Chapter 37: Embers on the Horizon

The ship groaned as it surged over the dunes, its great sails billowing under the force of the shaman’s wind magic. The hull, crafted from blackened ironwood and reinforced with salvaged steel plating, was built for endurance—not the delicate grace of ocean vessels, but the brute force required to carve through the endless Burnt Sea. Beneath its prow, thick curved runners—half sled, half keel—skimmed over the shifting ash, leaving trails of glowing embers in its wake.

Gorgrok stood near the bow, the weight of the egg resting in the crook of his arm. It was warm now. Too warm. He could feel something shifting inside. The time was near.

The Skyfang was a warship, through and through. Ballistae lined its flanks, their heavy iron bolts tipped with essence crystals—volatile shards of condensed magic, humming softly in the dusk light. Crates of supplies were stacked haphazardly near the mast—bundles of blacksteel-tipped spears, barrels of hardened rations, and sacks filled with raw essence extracted from the veins deep beneath the Burnt Sea. The crystals pulsed faintly, bathing the deck in a ghostly blue light.

The other orcs—hardened warriors, survivors of battles fought in blood and flame—moved about the ship with practiced efficiency. Some sharpened weapons, others inspected armor, murmuring in low, guttural tones. They did not speak to him.

Gorgrok was not one of them. Not anymore.

He could still feel the burn of Kora’s expectations, the weight of what she had forced upon him. But he had not been given a choice.

He adjusted his grip on the egg, his fingers brushing against the jagged lines that had begun to form along its surface—fractures, faint and growing, as the creature within stirred.

And as he watched, his mind drifted back to the moment of the ritual.

It had not been simple.

The gods had not allowed it to be.

When they placed the egg in his hands, the shaman had told him, in a voice as cold as the void, “If you are unworthy, it will reject you. And you will burn.”

And he had burned.

The moment his fingers curled around the egg, he had felt the flames rise from within it, searing his flesh, scorching his bones. Not real fire—something worse. A fire that stripped him bare, laid his soul open for the gods to judge.

He had been cast into visions—a world of agony and trial, where the gods had watched. They took him through every failure he had ever suffered, forced him to relive the moments where his strength had not been enough. His defeats, his shame, his insignificance.

And then they asked him.

“Do you deserve this power?”

He had not answered. Because he did not know.

Instead, he had endured.

The storm of memory, of torment, of fire—it had battered him, crushed him. And he had stood. That was all he could do.

When he finally awoke, the shamans had been watching in silence. The egg, still unhatched, rested in his arms. The fires had not taken him. The gods had not rejected him.

And now, it was his burden to bear.

The wind howled through the rigging as the ship cut across the dunes, the ashen sea rolling in endless, shifting waves beneath the fading sun. The sky was a strange thing—a clash of fire and shadow, the sinking sun bleeding orange and crimson into the thick haze that forever clung to the land. The wind kicked up spirals of black dust, turning the world into a half-formed dream.

Beyond the dunes, the world began to change.

At first, it was barely noticeable—the ash thinning, the heat receding. Then, slowly, the first hints of green.

The last embers of the Burnt Sea faded behind them as the ship slid to a halt, its metal runners grinding softly against the ashen soil. The wind shaman’s arms lowered, and the billowing sails lost their otherworldly pull, fluttering weakly as if sighing after their long voyage.

But Gorgrok was barely aware of the ship stopping.

His focus was on what lay ahead.

At first, it was barely noticeable—the ashen dunes thinning, the heat retreating. Then, something alien emerged from the gray. A shrub, its leaves dark green, hunched against the earth as if afraid to be seen.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

A plant.

Gorgrok stepped off the Skyfang, his boots crunching into solid ground—not the loose, choking ash of the wastes, but earth, cool and firm beneath his feet. As they moved forward, more of these strange green things appeared—tufts of grass, curling vines snaking through the dirt, and then, before him, something that made him stop in his tracks.

A tree.

Not the bleached husks he had seen before—not dead things, reminders of war—but a true, living tree. Its trunk was massive, the bark smooth and warm under his fingertips. And above, where he expected nothing but sky, branches stretched outward like grasping arms, thick with leaves that whispered in the wind.

He had never seen anything so impossibly large, so alive.

The orcs around him murmured in quiet awe, warriors who had spent their lives among metal and fire, where the sky was often choked with smoke, and the ground was littered with the bones of battle. And yet, here stood something untouched by their war.

Something older than any empire they had fought for or against.

Something eternal.

Then, the elves stepped from the trees.

They moved like shadows, figures of grace and silence, their woven armor shifting like leaves in the wind. Their weapons were visible—curved blades, slender longbows, silver-tipped spears—but they were not raised.

At their head stood an elven warrior draped in flowing robes of midnight green, his long white hair braided in intricate patterns, his golden eyes watching them with neither fear nor scorn.

Gorgrok met his gaze and felt something he had not expected—acknowledgment.

The elf’s eyes flicked down to the egg cradled in Gorgrok’s arm. The fractures had deepened, and beneath them, something moved. The elves knew what it meant.

Then, to his shock, the elven warrior bowed his head—not in submission, but in respect.

And the others followed.

An orc warband had come to their lands. And yet, it was Gorgrok whom they honored.

Not as a warrior. Not as a conqueror.

But as a Dragon Rider.

Gorgrok stood there, the weight of the moment pressing against him. He had spent his entire life fighting, clawing for purpose in a world that saw his kind as nothing more than weapons. And now, here, in the heart of enemy lands, he was not feared. Not hated.

Respected.

For the first time in his life, he had become something more.

The elves led them deeper into their lands, guiding them through a world untouched by war.

The air smelled different—clean, filled with the scent of rain-soaked bark and something sweet, like flowers he could not name. The wind did not carry the stench of smoke, nor the bitter tang of metal. Here, the world was soft, a place of hushed whispers and golden light filtering through the canopy.

The animals were stranger still.

They were not beasts of war—not the great wolves or the battle-bred wyverns Gorgrok knew. These creatures moved without fear, their eyes bright, their forms sleek and untouched by scars.

A creature resembling a great stag passed near them, its antlers twisting like branches of gold, its fur white as moonlight. It did not run. It watched them, snorted softly, then moved on.

Once, a bird with plumage that shimmered like molten copper landed on Gorgrok’s shoulder. It cocked its head at the dragon egg, let out a soft trill, then took flight again, disappearing into the trees.

Even the forest itself seemed to know what he carried.

He looked down at the egg.

The cracks had spread further, and a faint glow pulsed from within, like the beating of a tiny heart.

It was coming. Soon.

They arrived on the second night.

The elven city was not like the war-forged strongholds of the orcs, nor the stone behemoths of men. It did not rise from the ground—it flowed with it.

Great bridges of woven wood arched between ancient trees, their surfaces etched with glowing runes that pulsed like embers. The buildings were suspended high among the branches, held aloft by twisting vines, their walls grown, not built. Lanterns of silver light dotted the walkways, casting a soft glow over the figures moving silently through the city.

Gorgrok had known only cities of iron and smoke. Orcish war caravans were massive, moving fortresses, built atop steam-powered platforms, their engines screaming as they crushed the land beneath them. Their cities did not last. They moved, they consumed, they burned.

But this place...

This was different.

This was a city that had never fallen, because it had never needed walls.

The elves led them to a great gathering hall, carved into the living wood of an ancient tree, its ceiling high enough to hold a dragon at rest. The air hummed with magic, with age, with something older than the wars that had shaped their world.

And as Gorgrok stepped inside, he felt something deep within the egg stir once more.

A faint sound—not quite a growl, not quite a cry.

A heartbeat.

The silence that followed pressed against Gorgrok’s ears like a phantom weight. The elven city was alive, but it was not whole.

As he followed their guides deeper into the heart of the great gathering hall, his gaze flickered over the elves who watched from the shadows of arching tree-woven corridors. They did not step forward, did not greet their guests beyond what honor dictated. But it was not fear that kept them at bay.

It was absence.

No warriors walked these halls. No young hunters with sun-gold hair, no elven bladesingers draped in the emerald banners of their kin. Instead, there were only those who were too young to fight, and those who had lived long enough to see too many wars.

The elders wore their years in strands of pale white, their robes woven with thread so fine it glowed in the dim lantern light. They stood tall despite their age, their gazes sharp as flint, but they did not bear weapons. They were not meant to. Their battles were of wisdom, not steel.

The children… if they could even be called that… watched from the shelter of high-arched alcoves, peering through the curling vines that draped over the wood-carved balconies. Their faces were unscarred, their fingers unstained by blood, but their eyes… their eyes held centuries.

Gorgrok had heard the stories.

Elves did not truly age as men or orcs did. A child here, with their golden hair barely beginning to dull, might be older than the most battle-hardened warchief of his people. They reached maturity only after a hundred years, a span of time so vast it was beyond even the most ancient orc’s reckoning.

And yet, despite all their years, they had never been meant for this.

For a city without its warriors.

Gorgrok did not ask what had happened. He did not have to.

War had come to these woods.

The elves, the true warriors, were gone. Either fallen or still fighting somewhere beyond these boughs, where the trees no longer whispered, only screamed.

The air was too still, too expectant. This was not the peace of an untouched sanctuary. This was the silence before the storm.

And he was here to stand in it.