Prologue
He would not have time to do it again. The hunters were coming for him, after all these long years. They were in the cave system. He could smell their foul odor, hear their guttural language. They were drawing closer by the second; time was running out! “Ancestors,” he said, whispering a brief prayer in the long since forgotten language of his kind, “please watch over me. I need to finish my work.” With delicate claws, he pushed a poultice of dried leaves and various herbs into the grooves of the spell work before breathing a spark of flame and setting the entire thing alight. At first, the circle glowed red as the leaves burned. Then the fire turned a violent shade of blue. “Ancestors, guide my path, to be born anew and fulfill my duty,” the dragon chanted in the ancient tongue, clasping his talons in front of him. His ruby red scales gleamed in the pale light of the spell circle. “Burn my soul into another, so I may be reborn and live again.” With every word, a rune in the spell circle grew brighter and brighter, the flames rising higher and higher. The hunters were drawing in. He could make out the words they were saying now. “This way,” one of them called, “I can hear the beast in here.” The dragon did not move. “Ancestors, guide my path…” he repeated the chant and felt his scales grow cold as the magic pulled from deep within him, grasping for the very part of himself that made him him. “Burn my soul into another…” “There he is,” came the voice. The dragon dared not move to see him. He knew who this human was. A blonde-haired man stepped up to the carved spell work circle and looked it up and down as the dragon continued his chant. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the man bend down. He took a dagger in his hand and prod at the ash within the circle. “I’ve come a long way to find you, dragon,” the man said, rising to his feet and staring up at the dragon with his piercing blue eyes. “You’re the last one, aren’t you?” “Ancestors, guide my path,” the dragon continued, ignoring the human. The spell must be completed. He could not stop now, even if he wanted to. If he died here, his race would be extinct forever, but if he succeeded, if his spell was cast, he would have another chance. He would have a new, youthful body. “… so I may be reborn and live again.” “What are you doing?” The hunter asked, putting a hand on the dragon’s haunch and feeling the rise and fall of his breathing. He poked at the dragon’s scales with his knife, and the dragon’s chanting faltered for a moment as he felt the prick of the blade grab him by his very soul. The dragon picked up speed. He could not afford to let this human do to him what was done to so many others of his kind before, but he was powerless to oppose him. The spell required his absolute attention. The circle responded to the dragon’s pleas as the blue flames slowly turned gold. One by one, each rune changed color and grew brighter. The hunter cocked an eyebrow at the spell and waved over one of his companions. The second hunter, a stocky man with ginger hair, carried a red metal canister with a black nozzle. “Sorry, chap,” the blonde-haired hunter said, patting the dragon on the haunch again, “but I’m afraid I cannot let you finish whatever it is you’re doing. I’m sure you understand. It’s not that I’m not curious, this is a fascinating looking spell, but we just cannot afford to see what it does.” The dragon ignored the hunters and continued his chant, his eyes focused and hard. The blonde man sighed. “You’re boring, you know that? Your father had some banter in him. ‘You’ll never take my whelp! The hope of my kind!’ he’d roared. He fought gallantly. He died fearlessly. You, however,” the hunter said, tapping the knife against the dragon’s leg again, “are just sitting there, chanting. You’re boring. Put up at least a bit of a fight.” The dragon’s eyes narrowed at the mention of his father. He could scarcely remember the elder dragon, who’d died when he’d been nothing but a small whelp. His mother had been dead long before that. Their parents, too. He was the last of his kind. He knew this. Did the hunter take pleasure in reminding him that there were no more dragons left in the world? That, once he was dead, the dragon race would disappear from the earth, never to be seen again? Of course, he did. Sick, twisted humans. All they ever did was take pleasure in the suffering of others, in hurting that which they could never understand. “Take it out,” the blonde hunter said. The dragon continued chanting, even as the ginger hunter raised the canister and squeezed on the handle. A splash of foul white foam shot out and began covering the dragon’s meticulously laid spell work. As the flames in the runes sputtered out, the dragon felt an overwhelming sense of cold wash over him. It was over. They destroyed the spell. There was nothing more he could do. The dragon felt tears welling up in his eyes. A century of planning, research, and practice had gone into the design and development of this spell. It had taken everything he had to cast it. Whether or not by the hunter’s hand, the dragon knew he would not survive this day. The dragon’s heart slowed as the fires of his spell went out. He kept his claws clasped together, determined to try to finish the spell, even as his fingers went cold and numb. His toes went next, leaving him with a prickling sensation where the icy stone ground of his cave should have been. His tail vanished next. It was still there, but he couldn’t feel it, couldn’t feel anything. When he lost sensation in his wings, he knew that it was all well and truly lost. He had failed in his duty. He had been unable to find a way to save his race. There was nothing more that could be done. And yet, even as more and more of his body grew stiff and cold, his mouth refused to stop working. His eyes glazed over, and his vision went blurry, but his lips still formed the words, his tongue again formed the sound. His body was dying around him, but he could not stop chanting. The blonde-haired hunter watched him curiously, even as he continued to speak the words. The last remnants of the spell vanished with a puff of smoke, casting the cave once more into darkness. The hunters lit their flashlights, drowning the cavern in an unnatural white light, and the hunter scraped his knife down the dragon’s scales. The dragon couldn’t feel it anymore. He knew that the knife was there, only by the way it seemed to grab what little essence he had left, but there was no pain, no sensation of metal against scale. “You’re determined. I’ll give you that,” the hunter said, nodding in mild approval as the dragon’s body sagged. “Even when all hope is lost, you attempt to cast your foul magic. I suppose you’ll never do me the courtesy of telling me what it does.” Against the dragon’s will, his body collapsed to the ground, heavy and stiff. Even as his chin rested against the cooling remains of his spell work, his mouth continued to speak. He croaked the last few lines of verse, his voice barely more than a whisper. “You’ve lost, dragon,” the hunter said, his voice rising, “accept your death with dignity! Fight me! Bathe me in your flames! Do something!” The dragon paused his chant only long enough to laugh. Who’d have thought ignoring the hunter would frustrate him? There was only one verse left, and then the spell would be finished. The dragon figured that there would be no harm in saying it in the hunter’s own, disgusting language. “Ancestors,” he growled, the words squeezing out of his throat with great difficulty, “guide my path, to be born anew and fulfill my duty.” The hunter’s eyes grew wide. “Stop him!” He barked at his companions. Before another word could slip through the dragon’s lips, the hunters wrapped a chain around his snout, squeezing it shut. And yet, despite the restraint, his tongue still formed the words. His voice struggled out, but he spoke the chant. It was harder to speak the human tongue. The words felt alien against the dragon’s teeth and were difficult to shape, especially with his snout squeezed shut. And yet, he continued his chant until there were only a few words left. The hunter didn’t give him the chance to say them. The dragon stopped, the last word he uttered being reborn, as he felt the hunter’s dagger plunge into his side. “Let no creature born of dragon blood survive this blade,” the hunter said, in a language not his own. The dragon had thought his body was cold before, but this was a whole extra dimension of chill. Every fiber of his being went still. His heart stopped beating in his chest. His lungs stopped filling with air. His tongue stopped moving.
