Southwind Knights

Chapter Four

Chapter IV: The Dragon

The dragon crashed through the fog like a meteorite from the sky. The ground quaked, and the company’s long-imagined fears became suddenly real.

It was bigger even than Southwind’s mill, yet somehow it was a living creature with a beating heart deep inside it, and despite the mammoth bulk, it had the agile build of a griffin. A scaly, reptilian hide shielded its head, back, and sides; curving horns crowned its head; the claws tipping its arms revealed that Galen’s scars were a blessing.

The beast stretched its massive wingspan, casting a shadow over the soldiers and beating away the fog. Its tail thumped impatiently against the ground. Small tremors shook the earth.

The frozen group of men received a curious once-over before the dragon locked its pitiless eyes on the unicorn foals. Its head snaked out toward the writhing bait, nostrils pulsing, and for a moment, all was silent. Then the dragon snatched a foal into its mouth, quick as spit.

The mother wailed. She strained against her bindings, muscles bulging. Asher was barely aware of Victor and his soldiers fanning out into a perimeter around the dragon, who chewed the little creature to bits.

As the behemoth poked its head back down for another victim, there was a snapping sound, and the mother unicorn’s cry morphed from mourning into fury. She had powered free of her bonds and now approached the dragon, snorting and clawing at the ground. Her horn glinted.

Retreating a giant pace, the dragon measured its opponent. The mother stepped in front of her two remaining young. The dragon blinked at them, then stretched its long neck up and screeched. The sound drove back every man in the vicinity, but the unicorn strode forward. She charged, fluidly, like a shooting star, her magnificent horn lowered under the rearing dragon.

Galen gasped, and the two great creatures clashed. As the unicorn drove herself straight for the monster’s heart, its heavy shoulder managed to drop in guard. The tip of her horn met the dragon’s armor. The two forces strove for a hanging moment, and then one gave way. The unicorn’s horn broke off near the base, simply cracking under the strength of the dragon scales and falling to the ground like a snapped twig.

Amidst the surreal picture, Asher’s eyes followed the horn. The alicorn. His mind, overwhelmed by everything else, still recognized that it was the key, his key, the reason he was there. Finn’s cure lay in the grass waiting to be lost.

The unicorn stopped, confused, and the dragon swung an arm around, neatly slashing across her white hide. The claws tore into her vulnerable forehead, muzzle, neck, and chest, throwing her tattered body off to the side. The bleating foals hobbled after their mother.

Victor shouted, “Ho!” and the company advanced on all sides of the beast, crying battle. They lunged for its weak spots with their spears and tested its hide with their swords. They pricked and prodded until they finally earned the creature’s wrath.

The first to die was the woman soldier. Having snuck behind the dragon, she stabbed up hungrily into its nether regions, and its heavy tail came down on her, smashing her into the dirt and leaving her broken.

The next to fall was Double Bastard, the old mute. His mouth stretched in a silent battle cry when the dragon swallowed him down to the waist. Two of his brothers-in-arms latched a net around the dragon’s head, but as it lifted back up, they held on too long and were thrown into the air. The shape of their comrade bobbed down the dragon’s long throat, as they returned to their feet.

Victor cried, “For glory!” and charged in again and again. Each time he was beaten away by the dragon’s battering tail, but his shield held strong, and he kept returning into the dragon’s flank until he caught the tip of its tail over his blade and cut straight up through it, drawing blood. The assault took on new life.