BOOK II : THE PROLOGUE

Death washed over the battlefield. It did not walk as a man nor crawl as a beast but, instead, blew like the breeze, disturbing pools of blood and scattering grains of sand as it rolled over the living. Its ethereal reach extended to grant mercy to the dying and make martyrs of the heroes. It cared little for their banners, the sigils of men as meaningless as the very wars they declared. 

While the doomed succumbed to their fate, there was one who remained ever beyond that cold touch. His golden cuirass bore the mark of the dragons, a new breed of creature that had proved themselves the mightiest of allies to the Free Peoples of Verda. His helm had been knocked from his head and his shield left strewn amongst the dead in his wake. Absent both, he bore wounds that tried to slow him, to bring him down to the filth and the blood.

Forged through war, however, Skara was nothing if not defiant in the face of death.

Deep purple was his cloak—a humble gift from the people of Qalanqath after his victory in those scorched lands. It fanned out behind him now, lifted high by his daring leap. Where once he might have crashed into his foes with naught but courage, he now landed in their midst with the skills of a warrior, the skills of a Dragon Rider.

His sword, a weapon worthy of legend, cut through The Deceiver’s minions—the Husks—with terrifying ease. What a foul creation they were; demons conjured from a world between worlds. Absent their host, the walking beasts were brittle, as fine as parchment, but the enemy had unleashed them upon the realm, consuming villages, towns, and even cities to build his abominable army. Encasing the bodies of their prey, the Husks were killing machines that could only be brought down with fire.

Fortunately for the Free Peoples of Verda, fire was on their side.

Orvax shadowed the battle, his hulking form offering a brief reprieve from the downpour as he glided overhead. His silver scales, wet from the rain, gleaned in the light of his flames, the jet of fire spat from his jaws. Swaths of Husks were torched before ballista bolts drove the dragon away, each tipped with explosive alchemical concoctions. Still, it had given Gelakor enough time to leap from Orvax’s saddle and bring his axe to bear. 

It was with a touch of magic that he impacted the battlefield, scattering his foes in every direction. He felled one beast after the other, his axe hacking and chopping at his enemies with great precision. Taking their arms and legs where he could, Gelakor left the Husks writhing on the ground, their need to fight still burning in their corrupted veins. 

“Where’ve you been?” Skara demanded.

Gelakor offered a grin that was all too casual for a battlefield. “At least I brought a dragon!”

Skara didn’t need to reply with a quip of his own—Gelakor already knew that Skara’s dragon was fighting in the southern lands, keeping the last Leviathan from interfering with their final assault on the enemy. Thinking of his immortal companion, whose voice was too distant to hear in his mind, was enough to give the Rider momentary pause. Distracted, his sword was batted aside, exposing his cuirass to a painful blow before a boot slammed into his chest.

Taken from his feet, Skara groaned as he rolled left then right to avoid the incoming attacks. He kicked out, taking the left knee of the nearest Husk and bringing it down beside him. Rolling again, he evaded the sword of a second minion, its blade ploughing into its companion instead. 

A whistle of steel preceded Gelakor’s axe, the weapon finding its end in the skull of the second Husk. The axe vanished immediately, returned to its master’s grip, before the Rider launched it again and again, knocking the Husk back step by step until Skara could rise. 

Round came the Dragon Rider’s sword. The steel edge cut through the night air and the rain drops sizzled as they made contact with the glyphs and fine shards that burned bright orange down the weapon’s fuller. Brighter still was the Husk that tasted that biting edge, its body reduced to sparks and ash. Skara continued to pivot round until he was able to drop to one knee and plunge the tip of his sword into the Husk he had brought down with a kick. So too did the wretch burn up, its ashes scattered with explosive force.

Skara looked down at the scorch mark left in the ground. There had been a time when he saw the men and women behind their grotesque features, they who had been bound by dark magic to dwell behind the eyes of monsters. That time had long past, put behind him by endless campaigns to free Verda from the grip of evil. Those who served him, whose name so few dared to breathe, were little more than fodder now—people twisted into creatures to protect their woeful master.

Hounded by the screams of his fellow man and pressed upon by the roars of his enemies, Skara pushed on with a rallying cry on his lips. Like him, a smith, those who fought for the Free Peoples were no more than simple farmers, merchants, laymen—ordinary folk—who had been forced into the life of the warrior. With skills not just gained but earned, they battled with fury to reach their commanders.

“On me!” Skara bellowed, his sword slicing through the air to point at the obsidian palace. “Stay on my side,” he instructed Gelakor alone, their close proximity required to power their weapons.

Together, with what remained of their army, they punctured the dark legions. Skara’s sword was the tip of that spear, his every swing bringing an end to their monstrous foes. Easily found by the glowing purple glyphs inlaid about the axe head, Gelakor displayed his fortitude, a distinct feature that had initiated his bond with Orvax. 

Gelakor’s might and courage was accompanied by Skara’s unbridled wrath and recklessness. Where Gelakor fought for his countrymen and their right to freedom, Skara fought for those he had lost. The names of his sons and wife were seared into his heart, a burning wound that refused to fade. 

Over the plated helms of his enemies, he looked upon the black palace. His vengeance could be found inside, and damned if he wasn’t taking it before the dawn.  

The Dragon Rider met an incoming blade with his own, melting the steel mid-swing, before shoulder-barging the Husk to create enough space to backhand the fiend with his pommel. A downward stroke soon followed and the Husk was sliced down the middle, its two halves disintegrating in a flurry of sparks. 

The ground shook.

It would have been easy to believe that Orvax or perhaps the hulking Brigabhor had landed on the battlefield, daring the ballistas and catapults to find them. But Skara glimpsed both dragons in the sky—flashes of silver and gold—each harassing the palace’s defensive walls. 

“Skara…”

Following Gelakor’s voice, he was soon looking at the jagged outline of an Ice Troll. It was one of the many abominations that had been brought forth from the dark depths to wreak havoc on Verda’s green earth. At nearly twenty feet tall, its body was coated in natural armour, a crystal like substance that gave the appearance of ice. The face and palms remained the only locations absent the sharp and terribly dense crystal, making it notoriously difficult to kill.

Dragging chains from its wrists and neck, the Ice Troll waded in, sweeping its deadly arms into the men of Verda. It shattered bone and armour alike, making a ruin of its crystalline skin with the hot red of human blood. With a war cry, Gelakor launched his axe at the monster. It struck the jagged features about its face, missing the mark by inches. He threw again and again, succeeding in no more than attracting the creature. 

Skara danced about his Rider companion, keeping the Husks at bay with elegant arcs of his sword. “Bring it down!” he cried.

It was no use. For all of Gelakor’s skill, the Ice Troll was too erratic and its vulnerable face too small a target. So close was it now that Skara had to battle the rain in his eyes to look up at it. The roar it let loose drowned out the fighting and snarling Husks, a dreaded sound that had accompanied so many into death.

There came a flash of brilliant blue, a hue so vibrant it could only be magic. The Ice Troll reeled as its head, a beastly-looking thing sunken into its chest, was unceremoniously ported from its body. In the same instant, its decapitated head appeared at Skara’s feet. 

There was a hammer lodged in its face. 

Striding towards them as if a great battle wasn’t raging, Qif’s towering presence parted Skara and Gelakor, allowing her to plant one boot on the Troll’s head. Chunks of crystal broke away when the third Dragon Rider yanked her hammer free.

“The palace doors have been destroyed!” Qif reported, the three Riders gliding through each others manoeuvres to slay Husk after Husk. “Brigabhor has glimpsed the interior!”

Skara found Gelakor’s blue eyes, their colour exaggerated in the light of a Husk succumbing to sparks and ash. There was no misunderstanding Qif’s meaning—if Brigabhor had seen the interior, then so too had his Rider. With the hammer, she could now port all three of them inside the palace. United, they three could finally face their true enemy together, a feat that had eluded them throughout the war. 

Their combined might would be his end, an end to the war, to the suffering and brutal oppression that had chained and choked the people of Verda for so long.

And yet…

Skara could not—would not—allow any other to rob him of his vengeance. That most vile of all living things would be extinguished by him, no other. His desire to kill, to bathe in the blood of the one who had murdered his family, drove out the logic of facing their enemy as a trio. It was the dragon in him—a source of confidence bordering on arrogance—that failed to ask the question of whether he even could defeat the wretch alone. He only knew that he would face him, and that he would have satisfaction.

Springing from the chestplate of a charging Husk, Skara reached out with one hand and used Qif’s muscled shoulder to pivot and come down on another fiend. It made no difference to Qif, her powerful frame more than capable of supporting Skara’s familiar fighting style. What she failed to realise in that brief and chaotic moment, was that Skara had touched her quite deliberately.

With the vambrace on his right forearm, Skara was able to reach inside his fellow Rider’s mind and see, smell, hear, and even touch, everything and anything she had ever interacted with, including her dragon Brigabhor. After years of honing his use of the bracer, Skara cut through the plethora of memories and interactions until he found the image shared between dragon and Rider. 

While it seemed the world had come to a stop, Skara absorbed the memory of the palace’s interior—however slight it was. 

Upon landing, his sword cleaved through the intended beast with ease and the mayhem of battle crashed back into his senses. He didn’t hesitate—he couldn’t lest Qif note the fine red shards glowing on the bracer’s surface and discern his intentions. With one hand, Skara gripped the haft of The Anther and deftly twisted it from her grasp while he himself spun around. His purple cloak dazed her and partially concealed his actions from Gelakor, giving him just enough time to raise the hammer and slam it into the ground.

“No!” Qif cried, but it was too late.

Being not only a weapon of his design but also his creation, Skara ported just beyond the threshold of the blasted palace doors with no ill-effect. How many times had it nearly paralysed him before he learned to harmonise with The Anther? Now it was an instrument of death in his grip.

The Husks—incapable of displaying or feeling surprise—rushed him from the dark corners of the antechamber. With sword and hammer he obliterated some while sending others high into the sky, porting them from the palace into the very storm that swirled over the battlefield.

Alone, his breath ragged, and clothes dripping rain water, the Dragon Rider laid his old eyes on the thick iron doors that stood tall in the far wall. He didn’t need to see to know that his enemy was on the other side, sitting idly while thousands died for his deranged ideology.

Skara’s back cracked as he straightened and squared his shoulders. Determined to see an end to it all, the Dragon Rider strode towards his destiny, towards his vengeance. The doors refused to budge. 

“Coward!” he spat.

Orange light rolled through the air as he positioned his sword and plunged it into one of the doors. The magic within the weapon made short work of the metal, as if an iron rod had been driven through butter. The Dragon Rider took no care in carving out a hole large enough to permit him entry, nor did he temper the magic he poured into his thrusting jab of the hammer. The Anther’s head struck the interior of his work and cast the pieces of door far into the next chamber.

“BARAD-AGIN!” he roared, naming the fiend who had unleashed the Leviathans upon the realm.

How grand that chamber could have been, a hall fit for one who might rule over the entire realm. Yet it had fallen into ruin, its splendour neglected while its master focused on the dark worlds that lay beyond understanding. 

And damned if it didn’t stink of death, a putrid rot that assaulted Skara’s nose.

The vaulted ceiling was masked in shadow, though great cobwebs stretched out of the darkness, bridging the gaps between the pillars. Skara could hear faint scurrying and distant hissing, but he turned his attention away from the creatures that dwelled so high. He, instead, took in the debris that littered the vast spaces between the pillars. There was evidence everywhere of Barad-Agin’s insidious nature. Bodies—corpses all—were scattered throughout and strapped down. Some even floated without restraint. Every one of them looked to have suffered in death, victims of experimental magic.

Parchments, old and new, were piled high in the corners, the scrawl of magic upon them all. Alchemical processes were taking place on tabletops that had been squeezed into any available gaps. Liquids of every colour bubbled or swirled while steam rose from half a dozen cauldrons. Some of it was familiar to Skara, but so much of it was new magic. Blood magic.

Was there anything more seductive? Its potential was seemingly limitless, if frighteningly costly. 

Pausing by a table of scrolls and weighty tomes, Skara flipped the cover of one and rifled through the delicate pages. He stopped at a page that detailed the process of binding different creatures together, allowing one to use the characteristics of the other. There were also drawings inside that revealed these experiments had escalated to binding humans with animals as well—what nightmares they were.

Inevitably, his gaze was drawn to the throne that sat upon a large dais. There he sat. 

Barad-Agin. The Deceiver to those who had known him. Earth-breaker to those who had suffered him. Blood-drinker to those who had born witness to the monster he had become. 

His true name was that of a shiver that ran up one’s spine, or the cool touch of dread that plied one’s veins. Shrouded and hooded in black robes, his very person seemed to suck in the shadows about him, as if his entire form was an absence of life and matter. He was evil personified. If only Skara had seen it sooner.

Barad-Agin’s voice came from everywhere, gripping the Dragon Rider by his very bones. ““Skara… You’ve got old,” he remarked, though the rim of his voluminous hood continued to hide his eyes.

Skara considered his own appearance, all too aware that time had impacted him before bonding with his dragon. Even so, his body was testament to a hard life of violence, his muscles well defined and skin still taut. Only his face and hair betrayed his age, the latter having lost its colour and trimmed into a long braided mohawk. 

“I’m immortal,” the Rider corrected.

“Then you are forever old,” Barad-Agin replied, a touch of amusement in his ancient voice.

Skara tilted his head, his suspicions growing. “I’ve come for your head, conjurer.”

Barad-Agin gave a rasping laugh that echoed off every wall. “You’ve come to kill me?” he laughed again. “I’m not sure I’m even alive,” came the quiet, if disturbing, response. 

The Dragon Rider narrowed his eyes on the robed figure sitting before him. “You are defeated,” he declared. “Your Leviathan’s have been chased to the ends of the earth. Your army is on fire. And you, Barad-Agin, are not what you seem.”

Spinning away from the throne, Skara raised his sword high. His will alone was enough to trigger the magic within and further ignite the glyphs etched into the steel. In that moment, it was as if the sun itself had dawned inside the great chamber, banishing the shadows. So too was any notion that Barad-Agin was resting upon the throne.

A monstrous shriek met that light, and the real Barad-Agin recoiled from the sword, taken away on his eight arachnid legs. What a horror he had made of himself, his body twisted, broken, and reformed into something between man and spider. So much of him was shrouded in dark and tattered robes, though it did nothing to conceal his unnatural form as he scurried up and behind one of the pillars, his nature always seeking the shadows. 

Skara dimmed the glyphs slightly. He glanced back at the throne, seeing now in the light that the fingers extending from the sleeves were those of a long-dead corpse.

“This is Dawnbreaker,” the Rider announced, hefting the sword with pride. “I didn’t have a chance to introduce you to each other the last time we quarrelled.”

Barad-Agin clung to the highest part of the pillar, his humanoid torso peering out to reveal his hooded head. “Your understanding of magic has deepened since the days you called me master. A pity you have used it to sow chaos.”

The accusation nearly choked Skara. “You are blinded by the power you have amassed,” he told the fiend. “The chaos that racks our world was ushered by you. By your thirst for dominion.”

The fiend edged out from behind the pillar, his claw-like hands carving lines down the stone. “Of course you don’t understand,” he rasped. “That’s why you abandoned me, why you rebelled against me. To think you had such potential. Your harmony with magic made you the greatest of my apprentices. But your naivety made you the very worst of them.”

“You see sense in it, do you?” Skara questioned, his fury bubbling over. “You see the justice in murdering thousands?” he spat. “Tell me, what didn’t I understand about you butchering my family? How did that serve the great plan? Did my childrens’ screams bring the peace you thought it would? Did spilling my wife’s blood build the paradise you’ve dreamed of?”

It was with horrifying speed that Barad-Agin descended back to the floor, his pointed legs extending to find every surface before sending a shockwave through the stone. He stood as tall as the doors Skara had sundered, his eyes—all four of them—glistening as he loomed over Dawnbreaker.

“The violence and death that has rippled across our fair realm can be laid at your feet, Dragon Rider. There is only war because you instigate it at every turn. Had you let me build my paradise, you and your family would be living in it by now. That’s all I’ve ever tried to do,” he insisted earnestly. “Do you think peace and security just happen? I have seen what happens when the world is left to get on with it. When it’s left to the murderers and the rapists to crown themselves kings. That’s a world where the weak become no more than things.” Barad-Agin brought his face down towards Skara. “Without fear, there is only suffering.”

The Rider didn’t shy away from that grotesque amalgamation. “I am not afraid of you,” he said boldly.

“And how you have suffered for it,” the vile wizard remarked.

Skara’s family flashed before his eyes, their slaughtered bodies ragged and bloody. Dawnbreaker cut through the air and came to rest at Barad-Agin’s throat, its bright hue revealing black featureless eyes and oily mottled skin. His rage had nearly won out, an unsatisfying end given that his sword would disintegrate the wretch. The world, Skara knew, needed to see him dead if it was to move on.

A wicked smile split the creature’s face, offering a glimpse at Barad-Agin’s fangs. “You will see the truth of it soon enough, my old friend. As you say: I am defeated. Whether you want it or not, the Free Peoples of Verda will thrust you upon the throne. Then you will see. Then you will understand. The only thing they need saving from is themselves. You can’t do that with freedom. You need monsters. You need darkness. Magic can offer you that and so much more.” The beast chuckled inside his hood. “Your time will come.” 

Skara plunged Dawnbreaker into the stone, leaving it to stand sentinel beside him, while his other hand squeezed the haft of The Anther. “Your time is at an end.”