On the morning of the three-hundred and thirty-eighth and final day of her Rite of the Dragon Warrior, Zyryxa climbed the base of majestic Monzqora, the towering titan at the heart of southern Volqor. Snow fell from clouds beneath Monzqora’s highest peak where the mightiest of the ice dragons roosted. Beautiful Duilahir, the oldest and most magnificent of all the ice dragons, was up there somewhere above the snowfall, waiting for the right dragon warrior to bond her and become her chosen knight. Waiting for Zyryxa.
Zyryxa dashed up the slopes, hoping to glimpse her destined dragon.
The air thinned as she placed a couple thousand feet between her and the mountain’s base, her warrior’s body not needing to stop as she ascended the untamed slopes. Dryxl padded through the ascension behind her, the darkscale drake huffing to keep up even as he cheated and used his claws to scale the cliffs.
Zyryxa herself did not need rest, nor would she admit to herself that the ascent tired her. Of course, it did not. She was Zyryxa and the ice was hers. And the ice was beautiful.
Monzqora was not a lonely mountain, but surrounded by dozens of peaks that stretched like spears toward the sky. Ancient gelubor forests of white crystalline trees, shrouded in icy mist, caverns scattered throughout inviting exploration of their stalactite palaces, treacherous cliffs and merciless slopes climbing toward the clouds, even plateaus where arctic flora scattered blues, purples, yellows, and reds across the white rises of the mountain. She saw now why Champion Vaztyma, and so many before her, resided in the Pridefort instead of Loxzua, why Duilahir claimed the apex for her roost, why this place was at the heart of their half of Volqor.
The mountain itself had a heartbeat and Zyryxa could feel it throbbing with life.
A thunderous boom resounded from above the clouds and an avalanche of ice flooded down the side of an adjacent mountain slope. Ice, rock, and snow cascaded from the heights and reshaped the land with the mighty force of Monzqora’s vindictive rage. One cliff collapsed and fell to the valley below.
The mountain was ice, it was as powerful and beautiful as any place in the world. Monzqora was a monument to the goddess that crafted it. Perhaps it was imagined, perhaps the cold sweat chilled her senses, perhaps she just wanted to believe this, but Zyryxa felt closer to Divine Qoryxa than ever before as her hands grasped the cliffs, as her feet padded up the icy slopes, as she climbed higher and higher and closer to the summit.
Zyryxa felt a kinship, a love, for this mountain and she would show that love by climbing Monzqora as fast as she could. First, she would ensure she looked good doing so, lest the mountain and Divine Qoryxa think her just a brute. She plucked a purple flower from the slope and embedded its stem inside her braided hair. She could do nothing about her unworthy garments. The yeti fur was more worn than ever after tearing on a gelubor spike while chasing a trio of sabretooths that thought to ambush her and Dryxl in the night. In her rage, there was too little left of the sabretooth pelt to fashion it into a replacement, nor did her wolf cloak last long, falling off her during the chase.
She sighed. This would just have to do. The mountain would understand even if she ascended nude. Perhaps the mountain would even prefer that, as would Qoryxa. Alas, Zyryxa did not want to greet Vaztyma’s dragon warriors wearing nothing. She liked being appreciated, within reason mind you, but she did not want her first impression as a dragon warrior to be focused on her beauty at the expense of her power. While she would deny this if asked, even by herself, Monzqora was cold, and she took a shameful comfort in whatever warmth these tattered furs still offered.
Dryxl sat on his haunches, his angular draconic face leering up at the high peaks emerging through the gaps in the clouds. Zyryxa wondered what thoughts went through a drake’s mind. The lesser, wingless drakes did not have the intelligence of true dragons, but neither were they lackwits. Much like higher dragons, the drakes also felt their emotions much the way that people did. Power and beauty were not worth much without compassion. Zyryxa scratched his scaly neck. “You are doing me proud, boy.”
Dryxl licked her hand, his rough tongue slopping saliva on her. Zyryxa sighed and took a step back, wiping it on the back of the yeti fur lest it cause her to lose grip on the greataxe or some handhold on a cliffside. “What do you say we introduce Champion Vaztyma to her successor?”
The darkscale grunted and bounded off toward the nearest cliff face, likely wishing he had the wings he was denied.
Zyryxa conquered the slopes, climbing the steep cliff faces where there were no other options. She leapt across ledges and chasms formed by the eruptions that reshaped the mountain daily. She sprinted over the plateaus, letting her hand run through the flowers. She hurdled over fallen gelubor and hid from the winds as she moved through the white trees. She unleashed her axe on the ice sprites that hid themselves along the mountain’s ice walls and roared at a pack of wolves, sending them scattering. Normally, she would chase one down, but not today. Everything she did was to reach the Pridefort. Everything else was a distraction.
The moments passed in a blur, as the sun lifted higher, and then downward. Still, the day did not lack for thrills, for the challenges that shaped one’s spirit. The second thunderous eruption heralded the avalanche that would test whether Zyryxa were truly ice. She slid down the mountainside, giving up a few hundred feet of ascent, racing against the landslide to a lower ledge close enough to the adjacent peak. Braving the multi-thousand-foot drop into the gorge below, she dashed toward the edge and leapt across the chasm.
Zyryxa cleared the twenty-foot gap with at least as many feet to spare, though her landing was a less than pretty sight. She rolled another twenty feet before she could stop sliding along the ice, narrowly keeping herself from slamming headlong into the escarpment wall. Alas, the sight of the ice rushing downhill, blanketing everything, coating her face in the debris of its destruction made a memory she would someday tell Zyrthalla.
When the snow and debris dissipated, the ledge she leapt from was gone, broken into pieces and become a part of the lower mountain ascent. What remained in its place were huge chunks of icy blue rock. Zyryxa raced to the nearest chunk and heaved it up off the ice. Not unlike the body of a dragon warrior, the volcanic rock was heavier than it looked, and much harder than its beautiful exterior belied. A chunk about the size of her head weighed around a hundred pounds. Zyryxa hurled it at the mountainside. The dense rock smashed into the mountain, shattering the stones of Monzqora’s ascent. The rock itself, qoryxite, the heartstone of Monzqora, bore no chips from the collision.
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Grinning broader than the sun shining through the clouds, Zyryxa thought of the damage she could do if she had weapons made of qoryxite. Perhaps this rock alone could be used to forge a pair of throwing axes. With those in hand, she would be able to take out more fleeing enemies before they scattered or set them straight before they came within reach of her moth… of Zyrthalla’s greataxe.
Dryxl grunted, already climbing the next cliff, his claws scraping against the rock. With a laugh, a shake of her head, and a deep breath of thin, frigid air, Zyryxa set the qoryxite down.
“I know!” she yelled up at the darkscale. “To the Pridefort!”
Zyryxa chose to climb Monzqora from the north, rather than the east, knowing that the east side was unhindered by the eruptions, that almost all of the mountain’s trails were over there, and also because her navigation the last several days was off, probably because the sabretooth chase in the night did not help that, but that was not the point. As she reached the mountain’s midpoint just past midday, she was disappointed to find her first footpath winding up the mountain.
With a sigh, and a swallow of pride, she marched up the softer ascent, axe in hand, hoping that trails would bring more monsters. Monzqora did not disappoint. A great big abominable yeti stood in the middle of the path around the next bend, an arrow sticking out of its eye, blood smeared all over its snow-white fur. Zyryxa spared a moment to confirm that no other dragon warrior was engaged with the beast, or worse, another aspiring warrior on their rite. If the archer was still around, they did nothing as the abominable charged Zyryxa.
The abominable was twice her size in height and breadth, with club-like arms to bludgeon unworthy warriors to death and sharp claws at their tips to scar those too slow. Zyryxa slid beneath its first strike and slammed the sharp edge of the greataxe into its spine. Roaring, she chopped at the back of the stunned, likely paralyzed, abominable’s leg, severing it just below the knee. Cut down to her size, she split the abominable’s skull, spilling its brains onto the trail beside its severed leg.
Always late to the fight, but never late to the afterparty, Dryxl lapped up the surfeit of blood before Zyryxa even cleaned the brains off her axe. “Enjoying the feast, Dryx?”
Zyryxa hoisted the abominable’s corpse over her head. Easy battles like this would not prepare her for Duilahir, for Vaztyma, for whoever else would conjure the thought of triumphing over her. “Qoryxa judge you for trying to battle the future champion of this mountain! May she judge you twice for offering such poor challenge!”
With a grunt, Zyryxa flung the beast over the side of the trail, and admired its plummet down the mountainside where it crashed into a patch of gelubor.
She twisted toward a shattering noise on the slopes further up the trail. A small shape dashed up the hill, hair so dark it was almost black instead of blue flowing down the back of their cloak. Zyryxa shifted, turning away from the figure, not daring to break her seclusion now, where one of Vaztyma’s warriors might report her violation and see her become Scaleless.
Zyryxa’s ascent halted, then continued with more ease, like she was out for a sightseeing hike rather than conquering the mightiest mountain. Dryxl strutted at her side, huffing the thin air like he was having the best day of his life. Not daring to encounter the other person again, Zyryxa took in the mile-high view of the tundra below.
The sun on the other side of the mountain, she gazed at the homesteads dotting the white landscape broken only by spots of gelubor forestry. White palisade walls to keep out the dangers of the ice. Pens for the yaks that kept them fed and warm. Workshops for the dragon warriors that survived their thirteen years of mandatory conscription in the Champion’s army and who chose to cultivate a craft rather than make killing their calling. Smoke rising from white cabins crafted from the gelubor wood. Inside those walls, blue-haired, blue-eyed Ice Tribe children practiced with training weapons while the retired dragon warriors bellowed criticisms and encouragements. Elderly warriors sat around the fire telling stories of their glory days, exaggerating just enough to aggrandize their achievements without suspending every shred of disbelief. Perhaps they shared a meal of yak’s milk, spiced meat, and cultivated herbs at the table while the warmth of their hearth kept the ice at bay.
Zyryxa twisted her neck away from vista into the tundra below. The tears welled up, she fought them for a moment before plunging into memories of simpler days when she did not have to fend alone, when the comforts of Loxzua as the daughter of a dragon knight and a respected, incomprehensibly, bard kept her nourished with the best cuisine available in Volqor. She should have learned how to cook when she had the chance, but that was the craft of Abbaz and not Zyrthalla and all things Abbaz were to be eschewed. Perhaps not all, after all.
She did not wipe her eyes. At least, not yet.
She pressed her hand to her heart and remembered the good days of her past life. “Let these feelings be your strength, Zyryxa,” she told herself. “Let those memories sustain me when it is hard and lonely. Let them remind me of what I fight for.”
She gazed upon those homesteads, upon the miles of white expanse visible from Monzqora’s midpoint as the sun settled in the west. She would be Champion of every speck of snow-covered land in southern Volqor. The mother of the Ice Tribe, she would be. If she was half the mother Zyrthalla was, she will have done good for her children.
The final rays of light of day three-hundred and thirty-eight of Zyryxa’s Rite of the Dragon Warrior shone upon the ancient fortress, a proud fort constructed from qoryxite. Along the pale, icy blue walls that ringed the plateau were too many chipped or charred fortifications, scars from intermittent wars with the Fire Tribe. When Zyryxa left Loxzua one year ago, Ice and Fire were at peace. The qoryxite glistening from fresh flames portended of the ugly changes that happened in Volqor while Zyryxa was secluded on her rite.
She wiped her eyes, retrieved the greataxe from its sling, and dashed the final rise to the Pridefort’s plateau. Two shapes circled in the air between the twin peaks towering over the western skies of the Pridefort. Zyryxa’s mouth fell open, appalled by ugliness, astounded by magnificence.
The ice dragon was one she had only ever seen in art, as an ice statue, a painting, or an illustration. She heard Abbaz, Matyxal, Dezoq, and all the famed bards attempt to paint her in song and story. Even from several thousand feet away, it was obvious that Duilahir was larger than any other two dragons Zyryxa had ever seen and more beautiful than any artform. Her silver scales composed exquisite patterns that seemed to form and melt in an eternal dance as they shimmered in the pale, dying light. She was a blizzard in flight, with wings unfurled that could have blocked out the sun and drained the heat from all the world. With an ear-sundering roar, Duilahir unleashed her frosty breath at the other dragon. The ice cracked as it split the sky, barraging the smaller dragon that looked like a flaming comet in flight.
Nitryx and his rider, Faxiq, were among the mightiest the Fire Tribe could offer. They were no match for mighty Duilahir. The fire dragon fled the skies of Monzqora, gliding beyond the twin peaks out of sight. Duilahir bellowed her pride, circled her mountain twice, roaring and spitting her ice, before she ascended back to the highest heights of the world, back to her roost atop Monzqora.
Zyryxa exhaled, her hands untensing on her axe, and the smile lit her face. If there was any solace in the grim reality of this battle, it was that Duilahir was unbonded still. Zyryxa would face Champion Vaztyma knowing that the path to claiming her place was still hers for the taking.