Quar-gorhal watched with dismay as another of his group faltered, spasmed, and fell from the sky. His platoon of twenty-five drake-mounted cavalry was down to eighteen now. Three had fallen within the first hour of leaving the ground. From what he could tell, the other seven platoons were suffering similarly. Five hours had now passed, and the broken clouds were no longer the exhilarating and wondrous surrounding the Dragonborn rider had originally felt. It now held threat and dread – which of his companions would fall next? The first few had made it to the ground safely, before their mounts died thrashing in agony. The next couple went into uncontrolled falls almost immediately, and both mount and rider died on impact with the rock-strewn ground. He felt a pang of loss at seeing the trooper drop, but he could not order his men lower – they had to remain aloft on the air currents in order to reach their destination on time.
As he watched the latest casualty drop from the lofty heights, the rumble of thunder caught his attention. The clouds had not looked dangerous from the perspective of weather, and it did not look at all like a storm brewing. He smelled the spring-summer forests below, the humid air wafting up from the lake they were passing over, the rock dust in the air as the currents pushed them along the line of mountains. He looked around warily, wondering whether a surprise storm might be in the works. Having vast experience in the skies, he recognized that the one thing you didn’t do with weather was to take it for granted.
He watched his charges carefully, flying slightly above and behind the left-most in the great “V” they had formed. He was looking for any signs that a mount might be getting ready to fail – the last two had voided particularly foul-looking streams before falling to the cramps and seizures that would eventually kill them. His attentiveness was so focused that he almost didn’t notice that the sun had lost its warmth, and that he had been flying in shadow for some time.
It almost seemed surreal to him when he looked up, expecting to see clouds, but instead seeing great pinions stretched out, making a mockery of his own drake’s outstretched wings. The sun glinted off the leading edge of the enormous wings, the cerulean flash of scale, the ivory horns and teeth. It’s head cocked to one side, one pale eye looking down as it gauged the rate of closure. The great wyrm sailed into him at an unreal speed, coasting on the same currents his platoon was using. He almost had time to scream before a claw swept him from the saddle and the great teeth cleanly snapped off his drake’s head.
Almost.
