Twilight of the Dragons

by Andy Remic

  “Fuck,” said Dek, turning to Kareem.

  “Time to leave?” suggested Kareem, face drawn in shock.

  Volak strode forward, and they could see she was injured, with great bloody rents in her back and flank. One wing was tattered, torn, several bones broken. Her one blind eye had turned from jet black to milky white. It made her curiously asymmetrical.

  “You cunts are going nowhere,” she hissed, and lowered her head, to stare at the remaining Iron Wolves.

  Narnok brandished his axe.

  Volak gave a patronising laugh, and breathed in, deeply, ingesting the air she needed to mix with her fire glands in order to produce an inferno.

  There should have been some last words, but Volak was beyond it.

  There should have been a miracle, but Volak would no longer allow it.

  She breathed in, single good eye narrowed in hate, to think such fucking maggots had so much fight in them…

  Her ignition caught, and with a roar Volak released the furnace…

  Trigger Switch

  The taste was something special. He’d never tasted anything quite like it before. He’d experienced every fine wine there was on offer, every gastronomical delicacy the finest chefs could imagine and create. He’d tasted every lip, nipple and quim he could get his tongue on, and he did have a special fondness for the quim, and its wide variety of intriguing flavours. Every quim was different, a flavoursome palette, a subtlety that he was sure his supposed contemporaries overlooked. But not him. Oh no. Quim was up there with the finest wines, strongest brandies, spicy wines, and with the testicles of young piglets, roasted in garlic, and the dry, panting, fear-filled lips of a woman who knew she was about to be raped.

  Skalg grinned to himself, revelling in his debauchery.

  But… so what? So fucking what?

  The world had mocked him, put him down, put him in a hole – quite literally. A mine shaft. A fucking collapsed mine shaft. And now he had risen, through the Church of Eternal Hate, through the ranks, to become First Cardinal… and then beyond, to the Great Dwarf Lords themselves, and then further still, to populate this body of a great wyrm, a dragon, the most powerful creature ever to walk the soil of Vagandrak.

  And a thought entered Skalg’s mind.

  His dragon tongue licked slowly across his lips, and across his fangs. For he could still taste it. Still taste her. Still taste…

  Kranesh.

  Her blood. Her fear. Her anguish.

  Her blood.

  But now, now, Skalg was in charge.

  And the thought taunted him.

  What…

  What if…

  WHAT if…

  What if he never gave the body back. What if he turned on the Great Dwarf Lords. Fuck them, and their sanctimonious preaching pile of donkey shit. Who were they to say what lived and what died? Who were they to say what happened in the world, what happened in the Five Havens, what happened to dwarves and men and elves?

  Fuck the Great Dwarf Lords.

  Fuck my gods.

  I will destroy Volak, and then I will rule.

  I will rule the world, like no crippled hunchback has ever ruled the world before. Or will again.

  I will rule with omniscience.

  I will rule with hate, and fear, and total violence.

  I will rule with utter dominance.

  * * *

  His name was Kokar, of the clan Karik ’y Kla, and he was angrier than any dwarf in the Five Havens. And quite rightly so. His daughter was dead. His beautiful, precious only daughter. It had taken days for it to sink in. The official church letter had told him the facts in cold clinical ink… accidental death from a high fall. He found it hard to believe. How the fuck did you fall from the fucking Blood Tower, of all places? It was church-owned. It had safety barriers. And Kajella was not a young female dwarf known for taking risks. She was sensible. She was dependable. She was normal.

  Kokar frowned.

  His anger increased so much he thought his heart would burst.

  By the Great Dwarf Lords, he wanted to get revenge on the dwarf who had done this.

  Not only allowed it to happen.

  Oh no.

  The one who had done it.

  Because Kokar was armed with the truth.

  And the truth burned him worse than any lies.

  You see, it was all about money. At the end of the day, everything is about money. Doesn’t matter if you’re Irlax’s fucking handmaiden, right hand better than the left, or one of Skalg’s Educators. Every single dwarf has a lever point. A point where they think, fuck me, really, how much? Just for a few words? And the problem with Skalg, Kokar had realised early on in his investigations, the problem with Skalg was that had become so fat, so rich, so powerful, he viewed certain people as parts of the furniture. If a young dwarf had come into his chambers to make up the beds and arrange his slippers and wash his silk dressing gown, she no more existed than did the cabinet carrying his bottles of brandy. And, even better, the more ugly a serving wench was, the more Skalg treated her as if she didn’t exist, such was his arrogance, vulgarity and superiority complex.

  On the night of Kajella’s death, one such cleaner had been present.

  Ugly. Pointless. Poor. Pathetic. To Skalg, at any rate.

  But more importantly, she was invisible.

  Kokar’s payment of five years wages had persuaded her to tell the truth.

  And it was a truth that left a bitter, sour, nasty taste.

  Kokar was a rich and powerful dwarf. He’d made his fortune some years back, investing in new mine digs. He’d been lucky. Or wise. As the saying went, the mountain gives, and the mountain takes away. In wealth, the mountain had been good for Kokar. It was only evil dwarf flesh that got in the way.

  Kokar had employed assassins to murder Skalg.

  It had seemed a quick and easy solution.

  Only, only they failed, because of some Educator bitch who was pretty good with a blade. Money bought witnesses, and Kokar had tracked Skalg to the Cathedral of Eternal Hate. Now, he stood outside the doors, looking up and down the street. The Five Havens seemed deserted now. Gone were the looters and protesters. The escaped dragons had seen to that. It was as if the whole of the Five Havens were in some kind of lockdown; a self-imposed lockdown based on the foundation of fear. The dwarves knew the dragons were going to return, to complete their reign of destruction in retribution for thousands of years of abuse. And instead of fighting, of preparing defences, they knew deep down in their hearts it would all be ineffectual. As a race, the dwarves had pretty much gone into some kind of group withdrawal.

  Not Kokar.

  Kokar wanted to fight. Kokar wanted to kill. And Kokar wanted revenge.

  There were no guards outside the Cathedral of Eternal Hate, but that was probably because Skalg had locked the quite incredible, extravagant, ornate doors. Kokar signalled to three of his associates, and they ran forward, placing a box at the front of the doors. One struck a match, a long, evil looking stick, which burned with a foul colour and even fouler odour. He touched it to a taper.

  These were chemicals used to blast down in the mines.

  There came a bright fizzing. Sparks.

  Kokar looked up and down the street again. After the dragons, nobody really gave a fuck.

  The explosion rocked the ground. High above, several slates were jostled loose from the cathedral’s roof, and fell, spinning silently, to crash and shatter on the street. Kokar looked up in trepidation, but he needn’t have worried. This shit was used for blasting rock. In comparison, a cathedral’s wood and iron-banded doors were nothing more than hot butter.

  Kokar gestured, and his hardiest soldiers entered through the smoking portal, crossbows at the ready, and they found the door, and began their descent.

  Down, down towards the Iron Vaults.

  Kokar had it on good authority that’s where Skalg would be hiding.

  There was a halfway point called the Block. Kokar remembered it, fro
m distant memory. This is where Skalg left his faithful Educators to guard him against any possible but unexpected intrusion.

  Now, they were dead, with crossbow bolts in bellies and short black daggers sticking out of eye sockets.

  Kokar hadn’t lost a single dwarf.

  Such was the power of surprise.

  They descended more steps. Deep, deep into the bowels of the Cathedral of Eternal Hate. It was cool, down here. Cool, and calm. Especially after the rampage of the dragons. Such a shame, thought Kokar, that the Church of Hate doesn’t extend these safety margins to the common people.

  He smiled, a narrow, evil smile, and thought about Skalg.

  * * *

  Dwarves marched through the streets. Irlax was dead. The dragons had escaped. There was no heating. No steam. No power. The dwarves were pissed. They wanted answers. Nobody seemed to have answers. When they knocked on the doors of a Church of Hate, Church Guards and Educators slammed doors, told them to fuck off, were rude and ignorant and arrogant, as they had always been. But now the dwarves were scared. They had seen their world under the mountain grind to a halt. All their social privileges had been suddenly removed. Firebrands burned in fists. Chants started to fill the empty streets. The dragons were gone. They didn’t seem to be returning. The dwarves wanted answers. The Crown could not respond. And so, it was down to the Church.

  But the Church was silent.

  And so the dwarves began a concentrated programme of destruction…

  * * *

  Skalg, First Cardinal of the Church of Hate, was beyond such things.

  He no longer inhabited the world of human flesh. His was a world of power, and energy, of dragon lore and feeling like a supreme being. Slowly, he had begun to experience Moraxx’s memories as she begged and begged to be released, as she grew weaker in her fight to regain her mind. And Skalg knew, as night turns to day turns to night, that eventually her mind would break, crack open like a fracture-corrupted pebble, and her essence, her soul would dissipate. Moraxx would be no more. Skalg would inhabit the dragon flesh fully. Skalg would be the dragon.

  He slammed through the heavens, wings pumping, high, high above the night-time land of Vagandrak. And his ears picked up the call, the cry of Volak. She was under attack. She was fighting, snarling, her flames roaring out, the deafening sounds echoing through the highest reaches of the thinning atmosphere.

  Skalg banked, and dropped, ice frosting his scales, then dropped further, circling, searching. Mountains to the south, the Mountains of Skarandos, a vast jagged line stretching all the way to the Plague Ocean. Beyond the mountains rolled the dunes of Zakora, the desert lands, and as Skalg spiralled, seeking, so beyond the Plague Ocean he saw the vast, forbidding darkness of the Drakka, many leagues deep and stretching all the way north to the Rokroth Marshes.

  This openness, even at night, was so bright with stars, so vast, to a dwarf from the mines it was like taking the lid off the top of the world.

  Skalg gasped, for maybe the thousandth time, as still these visions stunned him. A billion stars twinkled. Skalg could not comprehend the size of the universe, and his own tiny, microscopic part in it.

  More sounds came to him, picked up by his incredibly acute hearing. Sounds of fighting, of roaring, battle cries, snarls. Screams. Animal screams… almost animal screams.

  Skalg orientated, and saw the storm clouds rolling towards him from the west, towering clouds disgorging rain and strikes of lightning. From his high vantage point, with his vast vision, it looked like a huge, broiling monster stalked across the land on legs of lightning. Below, trees and buildings lay scorched as the sheer force of nature exacted its revenge on Man.

  Skalg powered forward, dropping now to enter the storm. Clouds whipped by, wisps and streamers, and he was buffeted by this incredible force and yet he screamed and roared his laughter into the violence.

  I defy you, thought Skalg.

  I defy the world.

  I defy Nature.

  Dropping lower, rain and wind lashed at him, buffeting him hard, making his scales shimmer in the ethereal gloom of the storm. And then he saw it, the city, far below. Vagan. War Capital of Vagandrak. Grim and stark, with areas destroyed, others crumbling, others burning violently.

  You have been a busy girl, haven’t you, Volak? You have been teaching these horrible little insects a lesson. Well, now, now it is time for us to meet… and I have been waiting for this moment for so long. Treasuring it, in fact. Because when you are out of the picture, the Empire will be mine.

  Skalg powered through the storm, and started to lose height, and he heard Volak’s roar once more, and his eyes narrowed in Moraxx’s face as he plummeted towards the Queen of Wyrmblood…

  * * *

  Volak exhaled, and a stream of fire erupted from her jaws – at the same instant Moraxx hit her hard from behind, smashing into her from a fast high dive, and sending them both crashing along the square. Narnok, Dek and Kareem ducked and squawked, diving away from the two great beasts as the stream of fire whirled about them, turning night to day, sizzling rainfall and then shot up into the sky. The two dragons rolled, entangled, and Moraxx was already biting and clawing, and Volak didn’t fight back for a few moments… she was stunned by incomprehension.

  Moraxx, disentangled now, climbed to her feet and shook out her wings. A great claw swiped at Volak, tearing a line of scales from her chest and drawing blood beneath the armour.

  “WHAT?” shrieked Volak, fire blasting from her jaws as she flapped her wings, dancing backwards. “You attack ME?”

  Moraxx grinned at her, black eyes narrowed.

  “You look like you’ve been to war,” said Skalg with Moraxx’s mouth.

  Volak was staring with her one good eye, staring in absolute disbelief. Her chest rumbled, and she clenched her claws, tail whipping from side to side like an irate tomcat.

  “Think very carefully about what you are doing, Moraxx.”

  “I have thought long and hard,” grinned Moraxx, taking a threatening step forward.

  “We can win this war together. Re-establish the Blood Dragon Empire. Why would you turn on me now?” Volak’s head tilted. Her remaining dark eye seemed to glow black. “Only… there’s something wrong, isn’t there?”

  Moraxx said nothing, but took another step forward.

  “You have tasted the blood of Kranesh, have you not? I can smell it on your deviant lips.”

  “I tore off her head with my own teeth,” grinned Moraxx, tongue licking her lips.

  “Then you really have come to try and kill me. It is a sad day, Moraxx.”

  “Your time has come, Volak.”

  To one side, Narnok, Dek and Kareem were on their arses, weapons forgotten, just as they had become forgotten. They were breathing fast, unsure whether to stay still – in the hope the two wyrms would think them dead – or to run for it. After all, they hadn’t been able to kill one damn dragon – how would they manage to slaughter two?

  “What do we fucking do?” muttered Dek.

  “Stop fucking talking!” muttered Narnok.

  “Will you two shut up!” hissed Kareem.

  They stared at the dragons. The two beasts seemed very unhappy with one another. They were squaring up, like two pissed-up sailors in a pub. It lacked nobility, but it was the law of the jungle; the nature of every living creature that had ever crawled from the slime.

  To fight was to exist.

  That was the epitome of life.

  “So,” said Narnok, frowning. “What do we do?”

  That question was answered as Moraxx attacked Volak, who grabbed the wyrm by her throat, and tossed her aside. Moraxx flipped, sliding, to crash into a house, demolishing one wall, stones raining down across her flapping wings, where she squirmed for a moment before righting herself. Her eyes narrowed, and she breathed a blast of fire into which Volak strode.

  “Your naivety betrays you,” said Volak.

  “Meaning what?”

  “You are not Moraxx.” />
  “Fucking surprised?”

  “Who are you?”

  “I am your worst nightmare,” growled Skalg, and launched a blistering attack. They bit, and clawed, and tails whipped about, spiked tips continually stabbing at scales, and breaking scales. They grappled, as if in some parody of human wrestling, claws slashing out, smashing at one another, at heads and torsos.

  Occasionally, flames blossomed. But fire was a useless weapon against another dragon.

  They fought.

  The Iron Wolves watched, until Narnok said, “This is unproductive. And depressing. I’m going to search for Trista.”

  Dek nodded. “I’m with you.”

  “What about them?” gestured Kareem.

  “You ever see two dogs fight?” said Dek, scratching his neck. “You just leave them to it. They work out their own hierarchy. And here and now, I truly do not give a fuck who wins, who loses, or who fucking dies. When their fight is over, if we’re still here, we’ll have another go. Now, I just want to find my friend.”

  Kareem nodded, understanding shining in his eyes.

  * * *

  Volak roared, and with a swipe pinned Moraxx to the ground. They had battered one another for an hour, hammering away with tooth and claw. Now, Moraxx was weak, and Volak had flapped her wings, rearing above the other wyrm, and used her bodyweight to slam the bitch to the broken stone flags.

  “Yield,” said Volak, softly, flames curling around her broken fangs.

  “Fuck you,” said Skalg, eyes narrowed, scowling up at the more powerful dragon.

  “I can destroy you,” said Volak.

  “Then stop talking and do it, coward bitch,” said Skalg, voice full of mockery.

  Volak looked down at her sister, and if she’d not been a creature of flame and ash, she would have wept. But that was a physiological act beyond her species. Dragons did not cry. They just screamed.

  “I cannot kill you, sister.”

  “Do it, you spineless cunt.”

  With a roar, Volak pinned Moraxx to the flags, and her great head came down, and her jaws opened to fasten around Moraxx’s throat. She bit, bit hard, and felt the scales crumble, the muscles split, the tendons pop, and her fangs closed around the spinal column and she bit, harder than she had ever bitten any creature in the past…