The Dragon Queen

Blood of a Dragon

Chaos reigned throughout the battlefield like a tangled storm. Dust from the disturbed boggy ground swirled around the roaring warriors so badly that is was near impossible to distinguish the golden Assar armour from the grey Yot. A furious roar suddenly shook the very ground the soldiers fought on and not one soldier failed to recognise it, and not one man failed to pale in fear beneath their bloodied or mottled armour. Then they saw something that made their blood collectively run cold. Several gigantic shadowy shapes flew towards them through the fog, growing in size as they neared. With a scowl to match her dragon's roar, Queen Lucia guided her beautiful Ragal into landing right at the centre of battle, halting the fight in its tracks. But the dragons were nothing to fear when compared to the anger of the queen and she was furious to recognise the Assarian prince who had started the fight. Zane and Ian, astride their dragons, BeTu90 and Jewel, landed either side of her as her guard, despite Lucia's constant protests that she didn't need anything of the sort and never would. She swung herself down from the mighty crimson dragon and stormed over to where Prince Alexander stood, his sword still raised to strike despite how every warrior had frozen to watch them. "Again?" Lucia questioned, her voice echoing throughout the now silent battlefield and as sharp as any weapon "You have started a fight again?".

"Your Highness" Alexander greeted politely with a bow of his head "This does not concern you".

"You are waging war with Yot for the third time in two months, Alexander. Of course it concerns me" Lucia snapped. She quickly looked for King John, who stood leaning on his sword, as if it took him all the strength to stand, let alone partake in the battle. Despite his sickly state, Lucia had no problem in barking "I'm surprised at you. Last we spoke, you said you wanted peace".

"So I do" John claimed, his voice raspy with exhaustion and even as he spoke a man ran forward from the surrounding soldiers to steady him. "But this weakling prince" he continued, nodding to a scowling Alexander "Continues to bombard us with insults for entering Assar. Are the borders not open now our kingdoms are united?".

"Yes, but our defences are not!" Alexander snapped "Our castle is not for the likes of peasants to roam through and are gardens are not playgrounds for children. Yot must show respect before we agree to anything -"

"We did nothing of the sort!" John snapped before he broke into awful hacking coughs. Lucia rolled her eyes, a headache already building. Who knows how many negotiations this would take to sort out?

Behind the bushes, caked in mud and dirt just like every one of the soldiers he watched, Prince Dominic crouched, curiously watching the famous queen as she berated the royal responsible for the war. His plan had worked perfectly and he couldn't help but smile. So it was true. The Dragon Queen could halt a war with one word. How glorious was that? A woman capable of actually doing something in this forsaken world. He had thought her merely a myth and then he had finally crossed the sea. Queen Lucia suddenly looked to her dragon, the crimson beast that stood, nuzzling some blood stained rocks, as if she had heard the beast speak, and Dominic hastily darted back into the shadows of the nearby forest. He couldn't meet her yet, not like this, caked in mud and without a dragon to his name. But at least he could console himself with one satisfying thought as he made his way back to his camp. That foul prince, second in line, could no longer interfere with his chance to win the Dragon Queen's heart.

A soft grunting and growling caught Lucia's attention and pulled her away from the squabbling royals. She would always choose her beast over the conversation of man any day. She turned to see that her beautiful dragon stood a little way away, and seemed to be engrossed in something that was buried beneath half a tonne of bloodied rubble. "Tris sa sug, ditrute tremsora? (What is it, my dragon?)" Lucia asked her curiously, walking towards her and causing the men's arguing to lapse into silence. The great dragon simply continued to paw at the wet muddy earth, carefully moving the pile of crumbled stone that Lucia couldn't even begin to assume what it may have been. War had destroyed it too much. Only when she came directly to Ragal's side and took her leather reins in hand did Lucia finally see what nearly made her vomit. A hand, as pale as snow, stretched out from beneath the pile of stone, blood trailing down the long fingers. Her heart almost missed a beat. "Someone's under here!" she gasped in horror.