The mountain was dead.
Once alive with wind, cloud, and spirit, it was now a scene of death and destruction, of shattered stone, scorched trees and the dead. The wreckage of battle lay strewn across its jagged cliffs, with twisted siege engines scattered about, surrounded by the bodies of men and beast alike. Torn banners fluttered in the wind as smoke curled upward in lazy trails. A cold, steady rain fell. They skies grew dark.
Halfway down the mountain, in a clearing ringed by shattered stone and fallen trees, surrounded by a pool of her own blood, the ancient dragon lay.
Her serpentine body was coiled in loose, uneven loops, not out of rest, but from exhaustion. Her green scales that once shimmered and gleamed were now cracked and dulled, many blackened by fire or smeared with blood. The tufts of her hair and beard were matted with filth. One of her great horns had shattered.
She growled low, a sound barely above a whisper. “This is how it ends… not with fire or storm, but with dirt and silence.”
She shifted slightly, a spike of of pain lanced her chest. “They’ll come searching - they always do - to finish what they started. Or take pieces of me as trophies.” she thought. She would not give them the satisfaction.
There was a crunch of leaves. A twig snapped.
Her eye sharpened and her muscles tensed. Despite every wound, she rose, slow and menacing, even in pain.
“If. . . if you’ve come to finish me…" she coughed out through bloodied fangs as she struggled to raise her head, "Y. . .you’ll find me much harder to kill than you think. . . .”
