Bruna had left the ashen plains behind him and now struggled through the first barren heights of cold stone. The obsidian splinters that had cutted his skin made room for angry flakes of snow. He didn’t know how long he was stumbling through the ashen plains, but he knew beyond this mountain, the valley would greet him home.

  He grunted deeply and in pain, while he still leaned on the broken door under his shoulder to even walk. Darkscales remains rested like a cloak on his back. She aided him against the obsidian cuts before, and now granted him warmth as fire dwindled behind him. Still the cold made his leg throb more and more in pain. Aru’Gal had struck something important inside it and it wouldn’t listen to him any longer. But he would strike back and he would stop the snake. The man had honour once, at least Bruna had believed it so back when they were but riders. But the snake would defy it all, and sacrifice them all only to gain a strength he believed to lack. Anger mixed with his pain once again and he struggled onward. The mountain was steep and it would become worse the further up he would go. But he had to stop him, had to right his wrong. It was him who had brought him the scroll and started it all. Him who was so loyal to him. Even more than he was to his own family.

  “..I will beat you…” He heard his daughter’s voice in his mind. What prouder end for a father than to be beaten by their own child. He should have stood with her. With Mara and Master Cra’Gal. He could have done more than to break the mines. If he had known what Aru’Gal was doing he would have broken him instead. He wished they would have told him. That she would have told him, yet he wasn’t there. He never had been. Even over the years it was only months that he truly had spent with his daughter. The rest was spent in raids for the Khan. For Aru’Gal and the Riders. It was all wrong and there would be nothing to undo the time that had been robbed from him. He had tried to blame his sister. For both taking Kara with her, and because it was her axe that had struck his child. Yet the more time had passed since he burned her corpse, the more the weight of blame was casted back on him.

  He had deflected that axe down where she stood, and he wasn’t there to give his daughter another option. Another path. She could have been a rider, a huntress, a smith, a shaman, a herder or even a fisher like her mother. But more than anything, she could have been alive. She could have grown up and become an adult. And he could have been there with her until she was leading a family of her own.

  But it was not meant to be and now the only thing he could do was to stop Aru’Gal from taking even more.

  He stopped next to a boulder. One hand was resting on it, the other remained with the door below his shoulder. The stone was cold and the winds harsher the more he came up the mountains. Beyond them he heard thunder echoing through the sky and he knew the battle for ascension was at hand.

  Bruna’s eyes were tired. All of his being wanted to rest. His leg, his heart and his mind. They all wanted nothing but to lay down and rest. To join his daughter in the last of all battles and to finally be with her. If she would allow him.

  He remembered her whisper among the ashes at the mesa. And he smiled knowing that she was among the spirits. Among the ancestors. With her mother, and her grandfather, and soon, Bruna knew, with him.

  Just as the thought passed his mind he heard a deep voice singing beyond the mountain. It was the Dragon. He had heard it echo before when he was still crossing the ashen plains, but now the closer he came to the valley the clearler he could tell, it was a melody. Deep and angry, full of spite and true to its forgotten name.

  The winds howled to answer its call. Parts of it in allegiance, parts in pain. It was different to sorcery, closer to the feeling a shaman’s song would hold, yet half of the elements were rebelling against it. He heard a rumble to the south and turned over his shoulder. Once his eye’s caught what it made they widened. The ashen dunes were rising. Obsidian spires that crossed the grey desert were closing like a claw and the ashes of their ancestors were gathering with the wind and answered the dragon’s call.

  Bruna huffed in panic. Not because the beast was shaping the land, like it did so many generations ago. Not because the ashen wind was coming his way. But because he knew whatever the beast was doing was against their will.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  His panic became fury and finally hatred as he glared back up the mountain. “My daughter…!” he roared as if the beast could hear or care.

  Quickly he stumbled on yet with haste came mistakes and the door cracked under his weight. His roar became of pain and he fell on his belly. The cold stone beneath him.

  His eyes became weary once more as he glanced over his shoulder to the south where the desert was rising at the dragon's commands. Their ashes, their ancestors, their legacy. To be used by that of all beasts. “No..” he uttered as it became a grey storm that circled through the skies and towards the battle beyond the mountains. The last easing bit of hope he still had for his daughter, robbed before his eyes. His panic came to tears and he roared louder. Using his arms he tried to crawl on and up the mountain. His mind wouldn’t allow him to think how much his efforts were in vain. It only clung to Kara. He was already at fault letting her die, he wouldn’t see her rest be teinted. Not by the beast, nor by the Khan, not by the stars and the deep or anything. He would push onwards. He had to. Had to save her, had to make sure that for once she was protected. This time he would be a father and this time he would be there, this time he would protect her.

  As he groaned and crawled onwards the storm of ashes dashed past him. It painted the snow above black and held him down by its sheer weight. Its sound was less like wind and more like screams. The dead were forced against their will, taken from the one battle they all craved for, and taken to another. For but a second it felt like he could feel their touch. Kara and her mother. His father and all the warriors that had died next to him. They clung to hope, clung to him of all orcs to save them.

  “I fell alone…” a deep voice, similar to his own, echoed through the wind. It rang with sorrow and command and Bruna knew it well. “Don’t…” his fathers voice finished and was dragged away with the rest of the dead.

  “Save her…” a female voice whispered next. He had forgotten the sound of it. It was Reva. Little Kara’s mother. The voice formed more words but was taken with the storm again.

  He expected his daughter next. Yet there were no more whispers. Only screams. Tears of anger and desperation ran over his cheeks to his grinding teeth. His face was of anger. To the Dragon, to himself. To all that had happened and more than anything to the thought that told him he couldn’t stop it.

  While the winds screamed, so did Bruna as he tried to stand on his wounded leg. But it was of no use. Alone and in pain he remained on the mountain that was blackened by the ash. Unable to move or save them. His tears of fury were taken along with the wind just like his voice was taken by their screams.

  Finally the earth rumbled as something crashed into the ground behind him. It spread its wings and protected him from the ash for a moment as small hands were taking him up.

  Sha’Raph and the creature Sir Raimond dragged him onto Dustfang and into the grand hollowed scale. As he was set down Sha’Raph quickly took the reins once more while the old knight started to take a look at his leg.

  Bruna huffed and look at Sir Raimond with distrust and concern. “Can it heal?” He asked Sha’Raph rather coldly.

  “He is no shaman but he knows well enough!” She answered over her back, her voice muffled by her mask once more. And her face protected against the ashen storm by it.

  Raimond and Bruna sat in the big scale and Bruna stared the human down for a moment. The creature asked Sha’Raph something in its strange and soft tongue. Bruna didn’t need to hear it. Instead he removed his obsidian boot with pain and the armour above it.

  Sir Raimond looked at him and nodded. Bruna nodded back and the old knight started to take a closer look at the wound. He took a bottle from his belt that stank like poison.

  Bruna didn’t care and shouted forward to Sha’Raph. “We need to stop it!”

  “We must.” She agreed in her cold voice. While Dustfang dashed across the mountains with the storm she looked over her shoulder and to the south. Her home, was being taken. The Ashen Dunes drained for the sky.

  Before the orc they called the beast could say anything more the old knight had dropped parts of his bottle onto the wound. Bruna hissed in pain and anger yet fought the urge to punch the human.

  Instead he snarled and nodded. “We will!” He declared while Dustfang followed the storm of ash until they reached the mountain's peak. The dragons song became louder and clearler yet it was broken again and again by lightning and roars.

  “Its still fighting..” Bruna uttered while sir Raimond started to take a needle and the thinnest thread Bruna had ever seen from his belt.

  “It is…” Sha’Raph answered as cold as ever while her gaze went forward again.

  “Are the Riders in the Valley already or..” He stopped to speak as he realised himself. Of course there was one to fight the Dragon. He had seen them both flying from Karn’Arak.

  She remained silent and Sir Raimond continued to close Bruna’s wound.

  “Aru’Gal..” Bruna uttered in anger.