Balur watched as the black dragon was finally taken down in a spectacular display by the Consortium mages. Only the red was left now—a massive brute, seventy yards of knotted muscle, scales so thick that they bore scratches but almost none of the creature’s own black blood. It laid down wave after wave of fire, scorching the fields, leaving swaths of charred corpses.
Balur’s frustration was almost overwhelming. Red fringed his vision. Every time he was almost upon a dragon, was almost on the point of burying his steel in its guts, some other fucker was getting there first. There were just too many people. He had seen the griffin take the brown creature’s eye, and had tried to force his way through the scrum of howling soldiers, but they were simply packed too tight. A few people scrambled over their fellows, but they were small and light. When Balur tried to do it, he just squashed people. Stupid frail people.
“I am being the fucking prophet!” he bellowed. “Be letting me through so I can be wreaking my holy vengeance!” But no one could hear him over the roar of the battle. And so he had struck out toward the nearby yellow dragon, now fighting against the tide of the battle. And just as he had raised the clock hand above his head to hack deeply into her side, she had taken to the skies, and not come down until those cowardly fucking catapults hiding at the back of the battlefield had killed her. He had almost cheered when the green dragon had set them on fire.
And then the green had turned back to the battle. It had turned back toward him. As if it saw him standing there. He had raised his clock hand, pointed between its two eyes.
“Be coming at me, you fucker.” He had whispered it. Words impossible to hear in the clamor and press of the fight. But it had known. He had known it had known. There was no need to push against the crowd now. The fight was coming to him on bright green wings. His moment of glory. The moment that would be written down and passed along in stories for years to come. The battle that parents would tell their children about. The story that would drown him in women.
And then those motherfucking griffins. A gods’ hex on whichever horny, cursed eagle lost to the mists of time had given in to the desire to shove itself inside a lion. And may Betra spit on the memory of that slut whore lion nursing her fucking brood all so that now, centuries later, they could all shit on his dreams.
The green dragon had dropped to the ground dead.
He wasn’t even fucking surprised when the wizards took down the black dragon. Of course they did. Whores, all of them.
And so there was just the red. A titanic beast. The army charged and broke itself against him again, again. Walls of the dead formed around him. He came smashing through them, spraying corpses and flame.
Paltry lightning flashed, but the wizards had spent their power. The red beast shrugged off the attack. The few remaining griffin riders marshaled their steeds and flew at him. He took to the skies, and their corpses fell like so much rain. Spears glanced off him. Arrows lay at his feet, snapped in two.
And finally the human army seemed about to grind to a halt. They had almost nothing left, and what they did have seemed paltry in the face of this titanic beast.
And finally, watching the slaughter, watching the cursed griffins fall, Balur felt the finger of destiny pressing down on him.
This is it, he knew. This is being my moment.
And almost as if one of the gods had reached down from the heavens and pushed them apart, the soldiers opened up a path from Balur to that red dragon.
He put his head down, raised his clock hand, and charged.