THE GENERAL'S DISGRACED HEIR

steam rose from the volcanic drake's nostrils like incense from a war god's altar, each breath turning the frigid air into a localized storm of heat and moisture. Svara's boots found purchase on ground that shifted between permafrost and slush with each passing second, the earth itself unable to decide whether it should freeze or melt under the creature's influence.

"Bastard's tougher than desert stone," Svara muttered, rolling beneath a tail swipe that would have shattered his ribs like kindling. The massive appendage whistled overhead, close enough that he felt the scorching wind of its passage. His tribal tattoos pulsed with inner fire, the ancient markings responding to his battle fury as if they were alive.

The Masaai warrior came up from his roll in a crouch, axe already moving in a wide arc toward the drake's foreleg. The weapon's edge rang against volcanic scales like a hammer striking an anvil, chipping away fragments that hissed and sparked as they hit the snow. Where they landed, small craters of melted earth appeared, steam rising like miniature geysers.

Third strike to the same spot, Svara calculated with the cold precision that had kept him alive through a hundred battles. Scales are weakening. Two more hits and I'll reach flesh.

The drake's massive head swiveled toward him with serpentine grace, eyes like molten amber fixed on its prey. Its maw opened wide, revealing a furnace-like throat where saliva dripped like liquid metal from fangs the size of short swords. The creature's internal heat painted everything around it in shades of orange and red, turning the winter battlefield into something from a fever dream.

Svara raised his axe just as the beast lunged, the weapon's handle smoking from the intense radiant heat. The impact drove him to one knee, muscles straining against the creature's overwhelming mass and strength. Through gritted teeth, he whispered the old words his grandfather had taught him, feeling the earth respond to his call.

Stone and frozen soil rippled beneath his feet, providing the leverage he needed to twist away from the drake's follow-up bite. The creature's jaws snapped shut on empty air with the sound of a collapsing building.

In the distance, the drumbeat of hoofbeats grew louder.

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Captain Dubal urged his mount through snow that came up to the horse's belly, his weathered face grim with the knowledge that they might already be too late. Behind him, twenty of his best cavalry struggled to match his pace, their mounts' breath forming clouds in the frigid air as they strained against the difficult terrain.

Trees shook from the pounding of their passage, snow cascading from pine boughs like a premature avalanche. The captain's trained eye took in the distant battle, flashes of fire and steam, the occasional glimpse of Svara's axe catching winter sunlight as it carved through the air.

Above them all, a golden comet streaked through the sky.

Amilia moved through the air with ethereal grace, her crown-like headpiece gleaming as she channeled flight magic that left trails of light in her wake. Her massive ornate staff, easily as tall as she was and crowned with a crystal that pulsed with inner radiance, served as both focus and anchor for her power.

Her enhanced perception, gift of her battle-saint training, let her see what the cavalry could not. Svara was tiring. Each dodge came a fraction slower than the last, each strike carried slightly less force. The volcanic drake, wounded but far from defeated, pressed its advantage with the patience of a predator that knew its prey was weakening.

"Faster!" she called down to the struggling cavalry, her voice carrying over wind and distance with supernatural clarity. "He cannot hold that beast alone!"

What she didn't say, what tactical awareness whispered in the back of her mind, was that Svara's exhaustion might not be entirely natural. Something about this drake's behaviour felt wrong, too coordinated, too intelligent. As if it knew exactly how to pace the fight to drain its opponent.

No time for paranoia, she decided, diving toward the battle. Analysis comes after survival.

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Svara's world had narrowed to a sphere of superheated air roughly ten feet in diameter. Beyond that sphere lay tactical possibilities, retreat routes, advantageous terrain, and environmental weapons. Within it lay only death, dispensed by claws that could carve stone and teeth that could crush steel plate.

He feinted left, then spun right as the drake's claws raked through the space where his torso had been. The creature's follow-up bite caught only the edge of his leather vest, tearing away a strip that ignited before it hit the ground.

Pattern recognition, his mind catalogued even as his body moved on pure instinct. The beast leads with its right claw seventy percent of the time. Favors overhead strikes when opponents are off-balance. Vulnerable during the half-second recovery after missed bites.

The drake's massive head snaked forward again, jaws gaping wide. This time, Svara was ready. Instead of dodging, he stepped into the attack, bringing his axe up in a rising cut that caught the creature just below its left eye. Scale parted, then flesh, spraying ichor that steamed when it hit the snow.

The beast reared back with a roar that shook icicles from nearby trees, momentarily stunned by the unexpected pain. Svara grinned fiercely, already moving to capitalize on the opening.

Then the drake did something that turned his blood to ice water.

It smiled.

Not the instinctive baring of fangs common to wounded predators, but a deliberate expression of amusement. As if this entire battle had been a game, and Svara had just played exactly into its claws.

The creature's throat began to glow with ominous inner light, heat building to levels that made the air itself shimmer. Svara realized with growing horror that everything up to this point had been the drake testing him, learning his patterns, his reflexes, his limitations.

Now it was done playing.

"Think I'll just stand here and take it?" Svara snarled, tensing to leap clear of the coming inferno.

A voice like silver bells cut through the air: "Svara, you fucking fool!"