Welcome to day 17 of Fyretober! I hope you’re all enjoying a month of flash fiction as much as I am. Enjoy today’s writing challenge from Fyrecon’s Fyretober!
Mandrasath shifted, his claws digging through soft sand. His eyes felt heavy, unwilling to open nor did his lungs seem willing to draw a deep breath. Mind meandering to focus on breath, his mind stopped. He could not draw any breath.
He surged upright rising onto his hind legs, contracting about the ever-burning furnace in his belly, squeezing to push flames outward and burn out the blockage in his lungs. Cold greeted him. Heavily he collapsed back to the sand.
“Mandrasath.” The voice wormed its way from his ear into his brain. There it wiggled like a fish struggling for freedom, only instead of away it sought to sink deeper within. “Mandrasath,” the voice repeated, and he knew they demanded he open his eyes.
Light flared when he opened his eyes, glinted off the walls, the ceiling, everywhere. He drew his long neck backward seeking shelter from the brightness. A Gash tore through the wing leaking light.
My wings! The though surged through his mind as he extended the appendage. Gashes ran the length of it. He shuddered expecting a surge of pain. “Who has done this to me!” he roared. His voice ground from his throat a course mockery of the deep rumble he knew.
“Time and man have ravaged you.” The voice said. There was no gentleness there and again he felt the same compulsion to look toward its source.
Slowly, he moved, but his eyes had grown more adjusted to the light. Enough to look about. The light centered about a woman standing at the entry to the cavern, a minuscule speck compared to the might of the space.
He moved toward her, a plodding movement which drug slowly barely leaving the ground. “Who are you if not human.” The final word huffed out blowing her hair in a billowing flag behind her.
She did not flinch. “I am the sorceress Athria.”
Mandrasath drew backward quirking his head to the side. “I know no such name, but then mortals are hardly noteworthy.”
The expression was subtle, nearly impossible to see on her tiny face, but Mandrasath was certain she grinned. “I assure you there is nothing mere about me, nor are you as immortal as you pretend.” Her arm swept out encompassing the chamber surrounding them. “How else would I have found you here to return?”
Mandrasath turned taking in the chamber. The glittering stone, and the slabs extending out into the distance where her torch could not reach. Upon each laid dragon bones, most barren of flesh. A few with little still clinging. Shaking his head, he clenched his wings about him in denial. No, not the great resting place. The end which awaited all dragons. If he was here then…
He spun back to the mortal woman. “You returned me?”
She nodded once. “Yes, long have I heard of Mandrasath and the betrayal that befell him.”
“Why?” He wanted to form a more elegant question, but only that blunt word coalesced in his mind.
“Because I too have been betrayed.” She shifted in the light, and he saw the stone creeping over her flesh. “Through you we will both be avenged.” The words continued in a torrent from there. How she had returned his truly immortal. No bow, no blade, would fell him again. He would roam the land a plague of vengeance.
Mandrasath backed away from the words, feeling each one crawling into his mind. He writhed beneath them, trying to cast them away. They were darnation not salvation. He would not give into a mortal! “No,” he bellowed.
The sorceress fell silent as he towered over her, wings spread. “I shall be no mortal’s puppet!” Howling he pushed forward as a green mist escaped his lungs in place of flames. Still the sorceress drew back, covering her face with her cloak.
He rushed forward, through tunnels no dragon should pass twice, but which Mandrasath knew he had. The tunnel fell behind him and the sky opened before. Leaping into the air he threw himself away from the sorceress. Glancing down to gain his wits he saw light dot the horizon.
Plague of vengeance.
Mandrasath shuddered under the weight of the words. Even as he fought the compulsion, his wings angled to carry him toward the nearest lights. Sorrow filled his roar.
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“Fyretober isn’t for just writers or just artists. It’s for everyone who loves to create, and this month we’re looking to see your flash fiction, poetry, and illustrations every day. We’ll be providing daily prompts for the month and want to see what new concepts and wonders you can make with them.
Join the creation fun and share your work with us.
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