DKP Book 3 Epilogue: Awake

He flew against the wind of the storm beating his great wings to reach the distant peak. If he didn't know any better, he would swear the earth mother was trying to prevent him from reaching his goal. Around him, lightning flashed and briefly illuminated the snow-capped mountains below, making them appear as a maw of jagged teeth biting at the sky.  

Silently he descended to a slope and landed in the blinding snow as the wind tried to strip him from the rock face. He stalked through it, seeking the tunnel that would carry him below.   

Thunder rumbled above him as if imploring him to turn back. He cast one last look at the sky as if to say sorry and slithered into the dark passage.

The tunnel was massive, and it's walls were coated in ice from years of wind carrying it inside. It sloped downward and twisted to the left, always keeping what was hidden around the corner just out of sight. He walked for nearly a minute before the ice finally gave way to the depths of the earth, leaving him with bare stone walls.   

It had been a long time since he came here. Over a thousand years if he was correct. Not since the dragon knight of old went off to face the Goromogoth and defeated him. The plan was perfect, and the prize just a week away when disaster struck. The dragon knight was slain, and his dragon fled into the night. The beast felt so betrayed by the divines it vowed never again to aid them in their plans. The hour of redemption came, and the dragon was not there to receive it. The hour passed, and the world looked forward to a second age of darkness.   

That hour was coming again, and another rose to take the first one's place. She was far too young for the task ahead but had a heart like no other. That heart would burn a path across the land and lay low all who stood in its way. But when the love that fueled her was sacrificed, would she go on? Or would she turn back like the one before her?  

He stopped at a ledge overlooking a vast lower chamber.   

The room was large enough to hold a human village and the fields around it. At the far end was a mound of gold and silver. Some of it was raw ore dug from the ground and heaped up, but much of it was coin. Coins that came from an age so long passed no record remained of it. No living man could point to the face stamped on them and identify the king or queen.

Here rested a relic of the past. One that had seen much of the world as it fell, and been left aside when the first Dragon Knight rode out to face destiny.    

He stood tall on the ledge and took a calming breath. That destiny now rested on another, and this time would not stand alone.

“Sarathulassa!” he called out in a powerful voice that echoed from the walls of the vast cavern. He listened and waited as the sound slowly died away.

At first, all he heard was the fall of a few coins. Then a cascade of them as something in the mound shifted. From the darkness, a red light appeared, and then the cave was filled with sound.  

The mound shifted as coins and ore fell away in a great wave. Wings as red as blood flared out and beat the stagnant air once as if to test them. The gust they produced drove coins into the air in a great blast of force. A long neck drew up, and the massive head rose higher and higher until it towered above even him. Two lights as brilliant as the stars stared out at him and then narrowed.  

“You!” a voice called and echoed off the walls of the earth itself were speaking.

The ground shook as a great reptilian body rose to four limbs. A tail thicker than most trees and twice as long lashed out and shattered a stone column.   

The ground shook again as the great red dragon stalked toward him.

Outside, the wind grew to a terrible howl while the mountain shook. Snow and rocks slid down its side as the great beast within moved. The mountain shook again, and for many moments the echoed sound of roars escaped the tunnel entrance.  

A dragon of blue darted out of the tunnel and quickly spread its wings. It took to the sky and flew upward into the storm as the ground shook even more fiercely. Red lights appeared in the depths of the tunnel and then raced for the exit.   

Lightning flashed as red scales that hadn't been seen by the sky in a thousand years passed into the open expanse. Great wing's spread wide and caught the breeze, and with a mighty flap that blasted snow from the ground, the beast took to the air.   

The storm howled in defiance of the beast's presence, but the beast howled back, filling the air with fire and searing the blowing snow into steam.  

The roar that followed echoed for miles as the very heavens took notice, and a voice of power spoke in return.   

“My champion is awake.”