lyric's heart paused its beating in her chest, almost as if it were afraid that the creature flying overhead could hear its quiet thumping over the steady flapping of the beast’s giant fibrous wings. Scales the color of fresh-spilled blood covered the entirety of the magnificent being and its serpentine face was adorned with bone-white horns and long cruel spikes. When the creature spotted them with its yellow, slitted reptilian eyes its mouth opened in a wide grin, revealing the rows of razor-sharp teeth, pointed and cruel, that jutted from its maw like the tips of a hundred spears all thirsting for blood.
A guttural, rumbling roar erupted from the dragon’s throat, the sound carried forth upon a cloud of ash and smoke that billowed forth from the beast’s mouth. That noise…that terrible sound…reverberated in the very core of Lyric’s being, resonating there in that ancient place…that place where prey instinctively knows the howl of the predator even though they have never heard their cry before; like a squirrel scurrying to safety upon hearing the distant screech of a hawk - only this hawk was a hundred times larger and capable of breathing out gouts of fiery, burning death. The memory of a thousand ancestors laid to waste by beasts like this one, burned to ash or eaten alive, echoed in the primordial essence that comprised her very being. Lyric knew that she would carry the sound of that roar with her for the rest of her life - which, if this creature had its way, would not be a terribly long time from now.
Lyric was frozen in place, unsure what to do. Did they dare fight a creature of legend? Forces of nature that had dominated and shaped the very face of the world until they had all been – supposedly, but contrary to the visual evidence to the opposite flying here in front of her now – wiped from existence by an order of Silvanesti mages using magic so powerful that they had sundered the very firmament of the earth and dragged the dragons and their armies to a fiery death deep beneath its surface; leaving the elven lands in smoldering ruins as the terrible price for their efforts. To Lyric’s count, there were no powerful Silvanesti magi counted among their number here today, so of course the only logical thing to do was to run a…
“Die, beast!!!” Arnie rushed past Lyric, her giant sword held over her head as she charged headlong at the crimson wyrm. I guess the reputation about the fearlessness of the kender is not an urban legend, Lyric thought to herself as she watched the small halfling hack at the dragon, which in turn seemed more surprised than worried at the audacity of the fierce attack. The decision made, Lyric took a deep breath and willed her stilled heart to resume its beating, this time hammering hard and fast like a drum of war. Green Trust came alive in her hand as she made way to join her diminutive and brave, if slightly suicidal, friend. What in the hells am I doing?
A hand grabbed her arm after she had only made it a few steps, and Lyric turned to face Deux'Dal, who was staring at her with that are you fucking crazy? expression of his. “Are you fucking crazy?” he asked, incredulously, “We can’t fight that fucking thing! We have to get the hell out of here.” Not waiting for her reply, he turned and ran into the dense copse of trees that surrounded them.
“We can’t leave Arnie!” Lyric shouted after him as she turned back towards the winged creature, which was staring at the tiny warrior in front of it in much the same manner as a barnyard cat might stare at a cornered mouse, as if carefully weighing its options as whether to play with its prey or to eat it. The dragon instead chose a third option, one unavailable to most barnyard cats, and instead reared its head back and then snapped it forward suddenly, bathing Arnie in a giant wave of crimson and yellow and blue flame.
The war drum in Lyric’s chest ceased its pounding again as she looked on aghast at the wreathes of fire were replaced by a cloud of smoke and drifting ash, and when it finally cleared there was no sign of Arnie at all. Had she been burned to nothingness? Was tha…
”Ruuuuunnnnnn,” a smoldering Arnie ran past a dumfounded Lyric, smoke rising from her fur-lined cloak and trailed by the smell of sulfur and kender cooked medium-well. Lyric knew the small warrior was tough, but surviving dragon fire tough? That seemed impossible. Lyric watched as Arnie disappeared into the trees in the direction Deuxdahl had run off to, leaving behind the tantalizing aroma of roasted halfling and the angry roaring of a dragon denied its meal.
Lyric looked around for the rest of her companions, barely catching sight of Eros as the masked elf soundlessly disappeared into the woods, vanishing so completely that he practically took the very memory of him along with him. Lyric then locked eyes with DD who stood motionless a few feet beside her, a faint crack of fear visible in the armor of his normally authoritative demeanor. As a squire of the crown, he had been trained for battle and fleeing from an enemy was anathema to his code. But he was also trained not to waste the lives of his troops needlessly, and it was evident that this was a fight they could not hope to win. With a slight nod of his head he gave the signal, and the pair of them turned and ran as if their very lives depended on it…
Back in their rooms high in the castle tower of Kalaman, Lyric hummed the words to a simple spell, using it to clean the dirt and mud and dried blood from her clothes in an effort to make herself more presentable for their upcoming dinner with Governor Miat. She tried her best to put the memories of the past few days behind her, but each time she let her guard down she could hear that dragon’s roar reverberating the pit of her soul. How could they hope to triumph against an army that counted actual dragons among their number? She had questioned DD's efforts to secure and trap the windows of their rooms, being so high up in the tower as they were, thinking no one would dare scale the sheer walls to get in through them, but now those defensive measures seemed next to worthless given that dragons were now in play.
How do you even fight dragons? Her mother had tried to train her for any threat that Lyric might encounter, whether: escaping bonds and picking locks; moving quietly and spotting good hiding spots; listening for changes in the sounds of nature that might announce an unseen threat; fighting multiple opponents at once. But she had completely neglected to teach her how to fight a sodding dragon.
Lyric knew little about dragons, and what she did know came mostly from stories and songs told by traveling minstrels and bards. She had seen the murals of purple-armored knights riding atop shiny metallic dragons and battling the evil chromatic drakes with daring jousts in the sky, but there were no longer any dragonriders amongst the knights of Vashir that she knew of. The last time the dragons had been defeated it had taken the powerful elven wizards nearly destroying their own homeland in order to beat them, but there were also no more Silvanesti archmages either, and the mages that she did know seemed steadfast in staying out of the upcoming war, afraid to take sides for some stupid reason.
The sound of the dragon's roar echoed in her mind again, sending shivers down Lyric’s spine. There was nothing to be done about this now, she had alerted Wyhan of the threat and hopefully the black-robed wizard could convince the Davidians to join in the battle at last. They had alerted the Governor and Marshal Vendri as well, so hopefully they could get word to the neighboring cities and begin rallying troops for the inevitable war. In the meantime, there was this diversion of Jeyev’s treachery to consider.
There was still another hour or so until dinner, and so Lyric pulled a scrap of parchment and ink pen from the satchel by her bed and sat down at her small desk. She hoped that Tatina was still in the castle and could deliver this letter for her, as she began to write:
Dear Oskar;
I hope this letter finds you well. I have heard some exciting tales of you and the other “Line Breaker’s” exploits - cool name by the way. I was glad to hear that you had made it out of Vogler safely, we barely did. A few of us have joined the militia and have been tasked with securing the area around Kalaman and we have seen some distressing things that I thought you should know about:
The dragon army is destroying farms around the city in an attempt to starve out Kalaman. In addition to those dragonmen who attacked us during our training, they also have creatures called ‘hobgoblins’ and ‘bugbears’ among their number. We came across a larger dragonman the other day as well, who could actually shoot lightning and disappear from sight and make a stinking gas cloud that makes it hard to breathe. Be careful around this one should you stumble across one. He explodes into fragments of bone splinters when killed.
Do not trust Jeyev; I cannot explain much now, and we might not have to worry about him after tonight (I’ll tell you in person when I see you) but in case anything goes wrong tonight, please be careful around him. I suspect that (never mind, we will talk in person about it someday).
And last and worst of all, we saw a dragon yesterday, I swear to Ixen. A big red one. It wasn’t at all like Tatina’s invention that we saw in Vogler (I love her by the way. She is utterly fascinating). This thing could fly and breathe fire, just like in the stories. It was with a group of those bugbears and one of them was actually riding it. It chased us for several hours, but thankfully we all managed to escape somehow.
Anyway, just thought I would share. Looking forward to seeing you again in better times. Maybe we can finally get that ale to celebrate our passing of the Initiation that we somehow never found time for.
Your friend,
Lyric