The smoke was visible from a mile out. A black pillar rising into the sky, thick and oily, blotting out the sun. Thalion leaned forward in his saddle, his jaw set so tight it ached, his hands white-knuckled against the reins. Behind him, fifty riders followed in tight formation elven mercenaries and human guards of Eldoria. All elite. All armed. All silent. The only sound was the rhythmic thunder of hooves on hard-packed earth.

  Hajeel rode beside him, his flame-bladed sword strapped across his back, its hilt wrapped in worn leather. The elf’s face was a mask of grim stone, his eyes locked on the horizon, on the smoke, on Mosiah.

  “How far?” Hajeel asked, his voice a low rasp.

  “Too far,” Thalion said. “We should’ve been here an hour ago.”

  The smell hit them first. Smoke. Ash. And beneath it, something worse burnt flesh, melted metal, the acrid stench of a ruined city. Thalion’s stomach turned. He’d smelled it before. In the valley. In a dozen other battles. It never got easier.

  The gates of Mosiah came into view. Or what was left of them. The wooden doors had been torn from their hinges; the stone archway was cracked and weeping soot. Bodies lay scattered across the entrance guards in Mosiah’s colors, their armor melted into their skin, their faces unrecognizable.

  “Gods,” someone whispered behind them.

  Thalion didn’t slow. He urged his horse forward, through the gates, into the village.

  The heat hit them like a physical wall. The air shimmered, thick and suffocating. Buildings on either side of the main road were reduced to skeletal frames, their beams glowing like coals. The cobblestones beneath their horses’ hooves were cracked and scorched, radiating a heat that made the horses whinny in terror.

  A woman stumbled out of a collapsed house, her clothes a lacework of fire. She took three silent steps and fell. She didn’t move again. Thalion’s chest tightened, his hands gripping the leather until it groaned.

  “Keep moving!” he shouted. “To the square!”

  They rode deeper. The smoke thickened, choking visibility until Thalion could barely see ten feet ahead. Ash swirled in the air, stinging his eyes and coating his throat in charcoal. Every breath tasted of death.

  Then, through the haze, a shadow passed overhead. Massive. Fast.

  Thalion looked up. The olive-green dragon cut through the smoke a hundred feet above, its wings beating with heavy, deliberate strokes. Ash and embers spiraled in its wake, raining down on the riders. The dragon didn’t attack. It was climbing, chasing something higher a white shape barely visible through the soot.

  Arcanjo.

  Leelinor was up there. Alone. Fighting.

  And I can’t help him. The thought burned worse than the heat.

  “Thalion!” Hajeel’s voice cut through the roar. “Ahead!”

  Thalion snapped his gaze forward. They’d reached the town square. It was a slaughterhouse. Bodies were piled like cordwood elves, humans, ogre families who’d sought refuge, butchered by their own kind. Blood ran in steaming rivulets between the cobblestones.

  And standing in the center of the carnage—eight monsters.

  Three minotaurs, their horns carved with glowing runes, their bodies rippling with unnatural muscle. Three cyclopes, each ten feet tall, their single eyes tracking the riders with cold precision. Two ogres, massive and scarred, runes glowing across their chests. One of the cyclopes held a hammer the size of a man. Blood dripped from its head.

  Thalion’s world narrowed to the pulse of blood in his ears.

  “FORMATION!” he roared. “Spear formation! Kill them all!”

  The riders didn’t hesitate. Thirty broke off and charged, lances lowered. The rest scattered to search for survivors in the rubble. Thalion kicked his horse into a full gallop. Hajeel was beside him, flame-blade already in hand, the metal glowing orange with heat.

  The monsters turned. The cyclopes raised their weapons. The minotaurs lowered their horns. Thalion didn’t slow. At the last moment, he stood in his stirrups and launched himself from the saddle.

  He flew through the air, both arms extended. The lion-headed bracers on his wrists flared to life, blue energy erupting from the lions’ mouths to form twin blades of crackling light. He brought them down with all his weight, driving them into the skull of the nearest cyclops.

  The blades punched through bone with a wet crack. Thalion twisted the light and ripped it free. The beast collapsed with a heavy, hollow thud.

  Thalion hit the cobbles rolling, came up on his feet, blades still hissing. Around him, the battle erupted. Hajeel’s blade cut through an ogre’s leg, cauterizing the wound even as the beast fell.

  But the monsters were coordinated. They fought like soldiers.

  “I take left, you take right!” one minotaur bellowed, its voice a gravelly rumble.

  A cyclops swung its hammer in a wide arc, scattering three riders. The minotaur charged low, impaling a horse on its horns, lifting mount and rider before hurling them into a burning building.

  Thalion gritted his teeth. The heat was unbearable. Sweat poured down his face, stinging his eyes. The smell burnt hair, melted iron, skin. And beneath it all, the weight of failure. Too late. Again.

  A cyclops swung a club. Thalion ducked, the weapon whistling over his head, and drove both energy blades into the beast’s knee. The joint exploded in a spray of blood. The cyclops screamed and collapsed.

  Then the cyclops with the hammer came.

  It swung low, aiming for his ribs. Thalion raised his bracers to block, but the impact was like being hit by a falling tree. Pain detonated through his side. Ribs cracked. The force lifted him off his feet and hurled him backward. He slammed into a collapsed wall. Stone and ash rained down. He tasted blood.

  He forced himself to look up, gasping for air. And he saw him.

  Leelinor. A white speck against the smoke-stained sky. Arcanjo’s wings beat frantically. And circling above him, larger, slower, inevitable the yellow dragon.

  Thalion’s chest tightened. He’s alone.

  Then the yellow dragon folded its wings and dove. Not toward Leelinor. Toward the square.

  “NO!” Thalion tried to scream, but his broken ribs stole his breath.

  The dragon’s jaws opened. Blue light gathered in its throat, pulsing hotter.

  “SCATTER!” Thalion finally found his voice. “SCATTER NOW!”

  Too late. The fire fell.

  Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.

  A vertical torrent of blue and white flame slammed into the square like a hammer of light. The heat was so intense the air itself ignited. Stone melted. Flesh turned to ash before it could even scream. Thalion threw his arm over his face. The roar was deafening.

  He glimpsed them through the inferno. His men. His brothers.

  Zufo, a human guard, turned to run. The fire caught him mid-step. His body became a silhouette, a shadow burned into the stone, and then nothing. An elven mercenary tried to raise her shield. The metal melted over her arm, fusing to her skin.

  And Hajeel.

  Thalion saw him twenty feet away. The elf turned, his flame-blade in hand. He took one step. The fire hit him. Hajeel was a shape of light for one instant, then the fire swallowed him whole. His body didn’t burn; it simply ceased.

  The fire cut off. The dragon climbed back into the sky.

  Silence.

  Thalion lowered his arm. Smoke curled from his sleeve. Where thirty men had stood, there was only scorched stone and ash. Twisted metal. The acrid smell of burnt hair.

  Out of fifty riders, fifteen remained. Thirty-five dead in seconds.

  His gaze found the spot where Hajeel had been. A blackened patch of stone. In the center, half-melted, lay the hilt of the flame-blade. The metal still glowed faintly, the enchantment dying with its master.

  Thalion stared at it. His hands shook with rage.

  Around him, the survivors rose. Their faces were blackened with soot, their eyes hollow. But they didn’t break.

  “For Hajeel,” Treodor rasped, spitting blood.

  “For the fallen,” a guard added.

  Thalion forced himself to his feet, ignoring the scream of his ribs. Five monsters remained. Two minotaurs. Two cyclopes. One ogre. Wounded. But standing.

  Thalion’s energy blades flared back to life, crackling brighter than before.

  “Kill them,” he said. His voice was cold. Final. “Kill them all.”

  The fifteen charged.

  ?

  The world came back in pieces.

  Sound first. A low, continuous roar. Fire. Screaming. The crackle of burning wood. Then pain. Sharp. Overwhelming. His ribs felt like broken glass grinding against each other with every shallow breath. His lungs burned, each inhale tasting of ash and copper.

  Vision followed. Blurred. Red at the edges. He was staring at stone, scorched black and still radiating a heat that blistered his skin.

  Where—

  The memory slammed into him. The blue fire falling between him and his father. The shockwave. The air exploding outward like a giant’s fist. A wooden beam thick as his torso had hit his chest, lifting him off his feet and hurling him backward. He’d crashed through a wall already weakened by flame. Stone. Ash. Darkness.

  Now he was here. Buried.

  Leeonir tried to move. His fingers twitched. He pushed against the ground with his palms, and rubble shifted on his back, tumbling off in chunks of broken stone and charred wood. He got his elbows under him and pushed. His ribs screamed in protest, white fire lancing through his chest.

  He vomited blood onto the ash-covered cobbles.

  Keep moving.

  He got his knees under him, crouching on all fours like an animal. His vision swam and the world tilted. He waited for it to stabilize. Thoughts came in jagged fragments.

  Father. Where is Father?

  Each breath was a knife between his ribs. Claamvor was burning. Always burning. His arms the skin hung in blackened ribbons where the dragon’s fire had licked him. The smell of his own burnt flesh filled his nose.

  Why am I not strong enough?

  Blood in his mouth. Copper and ash. He forced himself to look up. To focus.

  Three feet away, half-buried in ash, lay the Sword of Ecos. The blade gleamed faintly in the firelight, untouched by the ruin around it. Leeonir dragged himself toward it. His left hand the scaled one closed around the hilt. The metal was warm. Familiar. He used it to pull himself up. First to his knees. Then, trembling, to his feet.

  He stood, planting the sword point-down in the ash to steady the spinning world. When his vision cleared, he wished it hadn’t.

  A hundred feet ahead, through the shifting curtains of smoke, he saw them. Five warriors in the tattered remnants of Mosiah’s colors. Two elves, three humans. Their armor was dented and scorched, but they were alive, pulling people from the rubble. A woman missing her leg from the knee down. An old man with half his face melted. A child maybe six trapped beneath a fallen beam, screaming.

  The warriors worked with desperate efficiency. But coming from the east, crossing what had once been the town square, Leeonir saw the threat.

  Three ogres. Modified. Runes carved into their chests glowing a sickly green. Muscles bulging unnaturally beneath scarred hide. Eyes bright with cold intelligence. They were fifty feet from the warriors. Forty.

  The warriors hadn’t seen them.

  Leeonir started walking. His ribs protested with every step, sending spikes of agony through his chest. He ignored them. He forced his legs to move faster, from a walk to a jog. Every step was torture.

  He broke into a run.

  “BEHIND YOU!” His voice came out hoarse, shredded by smoke. “OGRES! THREE OF THEM!”

  The warriors spun. The ogres were twenty feet away. Too close. Three of the warriors dropped what they were doing to intercept. The other two kept working, dragging the wounded woman behind a pile of rubble, reaching for the trapped child.

  The lead ogre was massive, easily eight feet tall. His fists were the size of anvils. He reached out and grabbed a human warrior by the throat, lifting him like a child. The man’s legs kicked at the air, his sword clattering to the stones. The ogre grinned, showing teeth filed to points, and pulled the struggling man toward his face.

  Leeonir didn’t think. He moved. Ten feet. Five. He leaped.

  The Sword of Ecos punched through the back of the ogre’s skull. The blade drove through bone and brain, bursting out between his eyes in a spray of black blood. The ichor hit the dangling soldier like a fountain.

  The ogre’s eyes went wide. His fingers opened, releasing the soldier. He staggered, dropped to his knees, and finally toppled sideways with a heavy thud. Leeonir landed beside the corpse and ripped the sword free. He looked at the soldier, who was staring up with terrified eyes, his face a mask of black blood.

  “Help them evacuate. Now.”

  The soldier nodded frantically and scrambled toward the alley. Leeonir turned. The other two warriors were engaged with the second ogre.

  Then he saw the third.

  It was holding one of the elven warriors by the shoulders. The ogre’s massive hands came up, fingers wrapping around the elf’s head like he was holding a piece of fruit.

  The ogre twisted.

  The sound was horrible. A wet crack. The pop of vertebrae separating. The tearing of muscle. The head came free, the spine dangling from the base of the skull, white bone slick with blood. The ogre tossed it aside like garbage.

  The beast looked at Leeonir.

  “Why do you struggle so hard?” The voice was deep and gravelly, but disturbingly articulate. “You’ve already lost. Can’t you see? This is evolution. It cannot be stopped. It will drag you all under.”

  Leeonir laughed. It wasn’t a sound of humor; it was dry, hollow, and broken. The laugh of a man with nothing left to lose. He stared at the ogre, blood dripping from his scaled hand.

  “It doesn’t matter if I lost. What I want now is just to kill you. And everyone else here with you.”

  He took a step forward. His legs trembled but held.

  “And you? I’ll make sure you die as nothing. A puppet who thought he was important.”

  The ogre roared and raised a crude, serrated iron blade.

  Leeonir moved. Every fiber of his blood ignited. He pushed past the pain, past the broken ribs and the burnt skin. Speed was survival. He blurred.

  The ogre’s eyes widened. The blade was still rising when Leeonir closed the distance. His scaled hand glowing faintly with internal heat lashed out in a horizontal arc. The claws cut through muscle, tendon, and bone. Surgical.

  The ogre’s forearm fell to the ground with a wet thud. The hand still gripped the sword. The beast opened its mouth to scream, but Leeonir drove his clawed hand into the ogre’s face first. His fingers punched through the eyes, bursting them. He pushed deeper, feeling bone crack beneath his grip.

  “Don’t scream, filth. You won’t see even the last light before you die.”

  He clenched his fist inside the skull. The ogre’s legs buckled. Leeonir pulled his hand free, grabbed the Sword of Ecos with both hands, and brought it down.

  Once. Into the chest.

  Twice. Into the stomach.

  He didn’t stop. Three times. Four. Five. The ogre stopped moving after the third strike, but Leeonir kept swinging. Six. Seven. Eight.

  By the time he lowered the blade, the ogre’s torso was a ruin of shredded meat and jutting ribs. The body toppled backward with a wet, final slap.

  Leeonir stood over it, chest heaving. His body was screaming at him to surrender. He didn’t. He turned. The two remaining warriors stood over the third ogre, their weapons buried in its throat and eye.

  The warriors looked at Leeonir, then at the massacre at his feet. Neither spoke.

  Leeonir looked down at his left hand. His scaled hand was drenched in black blood, but beneath the gore, he saw the truth. The scales had spread. They didn’t stop at his wrist anymore; they climbed up his forearm, past the elbow, almost to his shoulder. Black as obsidian, edged in dark red, pulsing. Warm. Alive.

  Part of him. Or maybe it always was.

  Then the shadow fell.

  Leeonir looked up. The yellow dragon was diving not toward him, but west, toward the square. Its jaws opened, blue light gathering in its throat.

  “NO!” Leeonir screamed, but his voice was swallowed by the roar.

  The dragon vomited fire.

  A vertical column of blue-white flame slammed into the square. Even from a hundred feet away, Leeonir felt his skin begin to blister. He saw them silhouettes in the fire. Men. Horses. Turning to shadows. Turning to nothing.

  The fire cut off. The dragon climbed back into the smoke.

  And then he heard them. Voices. Dozens of them. Raw and furious.

  “HAJEEL!”

  “FOR HAJEEL!”

  “FOR THE FALLEN!”

  Thalion. That was Thalion’s voice.

  Leeonir staggered. His left hand throbbed with a heat that spread up his arm in waves, keeping him on his feet. Through the smoke, he saw shapes moving warriors fighting monsters. Rage against rage. And above far above a white speck against the blackened sky.

  Arcanjo. His father. Fighting alone.