The cave was steeped in a silence as heavy as the mountains of gold that formed its walls.
Kaldorath the Gleaming, Dragon-King and self-proclaimed Lord of the Northern Forest, rested on a bed of gemstones so vast they could have served as shields for giants. Deep sapphires, like abyssal pools, lay alongside blazing rubies, vibrant emeralds rivaling the canopy he coveted, and diamonds pure as frozen tears. The light, caught and reflected by this immeasurable treasure, danced in hypnotic patterns across his polished ebony scales, streaked with veins of liquid gold. His eyes, two embers of molten magma, scanned the vastness of his mineral palace.
'Three million four hundred twenty-two thousand nine hundred… no.'
Kaldorath let out a low growl, a whiff of sulfur briefly tainting the air. A small, imperfect topaz, barely larger than a griffon's egg, had rolled out of the meticulous pile he was counting for the seventh time this month.
An imperfection. A disturbance.
"Three million four hundred twenty-two thousand nine hundred ONE," he rumbled, his cavernous voice making the smaller gems tremble on their stacks. The echo reverberated, carried by the cave's walls.
The count was sacred. Order was sacred. The submission of the Northern Forest and its stubborn elves was just as sacred.
And yet…
A faint scratching sounded near the cave's monumental entrance.
Grikk, the goblin general tasked with "pacifying" the western sector, stood there, sweating profusely despite the chill of the heights. His scrawny frame trembled visibly, flanked by two massive troll guards who seemed to want to shrink themselves as small as possible.
"Approach, crawling vermin," Kaldorath thundered without turning his head. His tail, thick and tipped with a spear of black crystal, lazily swept a pile of gold coins, sending a metallic cascade spilling into a corner. "Three million four hundred twenty-two thousand nine hundred one… and some dust."
Grikk hobbled forward. He stopped at what he deemed a safe distance, bowing so low his bushy nose scraped the gem-strewn floor.
"Greatness of Greatnesses, Scourge of the Skies…" he began in a shrill voice.
"Spare me your pathetic flattery," the dragon cut in, a wisp of black smoke curling from his nostrils. His ember eyes finally fixed on the goblin, and the cave's temperature seemed to rise ten degrees. "Tell me why my throne of ancient branches isn't carved yet. Why the elves aren't groveling in the dust before my splendor. Why this annexation takes the time of a lunar cycle when a week would've sufficed for slugs."
Grikk swallowed audibly. "O Great Scourge… the… the elves resist with surprising tenacity. Their woodland spells are… cunning. And…" He hesitated, his eyes dodging the burning gaze.
"AND?" The roar shook crystal stalactites, which shattered in a sparkling rain deeper in the cave.
"And… General Sorey…" Grikk blurted in a panicked breath. "The Sylph champion of the southern sector! He… he was defeated!"
A silence fell.
The magma in Kaldorath's eyes seemed to pulse.
"Defeated?" The question was a whisper. "By those scrawny elves? Was their matron involved?"
Grikk shook his head frantically. "No, O Radiance! By… by a human. A single human."
The effect was immediate. Kaldorath rose slowly, his serpentine neck unfurling, his colossal bulk eclipsing the light of the gems. His shadow swallowed Grikk and his guards. A deep rumble, like a waking volcano, stirred in his chest.
"A HUMAN?" His tone rose, laced with furious disbelief. "A single one? A wretched two-legged worm felled Sorey? Sorey, who bore my blessing? Explain, goblin, or your next breath will be your last."
"He… he appeared like magic, Greatness!" Grikk stammered, prostrate. "A flash, a tear in the air! A mage, no doubt! He struck Sorey down with unnerving ease! Then vanished as quickly! Our scouts say he's prowling near the main elven enclave!"
"Appeared? Vanished?" Kaldorath was practically frothing, black, smoking drool dripping from his lower fangs, hissing as it hit the gems. "Humans? In MY forest? After MY explicit orders?" His eyes turned to a darker corner of the cave. "ZURLAK!"
The call thundered through the cave. The space before the dragon tore open with a crackle of violet energy, and a figure was ejected, landing heavily on a pile of gold coins.
"S-Sire Kaldorath!" the minion chirped, scrambling upright, a survival reflex honed over centuries of service. "Your call is an honor as radiant as—"
"SILENCE!" The dragon lowered his colossal snout toward the tiny minister. His scorching breath made the tattered flesh still clinging to Zurlak's jaw dance. "I ordered you, Zurlak, to watch the human entrances. Every path, every crevice, every breach in the ancient wards of this cursed forest! You swore your beetle networks would let no two-legged fly enter without my knowledge!"
The skeleton's teeth chattered, a dry, nervous clack. "But… but Sire! Our systems were flawless! Impenetrable! The dimensional detectors logged no significant breaches! No passage spells were detected at the known borders! This human… he didn't enter through normal routes! He must've… bypassed…"
"Bypassed?" Kaldorath spat the word like an insult. The magma in his eyes seemed to spill. "You dare speak of 'bypassing' when a single human, ONE, wreaks havoc on my invasion, reduces my generals to scraps, and threatens MY ORDER?" His voice hit a deafening crescendo. "You offer me EXCUSES, Zurlak?"
The minister stumbled back, raising a bony hand in a pleading gesture. "No, Great Scourge! Explanations! Mitigating circum—"
He never finished.
A flash. Not of light, but a movement so swift it defied perception. Kaldorath's right foreclaw, a black flint blade the size of a beam, swept through the air with deadly precision and cataclysmic force.
CRACK.
The sound was sharp, horrific, like a massive dry branch snapping.
Zurlak's head, its polished skull and violet eyes still wide with sudden, final terror, parted from its cervical vertebrae. It traced a graceful, macabre arc through the cave's shimmering air, spinning several times before landing with an incongruous thud on a cushion of deep blue sapphires near Grikk's feet.
The body stood frozen for a moment, then collapsed in a rustle of bones and rich fabrics.
A deathly silence settled.
Only the crackle of embers in the dragon's eyes and Grikk's terrified panting broke the returned calm.
The goblin stared, horrified, at the minister's head, its violet glow slowly fading.
Kaldorath glanced at his claw. A tiny shred of flesh clung to it. He snorted dismissively, a small jet of blue flames reducing it to ash. He regarded Zurlak's head on the sapphires, a grim ornament added to his treasure.
"Incompetence," he growled, his voice now a distant thunder roll, heavy with absolute menace, "is paid in full. Always."
He rose to his full immensity. The gem mountains rumbled and partially collapsed under his shifting weight, sparking avalanches of rubies and emeralds.
His colossal silhouette dominated the cave, his membranous wings, taut like the sails of a cursed ship, brushing the high ceilings. Heat radiated from him like a divine forge.
"They're all pitiful," he declared, more to himself than to the petrified Grikk. "Trembling goblins, stupid trolls, verbose sylphs… and elves who think humans can save them."
A sneer bared a row of sword-long fangs. "They all forget who I am. They forget what I embody."
He cast a final, disdainful glance at Zurlak's head.
"If you want something done right…" He took a step forward, crushing the minister's lifeless body under his forepaw without noticing. "…you do it yourself."
He turned toward the cave's monumental entrance, toward the vista of snow-capped peaks and, below, the restless green sea of the Northern Forest's canopy. Where elves resisted. Where an insolent human played hero.
"Grikk," he thundered.
The goblin jolted as if electrocuted. "O-O Eternal Flame?"
"Sound the Horn. Gather what remains of my pitiful army."
Kaldorath slowly spread his immense wings, dimming the gemlight. The air crackled around him, charged with predatory energy. "I'm descending from my mountain. And this forest…" His molten eyes fixed on the distant green. "…will learn to honor the king I am."
Without a backward glance at his treasure or his former minister's head, Kaldorath the Gleaming, Dragon-King, launched from the cave's ledge. His vast shadow, cast by the setting sun, swallowed the mountain slopes like a mantle of living darkness, plunging toward the forest below.
The wind carried his first roar.