Chp.39: The king and the dragon (part 1)

Haku had to wait a while before someone entered the room again. Hara returned, accompanied by two other humans, one wearing a crown. Before Haku could say anything, the other man, much taller and burly, announced: "His Majesty is here. Show respect"

So, that was the king of humans. It seemed rather weak to Haku, but he knew that humans had different criteria for establishing dominance than more primitive peoples like ogres. In any case, the blond man with the crown was the one who would decide his fate. It was with him that he would play his game of survival; he knew he would have to use all the eloquence possible to get the most out of this meeting. So he showed himself respectful and humble: "I've never been in front of a king and I don't know how to behave, so I'll just pay you my respects. My name is Haku, and I offer you my humble greetings"

That humble attitude seemed to please Hara and the other burly man, but the king didn't flinch. His eyes were searching him searchingly, as if he was trying to read his moves. Then he spoke: "I accept your greetings, Haku. I am the ruler of the Jurao Kingdom, king Marcus Junio Kaidor. Now, I wish you could do something for me"

Haku didn't expect the king to immediately start with such a direct way. "Make your request, Your Majesty"

"I would like you to promise me you won't lie to me" was the king's curt statement.

Haku's eyes widened. This king was decidedly different from all the newcomers he had met so far. He didn't just defend himself, he attacked: he knew his opponent's weaknesses well and didn't hesitate to exploit them. "I will if you ask me, but why?" he asked trying to stall for time. "I mean, you have this collar. Couldn't you just order it for me?"

"That collar can only control the movements of your body, not your mind. I can make you stand still, force you to run, if we really want to go overboard I could force you to repeat my words, but I can't use it to force you to tell the truth" Marcus explained him. "Besides, why should I force you do it, when you can tell me of your own free will? Dragons never break their promises, do they?"

Haku had to admit that this king played his cards right. It had put him in an awkward situation. If he refused to make that promise, his opponent would immediately understand that he was trying to manipulate him; if he did, though, he might be forced to reveal things better left undisclosed. He couldn't have resisted even if he wanted to: the dragons couldn't break their word.

Finally, he made a decision. "Okay, I have nothing to hide after all. I promised you that I will tell you the truth throughout our conversation"

Haku had chosen those words very carefully. In the first place he had only said that he would tell the truth; that meant he wasn't going to lie, but also that he could refuse to answer if he wanted to. Secondly, he had set a time limit, so that if in the future it was necessary to lie to him, he would have no constraints.

Though his words were spoken almost casually, Marcus furrowed his eyebrows slightly, a sign that he'd noticed his little ploy. The eyes of the king and the dragon met, and they both peered at each other as if they were trying to read their opponent. It was clear that a real chess game was about to begin between the two, in which each would try to identify the other's weak point.

Marcus signaled to one of the guards. "Let him out of the cage"

The other people in the room looked uncomfortable. "Your Majesty, are you sure?" the tall, burly man asked.

"Yes, I want to talk to him face to face and without bars in between" the king replied. "Miss Hara, give me the control ring"

The woman looked very dubious, but she obeyed and slipped off one of the rings she wore on her fingers. It was a silver ring set with a black gem. The king took it and put it on his finger; as soon as he did, the collar around Haku's neck buzzed slightly. Soon after, the guards went to open the cage. Haku understood that the ring and the collar must have some sort of connection; probably, the collar forced him to obey the person wearing the ring.

Haku came out of the cage and walked towards the king; Hara and the other man tensed visibly, but Marcus remained calm and expressionless. Haku admired her ability to keep a cool head; not everyone would be able to show no emotion as the world's most dangerous predator stalked towards them. Normally he would have been the first to speak, but this time he preferred to let his opponent have the privilege of initiating the conversation; it was clear that this king was quite an expert in matters of dragons, and by speaking out of turn Haku would have risked letting something wrong slip away. If he wanted to be able to beat him, he had to limit himself to answering with short and concise sentences.

After a few moments, Marcus spoke again: "As you may already know, your actions allowed us to win the war. We owe you a huge favor. If it weren't for you, everything we've achieved so far would have risked being lost. That's the reason you're still alive" he said solemnly. "To thank you for your merits, you have my word of honor that I will never let you die, provided of course that you do not force me to kill you. That is to say try to attack me or any of my subjects. If you are disciplined, I'll have no problem letting you live"

Haku recognized that pattern. It was the same pattern he used with his victims when he wanted to get information: first the promise to not kill them, and then the torture. "Thank you for your generosity, Your Majesty" he replied, pretending not to have noticed his intent.

Marcus nodded. "But now I'd like to know how you managed to accomplish such a feat. How did you kill the hydra?"

The first direct question, the beginning of the real match between the two of them; fortunately, it had a long list of possible answers. Haku could tell the truth by omitting certain details. "I covered myself with the bone plates of a great basilisk and doused them with poison and potion of fire. With this protection I melted the skin of the hydra up to the brain"

"How? The skin of the hydra was too tough after it was transformed into a calamity. Even a legendary level would have had a hard time piercing it"

"But not the hydra itself. I made it bite itself. It ripped off a large chunk of its own flesh, allowing me to enter"

"And the heads? My men told me they were severed"

"It's not difficult to destroy a hydra's head. Just take a great basilisk thorn, sprinkle it with poison and fire potion too, and then throw it into its mouth"

That last sentence was deliberately vague. Haku hadn't said that he was the one who cut off the hydra's heads, because in fact it would have been the equivalent of lying: his siblings had done it, at least for the most part. Therefore he had only described how the hydra's head could be cut off, not who had done it.

The king didn't seem to have noticed that detail. "And the hydra minions? Didn't they try to stop you?"

"Many of them died from the hydra itself"

"And the others?"

"I imagine they died after the hydra died. Why, didn't they?"

Another ploy: Haku didn't say he knew they were dead, he said he imagined it. In reality, Haku knew that it was his sisters who killed the minions, or at least a good portion of them; in his imagination, he could believe they were dead after their master's fall.

Marcus once again didn't flinch, but Haku could recognize in his eyes the typical attention of someone who had noticed a trick. This king was definitely not to be underestimated. "And the patterns on your body? Miss Hara told me you had quite a few initially, but then they disappeared while she was treating you. What are they?"

Haku realized he was referring to the runes; when he faced the hydra he had several drawn on his body. They must have vanished due to her regeneration, but the woman must have noticed them. Unfortunately, the question was too direct and with too few answers available for it to be able to escape. "They're runes" he confessed.

The king's eyes flashed slightly. It was clear he was interested. "Runes, fire potions… these aren't things you find on the street. How did you get them?"

Another question that left little room to answer. Haku had to be careful. "I stole them"

"From who?" Marcus asked again.

"I stole them in the forest, from a people called fairies" Haku replied. Actually some fire potions in his possession belonged to Ethan, but they weren't the ones he had used against the hydra (since they were of lower quality), so he could ignore it. After all, if he remembered correctly, that explorer was on a secret mission for the king himself, so it would have been a problem to confess to having killed him.

Marcus seemed to nod. "I thought so" he said, and he pulled something from his waistband. Haku snorted as he recognized his dimensional bag. That's where it ended up! "We inspected your belongings on your way here. I must admit you seem to take a certain pleasure in killing fairies and ogres..."

"I did it to survive!" Haku exclaimed. Luckily there was no dragon meat in the bag, as the bodies of his father and mother had been placed in the bags of some of his siblings, or it could have provided humans with very dangerous weapons.

Marcus didn't flinch. "I'm sure you had your reasons for such a carnage. What did you need all these 'supplies' for, by the way? It looked like you were going somewhere you couldn't find food..."

Haku wasn't sure if he should answer. If the king had known he was headed for the desert, he might have sent guards to the border, risking the lives of his siblings. Furthermore, in his eventual future escape that would have been the first place that humans would have controlled. "I like to think far into the future. There's no guarantee I'll find food the next day" he finally answered. It wasn't a lie: he really liked to think a lot about the future, as his ten-year plan showed, and his life had taught him that even the best hunter didn't always have the certainty of catching his prey.

Marcus nodded. "I guess you've become very cautious, if you've managed to survive until now. I know that newborn dragons have a very hard time getting by. Even their parents have... questionable eating habits" he said, proving once again to Haku who knew a great deal about dragons. "But that's not what I'm interested in right now. Rather, as we rummaged through your 'supplies', we found several interesting things"

Marcus swung the dimensional bag and several objects fell to the floor: maps, weapons, potions, even the portable gate. All the valuables that Haku had kept up to that point. Haku was furious to see his belongings scattered on the ground like that, and the knowledge that the humans would keep them made him even more furious. If he had anticipated this, he would have given his dimensional bag to Rhaegal before leaping into the hydra.

"You've got quite a few rare items here. Fey magic, no doubt" Marcus said. "You must be a really good thief if you managed to get that much stuff. Most of these things you surely took from corpses... but some of them are too precious to belong to ordinary fairies. Like this one" he said, lifting the portable gate. "Do you know what it is?"

Unfortunately this time Haku couldn't find any escape. He could only answer with a truth or a lie. "Yes I know"

"My people have been trying to get their hands on these kinds of magic for several centuries, yet you have so many of these items, and you seem to even be aware of what they are for. You know the runes, you know the potions, and you know how all these things work" the king continued. "Would you be so kind as to share your knowledge with me?"

Haku smiled. "Of course, your majesty..."

Marcus smiled back. "I appreciate this"

"...with due payment, of course" Haku concluded as his smile widened showing the monstrous teeth under his lips. It was time to move from defense to attack.