Douglas Niles: The Dragons

The crimson female loped forward on increasingly sturdy legs, circling a great pile of wriggling bodies and leaking, colorful shells. Chromatic dragons slithered over each other, while more sticky wyrmlings emerged in the midst of the massive bones that framed the nest. A low hissing rose from that tangled thatch, and it pleased Crematia to know that she listened to the hunger of many frantic nestmates.

Dozens of little forms wriggled from the tangle of bones and webbing, dropping to the ground, trying to shake the muck of their birthing away. Serpents of black and green, white and blue-and a few more of red-crept forth, killing and devouring the furry creatures when they could, snapping at nestmates who dared venture too close.

Slow-witted prey moved with desperate, waddling steps away from the deadly wyrmlings, but the creatures were unable to escape the vicinity of the nest. With the initial frenzy of starvation past, many of the serpents had, like Crematia, discovered the pleasure of torture, of a slow and leisurely kill. The survivors tried to get away but were trapped by a void of space, a precipice on all sides of the nest. Shrieks and wails echoed, drowning out the dull hissing of emerging wyrmlings.

Crematia bulled forward, head high, chest outthrust, and everywhere her siblings gave way, forked tongues flickering along the ground before the red dragon’s feet. The illumination she had earlier observed now flared anew, rising higher and faster and brighter than ever, and the red wyrmling-followed by the creeping pack of her fellow nestlings-prowled closer. Her hunger sated, she sought to satisfy her curiosity.

The tongues of fire resolved themselves into individual dancing pillars. Each was huge, rising from a chasm that Crematia perceived as a gulf completely encircling the lofty pillar supporting the nest. It was that same chasm that trapped the teeming pack of the hatchlings’ prey, holding the creatures together with their lethal hunters atop the spire. The flames leapt from the bottomless gulf surrounding the nest, soaring high into the air and shedding blistering heat across the newborn dragons.

Crematia sensed a white sibling blinking, cowering away from the heat, and a sense of superiority curled her leathery lip into a sneer. The heat was a welcome embrace to her, and it was strange to contemplate that to this pale, colorless dragon, it seemed to be a discomfort.

But now her eyes began to focus on images even beyond those lofty flames. She saw a dark landscape, scarred by peak and chasm, stretching into the smoky distance beneath a lightless sky. In places, flares leapt upward from an abyssal crevasse, or streams of liquid fire flowed and spilled and gathered into bubbling, hellish lakes. This was a vast expanse, and immediately Crematia wanted to see it all, to fly over it, to claim the entire realm as her own!

A form took shape in the near distance, just beyond the circle of fire, and the scarlet serpent felt an awakening of new emotions-awe and fear. A massive, serpentine image writhed there, looming ever higher into the air, growing more distinct and omnipresent as vaporous tendrils of flesh came together, solidifying. The writhing pillars separated, twisting into supple sections.

As the shape surged higher and closer, the wyrmling saw monstrous heads illuminated by the fire. Four… no, five great necks rose, each supporting a crocodilian head. The body below these heads was lost in the darkness of the chasm, but even so, the shadowy shape rivaled some of the distant mountains in size.

Already Crematia perceived that the central, the mightiest of these visages was as pure a red as her own crimson scales. This awareness puffed out her chest with another dose of pride, and she lifted her head arrogantly above the huddled mass of her fellow hatchlings.

“Welcome, my wyrmlings… my children,” came the whispered, rasping voice emerging from the scarlet jaws. “It pleases me to see you kill-to learn the rapture of bloodletting, and of terribly lethal might.”

A green head beside the mighty red lowered, eyes blinking lazily as it regarded an emerald-colored wyrmling, the newt Crematia had mangled in the pursuit of her prey.

“Weakness will not be tolerated.” The words dripped like venom from the crimson jaws while the green dragon head licked forward, the tongue hissing a soft sound.

Immediately the crippled wyrmling uttered a yelp of pain, thrashing through a circle as its jaws snapped, claws swiped at an unseen enemy. Abruptly it froze, trembling, the tiny mouth gaping soundlessly, frothing with bubbles. The little dragon shrieked for a long moment until it vanished in an explosive shower of scales, flesh, and bones.

“Mercy is weakness-and weakness is death!” hissed the green head.

The wedge-shaped image of crimson drifted lower, leathery lids drooping lazily over the hot embers of twin eyes. Yet Crematia sensed that there was nothing sleepy, nothing but keen alertness, in the deceptively casual inspection. When the cruel jaws parted again, when more words rasped out, the red wyrmling tensed, as if the mighty being’s speech was directed at her alone.

“You must never show mercy! Remember this, my wyrmlings: Mercy is weakness, and weakness is death!”

“Mercy is weakness, and weakness is death!” The echoes came in harsh whispers as a hundred vibrant wyrmlings, profoundly moved, repeated the words of their mistress.

Again came the rumbled lesson, and Crematia shivered to a thrill of learning. It was a teaching that she knew she would never forget.

“Remember, my children… be strong!” hissed the crimson jaws. “For in strength shall you gain mastery, and in mastery shall come your vengeance!”

Crematia’s mind flared at the thought of vengeance. She knew intuitively that it was a goal worth one’s whole being, one’s very life.

“I am your mother and your queen,” continued the soft but forceful voice. “My will is your command; my pleasure gives reason to your lives. And my whim is instant death.”

Abruptly the blue head darted toward a pair of white wyrmlings who twitched restlessly at the fringe of the pack. Mighty jaws gaped, and in an explosion of brightness, a crackling bolt of energy shot from the dragon’s mouth, sizzling into the distracted newborns, spattering them into a drifting haze of white scales.

“You must be ruthless-always!” The voice dropped to a soft, almost gentle whisper, but there was no wyrmling who did not grant the queen full attention.

“When you go forth into the world, your task will be to find your strongest enemy and kill him. When that foe is slain, you shall again find your strongest enemy and kill him. For every enemy that you slay, another will appear-and that one, in turn, must die.”

The monstrous head inhaled, a measured drawing of breath that roared like a cyclone. After a long pause, the crimson jaws spoke again. “This shall be the course of your lives, my wyrmlings… knowing your foes, finding them, and bringing about their utter destruction.”

“I will find my enemy and kill him,” Crematia murmured, a sense of destiny growing within her, seething and boiling into instinctive hatred, a fury that would provide passion and purpose to her life.

All of the monstrous heads swung back and forth, five pairs of fiery eyes glittering with ambition and cruelty. Crematia shivered with joy at the power she beheld there. Once more the red dragon head rose above the others, fixing its penetrating gaze on the wyrmlings of the same color.

“Your father was Furyion, mightiest of my sons,” rumbled the Queen of Darkness, and Crematia knew the words were meant for her and her crimson siblings. “He was tricked by the cunning of a gold dragon, lured to his death by the one known as Aurora. And though he claimed Aurora’s life with his last act, there will come to be children of the metal dragons.