O'nor smiled. Blood ran warm down his arm, but his heart rang with a joyful clarity. To fight the Anai paired champions was to court death, but it was a warrior's death. It was the highest honor he could imagine. He shifted his weight, resetting his grip on his hilt, fully prepared to throw his life into the crucible of their blades.
Then, the sun vanished.
A suffocating darkness eclipsed the battlefield. O'nor looked up just as a shadow the size of a warship swept over the trenches.
"DRAGON!" The scream tore from the throat of a Beh-REET captain, shattering the trance of the duel. Ten years. It had been a decade since a shadow had darkened the skies, ten years since these creatures of myth and steel had been anything more than terrifying rumors. But here, descending upon a petty rebellion, was the apex predator of the world.
The Anai champions did not hesitate. Their shared mind calculated the absolute zero of their survival odds, and they exploded in opposite directions, leaping away from the epicenter.
They left O'nor standing alone in the clearing just as the black-scaled leviathan fell from the heavens. It struck the earth like a meteor several paces from where O'nor stood. The sheer concussive force of the impact ruptured the ground, sending a shockwave that lifted O'nor off his feet and threw him violently through the air.
He crashed hard into the dirt, ears ringing, the breath driven from his lungs. He forced himself up to one knee, only to feel a blistering, impossible heat building in the air before him. The dragon's massive jaws unhinged, deep crimson light glowing like a furnace in the back of its throat. It was preparing to end him.
In that fraction of a second, O'nor felt the heavy weight of the small pouch at his belt. Dak'nor's powder. With a desperate, last ditch effort, O'nor ripped the pouch free and hurled it directly into the beast's gaping maw just as the inferno erupted. And then, O'nor committed the one unforgivable sin of his caste: he dropped his sword, closed his eyes, and waited for the fire to take him.
But the fire never came.
A muffled, concussive THUMP vibrated through the earth. O'nor opened his eyes. Dak'nor's blinding powder had ignited within the dragon's throat, violently expanding into a massive, super-heated cloud of dense white mist. It suffocated the flames instantly. The winged serpent thrashed its massive head, choking and gagging on the alchemical smoke, its roar reduced to a wet, rattling hiss.
The battlefield snapped out of its terror. Seeing the beast incapacitated, both armies instinctively turned their weapons on the true enemy. Volleys of iron-tipped arrows rained down from the Beh-REET archers; some shattered harmlessly against the dragon's impenetrable black scales, while others found purchase in the softer flesh of its joints.
The Anai champions, moving with synchronized bravery, slid beneath the beast's guard, targeting the wings. They fought the dragon exactly as they fought men—cripple the mobility, wilt the opponent, then deliver the killing blow.
But a dragon was not a man.
Recovering from the smoke, the beast whipped its massive, spiked tail blindly through the dust. The impact caught the hazel-eyed Anai squarely in the chest, launching her backward like a broken doll. As her partner fell, the blue-eyed Anai let out a guttural snarl and drove her blade deep into the webbing of the dragon's wing, slicing a long, searing gash. Boiling, black dragon blood sprayed across the dirt, and the beast shrieked, its ruined wing effectively grounding it.
O'nor scooped his sword from the dirt and forced himself to his feet. "The skin is too hard," he roared over the din of panic, mostly to himself. "This thing has to be put down now, or it will run through our ranks!"
Having cleared its throat of the scholar's powder, the grounded dragon pivoted its massive, head. It unhinged its jaw and unleashed a blinding torrent of fire. The breath weapon cut a molten scar straight through the center of the valley, bisecting both the Beh-REET and Anai armies in a single sweep.
Through the roaring flames, O'nor saw the blue-eyed Anai. She was cornered by a wall of fire, the dragon turning its colossal neck to finish the warrior who had grounded it. A dozen yards away, her hazel-eyed partner struggled to rise, her veil torn, blood leaking from her eyes as she watched in helpless awe.
O'nor, without thinking, ran.
He sprinted at full speed, diving through the blistering heat to intercept the beast. Just as the dragon lunged for the trapped Anai, O'nor leapt. He vaulted off a pile of scorched armor, launching himself onto the dragon's back. To keep from being thrown, he drove his sword down with both hands, using his entire body weight to sink the steel into the beast's thick hide. It only penetrated a third of the way before hitting something hard like stone, but it was enough to anchor him.
The dragon roared in outrage, abandoning its attack on the blue-eyed Anai. It bucked violently, a massive, shuddering shake meant to fling the armored parasite from its back.
O'nor felt his grip failing. Instead of fighting the momentum, he used it. As the beast snapped its body upward, O'nor ripped his blade from the hide and let the immense force sling him high into the air.
Time seemed to slow. Suspended above the monster, O'nor rotated his body, bringing his sword back in a two-handed grip. He fell, using gravity, the weight of his steel, and every ounce of his strength. The blade struck the back of the dragon's neck, slipping perfectly beneath the armored scales.
The sword cleaved through spine, muscle, and scale. O'nor hit the ground, rolling to absorb the impact, and came to a halt just inches from the dragon's severed head.
He attempted to stand slowly, his armor painted in black blood.
His knees betrayed him.
A tremor ran up through his legs, rattling the armor at his hip. The strength that had carried him through the fight was gone.
O'nor stared at his hands.
Blood covered them.
His fingers trembled.
He tried to close them around the hilt.
They slipped.
His breath came in short, ragged pulls. The valley blurred around him. Fire became streaks of orange and red. The dragon's corpse doubled in his vision.
He blinked.
Nothing changed.
His knees struck the ash.
He caught himself with one hand.
For several heartbeats, O'nor could do nothing but breathe.
He was shaking so badly he could barely keep his hand on the sword.
But there was no more battle for him to fight.
Silence had fallen over the burning valley.
The Beh-REET guardsmen were no longer fighting.
They simply stared at him.
Eyes wide.
Mouths slightly open.
Across the charred earth, the remaining Anai insurgents were falling back.
None raised a blade.
Their eyes remained fixed on the blood-soaked man kneeling beside the corpse of a myth.
O'nor lifted his head.
For the first time, he noticed that no one was moving.
Then, breaking their vows of silence, a whisper passed through the retreating Anai ranks, carried on the smoke.
"Tan-AH-ee."