“So come on then, let’s finish this.”

More flaming drawbridges and debris from the burning walls above crash all around the village square where we huddle together, the last remnants of Glenheim.

Thorn meets our eyes with steely determination, and for a moment I think that the shaking I feel beneath my paws is nothing more than my own fear traveling up my tiny bones.

“You are afraid, Raziel,” he says.

“I’d be a bloody fool if I wasn’t.”

“You know you shall lose if you fight us.”

“And we’ll still take at least one of your limbs with us,” Swiftrunner replies through his barred teeth.

The ground continues its sudden quaking, as though the earth itself is moved by our plight.

Or, if not the earth…

“So be it,” Thorn whispers.

With a single nod he commands his army to move in, and the screaming that the horde lets loose from all sides punctures our brains with the ferocity of a demon-possessed tiger clan.

“Are you with me?” I ask both Myra and Swift.

They look at me like I’ve asked them the dumbest question in the world.

“To the death, Little-Brother.”

“We’re not going anywhere.”

The twisted arms of the horde close in, and we pick out targets.

[Swallow Strike]

Four of them fall beside me as Myra grapples with another, tearing through the neck of her opponent almost as soon as it comes upon her.

Swiftrunner’s teeth find their target – splintering apart the leg of a goblin as it tries to kick out and pierce his skin.

[Glittering Thrust]

My attack homes in on a shambling, oaken humanoid that leaps to strike at the Glenmaidens and travels through his empty eyesockets, lighting him up with radiant light that explodes out from within him and takes four of his companions.

“Glenmaidens! Close ranks!”

The Elves obey Myra’s commands, sending the civilian Elves to the center of our group and taking up a defensive formation – swords ready on the edges of our group to thrust out and spear through the corrupted hearts of our attackers.

Through every slash I make at the legs of the rushing, furious horde, I see the Elves’ fallen targets rise again, and I make the realization that without me to deliver the final blow, there’s little we can do to stem the tide.

My eyes find Myra as we start fighting back-to-back and see that the same revelation’s come upon her.

“Wishing we hadn’t used up that tornado trick on Seneca!” I shout amidst the wailing death that reaches for us from every direction.

“A true warrior does not rely on tricks,” she barks down at me, sweat smeared across her pale features. “I thought I taught you that?”

The ground continues its rumbling, and the Elves start to notice.

Something’s stirring beneath our feet.

“Keep fighting!” Swiftrunner yelps as he headbutts the arms clean off a squealing Seeded goblinoid. “Push them back! Show this human we do not fear him or his mistress!”

Through it all, Thorn watches. I can see him staring at our last stand with mounting sorrow. Almost as if this is the last thing he wants.

Honestly, I think as I bring another humanoid Seedling crashing down. Who is this guy?

As though he’s reading my thoughts in this moment, his dark, brooding eyes suddenly shift.

“Enough.”

Through more earth-shattering quakes under us, he raises his arm and mutters a single word that sings with power.

And a spark of recognition flashes through me, then.

In his hand flares up a killing light. Thrumming with power. Black as the endless void.

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Our end.

“Everybody, GET DOWN!” Myra screams.

I look into the growing black conflagration in the center of his palm.

And staring back at me are my own shaking, still bloody eyes.

I’ve felt the searing heat of this attack somewhere before…

And as it builds up, filling with this swirling, killing energy, I look passed it towards his grim face, as unmoving as a gravestone.

You’re not playing now, are you? my eyes ask him.

And his stare right back at me, unblinking, telling me he’s ready to wipe us off the face of the earth.

“Little-Brother!” Swiftrunner cries out, jumping in front of me as the General releases his ray of darkness.

Oxygen leaves the air. The world fades away to nothing.

And then the ground beneath us finally gives way.

I’m flying. My paws scrabble to hold on to something solid and feeling only air beneath me, looking around at the waves of Seeded ones are thrown back, flying outside the walls and being pulverized as they hit the ground.

The sound of the earth being torn open reaches my ears then, delayed amidst the cacophony of splintering wood, energized death, and air flying passed my face as I fall. Something big has just woken up below our feet.

And it’s saved our lives. Thorn’s beam attack has missed us all by a hair. I see the trail of its corruption still fresh in the air above where the village square once stood, now replaced by a crater leading deep into the earth.

And from this crater, the roar of an ancient creature echoes through the night.

“Raz!” someone shouts beside me. “Hang on!”

A firm but thin hand grips my tail and yanks me towards its owner, and that little pull gives my just the kick-start I need.

[Tailcopter]

ACTIVATED

Turns out it’s Myra that caught me, and as she dangles now beneath me, hanging on to my back paw as I lower us to the fiery ground, I look through the ashen remnants of the Glenheim village square and see the impossible:

A set of two reptilian eyes staring back up at us.

A maw of sapphire flame billowing under them.

I feel Myra shudder in my paw, and the word she utters is almost incomprehensible amidst the din of the furious roar that erupts from the creature of pure, brilliant flame:

“Palka…”

As if responding to her directly, the Brine Dragon rears up out of the darkness of her chasm and leans forward, extending its neck and allowing us to float safely down onto its back.

And we aren’t alone.

“Swift!”

He’s staring up at me from Palka’s scale-coated spine, clinging on for dear like with such intensity that his claws would be causing harm to a lesser creature. The Glenmaidens have all done the same, embedding their blades in Palka’s back and each holding on to an Elven sister who dangles beneath them.

Palka issues a roar that sends what remains of the Seedling horde reeling back, crushing them beneath her massive claws, whipping them aside with a cursory swish of her gargantuan tail.

“You decided to show up?”

She looks back down at me through narrowed eyes, and for a fleeting instant I regret ever asking the question.

Then her chest settles, and her face relaxes into an expression of pain. When she speaks, it’s as though she’s pushing the words out of a throat clogged by glass.

“A mother protects her children,” she says. “Even if it costs her everything.”

Amidst the cries and cheers of her Elven subjects Palka reels up, her great wings stretching out to encompass the entire length of the decimated village square.

And from within her scaled skin, I see an ethereal glow start to glimmer.

“Mistress!” Myra calls. “You can’t! You will strain yourself!”

As the glowering spirit bubbling within her starts to race up from her belly and pool at her mouth, she closes her eyes and calmly whispers in her childrens’ heads:

My Elves of Glenheim, it is time for you to lay down your arms. I have watched you suffer enough. I have cowered beneath your feet for too long, while your blood seeps into the cracks of our earth. I urged you to flee, and yet here you remain, content to die for me. Not even the Lightborn shall let me meet my destiny.

We all stare up at her, our faces smeared with confusion.

I know now why I met you, Raziel the Loafblade, she says with a distinct hint of mirthful laughter. It is because I am not the shepherd my people need.

She opens her mouth finally to belch a maelstrom of fire tinged with aquamarine. It covers the Seeded soldiers who run wildly at the dragon, completely unfazed by her appearance. Like a death-fog the flames wash over and dissolve the creatures entirely, leaving them nothing but ashen, smoky heaps in the fiery wasteland that Glenheim has become.

“By Lyca…” Swiftrunner murmurs reverently behind me. “I…I never thought I would ever see such raw power.”

We’re all clinging to Palka’s back for dear life, watching as she dashes the remaining resistance aside and chomps down on their termite-ridden innards with an audible crunchof her great fangs, spitting their debased forms aside like flimsy, broken ragdolls.

She rises up again and bellows a cry of fury at the darkened, smoke-filled skies above.

My children! She roars in our minds. I shall not see Glenheim destroyed with a whimper! Every minion of the Darkseed shall pay for their transgression!

The Elves cheer with her, even Myra. There’s tears pooling at the corner of their eyes. All of them watch their mother finally fight for her home – their home – even though I know, deep within her breast, there beats a heart shrouded in fear.

Then, in one sickening twist of cruel fate, the moment of triumph passes, and I see the true sorrow that’s painted on Palka’s face.

Lightborn, she says as she eyes me through her combat. Take them.

I stare up at through awestruck, still pained eyes, and then begin to see the ashen piles she’d created start to rise…to regenerate their corporeal forms…limbs grow back…gnarled torsos…fingers clutching even sharper blades than they had before. Because it’s only the blade of the Lightborn that can truly ever kill them.

And yeah, I could muck in and probably take half that army with me. But end of the day? I’m just one dog…

The great dragon looks at me and huffs a short breath of clouded, sapphire air.

I know what that expression means.

Palka…you know this is a fight you can’t win, don’t you?

She turns from me towards the charred form of her shrine as the reconstructed Seedlings renew their assault.

There is no victory here, Raziel, she says through sad, tired eyes. The eyes of one who had accepted death. There is only survival.

I follow her face towards the sight that’s suddenly got her transfixed, looking down at the black vapors spilling out from the shrine’s remains until the form a distinctly human shape, wielding a blade that could snuff out the world itself.

Thorn.

Palka rises, flaps her great wings in challenge, and then speaks only to me:

Take them, Raziel. Take them and run.