Alara Unbroken - Doug Beyer [16]
His goal was a dragon named Malactoth. He had heard the lore of the colossal beast, that he laired deep under an active volcano, and that his hunger was legendary. He had to know whether the creature could be the one he sought, the one whose rage was most pure, the one to whom he could devote a lifetime of tribute.
The lava tube grew tighter. The jagged igneous rock of the ceiling descended as he walked, bringing the smoke from his torch lower and lower. Then a gust of hot air from deep inside the volcano blew out his torch entirely. The lack of smoke was a relief for a time, but it was getting harder and harder to see. With a little pyromancy, Sarkhan relit the torch by blowing a short cone of flame onto it.
To his surprise, as the torch flickered to life, he saw humans staring back at him.
He had come to a small chamber under the mountain. There were a dozen people gathered, he guessed, and they were suited for combat. Several of them were streaked with tar—a few of them were coated in the stuff from head to toe. Some of them bore obvious injuries. A large man and a shaman woman approached him quietly.
“I am Kresh, Tol of the clan Antaga,” the large man whispered. “Please go back the way you came. This is a dangerous place—we slay a dragon here today.” The shaman looked Sarkhan up and down from behind the speaker.
Sarkhan grinned. “I seek this dragon as well. But I have slain many in my day, Kresh Tol Antaga, and I would recommend your little band be the one to turn around and head back. You’re injured and unready to face this beast.”
Kresh grimaced.
“The rage in our hearts is always ready,” said the shaman.
“Rakka is right,” said Kresh. “We face this dragon today. If you want to help us kill it, so be it. But the glory belongs to clan Antaga.”
Sarkhan was still grinning. “Very well,” he said. Your bravery is only eclipsed by your vanity, he thought. But I won’t have to punish your conceit today. The dragon will do that for me.
“You bring up the rear,” Kresh said to him, and marched on.
Sarkhan rarely explained his planeswalker status to others, and never told others of his multiverse-spanning quest for draconic perfection. What was the point? On world after world, he met individuals like Kresh: brash and proud, but ultimately as fragile as a statue made of ash. They died in dragonfire with ridiculous expressions of surprise on their faces. So ignorant of their insignificance were they, so overconfident in their strength. They blended together in Sarkhan’s mind, as useless as brittle parchment. He watched impassively as Kresh’s warriors marched on to their doom, just as he had watched his own men burned to cinders during his first leadership. They certainly seemed cheerful about it.
When they came upon the dragon’s lair, Kresh’s clan marveled at the dimensions of the space. It was an immense bowl carved into the structure of the volcano, splashed with enough magma to destroy a city. One side of it was open to the central conduit of the volcano, which was filled with a black column of noxious smoke. Too long in here and they would all certainly perish, thought Sarkhan. They would have to claim victory quickly, before death did.
In the center of the chamber slept an immense, maroon-scaled dragon. His sides heaved as he breathed, and his nostrils flared with wisps of flame on every exhale. A smile crept across Sarkhan’s face.
Rakka spoke first. “The ritual must happen down there, next to Malactoth.”
“Couldn’t you summon all the elementals up here?” asked Kresh. “We need them for the first assault.”
“No. In this case it must happen right next to the volcanic vent, down there.”
“He’s a hellkite,” marveled Sarkhan. He hadn’t pronounced the rest of the sentence that was in his head: He’s a hellkite that will devour you all today.
NAYA
The celebration of the Feast of Marisi went late into