Once everyone had reached the bottom, the group marched out in formation. The two dragons led the way, the infantry following behind. They stuck to the upside-down V, or arrowhead as best they could. Alas, forests weren’t easy places to traverse alone, let alone with forty-odd others, nevermind sticking to a formation.

Echoes sounded in the distance. The winds of the frozen woods were shrill as ever, Victor noticed. His scales already had become a little cumbersome, but it was still small beans. Compared to the archers, who were already clutching their arms, he was lucky.

“We sure could have picked a better day to do this,” the red dragon said.

“I think we can all agree on that, but I doubt the commanders wanted to delay this any further,” Celesta replied. “Divinity knows we’ve waited far too long as is.”

“But how are we supposed to press on like this? With all this snow sticking to my toes.”

“Look on the bright side, the enemy’s not any more fortunate than we are. Their toes must be caked in snow by now. Well, their boots that is.”

“Eyes forward, you two,” one of the infantrymen grumbled. “By the gods, I’m not going to die because you saw somethin’ shiny.”

“Sure, sure,” Victor said, “a little talking shouldn’t be such a huge- OW!”

The red dragon bumped snout first into a boreal tree, stumbling backwards onto his haunches. “Ow...”

“See? ‘S what I mean, you red fool! Watch where you’re goin, this time it mightta been a tree but next time it’ll be a trap or somethin’. Anyway, I’m not dyin’ ‘cause of the likes of you! I’m not walking into traps or alertin’ ambushes or anythin, and that means you’re not either!”

“Calm down, please. It was an honest mistake,” Celesta said.

“Honest mistake… ye right it is. All the fools who wound up dead already also made honest mistakes.”

The march grounded to a halt. The others stared off into the woods or kept to one another whilst the dragons bickered, talking about a variety of things not related to the task at hand. Nevertheless, despite all the others being similarly disinterested, the arguing continued, much to everyone’s chagrin.

“Come on, I’ll do better, okay? I didn’t walk into that tree on purpose, stop being so rude.”

“I’ll stop bein’ rude when you stop bein’ a dumbass that’ll get us all killed. Got it?”

“Pfft, like those imperial mongrels ‘ll ever be able to...” a man on the other end of the formation snickered.

“Lads, stop this,” William cut in. “Save your fight for the enemy. We’re not even halfway to Steenburg, and you’re already at one another’s throats. Who knows, someone could be listening in on all this-”

An ominous wind darted across the snow-bedecked floor. “Wait, who's there?!” one of the archermen yelled, drawing their weapon with shaky hands. In the span of an eyeblink, his compatriots had followed his footsteps. Another breath of wind passed, as dozens of untrained eyes scanned the horizon in automaton-like fashion.

Victor lowered into a stance he hadn’t taken on since the climb up the Snowcap. His breastplate stuck to his hide and itched, as if little insects clawed underneath. The sensation was repulsive. His eyes darted back and forth, back and forth, breaths trickling loudly across his jaws both ways.

There’s no avoiding it now, they’re here… gods almighty, please do not let a bloodbath happen, let us all live…!

The enemy was shrouded by mists. No one moved, least of all Victor. All the men around were like hawks, hawks of a feather who hunted together. Victor was no hawk, not even a chic. As far from it as possible. With each second, the throne room of his heart cried out. Running sounded sweet, yet it was no option, lest he face the wrath of the hawks. The thought of fighting tensed up his muscles. For a moment, his nose caught the scent of red iron. A primal sensation stirred within; a side of himself Victor hoped to never have to see again.

“Come out, ye bastards...”

“Focus everyone...”

A rumble crept up Victor’s right ear. The lavender dragoness had taken a step forward, teeth bared and foreleg muscles tensed. Victor’s tongue pressed against the roof of his mouth. He was but seconds removed from having to spill human blood. Yet, the beast within sang, stirring up a morbid sense of joy. The thrill of a hunter stalking their prey, he could feel it in his blood. He could hear the prey, smell the prey, taste the prey. The senses were so soothing and familiar, too...

No, I don’t want to, I don’t… want to...

The red’s limbs began to shake, as the group reached the area. The land beyond the mist. Victor peered over his shoulder repeatedly, to no avail; the mist had crept into the woods behind and swallowed them whole. A stench emanating from the front forced his attention back ahead. The stench of an unwashed body, like those he saw in Ravens Hill’s shanty town.

But then, he spotted the source. A group of armed men, one carrying a lantern. Red and pale faces alike lit up with the realisation of what they were seeing.

“Dragon, dragon!!”

“There they are!! After ‘em!”

The formation charged headfirst towards the enemy. Celesta let out a furious roar, kicking her legs into the air to join the fray. Arrows rained down from all sides, like lightning striking the earth. One man fell to the ground, and the others with them quickly retreated lest they’d be hacked to pieces.

All the while, Victor stood in place, hyperventilating. The rest of the formation had passed him without so much as a second thought; should he stay, he could expect to hear another earful. A lecture on his cowardice. The same cowardice that had torn his life asunder many moons ago. And yet, he couldn’t help himself. A glimpse of his razor sharp talons clutching the ground kept him at bay. A vision of those talons ripping through flesh made him look to the woods behind.

The men of the Front on their tail, the enemy retreated to a small hillock in the middle of the woods. There, like Dragonspiders and Lynxspiders skulking in the shadows, groups of men descended upon the Front’s troops, screeching like banshees with swords in hand. The infantry stepped up to the plate; the formation began to break.

Screams and cries echoed through the woods. One imperial soldier cut down a Frontsman, before the lavender dragoness tackled him to the floor. He was scarcely able to say ‘mom’ before receiving a swift tap on the side of his neck. Elsewhere, the infantry kept up as best they could, blocking attacks with nary an opening to strike back at their enemy.

Blink by blink the situation developed. Men yelled, snow crunched, arrows zipped past, metal scraped against metal. In the haze, it was difficult to tell right from wrong: Bodies changed uniforms, tongues both foreign and native cried out, and men on all sides dropped onto the snow. One side seemed to master it more than the other; a dragon of three meters made all the difference.

Slice by slice, cry by cry, the atmosphere grew all the thicker with the smell of blood. The blood of those who thirsted for battle against the demons opposing them, and those unfortunate who were caught in between. Any enemy receiving a taste of steel was an enemy worthy of being put to the sword.

After several minutes of combat, one of the imperial troops suddenly pulled a metal sphere out of his jacket. “RETREAT!” he yelled. A blinding flash engulfed the area. The Frontsmen stumbled around; when they finally could see again, the imperial troops were nowhere to be seen.

“Damn it, they got away!” Jim kicked at the snow. “What was that?! What was that flash just now?”

“Some, some kind of weapon,” Celesta panted.

The captain stumbled his way across the scarred hillock, where he picked up the remnant of the sphere. A trail of thin smoke crept out from its core. “That was a flash bomb...”

“A flash what?”

“I’ve seen one of these things in action a few months ago When I stormed the mountain temple. It appears they’ve got this thing working properly now...”

“Wait, you used these things before?” Jim stared at William with brutish eyes. “Why the abyss didn’t you say so? Could’ve seen this comin’ a mile away if you had!”

William groaned. “Because it was a ball of dead weight, Jim. The flash was akin to having a napkin thrown in your face. I didn’t think the enemy would waste their time with this garbage any further. How in the abyss could you blame me for that?”

Jim spat into the snow. “Whatever then. Where did that red bastard run off to? Haven’t seen him in the whole battle!”

William bit his lip. “I’ll search for him. Can you count the dead for me? Make sure they’re all buried, too, then we can rest for a while.”

“I’ll get it done,” Jim said. “‘S not like we’ll be catching up with the bastards.”

Celesta ordered the Frontsmen around, as they started cleaning out the area. Eleven men lay dead in total; a few more imperials lay passed out. Celesta pulled them to a tree, and proceeded to lay down next to them. “Will, I cannot search for Victor. After seeing what happened after Westedge, I’d rather not risk it.”

William licked his lips, nodding timidly. “Okay.”

A field westward, Victor laid down by a tree, wings folded over him. He chipped away at the snow with a talon, a frown spread over his snout. The sounds of battle had ended. And he fullwell knew what the consequences of it would be.

I didn’t show myself. I didn’t… while there was a fight… Gods, I’ll be wrung out like a towel… Again…! Why didn’t I go? Why else would I be wearing this breastplate? Why else would they have given it to me?! But no, Victor, the coward Victor got people killed… again. Even after I promised to myself…

Victor hung his head low enough for his nose to touch the snow. At last, winter’s chill pierced through his scales. His chest felt like ice, his claws ached as if they had been marked with a knife, and his tail twitched by his side. He couldn’t say he didn’t deserve it. Not after what he’d done, for the manyeth time.

His head ached. Without thinking about it, he proceeded to eat the snow by his forelegs. While chewing, he looked towards the tree tops, and thought about the times his mother scolded him for eating snow. It could be dangerous, she said. He’d always shrug it off. It was a more innocent time. Breath forced its way out of his nostrils, as his head sank back down.

“Victor? Victor? Where are you?”

A minute later, the snow on his lips having melted, the forests whispered his name. Here they are… With what little motivation he could muster, he rose back to his feet. It was as if his body had doubled in weight.

“Ah, Victor, there you are! Where were you?”

The red shook his head, a trickle crawling out of his eyes. “Hiding,” he muttered. Talking was one bridge too far. Looking William into the eye was another. At this point in time, a bolt to the heart would’ve been merciful.

“But why? We were in the middle of a battle, we needed you!”

Victor almost choked on his own, ashlike breath. “Because I am a coward, Will. I’m afraid of seeing blood, let alone spilling any.”

“But you promised, you wouldn’t spill any at all...”

“I know… but…” Victor scraped at the hide around his blue eyes. The captain approached him head on, patting him on the side of the neck.

“It’s all too real for every last one of us, I’m afraid. But we’re not going to find a way out of this one. We’ll have to do as we’ve been told,” William said. Victor snorted in a harsh manner, continuing to look away to the snow. “I know it’s hard… but you won’t have to spill blood, right? Just like you promised. Just like you did back in the temple.”

The red gave a single nod in response. “Alright, I’ll… I’ll try again.” That’s the only promise I can make. If I wind up dead, at least I’ll have tried. At least they’ll remember me as something… I guess…

William smirked. “Come, let’s get back to the others. We’re not out of the weeds yet.”

Wings sticking to his back, Victor waddled his way to the battlefield, never once bringing himself in danger of being there first. Gathered around a hillock were the Frontsmen, who were too busy eating their lunch to notice the red dragon’s presence. A few scars and bruises aside, most were fine. That was, spare four men laying on their backs under a small evergreen, a cut running across their abdomens. Their faces bore an empty print; wide eyes, bulging lips, frostbitten skin.

Victor stepped up to their feet to get a closer look, when he noticed something. The man on the right… was the man he had spared from a fall no less than half an hour ago. He reached out to the man’s hand with a claw. Soon after, he found himself in a world of his own creation. A world in which he could’ve kept them from a frozen burial. Alas, reality didn’t play by those rules. No amount of wishful thinking could change that.

I’m so sorry. I never got to ask you your name, but… I hope you’re in a better place.

Victor looked off into the woods. A few men were busy digging. Not for the lost Frontsmen, but for seven others. It was like comparing green apples to red ones. At the end of the day, eleven lay lonely under the pines in their coats, soon to be forgotten by the world. Victor shook his head.

It’s only the beginning…

“Ah, Victor, there you are!”

Celesta called out to Victor from under a tree, keeping herself comfortable with a pile of burning sticks. At her side lay a few more in imperial uniforms, out cold but clearly breathing.

“I was wondering where you had run off to. Are you still a little afraid?”

Victor sighed. “Who wouldn’t be.” Everyone else, of course. What a stupid thing to say.

Celesta smiled. “No need to worry. You’ll get there eventually. If it makes you feel any better, we had the situation under control.”

“What’s with the two dead fellows, then? Wouldn’t it-”

“This is war we’re talking about, Victor. Death is inevitable.” Celesta sighed, looking towards the pine. “I’ve gone through the same feelings. All I can say is, there’s no good that comes out of feeling guilty. Sometimes, things are just the way they are, and you’ll have to carry on.”

Victor’s tail lowered onto the snow, the flames on the sticks glimmering in his eye. “Gods know I’ve never seen anything like this, not even when I fled the Citadel.”

Celesta nodded along. “I’m afraid all of us will be seeing things we never want to think about again. By the gods, I’ve seen my fair amount. After we liberated Westedge, many of the former imperial officials were arrested. Including the executioner stationed there. He had left a long, trail of Draconist corpses in his wake. One of them was an older woman.”

Victor gulped. “Go on.” I’m feeling very unwell about this…

The lavender dragoness sighed, as she held her forelegs by her chest. “That woman was the mother of one Maug. Not sure if you’ve met him before.”

“The name doesn’t tell me anything, no.” Victor licked his lips.

“Well, he’s a red dragon, a tad smaller than you are. Eyes as yellow as dandelions. Anyone who has met him knows full well that he’s really sweet. But...” she paused to sigh, “when he found out his mother had been killed, he… something snapped within him. He barged into the prison one day, with the most furious gaze I’ve ever seen. Once those two met eyes, well… He jumped into the cell, and proceeded to rip the butcher's head off with his jaws, then dumped the blood pouring out onto the other prisoners.”

As if he’d been stabbed through the heart, Victor clutched his chest. “Th-that’s...”

“Believe me, I still have nightmares about the sounds. Never thought humans could produce such sounds. Maug’s never been the same after that. A lot more somber of a person. But there’s no going back. We’ll all have to live with it.”

Victor lowered his head. “Understood,” he whispered.

Celesta looked away into the woods beyond the hillock, where the wind echoed into the flatlands. “The fight for Lokahn’s survival throughout the ages has never been pretty. All I hope for is that peace will return one day.”

The red too turned his gaze to the lands beyond the hill. Steenburg couldn’t be far off.