Eternal Beasts

Once Friends, Now Enemies

"A single griffon rider?" Karluran stepped forward to say with a snort before Ertan could reply. "You face hundreds of dragon flights, fool. Your death is certain!" And the other two dragon riders standing close by, snickered and muttered in agreement.

"Oh, by all means bring all the lizard jocks you can get your hands on, Karl," Jared replied with a tight smile. "You'll need every last one of them."

"It's Karluran, you imbecile," the dragon rider retorted. "And I'll need just one to kill you, chicken rider. Me."

"Kill me with what, Karl? Your plucky attitude? Or maybe your overbearing narcissism! Everybody knows it was dark Harbinger magic that destroyed the griffon flights, not gecko rider skills in battle." And the Allies were the ones that found themselves snickering at that jibe.

With a growl of anger, Karluran pointed a stiff finger at the white-clad griffon rider.

"You'll pay for that insult, maggot," he bit out, his other hand dropping onto the hilt of the sword at his waist as his face slowly turned red.

"Yeah? You want to go right now, Karl?" Jared fired back. "Then stop flapping your lips and let's go, if you have the sack for it!"

The tension was tangible between the two Lords of Eternal Beasts as they stood glaring at each other. But Ertann made no move to restrain his ally. In fact, he settled back with crossed arms to watch, his faint smile an indication of his amusement. On the other side, Aaron was plucking anxiously at Jared's sleeve, trying to get his attention.

But the tuathan king was ignored as Jared felt an ancient anger begin to burn in his veins as he remembered the dragon riders' betrayal in the Second War. A scene flashed into his mind of long knives, embossed with a stylized dragon, dipping down to come up with the blood of friends, brothers and sisters, of dark corruption and contracts with evil and darkness. Of fighting first against their own kind, then against their fellow Eternal Beasts, their hearts now black with corruption and new hate ...

"C'mon, Karl! Draw your kin killer and come at me! And I'll make sure you're the first in the long line of your treacherous kind I'll put in their graves, one at a time!" he grated.

"No!" Karluran snarled in reply. "It will be you that will be laid in an early grave, weakling!" The dragon rider's face was now going purple, his eyes burning with hate and his body poised as his knuckles turned white from the grip he had on his sword hilt.

"And I'll be the one to put you there, you son of a whore!" He yanked out his sword and rushed the white clad griffon rider. In reply, Jared summoned his sword from his back into his hand with a surge of golden light and energy.

It was Karluran who struck first, cutting hard at the griffon rider's head, trying to use his momentum in his favor. Jared instantly countered with a blurred upward backhand, then slashed at the dragon rider's chest with the return cut. Grunting from the effort, the hard leathered dragon rider managed to twist enough to avoid being cut in half. Then his sword, a shorter, saber-like weapon, was back up and the two were trading powerful overhand blows, neither yielding a centimeter to the other. Sparks flew as the two blades clashed, cutting and parrying, slashing and riposteing, moving so fast they were silver blurs in the dimly lit chamber.

Standing just to the side of the two combatants, Ertann was chuckling to himself. It was as if it had been planned: the one remaining griffon rider begin goaded into single combat with his Lord of Dragons, by all measures a skilled and accomplished warrior. What more could he ask for? Karluran would cut this nysim-arad down in hot blood and the griffons would truly be taken out of the Third War of Balance before it even started! There was no better way to start this campaign for his masters than eliminating his strongest opponent in a single moment of fury and violence! His chuckle turned into a low laugh. Indeed, how better?