Winter, 1330

Aided by the coming snowstorm, the assault of the Dragon Division had caught the Nalbin Coalition almost completely by surprise. Within twenty minutes the battle was over, inflicting 6000 casualties, throwing the entire Coalition center into rout and- by shattering the powerful Auxian defensive positions at the Devil’s Pass- finally forced the collapse of the entire Coalition Kings Mountain Line. Besides the futile counterattack by the Stanton Brigade, the defending forces failed to respond at all. With the element of surprise and their powerful individual strength, the dragons suffered surprisingly low casualties, with two killed and nine wounded. However, the same snowstorm that benefited the attack also prevented any further attacks to exploit the success; the Mercian cavalry were unable to advance, and the dragons were trapped at the top of the pass.

The drifting grey haze with greater and greater speckles of snowflakes quickly led to a nearly blinding tornado of white. With visibility nearly down to a dozen feet, it took Meratezatgh nearly two hours to find the rest of his squadron. Thergamorth finally came across his commander trying to clamber his way up the Southern face in the midst of the storm, and without a word beckoned Mera to follow. Time and place seem to fall away to the bare existence of breathing and staying warm. Finally Mera and Thergamorth reached the other dragons reassembling near the relative cover of the leeward rocks of Queen’s Mountain.

*Is everyone here?* Mera asked Thergamorth, who had immediately begun shaking himself off the moment the rocks blocked off the winds.

*Yah.* Thergamorth nodded. *Falknir kept running off until he got caught in the snows and Hearesecha had to drag him back like an icicle. Raphrsah found this shelter. I went looking for you.*

Hearesecha came over and nodded to her commander. *Now that we found you, what would you like us to do?*

Mera looked at the landscape around them, a frightening field of white, like the blankness of an empty parchment. The dragon commander was not sure where the rest of his division was, but he could not imagine the others being in a better state than his squadron was right now, and able to remain organized enough to pursue the Auxians. He could do nothing but the obvious.

*We shelter here until the storm passes.*

*Hmph.* Hearesecha did not seemed impressed.

*Smart choice.* Raphrsah shrugged.

Mera’s squadron hunkered down as comfortably as they could to wait out the storm. No fires were lit-it was still too cold and wet, and besides there was nothing to burn. There was nothing to eat either, and as the energy and adrenaline from the battle dissipated, it was quickly replaced by weariness, bone-chilling cold and hunger.

As the bronze dragon's stomach growled, Mera raised his head to the skies and tried to clear his mind of the day's events. For a few minutes, he was like a tree, standing against in the storm swirling around him.

*What’s wrong, Mera?* Thergamorth suddenly asked besides him, interrupting his meditation.

Mera turned to see the younger dragon staring at him with worry. The squadron commander shook his head.

*Some of those humans we fought. They were from the River Triangle-they were from Stanton. Some of those were people I had swore to protect two years ago. And I slaughtered them.*

Thergamorth shrugged.

*Well, neither they nor you are at Stanton. You didn’t burn their homes to the ground. *

*I encountered the hunter that saved my life.*

*Oh? What happened?*

*I wounded him, spared his life, let him go.*

Theragmorth frowned. *Oh Mera. He’s killed dragons before right? Why would you let go of a dragonslayer?*

The copper dragon wouldn't understand. Mera got up.

*Please, go away. I need some time alone.*

As Thergmorth stared at him with concern, Meratezatgh trudged off alone to a small stand of woods nearby. It was still cold, wet, and snowing, so without a fire the dragon simply curled in upon himself like a cat and tried to sleep. Sleep was difficult as well, his stomach groaning while huddling to preserve the diminishing warmth he had left in his body. Instead Mera’s mind finally began to reminisce about the day’s momentous events and how he had gotten there.

Mera had been forced into the Great War, forced to fight for the Other Men, lest they killed the Jutrstra, lest he himself be killed by the angry townsfolk when they heard that dragons had joined the Northerner armies. He had to defend his own people, pushed to the brink of extinction.

Of course, Logan and the Stanton townsfolk had to defend their own people as well.

Mera had been fighting for people he hated, to allow them to enslave everyone he knew, all in the hopes of saving himself and the ones that he loved. Of course, Logan would fight against the Other Men. Of course, Logan would fight against him.

That the two of them would against each other was inevitable.

And that was a load of crap.

Meratezatgh the dragon had betrayed the people of Stanton, and nothing he could say to himself, or Logan could say to him, or the townsfolk could do in response, that could allow the dragon to forgive himself.

He was an evil creature. A monster of destruction and death. Too arrogant, too fickle, too bloodthirsty.

The dragon sighed. Maybe he was too hard on himself.

He had loyally defended Stanton, remained true to his friends until he had been forced to choose between friendship and blood. Perhaps it was for the best for everyone to have things end. It would allow the both of them to remain true to themselves.

Stanton was safe, far behind the horrors of the front line. He wished Logan and the surviving militia well. The dead are gone, and the living need to continue on. And the new day comes, be it for good or for ill.

Perhaps he could convince himself of that, one of these days.

With that, Meratezatgh drifted off into a fitful sleep.

***

The dragon commander woke the next day, a pile of one-foot deep snow surrounding him-evidently a dragon was warm enough to melt off anything that landed on him. Mera was still cold, wet and miserable. He opened his eyes, grumpily seeing the battlefield around him. The sun barely peeked out of the clouds, but at least the flurries had tapered off to a few trickling flakes and most everything else had been erased in a thick blanket of white. It was almost like his sins had been wiped away, leaving a clean slate.

Mera knew better of course-everything was just buried below.

The dragon commander got up, shaking off the thick ice that had shaped itself around his body, his breath misting in the crisp air. All around him, the Dragon Division was stirring. Like his unit, the entire division had been scattered all over the Devil’s Pass by the storm.

Everywhere, fires began to be lit, dragons began stretching their wings and limbs, and some began wandering looking for food on the barren slopes. A few disturbing sounds of coughing echoed through the pass. Colonel De Rosseu suddenly appeared wandering around his division while shivering heavily and rubbing his arms for warmth. Mera briefly wondered how their Other Man commander survived the night, before deciding that the commander's adoptive cousin Jangesir probably found a way to keep him alive. As the Dragon Division dug itself out, some beginning to roast whatever game that had been caught, an Other Man messenger wearing snowshoes suddenly appeared, having somehow managed to work his way up from the Northern end of the pass.

Within minutes, rumors of the message began circulating among the dragons.

*Gremenal wants the division to reassemble. The human army is retreating and we need to pursue.* Thergamorth stated as Mera rejoined his squadron. The other dragons of the squadron looked at their commander strangely, obviously thinking that Meratezatgh was acting like the strange feral that he was.

*Can we even move?* Mera looked at their Other Man commander talking to the messenger, with the Dragon Lord Rheiserrst overhearing nearby. Hundreds of dragons were doing the same. Another miserable day to join a miserable night.

'General Gremenal presents his compliments on the success of your division in taking the Devil's Gate. He wants you to throw out some squadrons to attack Dodge's forces and chew them up in the retreat as soon as possible.'

*Tell the general to shove it up his ass.* Rheiserrst growled. *We can’t even clamber out of the snows, much less fly.*

Colonel De Rosseu ignored the former remark, instead replying to the messenger in Trasgu.

'My division is stuck here. The general wanted my troops to seize the Devil’s Gate, and seize it they did, but they need some time to rally after the storm buried them.'

The messenger looked at the hundreds of grumpy looking dragons shaking themselves out of the snowstorm and nervously brushed his hair.

'I see. I will relay the order. The general may not be happy, but I am sure that he will understand the decisions of the commander in the field.'

As the messenger saluted and left, Mera realized that he had been holding his breath. He breathed a sigh of relief.

A lucky break.

As Falknir set up a fire and the rest of the squadron circled around it, Mera put his thoughts of Logan and Stanton to the back of his mind. Instead he looked at the mountains looming overhead, all covered in clouds.

Cold and miserable as it was, the storm saved the dragons from certain slaughter at Devil’s Pass and prevented the war from continuing, at least for few welcome days.

Dragons have no friends but the mountains.

---

Belle and Sebastian-Me and the Major

Another work from  TheRoguez!

Original: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/33849798/