Beau Chapter Two
It was pouring down with rain so much it was blinding there was nothing much we could do. My small herd has been stuck in this cave for a day now and of course, many of the dragons did not spare much food. But I could not fully blame them as a hungry dragon usually means being weak. A weak dragon who can barely walk or pick a fight is usually a death sentence...
I stood at the entrance of the cave just watching the rain outside listening to thunder and seeing the lightning in all its splendour. The cave is located on the bottom of an open river bank on a Cliffside, however, it is a perfect place to be ambushed by enemies but we still deemed it safe, the weather certainly saw to that. This is definitely a nice break from the ongoing fighting between us and the humans. Before the rains started we raided a travelling caravan I did not know where they were going or where they came from but we immediately stopped them in their tracks.
"Humans are all the same and they all must die" My father's lessons repeated in my head. So with that, all the humans were killed. Man, woman or child… It did not matter to us. Although it did matter to me a little about the children, but my brother easily saw to that. We try to convince the newly freed dragons to join us in our revolution against the apes. Only three out the seven joined us and then a few tried to attack us, it was unfortunate to kill them even though we saved them from their oppressed fate. We let those who did not fight back and did not want to be part of our herd to be released. Though we should have taken them to my father so he could reason with them.
My father is the leader of the dragon separatists located east of the Black Draconium Empire. Well, known asshole but he knows how to rally the dragons against the oppressive rulers of the humans. It is extremely dangerous being in the Black Draconium Empire's territories as they are well known for taking anyone and making them slaves. Even worse knowing that one of our Separatist leaders Vipstranius, one of the league of eight members has been working for a human during our revolution the whole time. He left our cause to follow his "fathers" orders and captured or killed most our separatist leaders and followers in the rest of the country. We were very lucky to have escaped, but that never diminished our need for revenge. However, the war didn't become a dragon revolution anymore… The war became the Black Draconium Empires attempt to take over the world. That was fifteen years ago and we have been trying to rebuild since then. Even better than the Black Draconium Empire has gone quiet in the past few years which is how we branched out more… After all, wars are expensive or they could be planning something big.
How they even try to control us is disturbing, they do it with Black Draconium gear that the master puts on our heads. Which takes your free will away and whatever your new master says for you to do, you do it. Which is, of course, no surprise that a human invented it. Anything humans do is always control related even though they can't even understand us… We roar, growl and we enslaved ourselves for them. But yet with our accomplishments, they still think we are the stupid ones… We are naturally more powerful than they are and so now they are afraid of us… And they should be, they deserve everything after what they did to my kind.
I stopped my train of thought when I heard steps coming towards me. I turn around to see that it's my older brother Ironclad the leader of this herd.
He stood next to me and looked at the pouring rain. He looks disappointed, he really wished we were up and moving by now. We look so similar we both have large heads with long chins with a fin under it, black scales with dark purple patterns on us. We are black Draconium dragons and we are one of the more powerful dragon races in the world. Higher stamina, "smarter" and have more powerful draconium attacks. My brother, however, is more powerful than I am and he proved it last year during the leadership fights to see who can lead the smaller separate herds. He injured me in which I still have deep scars on my back where he bit and scratched me with his front claws. It was reckless for me to challenge him as he is double my size. We were born from the same nest but I was born very late and just before my sister who is even smaller than I am. Out of our nest of five, three survived. My mother and father tried to have more pups but they did not survive long after hatching because diseases were rampant in our herd and since then the eggs mother laid were empty shells… Even as an attempt to breed my father had a secret of trying to mate with other females against their will. He was unsuccessful in which this must be kept a secret to avoid the question of his fertility and putting his leadership into question.
After a while, my brother and I just stood silently as there wasn't a lot to discuss. We love each other but I have always wanted to prove myself that I can be just as good or be even greater than him. He is clearly fathers favourite as he always gives him the larger amount of food that is found or killed. As dragons, we have our pecking order of feeding. Father goes first, Ironclad second, me and then my mother and sister. I try to share with mother and sister as much as I can with the meat but since they are delegated to stay at the mating grounds like most females, they can just eat the weeds beneath the trees that continuously grow. Energy to them shouldn't be as important to them as they do not need to travel like us males do.
"We need to get back to the main herd…" As Ironclad breaks the silence between us. He then looks at me and chuffing for my attention as it seems I didn't reply to him fast enough. I look back at him and still see that it is raining. "Why do we have to go back so quickly?" I replied back. I was genuinely surprised that he tells us to go back… We have only been gone for a week and we only found ten dragon recruits. There is no way we are building an army at this rate.
"Because father told us too…" He snarled back. I just gave him an annoyed look because I hate that answer so much. He always tells Ironclad things but never me… I usually find out by accident of what the plan is. I just want to be important as my brother… Even just letting Ironclad tell me what is happening can give me some sort of satisfaction. As I looked at Ironclads forehead I saw his bonemark glowing again. Our father can communicate to Ironclad through this magical eye-shaped mark on his forehead as he has one too. I sadly do not have one as I don't know how to obtain one. Only my father and brother in our family has one and some of the dragons we rescued had one as well. It is not a common commodity that I have seen and I have always wanted one. As the holder of these marks have more powerful draconium attacks and have special powers such as telepathic communication.
I groan as I still looked at my brother knowing that he is listening to our father. The bonemark stops glowing eventually and he looks at me smiling he turns and runs back into the cave. As he turns back into the cave I notice that the rains are starting to stop and sun rays can be seen peering through the clouds. I turn around and see my brother and the rest of the herd start to race out of the cave. I quickly ran out first as they are heading out in full speed or they will just run me over, now there is at least thirty of us now just standing outside of the cave. Ironclad jumps onto a rock beside the cliff that gives him height so he can see everyone below him. He roars as he demands to get everyone's attention and they do. He roars again just to show off his dominance, I can just tell that he loves doing it…
He then roared to everyone that we are going back home to the mating grounds and the dragons that surrounded me are now scratching the floor with their claws in support. I do the same and roar in return in unison with the rest.
It's time to go back home…