9 April 2012
The snow cascaded through the air, whipped into a wild frenzy by the commanding wind, each flake a soldier at it's service. The snow attacked Aggrind's face as he struggled up the mountain, sword in hand. Behind him his servant shuffled, carrying his master's possessions in a sack. Aggrind looked upwards. He had previously been looking downwards to try to keep the snow out of his eyes, but the White Army was cunning, and used a clever strategy of swooping underneath and attacking the poor man's face from below.
What Aggrind saw when he raised his head was frightening. A cave was embedded into the rock and a fiery glow cane from it. There was no need for stealth here. The dragon knew he was there.
"For the Kingdom!" Aggrind cried as he waded through the snow up to the cave. Then, as if from nowhere, the dragon soared from the cave and up into the sky. The dragon looked down, mocking the desperate hero below. It roared in what sounded like a laugh before swooping down and feigning a bite. Aggrind the hero swung his sword but missed and fell back into the snow.
Once again the dragon soared up the bolted down, this time closer to Aggrind. The dragon did this a third time, but this time around, when Aggrind swung his sword, it chipped of a scale. One single measly scale. And, to rub salt in the wound, the instant it came off, another grew in it's place. Aggrind knew he was a dead man, but would not flee. "Save yourself!" he ordered his servant. The servant stood, frozen for moment. "Don't be a fool, man! Save yourself! " The servant didn't need telling again. He dropped the sack and ran as fast as his legs could carry him back down the mountain to the horses waiting in the valley below.
The dragon plunged down again, angered this time as it had been mildly wounded. It had been playing before, as a kitten plays with string. Now the game was over. Aggrind held his sword in a heroic pose and the dragon breathed flame, burning him to cinders.
As the corpse smouldered upon the mountainside, the servant looked back one last time to see his former master dead. He had been beaten by the beast. Aggrind the dragon slayer was dead.
DRAGON SLAYER-Prologue:Upon the Mountainside • Opuss № I