Era of the Dragoon

Prologue: The Constant Grind

They pushed hard. Rothan pushed back, though he knew weariness was quickly bringing a new front to his steadily thinning line. A cacophony of screams rang a discordant tone across the vale, chilling the souls of the grim audience deeper than the morning mist ever could. His men had been working since early evening last night, and preparing their tools since much earlier. If any were tired, Rothan could not tell.

It was thanks to the skilled eyes of his scouts and the timeless knowledge of a town-skirting stock herder that his men, and their families, drew breath this morning. And they were glad for it.

Thanks to the few who held the foully wretched from the purity of Valen, Rothan and his entourage could meet them through bloodied acquaintance. And they were glad for it.

Thanks to the silent cold of the mountain air, of which the Valenian were accustomed, the warmth of their adrenaline kept their blood from freezing within. And they were glad for it.

As Rothan cleft the skull of a newly fetid soul, he kicked out and toppled a lumbering mound of impurity. Working his heavy axe from the abominable remains, he considered the battle before him. He knew his party had begun roughly one thousand, two entire Packs, with easily thrice as many against him. Outnumbered, he would eventually be overpowered. They all knew this. And they were glad for it.

The Valen Wulfengaard loved a challenge.

Rothan’s axe slid through a bloated appendage that happened too close, letting free the fetid ooze that had gagged him hours before but now only was fuel to his adrenaline. His time was short, he knew, but well spent.

“Hold them back!” Rothan bellowed, hacking into shambling waves as fast as their putrid forms could carry them to their release. His men fought strong, carrying standards of home and family upon their wearied backs. Their ferocity was that of pack wolves against a cornered doe during the lean season.

The Valen Wulfengaard were known for unmatched group ferocity and determination in battle, their howls of glee renowned for paralyzing foes before a blow had landed. They had to be, the nation of Valen was established as the fore guard against the Draconian forces that bled like eternal tears from the passes of the Drakenwall. They had proved themselves in the blood that fed their fields and the steel that protected the Free Nations for three generations of Man.

Rothan’s axe ground through the flaccid, rotting flesh of a cretin extending invitation to the bowels of Hell and wedged into a haggard sapling of not more than four years. As he worked it free, his eyes searched the scene with serene purpose.

There he was, his captain, cutting his path deeper and deeper into Hell with his faithful entourage behind howling in gleeful bloodlust. Held in his ichor-stained fist was not the heavy bladed axe normally tooled against the tyrannical rage, but the Frost Wolf standard, a noble halberd streaking the visage of a great white wolf standing proud against a frozen tundra under a clear sky and crescent moon. Rothan kicked the stench from the dying mouth of a long-before corpse as he wrestled his axe free from its eternal foe. He absently noted that his captain was currently shaking the unclean life from a doomed soul dancing from the tip of his standard.

As he turned through a torso of disease, Rothan watched in pain as a young soldier, no more than a boy, fell under the weight of the surrounding decay. Wolfs-head axes slid through the piling masses from above as a lone axe lunged valiantly to reacquaint itself from below. He moved to help his brothers, but he knew the boy could not be saved. This knowledge would not stop them, or him, from trying. His path was slowed by his waltzing axe meeting and parting each partner as they retired from the gruesome dance floor.

Not enough time. He didn’t have enough time. Now the boy was screaming in rage-laced fear that arrives as trumpets sound before the Elders. Rothan was still so far away from his brothers, where the others had formed a pack shield against the crash of so much determined horror. He was alone and lost.

He felt the burning clutch into his shoulder as the dance continued, but now it was not he who led the cadence against the stoic scenery and its ageless onlookers with gnarled limbs upturned in disdain. Rothan wrenched himself free only to face the wanton grips of countless late-found courtiers wishing his permanence in this never loved ballroom.

His eyes and body dodged franticly, finding he was suddenly alone in this wild of which nature is not at home. Again and again he danced against them; again and again they fell upon him. His eyes were searching for what his soul could not find. The standard was not in his guidance. He felt, no, he knew, that it was he alone to protect his family now. The others were no more, consumed by they who once owned them.

But what else did he expect against these horrid things, these Necrundii? Filthy magic used by Draconia to taint the once virile and loving vessels of wondrous harmony to contain the festering blackness of those so tormented eternally, their blistering and decaying fists clutching those opportune tools of their vile craft.

Roaring so powerfully enraged, Rothan flew bodily into the staggering mass of noxiously returned birdfood. As a mother bear protects its cubs when threatened, he struck and kicked as though his family was with him. In a sense, they were. As he smithed his mettle in the fires of joyous deathrage, he perfected his masterwork with the ever ready aide of his less than living handmaids and assistants.

With swing and slam of steel and flesh, he kept his ground ever forward and the glorious rising of the pale sunlight kept his family further in the clutches of life and love. Each nick and prick and clutching gouge of death unto life that slow the mortal man only served Rothan the warmth of his own blood against the hard blue chill of the ever-bearing morning.

Slash, bash, grunt and smash went the bell toll, and repeat. Rothan knew he was getting weaker, he knew they were staying strong.

He fought with great will but not his own. He felt the very earth caress his knee and his eyes drank deep the frost as it refused its hold against the crimson blaze pouring from this unstoppable son of virtue while his hands remained in their tedious work as faithful bodyguard.

Now the earth was welcoming the warmth of his frigid knee unto its caress that forever brings those such as Rothan so much woe. His arms were growing heavy against the unbearable pressure drowning upon him. A blow caused the world to rattle his mind and let the fog of everlasting sleep begin its march upon the battlements of his failing will. He was dying, and he knew it. His family and friends had no doubt to find him wakeful already, and why not? he thought with the rush of fog, he was dead already. He had been alone since he had been warned of this fateful approach just half a day before. He was dying, not by wound of flesh but by his despairing will alone was his life coming quickly to end.

Perhaps they were safe now for his sacrifice in their name. Perhaps his men had lived, and thinking him lost but the women and children saved, made their gambit to Valen Keep. If so, it was better that he die now than to continue his futile exercise.

And then, a swath of life, a cry of despotic souls dethroned of bodies, a roar of beasts. A flash of steel was quickly muted in the ruddy ichor of the foul cloud of doom that was ever warring against the glory of the sun and its beautiful dance with death, who is ever exchanging partners.

“Come on, come on, get him up! General Rothan, regain the feet the gods gave you and stand like a man. You can take a nap later!” The captain’s cries seemed so far and distant, like that of the crooning rooster in the vestiges of hard-earned slumber.

Again came the call. “Rothan, control yourself! Be not the mouse who flees from injury, but the wolf, who prides his wounds and gives return to those against him with smoldering interest!”

This time, his voice was clearer, a beacon from the fog of dumb submission. His arms, still working their lifetime toil, began to renew with vigor and regain their stance of supremacy against the blunted edges of the old, worn implements that had forsaken their trade far too long brought against him.

A rotting blade spread its rusting wake down upon him, but Rothan swept away the pests as he worked himself once again to his height of the unimpeachable redwood. He took in the panorama of utter and complete chaos boiling in the same sunny vale where he had once whet his young-wolf axe so many years before.

Everywhere around him his tattered men, in full swing of their own dooms, performed the dance for which all prepare but none are ready. No man had fewer than three partners at a time, their swings the pendulum that clocked the final moments awaiting the group of wolf-hearted souls. Trees groaned in pain as they were used as shields and supported lifeless, and saplings lay dying among the dead in the envenomed mud or cried helplessly as they were struck down by swings longing their mark.

“Captain Strongarm!” Rothan’s roar echoed of the primal nature of all things. He lumbered away at this forest, his sweat again glazing his bloody, haggard wall of self. By ones and twos they were felled, and with each exploded another jostling roar that shook the heavens and fueled the grinding machine that was the Wulfgaard at their labor.

“Captain Keldon Strongarm, report!” More rotted blood sprayed his face as he roared, now almost a cynical laughter that not a man deranged would lay claim to. And still he swung forward.

How many were left, whispered the reasoned though he so often shunned. How many were joined with the ancestors, and like them were to swing against you now? How many would not see their families, but could now kill them? How many lives have you destroyed? Again and again came the whispering thoughts, faster and faster until he felt as though the world may crumble down against him.

He howled against an exploding skull to again match the wail of the black breeze carrying another charge into its strong-handed embrace. He roamed in place, bearing sad witness to his dwindling force.

Captain Strongarm arrived lazily, as if he had just happened across his general during an afternoon stroll. “You requested me, General?” He passively swung the standard through three approaching Necrundii with one arm as he threw his other fist forward in a quick salute.

“The sun rises, time enough for the gates to be sealed,” Rothan grunted as he unstuck his axe from a long dead chest. Keldon nodded his agreement as he swept aside a struggled blow and relieved the affronting corpse of its head and burdened arm.

Keldon considered the implication through more Necrundii, “Yes, they should be safe, and assuming we are consumed into the foul ranks.”

“Well then, it’s settled. We must show our people what true faith is. Prepare the men for immediate detachment and have them make a gambit for the Keep. I want these men, these wolves, to see their families tonight,” Rothan swung wide and split two pair of necks at the jawline. “With any luck, the southern kingdoms will arrive for a reprieve and give them more than that.”

But you are so close to victory, thoughts whispered to him again. Can you not see it? You should lead your men to glory, not run like wounded dogs! The thoughts were more persistent now. Rothan could hear Keldon breaking off the remaining men, like murmurs through a fog. He could hear something else, but couldn’t place it. It was almost as if—

“Rothan, let us leave and enjoy a good hike in the woods,” came the call of reality, the whispers backing into the shadows of his mind.

Rothan understood. Nearby stood another general, leading her own army and fighting as she knew: cowardice, attacking not with the honor of flesh and steel but the deceit of the mind and suggestion. Sweeping his gaze, he could see a change flow through the few wolves he might save. Their swings came slower; less concerned was their warding against the deep below. Inside, they were dying. Rothan had only one option, and a short window to take it.

“Captain, I will secure your summer’s walk from this wintry affair. I order you to pass word that I have fallen, and to assume command of the Wulfgaard as general.” Rothan turned back into the creeping, unending death before him. Keldon opened his mouth to protest, but the unending machine that is so putrid in its existence continued to roll upon them. Rothan knew the captain’s intent, and continued, “General, I would look forward to your retrieval of my axe from the field. Sadly, I expect that won’t be possible. Instead, relate my heroic stupidity and gather my Karokhen blades for my funeral.”

At this, Rothan began his march of red and rot, not looking back to see Keldon begin the march of growth and life.

Left and right, kick and smash. The Necrundii did not drop to a soul. They dropped as waves fall against the rocky shore. But like the rocks, Rothan would eventually wear away.

He was searching for the master of the storm cloud among clear skies, pouring its black rain upon his life and shooting thunderbolts of despair into his mind. The calls were louder now, beckoning him like a siren in shoalwaters, guiding him to doom.

For one of them.

Rothan slashed, swung and gouged with the ferocity of starved wolf in a field of sheep, and only after he cleft down a score with no effort did he pause for breath. The Necrundii moved past him as though he were a tree in the forest. He was still in the thrall of the whispers drawing him ever forward to a calm doom. This did nothing to prevent him from felling any who came within his reach.

Quickly the whispers grew louder, and drew him from the shifting masses into a nearby cluster of trees filled with creeping shadows and swirling mists until the whispers were no longer in his head, but rather filling his ears.

“Welcome home, Rothan, proud general of the Valen Wulfgaard. So strong, so fierce. You belong here now. This is where you will stay.” The voice slithered across his body, freezing the sweat, blood, and ichor against his flesh and leather hauberk.

“I belong free of your demonic possession, wyrm,” Rothan snarled as he slowly turned in the thick underbrush, looking for the source. His knuckles were white against the handle of his great implement and ward. “You will fool me no longer with your venomous charms. Show yourself and let me put you where all of Draconia earned to be. Deep and cold.”

“Come now, young Wulf,” hissed the trees. A flicker of shadow caught Rothan’s eye here, a glimmer of movement there, never on the same side of him. “You know as do I that you have come to die, not to kill, to save, not destroy. You might like to know that your men did not make it far into the wood. The dead have such a knowledge of the earth, one would think they came from it,” a shrub laughed, a slimy hiss that forced a shudder from Rothan’s soul. Above him, he heard the cracking of a branch.

“Yes… killed to a man to replenish those of mine you took.”

“Those men were never yours to command in the first place. We did nothing but free them their torment.”

The voice snorted. “Hmph, you will join in time. Yes, in time you will be fully with us.

“Until then, I will let you struggle to keep that glimmer of hope and relish the joy of watching it slowly fade as you see who Fate truly favors.”

Another shadow of movement. “You are wrong, wyrm. You think I came to be killed, I come to deny oppression. You think I intended to save my men, they were already forfeit. This whole dance was but a ploy, and act of free defiance, to save those who truly matter. We succeeded in that hours ago.” Rothan sneered. “Man has won this night, no matter the outcome between us. Kill m if you desire. Kill me if can, you impure offspring of fallen tyrants.”

The trees fell silent, dark. Stillness hung so thick that to draw a breath was a great labor. Rothan gripped his axe, his love, his life, tightly in both fists. Slowly, he turned, scanning for the wyrm. It could look like anything, that was the danger with wyrms. Though not as smart or powerful as a dragon or ferocious as a wyvern, wyrms were crafty deceivers.

“You insult your better, do you?” came a snarling hiss to Rothan’s left.

Then again to his right, “Your hubris shall be your death knell!”

“Enough of your pitiful cries, wyrm!” Rothan howled. “Come learn why the pure-bloods could not contain us!”

Rothan opened himself and released a great, echoing howl that shook the trees as much as it shook the soul of the wyrm. The howl, like many times before, had saved his life as the wyrm, a great, long abomination of shadowy black, cringed mid-lunge at Rothan’s back. The falter of the wyrm left her open against the broad head of his axe.

He dropped his whetted blade with two heavy hands upon the beasts skull, digging deep enough for it to lodge secure in its new home. The wyrm reared back and shrieked in agony from the blow, black blood oozing from where the axe head was burrowed signifying her time on this world had been severely reduced. Rothan felt himself be thrown back as the axe was torn from his hands, fighting tremendously to maintain his feet.

Despite the grave wound, the wyrm lashed out with her tail and foreclaws against Rothans heavy leathered armor. His arms had rips and gashes where the leather didn’t cover, and he could feel his blood pooling at his waist where the girdle cinched against him. But he still stood against the vicious opponent with flames in his eyes.

As the wyrm bellowed a gaping lunge of bladed teeth, Rothan growled the deadly warning of a wounded wolf against a hunter as he counter-lunged into the maw. He planted a boot in the tight gum of the wyrm’s lower jaw and gripped a fang with his leather gauntlet, swinging his free fist bodily into the creature’s left eye with a sickening squish. The eye exploded in its socket, and he used the momentum to push off with his boot and vault over the head of the cunning wyrm, latching his hand onto the haft of his axe with an iron death grip.

His momentum tore the axe free, along with some of the wyrm’s flesh. As he finished his vault, the wyrm’s foreclaw stabbed through his boot. As the claw shredded his shin, he felt the crunch of his ankle as it shattered. He felt his scream more than hear it as his weight bent his leg in a way it was not meant to. The wyrm swung him like a piece of string, slamming the breath out of him and cracking his ribs.

“I had planned on twisting your soul to serve as my Lieutenant,” she raged. “But now, after such insolence against a superior being, I will leave you so broken that not one piece of you will be of use to the carrion feeders!” Her rage was shrill, but through the daze, Rothan could hear the low keys of desperation.

Rothan knew he had her, and grinned.

Valenians have never known desperation.

Using the pain of his mangled leg as a catalyst to clear the haze, he swung his faithful ward with determined accuracy. The broad head glinted black as it cleaved clean of the wyrm’s hold on him, dropping him heavily on his back nearly six feet to the brush. Thick black blood sprayed from the ragged remains of her arm and matted the thick wood in a slick ichor.

As Rothan worked himself to his one working leg precariously, the wyrm let out a low, weakening moan as her lifeblood gushed from her. Rothan limped over to her one eye as she feebly attempted to shift into a winged creature to escape, and returned to her true form.

“You’ve made bold affronts to me and my bloodkin, wyrm. You know my name, Rothan, but not who I am born of. I am General Rothan ver’Arakin, direct descendant of Randell Arakus, slayer of dragons. His third son, my father, founded Valen after taking the lives of three of your kind, two wyrms and a wyvern.
I am Wulfgaard incarnate! I stalk, I hunt, I taste the fear of my enemies and drink deep of their doom. I am a great sleeping wolf, and you have prodded me out of my slumber against two decades of blatant warning born in blood which you have the gall to ignore. Give me your name, wyrm, so I may allow you to properly reap your gain!” Rothan’s eyes were smoldering with a determine flame of death.

The wyrm weakly eyed him, her life nearly gone. “You have accomplished nothing today, Wyrmkiller. I am called Erela, and serve as nothing more than a ploy against the weak minded. Mine were nothing more than a draw for your main force, leaving your precious capital, pitiful as it is, weak against the true might of Draconia. My mission is complete, and my associate will ensure the gates of your keep are opened wide for us. Now, make it quick, human.” Erela managed a weak grin of victory.

Rothan’s axe crumpled it.

As the axe thudded into the skull for a second time, he felt the energy drain from him. He was bleeding furiously, and tried to use his remaining energy to use strips of his mangled uniform to tie off his leg and hold the flesh together on his arms. He watched exhaustedly as the blood from his leg mingled and swirled with the black ichor from the wyrm, Erela.

After a few minutes of work, the bleeding came under control and Rothan leaned against the long, thick carcass to gather himself. The words of Erela ran through his mind. Her associate would ensure the gates are open… there must be another wyrm, one who had assumed a human form to gain access. But who? It could be anyone. He had to try and warn them, even if he was too late, he’d rather die in battle to save his land than die alone without purpose.

Using his axe as a crutch, he forced himself up and began making his way toward what once was the capital of Man’s vanguard against the Draconian attempts to regain control over the human races.

As he hobbled in the direction that Keldon had led the remaining Wulfgaard, the events that set this dark affair in motion replayed through his mind.

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“Papa, papa! There’s a man coming fast!”

Rothan stood from the table, his food barely touched. What could this be? Probably some movement sighted by the scouts in the pass.

He had barely reached the entrance to his home when a young scout, breath ragged, burst through the doorway. He fell to his knees as he tried to speak.

“Take your time, scout. What is happening?” His brow furrowed with rising suspicion that his meal, and those of many others, would not be enjoyed this night.

The man, still in the throes of puberty as all who served as scouts before becoming a fully acknowledge Wulfgaard, eventually gained his breath and then, his feet. His eyes were wild.

“General Rothan! Trouble is brewing, and pouring straight for our homesteads!”

Rothan could only stare at the man. He didn’t feel fear, but anticipation. “How many can be mustered in time? We need to cut them off.”

“There is currently a garrison of two hundred fifty in the Keep, and the other scouts are calling back the nearby packs to bolster the garrison. Even so, they’ll still number at least three-fold our men!”

Rothan was already tying the final straps on his hauberk, his axe hanging from a hook on his girdle. As the scout followed him out the door, Rothan ordered, “Send runners to the packs to form at the North Vale, we’ll hold them there while the garrison brings the villagers into the Keep and seals the gates.” He stopped and looked dead in the scout’s eyes.

“We will hold them until everyone is safe in the Keep. Now go. Go!”

The scout, fearful of provoking the General, quickly saluted and sped off as fast as his leaden legs would take him. Rothan’s son, Sihran, gave him a hard hug. He barely reached Rothan’s knee. “Papa, you just got back. You said you’d teach me the axe!”

Rothan looked down at his progeny, barely five seasons on the earth. “I have a duty to oblige. I need to lead the Wulfgaard against evil to protect you and your mother.” He kneeled in front of his son. “You have a duty, too. I want you to help your mom get everyone into the Keep. Do that for me, and I’ll teach you the axe when I retun.”

At that, he’d met up with fifty from the garrison and marched off to his sacrifice without looking back. His family didn’t worry, didn’t cry.

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They fought to lose, they fought to die.

At least they had fought for something, but now they ran.

Leaving the battle against the Necrundii behind, the Wulfengaard now battled the limbs and roots of the centuries old army of timber ahead. Though dawn had broke, the canopy enshrouded the forest in a heavy twilight to further tangle and trip the ragged packs in their sprinting.

Keldon paused at the cusp of the wood as the scant hundred soldiers, torn and bloody, made a blind gambit for the Keep an exhaustive two hours away. He took a moment to look back at the general, hacking and slashing against against an entire army. He was valiant in his effort to stem the tide from sweeping away the remnants of his men. In a few moments, Rothan had all but disappeared into the dead army.

Such a shame, he was a great man and would be missed. Keldon grimaced. If only things had been different, he might feel better about what had to happen now.

As the Necrundii approached, Keldon calmly turned into the forest. As the trees encased him, the air grew dark and violent, and for a moment a dark form began to materialize.

And then, it was gone.

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"Don't stop, the flames of hell still lick our heels!" The sergeant scooped up a young Wulf mid-fall over a root with his one usable arm. As the soldier regained his footing, the elder soldier gave him a shove to get him moving again. As he continued his run, the sergeant kept a keen eye to any Wulfengaard in view, lest another fall and be trampled by the Necrundii. They didn't move fast, but they never got tired.

"Damn this, it's a fool's hope to make the Keep now! This is pointless!" gasped another soldier as he caught up to the sergeant. Cuts and slashes blanketed his face and torso, and a gash in his leg bled profusely. The sergeant was proud of the soldier's determination, but not his words. He wasn't sure how long the soldier could continue before his strength gave out or the swelling blocked his vision, and meant to keep a close watch on him. He'd get him to the Keep, but he denied himself the hope the man would live much past that.

"Cull your tongue, wolf. We were never meant to have a hope in this, so be glad for any that we get," the sergeant swung the man's arm over him and he immediately felt the adrenaline begin to drain from the soldier. "Keep strong, wolf, and you see the Keep and your family."

As they began moving, a nearby tree exploded to his left, sending painful splinters into their wounds. Wails of death soon followed the trees demise, sending the winds of panic spreading through the fleeing soldiers. They did what no Valenian had been known to do before.

They expressed uncontrolled fear.

Their pace increased vastly as they ran for two reasons, now. To get to the Keep, but now more pertinent in their minds, just to get away. Soldiers scrambled in all directions to escape the unseen menace that now ravaged their already broken bodies. The sergeant watched as trees were toppled and bodies, or pieces, were thrown through the air. He did not panic, his focus remaining on delivering this dying man to the Keep and his family, had he one. His pace was slower than he'd like, but it was steady progress. He watched as those ahead of him faded into the dim light.

No, the light wasn't dim, it was almost non-existant. The shift had been subtle enough that in the chaos he had not noticed. The screams continued ahead of him. Now in the distance to his side, and again from the front. Something fast and powerful had waited in the forest against their retreat. They'd been outflanked in a damned forest! Surely a fool's hope indeed.

The general expects us to be making our way safely to Keep, and instead we'll be shredded like dogs in this forest. Oh, how guilty he would feel were he here. The sergeant continued to lead the wounded soldier through the wood as he lamented his general's folly. Rothan should have left us in the battle, not send us to run and die cowering in this damnable forest at the hands of something we can't see! Why did he send us here?

The sergeant helped the soldier over a rotting log only to be slammed to the ground by something heavy. And leathery.

Pushing himself up, he watched in horror as the soldier he'd been leading was swept through branches in the talons of something large and dark. The man weakly tried to lift his axe against the creature despite the crushing grip he was held in. Blood gurgled from clenched teeth as he feebly swung his heavy axe with one hand, widely missing the creature. It responded by slamming him into a tree, cracking in lengthwise, and finally smashing him into the undergrowth. Then it disappeared into the forest.

Through the continuing screams of the wounded and dying, the sergeant made his way to the fallen man he'd been trying to save. What was left was more mess than man, spread thick across the branches and the shrubs at the sergeant's feet. He kneeled to give quick memorial and gather himself.

He hadn't known him, he hadn't been stationed in Valen. Probably from a pack patroling nearby when the call to arms came. It was too bad, but he had no time to grieve, lest he not make it to the Keep himself.

He stood and turned back in the direction of Valen, only to see the dark creature bearing down on him. Its maw opened razors at him, and he responded with his axe held defiantly in his one good arm. If it must be this way, let it be equal.

The last thing the sergeant saw were its eyes. Violet eyes. They were so familiar.

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At the edge of the forest leading to Valen, the bloodied and broken men of the Valen Wulfengaard gathered their collective breath. From their vantage they could see Valen, and above it, the Valen Keep.

The Keep was large motte and bailey, with mortared stone walls and thick wooden battlements. In the courtyard was a stable for the runner's horses and three common buildings lining the walls, with a well and training area in the center for the soldiers. Near the moat was a narrow garden able to sustain the cities populace, if only stringently. Across the small draw was the inner courtyard and Keep proper, with high smooth stone walls cornered by four extended turrets with dual pronged ballistae mounted upon them against aerial attacks. Above the gate into the inner courtyard was a modified battlement with an oil trough that could be lighted for archers fire arrrows, and served as an extra defense agains wall mount attacks. Within the courtyard was a simple barracks and meal hall, along with the Citadel, containing Fate's Seers and home to both the Valen Triumvirate.

As the wearied soldiers, barely a score remaining, looked upon the Keep with hope, flames erupted from the outer battlements and crashed to the surrounding city. The flames only added to the blaze engulfing the city, and the faint cries of battle crept on the breeze to the now crestfallen Wulfengaard. The Keep was under siege.

"Fate's curse! We are engulfed in doom from all angles!" Cried one forlorn soldier.

"Doom only engulfs those who wish to be consumed by it. We have not lost yet." Keldon stalked from the forest toward his remaining soldiers. His armor was battered and torn, and bloody dirt caked his face and tunic. He calmly planted the standard, torn and sullied, in front of his remnant pack. "Listen to me, and listen well. By the looks of things, we've been caught since last night. The army in the vale was stalled, we did our part. Yet, that beast in the woods, probably the general of that army, waited for our retreat. And we survived that, while we mourn the loss of those who could not die valiantly.

"The Draconian armies have always been sly. It was our folly to expect them not to launch a second strike against our hearts, we have fought them as long as any of us can remember. And we have stopped them at every turn! So, our general is gone. I'll not have you call me as such, it would dishonor his memory. So, we fled through the forest and felt the terror, dark and strong. We have still survived through this.

"So, our Keep is sieged with no escape. The other nations will not arrive in time to save it.

"But listen, brave Wulfengaard! We have survived the terrors less than this in the past decades, we have song and holiday in their memorum! We score have survived, tired, broken, and beaten... but still the blood of the northern wolves beats in our chests! Still we have axe and knife and fist and fang to bear upon our foes! And they have not seen true terror! Not yet!

"We may be few, but we are still strong! We are Valenians! We have held the passes into the Draconian desperate foothold for over a century, never have we given them an inch, yet we have taken from them miles!

"Fear not, brave men... brave wolves! For we charge not alone! We charge with the hearts of our ancestors, the strength of our history, and will of our families, who even now fight as defiantly as any of us has ever known!"

Keldon clasped his bruised fist to his chest as his violet eyes glared like burning coals into each man's in turn. They all stood once again as the proud, defiant Wulfengaard they had been all through their lives.

They all saluted in unison, crying, "For the denmothers! For the cubs! For the Wulfengaard!"

"May our deeds survive past the end of ages, through eras unknown, and be the last whisper of the gods as they die!" Keldon ripped the standard from the earth as the Wulfengaard unhooked their wolfshead axes or drew their daggers. Forming into a spearhead, with Keldon pushing them on with cries of valor from behind, they charged through the burning streets, past the remains of their homes, giving great howls of death upon what waited at the gates.

As they charged, Keldon distanced himself from the doomed pack. Headstrong fools, that's all they were. Yet, his speech had been true. These damn Valenians had stopped them at every turn for over a century, and not for lack of trying. Keldon would change that. Ducking into a burning alley, Keldon stopped to focus inward. The change took concentration.

The air around him grew unnaturally dark and violent. The surrounding buildings were stifled of their flames and the air disappeared. Slowly the form of the Captain of the Wulfengaard enlarged, his arms becoming great leathery wing, his face elongating to form a beaked maw filled with razor teeth. A barbed tail extended the length of the rest of him and whipped through a charred wall of a nearby building. As the darkness faded into his flesh, he took flight for a better vantage. His wings and beak were sore, some of those damned Wulfengaard in the woods got a few swings in before he could gut them, and the trees were strong in their age.

From the air, he had a clear view to direct his forces. Three score Dragoons battered at the gate, merely swatting the fireblasts of the Valenian Mages from above. Dragoons, more man that Draconian from diluted breeding, they couldn't transmute their form, but were useful as they were. Generally the elite warriors of Draconia for offensive operations, they stood seven feet covered in ironhard scales, along with a strong half-plate, wielded great maces and halberds in steely talons aided by a spiked tail and fanged maw. They loved the taste of human flesh.

Archers lined the battlements releasing flaming arrows as the Wulfengaard in the Keep swung halberds down the walls to drop the Dragoons scaling the wall. Behind the Dragoons, the score of battered Wulfengaard charged toward the siege. Keldon let out a screeching order to the Dragoons, announcing his presence to the defiant Valenian defenders.

He dodged through the skies as ballista bolts connected by netting hurtled through the air, multiple times nearly dropping, or skewering, him mid-flight. Keldon careened down to the battlements, striking with his tail at the soldiers and mages. Those he didn't impale fell to the earth some three stories below. Keldon continued his low altitude assault, the ballistae couldn't aim at their own battlements, the fools. He latched his talons on the wall above the main gate, using his tail to rip the chains holding the counterweight asunder. The gate flew open, and the Dragoons poured into the main courtyard, slashing and mauling anything and anyone that wasn't covered in scales.

As the last of the Dragoons swept into the courtyard, the beaten and battered men from the vale clashed into their rear ranks. As they clashed, their wearied state caused them to be easy prey to the Dragoons, who suffered only a few casualties from the flank attack. Keldon turned to the turrets, using his tail to crush them and catch mortared chunks as they fell, which he then launched into the common buildings and especially the Citadel. He yelled in victory as the Citadel collapsed upon itself, a meager few surviving women, children and guards able to flee the destruction into the blades and claws of the front line of the Dragoons.

As Keldon surveyed the remnants of the defenders falling in screams of agony, he perched on a section of wall on the Keep's remains. He watched grimly as the city of Valen, his surrogate home for the past three decades, burned to the ground and its inhabitants, those valiant men who he'd fought alongside and led in battle, died gruesome deaths by his trickery. Such was his purpose in the Draconian effort to reassert control over this animals. Such was his burden to watch his friends die by his hand.

The air darkened violently as he became a violet eyed Valenian perched on the battlements of the destroyed Keep, feeling no pride for this accomplishment. He would be rewarded back in Draconia, but since his time with these people, he'd grown to respect them. And his betrayal burned internally. He no longer wanted this. When he was first given the assignment, he was proud to be chosen for it, excited for the chance to be responsible for the Draconian Empire's reclamation of what it once controlled. This was not how it was supposed to be! I'm supposed to feel proud of my heroics, but I am a wasp among the honeybees who simply want to live their lives on their own terms. I cannot do this anymore, those arrogant Dragons, so noble and ancient, truly are the tyrants these humans claim them to be. Never again will I be pawn to those swine, kowtowing to their pureblood, treated as a tool and not a being.

With a single tear, Keldon gained his feet and leapt over the side of the wall, flying off to the south, somewhere away from this. Somewhere to think. Somewhere to plan his penance against the nation he destroyed. As he glided away from the carnage, dark clouds swarmed in and thunder groaned in the distance.

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"No... why Keldon... why did you let me trust in you?" Rothan slumped down, feeling older than he was as the wyvern disappeared in the horizon. Tears coursed his haggard face, one for every life lost these past days. He failed his people, and delivered them into a bloody death. His leg throbbed and his heart ached. The sounds of the final few dying drifted over him from the distance.

Dragging himself into the forest against the storm, he cobbled together a ramshackle hiding hole. The Necrundii would be coming through soon, and the Dragoons would most likely notice a fire. Once everything had left, he'd search the destruction for anything useful, tend his wounds, and find Keldon.

He needed to pay for his sins. Rothan make him pay in flesh for each Valenian dead.