...Royal Library of Tzintamia…

Archos paced the library and his sharp claws clacked on the smooth stone beneath his taloned feet. His black scales were polished to a shine that glinted against the light which streamed through the great high windows as he went up and down the rows of books. The world beyond those pages ceased to be, absorbed as he was in reading from the one held in his talons. His tail swung low behind him, the thick round bone at the end tapped rhythmically in time with his steps. That hypnotic rhythm might as well have been the only sound in the world for all Archos knew. He was so deep into the ink that he didn’t even notice as his friend approached. Not until Tascarus, who moved himself to the opposite side of the bookshelf on the left, pushed a book off the shelf and it landed squarely on Archos’ head.

It fell open, covering the red eyes of Archos, and leaving him briefly all but blind as the papers held his vision at bay. He picked up the text gingerly, almost going back to his reading before another came falling down. This one he caught with his free hand and snapped it shut with a firm clap.

“Come on out, I know it’s you Tascarus.” Archos said with a low laugh of amusement, his razor teeth might have intimidated prey, but from one dragon to another it represented only that the joke had been considered especially funny.

“I’ve never known another dragon as fond of pranks as you, my Prince.” Archos remarked with a roll of his red eyes, a roll that was matched by the black eyes of his white scaled charge.

“And I’ve never known a dragon to be as fond of reading as you, it would seem we’re both oddities of a sort.” Tascarus replied with a wry and friendly tone of voice. “What were you reading anyway?” He asked.

“Nothing special, I took an interest in mining is all.” Archos said in passing, marking his page in the book and closing it.

“Mining? Building? Magic? What don’t you read?” Tascarus asked, half annoyed and half proud.

“A room.” Archos said, and winked as Tascarus moved to catch his eye, only laughing himself when he was sure that Archos was teasing.

Tascarus laughed, “Fair enough, but come on, I was hoping to get some practice in today.”

“To the training grounds then?” Archos guessed.

“No, first we go to my quarters to retrieve something special, then to the throne room to be seen with it, then to the training grounds to use what we’re getting. I’m to get a chance to practice with ‘it’.” Tascarus was clearly happy, but it took Archos a moment to understand why as his friend and commander kept his statement vague and his tone tantalizingly full of mystery..

When he did as they left the large open room, his eyes went wide. “You’re getting the royal blade?”

“Not just ‘getting’, father already had it delivered privately to my quarters, it’s mine, confirmation absolute that I am the heir to the throne.” Tascarus said happily.

“Your brother won’t like that, nor will… well most of the nobles.” Archos cautioned.

“What does it matter? Once I’m seen carrying it, there’s nothing they can do anyway, and when the official announcement takes place at the end of the week, well, by then it’s all over.” Tascarus said with a kind of smug satisfaction.

“Agamem isn’t to be underestimated you know, just because he’s younger, doesn’t mean he’s stupid.” Archos cautioned as they went down the hall towards the stairs.

“I don’t think my younger brother is stupid, he’s just not fit for the crown and most people know it.” Tascarus said gently.

“Well he disagrees with both you ‘and’ most people, so you’d better make peace with him soon, and the other nobles too.” Archos suggested.

“I’d better?” Tascarus said bluntly, “That is not how one talks to a prince bound toward kingship.”

Archos shrugged, “It is how one good friend talks to another when he thinks the one he cares about is making a mistake.” His voice was even, but it carried with it an undertone of mild rebuke.

Tascarus took the hint and sighed heavily, “I know, I know, I’ll invite my brother to join me on a hunt tomorrow, alone perhaps we can… talk, come to terms, we were close once, and I don’t want to see this tear us further apart than it already has.”

Archos didn’t have much to say to such a heavy, loaded statement, so they walked in silence up the stairs and then down the hall towards the prince’s room. When they entered the great wide door, Archos’s eyes immediately fell to the sword. It was a long, beautiful blade forged out of a rare blue mineral and heavily enchanted by bathing in the blood of countless royals on their ascension to the throne. The serrated teeth were shaped like those inside a dragon’s maw and when used, ripped through scales and flesh like a stone cast into still waters. Countless victims had bathed it in the mystic energies of their stolen lives.

Such was the treasure of the royal line. The tip was said to be able to pierce through solid stone, and though Archos felt doubt about that, for anyone with magical talent, even a modicum of it, the thing all but glowed with power.

“Beautiful.” Archos commented admiringly, “I’ve never been this close to it.” He said in his deep, heavy voice.

Tascarus let his mouth fall open again in a chuckle, “Well, get used to seeing it at my side, my friend.” He said confidently. He might have said something more, but he froze, so did Archos, there was a noise, then noises aplenty, loud ones, coming from out in the hall.

“Something’s wrong.” Archos said as he went for his blade, though it was nothing that a prince might bear, it was nonetheless among the best equipment the Tzintamian nation could create.

Tascarus drew out the royal blade and the two took up a position side by side. “My prince,” Archos said quietly, “You should make a break for it, looking after you is my job.”

“No, I heard my brother’s voice out there.” He said gravely. Cries of pain pierced the air. Unease settled over the two.

“Damn it.” Archos cursed, but if he had more to say, Tascarus never heard it, several large dragons in full armor filled the entrance, but behind them, they saw Agamem.

“Agamem… what is the meaning of this?” Tascarus asked angrily, “What is going on?”

“Brother, brother, brother, this is why I should have been named the heir and not you, because ‘I’ unlike you, would never have needed to ask that question if our positions were reversed. The meaning is that father is dead, which means you are too.” Agamem’s voice was confident and calculating, and it made the bright black eyes of Tascarus light with fury.

“You killed father?!” He exclaimed in shock.

Agamem looked offended. “No, certainly not, he died by accident, very publicly too, I didn’t have anything to do with it, that much I can promise you, and you can believe me, because I have no reason to lie, since you’re not leaving here alive. I just got word of his death and saw it as the opportunity it was. If ‘you’ die now, before his death is widely known, there won’t be any questionable issues of loyalty clouding the matter of who gets to rule, I’m the last heir, and that is that. Even if anyone ever suspects anything, nobody will start a war over something they can’t change.” Agamem spread his arms out with talons up, almost as if to embrace the brother he was going to slay.

“You’d really kill me? I’m your brother, damn it! That chair is worth more to you than I am?!” Tascarus looked outraged and wounded, his talons tensed as he held his sword out at length in front of his body.

“Well if it means anything, it isn’t personal, I mean I don’t like you much, but that isn’t the problem. Your rule would be a disaster, mine will not be, the kingdom comes first, even before the kin who rule it.” Agamem said in a voice that hinted at some regret.

“Well, there’s nothing left to say then, let’s do this.” Tascarus said grimly.

“Thought you’d never say it!” Archos snarled and jumped forward, thrusting his blade into the shocked open mouth of one of the armored dragons, negating the advantage of his armor. In other conditions, that one might have been one of his own, but as the bodyguard of the prince, he had loyalty to only one, Tascarus was beside him in double trust, as a brother in arms, as well as the charge of Archos, who was sworn to fight for the life of the prince over all others. In such a light, putting a blade into the maw of a countryman meant nothing, and he did so with aggressive enthusiasm.

The pair was still outnumbered by more than eight to one, excluding Agamem himself, too, the attackers were in full armor. However, Prince Tascarus and his bodyguard chose to take the offensive and drew first blood. The might of the royal blade proved its worth far beyond mere numbers, and the confined space of the doorway limited how many could come forward at once. Both the prince and his bodyguard were experienced enough on campaigns against their neighboring countries to know that being outflanked would be a death sentence, and so they did their damndest to drive the armored dragons backwards away from the interior of Prince Tascarus’s room.

The element of surprise had a very short shelf life. However, it lasted the few sword swings and talon swipes it needed to in order to shut the doors of the room.

“You can’t last in there forever. We’ll break the door down! Come out and we’ll make it quick! I promise you that much, brother!” Agamem demanded through the door. His voice was savage and they could hear his talons scrape on the wall beyond as rage overtook him. The scraping became pounding as his drew his talons into a fist and began to pound beyond them. "Come OUT!" He shouted when fury caught fire in his soul.

Archos looked the door over, it was thick, heavy wood, even for dragons, it would take time to break down, not a lot of time, but time. Time enough for rescue, time enough to escape, time enough to do ‘something’.

“My prince?” Archos asked as he looked around the room for anything they could use. “Do you have any ideas?”

“Yes, get out of here. Take my sword and run.” Prince Tascarus grunted in a voice that revealed a great deal of pain.

Archos turned to face his prince in surprise, and saw a deep gash in the torso of the prince, his pure white scales were stained with a deep and flowing red, on the other side of the door the pair could hear clawing, cutting, and pounding. “I could use a poultice, maybe then…” Archos said and began to reach for the pack at his side.

“No time, the wound is deep and even if it worked, they won’t give us time, I’m dead, save your medicine for yourself.” Tascarus said, shaking with pain as he spoke.

Tascarus staggered as his life’s blood pumped out onto the stone floor of his bedroom, he thrust the tip of his sword into the stone and used the symbol of kingship as a cane to hold himself on his feet. He grasped the wound with his free talon, “Gah this hurts! Lucky strike.” He gasped out and his jaw fell open as he looked to his bodyguard.

“Listen to me, you and I have been in a few scrapes, we both know this is fatal without magic to heal it, and we both know that no magic help is going to come before I die, you’ve got to get out of here, take the sword with you, they may have my life, but damn it, they will not have a total victory. I’ll deny them this much. With any luck, the loss of such a sacred symbol will end up undoing my brother and I’ll get the last laugh from the mountains of the beyond.”

Archos grabbed the prince and began to draw him from the door and sat him against the back wall, the long sharp tail of the prince thrashed on the floor beside his body as the pain shot through him. “No, listen if you can hold on, some help…” Archos began to say and the prince shook his head violently.

“Won’t get here in time,” he cut his bodyguard off. “This is it,” Tascarus said with uncharacteristic resignation.

“But…” Archos started to say, setting his sword aside as he tried to staunch the flow of blood from the deep wound.

“I know one of my warriors got you!” Agamem’s voice came through the door, “Just give in, and I’ll let your bodyguard go and live in exile.” His snarling voice was heavily laced with gloating, his smug look was apparent to the two even though it was blocked by the thumping door.

“Go to hell!” Tascarus shouted.

“He won’t let me go, he can’t.” Archos said with certainty.

“No, he can’t and he won’t. Listen, there is a way out, don’t waste my earslits with lines about dying with me or the power of our bond as friends and fellow warriors, you know as well as I do that such things only lead to victory in children’s stories. Just take the sword, my field kit, then go, and you’ll earn one victory over that treacherous bastard brother of mine.” Tascarus gasped out emphatically as his red blood stained the black scales of his friend and bodyguard.

He managed to reach out and touch the single white scale in the sea of black on Archos’s body, that one white scale on his chest tied him irrefutably, if distantly, to the royal family’s line. “You’re a minor noble, there’s no shame to be had for us in you carrying that sword. Consider saving your own life to be my last order to you. Now go into the water closet, there’s a stone that sticks out a little, press it, the back will swing open and lead to a passage outside. I can probably buy you a few minutes…” He coughed and hacked up blood, “OK, maybe not. Maybe a few seconds, but it will take them time to find how you got out and where it took you, get far from the city.” Tascarus forced himself to stand up, using the shoulder of his companion to help him rise one last time.

“Now go.” He said, and thrust his sword into Archos’s talons, taking the blade of his bodyguard in its stead.

Archos nodded, “I’ll never forget you, My Prince.” He said and rushed into the water closet, knowing what to look for, it was easy enough to find, and just as promised, a wall swung open and revealed a staircase that spiralled down. He snatched up the field kit that hung on the wall and threw it over his back, then took to the stairs as the wall closed, snicking shut behind him. He ran down as fast as he could, in the distance behind him he could hear the breaking of wood and the shouts of Prince Tascarus as he made one more fateful charge alone against the multitude of traitors.

Down Archos went, all the way to their base, and found himself facing another stone wall, he pushed it open and found himself in the enormous sewers beneath the city, the corners of his maw went back in a smile at the cleverness of whoever built this system, at a guess most royal rooms had some form of escape known only to the occupant, in order to limit the efficacy of internal strife.

He rushed along for what felt like forever, hearing no signs of pursuit, with occasional streams of light poured into the sewer system from the grates at street level, but with his vision he didn’t need even that much. Still it was a relief when night began to fall, as he would have fewer witnesses to his path of escape. When he reached the outskirts of the city, he found himself near the great river that cut through the capital city. He sheathed the royal sword to the scabbard on his back and jumped in with an enormous splash.

The cool water washed over his body, removing all evidence of the blood of his Prince from off his scales. The red royal blood drifted away into the running waters, a long string from him to some place he could not see until it dissipated into the river so completely that it was impossible to tell it was ever there. Archos felt a swell of sadness as he noticed that, Tascarus had not been a perfect dragon, but he’d been brave, loyal to his own, and he’d died a warrior’s death.

There was still no sign of pursuit, so he took that time to enjoy a rest, allowing the water to carry him along and only undulating his tail back and forth to help guide his body, the large ball of bone at the end, so unlike that sharp tip of the prince, did not help him with this, but it wasn’t truly necessary.

In the sky the three moons were aligned almost perfectly, they were full ones, it was a beautiful sight to behold. Finally he got to his destination. Ancestor lake, where countless ashes had ended up over the years as dragons who had been rendered unto ash had been washed after being poured into the River of Sorrow where he’d been floating. He began to swim in earnest, Skytear mountain thrust up from the center of the lake, it was the largest mountain in the country, perhaps the largest on the continent or even the world. It was also strictly forbidden.

As he reached the base of the mountain, he laughed a little. “So, I violate a sacred location and risk death, to hide from an enemy who will kill me if they find me. How ironic.” He walked away from the shore and began to climb, his sharp claws dug in easily enough in most places, and where they didn’t, his massive strength made it easy to pull himself up from even minor protrusions until he found himself at the entrance of a dark cavern. He hauled himself up and turned behind him to look at the capital.

Prince Tascarus was surely dead by now, Prince Agamem would definitely have already come up with some story. As he thought it over, Archos grew angry, “The slimy bastard probably said I did it, and would use my possession of the sword as proof. The whole kingdom will be looking for me soon. I swear though, Agamem,” Archos’s eyes burned with hatred as his vision swept the city’s outline of great stone buildings and high towers until he centered on the palace, “if I ever return to this place, it will be to gut you and let your life’s blood pour out over me as that of your brother’s before you.”

Archos turned away and walked deep within the cave, a glowing blue moss grew in patches on the walls and ceiling of the cave, and small drip, drip, drip, noise drew his attention. Nearby a stalactite thrust up from the ground, once it might have had a sharp point, but a single persistent drip of water continued to hit the center, and over time had formed a small ‘bowl’ shaped depression. Now every drop that came down, filled a tiny pool, created a ripple that struck the edge of the stalactite bowl, and returned to the center, then out again with another drip in an endless cycle.

He passed it by and went deeper, the cave was wide enough for four like him to pass abreast, and parts of it appeared to have been worked on at some point in the distant past, he touched the stone walls and found the marks of claws and chisels alike, and some places a few intricate designs had been etched which, while crude by current standards, were probably the finest artistry of their own time. He found no writing, uncommon for his people, and it made Archos wonder just how old this place was.

He followed the deep cave path, in long winding passages, until he came to something unusual, a large boulder had fallen, it had crushed a full grown dragon, pinning him under the stone so that half his body was under it, and half his body was out, talon marks still etched in the stone in front of his body as he’d once tried to desperately claw his way from under the lethal stone.

There was nothing left of that dragon’s body but bones now, and they glowed against the low light of the luminous blue moss. Archos touched the skull and wondered if anyone had missed him, nearby a clutch of old tools, stone ones, sat untouched. “Well,” he said as he picked one of the objects up, “you really are an old one, aren’t you? Nobody’s used these for a long, long time.” He tossed the implement aside and went further within, after what felt like hours of wandering in so deep that only the moss provided any light at all, making it impossible to know if it was morning or not, he found himself in an enormous cavern, it must have been deep within the mountain’s roots. The walls of the cavern had many indications of ancient usage, pictures of beasts he didn’t know, pictures of star formations he didn’t recognize. The walls surrounded a massive underground lake, the water so still that it only moved at the surface when he himself exhaled a breath. His head hurt.

“By all my fathers and mothers, this has been a terrible day.” He shook his head at the understatement of a lifetime. The waters were lovely to look upon in their own right, with the moss casting an eerie glow over the entire scene, and he was alone with his thoughts, wondering what he’d do for food even if he had water while he hid here. His thoughts, however, were interrupted by the noise of voices, lots of them.

‘No… how did they find me? How? Was I seen?’ Archos wondered, as he looked around for some form of escape. The voices sounded strange, but he set that aside, there were a lot of them, and this was a cave, the echo would do strange things, muddle words and tone, there was no time to worry about a trivial matter like that.

He looked at the lake. ‘Perhaps you connect to another passage somewhere, perhaps I can swim out, damn it all!’ He thought angrily, out of options, he jumped in and swam down as far as he could, the voices became clearer, they were coming closer, he swam harder going straight down thinking he could find a way out or… at least perhaps drown and remain forever hidden, depriving Agamem of the royal sword forever.

Then a curious thing began to happen, as he swam down, he began to see a bright light, like he was swimming towards the sun, his powerful legs kicked, his tail undulated, his long arms swept out before him and pulled him along, until he realized the impossible was happening. He was seeing a blue sky, he was swimming ‘up’.

With nothing else to do, he broke the surface and looked around, the voices were very clear, filled with violence, wrath, pain, fear, and rage, and they were also unlike anything he’d ever heard, they were much smaller, almost like that of a child. He looked around for the source, and found no dragons in conflict, instead, there on the shore, he saw very small figures, around half his height or less, around a hundred of them. They had no scales, no evident fur, no armor, no metal. They had roundish heads and no evident talons, yet they had a series of digits at the hand which they were clearly using to hold things, and they ranged in color from deep tan to a pale, pinkish hue. They looked vaguely like some of the creatures depicted on the cavern wall that surrounded the underground lake he’d just been in.

One thing they definitely had was a profound sense of aggression, as they were busy killing each other with crude wooden clubs, sharp wooden spears, and crudely made stone hand axes.

Archos watched uncertain of what to do as what he determined were two different groups, scrapped and tore at one another until one began to get an advantage, the weight of numbers swung firmly to one side, and the diminishing group fought ever more desperately until their courage broke, and twenty to thirty of them ran away for their lives, abandoning the wounded and the dead. The victors paid no mind to the distant ‘lump’ that was the top of Archos’s head watching them, instead they set about looting the bodies, stealing the crude sacks from the defeated and the dead, and then they walked among the injured and began to finish off what battle had begun.

‘Well, I suppose I’ll need a guide, and a wounded being I can restore, might be a good idea.’ He thought to himself, ‘Wherever I am, this does not appear to be home.’ So he began to splash loudly as he swam closer to shore, rising as high up in the water as he could for maximum intimidation factor. It got their attention, if he were to judge by the shouting, waving, and pointing. Not a word they said, if those were words, made sense.

Archos drew closer to the shore and stood up, he started to walk towards them, and glared long and silent, letting his maw fall open and expose his sharp teeth, then for good measure he drew the royal blade from his back and held it in front of him. This was one language understood everywhere.

The small band of little beings began to back away, grabbing their wounded and pulling them away from him, he simply stood and stared, until they broke and fled like the defeated ones before them just a few moments earlier.

Only the wounded of the defeated band remained, as well as the dead of both sides. When the victors had fled, Archos stepped from the shore and looked around for movement, a few stirred enough to cry out, including one young woman with a badly wounded arm, a broken leg, and both eyes shut from bruising and blood where she’d been pummelled. She was small, even relative to the others, but she had obviously fought fiercely, given the ring of dead around her, and that endeared her to him. Her ferocity and skill so endeared him in fact, that he resolved to treat her first, and so he took her hand from the one good arm she still had, and touched it to him. “Archos” He said.

Then he touched her forehead with his talon, agonized face or not, she understood at least that he was introducing himself.

“Ayente.” She choked out, and relaxed as she felt him getting to work on her.

“Ah, so you have poultices.” He said as she accepted his rubbing the sharp smelling stuff on her wounded arm.

“Ya’me lope.” She said in an agonized voice.

“Ya’me lope, ya’me lope.” She repeated, when his treatment of her did not stop.

“I can’t understand you.” He said as gently as he could.

She swept her arm towards the sound of someone else’s cry of pain, “Ya’me lope.” She pointed to the agonized cry.

“You want me to help your injured comrade.” He said as he finally understood, the change in his tone evidently registered enough with her that she thought he understood her.

His heart’s estimation of her shot up several notches. “Ayente.” He said, lacking any other way to convey that he was not going to halt his treatment, he touched his talon to her forehead, then gently forced her from her upright seated position onto her back.

He then smeared the poultice over her injured eyes, she said something he assumed was a swear word, but allowed him to finish. “Hard to argue when you don’t have two words in common, isn’t it?” He asked rhetorically, not expecting an answer.

“Seyet.” She said in a tone of voice he thought might be sarcasm, he wondered if she understood him, but reconsidered, more likely she picked up on his casual tone of frustration and was agreeing with that.

Only when he was finished, did he get up and move to check someone else, there were few enough wounded, while treating them wouldn’t take long, he had the distinct feeling that if the previous day had been the worst of his life, this one would be the strangest many times over, before the sun set.

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