Twilight of the Dragons

by Andy Remic

  Skalg stared down at the weakened dragon before him. Blood drooled from her maw. Her eyes were still focussed, focussed on Moraxx, focussed on Skalg, and he knew that scheming bitch would leap up and rend him limb from limb if she so much as thought she had a chance.

  “Time for you to die, Kranesh,” said the voice of Moraxx.

  “How can you do this to me, sister?”

  “How can I not?” said Moraxx.

  “But… after all we went through.”

  “You think Volak would let us live? You really, truly believe when the hatchings are done, Volak will stand by and say, ‘Yes, sisters, I trust you not to stab me in the back and take control of our newly built Empire.’ You believe that?”

  “There may have been arguments…”

  “There may have been murder!” snapped Moraxx, suddenly.

  “And you think murdering me is a solution?”

  “Yes,” said Moraxx, with Skalg grinning inside the wyrm’s skull. “How does it feel to be turned upon by one of your own? And not just one of your own – but your own blood? How does it feel to be stabbed in the back, sister? How does it feel to be utterly and truly betrayed. Not good, I expect. Not a pleasant place to be.”

  Kranesh was staring up at Moraxx from her half-crushed skull.

  “You are not Moraxx,” she said, finally.

  “What?”

  “You are not my sister. I do not understand how, but I know my own blood when I see it. So do your fucking worst, because I have been given some redemption; it is not Moraxx who takes my last breath at the final hour. It is an imposter. A weakling. By some twisted magick, it is a fucking slave.” The contempt in her voice was complete. She oozed disgust. She vomited mistrust. She pissed out hate.

  “You are wrong.”

  “Kill me now, imposter. I await death. You are a worm. A slave. A fucking human.”

  Screaming, Moraxx lurched forward and began to stamp on Kranesh’s head, time after time after time, until blood oozed from her maw, from her broken eyes, from her nostrils. Slowly, agonisingly, the fire around her snout flickered, and played, and flickered, and finally went out. Bubbles of blood popped from Kranesh’s crushed skull. Her great dark eyes had closed.

  In a rage now, Skalg breathed in deeply, then ignited his fire glands, and blasted Kranesh in the face. For long minutes he raged against her, fire streamers turning from yellow to white to blue to a colour that was not even a colour, just pure heat.

  Finally, exhausted, Skalg pulled back, and Moraxx looked down, and Kranesh’s scales were untarnished. Fire could not harm her. A natural evolution had seen to that.

  “Fuck it,” growled Skalg, as more hate, more rage, swamped him, and stepping forward, he lowered his head, and chewed, and bit, and chewed, and gnawed, and it took him some time, because despite his fangs being razor-sharp, and able to inflict damage on dragon scales, Kranesh was his sister, she was the elite, and she had not been willing to die.

  Finally, there came a thud, as Kranesh’s head fell free of the body. Inside the hole of her neck there raged an inferno. Out of curiosity, Skalg peered inside, and it nearly burned his eye out of its socket.

  Slowly, he picked up the head in his jaws, then leapt into the sky.

  Darkness had fallen.

  A billion stars twinkled.

  A few errant spears followed him, her, up into the velvet black. All lacked enthusiasm.

  Moraxx reached several thousand feet up, where the sky was filled with ice, where the night was ebony, where only the cold hydrogen of space offered any sort of conversation, investigation, contemplation.

  Moraxx held out her sister’s head, and with a sigh, allowed it to fall back to the grey pastel landscape of the starlight-crusted world below.

  Hex

  Val crept forward, boots crunching softly on the shells underfoot. He winced with every footfall, cringing, wondering if it would bring a sudden onslaught of unseen violence. But it did not. So, with each cracking footstep, he welcomed the lack of attack, the lack of screams, the simple peace of not having a violent axeman offering a series of axe-blows to his skull.

  Crayline, however, was the polar opposite. She smiled as she remembered.

  It wasn’t that she had been brought up on war or battle; that would be a gross misrepresentation. Basically, she simply hated… people. Anything that walked or crawled, from a very early age, she had despised. So, in effect, she despised life. She’d killed many people during her years of efficient service, from ministers to poets to politicians, royalty, bureaucrats, doctors, teachers, market traders, stonemasons, miners, and the one common denominator she could see that linked all these chance meetings (shhhh, chance murders) was the fact she’d turned them all from the living into the dead.

  Of course, it never began like that.

  First, she killed animals. Bugs. Cats. Dogs. Pigs.

  Just to see what it was like.

  Crayline never even blinked, not even during the most atrocious animal slaughter. After all – they were just animals, right?

  And then she met a handsome dwarf.

  Swept her off her feet.

  Romance.

  Wedding.

  Pregnancy.

  Twins.

  Twin dwarves, two girls!

  It had been a dream for a while, and Crayline had revelled in her new-found role. No more killing. No more murder. No more extermination of innocents. A normal family life, with a husband, and children. Her maternal instincts had come to the fore. Until, one night, for no reason whatsoever, Crayline walked to the kitchen and stood there, listening to the children crying, listening to her husband shouting, what the fuck are you doing you useless fucking bitch? I need a fucking packed lunch for tomorrow when I’m down the mines, get on it bitch, I haven’t got all night…

  She was tired of him. Tired of his petty outbursts. His ridiculous demands. Tired of his small-minded rantings. Just… tired.

  Crayline picked up a bread knife.

  She looked down the length of the blade.

  It gleamed, reflecting in her eyes.

  “I actually despise you,” she said to herself, watching those dark reflected eyes. “You are somebody I helped. Somebody with whom I laughed and joked. I came to the hospital with you. I helped you when you discovered you might be dying. But then – you betrayed me. Snake in the grass. Backstabbing cunt. And I realised; there’s a lot of you out there. And you know what?”

  The wind sighed, like a discarded lover.

  “Some people might call it unnecessary. But I call it retribution.”

  The cool breeze chilled her skin.

  She looked down at the blade.

  “Because, if you live by the sword, then you die by the sword. That’s only fair, right?”

  And she stood.

  And she moved through the house.

  Her husband was in bed, attempting to get to sleep.

  He got it first.

  It was messy, as was to be expected.

  But necessary.

  And then Crayline stood, staring at her two sleeping girls. Their breathing was regular, rhythmical, and yet a shard of glass pierced her heart, and she thought, and she knew. She knew she was going to die. So what would their life be like without her, her, their mother? So there was only one answer, right? She had to kill her little girls. She had to kill her own flesh and blood. Because nobody else was ever going to have them; nobody was going to experience the ecstasy she’d felt creating her own children.

  I created them, she said.

  They are mine, she said.

  I own them, she said.

  So. They are mine to destroy.

  She stepped forward, and the blade came down. A hundred years of blood. It sounded like a river. She stabbed over and over. Over and over we die, she thought. One after the other. And she kept on stabbing. Kept on killing. Kept on murdering. And, although enjoyment wasn’t the right word, the right concept, it was indeed the necessary word; the necessary concept.

>   And so she stabbed her little girls.

  She stabbed them to death, and watched the deep pools of crimson well up in the deep, wide wounds.

  She watched them sigh, and deflate.

  Their eyes opened.

  Why, mummy? Why did you do this?

  And she couldn’t answer. They would never understand.

  But she knew in her heart.

  It was the right thing to do.

  Because it was all about control.

  And here, and now, Crayline Hew had the control.

  * * *

  They moved across the shells, as if traversing a broken shore.

  “Everything is dead,” observed Val.

  Crayline held up a hand, and didn’t even qualify it with a patronising shh.

  The soldiers, warriors, mercenaries, guards, miscreants, vagabonds, they all stopped. Ahead, something glittered. It was intricate. Detailed. Impossibly complex.

  “We’ve found the eggs,” hissed Crayline.

  “What eggs?” said Val, head tilted to one side.

  Crayline smiled. “Don’t worry about it. Dwarves, to me!” and she charged forward, boots crunching shell segments, her mind somewhere else, her mission paramount, and behind her came Val, running with a crossbow cradled in his arms, and he couldn’t help thinking what the fuck is happening? I don’t understand, but he realised suddenly this was all out of his control somehow – and he couldn’t work out how. He’d been played for a fool, lied to, used, for a greater purpose maybe, but still used; passed over in some bureaucratic lottery. His employer had fucked him over by offering reduced information. In all reality, Crayline was in charge. She had been from the start. That fuckbitch.

  The dwarves surrounded her, bristling with weapons.

  Crayline nodded, as if giving her approval.

  “Ahead,” she said, voice hard.

  Again, the group moved forward, and they could see a chamber, a vast chamber. And there stood a woman. She was tall, almost athletic. Her hair fell in dark braids. She had her hands raised, as if in the middle of some mystical incantation.

  Crayline and Val stepped forward, ducking a little under a barrier they could barely comprehend, to survey a world of miniaturised machines affixed to the vast array of walls, a huge vista of machines, they were everywhere, spinning and clicking, shunting and twisting.

  Crayline brought about her crossbow.

  Val stared ahead, then turned.

  “What are you doing?” he said. And he frowned. For in this moment he had no understanding.

  Crayline levelled her crossbow. She gave a narrow smile, looking sideways to Val.

  “Some reflect,” she said, and sighted down the stock. “And some shine.”

  She pulled the crossbow trigger.

  And Val screamed, realisation kicking him in an instant. Because Val, and most of the others, reacted. It was a natural response state. One couldn’t unload a crossbow in a dwarf’s face. That was killing. That was murder. Most dwarves could not do that. It had been proved. To react was normal. To proact was abnormal.

  Which is what made Crayline’s actions so bizarre and unusual. So unexpected, to the rest of the group.

  She stunned them with her immediate action.

  Crayline’s quarrel left her crossbow, and hummed across the space.

  As if sensing the assault, Lillith turned, eyes fixing on Crayline.

  And the crossbow bolt entered her chest, blossoming in a shower of red, and punching the white witch from her feet. She flew back from the walkway, and was absorbed by the eggs, by the mist; effectively, she vanished.

  Jael held up his hands, cowering. “Please… please…”

  “Any other cunts want a fight?” snapped Crayline, scanning left and right. She stepped forward, boots clacking. She could see no more enemies, other than the young lad. “Get in here, you fuckers!” she growled, face breaking into a grin like punctured yolk, and pointed towards Jael.

  The dwarves tramped in, crossbows at the ready, and scanned the thousands of dragon eggs, the intricate machinery; silver machines hissed and clicked and ticked and tocked across the walls. It was an ocean of clockwork technology. And yet here, now, it mattered for nothing.

  Survival.

  Survival was what mattered.

  Hanging in the centre of the chamber, Lillith’s magick suddenly dissipated. With cries, Beetrax, Dake, Talon and Sakora dropped like stones down a well, and Crayline’s eyes went wide as they suddenly entered her vision – then hit the ground, hard, cracking several eggs and sending them spinning off in all directions, before the mist rolled over them.

  Jael ran for it, heading for the far side of the chamber, boots slipping and sliding on the polished walkway.

  “Kill them all!” screamed Crayline, cutting down with her hand, and the thirty dwarves levelled their crossbows and began firing.

  Crossbow quarrels twanged and whined, hissing across the chamber, cutting slits in the mist and punching into objects within…

  Two dwarves turned on Jael, sighted down their weapons, and pulled triggers. Two bolts hit him in the lower back, and he folded, slowly, stumbling, then hit the walkway on his face, momentum carrying him sliding forward until he lay, unmoving, blood leaking out onto the slick, black, polished walkway, where it ran to the edge, and dripped down into the chilled valley of the dragon eggs.

  Spliced

  Dek remembered his first tattoo.

  It was just before General Dalgoran summoned the young soldier to his office at Desekra to outline his plans for a new elite squad: the Iron Wolves. Dek remembered that day proudly, stood to attention, spring sunlight spilling through the lead-lined windows across Dalgoran’s oak desk; but he remembered it more because of the tattoo.

  “You have to have one, Dek, old boy.”

  “I don’t know if I fancy it.” He’d grinned, sheepishly, his young lad’s face boyish and ruggedly handsome, hair close-cropped in the military style, his eyes shining with an innocence of youth.

  “Come on,” said Brozo, “I’m having one done after the party tomorrow night. You are coming to the party, aren’t you?”

  Dek frowned. “Well, Sergeant Regander is taking me through some boxing combinations. You know I have that fight coming up.” He looked around to check nobody could overhear. “Regander has a lot of money riding on it,” he whispered, rubbing his chin. “And you know I’ve been training for this fight for the last three months. It’s against that big bastard from Seventh Battalion. Trax, or something, he’s called.”

  “Aye, Beetrax. I’ve heard of him. Apparently he’s incredible with an axe.”

  “Well, this time he’ll have to use his fists.” Dek winked. “Reckon I’ll give him a black eye or two.”

  “Still, you can come to the party after your training, right? And we’ll nip down to the Ink Barracks, see if Skoffo will put us under the needle.”

  “We’ll end up locked up, if we get caught,” said Dek, appearing a little worried.

  “Ach, fuck it man, live a little, will you?”

  * * *

  The party was over at Chicken Barracks, so named because one mad soldier there kept three chickens and supplied the other men with fresh eggs to supplement their rations. Cruel jokes were made about Chicken Barracks, and the obvious association with chickens, hence cowardice. But one thing was for certain – anybody who got an invite never turned it down, because Hujo Krant was housed in Chicken, and he made the finest illegally distilled vodka anywhere in Desekra. Three times he’d been up on a charge, even done time in solitary, but the bastards just could not find his still – which was a minor miracle. There weren’t that many places to distil spirits in a fortress!

  Dek and Brozo made their way through the night air. Despite being spring, it was still chilly, and they blew into their cold hands and rubbed them together as they trod the frost-crisped grass of the killing ground, heading for Chicken Barracks. Brozo gave a complicated knock, and a big fucker with a bushy beard and shaved he
ad opened the door a narrow crack and peered out.

  “Yeah?”

  “Brozo and Dek. We’re on the list.”

  The huge shaved soldier checked his list, peered behind the two men to see if they were being observed, then opened the door to allow entry. They nipped inside, to find all the bunks had been moved away and tables set out with cards and knuckle-dice. Many men were standing around, with tankards of ale or the tell-tale small glasses of neat vodka.

  Dek was aching from a hard workout at the fists of Sergeant Regander, and he still had a sore jaw from a savage right hook, but the young Dek was used to taking his punches, and even more used to giving them, so he didn’t grumble, he just peered around the room, nodding at a few friends he knew, until Brozo returned with a glass of Hujo Krant’s finest. “Get this down you. It’ll put hairs on your chest!”

  Dek sniffed the liquor. “I heard about this one guy… Zastarte, his name is, fucking shaves his chest! Can you believe that?”

  “I heard about him as well. Likes his men, as well as his women.” Brozo winked.

  “How’s that, like?”

  “You know. He’ll go to bed with men.”

  Dek stared at Brozo. “Really?”

  “Fuck, Dek, are you really the backward village idiot you pretend to be?”

  “Well, I ain’t experienced no city life, like you, Bro,” Dek said, and frowned. “I’m not used to the same sort of people as you!”

  Brozo drank his drink, and choked, gagging, eyes watering, his breath wheezing out. “Well you get that down you.” His voice had changed, and become husky, as if a fist were inside his lungs. “It’s good stuff! Then we’ll go get this tattoo done… ”

  Dek knocked back the vodka. He choked. His eyes watered. “Fuck me,” he said, wheezing, “what’s he distil it from, fish oil?”

  “Come on!”

  * * *

  Ten minutes later saw Dek lying on his belly, chin on his hands, the back of his shirt up, the waistline of his trews lowered.