Then it hit me.
“Her mother was red,” I said quietly, and I smiled at the content yellow dragon.
“Oh, no,” Asta whispered, and her white eyebrows pulled together. “How sad.”
“It is sad.” Kas nodded and looked at Eira. “That must be why she likes you so much. Your hair reminds her of her mother.”
“I may not be your mother,” Eira whispered as she reached up to stroke the little dragon’s head. “But I promise I won’t let anything happen to you ever again.”
“I definitely think you should be the one to name her now,” Asta said with a small smile.
“Right.” Eira looked down and pursed her lips. “How about Gulr?”
“You want to name her ‘yellow’ in the old language?” Kas asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Well… Rath named Blar after his coloring,” the redhead mumbled.
“Yes, but we weren’t with him when that happened,” Kas mock whispered.
“Hey!” I laughed, and Blar hopped up on my lap to glare at the girls. “He likes his name, thank you very much.”
Blar huffed, nodded, and then turned his back on Kas.
“Oh, come on,” the strawberry-blonde said. “I was just teasing.”
The little blue dragon turned around and glared at her once more, and then he stuck his tongue out and blew a tiny little flame in her direction.
“You are so terrible,” Kas laughed.
“Well, if not Gulr, then what do you suggest?” Eira asked.
“I don’t know,” Kas said. “Something--”
Kas’ words were cut short by a loud shriek that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
I whipped my head around to see a group of men charge out of the woods right toward us. Each one was bigger and dirtier than the last, and I could immediately tell they were lowlife bandits.
They may be large, but they gave away the element of surprise, so they clearly weren’t intelligent.
Immediately, I yanked on the reins of the animals pulling the cart, and they came to a halt as I stood up and unsheathed my sword.
There were six men, each of which had a weapon held high above their heads as they ran toward us. I almost felt sorry for them since they obviously had no idea how to use the blades, but then I remembered they were about to try and rob us, and that feeling quickly went away.
“Fucking bandits,” Eira said through gritted teeth as she, Asta, and Kas stood up, too.
Blar was wrapped around me in an instant, with his head and front paws on one shoulder, and his back paws and tail on my opposite hip. His long claws held onto me gently, but I knew he was ready to attack as soon as I gave him the go ahead. His little blue eyes were narrowed on our opponents, and I could feel how tense his long body was as he clung to me.
I hopped down onto the ground and held my sword up at the ready, and I couldn’t help the smile that came over my face as these arseholes continued to run toward me. Since they were still alive, I figured they’d never come across an opponent who actually knew what they were doing, so this brief interaction was going to be a wakeup call and a death sentence for them all in one.
“Get ‘em!” one of the men yelled, and the group split into two.
“I got this side,” I said with a gesture to the right.
“We’ll cover left,” Eira assured me, and she turned back to the three men headed toward her, Asta, and Kas. “Come here, you big dumb oafs!”
I allowed the girls to handle the men to the left while I focused on the ones to the right. The leader clearly thought splitting his team up would mean they had a better chance of taking us down, especially if they considered me to be the greatest threat since I was the largest.
They didn’t know it yet, but they were in for a fight.
I stopped just ahead of the cart and readied my sword as the three men picked up speed.
“Better to give in now,” the man in the front said as he leaped up and held his axe back behind his head. He came down at me in an attempt to land a blow, but I dodged it and gave him a swift kick in the back as he landed on shaky legs.
The bandit landed on the ground, but he’d let go of his axe in the fall, and it was still in the air above him. I snagged it with one hand, and he looked up at it with wide eyes and tried to scurry out of the way, but he was too late.
I brought the axe down with all my might, and the blade landed in the middle of the elf’s back, dug in deep, and clearly did some damage to his spinal cord since he jerked like he’d been struck by lightning.
He let out a screech of pain, and his arms clawed at the ground in front of him, but his legs didn’t move at all, which told me they probably couldn’t.
I had to hand it to him, he was an arsehole, but that was one sharp axe.
The next man was on me in an instant, and his long blade came at me over and over from the top and both sides. He even tried to slice at my ankles once, but I leaped up and avoided his attack.
I waited until the right moment, and then I made my move. The elf was attacking with fervor, and after a few seconds, he started to breathe heavily, so when he reared back to take a big swing, I let him think he had it.
At
