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It was useless. The smoke kept rising, now covering his torso, smothering his chest.
Wherever it touched him, even through his clothes, an icy coldness seeped into his skin. He’d expected the smoke to burn. Instead, it suffocated and froze. Would it drown him when it rose over his face?
This could not end here.
He could not die here.
Not before he killed the motherfucking spawn of Hell.
“Foolish boy.”
The dark, rolling, thunderous voice was more of a vibration that the warrior felt rather than a sound he heard.
“You seek to destroy that which you do not understand.”
He gritted his teeth to keep his jaw locked tight. He wouldn’t respond to the monster’s taunts. The dragon was only trying to confuse him.
His hands tightened on his sword and dagger.
One chance was all he needed. He’d fought enough of these beasts to know exactly where to strike. He just needed the right opportunity. Get close enough…
“I give you fair warning,” the nebulous voice echoed through his mind.
“Forhersake, I will allow you to turn around and walk away, if you never darken my threshold again.”
The warrior did not have to ask to whom the monster referred.
There was only one “her” between them. And the mere mention of their misbegotten link made vengeance surge within his veins anew.
“Forhersake, I will never stop hunting you until the earth is soaked with the blood of your entrails and my sword has speared your gullet,” the warrior bit out.
“Face me, dragon. This ends today.”
The heavy smoke had risen high enough to cover half his face by now.
He could feel its icy tendrils numbing his skin, leaching through flesh and bones. Sharp, needle-like pricks blazed up and down his body, as if every drop of blood that flowed within him was fighting for survival.
His limbs weighed like lead. The sword and dagger like anvils in his grip. His muscles quivered with the effort of keeping the weapons in front of him and aloft. His senses struggled to stay sharp.
Just one shot.
Come on, dragon. Show yourself!
And then it did.
A gigantic, thorn-crowned head thrust through the smoke. Its jaws opened wide. Jagged teeth, each the size of the warrior’s dagger, gleamed in tightly-packed rows on both top and bottom. Large, glassy, serpent eyes blazed bright with gold, veins of fire spreading around the vertical pupil.
“So be it, dragon-slayer,” the monster hissed, as a ball of flames moved visibly from its scaly neck to its mouth.
The warrior harnessed all of his strength in a single leap, sword raised, dagger poised—
And he woke up on a ragged gulp of breath.
As if it was the first breath he’d drawn from a near-death drowning.
His heart hammered so hard in his chest, his sternum and ribcage hurt from the beating. Sweat poured down his face, coating his naked body with the stench of fear.
He pushed aside his soaked bedclothes and made his way in the inky darkness of his chamber to the water stand in a corner.
