As the first sliver of dawn painted the eastern sky a pale, fragile grey, Finn, the wiry scout, stood before Brian Volgunder. He offered a curt, almost imperceptible nod – a Drakonian salute stripped of its formality, replaced by the stark understanding of the mission's gravity. In his hand, he clutched the sealed parchment.

"Godspeed, Finn," Brian said, his voice low. "Get through."

Finn simply nodded again, then turned and vanished into the pre-dawn gloom.

Brian watched him go, then turned to Brad. "He has the heart of a lion," Brad observed quietly.

"He'll need it," Brian replied. "And more." He turned his attention to the small, huddled group of warriors. "We need to be ready. They'll be coming."

While Brad moved among the soldiers, rousing them and issuing orders, Brian walked towards where Liam was practicing with Lia. The air rang with the rhythmic clash of steel, the two figures moving with a practiced grace. Liam, wielding his mother's mithril short sword and shield, was clearly improving, but Lia, with her Razakia-honed skills, was still a step ahead.

"Enough," Brian said, cutting through the sounds of their training. "Conserve your energy. We'll need it."

Lia lowered her practice sword, a playful smirk still on her lips. "Afraid your little brother will tire out, Brian?" she teased.

Brian ignored her, his gaze fixed on Liam. "How are you holding up?" he asked.

Liam sheathed his sword, wiping the sweat from his brow. "I'm fine," he said, though his voice was slightly breathless.

"Good," Brian said.

The words were barely out when a shout rang out. "Captain!" It was one of the lookouts. "Rubaks! A large force! Heading this way!"

Brian's eyes narrowed. "How many?"

"Sixty, at least, Captain! Maybe more!"

Sixty. And they were still deep in enemy territory, exhausted, and with wounded to care for. Brian's group was now fewer than forty effectives.

Brian's decision was instantaneous. "We move," he said, his voice sharp. "Now. We can't fight them here. Not on open ground."

The camp erupted in controlled chaos. The wounded were helped to their feet, weapons were checked, and supplies were gathered. There was no panic, only a grim, determined efficiency. These were Drakonian warriors, trained for war.

"Brad," Brian said, his voice low, "you and Lia scout ahead. Find us a path we can use, even with the wounded."

Brad nodded. "East," he said. "There's a narrow pass, a few miles from here. It leads upwards. It might offer us an advantage."

"Go," Brian said.

Brad and Lia vanished into the pre-dawn gloom. Liam stood beside Brian, ready.

The retreat was a desperate race. They moved as swiftly as they could, but the wounded slowed them. Liam and Brian stayed in the middle of the small column, urging them on.

They could feel the Rubaks behind them. The wind seemed to whisper their pursuers' names.

"They're following our trail," Brian said, his voice grim. "They haven't spotted us yet, but it's only a matter of time."

After what felt like an eternity, they reached the entrance to the pass Brad had described. It was a narrow, winding cleft in the rock face. A natural trail, barely visible, snaked upwards.

"This is it," Brad said. He and Lia had already scouted ahead. "The Serpent's Pass. It leads to a small plateau. It's our best chance."

Brian nodded. "It's a good position," he agreed. "A natural chokepoint."

He turned to the weary warriors. "Up," he commanded. "We make our stand here."

The ascent was grueling. The wounded struggled, but they pressed on.

Finally, they reached the plateau. It was a small, relatively flat area, surrounded by sheer cliffs on three sides.

Brian quickly organized the defense. Anayis and her archers were positioned along the cliff edge. The remaining soldiers formed a tight line at the pass's mouth, shields ready.

"We hold them here," Brian said, his voice firm. "We show them what it means to fight for Drakonia."

They waited. The silence was broken only by the wind and ragged breathing.

Then, they heard it. The thud of boots, the shouts of Rubak warriors. The enemy was coming.

Liam gripped his sword. He glanced at Brian, who nodded.

The Rubaks appeared, a surging mass of painted faces and crude weapons. Around sixty strong.

Lia, standing beside Anayis, drew an arrow. "Here we go," she muttered. She took a deep breath, then let out a shout.

"Come and get us, you overgrown, ugly trolls!" she yelled. "We're waiting for you!"

The Rubaks, enraged, charged forward.

Lia drew, aimed, and loosed. The arrow flew true, aimed at the lead Rubak, a massive brute with a scarred face.

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But the arrow didn't strike. It was deflected, inches from the Rubak's chest, by an unseen force.

Liam felt it, a surge of dark energy, a familiar, sickening sensation. Demonic energy. The Rubaks they faced weren't ordinary warriors; they were tainted, consumed by a dark power. The battle for the Serpent's Pass had begun.

The Drakonian soldiers, their initial shock giving way to a surge of desperate courage, locked shields and surged forward, a wave of steel meeting the onrushing tide of Rubaks. The narrow confines of the Serpent's Pass became a brutal, chaotic melee, a maelstrom of clashing steel, guttural roars, and agonizing cries.

But the archers' arrows, normally so deadly, were proving utterly ineffective. Each shaft, aimed with deadly precision by Anayis and her skilled archers, was deflected by that same shimmering, unseen barrier that had protected the Rubak leader. It was as if an invisible wall surrounded the enemy, rendering their ranged attacks useless.

The narrowness of the passage, initially an advantage, became a double-edged sword. Brian and Liam, fighting side-by-side at the forefront, could only face two Rubaks at a time. But each Rubak, empowered by the dark energy, fought with unnatural strength and resilience. It took agonizingly long to bring down even a single warrior, each blow met with a resistance that defied normal combat.

Liam, his mithril short sword flashing, found himself locked in a desperate struggle. He parried, dodged, and thrust, using every ounce of his skill. He felt the impacts jarring up his arm, the strange, almost rubbery resistance of the demonic energy shielding the Rubaks. Blows that should have cleaved through flesh and bone were deflected, absorbed, rendered almost harmless. Except, he realized with a jolt of understanding, when he struck with the mithril blade. The metal, inherited from his mother, seemed to ignore the dark protection. Each strike with the mithril, however glancing, drew a hiss of pain from the Rubaks, a flicker of that protective barrier, a momentary vulnerability. It was the only weapon that seemed to be consistently penetrating their defenses.

He saw Brian, fighting with a controlled fury, his longer blade a blur of motion. But even Brian, with his years of experience, was struggling. Each Rubak he faced took multiple blows to bring down, their bodies seemingly impervious to normal wounds.

Hektor, fighting a few paces away, was holding his own, his shield arm useless but his good arm wielding his sword with desperate strength. But even his powerful blows seemed to have little effect, the Rubaks shrugging off attacks that should have felled them.

It was as if they were fighting a hundred Rubaks, not sixty. The demonic energy amplified their strength, their endurance, their ferocity. And with each Drakonian soldier that fell, the odds grew ever more desperate.

Liam felt a surge of anger, of frustration, of… something else. A cold, burning rage that seemed to ignite within him, spreading through his veins like liquid ice. He recognized it, the feeling that had overtaken him, the feeling of uncontrolled power, of ancient fury.

He knew he shouldn't. He knew the risks. But he was losing. They were all losing. And he couldn't… he wouldn't… let them die.

He let go.

He let the coldness consume him, let the rage flow through him, let the ancient power that resided within him erupt. His eyes flickered, not with their usual blue, but with a chilling, almost glacial light. His movements, already fast, became a blur, so swift that even Brian had difficulty tracking him.

He became a whirlwind of ice and steel, a force of nature unleashed. He darted between the struggling Drakonian soldiers, his mithril short sword a streak of silver, leaving a trail of frozen air and shattered Rubak bodies in his wake. He didn't just strike; he obliterated. Six Rubaks fell in as many heartbeats, their bodies collapsing, their demonic energy snuffed out by the overwhelming cold.

But the toll was immediate. Liam felt it, a searing exhaustion that threatened to overwhelm him, a draining of his very essence. He could feel something else, too, something darker, something that reveled in the carnage, that hungered for more. It was a force that despised the demonic taint, and that hatred fueled his every move.

He fought on, driven by this alien fury, by this desperate need to protect his comrades, to avenge the fallen. He moved with an unnatural speed, his blade finding the gaps in the Rubaks' defenses, piercing their magically enhanced armor, shattering their shields. He accounted for more than thirty of the enemy, his movements a blur of controlled destruction.

The other Drakonian soldiers watched in stunned silence, a mixture of awe and terror on their faces. Even Lia, from her vantage point on the higher ground, shouted encouragements. "Go, Liam! Show them!"

Brian, his face a mask of conflicting emotions – pride, fear, concern – fought on beside his brother, covering his flanks, protecting him from the remaining Rubaks.

Then, it appeared. A Rubak, even larger than the others, a towering behemoth of muscle and fury, its eyes burning with a malevolent red light. It pushed its way through the dwindling ranks of its own warriors, its gaze fixed on Liam. This was no ordinary Rubak. This was something… more.

The bodies of fallen warriors, both Drakonian and Rubak, littered the narrow pass, creating a grotesque, bloody obstacle course. Liam, fueled by the dwindling reserves of his magic and the alien rage that consumed him, used the terrain to his advantage.

He leaped onto a boulder, then onto the back of a fallen Rubak, using the bodies as stepping stones, gaining height, gaining momentum. He saw Brad, fighting desperately a few paces away, and, in a moment of desperate inspiration, he shouted, "Brad! Dagger!"

Brad, without hesitation, without question, hurled one of his short hunting knives towards Liam. It was a perfect throw, spinning end over end, the hilt landing precisely in Liam's outstretched hand.

Liam caught the dagger, the cold steel a familiar comfort. He didn't hesitate. He launched himself from his precarious perch, soaring through the air towards the giant Rubak. He channeled the last vestiges of his ice magic, not into a shield, not into a sphere, but into the dagger itself, focusing it, condensing it, into a razor-sharp edge of pure, frozen energy. "Razor edge!"

The Rubak, seeing him coming, roared in defiance, raising its massive axe. But Liam was too fast, too unpredictable. He twisted in mid-air, dodging the clumsy swing, and plunged the mithril short sword, into one side of the Rubak's neck. It pierced easily, the enchanted metal meeting little resistance. Simultaneously He struck with the ice-enhanced dagger on other side, aiming for the same spot. The mithril sword met bone and sinew. But the dagger, imbued with the focused power of his ice magic, shattered the Rubak's neck, severing the spinal cord and decapitating the monstrous warrior in a single, brutal blow.

The giant Rubak's body collapsed, a lifeless heap, blocking the narrow pass, creating a momentary barrier between the remaining Drakonians and the few remaining Rubaks.

And Liam… Liam collapsed with it. He landed hard, the impact driving the air from his lungs. He lay there, sprawled amidst the carnage, his body trembling, his vision blurring. He had pushed himself too far. He had used too much of his magic. He was… empty.

The remaining fifteen or so stood, looking at the destruction, and the fallen.

Brian rushed to Liam's side, his face etched with concern. He knelt beside his brother, checking for injuries. Liam was unconscious, his breathing shallow, his skin deathly pale.

Brad and Lia joined them, their expressions a mixture of relief and apprehension.

"He saved us," Lia said, her voice hushed. "He… he fought like a demon. He… he did what had to be done." She looked around at the carnage, at the fallen Drakonians, at the shattered remnants of the Rubak force. "This… this is more than we can handle. We were arrogant. We thought we could… we underestimated them." She shook her head, her usual playful demeanor completely gone. "If it hadn't been for Liam… we'd all be dead."

Brad nodded, his gaze fixed on Liam's unconscious form. "He has… great power," he said. "But it comes at a price."

They were trapped. Exhausted. Outnumbered. And the enemy, fueled by a dark, demonic power, was still out there, gathering its strength. The victory at the Serpent's Pass had been bought at a terrible cost.

Other than Brain , Brad , Liam and Lia. Only Elara, Khel, Anayis, Anthony and six other Drakonians remained , Hektor laid down with a fatal injury.