A Bit of Creative Writing

Ash. It was everywhere. Like dust in the mind, it obscured. The light percolated through the husks that remained of the old pines and the wretched branches arched through the gray twilight like skeletal arms grasping for some kind of salvation. In the distance, a bird chattered for a few moments before stopping suddenly.

The man looked up. He studied the distance even as his hands flittered across the corpse over which he knelt. It was a woman. At least, it used to be. Her skin was cold and lifeless now. Seeing nothing, his eyes fell back to her body. He lifted the robe and it hung like a heavy drape, thick with ash. His eyes lit up a bit, as he reached in to grap a thin iron rod that had been concealed in the inner pocket. He slipped the rod into his tunic and stood.

Silence. This place felt like the void. No movement save for the light wind that pulled the ash from the trees and held it aloft as it slowly drifted down to the ground. He began to move, slowly and deliberately stepping between and over the fallen trees so as to make nary a sound. Like the shadow of death, he soundlessly walked through the graveyard of pine.

Within a short distance, the trees would grow stronger and the damage fell away. It was a normal forest again, as if the alien landscape was only a mirage. He made his way south for several miles before coming to the edge of a deep ravine. He moved up the cliff line until he saw the rope. Tied to a hefty oak, it fell across a rocky incline down several hundred feet to the creek bed below. Within a few minutes, his boots were in the pebble-lined creek bed.

He followed the creek as the cliffs faded away and he entered a gentler country. The forested ridge lines gave way to open expanses and he lowered his profile to remain concealed by the embankments. It was not long before he could smell the ash once more. This time it was fueled by still burning flames, so the stench was even stronger and more pungent. His nose burned and the air began to fill with light smoke.

He came to the edge of a slope and as the creek fell down the hill he could make out the ruins of the village. It's great house still burned, sending billowing columns of smoke into the air. Columns which drifted downwind to the man. A fact which was not lost on him.

In the soft grass beyond the village, he could make out the shape of the two serpents. One lay lifeless in a pool of radiant blood that poured from a deep wound in the neck. The other beside it with a look of terrible pain and closed eyes. A soft whimpering filled the air, the manifestation of grief and pain undeniable, but the man felt no pity. Did this beast have pity for his fallen friends? Or the poor townsfolk? No. But he would end it's suffering soon enough and one day, many years from now when he is old and gray, he may even call it charity. But not today.

He lifted himself out of the creek bed and moved quickly down the hill, keeping the burning building between him and the serpents. Within moments, he could feel the heat on his face as the flames turned the hard word of generations into cinders. He pulled the rod from his tunic and kissed it on the knobby head, an etching of a lion with a gentile mane. "This is for you, my love", he spoke softly as he stepped into the open.

The dragon smelled something. Something out of place. It's head turned quickly, scanning the horizon before coming to rest on the man calmly approaching from the ruins of the town. It gasped a bit, flames dancing up between it's teeth in a kind of panicked beltch, it's legs scrambling backwards as it tried to rise to it's feet. Surprise was not something the creature was used to and it stumbled over itself, falling backwards and exposing it's belly. The man spoke several words in elven, quickly like he was angrily barking an order at an insolent slave, and the rod glowed white for a brief moment.

The screams of the beast were heard as far south as Neiderle. When men arrived to investigate the sounds, all they found was the scorched bones of two great red dragons lying in the ruins of Adershire. A spent magic rod lay between them, drained of all it's energy. Footsteps led north to the creek before disappearing into the water.