"Mortal, do you seek to forge a pact or buy the great me with this rusty coinage?" The human girl balked at the incomprehensible question. Before she could be pressed,

The infant released a great cry, only its insufficient mind couldn’t understand it. In the same way an ant couldn’t comprehend what numbers mean, and if it were to stumble into it for even a moment, its entire world would become insignificant. In the same way, an ant wanting to learn of the power of ancient kings would seem mad to other ants, the infant called out in distress to its mother and to the dragon.

The infant itself was changed by the sound of the dragon's voice, with a grief for what was to come and not what had been. The mother lamented the death of herself and her infant child, and it was upon them. Its eyes pressed down upon the infant child with an invisible force. The distance between the mouth of the cave and the riverbank, fifty steps for any warrior, was discarded in a way that boggled the human mind for something so big to move so fast and make such little noise.

“Though the infant’s mind could not hold the shape of the dragon’s words, something sank deep—like a shard of a broken mirror.”

With a speed that only the elven mind could register, the great beast with its vast red wings, its colossal tail that stretched back into the cavern, and the muscles that seemed like mountains stood over the infant child. "Why have you come to my lands?"

Now it was prancing around the outskirts of the group, then it was over the river looking down on the orcs. Its speed was a horror all on its own, matched with the size it became something else entirely, something hard to fathom.

The livestock that the humans brought with them had been abandoned on the other side of the river, slaughtered without much thought by the orc stragglers too distant from the front of the line to reasonably get any violence. As the dragon slithered around them, some corpses vanished followed by a crunch from the dragon's mouth. To the elven siblings, it was like the time an old elf showed them sleight of hand card tricks, only with a far more insidious flavor to them than that old time.

"Do you want me to save your child?" And just like that, as if all that had been a trick of the mind or a shared hallucination, the dragon had returned to the darkness of the cave, only its glowing eyes visible. The little girl only stumbled over her tongue, not even finding words; even producing sounds became hard.

It was the elven sister who strove forward, "Please spare us," she said. Her voice was not comforting as the thick doubt was something even the orcs within earshot of her detected over the sound of the running river.

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"Why?" the dragon asked, making a feigned human movement of sadistic glee.

"Anything! We will do anything!" the elven girl said, as she broadcasted that she was despairing to all others.

"Hmmm, I can save you from them." The claw came out, its size made it seem like a siege weapon, and pointed at the orcs. "But in return for this, I want the humans. They must enter a covenant with me. They must live as I instruct them to live, they must pray as I instruct them to pray."

The first to react to this were the orcs. The dragon's voice had a way of carrying itself far without seeming loud. They started to hiss like cats and bash weapons against shields, stomp feet, and make a racket.

In response, the dragon lifted its eyes and said to them, "It's as if you're trying to scare off a big cat."

Sliding forward, the ancient human came before the dragon, kneeling beside the little girl, reaching with one hand to have her bow, pushing her head down, and with the other raising it up to the dragon. "Avenge my son, and you can have me! My tribe, we will follow if you lead!"

There was an eruption of fire. Animal screams echoed out as the orcs were engulfed alongside the entire bank of the river where they stood, drowned in heat. Some orcs fell into the water but continued to burn all the same. The sound fizzled out, replaced by the roaring and crackling of fire.

The heat seemed to scorch the skin of the humans and the elves on the other side. The water seemed to boil and bubble on the far side of the river. Then, with vast momentum, the dragon opened its vast red wings as far as they could go, squeezed in by the valley, and a great storm tore at the clothes and the feet of the humans. It put out the fire immediately, leaving more ash than flesh behind. The dragon now stood behind where the orcs had been.

The wind clawed at the feet of anyone standing and threatened to pick them up and chuck them across the floor. Then, with a pounce, it was away in the sky. What seemed like an explosion consumed the attention of the elven siblings as they realized that the dragon had gone to slaughter all orcs in the valley.

Far off in the distance, beyond what the human eye could see, the sheer force of the dragon passing overhead tore a band of hundreds of orcs up from the ground, throwing them around with enough force to kill many. Screams and terror consumed the coliseum. Prayers to gods and demons came from the mouths of the orcs, and then a blanket of smoke choked out many in the middle.

The back half had been killed in another run, leaving a long line of fire, and the fierce winds spread the chaos to the nearby orcs, suffocating them. Ash soon smothered the skin and then clogged the lungs as coughs turned to violent struggles to breathe. The orcs at the front saw the chaos and ran.

Then another strafe overhead, and heads were picked up off the ground. Many were killed by being thrown around by the violent winds, and a small number disappeared down a monster's throat, bitten in half and then swallowed all but whole.

Then another strafe as the dragon had its fun playing around. Then, they were cooked in fire, the ground melting below them, consuming their corpses like quicksand. Just as soon as the fires started to spread, they were put out by incomprehensible winds as the dragon made its way back to the humans.