Huffing and panting the
small ragged group of survivors tumbled filth covered and exhausted
into the dusk shrouded ruin. Wordlessly they hunkered down, kicking
aside rocks for what little comfort the bare ground would provide in
this paltry shelter before their flight would continue on once more.
They huddled together
to share body warmth and despite the terror and adrenaline, they fell
into restless sleep in mere
moments...
“Shriiiiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeekk!!!”
Sigen's
eyes snapped open and he gasped aloud. It was full dark now, but he
could hear the others fitfully whispering to each other. That was no
nightmare.
He caught sight of one of the others by the edge of
the ruin looking out into the night and cautiously crept
alongside.
“What is it Brogg? Is it the Dark Kin, the
Reavers?” he whispered urgently trying to look out on the horizon.
“No...” Brogg
answered hoarsely, “I have spied all around, there is no movement
out there in the wastes this night...We lost them leagues ago!”
“Shriiiiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeeekkkkk!!!”
The pair flinched in
terror. “Then what is that? Some hunting beast? Have they found
us!?!”
Brogg opened his mouth to respond, but before a word
got out they were knocked tumbling back into the rest of the group by
a ground shaking impact and a forceful wall of wind. Sigen heard the
others begin to cry and panic, clawing at the wall behind them that
once offered a measure of safety, but now formed the trap that held
them.
As his head cleared
from the dizzying impact, Sigen could see a looming shape through the
settling dust, something monstrous and covered in horny spines and
hear the beating of huge leathery wings. A sinuously serpentine neck
twisted around the broken pillar at the edge of the ruin, the hideous
creature eyed them all hungrily.
The light of the
unnaturally coloured flames that were licking and dripping from the
open maw of the beast was amplified by the its strangely iridescent
scales lighting up the whole space between them. The creature began
to make a loud sound akin to a sucking yawn, like the intake of air
into a great bellows.
Sigen's eyes darted around the cracked
floor of the ruin, at what the group had first taken to be small
rocks and boulders, dozens of dark sockets staring back at them
mockingly.
He kicked his legs in a panic trying to get to his
feet screaming “By the Gods! We're in it's nest! Everybody get
ou....”
In a great roaring woosh of multi-hued flame Sigen
was instantly silenced just like the cries of his companions.
Their lives had been snuffed out
like candles in the wind and the dragon threw back it's horned head,
shrieking its victory into the skies.
