Silver Streak Massacre          
Back

It was late summer. The villagers in the small town of Mithkal were busy building large catapults. Normally the villagers were quiet and peaceful, but ever since a small group of Silver Dragons moved it, things were not quiet or peaceful.

Yearly crops were destroyed with their deadly ice breath. A chill hung in the air, causing the trees to think winter had come early. At dawn every villager woke with The Roaring of the Dragons. Herds of sheep and cattle were quickly killed off for the dragons� meals.

Some men worked in the woods, cutting down large trees, sharpening one end and dragging them back to the village. Some were raised into the air, as spikes for the falling creatures to land on. Others soaked cloth in oil, knowing that once it was on fire, it could be launched at the ice breathing monsters. At the black smiths were heated pots of liquid iron, ready to be launched at the dragons as well, hoping to cripple a wing, sending the monster to the ground. Waiting for him, would be more villagers with rocks, farming equipment or whatever else could be grabbed, ready to attack the dazed creature while it was on the ground.

The plan seemed like it would work. Now all the villagers had to do was wait. Daily the dragons would fly overhead looking for food. When this happened, they would strike. The remainder of the afternoon went by in agonizing slowness. Each minute that went by seemed like an hour. Each hour, a year. Finally, when night fell, the villagers went to sleep, hoping to reclaim their lands as their own.

The Roaring of the Dragons the next morning woke no one. The entire village was awake and waiting for the Silver Dragons to fly over head. The wait seemed long, but was maybe only an hour. The first of the dragons came into view and the battle began.

At first it seemed to be going in the humans favor. A bundle of rocks from the catapult knocked one from the sky onto the spikes. The oil did its job to a second and the villagers took care of the dying creature. But as the third, forth and fifth dragons came into view, they had learned. They knew danger was ahead and came in hard and fast.

The villagers held strong threw the first wave of attack. Few fell to the ice breath and they managed to wound a third, but the dragon remained in the air. As the dragons came around for a second attack, things changed. The monsters knew where the villagers stood and where the weapons were placed. They attacked all at once, low to the ground, breathing ice and tearing up anything that fell beneath their claws. The catapults were shredded and one dragon even landed to knock out the spikes with a lash of the tail.

The air and ground grew cold, but the lightly dressed villagers didn�t give up hope. Instead, they faked a retreat into the woods where smaller catapults, filled with rocks, waited. Angered by the humans, the dragons followed, two on the ground and a few more in the air.

The villagers had one chance to attack the ones in the air, the only ones they could see. Catapults aimed towards the skies, the villagers cut the ropes as soon as they saw the dragons. A third dragon fell to the ground, a large rock having crushed in the skull. The others seemed unharmed and flew past to regroup.

The two dragons on the ground saw their chance. Taking deep breaths of air, the two unleashed a combined attack on the villagers. The cold numbed flesh and chilled bone. Many fell right where they stood, dead. Others began to flee, the attack had failed. But the dragons were not going to let the villagers escape so easily. With screams of rage, the two silver dragons on the ground leapt to the attack. They killed anything that moved and even some things that didn�t.

The rest of the dragons returned and picked off the last few villagers who had managed to escape the woods. Not one villager survived the battle with the silver dragons. The entire village had gone to fight and had died trying to rid the area of dragons. All they had managed to do was rid the area of humans.

This was the one example that struck fear into the other races and caused them to pray to the gods for the Dragon Reform. And if the race didn�t know about the village of Mithkal, it was because they had problems of their own to worry about concerning the dragons of Ein.
Hosted by www.Geocities.ws

1