head and went to climb back onto his horse.

Jet stood in his way. He held out his hand.

“What? I’ve already given you all the loot,” Gideon said, putting his hands on his hips indignantly.

Jet nodded at his hand. “Tome.”

“Haven’t I proven I’m trustworthy yet?” Gideon muttered, annoyed. He reached into his robes and reluctantly handed the tome over to Jet.

Strapping the tome into the harness at his hip, Jet nodded. “That’s all.”

Grumbling under his breath, Gideon climbed back onto his horse. The two of them set off once more, trotting into the distance.