A Battle Waged and Lost

There weren't always dragons in the valley.

Few are alive to remember a time before them — before weapons of war cleaved the mountain in two, and the balance of power shifted away from the humans who broke it. Change didn't come immediately; as most things do, it came gradually.

First, it was the roars of the great beasts as they raged against their destroyed home. Then came the dark shadows shooting overhead, blotting out the sun as their flames claimed whole villages. Only then did their riders appear, taming the beasts and taking the skies for their own, bringing forth a new, far more fearsome threat along with them.

One

Wind howled past as Decimus folded his great wings against his side, driving himself and his rider, Briar, between the narrow passage of snow-tipped mountains. Behind them came the sounds of her Second following in a lethal line. They listed sideways as the passage pressed in, expertly slipping between earth and snow.

Briar bent low, her hands coming around the leather straps that kept her upright. The mountain range shot past them in a familiar blur before they tore free of the winding path, and Decimus' wings burst open. He gave one mighty heave, and they surged upward.

The deafening boom of dragons shooting into open air rocked the forest below, sending a dark mass of birds from the shaken trees.

Behind her, Briar heard the wild scream of adrenaline from Sage, cutting above the rush of wind, followed by the mirrored roar from Adrasteia. No matter how many times they took this route, the thrill of it vibrated through her flight. From here, the world unfolded before them.

As the view of this side of the mountain range opened, Briar leaned forward, driving Decimus closer to the ground. Just like everywhere they looked before, there was no sign of dragon or rider on any of the open plains or otherwise.

"Shouldn't we be able to see the other flight by now?" Sage asked, the tug of her magic leaving a warm burn in the back of Briar's mind.

She cast her eyes over the vast, vacant skies around them before sending her voice back, "they may not have taken off yet; keep an eye below."

The other woman didn't respond, but Briar didn't have to look to know that her Second would be frowning. It was hard to hide a dragon; their sheer size alone could flatten a small village. Finding another flight of them shouldn't be difficult from the skies. Briar urged Decimus onward, his head no longer locked in one position as he scanned the earth beneath them.

Out here there was an unimpeded view of the farmland and open valleys that Lyrcia was known for. The red-gold sky of early sunset cast the world below in deep shadows and set the lakes in glittering blue and gold. Nothing inhibited them from their search as they circled the few valleys large enough to host another flight of dragons and their riders, riding low enough to see through the trees into clearings in the woods.

After their third loop of the same couple valleys, Briar let out an irritated sigh before finally saying, "I don't see them."

"No shit," Sage immediately barked back; the friction of their warring magic sending an involuntary shiver down Briar's spine.

There was no arguing that the other flight wasn't here, and as the sun slipped further beneath the horizon, so too did their chances of finding the missing flight today. They'd been sent out on a routine run, gathering supplies and information, they weren't even the only ones out that day. It wasn't supposed to take long, but three days had passed without word or sight of the flight. Other routine trips had been taken, and not so much as a single dragon or rider had been seen.

"We're landing," Briar ordered, Decimus already slowing their flight and turning towards the nearest open plain.

Grass and dirt were torn up by two sets of talons and the sheer force of their landings. Sage dismounted first, sliding down Adrasteia's wing and landing in a graceful step, followed by a far less graceful cross of her arms. Briar dismounted, jumping from Decimus and stretching out her back from the hours of flight.

"We're losing daylight," Sage said.

"I know,"

"Shouldn't we split up? We'd cover way more ground that way,"

Briar sighed; she'd made the same argument to the elders this morning - but had only been able to bargain for teams of two instead of taking her whole flight as one, "no. The orders were clear when we left. We have an hour of sunlight, let's just take a different route back and see if we catch any sign of them that way."

Sage uncrossed her arms at that, her face scrunching up in something of disgust at the idea, "and go back empty-handed?"

"We don't have any other choice,"

"I can think of plenty." Sage started, and when Briar didn't entertain the idea, she continued anyway, "We could pretend we searched through the night? Set up camp here? Boil ourselves alive? We could even yell at each other instead of going back empty-handed again."

Briar had wrestled with the idea of turning back empty-handed for the last couple of hours. She didn't particularly love the idea either; she just didn't see any other choice. Once they lost daylight, there'd be no finding the dragons or their riders amongst the shadows and forests. Before they'd left, the elders had grown particularly on edge and cagey. Only a week before, a caravan of strangers from beneath the mountains entered their home, demanding to speak to their leaders, only to leave cursing and angry an hour later.

Now an entire flight was missing.

"Get ready to take off; we can't waste any more time," Briar ordered, turning back towards Decimus.

BOOM

The sound cracked through the silence, breaking past the forest and rippling the water of the nearby pond.

BOOM

Both dragons snapped to attention, heads craned upward, eyes glaring beyond the trees.

BOOM

"Briar, that's-" Sage started.

"I know."

BOOM

Briar couldn't tell if she'd spoken the order or thought it, but Sage and Adrasteia were tearing off into the sky, only a beat behind Decimus. The sound thundered from somewhere beyond the woods, and as they lifted higher, the soft edges of the trees were replaced with sharp man-made structures at the furthest reach of Briar's vision.

Smoke and flame billowed from the stone buildings, pouring upward in great plumes of black and grey. Briar leaned forward, nearly standing in her saddle to see beyond Decimus as they raced towards the sound of the village in flames — but it wasn't a village that revealed itself from behind the trees. A graveyard of giant bodies riddled the open valley, command posts and towers lay half caved in and smouldering.

Dragons had fought here; a battle had been waged and lost here.

The horror of it did nothing to distract from the battle still actively unfolding around the corpses of the dead dragons. A large dragon, the largest of the flight, half lay in the field, bound in giant chains - his wings weighted in heavy netting, his mouth bound in thick rope.

How had no one seen this?

The dragon fought, massive tail sweeping towards the advancing soldiers, pulling against the chains in mighty heaves as the soldiers began to take aim at the struggling animal.

It was only then, as a hundred soldiers drew back their weapons, prepared their cannons, and took aim for their target, that Briar realized they weren't trying to take down the dragon. A much smaller form, largely hidden by the dragon's head and legs, stood the rider. All of the soldiers had their attention trained on the woman who stood, half doubled over, staring defiantly back.

She was out of time. Briar had to act.

"Decimus, take their attention," she ordered as she undid herself from the saddle. Without missing a beat, Decimus released a battle cry that rattled the whole valley. He dove, and Briar lept onto his neck as he lowered his gaping jaw over the backline of soldiers.

Instantly, their lines broke. Briar lept from his neck as he took back off skyward, blood and bodies in his teeth as he released another roar towards Adrasteia. Soldiers ran, taking cover in broken battlements and buildings as Briar tore through the battleground on foot. The closer to the woman she got, the thicker the line of soldiers became, standing their ground in a chaotic flurry of bodies. They turned on her as she approached, swords drawn, attention locked. She reached for her own sword, clattering against her hip. Massive talons tore through the reforming lines ahead, and Sage dropped from Adrasteia into the fray.

"Cover me!" Briar called over the battle.

Though she couldn't hear it, she saw Sage scoff before she shouted, "what do you think I'm doing?"

Briar raced onward, through the now clear path towards the struggling dragon. Beside her, the corpse of one of the dragons lay in a pool of inky black blood, covering the grass in a slick layer of it that squelched beneath her boots. For just a moment, Briar dared a glance towards the body.

The rider lay in the grass and mud against her dragon's leg. Her eyes stared empty, milky white towards Briar, but it was her neck that Briar's eyes couldn't look away from. Her throat had been torn open, the wound deep enough that the head had been nearly severed completely. The wound would've killed the rider in only moments.

Yet, the dragon died, half curled as though her final moments were protecting the already cooling body.

Briar kept running.

The other rider was very much still alive but had fallen to her knees at some point during the chaos. Her sunset hair was matted in blood, and her head hung now as her injuries seemed to finally catch up with her body.

Behind them, another roar sounded as heat radiated from the battlefield in a deafening BOOM. The other rider's attention snapped up beyond Briar, but she couldn't make herself look. Not yet.

The ground beneath her feet rumbled, and her footing caught as a large flaming mass landed only feet behind her. She lost contact with the ground for only a second but continued her momentum up and forward. She barely let herself land before she was pushing herself onward and behind the protective cover of the struggling dragon's head — where the rider knelt.

Briar skid to a stop, crouching beside the injured woman, "can you stand?"

The woman breathed, low and shallow, audible before she just nodded.

"Good, conserve your strength; you'll need it."

As Briar stood again, she caught the briefest sound of a choked sob from the rider but didn't hesitate in spite of it. Instead, she took stock of the dragon still bound to the earth. His legs were bound in chains, larger than Briar could ever hope to lift alone, pegged into the ground with massive blocks of metal. It wasn't the chains that kept the dragon bound, though; it was the netting that kept his wings weighted down.

How in the hell did they manage this?

Above them, Decimus and Adrasteia circled, dodging in and out of cannon fire and drawing as much attention off Sage and them as possible. Sage stood within range of the injured dragon's tail, where the soldiers didn't dare get too close. Her gold hair had come loose from her braids, and her shoulders moved in visible gasps of breath. They were outnumbered; they were out weaponed.

"Alright, time to go," Briar muttered to herself. She sent her magic towards Sage, "find out a way to get the cannon fire off Decimus."

"How do you expect me to do that?!" was Sage's immediate answer, but when Briar didn't respond, she just threw her arms off in mock surrender and began scanning the battlefield.

Briar launched herself into motion without a backwards glance, pulling herself up onto the dragon's back as he continued to fight and struggle against his restraints. She clung to the well-weathered straps of the saddle as the beast reared up and nearly slipped right off his side when he all at once stilled. Settled. Antsy and tense, vibrating with adrenaline and fear beneath Briar's hand and knees, but he’d evened out.

A single glance towards the rider told her all she needed to know as the woman stroked her hand gently along her mount's leg — speaking inaudibly.

Adrasteia dipped low, narrowly clipped by another incoming barrage of cannon fire, but gave Sage just enough room to leap into her outstretched claws. Then, in a single sweeping motion, Adrasteia soared skyward again and caught one of the cannons in a swipe of her tail and sent it back towards the catapults. The first one exploded on impact as the flaming ball shot through it and collided at the base of the second, sending it toppling onto its operators behind.

Three remained standing, but the opening was all they needed.

"DECIMUS!" Briar screamed over the chaos, and her dragon immediately tore through the air towards her. Soldiers shouted from the shattered lines as she raced down the back of the trapped dragon towards the netting covering most of his wings.

Decimus dropped lower as Briar began to hack loose whatever she could of the bindings. Her dragon drew closer, talons outstretched as he caught hold of the webs of netting. In one pump of his wings, one violent push upward, Briar was shoved downward by the force of Decimus' ascent — as he tore it clean off the other dragon's wings.

They came free in a clatter of metal and the roar of dislodged dirt.

Instantly, the dragon's wings snapped open. He used the additional force to lift himself to his feet — the stakes already beginning to tear free from the earth. Briar lept from the dragon's back again, landing in a crouch and returning to the rider who was struggling towards her feet.

"You said you could stand; prove it to me," Briar ordered, approaching the other woman and offering her arm.

The injured rider made a sound, something of a laugh, humourless, "I'm standing, aren't I?"

Briar felt herself release an amused breath as the woman shifted her weight over to her, "there you go."

Their window was closing, the remaining soldiers were reforming, and they had to get airborne. Briar hauled herself and the other woman upward towards the dragon's saddle. Above them, Decimus and Adrasteia wreaked havoc. They drew fire as the dragon beneath them began pumping his wings - tugging against his binds. Both riders reached the saddle, and Briar strapped them in as the dragon beneath them pulled the first peg free.

The beast struggled, nearly throwing them off before Briar managed to grab hold of the saddle.

"What's your name?" The rider in front of her asks, leaning heavily forward, eyes already fluttering shut.

The beast tugged the second peg free.

"Briar,"

The woman grunted against the pain as her dragon shook violently again, tugging the final two pegs from the earth in one go, "I'm Wren- thank you for-"

Her dragon launched them skyward, cutting Wren off mid-sentence.

"Thank me when I get us out of here,"