Page 48 of Kingdom of Darkness and Dragons
As we crested a ridge and finally got a clear view of the valley below, the scope of the disaster became apparent. The supply train was in complete chaos—wagons overturned and burning, pack animals scattered to the winds, soldiers running for whatever cover they could find. Dragons—Talfen dragons—wheeled and dove through the Imperial formation, breathing fire onto supplies and equipment with surgical precision.
But it wasn't random destruction. I could see the pattern in their attacks, the careful targeting of specific objectives. They'd gone for the food stores first, then the medical supplies, then the weapons cache. Everything an army needed to sustain itself in hostile territory was being systematically destroyed.
"Tactical withdrawal in progress," Jalend called out, his voice tight with professional frustration. "They're not staying to fight—they're hitting and running."
Indeed, even as we watched, the attacking dragons began to disengage. They climbed rapidly toward the mountain peaks, moving with the kind of coordinated precision that spoke of extensive training and communication. Within moments, they would be beyond our effective range, safely hidden in terrain where the heavier Imperial dragons couldn't follow.
But in those final moments before they disappeared, I caught sight of something that made my heart stop.
One of the dragons—smaller than most, with distinctive midnight blue scales that caught the sunlight—broke away from the main group and climbed toward the sky. Something about his movement pattern, the particular way he held his wings, sparked recognition deep in my chest.
Tarshi.
Without thinking, I screamed his name aloud, my voice tearing at my throat as I tried to make myself heard over the wind and the roar of battle. "TARSHI!"
But he was too far away, climbing rapidly toward the safety of the mountain peaks. If he heard me at all, he gave no sign of it. The indigo-scaled dragon continued climbing, joining the other Talfen dragons as they withdrew from the devastated supply train.
Tarshi, please!I called out mentally, though I knew the distance was too great for that kind of communication.Please hear me!
For just a moment, the dragon seemed to hesitate in his climb. His great head turned slightly in our direction, and I thought—hoped—that some part of him had heard my desperate call. But then the moment passed, and he disappeared over the ridge with the rest of his flight.
I stared at the empty sky, my heart breaking. He had been so close. For just a moment, Tarshi had been right there, and I had been powerless to reach him. The frustration and grief threatened to overwhelm me.
"Assess the damage!" Jalend's voice cut through my emotional turmoil, sharp with barely controlled anger. "Salvage what you can!"
We landed amid the wreckage of the supply train, and the reality of what had happened became immediately clear. This hadn't been a random raid—it had been a carefully planned operation designed to cripple our ability to wage war in Talfen territory.
The dragons responsible were long gone, vanished into the mountainous terrain where we couldn't follow. But their message was clear: the Empire might have superior numbers and equipment, but the Talfen had advantages of their own. They knew this land, they moved like the wind, and they had dragons who fought like dragons were meant to fight—free, intelligent, and utterly committed to their cause.
As I dismounted from Sirrax and looked around at the devastation, I couldn't help but feel a fierce surge of pride. Tarshi and his allies had struck a devastating blow against the Empire's war machine. They'd reminded everyone present that this wouldn't be the easy conquest the Imperial high command had promised.
The war had begun in earnest now, and for the first time since leaving the capital, I felt a flicker of hope that maybe—just maybe—the Empire could be stopped.
18
The sun hung low on the western horizon, casting long shadows through the forest canopy far below as our small formation of eleven dragons flew steadily eastward. What remained of our supplies was strapped to the dragons' harnesses—a pitiful collection of salvaged goods that represented all we'd been able to recover from the devastating attack on our baggage train.
I guided my mount in a steady rhythm, trying to project the calm confidence that my riders expected from their Wing Commander, but my mind was churning with dark possibilities. The Talfen had struck our supply lines with surgical precision, hitting us exactly when we were most vulnerable and too far from the main force to receive support. That kind of tactical awareness didn't come from luck or happenstance—it spoke of careful planning and intelligence gathering that made my skin crawl.
They knew our route. They knew our numbers, our pace, the exact composition of the rear guard. The thought was a cold knotin my stomach. Was there a traitor in our ranks? Or were their scouts simply that good?
We had marched into these lands with the arrogance of conquerors, never imagining the prey would have teeth.
The silence among my riders was heavier than any armour. The easy confidence of the morning had been burned away with our supplies, leaving behind the raw, acrid stench of fear. They were all young, all my age or younger, and had grown up, as I had, with tales of the demons in the north. In the nursery we had lapped the tales up, enjoying stories of our heroes conquering the demons, defeating their evil over and over again with the mighty and righteous strength of the Empire. Up here, the stories felt a lot more real. The setting sun wasn’t helping matters.
My gaze drifted back to Livia. She rode with a quiet competence, her eyes fixed on the horizon, but I saw the tension in the set of her jaw. I had seen her face when the Talfen dragons struck; a flicker of wild, fierce pride she had hidden a moment too late. She had screamed Tarshi’s name during the attack. A raw, desperate cry that had echoed the frantic beat of my own heart. She knew him. Knew him in his dragon form, which meant that she already knew the abhorrent truth about the true nature of the dragons. The realisation hadn’t surprised me. Livia had always hated the Empire, hated how it treated the Talfen, I should have known there was more than principles involved.
"Sir," one of my lieutenants called out from his position in the formation, his voice carrying easily over the wind. "Those shadows down there... do they look strange to you?"
I followed his gaze toward the forest below, and felt my stomach tighten with unease. The canopy was thick enough that we could see only glimpses of the ground beneath, but what we could see was wrong somehow. The shadows pooled and flowed in patterns that had nothing to do with the gentle eveningbreeze, gathering in hollows and spreading across clearings like spilled ink.
"Trick of the light," I replied, though I didn't believe it myself. "The sun's getting low."
But even as I spoke, I could see the same unease spreading through my small formation. The dragons were growing restless, their flight patterns becoming increasingly agitated as we passed over certain sections of forest. Sirrax, carrying Livia, kept drifting out of formation despite her obvious efforts to maintain position.
The men were no better. I could see them stealing nervous glances at the forest below, their hands moving unconsciously to check weapons and armour. Recruits who’d laughed and cheered at the call to arms without a tremor of fear were now jumping at every shift in the wind, every shadow that moved in ways shadows shouldn't move.
I looked at the faces of the young riders around me. The patriotic fervour had vanished, replaced by a grim, weary tension. They were learning the hard lesson that war was not about glory, but about survival. And I, their commander, was leading them deeper into hell.
