SkullFist lay atop a boulder, lounging languidly as the men he called his fingers ran around below him. The four men were hurrying to set up the camp before night fell, trying to organise the positions of various tents and stores.

There had been a lot of excess supplies after their battle with the Yellow Folk, but that was to be expected. Every time the Racten fought, they lost a lot of men. Weak, men.

When the dust settled, the strong remained, dining on what the dead were too weak to keep.

He reached down with a hand that could swat a person like a fly, picking up an enormous stone sledgehammer like it weighed nothing. SkullFist felt the familiar texture of the bone handle and the weight of the stone block at the far end.

The stone’s edges were smooth and dyed a rusty brown from the dried blood of too many to count.

“Where's my food?” He growled, his deep voice rumbling like thunder.

A man ran up beside Skullfist. He was slender and lean in a tensile sort of way - like the tightly wound string of a bow. The man looked ready to snap at any second, with sinewy arms and legs that were far stronger than they looked.

“On its way, sir,” he spoke with a soft, unhurried cadence, his facial expression never changing.

“Good.” Skullfist licked his lips. “It has been a while since I tasted a youn-“

A rock landed nearby, exploding in a ball of brilliant orange flame. The hungry tendrils of fire lashed out, lighting a tent ablaze and consuming it in a raging inferno.

Skullfist slowly turned to look up, seeing tens of rocks falling towards his camp at speed.

“TAKE COVER!” He roared.

But his warning came far too late.

Screams rang out as burning men and women thrashed on the ground, set ablaze by the rain of hellfire. More and more rocks fell, bursting into burning explosions on impact with whatever they hit, be it tent, Racten or otherwise.

Skullfist shot to his feet, jumping down from the boulder he had been sitting on. He landed with a heavy thump that shook the ground.

The man who had spoken earlier rushed to his side, staring up fearfully as rocks continued falling from far above.

Nearby, a woman rushed past the burning wreckage of a tent, hurrying in their direction. “Help!” She screamed desperately, scrambling to reach his side.

A rock exploded in her path, but she just barely avoided losing a limb, reaching the giant as her clothes started to smoulder.

SkullFist’s gaze scanned the apocalyptic scene slowly, taking in the burning camp.

“Move,” He grunted, shoving the woman out in front of him.

“B-but where?” She panted.

“Away.”

She stared back fearfully, too frightened to ask any more questions. Soon, she was running through the camp and away from the towering walls of the Rift.

They hurried through the centre of the camp where men were desperately trying to put out the flames consuming their every belonging. As they ran past one particular tent, the owner, an older man, abandoned the hopeless task of extinguishing the fire and hurried to catch up with them.

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SkullFist did not slow down.

“If he gets too close, break his legs,” he said to the man by his side.

The man nodded slowly, tensing up like a coiled snake. “Good idea, sir. We don’t want to be too big of a target.”

However, It seemed, that their becoming a target was unavoidable. Over time, more and more rocks began to land in their vicinity. It was becoming increasingly difficult to avoid them, with more than a few bundles of fire almost landing on one of their heads.

“Stop,” Skullfist ordered.

The woman in the lead stopped.

Just as she was about to turn around, she felt enormous hands close around her shoulders. They were like vices, gripping tight enough to make her bones creak under the pressure.

And then she was lifted off the ground, her legs flailing helplessly as she rose above SkullFist to face the oncoming barrage of rocks.

It was all she could do to scream as her body got between SkullFist and fiery judgement.

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The Yellow Folk watched in what was, perhaps, stunned silence as their plan actually worked. Screams echoed through the Rift, becoming distorted and increasingly ghastly as they climbed and reverberated from the hellish furnace below.

Bo hadn’t thrown anything, as his job was the lookout. Since he was capable of seeing with perfect clarity during the night, he was to make sure that not one single Racten escaped.

He watched with a steely gaze as men and women alike burned down below, unable to escape the hell-storm from above.

He watched grimly as a hundred lives went up in smoke.

And all he could think was… they deserved it.

It quickly became apparent that the Racten were not going to survive. Trapped in burning tents, they were unable to escape before getting caught in the blaze. It could be said that the second the first rock was thrown, they were already extinct.

Smoke began to waft up through the cavern, its black folds enveloping the putrid souls of the damned. As the rising smoke mixed with the ethereal twisting lights that ran through the Rift, Bo could see ghoulish faces contorting in indescribable agony.

For a moment, he was spellbound by the eerie sight, unable to tear his gaze from the macabre faces. Some looked close to human. Others were… other…

And it was in that moment - when Bo’s attention lapsed – that two enormous events occurred.

First, a mountain of a man blocked a falling chunk of Borealis with a woman’s body, using the explosion as a distraction to break out of the burning barricade and forge into the night with a single companion.

Second, Yvet noticed the first thing happening.

Bo was only able to turn around and watch with abject horror as the dragon jumped off the edge of the cliff. For a brief, indescribable moment, she hung in utter equilibrium. Not falling. Not flying.

And then she vanished into the smoke, plummeting like a stone towards the earth below.

Without thought or plan, he rushed to the cliff and looked down.

It was steep. It was dangerous. There were barely any footholds.

He was going to climb down it anyway.

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Yvet once more experienced the bliss of flight, only this time, it was prolonged. The wind buffeted her wings, lifting her with playful exuberance. She soared with the intensity of a falling boulder and the freedom of a cloud.

Swooping up and down, catching one updraft only to drift onto another.

It was so intoxicating that she almost forgot what she was there for. Almost.

She burst through the smoke, a barely perceptible red flash of scales and teeth. Her figure darted low, passing over the burning camp like a ghost and blurring towards the fleeing figures.

Silhouetted by the flame, her scales reflected the glow brilliantly, burning like fire opals.

All teeth and claws, she approached the final Ractens like the burning spectre of death, looming, ready to claim the lives of the damned.

Or that’s how she felt, anyway.

Yvet skimmed over the floor of the rift, gliding barely a few inches above the ground. She occasionally teetered uncomfortably, but finding her balance was becoming second nature to her, and with her tail no longer reacting sluggishly to her commands, her flight was becoming more controlled, less chaos.

Two humans were fixed in her vision. Both were male, both were tall. And yet, only one of them made her blood boil.

The largest of the two men was something else. His every motion was barbaric and primal, with the way he ran almost resembling the loping strides of a wild beast. He was covered from head to toe in thick black hair, his face hidden deep behind an impressive black beard punctuated by streaks of grey.

When she laid eyes on him, Yvet knew that this was surely the greatest opponent she had ever faced. Maybe that anyone had ever faced, although she couldn’t prove it.

His hands were the size of anvils, and each stride carried him more than twice the length of Bo’s. Muscles bulged in every conceivable place, writhing and flexing like coiled snakes. He had a chest like a barrel, and his blood-red tortoiseshell tattoo was nearly hidden beneath a thick matt of body hair.

This was it.

She could feel it.

As Yvet soared eagerly towards the giant, she knew with fiery certainty that their fight would be legendary.