Will to Survive, The Fall of Dragons: Mautra's Sorrow

Will to Survive

Part One

The Fall of Dragons

II. Mautra's Sorrow

Shar-ait, 24th day of Guthion
Second Month of Autumn
Festival of the Harvest Moons
In the 10,568th year Since Creation

        From the darkness at the feet of the Dragon Mounts, a small circle of mountains within the northwest province of the Dragonlands, drow began to emerge from the shadows, led by their lord, Meleketh. Their eyes and teeth gleamed in the light of the twin moons, their dark skin and even darker armor drinking the light from the heavens.
        From the west, marching along the line of the Ishtooth Mountains came Meleketh's army of Druidihaim. Ragged banners were raised high throughout the column of marchers, swept and blown by the freak winds of the night, marking an end to the Harvest Festival.
        The skies continued to darken as the clouds raced with supernatural speed further into the Dragonlands, driven by the power of Meleketh's master, Judeo, the Apostle of Necronus. Lightning forked downwards along the distant lines of the Ishtooths. Other arcs of deadly electricity stretched inwards towards the Dragon Mounts.
        Meleketh waited for his master. Judeo would appear at his own time. No laws governed the movements and desires of Judeo save that of the slumbering death god Necronus, whose mind reached outwards from his tomb on the planet Galtos-frey, the dark moon orbiting Zukron, the fifth planet of the solar system.
        High up the mountain, snowcaps reflected the light of the moons and the stars, the gods' dreams of the heavens, laid by the gods long before Creation. The freak cloud formation dragged a curtain of darkness between the sky and the ground, fading the brilliance of the snow, swallowing the heavenly light.
        Then came the sound that Meleketh had been waiting for. The rhythmic beat of dragon wings as one of the great beasts crested the heights of the mountain and bore down the outer side towards Meleketh's assembled army.
        The front row of the advancing column set their positions, placing catapults and wheeled ballistas. They waited for the ensuing battle with the dragons.
        In the last dying moonlight Meleketh spied the hide of the fast approaching dragon as it swept low over the tree line of the mountain, the air that was rent in its passage gave up a dirgeful howl. The dragon's hide was whiter than the pure snow of the mountain tops. This was the White Dragon, Shalm'talik, first son of Mautra the Dragon Queen. He had become her mate after the death of Aastineus' mortal body and served as the lord guardian of the Dragon Mounts.
        As the White Dragon passed over the head of Meleketh he signaled his troops to fire crossbows and catapults. They did so, unleashing long shafts of tempered steel and boulders from the swinging arms of the catapults.
        Both the bolts and the rocks either missed the fast moving White Dragon or bounced off his hide harmlessly. Shalm'talik took notice of his attackers and climbed upwards, heading for the ceiling of the sky. The dragon slowly looped backwards and extended his arc, again coming down the side of the mountain, barely staying above the tree line. Meleketh smiled at the grace and agility of the beast. It would be a great prize to have the scaly hide of the daunting White Dragon.
        The White Dragon opened his mouth and exhaled as he came upon the attackers once again. From the maw of the dragon issued white flame, freezing the attackers with a coldness more bitter than the harshest winds of the snowcapped mountain tops. Hundreds of soldiers at the fore of the army column were caught in the spreading cold flame and were frozen solid, their bodies shattering.
        As the White Dragon pulled upwards and away from the army, white flames trailing from his still open mouth, a black mist gathered at the fore of the column where the frozen remains of the fallen Druidihaim lay. The mist rose and formed the crude outlines of a man. Burlap appeared out of nothing and wrapped and hooded the figure, encasing the mists. Then, from beneath the hood, two red slits for eyes shone into life with a bright gleam.
        The White Dragon made another pass at the army and spied the new figure at its head. The dragon gave a roar of bemusement and opened his mouth once more, spewing forth the frozen white fire.
        The figure was engulfed in the bitter cold and stood his ground, letting the fires wash over him. The dragon's eyes narrowed angrily as he pulled upwards once again. None had ever survived the White Dragon's breath unscathed, not even his fellow dragons. Still the figure stood and waited for the dragon's next approach.
        "Come to me, Shalm'talik, hatchling of Mautra and Aastineus. Your time on Vladisnor is at an end," whispered the dark figure, the rising winds whipping away his low voice, yet Shalm'talik heard the words in his mind.
        "Who dares?" grumbled Shalm'talik as he completed his roll and made once more for the army.
        "I am Judeo, servant of Necronus, apostate of another god whom I no longer serve. I have been charged to bring you to the ground, great beast."
        "I sense another, Judeo. A familiar presence. Where is the necromancer and craftsman, Johuo?"
        Rage burned in the red eyes of Judeo at the mention of the name. From upraised hands of mist two bolts of black lightning raced outwards, making for the approaching dragon.
        During the many millennia of his life, Shalm'talik had never been hurt by another, be it dragon kin, mortal man, or mystical agency. Yet the black lightning caused a new experience in the dragon as he felt his life wrenched away in sharp painful tugs.
        Shalm'talik screamed, bellowing lungs filling the air with a high pitched noise that even Meleketh turned away from. The noise deafened thousands of his troops as their eardrums ruptured and bled.
        The dragon's flight faltered and Shalm'talik was thrown to the ground, momentum driving the dragon forward, carving the dirt of the plain with his passage, breaking his right wing in multiple places and even dislodging many of the dragon's white scales.
        Meleketh reacted, signaling his drow archers to their duties. The drow strung their bows and took aim at the dragon. With a slashing stroke of his hand Meleketh gave them their signal. The song of arrow flight sang in the night air as the druirsteel arrowheads ripped into the flesh of the White Dragon, slicing through iron-hard scales and thick hide to pierce vital organs.
        The mighty Shalm'talik gave a last cry of agony, ending in a death rattle, bleeding into silence. The carcass quivered for a moment and then lay still.
        Drow raced forward and began cutting into the carcass of the White Dragon with druirsteel knives. Systematically the hide was torn away and peeled from the body of the fallen dragon. Giant leather skins were brought forward and attached to funnels as the arteries and veins of the dragon were slit and pumped for the icy blood of the White Dragon. Leather skin after skin was filled and stoppered, sealed with wax melted from torches and pitch. The carcass was drained and naked, raw muscle exposed to the autumn night; even the proud head of the dragon denuded of scaly hide.
        From within the mountains rose a new scream, this one of fury and rage. It was carried by other voices added to it, lending strength to the first. A great whooshing of wind came to them from over the mountain as a new dragon took rapid flight, ascending with speed great enough to shatter the night air with a deafening boom as the dragon shot upwards from the inner bowl of the mountain ring.
        "That would be Mautra," Judeo said quietly, awed by the speed and power of the dragon.
        "A mother who has felt the death of her son," responded Meleketh as he appeared next to his master. "Her attack will burn away the entire army if you do not stop her quickly."
        "I am well aware of the risk, Meleketh," Judeo replied sharply. "The Druidihaim are expendable to the last man."
        "I am not," retorted Meleketh. "Nor are my drow, the druidihar.
        "You are safe with me," Judeo consoled, a hint of mockery in his voice.
        Meleketh sneered. He knew that his lord would leave him as fodder whenever the need arose. It was up to the Drow Lord to watch for his own safety and the safety of his troops.
        Mautra crested the peaks and kept low to the mountainside, her passage turning up storms of snow as she passed the snow caps. Next, the trees farther down the mountainside were ripped from their rooting in a straight line as the dragon queen bore down on the invaders and the leaders at the head of the army.
        Mautra's mouth opened, sucking in great gusts of air and snow, her chest expanding as it filled. The air in her lungs was ignited and then forced out under the pressure of the heat. A wave of searing flame as hot as Shalm'talik's was cold, raced for them.
        "Meleketh, if you would please shield us and the carcass of the White Dragon," Judeo said calmly.
        Meleketh didn't have the time or breath to curse as he forced out the shielding spell, expanding the radius of the shield with mental effort. The shield came up and extended over the drow lord and the apostle and farther back, safeguarding the drow and the front lines of the Dark Forces army.
        Meleketh gasped as he felt the searing heat through the shield and the strain of maintaining the shield against the dragon queen's attack. Strain twisted the drow lord's face as he fought to keep his magics in control and to hold the shield in place.
        Mautra finished her attack by fire and continued straight onwards. Drow desperately fired their druirsteel tipped arrows at the passing queen, hoping to catch her in the belly. The shots that were true broke against her hide.
        The dragon queen dipped farther down and into the ranks of the invading army, her massive head, shoulders, and wing expanse breaking apart bodies and scattering the invaders. She pulled upwards after only a moment of attack and rose farther into the sky.
        "She performs the same attack maneuvers as her son did, coming back at us in a straight line." Judeo was calm, not impressed by the dragon queen, the destruction she had wrought on the army column, nor in Meleketh's efforts to preserve himself and the druidihar.
        Meleketh regarded his lord with hate-filled eyes. "To the hells with you and the dragon queen. Don't ever compromise me like that again, Judeo!"
        "Hold your tongue," was the apostate's answer. "She makes another attack."
        "I hope you plan on doing something other than standing there and admiring the scenery," Meleketh hissed.
        "Indeed," was Judeo's cool reply.
        Mautra again filled the bellows of her lungs and ignited the air with fire. The wave of fire raced for them as she exhaled, melting the ground with the immense heat.
        With evil relish, Meleketh changed the structure of his shield and surrounded only himself and his drow legions, expanding an arc of power over the front lines of the army, leaving Judeo exposed to the dragon queen's fiery temper.
        The flame raged over the still form of Judeo as he stood his ground, the fires billowing the burlap of his robes and stirring the mists of his form in a chaotic maelstrom of destruction.
        As Mautra neared with no indication of pulling higher and away from the dark figure Judeo exercised his power and pulled at the ground, ripping it upwards and sent it, whip-snapping, towards the low flying queen. Mautra saw the attack and attempted to pull up and away from it. She didn't have the time and was struck by the earth swell which rose a full twenty feet upwards to meet her.
        Meleketh watched in awe of his master's power as the queen was sent hurtling out of her trajectory and to the ground, the fountain of fire spewing from her mouth going wild and washing the ground before turning skywards and then dying out.
        Mautra landed on her side, her wing rolling under her. Before the massive bones could be snapped her body shimmered and melted into a human form. A tall, naked woman of sharp, angular features and royal bearing rolled on the ground and came to a rest. Before Meleketh could assess the situation the dragon queen had kicked herself back onto her feet and was racing for Judeo and Meleketh with fervor, her speed faster than that of any creature that Meleketh had ever before seen.
        As she neared her body changed, melting outwards and becoming once again the massive form of the dragon, mouth gaping and claws ripping up huge chunks of the baked earth.
        Meleketh melted downwards into shadow and left his master to his own devices. Mautra descended upon the apostate and snapped her paw outwards in an attempt to slice apart the killer of her son.
        Steel-sharp talons ripped the air and went through Judeo, tearing apart his dark robes, but without moving the dark figure as the gouges in the burlap robes repaired themselves and the mist of his being settled back in place.
        Further enraged, Mautra reared upwards onto her hindquarters as her lungs filled with air in preparation for another attack. Before it ever came, Judeo struck with black bolts of lightning arching from his dark hands that ran a course along her exposed belly.
        The gathered fire in Mautra's chest expelled in a sputtered fury as pain and panic gripped the queen. Her belly blistered and sizzled, the flesh and muscled beneath her multi-hued scales cooked by the powerful bolts.
        Judeo attacked again, aiming the lightning at the head of the queen, catching her in a cage of black electricity and searing eldritch fire. He held her there as he intensified the power of his attack and drove to bring her head and neck down to where the drow could attack.
        "Ten thousand years ago you sprang to life from a drop of blood shed by your creator, Aastineus," called Judeo, his voice now booming. "Now, after all that time, the spilling of the Dragonblood will be but the first revenge for an injustice left long unpunished."
        Meleketh reappeared from shadow near his drow forces and directed them to open fire with druirsteel arrows at the captured queen. The singing arrows struck, a handful piercing the hide and scales of her underside, making flowers of blood which teared and bled down her girth.
        Mautra fought Judeo's control and craned her neck backwards, raising her head against the pain of the magical attack. From the depths of her being she called out in a great bugle blast of noise, summoning her children to her. Black lightning danced along her mouth and arced inwards, searing the lining of her mouth and throat, blackening her teeth and tongue.
        Judeo looked away from his task for an instant, the eldritch lightning continuing to encase the queen's head. From the heights of the mountains came the cries of dragons and the sound of wings beating against the air, lifting massive reptilian bodies skywards and bearing them to the scene of the battle.
        As his concentration was diverted, Mautra exercised her will and pulled away from the apostate's attack, stretching the lightning. Her body shimmered and transformed into that of a woman, the lightning arcing off above her. With a blink of an eye she disappeared from the battle.
        Silently Judeo cursed the queen and her descending brood. In moments firestorms would be laying waste to the valley at the foot of the mountain ring. With little choice he moved the amassed armies of the Druidihaim away from the battle ground and to safety farther within the Dragonlands; using his magic to move the invaders through rifts in the fabric of space and reality.
        "Don't you think it about time to play the trump, Lord?" hissed Meleketh at Judeo's side, the drow lord rematerializing from shadow.
        "For once you are right, General," Judeo responded. The spectral creature sent out a mental signal and reached the minds of the creatures that he had been holding in reserve, shielding their presence from the dragons of the Dragon Mounts and especially from Mautra.
        Amidst the amassed clouds high above, a portal between worlds opened and through it dove more dragons, their forms barely visible against the darkened sky, lean and swift, wings folded back as the black dragons raced to head off their brethren. From the mouths of the black dragons spewed steaming acid. A rain of destruction fell upon the colored dragons, covering the hides and burning away scales and flesh.
        Mautra's children broke their formations, the impending fire storm averted as dragons from the mountains rose to meet their outcast brothers and sisters in the sky. The dragon queen rose to meet her errant children as well, rage seething in her gullet at the sight of the outcasts attacking her and her favored.
        "I wonder," mused Meleketh, "how many young there must still be within the bowl of the mountains. I have always been partial to infanticide."
        "Keep your place, Meleketh," ordered Judeo. "The children of the dragon queen and her daughters have powerful protectors. You would last less than a minute on the other side of the mountain. As I said before, you are safe here."
        Meleketh looked over his shoulder and viewed the carnage of Mautra's and Shalm'talik's attacks against the Druidihaim army. He sneered again at his lord but kept his counsel to himself.
        High above in the skies where the battle of dragon against dragon raged, Mautra screamed in fury and unleashed the force of her flame against one of the black dragons, venting rage against her traitorous children whom she had cast out of the Dragon Mounts millennia ago for their deeds against other dragons and the human denizens of the lands. Since that time she had not seen her fallen spawn, their appearance now fueled the rising hatred over the death of her son and the invaders who had dared to harm the dragon queen herself.
        A volley of acid rained down upon her from above, irritating the queen and turning her attention away from the melee. Twisting and climbing she outsped her attacker and gained height over the black dragon. Realizing the predicament, it dove and attempted to outrace its mother, using its leaner, more agile body to outdistance the queen.
        Mautra, however, was the supreme example of her race, filled with power, strength and great agility. She folded back her wings and dove, expanding her chest with air, preparing to strike with the searing flame that had already felled a number of her outcast children.
        She exhaled the fire and engulfed the black in a burning embrace. The black squealed and attempted to gain speed. Together they rode downwards, Mautra herself licked with the backwash of the flames that she exhaled, her errant child completely engulfed.
        The ground raced closer as their plunge continued. In a move of desperation the black extended blistered wings in hopes of pulling upwards and away from his mother. Mautra, wings still folded back, caught her child in her talons. The flame from her mouth continued outwards, baking flesh and scales and exposing raw meat beneath, which cooked and withered. The queen's talons dug into the hide of the black and pushed it downwards. Extinguishing her flame, she drove her son to the ground and unfurled her own wings in order to pull herself out of the sharp descent. Navigating the dive she dragged the limp form of the black along the earth, digging a trench and breaking the body of the dragon.
        Retracting her claws, Mautra pulled upwards for the sky to rejoin the aerial battle while one of her outcast children steamed in its own crater.
        "Fire and acid, an interesting mix," mused Meleketh. "Lightning would flavor the batter."
        "Inspiration springs from your mouth." Judeo turned his attention skyward and expanded his awareness; his will tapping into the black clouds and lending his power to them. Arcs of electricity shot at the colored dragons, ripping apart the beasts and leaving their formations open for attack by the blacks. Slowly, a rain of burnt and blackened dragon flesh fell from the sky to the ground, bones of the bodies shattering on impact.
        A baleful cry arose from the dragon queen as she watched her children, colored and black, fall in droves. Too many of her offspring had fallen this festival night and no more could be allowed to die in this battle. With a cry she ordered her children away from the confrontation and away from the Dragon Mounts. Extending her power she opened a passageway in the fabric of space and reality and ordered her children through.
        From the mounts below came the hatchlings and immature wyrms. They beat upwards with all the strength they could muster, making their way to exile. The black dragons accepted their victory with grace as they allowed the passage of the children to safety. None of the remaining blacks dared to incur further wrath from the dragon queen.
        Judeo also accepted victory graciously as he retracted the lightning strikes and allowed Mautra to escape with her children. The queen would not return. Not for a very long time. And besides, there would be plenty of time for the killing of babes later this night.
        "Our work here is finished, Meleketh. There is only one more battle to be waged and it is already engaged by our compatriot. Take us to Darcoth'maern. I must conserve my strength for my last confrontation with the Dragonblood."
        A maniacal grin bloomed on the face of Meleketh as he did his master's bidding and moved them through shadow to the capital city of the Dragonlands. The city of Darcoth'maern. The Dragon's Crown.
Continued in the next installment of Will To Survive, "The Fall of Dragons: The Soiled Crown"... Back to Fantasy

This page is hosted by Geocities. Get your own Free Home Page.