Archon took control of the cameras and panned them around the people in the village. The first thing that struck him was the relative youth of all those present. There was only one male who was of anything remotely resembling advanced age. The rest of them were either juveniles or the breeding young.
Something had happened to this village. Something had taken away the entire middle generation, and removed most of the elderly. It could have been illness, or perhaps something more sinister.
“They are so young,” the king murmured. “How beautiful it must be to be young.”
“You are not yet old,” Smithers noted. “You are the youngest king to ever take the throne of Archaeus, by a factor of several decades, if we discount Braxus the boy king, and he only lasted three hours before being murdered by a cousin twice-removed, so I tend not to count him in the royal lineage of succession.”
Smithers could be counted on to speak at length about royal history if he was allowed to. Archon did not fail to notice that Smithers’ sneering attitude was directed at him yet again. One of these days, Smithers was going to pay for his constant sniping, but for the moment he was at least predictable - and predictable was the closest thing to trustworthy if you couldn’t trust anybody.
“I am no longer that kind of young,” Archon said, gesturing at the screen. “The kind of young which allows a man to believe he is the master of his destiny, and that if he just fights hard enough he might change the world. These brats have something they don’t even know they possess: faith in themselves.” Archon smiled to himself, and shook his head. “Let’s destroy that. Start the dragon.”
The dragon was a ship of sorts, a shuttle, a fighter, and also a massive animatronic dragon. It had wings which flapped and a neck which arched, and a head from which fire emerged. It had been commissioned for Archon's coronation, a work of art which was as dangerous as it was beautiful.
In the special bay set aside for the metal beast, Archon mounted the side of the metal dragon, taking care not to step on the more delicate scaling. There were foot holds designed to take the weight of the pilot, and it was on those he stood as he ascended onto the back of the beast, as if he were riding it.
In front of him, the scales parted to reveal a bank of controls. He could do almost anything with those controls. He could set the beast in flight, or rain fire on hapless villagers.
He was intent on not doing harm. A reputation for brutality was just that, a reputation. First he would frighten them, and then he would abduct them, then he’d take this wooden village and turn it into kindling.
The ship flew low over the village, whence a clattering of spears against the undercarriage suggested that the villagers were aware of their presence. Throwing sharpened sticks was a poor way to greet a king, but Archon had experienced worse. He would rather a barrage of spears than a smarmy greeting like the one Naxus had given him. At least the spears indicated some kind of fear.
It was right that a king should be feared and perhaps even reviled by the weakest of his subjects. After all, those so poor they resorted to refusing to pay their universally appointed taxes were in no position to aspire to nobility. A duke might one day become a king if he were to slay enough people, or encounter a kindly plague or two, but a peasant like one of the ones below, they would never have a chance to come even tangental to royalty. It was fitting therefore that they would try to destroy it.
“UNLEASH THE DRAGON!” He cried at the top of his lungs, while simultaneously pressing the launch button.
The belly of the ship opened, and he and his dragon fell out. He had intended to glide, but the dragon hadn’t come online yet and for the first few seconds of his arrival he was more plummeting than flying.
Fortunately, the dragon’s wings fell into a default outstretched position enabling him to regain control over the hunk of metal and not have a regency second only to Braxus the boy-king in terms of shortness.
Chapter 4
Crouched in the forest, Iris watched a dragon fall out of a floating building. For the last several weeks she had been avoiding soldiers and tax collectors and the odd mercenary who had been sent to quell the rebellion by killing villagers until they gave up. She thought she had seen everything there was to see in terms of aggression, but apparently the universe had been holding something back.
That something was at least thirty feet long, or maybe fifty. Hard to tell at a distance. It was a behemoth which seemed to pop into existence against all reason. It was also a very, very bad omen.