Edith and Cassia sat next to each other on the ground, staring at two graves. One was a few days old, but the second was freshly dug. The broken end of a shepherd’s crook served as a marker.

  A spring drizzle had started to drift in over the Redstone Hills, but neither woman seemed inclined to get out of the rain. They had been sitting in silence for several minutes before Cassia said anything.

  “Did I make a mistake, Edith?” she asked quietly. “Taking him in, out of the cold?”

  Edith looked over wearily at the younger woman. The question was entirely unlike her. Cassia had never voiced any doubt about Sanguine’s place in her life before.

  “I think if ye hadn’t lass, ye’d be dead,” Edith said after some consideration. “Either by starvation or by whatever infested the Forest.” She scooted over closer to Cassia, pressing their shoulders together. Cassia drew her knees up to her chest, but didn’t move away.

  “I also know that Magnus would’ve passed. I might’ve held onto him til spring… but the end was already coming. The Witch Hunters might’ve come knocking as well. That’d be it for me.” Edith pulled a tuft of spring grass from the soil and twirled it between her fingertips.

  “T’laanga… he’d still be around for a while longer, but…” Edith sighed deeply. “If I was put to the stake, he’d either have reaped a bloody vengeance and been put down like a dog, or he’d have left this land for good.” Cassia turned her head to look at Edith, her hollow eyes filled with doubt.

  “How can you know all that?” Cassia asked bitterly. “How do you know that it wouldn’t all be better if… if I’d done something different?”

  “I don’t, lass. I really don’t,” Edith replied while rubbing her fingers over the grass stalk. “Ye never know, truly, what could have happened if things were different. We can only make a guess here and there.”

  Another period of extended silence settled on the pair. The rain continued to patter down, making the earth and their clothing damp and sticky.

  “... I thought you’d tell me I was wrong,” Cassia whispered. “That I should believe in him. That’s what I’m supposed to do… right? I’m…” Cassia looked down at the ground, tiny droplets of water beading together to flow in streams down the hillside. “I can’t get it out of my head. I keep seeing it. Over and over. I begged him to help and he…”

  Edith closed her eyes. She’d already cried too many tears today; there weren’t any left to spill. When she opened her eyes again, she spoke as if she were watching something far away.

  “I was in the middle of a sandstorm,” she told Cassia. “It is like… biting rain or hail, made from sand in the desert. They can come without warning in the dry places of the world. T’laanga and I had only started traveling together recently.”

  Cassia turned to pay more attention as Edith started to tell her story. As much pain as she was currently going through, her heart still delighted in hearing tales of far away places.

  “There were other people with us,” Edith continued. “In the desert, you travel in caravans. Those who travel alone, perish. We were traveling with this caravan to a place called Aljaezir Altaeya. It may sound difficult to believe, but it is a city that flies above the desert known as the Sun Sea.”

  Now, Edith fully had Cassia’s attention. A flying city sounded like a myth or a fairy tale, but the older woman spoke with great certainty. This was not an apocryphal story. This was Edith’s past.

  “The city moves to avoid the sandstorms. They are what gives the Sun Sea its other name… the Sea of Widows. The winds blow so strong that the flying dust can rip through a man’s flesh like flying daggers.”

  “Yer only hope is to either outrun the storm, which is nearly impossible, or to take cover somewhere. Great towers of stone rise out of the sand dunes, which are riddled with caves. Travelers use them as guide posts and places of refuge.”

  “The caravan master made a mistake. We were caught out in the open when a sand storm came over the horizon. Some of us were able to make it to the nearest stone tower, but we were all injured.”

  “Unfortunately, the cave we picked wasn’t empty. A man named T’emba stepped on a Devil Viper. It is… a snake, with two horns rising from the front of its head. Its bite is deadly, especially if you are already wounded.” Edith crumpled the grass stalk between her fingers. “Everyone who made it to the cave was covered in a thousand small cuts from the sand.”

  “I will… not trouble ye with the details,” Edith said as she looked back at Cassia. Old pain colored her words, scars long healed over. “Suffice it to say, T’emba was a dead man the moment the viper bit him. We lost most of our supplies when we abandoned the caravan. I was the only healer with us in the cave.”

  “What did you do?” Cassia asked slowly. “Were you able to save him?”

  Edith shook her head.

  “No lass, I wasn’t,” she admitted bitterly. “I tried my best but… at the end, T’emba was suffering. No man should have to go through what he did.” Edith turned her eyes to stare at T’laanga’s grave for a while. “I let him suffer longer than he needed to. T’laanga was angry with me for that. He demanded that I do the right thing.”

  “W-... what was the right thing?” Cassia whispered.

  “He handed me a knife.”

  Edith gingerly pulled the short blade that she used for gathering herbs out of its sheath, watching as rain drops slid across its polished metal surface. Cassia’s gaze watched it as well for a long time. Eventually, Edith wiped off the knife on a drier part of her clothing and resheathed it.

  “T’emba was T’laanga’s younger brother,” Edith said, concluding her story. “He’d sworn to their mother to protect him… I think… he never moved beyond what happened.”

  “... Am I supposed to forgive Sanguine?” Cassia asked.

  “That’s up to ye lass. He’s… our dragon,” Edith replied. “I think it’s going to take me a long time. Maybe, once he keeps his promise to bring Magnus back…”

  “But ye need to decide whether ye can make peace with the fact that he can and will make those kinds of hard choices. I do think ye should give yerself more credit though.”

  “More credit?” Cassia queried.

  “Lass, ye fought a bloody monster of a dragon and lived,” Edith said with a prod to the young woman’s cheek. “Ye are two for two with fighting monsters and surviving. Most common folk would’ve died or wet themselves in terror. Hells, look at that buffoon of a knight Sanguine dragged up here. He about shite himself when I threatened to throw him into the woods.”

  Cassia couldn’t help but snicker. Edith continued.

  “I guess my point is… Ye saw in person what a dragon looked like. A real monster, the kind that heroes slay in stories. One that kills folk without a care. Next time ye look at Sanguine… decide for yerself whether ye think he’s that kind of monster. Personally, I believe ye have far more impact on him than ye think.”

  Edith stood to her feet. “I’m going to go get dried off lass. Let me know if you need anything.”

  Cassia sat and watched the graves for a while after Edith left. When the sun started creeping towards the horizon, she finally got up and headed inside.

  Sigurd had been riding like his life depended on it for days. Everything had been a rush after the Oracle’s Edict. The Baron’s castle had been sent into a frenzy of activity. Sigurd himself was pulled from one place to the next without any control over where he went.

  The castle Doctor had changed all the bandages on his wounds and made him drink a foul tasting potion. To Sigurd’s surprise, many of his injuries stopped weeping only a few hours after. Whatever was in the potion must have been valuable, because the Doctor had lamented about giving it to a ‘peasant child’ more than once.

  As soon as the Doctor was done with him, Sigurd was dragged off to the Castle Armory. The only equipment that remotely fit him was a former squire’s doublet and a rusted helmet. Just like the Doctor, the Quartermaster had griped about outfitting a ‘country bumpkin’.

  Half a dozen other locations repeated the same reason and rhyme. Sigurd had been dumped into a room, saddled with items that he didn’t know how to use, made to listen to the complaints of whoever was in charge, and then dragged off to the next room.

  By the time he’d been dropped into a pony’s saddle, Sigurd was ready to stab the next person who complained about him being a farmer’s son.

  After that had come the seemingly endless ride towards the dragon. A full fifty men at arms rode alongside him. Twenty were bowmen, a further twenty carried swords and shields, and the last ten traveled with heavy pikes carried by a pack horse. The Baron himself followed close behind with an entourage of eight fully armored knights.

  That amounted to almost every professional soldier in the Barony, who had taken to the field. A token force stayed back to guard the Castle. Others could be roused from their postings at smaller settlements, but that would take too much time.

  Sigurd hadn’t been told where they were going or how they knew the dragon’s location. Hardly anyone spoke to him after the Oracle gave her command. The young man was fairly sure that the soldiers believed him to be cursed. What little he overheard was full of rampant conspiracy and consternation.

  Only the Baron’s presence was keeping everyone on track. The man had recovered after he broke character in the court. Afterward he only showed grim determination to get the job done.

  It was only when they started to come across signs of the dragon’s rampage that Sigurd was summoned back to the Baron’s side. Sigurd carefully tapped his heels into his mount’s side to direct it forward.

  The past several days had been a hard education in horsemanship. None present were willing to stop if he fell off his saddle. They just hauled him back to his feet and put him back where he’d fallen from.

  “Your lordship?” Sigurd asked carefully. Earlier, he’d learned another hard lesson on how one should properly speak to the Baron. The man himself never said anything untowards, but the knights surrounding him were more than willing to kick a peasant boy’s teeth in for ‘disrespect’.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  “Speak only when spoken to, cur,” one of the armored bullies growled from nearby. He had an enormous mustache that looked like a pair of tusks poking out from beneath his helmet.

  “Enough, Sir Thadwin,” Baron Reimse said, waving the knight off. The man held his tongue and took his warhorse a few steps away. “Does that look familiar to you, boy?”

  Baron Reimse gestured with one gauntlet at a hut just beyond the next hill. The fields around it were brown and decayed, even though it was fully spring time. Half melted bones of goats stuck up through the grass. Along a dirt track leading up to the hut, a wagon was collapsed in a heap.

  “That… that does look like what happened to my family home, yes your Lordship,” Sigurd said slowly. His memory was somewhat hazy from the pain and grief, but he’d recognize the lingering scent anywhere. The acid which had burned his body lingered in the air near the hut.

  A pair of scouts armed with bows rode back towards the Baron and Sigurd as they looked over the devastation. Both scouts had a grim expression on their faces.

  “Torrence. Harald. Your report?” the Baron ordered as they approached.

  Both men got off their horses when they were within five yards of the Baron. The nearby knights watched them warily. Harald held their mounts’ reins while Torrence stepped closer. He held up a torn and bloodied section of horse’s barding for the Baron’s inspection.

  Baron Reimse’s brow furrowed as he took the scrap in his gauntlet.

  “This… this is Raban’s,” the Baron uttered. Once again, he looked to have aged years in moments. “I commissioned it myself for his knighthood. He’s…” The Baron’s head shot upright, his wild eyes jumping around their surroundings. “Kenneth!”

  “We flushed one of the locals out of hiding your Lordship,” Torrence said. “He led us to what’s left of Raban’s warhorse. The dragon… it ate most of it. The shepherd we interrogated said he’d seen Sirs Kenneth and Raban with their squad on the road, half a week past. That was their wagon, over yonder. He… wasn’t around, when the beast must have attacked.”

  Baron Reimse stared at the shattered barding in his hand for a long moment. The torn section of armor began to clatter as he shook from deep inside. Suddenly, the Baron threw the barding to the ground and let out a great cry.

  “DAMNATION!”

  His voice echoed across the field, drawing concern from both the men-at-arms and his knights. Baron Reimse breathed heavily, his gauntlet creaking as he clenched his fist. Neither Sigurd or anyone else nearby dared breathe a word. When the Baron finally collected himself, his voice was as grim as the grave.

  “We’re riding until we find it. No one sleeps til we do. If your horse drops dead, you will be left behind.”

  A day later, one of the scouts came galloping back towards the formation of riders.

  “The dragon!” they heard him call out as he stood up in his saddle. “The dragon is here, over the next ridge!”

  Baron Reimse slammed his heels into his mount’s sides. The warhorse was already pushed to its limit, but it managed to give one last effort and charged forward. Every man in the war party had to race to catch up with their Baron. Sigurd trailed in the rear. His own pony had collapsed the night before. He was riding a pack mule now.

  The charging warriors came to a halt at the crest of the ridge. There before them was the black dragon, in all its terrible splendor. It seemed to have fallen from the sky into a gully carved by a stream.

  As they watched, the beast pulled itself up onto higher ground with claws like daggers. A large variety of wounds covered its body. Both eyes were closed shut.

  “Something fought this creature,” Baron Reimse hissed as he stood in his stirrups. He pulled a small device from his saddle bags and raised it to his eyes. His head was turned towards the dragon. “Torrence. Can you see that, sticking out of its left heel?”

  The scout peered in the direction that the Baron indicated. “That’s a sword blade, the upper half, your Lordship. Might be one of ours, but it’s hard to say from here.”

  Baron Reimse tightened his grip on the viewing device, but resisted the urge to smash it on the ground.

  “Line the men up, Thadwin,” he growled. “Close order. Shields front. Pikes between. Bows behind. You, Lynus, Estellion, and Pontis on the left flank. Myself and the rest on the right. Lances, then blades.”

  Sir Thadwin spurred his horse and began bringing the men into order. Baron Reimse glared at the dragon as if he could kill it with his eyes in the meantime.

  “Your… lordship, what… about me?” Sigurd asked carefully. He’d caught up as the Baron finished giving his orders.

  “What about you, Sigurd ‘the Burned?’” the Baron said bitterly. “The gods saw fit that you should live to fight this beast, when my… When better men did not. If you turn tail and run, you will only bring damnation down on yourself. The Edict cannot be denied.” The Baron’s eyes narrowed.

  “But if you have honor and wish to meet your destiny, blade in hand? You may charge with me on the right flank. Perhaps the gods have a sense of justice. I personally doubt it.”

  Sigurd did not know how to answer that. When the Baron moved his horse to the right of the formation, Sigurd followed.

  At a call from Sir Thadwin on the left flank, the men in front began to walk forward. Save for the knights, Sigurd, and the Baron, all the men-at-arms had dismounted. No one bothered to tie off their horse. If they lived that long, they could worry about it then.

  Though each man was exhausted from the days of hard riding and a sleepless night, the sight in front of them was sufficient to make their hearts race. What or whoever had wounded the black dragon had likely not lived through the battle. Though the beast was clearly exhausted, it still towered over even a man on horseback.

  The archers in the back remained where they were, not out of fear, but to keep the high ground. They drew and nocked arrows to their longbows. More than one man muttered a prayer to the gods that his aim would be true.

  As the line of shields and pikes crossed within a hundred meters, the black dragon noticed their presence. Its nostrils flared and the immense spiked head turned in the men’s direction. Sigurd gave a quiet gasp as he saw that half the monster’s face had been torn off on the left side. Its twin rows of fangs were exposed to the open air and bloody drool rolled down its jaw.

  “Loose!” Sir Thadwin called from across the ridge line. Ten longbows thrummed as they spat arrows down towards the beast. The dragon gave a roar that shook the earth beneath each man’s feet. Horses panicked and ran in every direction, except the dragon’s, if they were not kept under a tight rein.

  Several arrows clattered off of the beast’s scales, but three caught in one of its wounds and the exposed membrane of its wings. It immediately charged, loping across the field faster than anyone could believe. Even with half of one foot bitten off and a sword embedded in its heel, it moved more swiftly than a charging warhorse.

  “Brace! BRACE!” A panicked voice from the line of shields and pikes called out. Those with shields closed the gaps between each other and dropped to their knees, shields held out. The men with pikes planted the butt of their weapon into the soft ground and held it at an angle towards the charging beast.

  They only had a few seconds to accomplish this. Not every man was in position when the black dragon slammed into the formation. Sigurd flinched as the sound of metal, bones, and wood shattering echoed across the field. The knights around him seemed grim but unperturbed. One of them handed Sigurd a spear, saying nothing.

  “Archers, free!” Thadwin called above the screams and dragon’s roars. The archers each began to line up and loose their arrows whenever they had an opportunity. Shooting their comrades in the back wasn’t in the cards, but for the men in front it might not matter much.

  The line had shattered the instant the black dragon smashed into them. Two pikes had successfully lodged in the ground, the hardened steel of their spearheads punching into the black dragon’s chest and neck. A further three had snapped on impact, sending wood shrapnel flying in all directions.

  Three men, two shields and a pike, were crushed into the dirt immediately. They gave sharp screams which were cut off by sickening crunches. The rest scattered to either side, spreading in a loose ring around the dragon. It lashed out in all directions with teeth and claws, catching one man in each before they could back away.

  Baron Reimse watched with cold eyes as his men were cut down, judging the beast’s strength. Arrows continued to clatter off hardened scales or embed themselves in open wounds. He was watching how the beast moved as it turned around on those skirting to the side.

  The dragon opened its maw and a torrent of acid sprayed across the field. Two more men vanished before they could scream, their bodies melted into sludge by the dragon's breath. A brave pikeman struck out while the beast’s head was turned away, jamming his weapon into the gap between the dragon’s jaw and neck. He had just enough time to smile in surprise before the dragon’s tail whipped around and sent him flying.

  “If I live, remind me to reward Vitor’s family,” Baron Reimse said grimly. “See how its jaw is stuck? That was a masterful blow.” The Baron pointed his lance at the dragon’s right hind leg. He called loudly to his knights. “It is favoring that leg. Our lances will shatter if we strike its outer scales. We must strike it from beneath! Aim for the pit of its limbs or its throat!”

  The Baron raised his lance, drawing a small circle in the air. “With me! We slay this beast here and now!”

  Baron Reimse lowered his lance and charged his steed forward. The other knights followed after. Sigurd tried to, but the packmule refused to head anywhere near the dragon. After Sigurd kicked it twice, his mount bucked and sent him sprawling into the dirt.

  The rumble of hooves cut through the din of battle as the Baron and his men charged from both sides. Sir Thadwin took the lead on the left, his mustache flapping in the wind from beneath his skull helm and chainmail. As they drew close, the men surrounding the dragon stepped out of the way.

  Not all were in a position to dodge. One man was caught between a warhorse’s hooves and the dragon’s claws. He yelled in agony as his shield arm was torn from his body, before he was battered out of the way by the warhorse’s bulk.

  Lances slammed into the black dragon from all sides with the full weight of armored knights and warhorses behind them. Five found their mark in vulnerable positions, either arrow riddled wounds or soft underscales. Four shattered on impact, exploding into a shower of wood shards in their wielders’ hands.

  The black dragon gave a gurgling screech and wheeled in a circle. Its tail and claws caught multiple mounted knights before they could turn their horses out of the way. Warhorses squealed in panic and pain as their riders were ripped from their saddles, or their own bodies were slashed.

  Sigurd saw the shape of Baron Reimse fly off of his steed, thrown across the battlefield and down into the gully. Sir Thadwin called out for his liege. The dragon seemed to hear him. Its head whipped around and caught the man in the head. Though it was unable to snap its jaws shut, one of the horn spikes on its head punched through Sir Thadwin’s chainmail. The man collapsed onto his horse without another word.

  “What am I- what do I do?” Sigurd whispered in horror. This wasn’t a battle. It was a slaughter. Men and horses died in agony, staining the ground with their blood. No matter how many wounds they inflicted on the dragon, it kept reaping its bloody harvest.

  He walked past a man whose lower legs had been broken by a sweep of the dragon’s tail. Sigurd gritted his teeth, caught between the desire to help and his own fear. The burning rage that had filled his body was drowned under the horror he witnessed.

  Up on the ridge, the archers had started running out of arrows. One man, then the next grimly shouldered their bows. They had not yet decided whether to flee or fight, but either way their bows were useless from here on out.

  One of the remaining knights tried to rally the remaining men.

  “Form ranks!” he called out. “Either side! Harry it like a bear! Keep it guessing!” Some of the men listened and edged toward each other on both sides of the dragon. Others were either too injured or panicked to listen. Only one man had an unbroken pike left. Most had either a shield or a sword, but rarely both. Each strike from the dragon shattered wood and steel.

  Sigurd was left standing on his own between the dragon and the archers. One of the men-at-arms noticed him standing there, spear in hand.

  “Over here boy!” the man cried. “Get out of the bloody way!”

  As if his words were a prophecy, the dragon turned towards the ridge. With attacks coming from both sides and the gully behind it, the ridge was the dragon’s route to freedom. On the ridge, the archers broke to either side, intending to let it pass.

  Sigurd stood still, transfixed.

  The black dragon barreled towards him. Whether it saw him or not, it would charge straight through his body. It was bleeding from dozens of wounds new and old. What could Sigurd possibly do in the face of a monster that had killed hundreds of common folk, soldiers, and knights?

  As if in a trance, Sigurd grabbed his spear with both hands and braced for the end.

  What happened next was too fast for Sigurd to follow. The dragon dipped its head to ram him out of the way. At the same moment, the pikehead embedded in the joint of its jaw popped out. Sigurd thrust his spear up into the dragon’s maw as it snapped shut, bloodied teeth filling his vision.

  Sigurd’s world went dark.