Dawn broke on a winter morning. Victor opened his eyes, his heart pressing against his ribcage. After weeks of uncertainty, the day had come at last. The day he, William, and the stubborn peasants had been preparing for. The day of the push.

The sensation stirring within him was unimaginable. Despite all assurances from peers and equals that everything would come out well, despite all the training in anticipation of this day, despite all the attempts to calm the mind, he struggled to resist the temptation to crash back onto his bed, and curl up into a ball. In a single cycle of the moon, it had gotten all too real.

Once he’d risen, he studied his hands… or what passed for hands. He felt nauseous. His hands could very easily put any foe crossing his path out of their misery… No matter how much he resented it, it’s a fact of life now. Out there, he’d have to use his hands. His mouth. He’d have to kill. For his sake, or a friend’s , or the people who put their lives on him. The thought was horrifying enough. Kill those he never met, for reasons out of his control.

His growling stomach didn’t help matters. Breakfast time. He’d prepared a meal in advance: stewed vegetables with a little beef. The food was cold and depressing. Its flavour had deprecated significantly from last night, when it had been salted and left in the cold for the night, to prevent it from going bad. The piece of fruit he got alongside the meal was a little better, yet still no smiling matter. The whistling wind pelted against the walls meanwhile, a sober reminder of what lay ahead.

After nibbling away at his breakfast piece by piece, he donned his armor. Thankfully, the blacksmith who made the plates had been thoughtful to make the process of applying the armor an easy one. Like breathing, it was a natural process. In the span of a minute, he had a plate covering his chest, and a helmet crowned upon his head, his horns sticking out as if they were a part of the helmet itself.

His breathing rough and shaky, he pressed the door of his home open to a gust of frigid air. His nose teemed with the scent of pedestrians hurrying their way through the streets, of a nearby kitchen selling breakfast to the unfortunate, of layers upon layers of snow.

One foot in front of the other, one foot in front of the other, Victor, let’s go…

Muttering unintelligibly under his breath, Victor entered the blizzard with a heave of his wings. Enough to get over Westedge’s wall, nothing more. A whole day’s worth of snow sticking to his wings awaited, and collapsing in the middle of nowhere, exhausted from frostbite wasn’t something he’d wish upon anyone, let alone the people he had promised to take under his wing. Sighing, he landed on the road outside the city, and began the trek to the position his group was to start from.

The frost-enchanted trees rising above, Victor attempted to keep himself calm with deep breaths, all the while shaking the snow off of his scales. The cold nipped at him like a kitten. At least I have my scales… they’ll keep me warm enough for a while, at least. If only the others could say the same.

An hour’s hike later, the cliffs to his left straightened out. It was here where small groups could leave the boundaries of the Origin Mountains And it was here that they were to gather. Sure enough, resting underneath the lazy pines were the men he’d been seeing for the past few weeks. By the beginnings of the narrow path down stood none other than William and Celesta, both decked out in protective gear of their own.

“Ah Vic, there you are!” William called, erratically waving a hand next to his shoulder, “I was wondering if you’d ever come.”

Victor rubbed one of his blue eyes out with the back of a claw. “Am I really that late?”

Celesta grunted in a manner Victor knew all too well from living around dragons for so long. A manner he wasn’t too fond of. “Well, the sun has been up for no less than an hour. And what was our promise?”

“Be prepared at dawn...” Victor’s attention dawdled eastwards, where the enemy awaited. Once again, his chest bore a heavy weight. “Right...”

“Is everything alright over there, Victor?” Celesta asked.

Victor’s tongue dug into his cheek. “No, I mean, yes, I’m a little worried, that’s all. I haven’t ever done anything like this before.”

Celesta winked at him. “Don’t worry, Vic. We’re in this together, right?”

Victor sighed. “That’s true, but… how can anyone not be frightened? There’s a good chance we won’t be seeing the next sunset.”

William fidgeted with his fur coat. “Erhm, yes.” A shiver crept down the captain’s spine. “Look, I’ve hunted for a long time, but even I struggle with having to see men bleed out, let alone when it’s someone I know that’s on the floor. The sounds, the smell… the first time it happened to me is imprinted into my mind. And I’ve only been there once.”

Celesta lowered her head. “Well, I’m a little too experienced to relate, I’m afraid to say.” she wistfully glanced over her shoulder to the men resting by the pines. “But, if all goes well, we will not have to worry, right? Just look behind you. We’ve gotten these lads prepared and well for what’ll lie ahead, don’t you agree?”

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

“I can only hope,” Victor replied in a dull voice.

“Hey, you’re all finally here...”

The sound of Jim’s harshly regional voice turned heads. “Was about time you showed up, reddie. We should’ve been long out there by now.”

Victor groaned. “I know, I know, we all promised to be here at dawn, and I’m a little late. I know that. But let us be honest, I doubt I’m the only one here who couldn’t sleep well last night. No one here’s some rugged veteran that lives for this mess, are we? I doubt it. So I fell asleep when it was past midnight, and that’s why I woke up late.”

Jim scoffed. “Didn’t see anyone else be late, red.”

Victor bit at his lip. “Ugh, that’s true, but-”

“Please, no need to start arguing,” William cut in, “We have a long day ahead, and I don’t want things to go wrong straight off the bat. Okay?”

“Fine...”

Jim returned to his solitary spot by the trees, clicking his tongue the whole way back. Victor couldn’t help but nod, watching it all unfold. To think it had been mere weeks ago when he was prepared to go home. He’s come so far already. I remember that first day in Raven’s Hill like it was yesterday. Victor felt the pressure on his chest ease, and its place arose a yearning for something. There was something in the air which made him feel... happy, despite the fact that he was on the verge of marching straight into the killing fields.

“There you go Will, that ought to take care of things nicely,” Celesta said. Her blue eyes flickered as they shifted towards the horizon. “Well, do you think we’re ready to move out now?” she said, licking at her lips.

William nodded. “I do think so. No one else is missing, from the looks of it.”

Celesta smirked. “Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s do this.”

With a second nod, and a loud clearing of his throat, the captain raised his voice. “Alright, everyone, here we are. The first day of the push. I know some of you have been thinking about this for some time, but have no fear. Our goal is simple. About twenty field lengths east of here lies a village called Steenburg. That is where we’ll be heading. We’ll take the village in the name of the front, and fight off whatever imperial troops are in our way.”

“YEAH!”

William kept his composure as best he could, a bright spark on his face notwithstanding. “I appreciate the enthusiasm, but there’s still things to worry about. While we’ve been tasked with taking and securing Steenburg this week, another team will be assaulting a local imperial garrison, a field or three away from the town. Long story short, we’re all but guaranteed to run into the enemy. And that’s not even mentioning what we’ll find in Steenburg itself.”

“Whad’you mean? We’ll put a sword through all the bastards, I say!”

“Yes!! Let’s send the bastards back to the abyss!!”

William put his hands out in front of him. “Guys, guys, calm down, we can’t get so cocky-”

“Let’s do this!!”

“LO! KAHN! LO! KAHN! LO! KAHN! LO! KAHN!”

Swords and daggers rose in the air, to raucous chanting and cheering. Beads of sweat surfaced on William’s forehead. The kid tried to call for order again, but the command, no, the plea fell on ears deafer than those of an elderly binge drinker. Victor turned his nose up once his nostrils had caught more than a fair share’s worth of panic. Oh, we’re still not entirely there yet…

The lavender dragoness took over. “Hey, settle down everyone! Silence! He’s not done speaking!” Another wave of cheering came back as a response.

“Come on now, let us have a little fun first, yea? Day’s going to be a bloody mess o’ snow, anyway.”

“I’m sure your mother will be very pleased to hear her son was all jolly while she’s kneeling by your tombstone tomorrow.”

The forest fell silent, as if one had cursed the name of Divinity itself. “...do continue.”

William let out a sigh. “Where were we… Listen, we’ve,” he paused to breathe, “trained for the past few weeks, the formation that is. Stick to your position, call out every thing you see. If we stick together, we’ll make it through the day. Now remember, this is not mere fantasy, or a tale your parents or the priest told you of. This is the real deal. You will be facing human beings out there. Human beings like you. Don’t fall for whatever anger you have built up, don’t exercise any sort of bloodlust or anything in a similar vein.”

The first one to have chanted cracked up into belly laughs. “Pfft. Some warrior you are. You ought to believe more in Divinity, ya fool. We’ll slice up-”

A glimpse of the lavender dragoness grabbed his tongue. “Silence.”

He gulped, and said nothing more. William tapped his foot into the snow, folding his arms over his stomach. “For the sake of clarity, I’ll say it again. This is not a fantasy, nor a game or anything of that nature. The foe we’ll be facing are real people, the lives of everyone involved are at stakel. Better stay vigilant, or get used to the idea of lying motionless on the snow, because that’s where you’ll be ending up otherwise.”

“Yes sir.”

“Alright, are there any questions?”

There was no response. William pulled his shoulder up. “Alright then, let’s make our way down the cliff, then we’ll get into formation. Here goes nothing...”

The group gathered at the edge. There it was decided that the two dragons would be the first and last in line respectively; the switchbacks were far too narrow, and no one, least of all the captain, wanted to make things riskier than they needed to be.

Alas for Victor, his nerves flared up once again as he set his hindlegs onto the beginnings of the path. Seeing was one thing, actually traversing the narrow road down was something else entirely. Not helping was that the wind had picked up, and that the path itself had been camouflaged. With chattering teeth and a shaky breath, he eyed his feet. A single misstep would send one tumbling.

Careful now, careful now...!

Snow kicked up just in front of him.

“AH!”

Victor’s right foreleg shot up, and pulled the kid in front of him against his chest. “Are you alright?” he said while brushing the kid off. His action hadn’t occurred without so much as the slightest thought.

“Yes,” the kid said, shaking as he searched the cliffs below. A soldier on the switchback below held a hunk of bread up in the air.

“‘S this yours?”

“Yes, that’s mine...”

“I’ll give it to you in a moment, kid,” the soldier said, before clacking his feet onwards.

Victor gulped, shifting his breastplate around with one claw. We haven’t walked for more than a minute, and someone almost died. I’m getting really worried about what’ll happen out there in the woods. No one will be there to help us...