Twilight of the Dragons (2 page)

Deep in the forest, there came a clatter.

Kranesh grinned. “More fresh meat,” she murmured, and moved forward, the strength of her bulk and mass toppling trees as she pursued the surviving forest bandit deep, deep down into the bowels of the Furnace.

S
ergeant Dunda and Lieutenant Filligorse
stood on a low hill, watching the winter sun rise slowly from behind the jagged mountain peaks. Mist crawled across the uneven ground, skeins curling around upthrust boulders, as the dawn light painted purple streaks through the clouds and from the distance came the thump of marching boots.

“I hope this display is better than last time,” said Filligorse, his voice a little nasal, his watery blue eyes narrowed against the bright light.

“The lads have been working hard, lieutenant,” growled Dunda, and rubbed at his beard before turning to the bugler. “Gahi, sound the charge.”

Gahi lifted the bugle, and gave three short blasts.

The heavily armoured infantry units broke into a charge, coming into view. Their boots thundered, plate mail clanking.

“Explain your formation, sergeant.”

Dunda coughed. “A hundred and fifty on left and right wings, hundred centre, hundred reserves.”

“Jolly good. Bugler, sound a halt, followed by weak centre.”

The bugler gave a series of blasts and the five hundred Vagandrak soldiers, steel bright and glinting in the dawn sunlight, stopped with well-measured precision, and the centre units retreated, twenty peeling from each side to reinforce the left and right wings. The idea was that a weak centre would invite an enemy attack, and the wings would curl around to encompass the enemy from three sides, crushing them.

Boots stamped to attention, and silence drifted across the plain.

“They are better, much better,” observed Filligorse.

Dunda made a low growling sound, but said nothing. He fought hard against wanting to punch the lieutenant on the nose.

Mist curled around boots, and the soldiers waited with military patience, hands on sword hilts, heads high, backs straight. Although these were not veterans, not battle-tested, they still presented themselves well, had trained hard under Dunda's expertise… after all, he
was
a veteran. He had survived the Second Mud-Orc War. He was revered and highly respected by the men.

Dunda marched forward without a word to the lieutenant, to stand before his beloved units. He puffed out his chest proudly, and beamed a smile. “You done me proud, lads,” he said, voice rumbling out across their motionless ranks. “Now, what we're going to do is have a little bit of a run.” Where once there would have been groans, now there was simple acceptance. And that was a small miracle in itself; running in full armour was no pleasure at all.

Dunda looked back at the lieutenant. The man had a slightly pained expression on his face. Dunda grinned and scratched his chin once more… but then frowned, because there was something in the sky.
An eagle? But Gods, it was big. A Golden Eagle?
He squinted again, then turned to the white peaks, a saw blade across the horizon. It was feasible. They were within range…

Then there came a distant
thump,
as of some great object slapping the air, and the object accelerated with impossible speed. Dunda felt his mouth drop open, something that hadn't happened since he manned the walls of Desekra Fortress.

“By the Seven Sisters…” he said, and felt a sudden ripple of fear course through the armoured men behind him.

“What is it?” Lieutenant Filligorse was saying. “What's the matter with you lot?”

And then he turned, in time to see what looked like a
brass dragon
speeding towards him, wings outstretched, their edges lined with spikes, scales gleaming with reflected sunlight, eyes black and slanted and narrowed… and fixed on him.

His muscles tensed.

“Oh no,” he managed.

Then Moraxx opened her jaws, and grabbed him from the hilltop like a man plucking a lollipop from a child. She soared above the arranged infantry, and every head turned, following her silent passing. Silent, until she bit down, and spat out Filligorse on a short jet of fire.

The two halves of his scorched body hit the ground amidst the infantry, and many leapt back, noses wrinkling at the stench of half-cooked human flesh.

“Right, you fuckers!” screamed Dunda, and suddenly the men leapt back to attention. “Seems we have a fucking
dragon
who wants to have a fight. Those with short-range crossbows, load and fire on my command… ” Dunda was watching the beast circle, a wide, lazy arc and his brow furrowed at the sheer scale of the beast, the sheer, inherent
power…

Moraxx came in on a silent glide, head outstretched, dark, slitted, malevolent eyes gleaming with intelligence. Dunda screamed a command, and bolts lashed through the air, a dark hail… and they watched with open mouths as Moraxx dipped one wing, dropped under the bolts, then suddenly accelerated towards the armoured infantry, landing in their midst with a
crash
that sent men toppling like armoured skittles. Her tail lashed out, sending twenty soldiers screaming into comrades, their plate armour buckling. Bodies pulped inside metal as soldiers
merged
with friends to form broken heaps of severed limbs and crushed flesh. Moraxx roared, but the Vagandrak infantry charged, swords hacking at her scales, at her legs. She turned in the midst of the melee with lazy contempt and lowered her head. Her chest glowed, snout opened, and fire roared from the furnace of her throat and fire glands… men screamed, as armour became suddenly superheated and they cooked inside their metal prisons, flesh pink and steaming, skin curling like fried pig, until eyes popped and knees collapsed and the scorched armour held their cooked bodies together, boiled live like lobsters in a pot, fried in their own juices and body fat, which ran clear from the legs of armour as a hundred men lay sizzling.

Moraxx started to lash out, marching amongst the soldiers. Swords hacked at her, but long claws like polearms punched out, cutting soldiers in two.

Sergeant Dunda ran up behind Moraxx, his huge paws swinging a double-headed battle axe that smashed into her flanks, dislodging several scales. Again he struck, and again, until suddenly Moraxx whirled on him and, in the blink of an eye, he was in her jaws. Gasping, he dropped his axe and grabbed her snout, trying to force her jaws apart, trying to ease the terrible pressure which crushed him. Moraxx shook her head, Dunda's limbs flailing like a doll, and then she bit deep and cut him in half, spitting out the two halves of corpse like a dog ejecting a rotten bone.

She breathed deep, black eyes glinting, burning corpses sending glints of orange bouncing from her scales. The remaining soldiers had retreated, gathered into a unit. There were perhaps fifty left. They held a ragtag assortment of weapons, and remembering their training, they formed into a wedge, shields lifted for protection, trying to ignore the feeble cries of so many half-cooked comrades who steamed like burned pig slabs on a fire rock.

“Charge!” came the cry.

Moraxx inhaled: there came the whisper of her fire glands, and a stream of flames erupted, engulfing the charging unit of soldiers, blasting them backwards, into a heap, into a mass of one, where flesh cooked and blackened, bodies thrashing and trembling, hot fat running. The fire continued, changing from yellow to blue to pure white as it streamed from the wyrm's jaws, illuminating her black cruel eyes as she strode forwards… and plate armour finally melted, and the whole unit of Vagandrak infantry became one mass of molten steel and flesh that ran from a mound to a puddle on this, its final resting place.

Moraxx stopped, fire whispered, and suddenly a strange silence fell like ash.

She turned her head and, with a slap of her wings, leapt into the sky and was soon a black dot on the horizon.

T
he insanity
of violence and bloodshed which followed, well, it all started because of cock.

It was to be a heroes' pub crawl around some of the less salubrious slum-quarter establishments of Vagan, capital city of Vagandrak. It would feature renowned and decadent drinking dens such as The Fighting Cocks, The Cock Horse, The One-Legged Cock, The Big Cock and, simply and amusingly, The Cock. These were hard and harsh working men's taverns. Soldiers' taverns. Fighters' taverns. Women of nobility and money, with babies suckling on enlarged teats, did their best to avoid such rough and ready dives.

It was called
The Five Cock Race,
and one, if so inclined, was expected to drink five tankards of ale per establishment in the shortest time-frame possible. There was a reason why
The Five Cock Race
contained no establishment named The Upstanding Cock. That was a Vagandrak drinking joke.

And there was Beetrax, Beetrax of the Axe, his ginger beard bushy and hardly combed at all, his laugh uproaringly infectious and booming across the tavern, making men and women of lesser fibre look away with a shake of the head and a narrowed frown or scowl.

Three taverns in three hours, they'd managed. Fifteen ales in. Beetrax was what could only be described as generously oiled. “Come on you lank bastards, it's fucking time for something fucking stronger! Landlord! Bring out the whiskey barrel!” He roared with laughter and punched the tabletop, making cups and flagons jump.

The landlord narrowed his eyes, and his fist tightened around the helve secreted beneath the bar. “Listen. I think you've had enough, son,” he said, words trembling only a little, much to his credit. Beetrax did this to people.

Beetrax scowled, then suddenly grinned, showing a chipped tooth. “No problem!” he boomed, and slapped Dake on the back, forcing the man's face into his frothing ale.

“For the love of the Holy Mother!” spluttered Dake, pushing himself backwards and scowling, but Beetrax simply laughed again and slapped him once more, harder this time.

A singer crooned in the corner, his voice a gentle lullaby.

Men and women drank and laughed and sang.

It was going well, as these things often do. Humour was good. Humour was high! Until Rodrake Ritch, a small and normally innocuous portly guardsman from Wall 4 of Desekra Fortress, decided to get out his cock and dangle it in front of all the ladies present. It was his party trick. His personal comedy. His
special move, baby.

Some gasped, some laughed, some covered their eyes; but most just shook their heads. Rodrake Ritch was renowned for drinking too much and getting his tackle out. It was a miracle nobody had done anything about it before, including chopping off, with a large knife, the aforementioned set of dangling ridiculousness.

“Oy, Ritch,” said Beetrax, uneasily. Somehow, the fun seemed to be trickling out of the evening.

“Yeah?” beamed Rodrake, his round face the gawping, grinning face of a thousand village idiots in a thousand idiot villages throughout the land.

“Put your dick away,” said Dake, his face losing its humour. “Nobody wants to see it, mate. Trust me on this.”

“But it's great!” said Rodrake, and gave his little member a circular twirl.

“Yeah, but it's not great you're showing it to my woman,” snapped Dake.

“Oooooh, listen to the tooucshy man!” slurred Ritch.

Dake started forward out of his seat, but Beetrax placed a hand against Dake's chest. “Best let me handle this, lad. You're all wound up because your pretty girl is here, being forced to stare at… at
that
.” He pulled a face full of distaste, and put out his tongue for a moment, as if he'd brought up a bit of sick.

Beetrax stood, and squared up to Rodrake Ritch, which was quite a sight, because Beetrax was one big, brutal motherfucker, and Ritch was portly and small, and happily, drunkenly oblivious to his impending pummelling by fists the size of shovels. It was an amazing mental state to acquire for a man so readily willing to produce his cock in front of other men's wives. One would have thought he'd learnt a lesson sooner.

“Listen, son. Now. This is the way it is. There's a lot of people here, and a lot of people who have their woman present. Now, no man likes his woman looking at another man's cock. It's just not right. And any man who wants to get his cock out and parade it around, well, he's not fucking right in the head, either. So what I suggest is this. Put your cock away in your trews, and I'll think about
not
knocking out your teeth in front of all these good folk who have only come out for fun and a few drinks. How does that sound?”

“Wahey!” Ritch swung his cock around once more. Some men, it would appear, had a death wish. Rodrake Ritch, however, had a
cock wish.

“Best let me handle this, lad,” muttered Dake, from just in earshot. Beetrax felt himself flushing red and he frowned.

“All right, Roddie. I've had enough of your cock. Put it away now – that's fair warning. Or I'll be forced to thump you.”

Ritch wiggled his penis some more, oblivious to the retching of the crowd.

“So be it,” growled Beetrax, and punched him full in the face, a straight hard right that sent Rodrake Ritch staggering backwards, cascading stools and tables crashing around him, until he landed on his back, a tooth on his chest, and blood on his chin.

“Well done,” said Dake.

“That fucking showed him,” nodded Beetrax.

“That. Is. My. Brother.” The words were like the rumble of an earthquake. They were like the destruction of stars. They were
the end
of the world, so deep was their resonance. And they also explained why most present had been willing to put up with the little cock.

Beetrax turned, slowly, to face a chest. A broad chest. A
very
broad chest. He looked up. And
up.
And Beetrax was
big.
Which made this motherfucker
huge.

“So what?”

“My brother!” growled and rumbled the human mountain, thumping his chest with one fist, and glaring at Beetrax with crossed eyes, as his purple tongue protruded like a cow's that continually licked at its lips. His face was a crisscross of scars. Most of his teeth were missing. And Gods, he stank like a sewer. Worse. Like ten corpses in a sewer being eaten by corpse rats with dysentery.

“And your name is?”

The punch hit Beetrax on the nose, sent him reeling backwards, where he sat down on his arse and banged his skull against the bar. He shook his head, stunned for a moment, blood leaking from his nostrils as Rodrake Ritch lay on the tavern floor, giggling, his flaccid penis limp against his trews like a tiny maggot waiting to be hooked on a line.

Dake leapt on the man-mountain's back, arms around his throat in a stranglehold, and the man began to spin until Dake was tossed aside. The man staggered a little, dizzy from his own exertions, as Dake rolled into a table.

“Anybody else want a fucking go?” boomed the man.

Beetrax hit him with a stool, splintering the wood, and dropping him to one knee. Beetrax stared at the broken stool. Then at Rodrake's brother. Gods, the man had a hard head! So he hit him again, sending the huge bastard crashing sideways.

“Better get out of here,” muttered Dake.

Laughing, Beetrax nodded, and gesturing to his friends to follow, they ran for it, out into the rain, down the slippery cobbles, back towards The Fighting Cocks
,
with Beetrax cackling like a demon, and shouting, “These are great days, Dake, great days we're living in! We're happy brothers, and things will never be the same again, you mark my words!”

“
T
hings will never be
the same again,” muttered Dake Tillamandil Mandasar, as he followed Beetrax through the narrow stone tunnel, eyes fixed on the broad axeman's back. Nobody spoke. The roof of the tunnel was abnormally high, and above lay thin diagonal lodes of silver and gold, web traceries of glittering metal encased in black granite, trapped within the embrace of the mountain.

She's dead,
he thought, for the thousandth time.

I cannot believe she is dead.

Things will never, ever, ever be the same again.

His loss hit him like a hammer blow to the head. Like a sledgehammer to the heart, crushing him with its ferocity.

There was a pressure inside Dake's skull, like a huge hand had grabbed his brain and was squeezing itself into a fist. Crushing him with pressure. Breaking his thoughts, his dreams, his memories.

She's dead,
he thought, and tears welled in his eyes, rolling down his cheeks.
Jonti is dead.
His throat throbbed with pain, razor-scraped. His heart beat fast, thundering in his chest. And once more he considered following her, chasing her down the dark corridors of pain and into a well of death from which he could never return. He thought of the slender dagger in his boot. He could stop. Kneel down. Pull out the blade, hold the tip to his breast – one short, powerful thrust. Through the heart. He'd be dead in seconds… and then he'd see her again. Be with her again. Entwined with her beauty for an eternity.

He closed his eyes, boots thudding along, matching the rhythm of Beetrax before him…

Jonti Tal was standing in a field of golden corn. The sky was the colour of topaz, deep, rich, more beautiful than any painting. She was slim, athletic, her long brown hair flowing to one side under the caress of the wind. The corn wavered, giving off a soft rustling sound, rhythmical, in tune with the breeze, nature, the planet. And then she smiled, and her radiance dazzled Dake, almost blinded him with its stunning beauty; almost poleaxed him with the love which emanated from that intense and majestic gaze.

Jonti's hand reached out. She was wearing a gauzy blouse of white, and the sleeves were long and flowing, edged in white lace. The garment exaggerated her movement, her gesture of welcome, her invitation for Dake to join her, be with her, walk with her, smell her skin, taste her, kiss her… He moved forward, automatically, a cog in a machine unable to halt his own progress. Her smile broadened, if that was even possible, and the world smelled good and fresh and
alive.
Reaching her, Dake took Jonti's hand. Her delicate skin was warm and soft. He could feel various pads of hard skin from the wielding of her sword, and he smiled at the memory.

“You must come to me,” she said, voice a low purr.

“Yes.”

“Will you stay with me?”

“Yes,” he said, cheeks wet with tears. “I will stay with you, forever.”

“Good. Because I miss you. I miss you terribly, Dake. I remember all the good times, the happy times, the best times. I am so sad we will never have children, my dear, my love, my lord. Heartbroken. So come to me, and we can live
another
life right here, in this golden place.”

Dake rubbed the tears from his cheeks, and lifted his head up, back straightening, as the impact of the decision took hold.

“I will come to you,” he said, and opened his eyes back in the gloomy tunnel deep down in the mines of the Harborym Dwarves, as deep down as any human had ever travelled, and certainly not in the capacity of being a free man.

Dake coughed. Readied himself to kneel, grab his dagger, plunge it into his breast…

“You all right, laddie?” boomed Beetrax, wheeling suddenly and leering close, large bearded face within inches of Dake. Dake could see crumbs of dwarven bread in Beetrax's beard. And a piece of cheese.

“Y- Yes,” he stuttered, shocked by the suddenness of the big axeman's movement.
Damn. It was almost like he bloody knew…
“Get your bloody beard out of my face! Man, you still have half your lunch in it!”

Beetrax glowered at him for a few moments, shifted his axe which he currently carried across his back, and cracked his knuckles. Then, quietly, so the others up ahead couldn't hear, Beetrax said, “I know how you feel, Dake. I know how much you're hurting. Just remember, I'm here for you. Remember, we're
all
here for you.”

“I know,” said Dake, in a voice so feeble he couldn't believe it had come out of his own mouth. “But… Jonti dying, dying like that; it's broken me, Axeman. I feel crumbled and dead inside. I feel hollow, like a fire has raged through me, burning away every last ounce of life.”

“I can't take away the hurt, lad, but I'm telling you from experience… it'll get better. The pain will lessen. You've just to keep those good memories with you, hold onto them like a drowning man clutching a log. Or you'll drown, and I'm damned if I'm stripping off my trews and jumping in after you with my cock swinging in the freezing bloody air!” He rumbled slow laughter, and glanced down the tunnel where the others had halted, and were waiting. Lillith tilted her head to one side in question. Beetrax gave a curt nod and turned back to Dake. “Come on. Your friends are waiting. And we're all counting on you to see this thing through. We
need
you Dake. We need our Sword Champion.”

Dake nodded, and slapped Beetrax on the shoulder. “Thanks, brother.”

“Anytime, brother.”

In silence, they continued their march.

T
hey'd found a small
, circular side-cave, possibly used as some kind of restroom for dwarf miners. It had a brazier burning in the centre, an evil black iron thing that wouldn't have been out of place in a torture chamber. Coals were glowing, but there was no sign of any dwarves, any life. The heat was most welcome.

“This is a good place to halt,” said Lillith. “Easy to defend.”

“I'm ready to drop,” said Beetrax, mumbling several curses. “I know I look like I'm indestructible, but I'm fucking
not.
Can somebody else please take first watch because I can't guarantee you any sort of wakefulness.”