Chapter 12 (Part III): Falling Star

“There's an old phrase, ‘Where a dragon goes death follows.’ It’s a sentiment so old, that it appears in thirty seven different languages. There have been some variations over time. The equivalent phrase in Feguncian elvish, translates more literally to ‘Where a dragon goes, death must come,’ and I’ve been told that it would be most accurately read as, ‘Where a dragon goes, death must be brought.’ That translation mirrors Feguncian orcish’s version, ‘If you see a dragon, kill it.’”

-          Magister Ieva, of Kingstown University

It was nearing twilight when Syliva came upon the city of Defiance, unaware of the events that had transpired in capital behind her. The rural town sprawled below; it was larger than she’d expected, but it was also surprisingly dark. No lamps had been lit in the buildings, and no campfires burned in the surrounding fields to suggest an amassed army. The only sign of life in the town was a single bonfire burning in the center of the town square.

Syliva flew overhead a few times to investigate, and then saw a lone orc standing atop a stack of barrels, next to the fire, an axe in each hand. She wondered if perhaps her approach had been spotted by some scout, and the people had fled, leaving this one man – presumably their 'hero' – to stand against her. She’d be greatly annoyed if she only finished the evening with one corpse, but she decided she’d humor the fool nonetheless.

She banked in the air and fluttered down, landing between the buildings on the opposite side of the bonfire, as if coming to parlay.

The orc did not react with any apparent surprise or distress, but merely demanded, “Are you the dragon Syliva, come to answer my challenge?”

Syliva laughed, “Are there many other dragons lining up to kill you?”

“None that I know of,” the orc sad flatly, “But I would certainly hate to kill an innocent creature over a foolish misunderstanding.”

“You’re very confident of your chances for such a small thing.”

“Well, I reckon you’re very confident of your chances for a woman that didn’t even bring a weapon.”

“I am a weapon,” Syliva said.

“Oh, I see. Are you used often?”

“Only I use myself,” Syliva glared, but then quirked her head as she realized that hadn’t sounded quite right.

“Well, as weapons go, you don’t seem very sharp,” Thrakaduhl said.

Syliva growled.

“More of a blunt object I guess,” he continued.

“I am not an object.”

“Well, that may very well be, but I myself do happen to be pretty blunt, so how about this? You go on and surrender now and we’ll give you a fair trial. You can even go and appoint a defense if you want. We’ll make it all fair and square.”

“I do not surrender,” Syliva hissed.

“Yep, Azraea was right,” Thrakaduhl said, “You are about as simple as a post, aren’t you hon? You’re not even going to ask why I’m so confident.”

“Because you’re an idiot,” Syliva said dryly.

“Well, I reckon the old lady’s got some fire in her belly after all,” Thrakaduhl said, “Because that really burned. Look, I’ll give it to you straight. My people have gone and cleared out of the town, which means I have no reason to hold back. So, that means, when we fight, only one of us is going to walk away, and I ain’t met anyone yet I couldn’t take in a fair fight.”

“How on earth do you see this as a fair fight?”

“Oh, you know, you’re right,” Thrakaduhl tossed aside his two axes and held up his fists, “That should even things up.”

Syliva rolled her eyes. She was wearying of these sorts of exchanges.

“No," she said flatly, "This is how this is going to work: I promised your pretty little friend back in Kingstown and all the other good little people of that town, your head. And the elf’s as well. So, I’m going to kill you now, and then track her down and kill her too. But, I think to do things properly, I really should track down 'your people' and incinerate every last one of them as well. Now, where are they?” Syliva flicked her tongue, sniffing the air, “They aren’t here, certainly, and I don’t believe that many people could simply have scattered into the countryside without being obvious. No, they must be somewhere nearby…” she eyed the citadel in the pass. “Ah, that old fort... its high walls and heavy stone would make it a logical choice for a hiding spot, wouldn’t they? Though it is more than a bit obvious… and what use are walls against one who strikes from the sky?”

Thrakaduhl laughed at her, “I think it’s enough to say they are beyond your reach now. I’m afraid you’re just going to have to settle for fighting little old me. Now, are we going to do this or not?”

“Beyond my reach, hm…?” She examined the fort more closely with her raptor-like vision, and could see at least one of the gates was up, possibly both, opening the pass to through traffic, “Oh, I wonder, could it be they’re hiding in the valley on the other side of the pass?”

Thrakaduhl roared, “Damn it, enough games! Fight me beast!” He hopped backward off of the barrels and kicked one into the fire. Its lid spun off as it rolled, revealing the emptied contents of one of Ochsner’s shells – a substantial quantity of white phosphorous. Syliva instinctively hopped up into the air, but she also instinctively looked down at the barrel. The detonation didn’t scathe her thickly scaled hide, but her vision flashed with strobing lights, and her nostrils burned with acrid smoke that filled the air around her. As her vision started to clear, she dropped to the ground again and saw the orc had disappeared in the cloud of smoke. She thought at first he’d run off, but she heard someone shout from one of the roof tops right next to her. She turned to look at the source of the noise; it was the elf she’d encountered in Kingstown. The elf threw a bag, or a ball of something, straight into Syliva’s face. Some sort of fluid… a poison splattered out and seeped into her eyes, inflicting stabbing, blinding pain.

Syliva thrashed wildly in the smoke, destroying the building fronts around her and lighting fires as she coughed out bursts of flame. She saw blurring movement beneath her, and a stabbing pain – the orc was actually hacking at her feet with his axe, inflicting small but irritating little cuts. Something stabbed through her wing – a spear thrown by the elf. Syliva charged forward through the bonfire and leapt into the air, she had to get distance from them before she died a completely humiliating and stupid death. Whatever the elf had thrown into her eyes wasn’t clearing away, not quickly anyway. It felt like she was staring into the sun, even with her eyes shut.

Fortunately for Syliva, the town was a big target. She flew overhead unleashing a volley of fire to get things started, and then flew towards the ridge. Chasing down the orc and the elf blinded as she was would be fruitless, but there would be hundreds of huddled refugees hiding in the forest beyond the ridge that would pay for their leaders’ stupidity.

Syliva flew over the old dwarven fort and circled over the small valley on the other side of the steep ridge. It was so densely packed with thick foliage that she couldn’t have seen anything below, even if she hadn’t been half blind. She swooped over the forest and unleashed another stream of fire, but it didn’t spread much. The wet wood burned poorly, and filled the air above the valley with thick black smoke.

She finally dropped below the forest canopy and began sniffing for prey with her flicking, forked tongue. She could smell nothing but her own smoke and the decay of a dank, dark wood. She started to launch back up into the air, spreading her wings wide, but there was a loud boom and a whistling sound came from the citadel she’d ignored. She couldn’t see what was happening, but there was a loud crack right above her head. Sharp, burning projectiles stabbed her from above. The armored plates on her back and head protected her body from the explosive, but her open wings were shredded by the shrapnel, reduced to tatters like the sails of an old derelict ship. She tumbled to the ground.

She was grounded in the valley, grounded and blind thanks to the elf's lingering poison. She couldn’t even make sense of the smells in the air. Her ears rang from the explosion that had gone off right over her head, but that quickly cleared, the reverberation of the explosion and the buzzing in her head replaced by the sound of a string instrument thundering through the valley. It seemed impossibly loud, and it played an increasingly furious and violent melody that seemed to match with a strange rhythm Syliva sensed traveling through the ground. It felt like a thousand swords being thrust into the ground again and again, with incredible speed.

She wasn’t dead. Not yet. She could still mend. Dragons could heal from wounds most creatures couldn’t imagine, she just needed to get clear of whatever was swarming towards her through the underbrush. She twisted and turned, clearing trees with her powerful tail as she indiscriminately unleashed fire in all directions.

And then she felt it. A single sting. Whatever these things were, one had gotten through her burning wall, and it had gone straight to a bleeding cut the orc had inflicted on her leg. Even so, the sharp fangs digging into her flesh were little more than a nasty prick for her. She reflexively moved to swat the attacker way, but before she could reach it her muscles tightened, becoming as inflexible as stone. She toppled to the ground, paralyzed. More of the creatures emerged from the burning underbrush, propelled along on their tapping little sword-like feet. They crawled onto her, their bladed limbs scraping across her armor as their mandibles tore away her scales one at a time.

Piece by piece, the ancient scolopendrae of the Dark Dweller’s forest pulled Syliva apart, devouring her flesh, lapping up her blood, and picking her bones clean.