A Knight Against the Sky part(II).

The wind on the Ash-Road carried no birdsong. Only soot, silence, and the distant whisper of wings.

Grimold stood at its edge with Ellowyn beside him. Her once-luminous cloak of star-silk hung in tatters, streaked with ash. In her arms, their youngest son, Calen, slept uneasily, whispering Elvish words in his dreams—words that spoke of fire and fleeing and the silver trees that no longer stood.

Their eldest, Talan, walked behind them. The dwarven bow rested across his back, forged in sorrow by Uurnik the Wizard. His eyes—once wide with wonder—were narrow now, guarded. He had seen Eddenbur in flames. He had watched the skies bleed red. Since that day, he had not spoken.

The road before them was blackened and broken. Trees stood like charred sentinels. The bones of livestock and people alike lay scattered beneath soot-draped stones. Ash clung to everything. Even the light seemed weary.

“They passed through here,” Grimold murmured, kneeling to touch a melted horseshoe. “Dragons. Not long ago.”

Ellowyn’s voice was quiet. “They do not pass. They descend. Like judgment.”

He looked up. The sky above was not empty—it never truly was anymore. Even on the quiet days, he could feel the weight of it. The sky pressed down now. Heavy. Watching.

They reached the gates of Ithilion on the seventh day.

The city still stood. Its alabaster towers still shimmered faintly, even beneath the smoke-choked sun. But where once its gates were open in welcome, they now bristled with crossbows and fire-slicked oil.

Refugees huddled along the outer walls, their hands bloodied from knocking, begging, bargaining. Soldiers held the line, gaunt-eyed and grim.

“Halt!” a guard called, raising his spear as Grimold approached. “No one enters Ithilion. Orders from the High Council.”

Grimold didn’t stop. He was limping now, his body stiff with old wounds, but he stood straight and tall. “I bring warning,” he said, his voice worn but clear. “And proof.”

The guard eyed the family, the elf-woman, the boy with the carved bow. His gaze lingered on Grimold’s armor—scarred, scorched, marked with runes and blood. “We have no food for refugees. Go back the way you came.”

“There is no way back,” Ellowyn said. “Only fire.”

Then came another voice. Calm. Steel-edged.

“Let them through.”

A woman stepped from behind the barricades. She was armored in mismatched plate and mail, her cloak singed at the hem. Her face was scarred across the jawline, her eyes sharp and tired.

“I know that name,” she said, walking closer. “Ser Grimold of the Eastern Reaches. The dragonslayer. The exile.”

Grimold nodded once. “And you?”

“Commander Kaelra Durn. Queen’s Watch.” She gestured toward the gate. “Come. We don’t have time for ceremony. Not anymore.”

Within Ithilion, the city trembled.Children cried in the stone chambers below the palace. Smoke curled from the west, where fires danced on the far horizon. The River Ielwen, once bright as moonlight, now ran dark and sluggish—still flowing backward, as it had since the day the Queen vanished.

“She entered the Hall of Voices during the eclipse,” Kaelra explained as they moved through the war room. “And never came out. The King left to seek her in the western reaches. That was two months ago. We’ve had no word since.”

“You think he’s dead,” Grimold said.

“I think he’s lost,” Kaelra replied. “And this city will burn unless someone acts.”

Grimold placed the dragon’s broken fang on the stone table. It shimmered faintly—iridescent, but cracked.

“The dragons don’t rage without reason,” he said. “We broke something. Or perhaps we forgot something we were meant to remember.”

Kaelra stared at the fang. “And you plan to stop them?”

“I don’t know if I can,” Grimold admitted. “But I can stand. I can fight.”

“You’re one man.” “I was one man when I killed a god.” That night, beneath the fractured stars, Ellowyn stood beside Grimold on the city’s outer wall.

“You cannot carry this burden alone,” she said.

“I have no choice,” he replied. She took his hand. “You do. But you keep choosing us. That’s what makes you different from the kings and the prophets. You choose to protect, even when there’s nothing left to win.”

In the darkness above, the sound of wings began to gather. Soft at first. Then louder. Like thunder caught in a bottle.Grimold looked up, his hand tightening on the hilt of his sword.The sky had come for them. And he would meet it, blade drawn—not as a prince, or a prophet, or a hero.

But as a man. A knight against the sky.

End of Part Two