One Last Time

A Story by

Binding the loose ends, the twists of fate.

Under the shadow of the careless moon or the oven of the burning hours, the stone that clothed the ruined cathedral was cold. The grey stone of desire and twisted faith. The last legacy standing.

We rested under Godalming’s statue and waited for Lucern to speak.

He took his time and then, with a deep breath, began.

“Tonight we will feast and drink until we drop. We will leave nothing behind.”

Muted confusion ran through the crowd.

“I know, I know,” he said, “we have worked so hard to gather these rations, to keep our strength up during the long retreat. But,” and here his words turned into a roar, “if death comes calling at dawn, I want to face it with a full belly and a mighty laugh.”

Silence hung across the crowd like a low and sudden cloud. Lucern had always spoken as if Fate was something he would wrestle with, titanic, and then control. This was the first time that he had merely resigned himself to Fate. And thereby consigned us all.

One pair of rustled, then another and the cheer went up, swelling, mighty, resounding through the grey remains, the windowless arches and shattered walls. This was acceptance. This was the final meal. We knew it now, deep in our souls. The truth was out and with that knowledge all pressure fell away.

Tales were told that night. Legends. There are always legends. But not only of us; of the wars between the Dwarves and Men, where Kisker Whitebeard held back the Common Army for two days at the doors to the Great Hall of Mark. At first, with his axe, then his shield, then his fists and finally his body, wedging himself in his armour into the metal doorframe. Black with blood, his dead body held out, allowing the last of the women and children to escape; the silver-armoured knight, known as the Ghost, who came only when men cried out in final despair; Irid Lifespringer, in the war between the Elves and High Elves, who, with his magic returning arrow, had single-handedly driven his cousin’s army out of the Stained Woods.

Heroes, heroes one and all, from every race and time and each with a seeming never-ending battle against some nemesis.

And all of these tales were now known as legends because none of these races remained. Not man, not elf, not dwarf. Only our kind. And now the tides of trust and alliance had finally been broken. Betrayed, we had no other choice than to run. We ran.

We were The Pure, the white dragons of the Quolmquist Mountains. We were the first, the proudest, the makers and keepers of law. Our word was the thing we held above all else. If we said we would fight by your side, then we did, even if the cause was hopeless. Our riders were the strangest of their kind; Stone Elves. They, alone, could guide us with their minds; turn us both into one fearsome fighting machine.

But we should have known. We should have seen past our vision of honesty. We should have questioned our unblinking trust. Time after time, the Red Dragons of Twilight reached the battleground just too late, just when the enemy was beaten. Too late for our losses, our spilt blood. We should have heard it in their rider’s voices, the Dark Elves with their fluted songs and hooded faces. And when the time came, and all enemies had been vanquished, they turned on us, turned on our weakened numbers. Only our experience of war kept us going, carried us that far. But it was too late then. Even the mightiest god will fall if the number of ants attacking it is great enough. No matter how fast we ran, how high or how low, they were waiting for us. As if they had a map of our minds.

Then, even the hope of reaching the safety of home, the Quolmquist Mountains, became nothing more than a dream. Only that morning, only that battle had meaning.

As dawn approached, Jjin, my rider, stood by my head, stroking one of my older scars gently. Her tiny white armour brushed against my giant scales and there was a soft harmonic sound. If dragon and rider could hug then that was a hug. She spoke as she always did, calmly, quietly without any outward sense of emotion. But we knew, we danced in each other’s minds and there was no greater love. One dragon, one rider; and when they had chosen each other they became, like two halves, one identity. Jjin was my eyes. We dragons have no sense of colour. We see only shapes in shades of grey. Our hearing and sense of smell are acute and we can see movement far away. But in the heat of a battle a dragon without a rider is helpless. Caught up in the fire and movement, the screaming and war cries, there is no time to identify one dragon from another. We are just as likely to attack one of own own side.

“If this truly is to be the last time, then let us go with grace.”

Her words; our thought. This was a ritual we had established long ago, before every battle. That day, however, it seemed as if there was a cold edge to it, a reflection of the surrounding stone.

As magnificent as ever despite our great losses, we rose as one, circled to greet each other with the fireball call to battle, then climbed. Above the clouds, we waited, scouts around us, above and below. And then it came, thunder on the wing. We knew without Jocum the scout telling us that the Red Dragons were coming like locusts, filling the western horizon. They had gathered all their forces for this one battle, this final overwhelming charge of destruction.

“Wait,” called Lucern, and we dragons obeyed, circling silently, gliding.

The thunder rolled on, closing all the time. And then the two forces were level. We waited for the cries and clash of battle but nothing happened. The Red Dragons flew by beneath us.

“Wait!” repeated Lucern.

And then we heard it. The second wave. If we had taken our chance and dived on the main force from above and behind, their casualties would have been great but their second wave would have destroyed us completely. It was a trap. But they obviously did not know exactly where we were. As the second wave passed us, Lucern cried,

“Let’s show them how to set a proper trap! To battle!”

We drove down through the clouds, through the faint rain in the air and were on them before they knew it, tongues of flame and flights of rider’s arrows. Twenty of the dragons were tumbling and almost twice that number of riders, before even one of them managed to belch fire. I saw Feather go down, sheathed in flames and placed the sight in my memory to grieve later. We were wheeling then, circles of fire and smoke in the air, screams of the fierce mixed with cries of the injured and silence of the dead. Riderless dragons pulled away from the fight, lost without their riders’ sight.

And then it was over. It had taken only a few minutes to destroy them utterly, despite their greater numbers. Shock and surprise; two of the greatest weapons of war.

All creatures have a cruel streak. I defy anyone to deny it and on that morning we were cruel beyond measure. To prevent them from warning the main force we slaughtered all the riderless dragons. In my head it was logical, in my heart it was awful but in my soul I heard the spirits of all my fallen companions crying.

Then we were gone again, gliding so silent it looked as if we were sailing on the clouds. An hour passed. We made running repairs as best we could. Our riders patching their wounds and ours with salves and ointments.

Word came; a small force had detached from the main army and was flying back to check on the second wave. We destroyed them as quickly and efficiently as we had the first. But we all knew that, no matter how skilful we were, our luck could not last and Lucern led us up, up towards the stars.

We travelled in the same direction as the Red Dragons until we reached that strange place where there is no air to lean our wings against. The curve of the earth laid out before us, whispering its song of beauty, oblivious to our stupidity. And we let the earth turn beneath us. Slowly then we descended, everyone straining for the faintest sound or movement that would give away one of their scouts. Nothing.

Jocum, by far our finest scout, moved before us. We learned that the entire force had realized something was wrong and had turned back. With our sky manoeuvre we had flanked them. Once again we were above and slightly behind them. But not all of them. Jocum said that they had divided into three groups; each one behind and slightly higher. Thus only the highest group did not have its back protected. Which was good, we reasoned. We could mostly put them out of action before the second group managed to swing back and rise to attack us. What was not so good, Jocum told us, was that each group was large enough to be a full army on its own.

We waited on Lucern to put words to the path we all knew we were about to take. He spoke, finally, and the words came as vibrations, songs of stars, echoing back and forth between each rider, each dragon.

“This is a strange day. I have known joy and grief but if I am grateful for one thing in my life it is that, through the eyes of my rider, I have been given colour. The world is no longer a tombstone to me. As you fall, my friends, have no regrets for there is no one to record them. Remember that these creatures are soul-less; nothing more than ants. But you, you are The Pure! Forever The Pure!”

With our flames before us and our riders singing the Death Song, we dived. And the world changed.

These words have been scratched on this cave wall by Graphux, almost the last of The Pure. It may take a thousand years but the two eggs beneath them will know when it is their time to hatch.