In Eternal Flight (Part One) - The Elven Queen

Calienth stalked the vaulted halls of the fortress, sword bouncing against his hip in rhythm with his thoughts. The damn wyvern multiplied like rats in the deep caves of the Dreadlake mountains. What was to be done about this plague of dragonkin?

The elf gripped the sword's pommel to stop the incessant rhythm of its bounce, pausing a moment before the gilded doors of the queen's throne room. How were the cursed drakes emerging in such numbers after a thousand years of peace?

The doors swung open and an empyreal silvery light spilt in languid tendrils from around the portal. Calienth strode calmly through the mists of truth; a true lord of these lands held no hate in his heart for the immortal root.

The queen sat on a platinum throne, interlaced with gold scenes of the immortal tree and the eagles of dawn in flight. Her eyes twinkled like diamonds glittering from the depths of the Aneaian sea, ruby lips flushed with blood in the dawn light as her gown of obsidian gilt with silver seemed to pour from her like star-flecked midnight.

Calienth approached the throne and swept into a bow followed by a drop to one knee as was the custom.

Her pale hands beckoned him to his feet. The queen raised an imperious eyebrow. "Why do you seek an audience at such an early hour lord Edlenwing?"

Calienth shuffled his feet, unsure of her reaction to his news. The fire drawn from the immortal root was known to be volatile. "Fifty wyverns were seen flying in formation above Caron's peak yesterday at sunset my queen." He lowered his gaze as he spoke.

His head snapped back up as the queen flicked her fingers "it is your province to deal with these pests Calienth, or am I mistaken?"

Sweat beaded the elf's brow as he clenched his teeth against the compulsion to simply agree with his queen. Tendrils of ethereal light flowed all around him, seeming to penetrate even his skin with their icy caress. "With all respect my queen, this is the first time we have ever seen them fly in unison, and..."

"Not true" She snapped, cutting him off "in the annals of the great tempering, only four millennia past, dragonkin were seen to fly in formation and the warriors of my father's reign dealt with them swiftly, and these were no wyvern but true dragons. I remember it well, I was a girl of forty summers at the time."

"I have read the sagas, my queen."

Suddenly her voice softened and the tendrils of the eternal root ceased their play around Calienth. The queen stared deep into the elf lord's eyes as a brittle smile played about her lips. She sighed deeply "I know what you would say Lord Edlenwing, it is my curse and protection to embody the eternal root's magic."

Calienth nodded echoing the queen's sigh.

"In my father's time, the skies beat with the grey wings of Wosthawk and the flash of silver lances, so dense that the sky shone and the clouds were obscured." She nodded at Calienth to continue his train of thought, that same smile dancing across her chiselled features.

"In the time of the great tempering, the kingdom held fifty Phalanx of Windriders my queen. Now we have seven full Phalanx flying, barely two thousand able to fight, compared to tens of thousands in your father's reign."

"All of this is known to me Lord Edlenwing and as much as I enjoy the distraction of our verbal sparring, it seems there is nothing new with our hopeless situation?"

Calienth Edlenwing strode a few steps closer to the throne, chin held high, eyes firm, despite the sudden advance of the light of the eternal root, "I believe there is new hope my queen."

The queen leant forward on her throne, eyes like ice, as silver light blazed through her, fountaining toward the vaulted ceiling.

"One of my riders spotted a great drake, a true dragon... my queen. He stuttered his last words in fear of the rising wrath of the divine light of the eternal root."

The queen's eyes narrowed and the fire of the light diminished. "A Broodworm?" she mused. "One dragon alone can spawn only wyvern."

The breeze tickled the grass of the downland as Aerthinth pulled the hood from his Wosthawk companion’s head, leaping to the ground in one fluid movement.

Golden eyes flashed in the moonlight as ghostly trails of mist-kissed daisies and crocuses in the gloaming of the witching hour. Summer exhaled pollen-laden whispers, singing a lullaby to the departed spring.

“What do you see through those peregrine eyes?” Aerthinth stared deep into the flashing eyes as the Wosthawk bobbed its head, hopping from one giant leg to the other, rocking the cart on its wheels with each movement.

He thought he caught a brief glimpse of a smile in the golden depths before the Wosthawk twitched its head, leaving only mad hawk eyes full of lust for blood and tearing flesh.

Giant wings beat a sudden hurricane, whipping Aerthinth’s silver hair about him. He leapt to the great raptor's back, deftly flicking his hair into a band as he landed atop the feathered behemoth.

Rabbits scurried for burrows, fox slunk beneath scrub and the great bison quivered as a keening screech burst forth from the Wosthawk’s beak. Aerthinth clung tight to the saddle’s leather as the ground fell away in a spinning kaleidoscope of emerald grass and the purple welts of heather.