Williker’s shoulders heaved as he breathed deeply. Blood still misted the air, and hot sticky gore coated his armor, the floor, and the walls. The heady sour scent of carnage and bodily fluids grossed the air- the smell of battle. 

 In a jerky motion he yanked his chinstrap off and pulled his horn adorned helm off of his sweating head. Damp locks of blond hair fell free into his eyes. He raked the hair away in a single decisive movement. He was young to be in command, yet grey streaks were stripping his hair, and stubble. His tan face was lean with a sharp angular jaw, high cheekbones, and sunken grey eyes that were intelligent, sullen, and fringed with sorrow. He wore a face that demanded respect. 

 He had tried to kill the black dragon before it could finish whatever cursed spell it had been performing. And he failed, only by a damned second. Now, he watched the black dragon writhe in death: wings twitching, body thrashing, thudding, claws splaying, slashing, and its tail coiling and uncoiling, all a while its headless neck whipped, spraying thick black blood. The head lay a few feet away, its maw still biting viciously at the air, with loud grueling snaps, as it splashed in a dark widening puddle. Its green eyes were clouded with the murky film of death and were rolling in their sockets, yet the lidless eyes were still haunting. Even in death those snake eyes were brimming with hatred and anguish. 

 Williker scanned the room. The dragon of ice lay twitching in its own blood. In a mere four minutes twenty of his men had been felled by the dragon's claws. Their corpses laid, broken, destroyed, and frozen. Like a hundred flowers blooming after a soft spring rain, crimson still spilled from the cruel gashes that flayed them in half. Then he flicked his eyes past the snapping head of the dragon, as it bit off its own forked tongue, and to the pit sealed by metal imbued with ancient powerful magic. 

 A magic that Williker, Emperor of all Sevvet, had never contacted before. The air thrummed with it, like the chords of a lute being plucked. It reverberated and droned on, like a heartbeat. Jutting from the center of the pit, was a small pillar that did not touch the ceiling. 

 Crude symbols that gleamed like daggers, excreted an ominous baleful glow. They were etched into the pillar’s shiny surface. All Williker wanted to do was to smash that pillar with his battle axe- destroy that last remnant of dragon magic, that didn’t belong to humanity. Deep down he knew that if he were to assault this strange groaning spell of ancient power, he would be sealing his fate. So instead Williker, Emperor of all Sevvet, glowered at the grave of the dragon, who had been an Emperor. 

 “Emperor Williker,” deeply bowed Leo, who was one of Williker’s commanders. “We have defeated the Dragon King?”

 “The prick who raises dead, and calls himself a King?” growled Williker, as he hefted Savre, his dragonbone battle-axe, off the floor. Like dewdrops sliping gracefully off a leaf, black droplets of blood dripped from the blade’s snarling edge. “Yes and no.”

 “What do you mean?” Asked, Leo as confusion and faint horror scrunched his battle-weary face. 

 “We defeated the Dragons. Great powerful ancient beasts, but they were so few to begin with. We stole their magic, used it against them. Then with both magic and chains we destroyed their advantage of flight. But, do you hear it? The heartbeat, that thrum?” Williker’s eyes never wavered from the pillar. 

 “Yes, what is it…?” Leo craned his head in several directions, trying to discern the source of the echoing sound. It seemed to reverberate from the ground, the walls, the dead, and the ceiling- a chorus of phantom hearts pulsating as one. 

 “It is a magic that is beyond us. One that we cannot touch or destroy. And wrapped up in this magic, like a babe in a blanket, is Ejdair.” Williker’s voice rose with every word, vexation drew his figure taunt, and his knuckles whitened as his grip tightened around the hilt of his axe. 

 “How do we kill him?” 

 Suddenly, Williker’s shoulders slumped and his figure relaxed, as his great throaty laughter boomed. It was a loud bark like laughter, that vaguely reminded Leo of the way a hound would bark after it had cornered a fox. 

  “My Emperor?” It took several minutes for Williker to calm. He smiled lazily at the metal pit bound in magic. 

 “Those runes are powerful and ancient I can only make out a few. Awake and death, the others are a mystery to me. For Ejdair to awaken one must go and activate that column.”

 “Then why don't we go do that and slay him once and for all?”

 “Because,” Williker spoke in a chastising manner, as if he was teaching an idle child a lesson that has already been taught to him several times, yet the child couldn’t grasp the concept. “If we do, we will die. Dragons aren’t stupid. Barriers of horrendous spells protect him. He will awaken at the cost of anyone foolish enough to activate that pillar, however that is.”

 “Then… what will we do?”

 “This land will remain holy. No man is ever allowed to step foot in this land. If he does so he has committed treason against the holy Emperor of Sevvet. This land shall remain holy for all eternity, honoring our victory over Dragon, Fae, and Elven kind. Honoring our rise from their slavery. Ejdair, the Dragon, who thought he could be a god, he can keep his immortality and sleep for all the eons to come.”