Chapter 71: ArchDragon

It had been along time since anyone had come requesting anything from him; especially as he had been the Dragon King who had failed to stop humanity from further utilising the 'darkening' - in conjunction with the research given to them by the 'Great Ones' - to further themselves on the continent.

For nearly a hundred and fifty years after the fall of the four elven arch mage traitors, the elves and other dragons had continued to hold him in high regard due to his status as Sun King but at a distance due to his less positive fuelled spell as Dragon King.

Moreover, as grateful as they all were for him being the Dragon King responsible for ending the catastrophic war between the Great Ones, their acolytes and those whom sought to end their dangerous experiments, they still labelled him 'defective', simply for failing to prevent that human mage from escaping with the Relic Staff.

'Hero' and 'Sun God' were the titles he was once bestowed and called but now he was simply 'old wyrm'.

He rarely received visits from merchants, warriors and travellers who, long ago, ventured through the borderlands to do business in the western half of the continent and whom would coincidentally meet with him for his blessing.

Once a King now an internal self-exile stewing in his rage and hatred of a time long past, as well as towards a human male who was responsible for his facial injuries.

Punishing himself for his past miscalculation, Sol Regem refused all attempts by Avizandum to pardon him; instead choosing to accept his past actions as another blight on his former rule.

The duty of guarding the borderlands had never been a very important task prior to the division of the continent and the expulsion of humanity to the western half.

However, once the war against the traitorous great ones and the human dark mages was over, Avizandum and the High Elven Lords of the six elf tribes all decided that someone should be stationed at the border; in the absence of the new dragon king, from time to time, to ensure that the humans didn't try to return.

Or god forbid try to capture and make use of any of the 'Scientist's' centuries old abandoned inventions that still remained half or fully buried in the earth of the Breach.

And so the Sun King went into self-imposed exiled in the borderlands; out of sight of and out of the mind of those who saw him as nothing more than a relic of the war that had once threatened to tear the continent apart.

'Blind Spot', 'Old Wyrm' were just two of the many derogatory names that elves m; and some dragons, now called him - not that he cared what he went by anymore - all because he had let some puny human mage get the better of him.

'That damned bastard'.

'Ziard!'

Even though he knew that the human in question whom was responsible for blinding him was now undoubtedly long since dead, the image of that man was forever burned into Sol Regem's brain - torturing him with his unending, unreachable and unkillable smirk.

There had been many times that he had very nearly thrown away his guard duty for hunting down and annihilating that man's family and ending the bloodline once and for all.

Whether for his own personal gratification; peace of mind, or delivering long forgotten justice for the good and noble elves as well as his fallen dragon kin who had died in the Diversionary War, Soo Regem still fought his internal lust to end that bloodline against his remaining honour as an Arch Dragon.

Yet he had always refrained from carrying out his fantasies of seeing 'that' bloodline become extinct due to his position as the the leader of all fire dragons. Being the Archdragon of the Sun as well as the former dragon king meant that he knew propriety dictated that he not defer from embarrassing his fellow firewyrms.

Or lest he forget, his successor. Avizandum.

'Through death no one returns'.

With vengeance no longer an option the Sun King sat composed on a rocky island crag in the middle of the sole navigable pass of the Valley of the Moon, permanently on edge awaiting any would-be invaders.

Yet for some reason today he was awoken from another day of idleness and sloth by a blue phoenix nuzzling against him clutching an arrow in its talons and gesturing with its beak back towards mainland Xadia.

Shaking his head free of his sleep and thoughts he narrowed his eyes at being rudely awoken before turning his attention to the shimmering blue Phoenix.

Assuming that the message was a frivolous request Sol Regem shoved the bird away with his massive left forearm and released a gush of smoke from both his nostrils in the phoenix's face, but as he prepared to lay down again the bird shoved his beak into his face and then dropped the scroll at the dragons talons.

Remembering how he was frequently called upon to vanquish enemy armies and defend Xadia against those whom brewed malice and discontent; Sol Regem allowed himself a brief moment to bask in the memories better days: cleansing away such impurities with his dragon fire.

In that past even the Skeksis in the Dark Kingdom used to think twice about facing him in battle; calling him the 'Dreadful Sun'. Now however, all he ever did was sit and watch rocks day after year.

Yet as he stared down at the writ in now his talons, he couldn't help but feel a sense of gladness swell within himself.

Contrarily, he seemed too felt momentarily perplexed at why he was receiving this attention after so many centuries of self-exile when there were other arch dragons that Avizandum could have chown from.

Since he'd abdicated his position as dragon king situations involving acolytes of the Dark Kingdom attacking, invading or scouting through elven territories would either be dealt with by either the specific High Lords of the elf territories breached by those said acolytes, or by direct confrontation by his successor.

However, as he continue to read further into the writ he learned that as Avizandum was presently engaged in mediating a diplomatic rendition between the rulers of the Ocean and the Earthblood elves over the disputed region of Suidelasia - due to a minor skirmish.

And so in Avizandum's absence Dragon Queen Zubeia had diverted the Phoenix to the borderlands, with an addendum for 'the sun king to deal with skeksis acolytes'.

Sol Regem knew that moon elves weren't particularly fond of fire - be it from dragon or sunfire elf - but he couldn't help but feel miffed that by reading this scroll he was now being forced to act due to Avizandum's poor time management.

Yet, at the same time a different part of him felt euphoric about having the chance to remind the elven world of his presence. As well as getting a little petty revenge back against the Dark Kingdom.

So in the absence of the dragon king, by command of the queen, Sol Regem accepted his dispatch order to deal with wraiths in the Silvergrove. Yet unknown to Zubeia, the Sun King held a particular disdain towards wraiths; and took great pleasure in destroying them, seeing them as traitors who'd willingly acquiesced and accepted skeksis rule.

To say that Sol Regem despised those whom 'gave themselves' to the Skeksis, becoming wraiths, and now unrelentingly loyal to them was an understatement.

To him the fallen elves were nothing but abhorrent ghouls whose existence would one day be reduced to 'ash in the wind'.

"Living on borrowed time…" Sol Regem growled furiously. "Awaiting the freedom of a fiery death!"

Whilst there had been some progress made in coming up with some sort of serum for the wraiths to be brought back to the light; curing them of the darkening's corruption and getting them out from the control of the Skeksis, the Sun King had never once withdrawn his personal hatred and disdain towards the 'fallen' elves.

They would always bare the stain of being 'unsalvageable traitors' whom deserved to be completely eradicated from existence leaving no earthly remains for anyone to remember them by.

As he looked out over the Valley of the Moon, Sol Regem realised that during his entire two hundred years of guard duty not once had the humans ever discovered this pass.

They'd build six fortresses in the Borderlands each manned by members of their so-called mage knights and backed up by soldiers of their six generals, but never once had a General or Knight Captain ever found him.

Snorting derisively and releasing plumes of smoke from his nostrils, the ex-dragon king weighed up the chances of some 'weak human' happening to find this one gap in the borderlands during his absence from guard duty.

Raising his giant head he took in a deep inhale before releasing a massive stream of fire straight along the ground reducing the rock to magma.

Doing this several times until the ground was reduced to a boiling magma, and thereby serving as a temporary barrier to any humans that happened to come through the Moon Valley; Sol Regem took a deep intake of breath before launching himself upwards with his powerful back legs and with his wings spread wide he caught an updraft and took flight.

Taking flight the ex-dragon king soared through the air high above the ruins of the Borderlands, now what humans and elves called the breach, reminiscing about how once it had been a verdant green oasis before the Scientist had defiled it with his landscape changing explosives.

"Damn you SkekTek!" He growled, swishing his tail and destroying a massive rock monolith in the process.

The scientist's desecration of the borderlands with his explosive technologies, and his experimentations on xadian animals, were still widely remembered and catalogued abuses by the Dark Kingdom.

"Bastards the whole lot of you…" he growled again, this time flying straight over a series of lakes and waterfalls; that all ended up further down along the breach in the sea.

"Someday, Xadia will be strong enough to overthrow you! And when that day comes, I will enjoy burning you all alive!"

Leaving the borderlands behind him he could tell by the slightly sweet smell in the air that he was now high above the grasslands of the Sunfyre territory.

Feeling his already furious rage boiling over, and unwilling to control his fire breath, the Sun King unleashed another stream of fire down upon the vast expanse of grassy plains that extended for miles, in all directions, from Lux Aurea.

Within no time at all, he flew straight past the sunfyre elves capital city scaring several sun elf children who were playing on the city walls, as well as alarming some Golden Knights.

Furrowing his scarred brow, and tapping into any residual sight he had left, he peered far ahead using his 'dragon's eye' to sense across the horizon towards the territory of the Moonshadow elves.

And just what exactly he was going to be dealing with.

Widening his eyes, and then growling as his scars ached, shocked at the realisation that there were now hundreds of newly transformed wraiths within the Silver Grove, Sol Regem became even more annoyed that Avizandum had not been present to heed the moonshadow elves call for assistance.

However, just as he was about to let loose a huge long distance fire breath attack - to extinguish the lives of the 'fallen fodders' - when amongst the chaos he suddenly saw two teenage elves standing back to back and fighting valiantly against the wraiths; and in the boy elf's hand was a hated familiar black bladed dagger.

'Impossible…'

Boosting his flight speed the ex-dragon king set his senses to protect, for the time being, the male elf whom was holding in his hand the blood dagger of Anak Florian - one of the four fallen arch mages whom used the darkening to create dark magic for humanity.

Although appearing to be a small black dagger, Sol Regem recalled the true form of Anak's weapon and how skilful its creator had been in using it. Specifically, in the cause of killing many dragon and then butchering them for dark magic rituals that enhanced the darkening even more for humanities mage potential.

Although he could clearly sense that the two elf teenagers were skilled in fighting; probably due to the fighting training that all moon elf children did once they hit puberty, Sol Regem could barely hold back his rage at the sight of these two elves hesitating to kill their corrupted clans folk.

Letting loose an almighty roar, he burst through the final stretch of sky through the forrest that surrounded and protected the moon elves and appeared directly above the Silver Grove.

Majestically silhouetted by the moon in the sky, the Sun King entered into a downward barrel roll before unleashing torrents of white hot flames incinerating all wraiths in their vicinity.

"Corrupted failures!" He roared as he crash landed onto the ground before unleashing another giant firestorm; which engulfed several of the homes nearby and reduced to ash even more of wraiths.

Pushing himself up to his full height, with wings outstretched either side of his body, Sol Regem pricked his ears for the sounds of any moon elves still corned or confronted by the enemy.

Thrusting himself upwards again the Sun King tore apart the night sky as yet more amber coloured flames swirled down and engulfed the lower courtyard of the Silver Grove, flying back towards the ground he snapped shut his maw around the bodies of three additional wraiths trying to flee from him.

Suddenly, right as he felt and deflected a crossbow bolt off his tough scales, he heard an loud angry scream directed at him from the ground which seemed to be getting closer and closer to him.

Turning his long neck around so that his head was in the direction of the angry yelling elf, he openly hoped that his vacant eyes and his angry scarred face, plus his temperament, would be enough to silence any opposition to his actions.

However, the voice, he could now hear was male in origin and coming from the direction of the earlier two elven teenagers.

"The hell do you think you're doing!" One of the teenage elves yelled angrily. "We appreciate you coming to assist us in protecting our home but you didn't have to burn our homes to the ground!"

Instantly Soul Regem could tell, from both scent and vocal tone that the one angrily yelling at him was the boy - whom possessed Anak Florian's dagger - and judging from the threatening way he was bolting towards him he was both grieving and vengeful.

"You burned our loved ones! We don't anything let of our loved ones to bury! There's a reason why you are called despair…." The young male moon elf screamed as he dropped to his knees angry tears flowing dow his face. "…. All you do is continue the despair that you felt two centuries ago!"

R.I.P -

William Klein. Photographer and Filmmaker.

Jean-Luc Goddard. Inspired New Wave Film Director.

Dame Hillary Mantel. Booker Prize Winning Author