By the time Telhari reached the bottom, the dragon had already begun sniffing and scouring the area. For what, Telhari did not know; and of that he was most concerned.

“Might I ask, Darazak, why you have come to this land?”

“Why?” the dragon answered as it continued to wind its way between ruins and fallen mountain rock. “Does the wind need reason to move the clouds? Does the ocean need reason to thrust its waves upon the shore?” The dragon drew itself up suddenly and looked to the sky. “Do such Darazak need reason to soar through the skies we have long since roamed from the early breath of this world? We have no need to answer to such trivialities. These are the burdens of szlag. ”

Telhari narrowed his eyes.

“Yet your kind have not flown these skies in over two thousand years.”

“You are correct, Thrice-born.”

“And so I ask again, Darazak. Why have you come?”

The dragon paused a moment, breathing low, steady and tempestuous breaths.

“I am in search of something.”

“And what exactly is it that you seek?”

Two red slit eyes converged on Telhari, accompanied by a thunderous utterance.

“Providence.”

The dragon lowered himself playfully and glided over the ground, held aloft by enchanted winds, and began circling Telhari.

“Would you be so cruel as to deny me such a thing?”

“I care not for your desire, Darazak. I would see to it that you are left alone…”

“Such abounding magnanimity.”

“However,” Telhari quickly added, “I cannot help but wonder why it is you are here.”

At this the dragon stopped; it lingered low a few moments before rising once again to full height.

“I have told you once already, Trice-born.”

“You know of what I speak, Darazak.”

A look of great malice confronted Telhari as he spoke his next words.

“Though you may be young, you have no doubt been told the stories of the war that raged here all those millennia ago.” Telhari gestured all around them as he continued. “You know of the might and spellwork which tore these mounds asunder and laid waste to cities.” The two made kinetic eye contact. “And you no doubt know of the doom that befell your kind at the hands of Otstiria.”

At the mention of this the dragon hissed terribly, lashing its tail at the air. Wings drew back and claws flared in a display of primal animosity.

“I wonder,” Telhari continued, “How must it feel to be the first of your kind to return to this land since the Age of Darkness?”

“IT — IS — AGONY!”

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In a blur of rage, mighty claws began to slash and tear at the mountain side in a furious tantrum.

“AGONY!”

The dragon lifted onto his hind legs and flared out his wings to their fullest breadth, casting a great malevolent shadow across the entirety of the ruins.

“You, who reek of Otstirian sumptuousness should know full well! There is nothing on land nor beneath the seas nor in the skies which we cannot take on a whim! As is our right!” The dragon slammed back down with a force and dug its claws deep into the earth. “We are given life by that most subtle and inscrutable thing which your kind as well are keen to perceive. We are connected, all of my kin, to the heart of this world…” the dragon paused a moment, eying longly to the skies. “And to each other.”

“Daraz’kael.”

“Yes…” The dragon seemed soothed somewhat by Telhari’s words; a fondness of kin that runs deeper than any human could possibly fathom.

“We feel each other, if we so wish…even in death.” The dragon turned once again toward Telhari with a look of new found fervor. “The anguish and fury and unrelenting wrath of a hundred-thousand of the fallen who met their bitter end in this accursed land— I feel them! All of them! And it— is— AGONY!”

Telhari drew swiftly the blade from his back. In an instant, a rainbow iridescence scattered down the face of the blade and singed the air.

“Leave,” Telhari commanded. “Leave the agony of your past behind and be rid of this place.”

“Oh you tempt me so, Thrice-born. But it is not so simple a task.”

“I would see your actions pardoned. Otstiria would take no action against you.”

“Alas, I care not for the judgment of your most hallowed council,” the dragon mocked.

“Then for what purpose do you stay?”

The dragon snorted air so hot it burned the grass and left a smell of ash in the air.

“Just as we perceive each other’s pain in death, so too do we rejoice in our miracle of life. It is for this reason that I know, as do many others, that not a single Darazak has been born into this world in over three hundred years.”

“What…?”

Telhari lowered his weapon.

“You know then what doom that spells for our kind, both yours and mine alike. That this world should begin to reject us— its first three.”

Telhari hesitated; his mind was racing.

“We have made all attempts to sire offspring in these passed centuries. Villages burned, cities raised, mountains conquered, yet still they languish in carnal shells and breath not the air of this world. I have come here out of desperation, yet my sacrifice has been rewarded.”

Telhari tightened his grip on the blade handle once again. He checked over his shoulder; Ellis and Mary remained out of sight within the forest glade.

Good, he thought. They finally listened.

“All around us are the nourishing echoes of the old world.”

“Then sire your offspring and begone.”

“Begone? No, Thrice-born. I think I shall stay.” The dragon sank low once again, this time drawing back its wings and tensing all four of its powerful limbs. “I will consume you, and the spirit of the old world that lies within. Then, from me shall rise a new calamity, born of two Vlag’Zestaiyr!” A cutting wind kicked up, swirling slow at first around the dragon then moving out toward Telhari. These were no natural winds; within them was woven the malevolence of a powerful foe and a being of the old world. “The szlag kingdoms will fall to an unrelenting storm of fire…and over their ashes will we rule glorious and terrible!”

Larger stones were rising now with the wind, whipping about and crashing into nearby rubble and fallen boulders.

“The time to flee has ended, Thrice-Born.”

Telhari, recognizing no further chance for diplomacy, chose instead to walk headlong into the squall. After a few paces, he turned the blade in his hand and lowered himself to one knee. The dragon peered down its long snout at him, but said nothing.

“Then grant me this, Darazak. Gal Kash’Uzim.”

The dragon’s eyes widened ever so slightly.

“A duel to the death? Amusing, Thrice-born, that you believe you have a chance of victory on your own.” The dragon drew itself tense and kneaded the earth with its claws. “Very well. I accept your challenge.”

Then, like a flash, the valley erupted with a thunderous blast— a duel to the death had begun.