Tarakaiwhai surveys the lands below, eyeing a large settlement a few miles from a river running south from the mountains. His hunger implores him to swoop in early and begin the invasion alone, but his mind resists the temptation. “My brothers and sisters would be most unhappy if I were to betray our strategy and give the humans time to respond. I could be scaled and exiled if my actions were to lead to a failed hunt.”, the dragon thinks to himself.
In frustration over the many weeks of scouting and searching for a fine target for the beginning of the yellow dragon incursion, Tarakaiwhai lets out a low growl before emitting a piercing signaling cry to his kin. A wide cone of salt erupts from his maw before he darts through the shimmering grains and heads back to give his briefing and plan for the attack. Tarakaiwhai thinks nothing of the humans in the streets a little less than a mile below him.
**
The sounds of terror reached the young serpent as a grin of satisfaction and malicious glee spread across his lips. Tarakaiwhai, like many of his kin, reveled in the Drakes of Dracosi’s decision to banish the flight of yellow dragons from the Great Thunder. Dracosi had grown weak in the eyes of the yellow dragons, had lost their way and forgotten the glory in hunting.
“Let the other chromatics fall in line under the metallics while the gems watch.”, Taiwhon had proclaimed. The great wyrm known as Taiwhon was the leader of the yellow flight, their king. “Let the them all play house with the mortals. We will begin our hunt with the greatest of their pets.”, he had said in the flight’s first meeting after exile. “We will begin with one of the human kingdoms.”
Tarakaiwhai remembered this meeting fondly, as it had taken place only days after he shed his last wyrmling scale and became an adult. After just over a century of life, Tarakaiwhai was finally old enough to join the great hunts. And after after nearly twenty years of the yellow flight’s exile, a great hunt had finally been formed.
Each of the five human kingdoms had been considered, but Andalus stood out as a prime candidate to the yellow flight. With so little reliance on magic and so much knowledge to be lost, Taiwhon believed the fall of Andalus would usher in the decline of all mortal civilizations on the continent of Arkasil, turning it into a hunting ground for the yellow dragons.
And so, the incursion began in Harbondale. Tarakaiwhai flew in for the attack with a half dozen other yellow dragons. Harbondale had proven to be more battle ready than Tarakaiwhai’s group had predicted, despite the weeks of scouting and their infiltration on the day of the attack.
One of their number, Kowhaiton, had been felled by a simple human with a hand cannon. And Tarakaiwhai had narrowly escaped all encounters with this human, though he would secure his revenge in their final encounter. Kowhaiton had been avenged, and the flight as a whole had gained valuable information regarding the full extent of the technical and martial advancements of Andalus. They would not underestimate the kingdom a second time.
Over the next couple months, many incursions took place in similar fashion to the destruction of Harbondale. Andallian citizens fought back ferociously, but the yellow dragons fought smarter each time. Relying more on their underground tactics by laying out traps in the blink of an eye or by sinking entire villages in a coordinated effort of burrowing unstable tunnels throughout those settlements, the yellow dragons had a relatively easy time invading and destroying the kingdom of Andalus. They had made great sport of the hunting taking place throughout the lands.
And now, in the hiding chamber of the King of Andalus, Tarakaiwhai was celebrating and rejoicing in the sounds of terror all around him. The king would soon flee to this chamber after his guards and countrymen fell in the throne room, and Tarakaiwhai would be waiting at the bottom of a pit trap in the unlit room. He would encase the king in thick layers of super-heated salt, and present the body and crown to Taiwhon at the end of the invasion. Tarakaiwhai would be remembered for generations for his efforts in this great hunt.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
Or so he thought. Kowhaiton, as well as many other yellow dragons during the weeks-long invasion, had learned the hard way to never underestimate humans, especially Andallians. And now Tarakaiwhai would learn the very same lesson.
Eagerly anticipating the Andallian King’s approach, Tarakaiwhai felt the stonework beneath him shift as the pressure in the air around him intensified. Before he could begin to question these strange circumstances, Tarakaiwhai heard what sounded like the thunderclap of a thousand blue dragons unleashing their lighting breath at once. The stonework underneath him crumbled as he spun through the darkness.
Falling hundreds of feet in a matter of seconds, Tarakaiwhai barely managed to catch the air with his wings before colliding with the solid ground underneath him. The echoing roll of thunder from the blast that destroyed the castle still rang in his ears, and sent shockwaves through his body.
Tarakaiwhai had been buried alive in the catacombs underneath the castle, and could feel the link between himself, his flight, and their king dimming.
“Taiwhon must be dying!”, he thought. This was it. The invasion was over, and the yellow dragons would lose their potency as their regent died somewhere among the rubble. Tarakaiwhai burrowed at a blinding pace, ignoring the pain of the impacts with the debris that fell with him moments before, as he raced toward the last known location of his king. Doing so, he felt the diminishing of the link to his master quicken.
Growling with rage and desperation, Tarakaiwhai pushed on. There must be something he could do. His people needed Taiwhon, needed his strength and unifying presence to bind them together. But Tarakaiwhai knew the end had come. He was already thinking of which of his kin would attempt to seize power first. Tarakaiwhai considered how he could seize power over the flight before any of his elders.
Greed had already begun to take hold. How far had they traveled from their temporary home just west of Andalus? Tarakaiwhai wondered if he could cross the vast distance to reach Taiwhon’s hoard before the others. Had anyone from the other strike teams remained behind? What treasures could be recovered from this demolished castle that he could brood over to gain strength to challenge his siblings?
Tarakaiwhai’s mind reeled as control over his desires slipped away. “But the others must be reacting similarly, shouldn’t they?”, he thought. “If I’m losing control over my thoughts and desires so soon after Taiwhon’s passing, then any who were farther away from him than I must be losing themselves even faster.”
Knowing that the remaining members of the yellow dragon flight would soon be seeking either treasure to hoard for themselves, or rivals to snuff out for their own gain, he changed course and headed east. He would not fly, would not travel by land, and would not even take a human’s shape to blend in as he made his escape. No, Tarakaiwhai would travel underground for a while and surface when he felt he was far enough from his kin.
**
Nearly three centuries old, Tarakaiwhai had waited a very long time for worthy prey to hunt. The wild game around the mountain he called home had sustained him for the last two hundred years, but he had always yearned for more, for another Great Hunt.
So when, by chance, Tarakaiwhai spotted a wandering tribe traveling near his lair, he knew his time had come.
The glory of the hunt.
The revelry of the chase.
The terror.
The screaming.
The running.
The feeding.
Tarakaiwhai looks briefly at the hole in his wing. He had never flown quite as fast as he could before the day the incursion began. Before the day he encountered that wretched, pitiful human.
With frustration and nostalgia over the days of old, Tarakaiwhai lets out a deep, rumbling roar. Beating his wings with all the strength his slender muscles can gather, he leaps to the sky. Roughly a mile above his quarries, he emits a piercing signalliny cry to the memory of his kin. A wide cone of salt erupts from his maw before he darts through the shimmering grains with a corkscrew twist.
Today there is no plan. There is no briefing. There is no coordination with others on the attack. And closing the distance, Tarakaiwhai thinks nothing of the prey on the ground below him.