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The crack of thunder is the last warning before the town melts to flames.
Somewhere, a storm is swirling; dark clouds in a darker abyss that swallow the sky in tidal waves, a cruel wind whipping through the streets and cobblestone with a whisper.
Hanta was seven years old when he first saw the dragon rise up from the clouds like a giant from the sea; golden-brown with eyes that blazed amber. Even from hundreds of feet below he could see it, and it was a sight he’d never forget, the way its gigantic chest collapsed and swelled. Then the sky was on fire, a single spark that singed and grew and roared as it clawed at the thatched houses and jumped and flew.
Hanta remembers standing on a street corner beneath a wooden lip, though he doesn’t know how he got there. His hands had been caked in dirt and soot, cheeks smudged with tears trailing a clean path through the grime, but he hadn’t moved. Despite the people rushing about, despite the cries, he’d been enamoured by the golden tornado that commanded the sky, full of fiery embers and a roar deeper than the shrill screams.
The dragon, as long as several houses, had flapped its mighty wings and descended onto the street; squashed around the stone and brick with thick muscle and sinew, scales that shimmered iridescent. And its eye—that sunset yellow—had stared at Hanta.
A shadow had pierced through the smoke, and a woman—clad in robes of molten orange—had jumped down from its hide. She’d run a hand through her hair, dirtied charcoal but a vibrant blonde, eyes as red as blood. Her gaze had sliced right through him and Hanta had frozen like a marble statue, but instead of pulling the huge dagger from the sheath at her side, she’d crouched. Wiped the tears from his cheeks.
“Where are your parents, love?”
Hanta had sniffled, too scared to speak and too scared not to, but the woman had smiled. It was a smile far too kind for someone who commanded a dragon, who had set a village alight in one deep breath, but he’d trusted her. Just for that moment, he’d listened to her directions, to her nudge him away from the flames and to the safe part of town. Just for that moment, she’d caught his eye and winked as she ascended on the dragon once again, and Hanta had watched as it flew into the dying rays of the sun in two snaps of its wings.
And Hanta had decided he wanted to know everything there was to know about dragons.
FOURTEEN YEARS LATER
When Kaminari trots into the stable that evening, he’s wearing a scowl that Hanta’s only seen once before.
Kaminari is infamously cheerful, bright sunshine and smiles, but it’s not rare to see him frown. He frowns at the muck staining the floors, frowns at the creases in Hanta’s clothes, frowns at the castle that looms over the barns and livestock like a prison. What he doesn’t do is scowl.
And the sight of that expression, the lowering of his eyebrows and the grinding of his teeth, is enough for Hanta to set down his notebook gently and meet him at the doors.
“What’s up?”
Kaminari says nothing as he dismounts his horse, taking off his hat and smoothing his sweat-slick hair over his forehead. The silence is long enough that Hanta isn’t entirely sure he’ll get an answer, but then—
“The Barbarian King has been seen outside the city.”
“Ah.”
The Barbarian King—not entirely uncommon to hear of his warpath. Everyone in the city is familiar with the legends, of the King and his dragon and the screams in the night, but he’s never attacked this town before. Something as controversial as the Barbarian King wouldn’t destroy a noble’s cheer, much less Kaminari’s, and there’s the weight of an unspoken but that has Hanta frowning as he guides Chargebolt to her dock. He runs his fingers through her mane a few times and when he turns back to Kaminari, he’s gone.
He shouldn’t follow. Stable boys knew better than to follow a noble into the castle grounds, between the evergreen hedges and the figures frozen in stone coffins, but Kaminari is as close to a friend as he’ll get here. He knew about Hanta’s obsession with dragons, about the notebook he kept stored in the floorboards of the stable, everything there was to know and vice versa. Hanta was never one for letting friends suffer in silence.
It’s hard to miss the shock of yellow and the magnificent phoenix feather, but the problem is approaching him. The angular line of his shoulders tense when Hanta sits next to him on a stone bench, torn between fight and flight, but he stays silent like he has something to say but doesn’t want to say it.
So Hanta sits with him quietly, watching the carp swim in the pond by their feet. They look so carefree; glittering in the sunlight and swishing between the rocks, where the only thing they have to worry about is the cat. Wouldn’t it be nice to have that freedom.
“They want me to kill him.”
All the jigsaw pieces slide into place in a heartbeat. His mood doesn’t go unfounded, and Hanta’s heart drops to the ground alongside it. Ah is all he can say—what else is there to say? It’s a death sentence, like facing a starving tiger in a small cell. Kaminari isn’t angry, he’s petrified.
“There’s some—some reward out for his head, for all the trouble with that dragon. A reward or something handsome enough that the King wants to throw the first fucking person he sees at him.”
Kaminari’s voice shakes as he speaks and Hanta notices how pale he is in the sunlight. His cheeks always nestled a healthy glow, but here he was like he’d see his own ghost wandering through the hedges. “They want someone expendable.”
Hanta wants to argue with him. Kaminari isn’t expendable, not to Hanta, but to the King he is. The King’s word is law unrivalled, and if Kaminari disagreed he’d face a starving tiger in a smell cell in the flesh.
Kaminari sighs and scrubs a hand over his face before cupping his jaw. His eyes are fixed on a bush, on the holly berries and vines that intertwine up the statue nearby of a God no one knows the name of anymore, and all laughter is gone. “I’m going to die.”
“No, you’re not—don’t say that.”
“Sero.” Kaminari’s eyes flick to him so quickly that he blinks. They’re wildfire, not the charming amber sunrise Hanta is used to; that he’s seen for years upon years. “I don’t fight. I can’t hold a sword properly. I didn’t even know dragons existed until I met you. He’ll snap me in half.”
Hanta’s mouth moves before he can think twice. “Then let me go instead. I know more about dragons, like you said. I can bring the book and figure something out.” He grins. “He’ll get stuck at your thick skull anyway.”
Kaminari laughs, but it’s frantic. Nervous laughter, not joy, and the gravity hits Hanta like a stone to the throat. That's what they’ve always been like; teasing and teasing and teasing, toeing the line between friendship and rivalry, and shaking each other’s hands. Their smiles at the end of each jab comforts, soothes silently.
Now he can’t even give him that.
“They want someone they can raise as a hero if he somehow doesn’t fail miserably,” Kaminari grates, speaking through a clenched jaw.
“But that shouldn’t—”
“Don’t you get it?”
Kaminari stands suddenly, raking a hand over his face and rubbing swiftly at one of his eyes. “Peasants can’t be heroes. You get the luxury of not being sent to your death, and all you have to worry about is what you’re going to eat tomorrow! Just shut up about it, please .”
Hanta knows that he’s attacking out of self-defence—his emotions are haywire, all lightning and a building fire—but it doesn’t hurt any less. Hanta stands too.
“It’s not my fault! I’m trying to help you, not take away some—” He throws his hands in the air. “Obnoxious claim to fame! You have more to live for, and I have—”
“Dragons.” Kaminari’s voice is quiet, and he sits back down heavily. “You know everything there is to know about dragons. You live for them. You’re useful, Sero, they just don’t know it yet.” He looks to him. “I’m just a noble, man. Nothing great about me apart from this feather.”
Kaminari gestures to the phoenix feather—luminescent in the sun, a token of the bird he killed for King and country—and then his hand falls again. The wildfire has extinguished, replaced by cold, clammy sweat littering his brow. Though he swallows and grins, Hanta can see the fear reflected in his eyes. “Just take care of Chargebolt for me, yeah? Tell her I love her.”
And, before Hanta can snap back, Kaminari stands and disappears into the maze of hedges. This time, he can’t follow.
News of the disappearance of the King’s noble spreads like a forest fire.
Hanta hears it passed from the cooks to the gardeners to the maids, and all around the palace grounds; from the houses running along the riverbank to the stable where he breaks apart the hay. Chargebolt noses him as he works, but he’s busy listening through the wall as quietly as he can as two knights, back from patrol of the outskirts, speak.
“He went and got himself kidnapped,” one says, nothing that Hanta doesn’t know already. The way they speak of Kaminari—of his friend—still makes his heart drop. “He had no chance, anyway. The King was looking for a test subject.”
“Obviously.”
Hanta’s hands tighten on the broom. That’s all they were to the King; expendable scapegoats. He hates it with every fibre that burns within him, and wishes he has the power to stop it, to scream that they’re wrong. But he doesn’t.
“They said the King is looking for someone else to go,” the first Knight continues in a languid drawl, and there’s the telltale clatter of chain mail as he speaks. “Someone with better knowledge and won’t fuck up a second time. Who knows? It may be one of us.”
Ah . That one’s new.
“To hell with that. I’ll make sure I’m on patrol.”
Hanta hesitates as they laugh, heart racing. He shouldn’t speak, it isn’t his place, and he could be whipped or stuffed in the stocks for speaking out of turn. But then he thinks to Kaminari, to that stupid phoenix feather and the fear in his eyes, and it breathes courage into him that makes his legs shake.
You know everything there is to know about dragons. You live for them. You’re useful, Sero, they just don’t know it yet.
He lays his broom against the stable door, brushing his hand through Chargebolt’s dappled mane for comfort before he steps through the fence. The Knight’s laughter dies when they see him, and even through their visors he sees the shock. For a moment, he forgets how to speak, but then—
“If you present me to the King, I’ll go.”
“And what makes you think that?” A Knight guffaws, leaning heavily on his sword. “You’re a stable boy. You don’t even have armour.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” Hanta says, and then reaches over his head, risky as it is to speak. He knocks aside the loose floorboard and pulls down the book, his notebook—as thick as any novel—and the dozens of handwritten pages accumulated over the years.
He flips through it with a smile. “But I know more about dragons than anyone in this Kingdom.”
Finding the Barbarian King is simple.
A pillar of smoke descends over the town from his camp, far in the west; stark grey plumage against the brilliant blue sky. It’s easily seen from the palace, and Hanta heads in that direction, away from the King’s sneers, the Knight’s laughter, and the sympathy of his friends.
Chargebolt is pleased to be out of her stable, and she takes to the streets like a duck to water. She stands proud above the townsfolk, white chest heaving with pride as she trots down the streets and swishes her tail, and he knows they catch the eye of everyone as they pass. A stable boy with nothing more than a steel helmet, breastplate, and a cheaply-made sword; all perched on a horse too grand.
But he can ignore it all, if it means finding Kaminari. If it means getting his best friend back, he couldn’t care less.
They leave the village whilst the sun is high, and run at full speed over the grass and valleys and the swollen hills. He knows what Chargebolt can do, he knows how she works as well as Kaminari does, and it’s like she’s determined to prove to him how fast she can go. A good thing too.
And, as they run, all Hanta can think about is the dragon.
The Barbarian King isn’t the same one that he met all those years ago, miles away from here. She was a Princess, a Queen of the sky; commanding over the wind and air with the gold of her dragon under the sun. This King is different, his dragon isn’t gold but a fiery red, yet that doesn’t stop the rumours nor his unquenchable curiosity. He wants to know, he wants to see, and most of all, he wants to meet the dragon.
Just as the sun starts its pattern of descent across the cascading sky, they reach the camp.
Hanta dismounts Chargebolt at the first tent—composed of animal skin and strong branches propped up around a crude bonfire—and he can feel the eyes of a hundred barbarians on him as he walks through the camp one tentative step at a time.
Not one of them attack him. They keep their distance, watching with daggers and spears strapped to their sides, not one in their hands. Rather than the sneers from the palace, he’s met with grimaces; an air of uneasiness, of thick tension. He’s unsure whether to be surprised or terrified.
He finds the King in the centre of the camp, circled by a dragon the colour of spilled blood. Its magnificent scales glitter in the evening light, and its eyes—the same, deep colour—stare at him, unblinking. He’s gorgeous .
The King himself sits on a throne of bones and logs, one leg crossed over the other and his hand propping up his chin, bored. A necklace of teeth circles his neck and through one ear, arms decorated with an assortment of bracelets and bands.
And there, by his side with his hands bound and mouth gagged, is Kaminari.
Hanta’s eyes widen and he takes a step forward, only to jump back when the dragon lets out a throaty growl. He knows better than to approach an angry creature, even one as fascinating as the King’s, and Chargebolt stamps her feet in fear. Even just looking at the King, he commands a powerful atmosphere, one that’s familiar from his youth even if he didn’t have spikes of blond and bright red eyes.
“I’ve met your mum.”
Hanta’s voice is croaky when he speaks, and the King lowers his hand the same time his lips twitch into a cruel smile. “Like I care if you’ve met that old bitch.”
Hanta’s heart quickens but his refusal to back down is both his strength and his weakness. He takes a hesitant step forward, this time ignoring the dragon’s warning growl.
“You should,” he continues, lifting up the helmet’s visor so he can look at him directly. The armour is ridiculous, too heavy, and he throws his breastplate onto the ground alongside his helmet without a second thought. The King’s eyebrows raise.
“You’re an idiot. What Knight gets rid of his armour?”
“Nah, I’m not a Knight,” Hanta says, decidedly keeping his sword by his side. “I’m a stable boy.”
The King’s laughter is loud and, behind him, he hears it echo in snickers through the barbarians. Kaminari makes a muffled noise and struggles, eyes pleading, head shaking—scared not for himself, but for Hanta. “Then why the fuck would they send you? They think I ain’t serious?”
“I offered.”
“Oh?” The King’s intrigue mirrors in his eyes. “And why’s that? You got a death wish?”
“I know about dragons. I’ve studied them.”
He rolls his eyes, visibly annoyed, but then sits forward in his chair. He fixes Hanta with a gaze the same intensity as the dragon’s, as his mother’s. “Yet you’re still here to kill me, right?”
For a second time, Hanta shakes his head. His hands are uncharacteristically steady as he unlatches the sword from his belt, and throws it to the ground too. “I’m here for my friend.”
“This annoying little bastard?” The King taps Kaminari with the toe of his boot. “What if I want to keep him?”
And, of course, this sort of thing Hanta should have expected. A black market deal, an eye for an eye, and there Kaminari is, shaking his head again as fast as he’s able. He can almost hear him through his bonds, the don’t you fucking dare and the assortment of other curses thrown at him, but Hanta just grins. “I’ll trade.”
“Why would I want you?”
Hanta isn’t surprised that he’s already guessed what he’s going to say; he’s sharp. Rather than respond, he clicks his fingers for Chargebolt and she comes forward. He digs into his satchel and pulls out his notebook, frayed and leather-bound, throwing it to Katsuki. It skids to a stop by his feet, and the dragon, eyes ablaze, lifts his head and growls lower, deeper.
The King hushes him and picks up the book to leaf through it. “What’s this trash?”
“Everything there is to know about dragons,” Hanta tells him. “All my information.”
“What makes you think it’s stuff I don’t already know?”
Hanta shrugs. “Guess I’ll have to take that gamble, right?”
The King considers it with a huff. He tears a dagger from his pocket and Hanta’s heart lurches, but then he slices Kaminari’s bonds and shoves him forward. “Fine. I can kill you if I don’t like it, either way. Now get out.”
“What are you doing?!” Kaminari yelps as soon as he scrambles to his feet. “He could kill you! What are you—what are you going to—”
“Hey.” Hanta just smiles at him as he walks passed to take his place alongside the King, right where Kaminari had been a moment before. An eye for an eye. “Expendability, remember?”
Kaminari wants to argue, he can see it in his eyes, but then the dragon growls again and the King gestures for him to leave with a dismissive flick of his hand. He has no choice.
Hanta watches him climb onto Chargebolt—stiff from bad posture, misery slacking his bones—and just before he turns, Hanta calls out, “I don’t agree with what you said earlier, by the way.”
Kaminari stares at him. “Huh?”
“About peasants not being able to be heroes.” Hanta smothers his fear and, despite the tears burning the back of his eyes, he widens his smile. “This is me being a hero.”