“And that’s the plan.”

 

Dragonspite sat and tapped his finger against his thigh, eyes never wavering from Trendil’s. She smiled.

 

“That bad, huh?”

 

He shook his head and got to his feet, then stretched, his fingers pushing into the low tent ceiling. “That may be your worst plan yet.”

 

“I know! That’s why it is sure to work.”

 

“Your reasoning is as solid as ever. Which is the same solidity as a foundation built on quicksand.”

 

“Oh, aye? And what is your plan for sacking a well-defended capital city with only one-hundred soldiers?”

 

“I don’t have one, which is why we’re stuck with yours. The good news is, your other three-hundred-twenty-six stupid plans all somehow worked.”

 

“Aw, you’ve been counting them!”

 

“It was a rough estimate.” He yawned. “This night seems like it is taking forever. Shouldn’t it be dawn by now?”

 

“It does feel that way, doesn’t it? Well, maybe that means we will be able to get some sleep after all.”

 

“I have a better idea.”

 

Trendil laughed. “I figured you would. Let me hit the latrine and I’ll hear all about your idea."

 

She stepped out of the tent and stretched, then made her way through the quiet camp, all the time looking toward the towering spires of Solitude. So close! By the end of the day, it would be theirs. If the plan went well.

 

She gripped her fists as she neared the latrine. It would work. It had to. As long as the weather cooperated.

 

She glanced at the sky as she began to unbuckle her belt. The night sky was covered with dark, roiling clouds. They seemed to move erratically, as if being pushed by contradictory waves of wind. They were like no clouds she had seen before. Her hands froze in place as she stared.

 

A moment later, she was rushing through the camp, shouting commands as loud as she could. She reached the alarm bell and rang it before sprinting back to the command tent.

 

Dragonspite was already on his feet with hammer in hand when she burst in.

 

 “What’s going on?”

 

“Come see for yourself.” She grabbed her swords, unsheathed them, then threw the scabbards into a corner of the tent before rushing back out.

 

Dragonspite joined her a moment later and together, they looked at the sky.

 

Trendil pointed. “It is after dawn. Those aren’t clouds covering the sky. They’re dragons.” A deep breath. “Every fucking dragon in the world, apparently.”

 

“What? That’s impossible!”

 

“You don’t see them? Look closer.” She closed her eyes. “I told them. How many times did I tell them?”

 

Dragonlance ran up, her armor half on as she gasped, “What is it?”

 

“We’re about to fight a much larger battle than we could possibly have imagined. Get everyone armed and ready. And divines protect us.”

 

High above, the first dragons plunged toward Solitude.

****************

Trendil stood with ninety-nine veterans of countless battles with dragons, using tactics honed over years of trial and error; they may as well have been newborns with rattles.

 

It was not a battle. It was a massacre.

 

As she split the fire from one dragon, a dozen more rushed past on either side. The formations her regiment had specifically designed to protect them from those occasions where they had to face more than one dragon, and which had proven their worth in battles against two, three, and even four at a time, were simply overwhelmed by dozens at once. Trendil had never felt so helpless as the battle cries of her soldiers turned to screams and then abrupt silence.

 

In the space of a minute, half of the regiment was gone, and all order disappeared with it. Soldiers cried out and ran in all directions, only to be killed by fire or claw or tooth.

 

Those who maintained composure fared no better. Trendil could only watch in growing panic as Dragonlance was grabbed from the center of her squad’s protective shield wall and lifted, screaming, into the air, only to be torn in two and dropped again, her insides splattering the rest of her squad, who had only a few heartbeats to voice their horrified anger before six simultaneous blasts of fire turned them to near-instant ash.

 

Trendil stood back to back with Dragonspite in the center of the carnage, the two moving in practiced synchronicity, but though, between them, they had managed to knock down or incapacitate three dragons, sheer numbers made their attempts irrelevant, their defeat inevitable.

 

For Trendil, it came from one of the dragons they had knocked down; focused on those above, she simply did not notice the tail that whipped at her, slamming her in the side and throwing her through the air. Her body flew over the ridge upon which their camp had been placed and she fell its one-hundred or so feet, landing with a splash in the icy water of the Karth estuary.

 

The impact drove the breath from her and she spent several panicked seconds thrashing. It may well have been sheer luck of the current that she found herself moments later in water shallow enough that she could lift herself to hands and knees and gasp in air.

 

It took several breaths before she was able to gather what strength remained to her and crawl to the shore, where she collapsed for another long moment. Her entire body ached; she feared to think about what numbers of bones and/or internal organs may have been broken. Whatever that number was, it didn’t matter – she needed to get back. Back to Bent.

 

She struggled to her feet, found her legs ached but were able to hold her up, and began a slow stagger along the beach. Every step caused a jolt of pain that she could not pin down to any particular part of her body – the entire thing felt like one giant hemorrhaging bruise. Of course, there was an excellent possibility that that was because that’s what her body had become.

 

She kept one hand pressed against the cliff face to help her stay up as she turned a rounded corner. Solitude came into view, silhouetted again a slowly-lightening sky. Three steps later, Trendil stopped, gasping for breath, and watched as the five-hundred-foot-high pillar of native stone that formed the distinctive sky peninsula upon which Solitude had been built snapped with a sharp crack and toppled with a groan that filled the sky, dumping the Blue Palace and the upper districts of the city into the estuary.

 

Trendil swore and turned, but she was far too slow – only a few heartbeats later, a massive wave rushed over her, bringing with it debris, and for several more panicked moments, she was back underwater, struggling once more to find purchase.

 

She ended up in the same place she had started, groaning out of the still-churning water. The going was slower this time since occasional waves lapped at her ankles but she eventually made it back to the turn.

 

The remains of Solitude lay wrecked across the channel like a defeated boxer, and Trendil took a moment to gather her breath while she studied it. All that time, all the years, all to reach this city, only to have it destroyed before her eyes before she could even step foot in it.

 

It figured.

 

She shook her head and continued her pained journey until the dragons appeared to finish their attack on the city, gathered above, and left, flying en masse to the south. Trendil sank against the wall of the cliff, afraid any motion might give away her living presence and attract a dragon, as an eagle to a rabbit. She only dared move again when the cloud of dragons had become a distant splotch on the horizon.

 

It took her the rest of the day and all through the night to make her pained way back to the remains of the Stormcloak camp. All around her were torn corpses littered among blackened figures twisted in grotesque parodies of human form. She stumbled to where she and her love had fought together.

 

She found him twenty feet away, his body twisted and broken. Trendil rushed to him with a cry, disregarding her pain as she dove to his side, took his head into her lap, and searched with growing panic for any signs of life.

 

He was breathing. They were shallow breaths, but they were breaths. Trendil stroked his cheeks as her tears rained onto his face.

 

“Bent?”

 

“Bent?” He coughed, and blood dribbled from his lips. “That was my virgin name. It’s Dragonspite now.”

 

Trendil wiped away her tears. “I’m your commanding officer, remember? I’m the one who decides your name.”

 

“Ah.” His chuckle turned into a wheeze, and then a sigh. “Fair point, oh wise leader Lint. Bent is at your service.”

 

She barked out a laugh that turned to a sob, then shifted to nestle next to him, wrapped both arms around him, clung to him, willed him to stay with her. She was lost to time and reason, thought and desire. She was aware of nothing save his scarred breathing, his scattered heartbeat. The less of those she felt, the tighter she gripped.

 

She felt him leave. Between one heartbeat and the next, she felt it, then felt the heart still, a final whispered exhale. Still she clung to him, eyes closed and tears streaming, all her world an aching empty silence.

 

 

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