Malice. Malice, greatest offspring of the dreaded hell-kite Spite, and considered to be the last true heir of the legendary wyrm Hatred, the Hatred that had burned the realm to ash, whose rage had raised this mountain range in what had once been gently rolling hills. Hatred's last grandchild Malice, supposedly slain hundreds of years ago, the heroes who had laid him low immortalized in song.
Aluin had first heard the name (outside of song) as a squire, seated beside his knight-master Rowena in a sleeping hall in a wet little mountain town, listening to a bandaged, ill woman rave. A miner, she had been found collapsed on the road out of the heights, feverish, filthy, covered in wounds, with broken ribs and arms. She'd been searching for a seam of silver, and found what she thought was an abandoned wyrm-lair, the largest she'd ever heard of, with coins driven into the muddy floors, melted by the dragon's breath into rivulets of gold that had flowed between cracks in the stone. But it hadn't been abandoned at all. She'd seen a dragon, green fading into black, wings ruined and tangled by a harpoon and chain, eyes that were white and blind. A dragon longer than a hundred feet that lunged out of the darkness to eat her screaming mule in three quick snaps, the animal's jerking legs kicking and sending the miner off of the path, falling into the chasm below.
"It was Malice, oh Redeemer protect me, it was old Malice of the stories. He yet lives, oh, he lives...!" she had cried, grasping at his master's sleeves, her wide eyes unfocused, trapped in her terrified memory.
She had spent days crawling up from the rocks where she had fallen, until she had managed to reach the path again and stumble her way towards town, where she had finally been found earlier that day. The knight and her squire had been called to hear her story, once the healer had done what he could to comfort the woman, who looked to be on death's door.
His knight-master had sworn to deal with the threat immediately, though she confided to Aluin that she thought it likely just some mere hell-kite that had taken up residence in a mineshaft. Rowena had confidently led a group of volunteers up the pass, following the path the miner had described till they found what looked like the place. There she'd had them lay black powder charges and put the torch to it just as the thing began to emerge from the shadows, detonating the entrance and trapping the worm within, where it could harm no one. The beast had been heard screeching within and scratching at the rubble for weeks, but eventually went silent. That had been more than fifteen years ago.
Aluin's master was long dead, catching a crossbow bolt through the visor of her helm in some meaningless battle over a meaningless square of land in a meaningless duchy leagues from their homes. Aluin had been elevated to knighthood himself, though he hadn't done much with it. He was ostensibly on errantry, on a mission to visit every corner of the Realm while searching for wrongs to right, but in practice he had mainly found himself imposing on small villages and landowners, making a nuisance of himself, too dangerous to throw out the door but too insignificant to take seriously. That's how he'd found himself lurking in the smoky, dim common room of this forest village inn at the foot of the hills. It was too small to even have a name - it was simply 'the inn.' The only one for miles. He had been the subject of whispered conversation initially, but after a few days interest had faded, talk returning to normal concerns. That was when he heard the name again.
"Found ten deer dead in the glen. Not even eaten, just... just rent to pieces and left there. Damnable Malice will be the death of the Wood."
The name jerked him out of his revery, and he snapped to alertness, to see three woodsman talking quietly near the hearth. "Pray say that again, neighbor - what did you find?" He said, putting on an appearance of amiability and rising to join the men, who looked at him with discomfort.
"Oh, ah, it's... I found some deer, Sir. Looks like they were killed by some beast," the man said. He was shorter than the others, but they seemed to defer to him, nodding in support. "I was sure I heard you say 'Malice,' neighbor - I know that name," Aluin said, pressing for a little more. "That beast is meant to be dead."
"I'm sure you're right, of course, Sir, but.. there are some who have seen it, and they describe it so: green that becomes black, crawling on broken wings, dragging chains... It had the breastplate and ribs of a knight speared and tangled in it's horns." That last detail wasn't in any song. The only other person who had spoken of that was the miner, who had died of her injuries shortly after his master had rode off to seal the dragon away. Aluin felt a chill run through him, but pushed the feeling down. "Have you found this sort of scene before?"
"For maybe... three summers now?" he raised his voice to a questioning tone, and one of the other men mumbled a confirmation of, "Aye, three summer at least." Aluin bit his lower lip thoughtfully and nodded. "Well, whether it's a beast of legend, or just a common wyvern, we can't have the monster running roughshod through the King's Wood, mm? I won't ask you to guide me to where you found the deer, but perhaps if I drew a map, you could show me a path...?" The man, who had clearly been dreading the thought of being pressed into service, visibly relaxed and nodded. "Of course, Sir knight, of course. Happy to."
Letting the men guide his hand, Aluin drew an ink sketch of the area - not a terrible drawing, but he had never been more than acceptable at drafting and surveying. Centered on the village, the forest stretched for miles to the north and south, following the mountains, except for one spur which followed a stream into a canyon, rising up in a narrow back and forth twist into the peaks itself. The slaughtered animals had been found in a glen near that canyon. Aluin realized with discomfort that that mountain town he'd been in all those years ago was fairly close on the opposite side of the peaks - he marked it with an x.
"I'll be leaving in the dark, so that I can begin tracking in the light tomorrow. Advise your fellows to stay away from the foothills until I return," he advised the man, assuming that if he listened, the others would do the same.
"And if you, ah... do not return?"
Aluin grinned mirthlessly at the man. "Then stay away from the hills forever, neighbor. If it can kill a knight, it can kill you as well, and more easily. Move away and learn to farm." The woodsman had looked ill at Aluin's jest, shaking his head and muttering in a troubled fashion as he hurried away to spread the word.
The knight slept lightly, and rose only a few hours after midnight, stepping silently into the stable and saddling his horse himself rather than wake the poor stablehand sleeping in the straw. He grunted with effort as he lifted himself astride the animal, feeling the weight of his mail more than he had in a long time - he hadn't needed to wear it for more than ceremony in quite some time. He was glad of it, though, considering it a talisman against harm even if it wouldn't do him much good against something that could eat livestock whole, or burn him into greasy ashes. His sword was belted at his waist, and his worn old kite shield was strapped across his back, and he had a bundle of rough harpoons resting in the lance cup - all of them hastily modified pruning hooks and limb saws. He wasn't intending to joust the beast if he did happen to cross paths, honor be damned.
He rode slowly in the moonlight that filtered through the branches, letting his horse choose her steps carefully through the wooded path, trusting the animal to make the best choice for their steps as he chose the general direction. As they'd ridden, he'd listened carefully to the sounds of the knight. Owls. Shrews. A pack of wolves, thankfully distant. The buzzing of insects, the choir of frogs. Occasionally he would hear a branch snap, and see the glowing eyes of a deer looking back at him, the moonlight seeming even brighter in it's eyes. If he hadn't been paying such close attention, he might not have noticed as the sounds grew muted, and then fell into a near silence - a kind of breath-held stillness that reminded him of the moments before a battle began, or a storm erupted. It wasn't peaceful, but tense. In that tension, the sudden smell of death slapped him in the face, and he coughed, drawing a rag from his saddlebags and tying it over his face for a rough mask. He'd reached the glen.
Dawn hadn't yet broken, but the lightening sky was enough for him to take in the carnage. The woodsman back in the village hadn't exaggerated - if anything, he had shown considerable restraint in his assessment of the scene. A herd of at least fifteen deer had been... he wasn't sure "slaughtered" was the word for it. They had been torn into pieces by something monstrously large and terrifyingly fast, that had rent them with massive teeth and claw but eaten little, leaving parts strewn for yards in all directions. It was... brutality for brutality's own sake, as near as he could tell, not the act of a hungry animal. The dragon was lashing out at anything it could get it's teeth into.
The only sound beyond the breathing of himself and his animal was a constant, omnipresent buzzing of flies, which rose up in black clouds as he dismounted, gritting his teeth to keep from retching as he waved them away and walked slowly to the center of the glen. The grass was sticky with blood. It was horrifyingly similar to walking through a battlefield after the enemy had gone, retrieving any who lived. But here, nothing lived. "Mercy, protect me," he breathed, his first prayer in more years than he could remember. He had found a track.
It had taken a moment to understand that it was a track - it was more than two feet wide, claws like daggers pressed more than a foot into the soft earth, tearing furrows a yard long - he realized there were more, and deer track as well. In his mind, he thought he could recreate the scene of the beast's attack.
The wyrm had erupted from between the trees... there. It had forced them aside so violently that they'd been ripped partway from the earth, their roots exposed. Then, it had charged the deer in the clearing, and struck them so violently that some had been thrown to the ground. It had killed... a doe, here, then a young buck - velvet still on the antlers - then two more does. On and on, following each animal as it had attempted to flee, catching each one with dizzying speed, scattering it. And then... he followed a trail of crushed, smeared grass that seemed to have had some massive form dragged over it. And then it had crawled back into the trees, in the direction of the canyon he'd drawn on the map. Towards the mountains above.
Sunlight was beginning to paint the tops of the trees as it crested the eastern horizon, the coolness of night already promising to fade into a warm morning. But Aluin felt cold to his very bones, almost too weak to stand. He was afraid. He was terrified. His breathing was growing faster, and he thought of a dozen different lies he could tell the people of the village when he rode back through. Or maybe he could simply pass the village by and leave them to assume he had died. It would all be the same. No one would ever have to know. No one outside of these woods ever needed to know what he had seen. He gave a shuddering breath. Trembling, he mounted his horse with difficulty, clutching the saddlehorn to keep steady. Then he gave her a light tap with his heels, setting her on a course across the glen.
Towards the mountains.
If he moved now, the trail looked fresh enough that he could still follow it - if he delayed, it might get disturbed. He couldn't afford to lose this monster. Every atom of his body screamed to flee, but... he wasn't sure how he could ever face Rowena in the next world if he fled in the face of a beast she had ridden out to meet almost cheerfully.
The sounds of the forest didn't return even after the stink of death had been left far behind. The very few creatures he saw were furtive and shy, rodents moving silently through the underbrush, or birds flitting from tree to tree in short, scared dashes. He wanted to do the same - go to ground and hide, hide till this horrid presence was gone. Instead he pressed on, till the sun was high overhead. At a certain point the terrain grew too rough to proceed mounted, so he climbed back to the ground and unsaddled the horse, leaving her untethered. He wasn't one of those saintly knights who seemed to speak with their horses, but he and the animal knew each other well enough that he trusted her to wait here for him for at least a day or two - or to run like the wind if the wyrm came down the trail instead of him. He didn't feel like tying her to a tree and guaranteeing her death just to be sure he didn't have to walk home.
As Aluin hiked the rough, rocky wildlands, he saw more and more evidence of the creature, which hid its presence less and less - nearing it's lair, he imagined. Trees torn from the ground and tossed aside like weeds, massive stones shattered into splinters, a broad trail littered with occasional ragged scales. He stopped to pick one up, holding it up to the light. While it was rough and scratched, the color beneath was breathtaking - a green darker than a leaf in a moonless forest night. It transitioned ever so slightly lighter near the end than at the root - he was quite sure now that this was definitely the dragon of the song, now. It was just as it said - clad in armor of midnight leaves. Either the real beast or it's offspring. Either way, it needed to be put down. If it was venturing so close to villages and acting out so cruelly to mere animals, it was only a matter of time before it began to kill people. And its cruelty to thinking beings would be worse, since it was people that had mutilated it before. It had to die.
The trees - those that hadn't been snapped or otherwise destroyed - thinned as he climbed higher, and he realized he could smell something different - a sharp, sulfurous reek. It was similar to that of a wyvern's nest, but magnitudes stronger. He followed the scent like a bloodhound, moving swiftly but silently, carefully balancing his harpoons on his shoulder so they didn't clatter against his shield. He was grateful he wasn't in plate - not only would it have been a special hell to climb here in it, but the clatter would have announced his presence hours before he arrived. He froze as he followed the dragon-stink around a tall rock, and found himself staring into a long, dark passage. The cave they had blocked up on the peak must have been part of a greater system. The beast had found a way out.
This is stupid. This is stupid, and I shouldn't be here. I'm going home. I'm renouncing my knighthood and going home to become a monk. Stepping as carefully and silently as he could, he began to make his way into the darkness.
The cave was about fifteen feet wide, but tall, with a ceiling high above - a wide crack that ran into the heart of the mountain. Water dripped constantly from the stone above, and Aluin paused to rummage through his backpack, retrieving his flint and a sturdy little tin oil lamp. He struck a spark to it, wincing at the scrape of the stone against the rough steel, but the dragon didn't immediately come charging out of the darkness. So there was that, at least. He kept the flame as low as he could without risking it guttering out, and proceeded further, feeling as though the world shrank to a dim, wavering orange circle a few feet around as he did.
The stones of the cave floor beneath were raw stone and slick mud, sometimes black and shiny with wet mildew. Fresh white scratches he been made into the stones, though, dozens and dozens of times - years of Malice's hunts. Sometimes the wyrm seemed to have been taken with a fury, and the gouges grew deeper, carving ragged furrows that were inches deep into the living rock. Holding his light high, he realized they went higher than his dim lamp could show, perhaps all the way up to the ceiling above. He had to clench his jaw to stop from shivering, the lamp trembling in his hand. He didn't understand how any of the heroes in the stories could have challenged dragons so bravely - it was he could do not to sprint down the hills, screaming. He did almost scream, in fact, when he took his next step while still looking up, and found his boot crunching through the skeletal chest cavity of some long dead cadaver. His chest heaved and he breathed hard through his nose, mouth clamped shut because the moment he started to scream he knew it wouldn't end. He had seen death before - oh, he had seen so much - but here under the earth, it felt different, worse. This poor soul would never see light again. He swallowed bile as he wrenched his foot free, and leaned heavily against the wall to clam his pounding heart before he - carefully watching his step - continued.
The ceiling of the cave eventually grew lower, the crack narrowing and taking sudden surprising turns, climbing steadily into the darkness. The dripping water formed a thin stream that flowed and pooled, and sometimes Aluin felt small living things in the water when he had to step through it. The sound of the water splashing in little falls created echoes, so many that he couldn't tell if they were above or below, behind or before him. It came as a surprise then when he so carefully heaved himself up over a ledge, and found himself on the edge of a much larger chamber. Holding the lamp high, he stepped gingerly within, willing his eyes to perceive every detail of the darkness. The floor seemed to be made of round little stones, here, slathered in mud. But when he nudged a few of them together with his toe, they made a muted, soft clink. It was... coin. Coins! He stood in the hoard!
It wasn't as marvelous as the hoard of Spite was described to be. He could see rough, vaguely humanlike forms that might have been statues, but they were blackened by flame, smashed into limbless, headless remains. The fine tapestries on the walls were rags, and the gold, the gold had been trampled into the mud, or blasted and melted into heaps of rough slag. It was a ruin. Still...
As he reached down, thinking to pocket at least one or two pieces of gold, he felt some subtle change in the air. The scent of dragon, which he had grown numb too, was suddenly fresh and sharp, almost nauseatingly powerful as it filled his nose and lungs. He straightened carefully, so carefully. Dimming his lantern till the wick within flickered desperately, struggling to stay lit, he let his other senses extend. A whisper, a hiss of.. iron against stone, tile sliding against tile - scales. the deep, powerful breaths of an unbelievably immense creature. The almost inaudible rumble of each footstep, which reverberated through the stone and up through his feet. He could feel it, feel it stalking. Malice was approaching. He held still, clenching his jaw tightly as he felt a sudden heat - a heat coming from behind him. He had been followed into the cave, hunted even while he thought himself the hunter. Oh, Justice, please protect your foolish servant.
Malice crawled up over the ledge he had crested himself a few moments before, and he peeked over his shoulder as the dragon - so hard to see in the dim light, a shadow among the shadows - craned it's massive head back, and then forth again, a long tongue tasting the air. It's blind eyes were white, wide open in the dark. It spoke, which was such a shock that it nearly set him running. "You hide, then...? Good, rabbit, hide... I will dig you out, dig you out..." it was whispering to itself, but as big as it was it's voice rumbled like a drum. "Crack your ribs open and stuff you with rotten deer, leave you to hang, to age, yes..." The dragon finished crawling out of the tunnel, the chains piercing it's shredded, ruined wings jangling as they dragged across the stone. Malice used its broken wings like a third set of legs, and crawled forward through the chamber, the hot scales of its belly almost brushing the top of Aluin's head as it passed. Gods above and below, the thing was immense - the idea that this monster had once flown was astonishing. It's tail swayed as it moved on into the dark, and Aluin realized he'd been holding his breath the whole while, letting it out as slowly as he could as he felt the vibrations moving farther. His heart was pounding as hard as it had in any battle - he might not live long enough for the dragon to kill if this went on too long. He retrieved his lamp, and began to increase the flame, recalling those blind eyes. The little knob to adjust the wick creaked slightly.
It was only a moment of intuition that kept him from dying immediately. The dragon was on him in less than a heartbeat, it's head - half the size of an entire horse - darting back out of the darkness and snapping where he had been a fraction of a second before. Malice's jaws crashed shut on a pile of coins while Aluin bolted, running madly into the dark, acutely aware of his breathing, kicking piles of coins with each step. The monster screamed - a scream full of pure, distilled hatred. This thing wouldn't simply kill him, when it caught him, it would make him beg for it. Desperately, Aluin tossed his harpoons to the side, shrugging his shield off of his back and grabbing the edge. He came to a sudden halt, and heaved it as hard as he could to the side, closing his eyes briefly in prayer - if this didn't work, he didn't want to see what was to come. He heard the shield spinning in the silence before clattering into a mountain of detritus, and the dragon changed course, smashing into it and raging about. Aluin went to the floor, crawling silently back to his harpoons, freezing each time the thrashing beasts tail swung pash him - the tip moving so fast he feared it might strike his head cleanly off. He'd look just like one of the ruined statues, then. The thought gave him pause, and he realized he had... not a strategy, but maybe a desperate hope that could pass for one.
The dragon had risen from the heap of treasure it had been rampaging in, and in a fury vomited gouts of flame that hit the ceiling and spread like a wave to every corner of the chamber. The ragged remains of every tapestry burst into flame, ash and smoke stinging Aluin's lungs as he prepared a spear. He stood with his back to one of the statues. one that might have been a marble knight long ago - in it's rough broken hand it still clutched a stone spear of its own. Aluin swallowed, and dropped a few coins to the floor, watching the beast whirl to face him. He was startled by how beautiful it was in the firelight, even in it's wounded state. He had been a stupid fool to dream that he could defeat this creature.
Malice roared, its hatred shaking the foundations of the earth, and lunged with speed that was almost impossible to believe. Aluin readied his harpoon as the opened jaws raced towards him, and then collapsed to the ground beneath at the last second, letting the dragon lunge past, jaws open wide - and scream in agony as it impaled its soft upper palette on the broken stone spearman. Gouts of boiling-hot blood poured out, splashing on Aluin's face, causing him to scream in his own agony as his left eye went dark. With all the strength he could summon, he gripped his harpoon and plunged it upwards into Malice's throat, the creature's cries of agony bubbling and gurgling as blood flooded it's lungs. It rose up, crying out its defiance before collapsing to the floor, stones falling from the ceiling from the shock.
Aluin groaned as he rolled away from Malice, drawing his sword and watching the dragon's warily before approaching nearer. It struggled to breath, bubbles frothing from the corners of its open mouth and the wound in its throat. It's head rested on the cave floor, eyes half shut, staring at nothing. "Filthy insect..." it wheezed. "Every one of your kind... will burn..."
The knight carefully walked past the twitching claws, steeling his nerves as he stepped within the dragon's reach, placing a hand lightly on its hot scales. The creature shuddered, and he marveled at the way the motion made the scales shimmer in the dwindling flames. He suddenly realized that part of him would always feel shame for what he had done this day, necessary though it might have been. "Your pain will be over in a moment, king of the skies."
Malice snarled its hatred, kicking ineffectually with one of it's hindlegs before shuddering again. "You... will never know peace... insect. Forever, I curse..." it rasped. Aluin nodded solemnly. "If that is how it must be, then it shall be so. I hold no grudge against you. Rest, now, sky king." He placed the tip of his sword against a crack between two of the dragon's breastplate scales, and slid it home as swiftly as he could in his wounded state. The pitiful creature stiffened, and he hissed as its internal furnace heated the blade to red hot, burning the impression of the grip into his palms - a final rebuke. Then it began to cool, and coils of oily smoke leaked past the guard, the beast finally relaxing fully to the cave floor. It was over.
In the silence that followed, he considered taking some kind of proof that the wyrm was slain, but the thought of mutilating the dragon further than it already had been made him nauseous. He settled for collecting a scale from the ground, holding it in trembling hands and offering a deep bow to the slain dragon. "Rest well." His voice echoed in the silence. He didn't leave until it had faded completely.
Songs about the slaying of the great Malice came eventually to include a final movement wherein a nameless stranger arrived after the knights who first wounded it, who taught the dragon the virtues of Justice and escorted the dragon to the next world with kindness and grace. He is identified only by being blind in his left eye, his face scarred with burns, while his right eye is an incredibly dark green, shading into black.
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