The Dragon King by Dreoilin (classic literature list txt) 📖

They entered the kingdom from the skies. Millions of them on black reptiles with long necks and leather wings. From my studies as a child, I would've thought them wyvrens, but they were dark like mud, and wyvrens were light-colored.
The screams echoed the limestone walls, and filled the valley with fear. In an instant they had the castle hostage, and the king was murdered in front of us.
The monsters wore dark armor, painted with a coat of sticky blood. Inside their helmets were pairs of black eyes. Some lept from the flying creatures, others rode in on large black steeds who had the same dark armor, and the same empty eyes of black.
Being a thief from the streets, I knew my way through the stronghold's sewers. When the first wave hit the castle, I stowed away beneath a grate in the ground. I followed the sewers to the field where the workers were in a panic. I didn't stay long.
Several men in armor dropped from the sky into the field and started attacking once they hit the earth.
I felt a sharp pain enter the flesh of my back, and was suddenly aware of the weight my skin and muscles held the object. I cried out, and fell forward, feeling suddenly dizzy.
A heavy weight held me down for a moment, straddling me, but I rolled, and pushed myself from the ground to run.
I didn't stop running until I caught the mare who was galloping wildly toward me, whinnying and snorting her fear. I grabbed her reigns and tried to gain her trust before swinging myself on her back, and steering her toward the line of trees I could see over the hills.
It would be a few days ride, but I had a feeling it was the only place I could get away from the attack.
I pressed the heels of my boots into her flank, and we were off at a dead sprint. I kept my head low, to keep my long blonde hair from whipping me in the face. It was hard enough to see through the thick breeze.
Even from a distance, I could still hear the screams of the kingdom. Tears burned my eyes but I kept my mind on escaping to warn anyone else I could that a darkness was coming.

After a few days, the throbbing in my back slowed us down. I realized the wound would get infected if I didn't get help, but I didn't know where I was going. The mare planted her hooves at the edge of the forest, and refused to take a step further.
I was on foot. When it got dark, I stopped and made camp.
As a boy, I'd heard stories about the forest being haunted by a witch who brought the dead to life. But the creatures she brought to life didn't have souls. They were monsters, and they prowled the woods under her command, taking travelers and eating them. Turning them into monsters.
Naturally, being older, I was against the belief in such things, but I knew it wouldn't be safe to travel the woods alone at night. Especially with an arrow in my back.
The first matter taken care of, besides starting a healthy fire, was to remove the arrow. Unable to see it, I knew it was going to be a struggle. I snapped it carefully by the entrance of the wound so that it would break inside me. Then I slowly slid the arrowhead out of the wound, muttering in pain under my breath.
Luckily the arrowhead was rounded, so it slid right out, instead of being barbed.
I heated up the blade of my dagger which I kept at my belt, and pressed it onto the wound, causing it to clot and close. That would stop the bleeding, but there could still be an infection.
That night I caught a squirrel and made myself a fast dinner, then I stomped out the fire, and climbed a tree to rest.
I woke up before the sun rose, and continued on my way. As I moved further into the forest, the air became crisp, and it was even starting to snow.
This seemed impossible, as it was only July.
But snow started to fall in little whisps in front of my face. I moved further and it turned into a flurry. The ground was icy and crunched under the sole of my boot. I shivered slightly.
Eventually the snow thickened, and I was in the middle of a blizzard. However, I also found that I was on a trail that twisted and turned around through the forest.
This I noticed because it was obviously trodden over.
My stomach fluttered happily, and my pace quickened.
I didn't know where the trail led, but I was very happy to have found it.
I heard a couple of low howls from a few yards behind me. That wasn't what scared me. The series of gut-wrenching snarls that followed made the beat of my heart gallop. I took off at a run, hoping whatever was eating behind me was preoccupied.
The crashing of snow told me otherwise.
In an instant I was on my back, looking up at three very mangled hounds with empty eye sockets. Their rotting teeth were dripping with fresh blood, and their lips were torn, in some places the lips were torn off.
But I didn't have long to look, because they tore into me with tooth and claw. The splash of red mixed with white made me pass out. I was thankful for passing out, because I knew I would die here.

The silver stag grazed peacefully, his light coat camoflauged him from the predator downwind of him. He felt content that he wouldn't be disturbed this day.
How very wrong he was.
Paanthura could see the still figure of silver, and knew right away it was a stag. She felt confident being positioned so perfectly. She shivered, and eased her skin into her hunter form.
A dark but muscular cat. Sleek, and graceful, but strong.
The midnight blue fur she wore as a cloak was her own skin. It fused into her pores as she became the cat.
When she was transformed, she shuffled the dirt beneath her claws, and adjusted her hind legs. She waited only a second, to be sure the stag wasn't aware of her presence, the chase was throbbing in her head.
Her hind legs sprang and she bolted forward, over the underbrush and up the embankment. One more leap landed her on top of the stag. She dug in her claws, and took a quick hold on his neck with her jaws.
The deer bucked, and fought, but it was no match.
He only had a moment before she twisted her head hard and snapped it's neck. It collapsed under her, and only twitched once when she released her teeth.
Paan shuttered and her form shifted back. She pulled her hood back and shook out her mess of midnight blue locks. Her round, golden eyes were concentrated as she skinned the pelt from the stag.
She was a tall and thin figure with pale skin. She wore a spear on her back, made out of the tree her mother was, and daggers hidden in the leather armor at her waist, her thighs, her biceps, and her ankles. She had three thin silver rings laced into her right brow, and four pierced into her earlobes on eithar side. The cartiledge of both ears was pierced with a thicker, but smaller ring, and her nose held a sparkly silver jewel.
She wasn't able to finish the skinning before she heard the commotion down the steep embankment, along the trail.
A figure was sprinting through the snow, but he was overcome by a necrohound.
Paan slid down the hill, pulling her hood back over her head. Her heart was conflicted.
Then the figure cried out in pain, and the shiver of change ripped through her. Her bear form was the most powerful.
She made up the distance easily, and took the first hound out with a swift paw.
The next two leaped around her like scared angry puppies, but she cracked one of their heads into the hard dirt under her paw. The next jumped at her throat with angry teeth. and though it caught, she managed to rip herself free, leaving only a small laceration behind. This dog she ripped in half.
When a necrohound is killed, it's body pops and forms only a puddle of blood.
Being undead, Paan refused to kill them with her teeth. The last thing she wanted was the taste of rotten body in her mouth. Hunting was much different.
She changed back once the three puddles were formed, and knelt by the mangled body of the man she was trying to rescue.
His breath was shallow.
He was no older than her, with long dirty blonde hair, and a thick set of facial hair the same color. He was pale with a down-turned, thin nose, and he was skinny. He had obviously lived on the streets, as his clothes-besides the lacerations the dogs had left, were tatters.
She didn't sit here long. A soft crunch of snow made her aware of someone coming toward her.
"I should've expected this."
The figure was tall, and her skin pale and transparent like a ghost. You could see every vein in her body. Her hair was long and knotted, but white. Her eyes were milky and cold. Her fingers were long, and rotted toward the tips.
"Thurn." Paan said, straightening her posture.
"Paan." The witch smiled, but it made Paan shiver. "What're you doing here?" She glanced around at the puddles of blood, and the smile vanished.
"I was just hunting." Paan started, but she didn't want to finish.
Thurn leaned down to look at the figure in the snow by Paan's feet. She tilted her head left and right, like she was examining a piece of meat, then she stood slowly, her bony body slithered like a serpent. "What is this? You kill my pets for a human?" Her voice was gravely like a river, and accusing.
"He didn't know what he was doing." Paan said softly.
"Does it matter? Surely, one who's own mother was murdered by the same monster