He bounded up the tree, thick curved claws catching on flaking bark. His body swerved and swung, dodging branches and his tail brushed along their lengths. Kael reached the peak and twisted his body around the slender and swaying truck. Solid amber eyes focused towards the sunrise, a dark fire seeming to flicker in their depths. The sun’s rays stroked over Kael’s dark scaled flesh bringing flickering gold and red edges to light.
In the horizon an army marched, a rippling shadow that shook the earth and Kael could feel trembling up the redwood’s body.
Kael swiveled his head to other side of the field. Banners snapped in the morning wind and another army stood waiting on the hill rise. They held on to their one advantage of a fortified high ground.
The drake impatiently flicked his tail as he watched the approaching army. Always fighting, years turned to decades and decades to centuries. No one ever won. This war would bring about the end of the world. Or maybe it already had.
Kael’s tongue darted out, tasting the wind and he shivered at the taste of blood and death. Soon.
Once the armies had marched with great weapons of war, machines with cannons on their backs that shook and scarred the earth they had tread, even the infantry had carried cannons and weapons that could cut men to pieces from miles away.
Now they beat each other with spear, sword and club. Kael looked at the shattered remnants that had once been the moon drift in the sky.
The human’s had forgotten. Forgotten so much. It seemed to Kael that he was the only one the remembered. But even was not sure what was memory and was dream. Things blurred together and little mattered now aside from a bloody meal and fresh water.
The sun fully broke over the horizon and the marching army roared and charged as the defenders tried to keep the glare of the sun from their eyes as they beat their weapons on the ground and against their shields.
The drake settled himself more firmly atop the redwood and began his watch. It was his duty, to watch and remember.
The battle was over. The defenders holding on by their ripped up and bloody nail-less hands as the limping invaders limped off, the few that had survived the catapults hurling the flaming balls filled with jagged rocks and broken metal.
The defenders hid within their walls, not even leaving it to finish off and loot the invaders. Soon Kael knew, they would march off and leave their walled hill, to regroup with another army and attempt to hold off the next volley of attacks.
Kael waited for nightfall, for no human ventured alone at night, to go and claim his meal.
The drake paced to the end of the branch and leapt. His wings snapped open catching the rising air as he skimmed through the forest. A few wing beats soon took him over the trees and into the field, the smell of blood and death perfumed the air and he circled before alighting on the body of dead horse. Kael stood on two legs, picking his way through the bodies of the fallen of Lord Imperator’s men.
A soft sound made him turn back to the fallen horse. A movement. He leapt over it’s body and saw a human lying beneath it’s weight. Eyes showing white stared up at Kael.
“Wah-what are you?” The human gasped, feebly trying to drag her body from beneath the bulk of the horse’s corpse.
Kael took a look at the blood matted hair of the horse and grabbed it by it’s neck, claws sank easily into the cooling flesh. He inhaled, perhaps the horse would make a better meal than a human, they seemed much rarer anyway. He tossed the horse aside, it’s weight as if nothing as it arced a distance in the air before landing with a weighted and wet thump a distance away.
The human’s eyes had tracked the horse’s flight and now shot back to Kael. “D-d-d-demon!”
Kael let out a hiss of amusement and crouched beside the trembling female and ran his hands along the length of her legs, down her arms, sides and neck. One leg broken, cracked ribs, but surprising not much as was wrong. The human had stilled beneath his clawed hands.
“Are..” she gasped as his hand traced her ribs, “are you going to eat me?”
Kael cocked his head to the side, thinking. What was he doing? He was meant to watch, but even that task seemed a dead withered thing. “No,” he sighed, “I think I am going to keep you instead.”
“Keep?” her eyes widened, seeming to swallow her face.
Ignoring her, the drake picked her up and tossed her over his shoulder, and continued to ignore her cries as he walked up to where the horse lay. He bent slight and grabbed the horse by it’s skull and dragged it behind him as he left the battlefield.
Jessie groaned as the creature jostled her as he set her down in the cave. It continued to drag the body of her horse deeper into the cave. Just hours before she was giving her life for her Lord and the next she seemed to have become a meal for this demon creature.
She pushed herself up on her arms and started dragging herself for the cave mouth.
Dirt and stone worked it’s way into her cuts. Biting her lip she kept going, hoping that whatever the creature wanted to do with horse would keep him occupied long enough that she could make it out of the cave and hide somewhere.
The light of the moon finally reached her, as she gasped for air, her ribs sending waves of agony coursing through her sides.
A clawed foot appeared in the corner of her vision and Jessie didn’t have time to cry out as the creature picked her up once again and carried her back with far too few strides. It sat her against the wall and crouched in front of her. She stared into fiery eyes. It’s lips drew back revealing sharp teeth, “Cause me too much problems and I will eat you.”
“What do you want with me?” Jessie flinched back, ignoring the pain in her leg. “Are you a servant of the False Lord?”
Kael’s eyes widened and he let out a coughing bark. “Servant, child I do not associate with either party. Both are fools and war over something that neither can recall.” Kael grabbed her by her ankle of her broken leg and jerked her forward.
Jessie shrieked, writhing under the pain.
“Cease!” he hissed, gripping her leg tightly, he slowly began to pull until he felt the broken bone align. Reaching behind his he drew two wooden slates and used them to brace her leg as he bound it.
The girl stared, “You do seem to treat your food well.”
Kael’s eyes flicked up at her and then stood, lifting her in the same motion.
“I am not a babe! I can walk-“
Kael snorted. “You did not walk your way out, clearly by your words you are a babe, to be hauled around.”
Soon they walked in darkness, the drake did not stumble, each step was sure and oddly silent. Jessie thought that those wickedly curved claws would scrape the cave floor.
She looked to where his head was and gasped, twin amber eyes stared back at her.
Glowing, and not reflecting light, for there was none, but glowing as if two flames were lit in his skull. Jessie looked away into darkness but was unable to ignore how the creature’s eyes lit the walls with its light.
“Ah here we are.” Suddenly the floor disappeared and they were falling. Jessie screamed, her hair flying into her face and her arms wrapped around the creature’s neck. Then with a snap their descent slowed and they touched the ground.
“Open your eyes, human.”
Cracking an open, Jessie gasped again, the chamber was lit in a pale green glow. The very rocks lit up the room. Jessie saw stacks of books, on shelves, floors and tables. The body of her horse rested in a far corner. The creature set her on a clear table.
“Stay there or I will eat you.” Kael did not look at her, instead made his way to the horse and dragged it into another chamber, where Jessie soon hear the sound of flesh being cut and bone being cracked.
***
She wrapped an arm around her ribs and studied her surroundings. She had expected piles of bones and grinning skulls, the rank smell of death and decay. Instead she was surrounded by a veritable library that probably could challenge the Lord Imperator’s own. Why had he spared her? It seemed that he would not eat her, after all he had her horse and that had a lot more flesh on it than her own spare and worn frame did.
“Maybe it’s lonely,” she murmured and leaned back on one arm, wishing that she could explore the libraries more thoroughly. Her friend and mentor Jack would have loved this place. He was a scholar, closeting himself away with books while she ran about playing with sticks pretending they were swords.
Maybe she should have done as he. Grimacing she shifted, if she had she would not have had to watch her comrades all fall around her and hear the cries every time she closed her eyes.
Tears burst from her eyes, leaving clear trails on her dirty face.
A snort caused her eyes to snap open and she abruptly found herself eye to eye with the creature. Gasping she flinched back. The amber eyes seemed to laugh at her reaction and then his hand was in front of her face.
“Eat this.” The clawed hand opened and the dried meat and a mix of herbs landed in her lap.
“What is this?” She picked it up and sniffed at them.
“Garnishes, I can’t stand a flavorless meal.”
Jessie looked at him but he had already turned, picking up a book and hopping on a stool, perching like some great bird of prey. He reached to the side, picking up a quill pen as he opened the volume and then started quickly scratching something into it.
Deciding it was better not to poke at a growling bear, Jessie started chewing on the food he had given her. The dried meat filled her stomach even as the herbs seemed to make the pain drift further and further away, even as her mind seemed to fly away in the opposite direction. “You drugged me” Jessie slurred as she slumped back on the table.
“I needed some way to shut you up.
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