The Dragon's Madness.

         Jarrett, cloaked in dragon-skin and bearing a great sword across his back, wearily climbed the stone steps. His dark cloak swayed in the wind and revealed the worn plate steel he wore underneath, it's surface covered in scorch marks and foreign inscriptions. As he planted his foot on the top step he paused and looked back at the long pathway behind him.

         “Laruga...” With a heavy sigh, the name escaped his lips. He knew that this was his last battle, for Laruga was the last of the dragons.

         He lifted the sword from his back and held it in one hand. It's length was considerable, almost as long as he was tall, but he wielded it like it was a sword half the size.

         The wind at that altitude was formidable and created a howling sound as it rushed through the great stone ruins before him. Stone pillars, as wide and tall as the great redwoods, shot up from the ground around him, surrounding the mountaintop.

         Jarrett, a dragon-slayer, had come to kill the mad dragon Laruga. It was with both great sadness and great anger that he took on the task, as the dragon had burnt his village, killed his people, and was now responsible for the death of his wife. But at the same time Laruga wasn't evil, nor did he mean to harm anyone, he had finally fallen victim to the same curse that had taken the rest of the dragons.

         The dragon-slayer stepped into the temple, where he knew the dragon would be. He held the great sword over his head and chanted the soul stealing curse of the dragon-slayers, the only thing that could put the soul of a mad dragon to rest.

         His words echoed through the stone halls of the building. On the blade of his magic sword, several strange symbols appeared and glowed a bright orange. When he finished his chant he held the sword out to his side and shouted the dragons name.

         “Laruga!” His words echoed back to him several times before the dragon replied with a great roar of his own. The beast emerged from a small passageway and rushed towards him with great fury. As the dragon approached, Jarrett cocked back his arm and swung with all his might, cutting a deep gash in the dragons snout, and leaving it recoiling.

         He took advantage of the opportunity and thrust his blade forward. Laruga dodged at the last moment, cocked his head to the side, and with his strong neck, slammed it into Jarrett's side, launching him several feet.

         He landed hard but recovered quickly and rushed to his feet. His sword had fallen out of his hand and clattered to the ground several feet away. Laruga began pacing around him, the same way a big cat would when stalking their pray, looking for his opportunity to strike.

         “Hou Kah!” Jarrett called his swords name and it flew into his open hand. He held it in front of him, ready to defend, when he began to speak in a language that only the dragons understood.

         “When you killed them did you know what you were doing? Or had the curse taken over by then?” Laruga simply stared back at him. By this point the curse had rendered him unable to understand, and turned him into a beast bent on destruction.

         Suddenly Laruga's stance changed, he lowered his head and raised his wings up high. Jarrett knew what he was doing and pulled the tail of his cloak around him. The dragon breathed fire but Jarrett was immune. He took his opportunity and rushed forward, through the dragons flames, thrusting his blade into it's mouth and out the back of it's neck.

         Immediately the dragon's flames stopped and it's body became rigid. To finish his soul stealing curse, the dragon-slayer pulled his blade from the dragons body, immediately causing it to petrify and turn to stone, starting from where his sword had been. The orange symbols on the great sword turned blue and faded away.

         As he stared at Laruga's stone form he couldn't help but remember the bond they shared. After all part of Laruga's soul rested in him. It was what let him use the magic of the dragon-slayers, and wield his great sword.

         He remembered the day he became a dragon-slayer, when he first met Laruga. At the time he was barely an adult, but after several skirmishes in the army his superiors sent him away to study under the dragon-slayers. He remembered climbing those stone steps every day from where he stayed at the village below. He remembered how small their order was. Even back then there weren't that many dragons left...

         He also remembered the day he was taught about the great curse, the madness of the dragons. On one particularly sunny day the elder of the order had summoned him to the top of the mountain. When he got there Laruga was waiting for him alone, lazily napping in the shade of a tall tree. When he approached Laruga's eye lazily opened and stared at him for a moment before the dragon stood up on all fours.

         “Where's the elder? He told me to meet him here.” Jarrett asked. The dragon lowered his head to meet his eye level and spoke in a series of growls and barks known as the dragon-tongue.

         “He's not coming.” Laruga spoke slowly and took a long pause before continuing. “I need to tell you about the curse.” The dragon turned around and slowly walked towards the cliff on the west side of the mountaintop. The man followed until they stopped right next to the edge.

         “At one time the dragons were great.” Laruga started again as he stared off into the sunset. “Our numbers were high. We were spread across the world. The humans respected us. The enemies of humans feared us.” He turned to face the man. “600 years ago a curse was put on us. On that day the dragons started to go mad.”

         “It's slow at first,” the elder's voice cut in from behind them, “they become agitated, and start to lose their memory. Then they become aggressive and will attack anyone who gets near.” The elder walked towards Jarrett and put a hand on his shoulder. Jarrett noticed he was carrying a cloak in his other hand. “If this goes unchecked a single dragon could destroy an entire city. This is why we, the dragon-slayers, exist.”

         “I thought you weren't coming” Laruga growled as he twisted his serpentine neck around to face him.

         “This is why we must seal their souls away,” the elder continued ignoring Laruga, “so that one day, when we can release them of their curse, we can return them to life. We petrify their bodies so that they can be restored, in the same shape they were in before they went mad.” When he said this the elder looked sad. In retrospect Jarrett realized that this was the point where he had started to lose hope. “Though we still don't know how to release them or who even put a curse on them in the beginning.” The elder paused and stared at the ground.

         “Now that you've finished your training you can join us.” Laruga cut off the elder's speech. He wasn't trying to be rude, the dragon-tongue was just a very short and direct language. They had no sense for the intricacies of human speech.

         “Yes, Laruga's to be your partner.” The elder recovered and handed the cloak to Jarrett. “I've taken the liberties of having a great sword made for you, just like the one you carried before.”

         Jarrett looked at the sword he held in his hand, fresh with Laruga's blood. Despite the many long battles it's endured, it's surface was pristine and it's edge was just as sharp as when he first received it.

         He looked around him, at the temple, which was once full of his fellow dragon-slayers and dragons alike. They had a rule, every human must have a dragon partner and if your partner goes mad or dies, you can no longer be a dragon-slayer. It was because of this that Jarrett was the last dragon-slayer, just as Laruga was the last dragon.

         Jarrett took his blade and returned it to it's sheath. He needed to take Laruga's soul back inside the temple, where it would rest until someone could lift the curse. It was as he was about to lay the sword down and leave when Jarrett decided to disobey his last order. He remembered how Laruga loved humans, and how much his son respected the dragons. Instead he decided to take Laruga home, to his farm outside the village, where his son could look at the blade and remember how great the dragons were.

         And so Laruga's soul rested inside that sword. Several years later during a bad winter Jarrett came down with Pneumonia and died. He was survived by his only son, who inherited all of his belongings, including that sword, which soon became a family heirloom, passed down from father to son for generations.