Racing through the foliage covered in early morning dew and chopping through any extended limb to cross his path with a smooth swing of Slytherin's Bane, Harry kept one ear perked toward the battle behind him, and half his mind on his dragon's well-being. The pride of that roar still glowed in his heart, but this was their first real sense of mortal combat, where anything could happen- and fast in a foreign world of magic, as he well knew by now.

Splinters of memory wisped across his mind's eye almost unbidden; threads of power weaving together to unleash fire and brimstone, scorching through his battle robes and melting the immaculate white highwayman's sword in hand like glass. He blotted them out before they could see him do more than stumble one or two steps, grip wavering on the hilt in his hand now as it had then.

"Shape up. Ferrovax is not the only one in danger, now." His eyes tracked the disturbance in the foliage seventy meters away and closing in much too quickly for the slant of the slope to be an average soldier fleeing from combat. Not more than seconds afterward confirmed his suspicion with the flicker of familiar hooded cloak. "So much for taking the initiative." He swore, slowing enough to scout where he and the approaching, stooped figure scurrying unpleasantly across the hillside like a leathery roach, would meet in combat.

Pity that transfiguration is out. This is going to be hit-or-miss every step of the way, and it isn't improving any further down. Harry went to work clearing the immediate environment of obstruction, boots gouging at the softening surface dirt to seek out firmer soil beneath. He would never offer a flat plateau, but at the least he could even the terrain up a little. In the seconds he lost to that cause, glancing down calculatingly, the better a picture came to him of his opponent in the gray, encroaching dawn, and the more distinctively alien that picture grew. He already knew to expect its echoing, chittering rasp, but he had not been able to obtain a clear and certain view underneath the obstructing garments until then, and the flickers of wide, bulbous eyes beneath the hood as it studied him in turn felt awry. He had seen more accommodating acromantula eyes than what peered up at him in that moment.

"This is what those poor fools had to contend with breathing down their necks. No wonder they're shaken." It cut no deviation from the path where he awaited, and as such Harry let his mind fade off of his dragon, the Urgals, and the soldiers beyond. He dialed his attention back to his opponent.

"Where is Brom?" the creature hissed moodily scant seconds later. An oddly textured, wavy sword bobbed in the grip of its left hand. "Where is the old Rider who would defy us yet again?"

Harry intercepted the first lunge with Slytherin's Bane. Their blades met in an explosive whirlwind, steel and brass on leafy iron, sending a row of effervescent sparks this way, now that, now there, each rolling slash and counterpart blowing hungry embers into the damp-yet-eager kindling to their sides. Most that fell died before they could take life, and more were trodden underfoot as Rider and creature spun the second-oldest dance in creation. As far as swordsmen go, he thought, welcoming the throb behind his fingers that bludgeoned up into his wrists with each blow, I have known better, but few who weren't obviously reliant upon magic. A few sprigs of grass and dry leaf at last ignited as Harry ran his protesting left hand in a vicious spiral that left molten rain spitting from his opponent's weapon.

"Where is Brom? Where hides the decrepit Rider that would send a foolish man in his place?" it quorked at him like a raven with sawdust in its throat, and he felt a heady loss of momentum to his next swordstroke. The tip of that leafy blade slid beside his guard and cut a line from lower-wrist to armpit, a small measure turned away by his battle robes toward the end, the rest hot and clear in his mind as blood raced down the zagging cut to fall at their feet.

"Bloody hell," he grunted and disengaged, attention splintered between figuring out what the hell had just happened to slow him down and trying to gather his blood magic to stop the bleeding. The bird-bug quorked again eagerly and he was forced on the retreat, losing distance all the while as he traced his steps back up the slope.

Arresto Momentum! He finally resorted to his magic, but the casting was forced, hasty, and the creature was only stumbled to a rough jerking motion rather than halted completely. Nevertheless, Harry quickly gathered himself, grappling the flow of his blood back under control and stilling it just beneath the gash begging to weep. He could attend to it fully later.

"Your skill is lacking, magician!" it broke free the next instant to rush him again, that leafy-sword twirling between both hands now. Again he felt his senses seem to react as if partially submerged, and again he was struck when he should have easily countered. This time the blow landed outside of his arm from elbow to shoulder, the second blow dislocating above what had just been broken below. "You will die for the old Rider, his latest failing!"

Harry gasped, more so in fury than pain. Slytherin's Bane shook in his remaining hand and he abandoned retreat. Somewhere off in the distance Ferrovax roared like an erupting volcano, two parts anguish to three parts unbridled rage. The bird-bug paused at the sheer intensity of that primordial cry, but Harry did not; a distant sense told him what he would eventually discover on his own, if he survived, and he felt his blood boiling to match his dragon's.

"I don't know what you've been doing," he stated as he gathered himself, charging in, and throughout the edges of his vision muddy red and brown washed out the natural grays, greens, and blues of the forest, "nor do I know who you keep asking after," the creature shook itself and weaved forward to match his strike, but now Harry caught it across one edge of the basilisk's jaw, just above his clenched fingers, and he threw himself down and forward, pushing it back, "but this is over! I have not fought a thousand fights of steel and sorcery to die to an overgrown cockroach!" Red hot agony swallowed the reasonable parts of his mind as he reached up with his broken arm, blood magic desperately pumping to convey his will into reality, and he grasped the hilt with both hands.

It was almost too much.

So many diverse factors screaming for his focus. Pain not an inconsiderable one by half, and instinct, but not his own, clawing at his senses to run wild, reckless, and damn the consequences.

Harry Potter fought to control himself before he lost his fight beyond that.

"What is this?" The bird-bug cocked it's head to the side and quorked again, breathing out sharply. It tried to disengage and repeat its savage blow- but now he was not slowed, would not be slowed, wrapping tighter and tighter into a wrath that was not wholly his own to keep fighting as he had and truly should have been all along.

"Vengeance!" The word emerged with a fury-drunk snarl that did not belong wholly to man nor dragon.

Slytherin's Bane ground into the wavy blade where sparks had flown forth, and a distinctive crack echoed across the clearing. Neither paid mind to the growing inferno below as those very same sparks bloomed into raging flames. The creature's head lashed forward and from beneath its hood he saw, up close and disgustingly personal, yet distant all the same, the sharp beak it bore for a mouth as the creature pecked at his dislocated shoulder, and then when he was not deterred, toward his throat. Harry wrenched his senses back from the edge, ducking down underneath the latter to catch the underside of its own throat with his protesting shoulder, his right ear pressed beside the clicking beak.

With a shout the Rider threw them both forward, crashing chest to chest, swords caught between their bodies, and what had begun as a small line across the leaf now fissured across the whole of the wavy blade. Slytherin's Bane chopped through and carried into the right arm, catching halfway into its hidden exoskeleton. It's limb fell, bone and muscle severed, yet did not break away.

For the first time, the bird-bug rasped in pain.

For the first time, it's hideous bulbous eyes reflected a measure of fear.

Harry rolled away from the mad retaliatory peck, wrenching his sword free, and as he came to his feet in rising exhaustion, he stepped in and took it between the spread beak that sought for his face now. Dark blood, somehow different than the red he was used to seeing, sprayed out either side of the creature's mouth as Slytherin's Bane ran the full length across vulnerable flesh, the tip cutting deeper in and down the gullet before it burst out the other side at the neck.

Then it fell.

Harry swayed on his feet above the twitching, rasping body of his mortally wounded foe. He had to lean upon his bloody sword to stay upright, and muddled emerald met fading black. "Dd... au-th!" it swore with what remained of the tongue.

Death? The heat was going out of him now, resuming complete residence in the source off to his right somewhere, and his ears finally picked up the other roar rumbling across the razing forestry, the roar of ravaging fire growing out of control, and though it pained him further still Harry straightened. His vision cleared of Ferrovax's haze more-or-less completely.

All that about being careful, he thought ruefully, feeling all the aches presented by his sordid situation. He gripped his dislocated shoulder and on the exhale jerked it into place- only to fail. He gritted his teeth, breathed hard and repeated, feeling bone and ligaments snap reluctantly in place. Merlin's hairy balls, if I never suffer an arm injury again on this forsaken world I'll consider myself blessed!

He sidestepped the half-hearted motions the bird-bug made with it's good arm, resisting the momentary resurgent urge to kick it down the hillside and let nature finish the job. He stowed his sword away for the nonce and drew out his wand, filling his mind with the intent behind his brewing spell.

It's going to take a lot of Aguamenti to fix this.


INTERMISSION.


A/N: Hello folks. Been a long time, hasn't it? Too long. A few weeks ago I finally sat down and cobbled together the disparate pieces of this, the first segment, of Chapter Three. I fully intended to have completed the second segment, in which Ferrovax and the Kull clash against the main soldiers and magicians, and yet I am still refining and redrafting that battle. I have the aftermath prepped and ready. I have things ready for us to start on the road to the land of the elves at last. All I have to do is just finish this darn battle, decide on which events I want to keep and which to discard and how to go about bringing it together. Rather than wait any longer I've decided to offer up this ~1700 word taste so that we finally have something done. I hope that you are all still interested and that this has not disappointed you. Thank you for your patience.

Also. If you're wondering why Harry was effected at all by the Ra'zac's breath, it isn't a mistake, and I do have reasoning behind that that we will see around the time of Du Weldenvarden.