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A few pronunciation notes;

Melanth- Mel-anth, sometimes Mélan'ath (M-ay-la-n 'a-th) when conversing with a dragon. The abbreviated version was derived to be easier for human vocal chords to pronounce.

Dreak'nior- Dray-a-k 'N-yore

Kayodin- Cay-o-din

Cael- Kay-el

***

In that sleep of death, what dreams may come

when we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

must give us pause: there's the respect

that makes the calamity of life so long

Melanth grunted under the strain of the effort, muscles and tendons popping as he desperately battled his opponent. He had never in his life faced such a taxing challenge, not throughout long years of soldiery and harsh bawled orders, not when the great bastion of Stonewall fell or even through the fire and fury of the bloody battle of the Corinth fields. Around him people screamed, soldier and civilian alike, all caught up in the titanic struggle, all caught up in its drama as the battle raged. Destiny had no home here. Victory or defeat, win or lose; such contests could only be decided by strength and skill.

Melanth's opponent glared at him coldly with frosty grey eyes, daring him to relax, to drop his guard for just a moment. Melanth returned the stare with one of his own, refusing to let himself by psyched by the arrogant bastard and pushed harder, sheer will and determination making up for flagging strength. His opponent was growing tired too he sensed, but he was very near his own limit. This match would be decided not by brute strength, but stamina and level headedness. Whichever man lost his cool first would lose much more than just the struggle. The crowds swirled around, shouting and screaming, brandishing weapons, the tumult rising like the flood waters of some fearsome storm but he drove them from his mind, discipline and instinct taking full hold as he summoned his last reserves of strength for one final push. His opponent's stare flickered for but one moment, but it was all the telling sign he needed. Melanth grinned demonically and increased the pressure, slamming his opponent's arm down onto the table.

"Victor!"

The surrounding crowd exploded; some cheering, some cursing. Silver coins were fielded to the bet-master who collected them all in a grubby little bowler hat and delivered the winners their cash. Weapons were sheathed as someone called for another round of ale and the soldiers returned to their seats expectantly as people forgot their quarrels and began placing bets for the next bout. Melanth's opponent swore loudly and, rubbing his right arm, stormed out of the tavern door and slammed it behind him.

At last the little man with the bowler hat sauntered up to Melanth, who was still sat in place awaiting the next comer and tipped a handful of coins onto the table with just a hint of ceremony, like a barman pulling a vintage pint from the wood, which as coincidence had it, Morn was.

"I've never in all my days seen anything like ye." He smiled, winking. "You march in here as though you own the place, challenge our biggest lads to an arm wrestling competition then hand them all their arseholes on a wooden plate. It bet Brenn is going to be pissed about that. He's a sore loser you know, and a lot of people put big wagers on him."

"I'll just have to be careful then." Melanth murmured and seeing no further forthcoming challengers left the table, jingling the coins in his palm merrily. Children darted in and out of people's legs and barmaids similarly rushed around, dropping steins of thick ale onto tables whilst dancing away from or slapping the groping hands of the more imbibed customers. Morn, the barman, was doing a brisk trade at the counter but made special room as Melanth took his place and ordered a flagon of Morn's finest. From around the room he felt the distinctly unfriendly expressions of those who had betted on Brenn in the last match on the back of his neck but knew none of them would want to jump him in the alley, at least not by themselves after the display he had put on today. To emphasise this point he drew his Ronin sword from his back and began to clean his fingernails with it. The weapon was deceptively thin and frail looking, though in actual fact was probably more closely related to a meat cleaver than a rapier and had an edge to rival that of a katana. After a short while the sensation of eyes on his back faded and he settled down to drink.

The ale here wasn't particularly good, but it had a certain nourishing quality about it that was much like soup, which was what it largely resembled. You had to scrape the last inch of dregs off the bottom with a spoon. Still, it was cheap and Morn listened for the little telltale phrases such as "put it on my tab" that separate the breed of barmen from the corpses, especially at happy hour. It was Melanth's experience that happy hour anywhere was rarely a happy occasion.

Patrons chucked back their drinks, gossiping amongst themselves. Soldiers hung back around the edges, quietly drinking themselves into surly oblivion, hoping to wash away blood-sodden memories or at least blunt their knife keen edge. Sometimes the pain was just too much to bear. They appeared to be mainly of mercenary stock, though there were a few uniforms that Melanth recognised amongst the faded fabrics and chipped armour. There was always a war somewhere, and where battle ruled the Dogs of Fortune were quick on its heels, begging for scraps from the table of slaughter. These days there was a good life to be made as a sell-sword... provided you lived long enough of course. They were all sorts; free peasants, landless farmers, criminals, deserters, old soldiers drawn eternally to that siren: the ever enticing sound of the drums of war. Melanth sniffed. He was something of a mercenary himself, though considered he had at least enough residual self respect to work freelance and not in one of the various war-bands that pursued the fighting relentlessly. In fact, there were some out there who would pay a great deal of money to engage his services...

A barmaid winked, skittered past and placed a fresh stein before him, courtesy of 'the house'. He suspected this was Morn's secret way of thanking him for the customers he had brought, considering many had turned up to test their mettle against him. He knew he wasn't much to look at; tall but broad, scarred with his hair close cropped and armour dented. He took little pride in his figure as it was. The body was a machine in one form or another, just a fancy and complicated vessel for transporting the soul. Still, appearances are if anything, deceptive, and the muscle bound son of a porter had discovered the painful truth of this when he left clutching his wrist in a splint.

After a while smoke from the fire filled the room with a not unpleasant musty haze of burning pinewood. Night drew in early in these winter months, and soon many of the patrons began to leave. Tired from the weeks of travel that had brought him here and the struggle that had earned him his respite, Melanth enquired to Morn about a room. Placing the glass he was eternally polishing on the counter, the barman led Melanth by the elbow up a rickety set of stairs and opened a door at random.

"Nice little place this. Straw mattress and a pillow, but its winter so there shouldn't be too many fleas. I'll throw in a couple of sheets if you like."

Melanth scratched his chin for a second, calculating.

"I need bigger." He murmured, doling out a handful of his winnings and letting them glint in the candlelight, instantly quashing any sudden questions that might spring into the barman's head. Morn led him down a corridor and opened another door. Judging by the polishing on the brass handle and the veneer of the woodwork, this room was rarely used.

"Biggest I've got." The barkeeper murmured, greedily eyeing the coins in Melanth's palm. "Cloth mattress in there, even a rug and a tub if you fancy. Still, it'll cost you extra. Twenty a night is the regular, but I'll go nineteen with you 'cause yer a good lad."

"So generous." Melanth muttered sarcastically, handing over the majority of the coins, then stepping inside and closing the door with a slam.

The room hadn't been used in a long time, and the bed was covered in a thin film of dust and soot, but that didn't matter since he wouldn't be sleeping on the bed.

With great care so as not to be heard he wandered over to the bed, then slipped off his hobnailed boots and padded barefoot back to the door, pressing his eat flat against the frame. Confident that Morn had gone, he bolted the door and began to undo the buckles of his cuirass and greaves, stripping off the covering of travelling clothes. Next came the gauntlets and the undercoat of thin mail and leather, which rasped as he laid it upon the pile of his other armour and stained, faded cloak. With great reverence he then removed his Ronin sword from its sheath and laid it upon the bed, carefully aligning the tip towards the north since he shared the folk belief that this would keep the edge keen. Then, naked he sat upon the edge of the unwashed bed and reached up under a mat of long hair, his fingers questing for the clasp of a strange, curved pendant that hung delicately upon the edge of a woven string, flanked by smaller, circular objects.

To anyone straining their eyes through the darkness, it looked like a talon, quite a long talon at that. It glimmered with silken smoothness in the silvery moonlight.

Unhooking the clasp, he gathered the string in his hand, examined it for a moment, and with a grunt let it slip through his fingers.

Then the world exploded.

Senses, sluggish and imperceptive in the night became sharper, sprang to sudden and vibrant life. Shapes that were muted and grey through human eyes resolved themselves into objects strewn around the room; the window, the armour pile, the sword on the bed. Smell and taste became almost as one and crowded out the need for vision. Scents told the story of life not only as it was at that moment, but as it had been. The past rolled through the room; previous tenants, the treading of a traveller's road worn boots, a rambunctious young couple in the bed seeking more than just rest. His skin began to grow hot. Not just hot as in the scorching of the sun, but hot as though he was being bathed in molten lead. The heat bit through flesh, skin and muscle, eating into the marrow of his bones. Through the barrage of new sensations he was aware that he was growing, and also changing shape. Joints reversed direction, tarsus grew longer and longer until finally he couldn't support his weight and dropped to all fours. A tail sprouted and curved slowly from the base of his spine, wending its way through his engorging legs like a thick rope of flesh. He was aware of his skin growing harder and thicker as serious skeletal and muscular reworking was taking place in his torso. Shoulder blades shifted aside and grew longer, protruding from flesh and curving away like twin scimitars. Collar bones welded themselves to their bases with cartilage and sinew as a pair of ribs detached from the sternum and moved up the strange new appendages to newer sockets and joints that clicked together sickeningly. Flesh flowed like scalding molten wax down the bones, forming nerves and muscles, tendons and skin that stretched between the ribs that were now growing beside the former-shoulder blades. Spine and face lengthened, horns sprouted from behind his eyes and grew rapidly as the transformation entered its final stages. Finally sensing completion, Melanth toppled over sideways onto the floor, as the red hot fires of the Body Forge were doused and a drifting, misty euphoria borne of exhaustion overtook him. Feeling elated, Melanth growled quietly to himself with great satisfaction, curled up so that his tail covered his muzzle and promptly fell asleep.

Sunrise dawned over the small trading post of Saladin's Drift, washing away the dull darkness of the passing night with golden rays. The same person who examined the amulet last night may walk down the main street of this small, fortified village on the very frontiers of the Empire and see the oxen being rounded into the pastures for their morning feed, and the blacksmith setting charcoal in his forge and cracking his knuckles as the flames lick to life. They may see the first travellers in the distant foothills of the mountains, extinguishing the last embers of their campfires, the clouds of smoke spiralling far above and the early waking women gathering water from the well.

A really keen observer may notice that in the left window on the top floor of the Falcon's Nest Inn, something metallic glimmered in the first early rays of dawn, and that although they may stand still, the thing they were watching moved.

Melanth withdrew his head from the window and sighed, blowing away a month's worth of dust. Stretching languidly, he contemplated the day to come. Yesterday's bout of arm wrestling had earned him enough coinage to continue living amongst the world of men for a week if he spent it carefully. He grinned to himself, wondering if any of his challengers had even the faintest inkling what they had faced up to. Sometimes, in the more central cities he encountered a younger magician or travelling mage who would scratch their chins and look thoughtful, then steadfastly stare into their ale when his gaze swept over them. Occasionally, when he was on the road in some secluded glade or valley they would seek him out for a specific task, or for some more occult reason known only to the magic wielding types. So long as the pay was good he had little discrimination as to the task, just so long as it was honourable.

Yawning and adjusting his wings, he cast a disdainful eye over his accommodation. It wasn't much to look at, and he made a mental note to revisit justice upon the swindling barkeeper sooner or later. Still, it was big, and it was size that mattered. In his natural form he was considerably larger than the average human, and staying in human form for too long grated on him, making it impossible to sleep. It was like being wrapped up in a straitjacket; suffocating, intolerable. Sometimes he just had to escape and be free...

He snagged the amulet from the bed, dangling the little braids of finely woven fabric from a talon. Almost immediately the change began to happen; his stature shrunk, appendages and flesh became smaller, less muscular and bones readjusted themselves. Always, whenever the transformation took place was the burning; something that went beyond heat, at least in its purest form, a unique sensation. It was agonising yet strangely soothing at the same time, a paradox, almost metaphorical of the change he underwent from one extreme to the other.

When the Sigils finally faded and the fire died away he was human again, sitting naked as a newborn babe on the edge of the bed. Grunting, he dressed and buckled his armour into place. The sword and the amulet were always the last things; the sword because if he was ambushed in the wilds by opportunistic bandits he would be able to defend himself, and the amulet because no matter how many bandits might be eager to pick a fight with a lone human, no one living wanted to pick a fight with even a lone Dragon.

Melanth had found at a very early age exactly how humans regarded his kin. To the ignorant they were mere beasts that pilfered their livestock, like a fox in the henhouse but on a much, much larger scale. To magi they were a walking repository of magical ingredients that experienced mages would pay a king's ransom for, but little else. Boorish military types at least had the decency to recognise the advantages of enlisting a dragon in their ranks, and so it was only natural that Melanth had been drawn into a life of war. He had quickly seen the advantages of earning gold rather than stealing it, something that many of his fellow dragons overlooked. Besides, if you stole from people eventually they would have nothing left to steal. Prove your worth on a battlefield and they would give you anything you asked for, no matter how bizarre or outlandish. Earning saved much effort and unnecessary bickering and, besides, it was pointless to bite the hand that fed you.

The inn's common room was already crowded by the time he arrived. Early imbibers were knocking back drinks like there was no tomorrow, which many of them probably hoped would be the case. The mercenaries had the look of desperate men on them, haggard and weary. Recently, with the last of the free provinces falling to the Empire there had been little work for the real sell-swords. Where once they had been well paid and valued, theirs was an employment in decline. Melanth reasoned this was why so many, including himself, had been driven to the edge of the Empire, where rebellious villages who did not accept Imperial control needed putting down and piratical Ashkar swarmed to take advantage of the confusion. Such places were quickly becoming a second home to all manner of mercenary, rogue traders, smugglers, bandits and all manner of assorted scum simply because of their distance from the massive, grand cities of the central Northern Continent. In such remote places it was common for the new and hectic Empire to overlook entire villages and towns, let alone individuals. There were no laws here, and even if there were, there was no one to enforce them save the local curtain twitchers and prod-noses.

Aside from the drinkers, regulars and staff, there was also the usual assortment of mothers and young children passing the latest gossip around the room. Workmen were eating their breakfast in a quiet corner and one of the maids was mopping the floor.

There was also a commotion.

Attention turned to the small doorway leading into the kitchen from which issued angry shouts and swearing. A barmaid stormed through into the common room, tailed closely by Brenn, the last challenger from yesterday, both appeared very angry. Brenn was raging incoherently at the young maid, balling his hands into hard fists a though to strike her. The barmaid was similarly flustered and was red facedly waving a heavy pewter mug in warning. The patrons of the inn dropped whatever they were doing to watch the display, and judging from the knowing grins on the faces of a few of the older patrons it was nothing new to them. Melanth was having trouble understanding what either was saying, until Brenn noticed him standing in the middle of the room. Muttering a final imprecation loud enough for all to hear, he shouldered his way past Melanth and slammed through the inn's main door.

"What the hell was all that about?" Melanth muttered as much to himself, taking his hand off the hilt of his dagger, where it always inadvertently strayed when tensions were running high. He took a stool at the counter and waited for the barmaid to finish with an old man in a dusty corner before flitting over to him.

"I'm sorry about that." She murmured quietly, taking a notebook and stub of charcoal to take his order. "Brenn is always like this. Everyone around here is used to him, but it just doesn't put us in a good light with the visitors."

"What was up with him?" Melanth asked, studying the young woman and taking scope of her for the first time. Thick curls of red hair ran midway down her back, bracketing her features that were elegant and full of suppressed mischievous mirth. Her piercing green eyes shone with suppressed laughter as she chuckled, casting disparaging glances at the door.

"He's been at the skins all night probably." She grinned. "Brenn is a bit of a poser. He seems to think he has a reputation to maintain as far as muscles go, and then you came along and gave his ego a kicking. He was yelling at me because I wouldn't give him the keys to your room."

"Ah."

Melanth grinned back. He knew this type; the ones who couldn't take defeat gracefully and would die before admitting they'd been outdone. He used to get through about a dozen of them a week, until he realised that he couldn't deal with them all. The bookies' warning yesterday filtered into his mind. A lot of people had put big wagers on Brenn, so the man had said. Under Imperial dictum that meant that Brenn was eligible to pay them the difference, and that would leave him well out of pocket and seething with anger. He had probably been hoping to get his money's worth at the end of a knife.

The barmaid walked behind the counter and slammed down her pewter mug, pulling a pint from an oak cask under the counter. Melanth studied her further, watching how she moved, gracefully and in a practiced, lithe manner. He had learned much of humans and their habits. To a dragon body language revealed much about a person, and though this was less telling with humans he could still read the hidden signs. She was agile to escape the groping hands of drunken merchants, and yet strong through lifting weighty kegs. Her features were rounded and charming, almond shaped eyes and delicate chin and nose bespeaking possible Elven ancestry. He imagined that she would be enticing to a human, a prize worth fighting for.

Setting his mug on the counter, she noticed his regard and blushed. Turning away sharply to stare at some point on the opposite wall about ten feet in the air, her hair shifted revealing a glaring red mark on her cheek. Melanth growled deep in his throat, thinking of that spoilt brat. He had overheard whispered conversations that Brenn's father was the mayor of this town and that he acted as though he owned the place, which for all effects and purposes, he did. Out here in the distant frontiers there was no law, at least not any that was enforced. People mostly kept themselves to themselves and any miscreants were seen to at the end of a plank, but mobs were prevalent and there wasn't really anyone to look after you if you couldn't look after yourself. The old, the young, the poor... the lost... The injustice of it all was enough to make him spit. The rise of the Empire had the same effect on these small principalities in the arse end of nowhere as stirring a stagnant pond with a stick. Scum floated to the top, and it was unsurprising that Brenn had scaled the whole pile. If only he could catch the little bastard in a quiet spot he would-

"So, where are you from, traveller?" The barmaid asked, interrupting his line of thought. Subconsciously she shifted a thick curl of red hair over her cheek to cover the weal.

"Um, everywhere more or less," He improvised, caught off guard by her sudden interest. "I grew up in this little place deep in the country and decided there must be more to the world than the little bit of it that was mine. I've been on the road ever since."

"Ah, so you're an adventurer then?"

His eyes unfocussed as he drew a mental image of a few adventurer acquaintances to mind. They seemed cut from the same cloth. Most were happy-go-lucky treasure hunters looking for an easy killing to line their own pockets, mostly with misbegotten loot at that. There were a few who actually believed in their line of work though, and were fully prepared to journey deep into uncharted lands and face an untold multitude of horrors for the sake of a greater good. Still, no matter whom they were or what their intentions they all ended up the same way in the end. There was no such thing as an adventurer with life insurance, or a pension.

"No, just a man trying to make his way in the world and keep all his body parts attached." He grinned, oddly pleased to find that she reciprocated the gesture. "I find work where I can, but I'm no good with animals so farming is out of the question. There was talk over in Dreak'nior of a big Ashkar force massing near here, and they wanted hands to help put it down."

"The pay's that good you'd travel all the way from Dreak'nior? That's over a thousand miles away! It must have taken you months to get here!"

"No, no!" He laughed at her astonished tone. "Getting here wasn't much of a problem. I... made arrangements. The further away from the city the better really, I can't say I took to the place." He subsided into silence, seeing that she wasn't listening anymore, and was staring out dreamily into space.

"I've always wanted to see a city..." She murmured, drumming her fingers in the counter, and then suddenly snapping back to wakefulness with a start. "Sorry, it's just something I'd like to do someday. I can't stand the thought of cleaning cups here for the rest of my life..." She sighed angrily and turned away, removing a mug from under the counter and repetitively rubbing it with her stained cloth, the strokes growing harder and harder until her arms quivered with the effort and beads of blood dribbled from raw fingers. Melanth reached forwards and gently praised the cup from her hands. Her eyes refused to meet him, and she seemed perilously close to tears.

"What do you hate so much about this place?" He murmured, soothing her. He had a fair idea already, but wanted to hear her say it.

"My father!" She spat. "I'm his only child, and I inherit the inn on his death, but since I'm a, a woman I can't own the place. It has to go to my husband." The anger in her voice was so unmistakable that a pair of old men in the corner turned from their game of dominoes and stared at her. Melanth nodded to himself mentally. Whilst women had the same rights as men in the cities, the idea had been slow to catch on in these isolated villages.

"Who is your husband?" He asked.

"Brenn." This time she really did turn and spit on the floor, as though the name left a bitter, poisonous taste in her mouth. "Or he soon will be, if his father has anything to do with it. I have told my papa that I don't want him, but he won't listen! He says that we all have to sacrifice things for this wretched inn; it's been in the family for generations. But he doesn't see Brenn like I do. He will beat me, or worse once he has the inn..." She collapsed onto a stool and bent numbly over the counter, her head in her hands, sobbing.

"They're already making the arrangements for the wedding." She whispered, so quietly Melanth barely heard her. "I heard them last week, when we closed up for the night and the customers were in bed. Longfinger, Brenn's father, is going to give my father a lot of money if he goes through with it. I won't... I'll run away if I have to."

He sat, wordlessly patting her shoulder, feeling his own become wetter and wetter under her tears until she suddenly straightened and rushed from the room, back through the door she had stormed through so full of anger and vinegar with Brenn on her heels. The air subtly changed as she left and the room became quiet and much less welcoming, as though he had just been a party to something he was never meant to witness. The gazes on the back of his neck he felt last night returned, only this time locked on to his jugular. Melanth decided that he had outstayed his welcome and swiftly left, stumping out of the inn and down the wide, muddy main street of the town without looking up from the dirt track. Only when he had put some distance between him and the backwards little town did he risk slowing and checking for signs of pursuit.

What a place...

Putting those thoughts behind him, he struck out determinedly along the road, heading south. Nightfall should see him to the camp where the mercenaries, sell-swords and other assorted ne'er do wells were gathering to route the Ashkar dogmen from their fastness deep in the Endless Boughs. All sorts would come flocking from the reaches of the Empire, and beyond. Subtle traces in the wind spoke of the passing of Dwarves along this track, moving with haste. Dropped gewgaws lying trodden into the ruts or in the grass foretold of still others, not only Human or Dwarven. A claw he spotted lodged in the bark of a birch belonged to a Metamorphicate shape-shifter, a pendant bearing a barbed figure of an eight pointed star bespoke Kayodin travellers, and a discarded tatter of robe not far off bore their cloying, acrid spoor; like a mix of crushed mint and rancid milk tinged with coppery blood. It seemed that the commotion was attracting all manner of creatures, both foul and fair. Melanth wondered vaguely what would draw the desert hunters so far from their native haunts and through treacherous lands, but then he steeled himself against the complicity of letting his mind wander. It was enough, for now, to know that they were abroad and that he should be on his guard.

By the time the night was descending once more the town was far behind, though to his chagrin the army camp was still a long way off. Glancing skywards against the twilight he saw that the clouds in the distance glowed with an unnatural incandescence, ruddy, russet red against the creeping tides of night and the horrors that lurked therein. Cooking fires no doubt, their pallid comfort reflecting off the low lying mists. The blood shaded light permeated long after the obscured golden disk of day had descended below the skyline, making the darkness come alive with all manner of fleeting shadows and lurking, nocturnal creatures that he had never viewed in depth before. He paid attention to them now, glancing hither and thither nervously as rustlings from the treetops and mingling blackness piqued his senses, flooding his compressed form with adrenaline. Damn these weak human eyes! And their wretched instincts! The night held little terror for a dragon in his prime, but behind the facade of consciousness, rooted deep in the neglected recesses of the human mind he currently occupied, an inner primate rattled at the bars of its cage and screamed bloody murder.

Sighing to himself, he mastered his fears, forcing himself to stand still in the darkness, upon the hidden path all but invisible to his sight. He knew more than any that the only way to truly conquer your fears was to confront them, to drag them from the shadows in which they writhed and drown them in the light of understanding and reason. Fear was there for a purpose, that purpose being to stop the creature in question from being killed. It was paradoxical to him that so many of the sapient species regarded fear as a weakness; something to be overcome and hidden not accepted and dealt with.

After a few moments of stillness he opened his eyes wide, taking in the darkness, the conflicting, mingling shadows and the sense everywhere of movement and being watched by sinister, unseen eyes far more nefarious than any old men in a seedy inn. He'd seen nights when the shadows seemed thin and silvery, like wisps of smoke on the wind. Then there were the other, moonless nights when babies cried, horses became skittish and the darkness deepened and took on a life all of its own. This was definitely one of the latter.

He forced himself to confront it, and it seemed to him that after a few moments the darkness quieted and lightened, becoming less menacing, the staring eyes lowering their gaze as if sensing they were outmatched. He laughed at the absurdity of it all, the sudden peal sending animals scattering in the undergrowth like a crack of thunder.

"I have walked much darker paths." He challenged the night, no longer afraid. "Come and get me, if you dare."

He hung back from the main body of warriors, ensconced in a thicket of brambles where he was sure he could observe without being observed in turn. Morning had taken him to the origin of those fearsome cooking fires that had turned the sky into a visage of hell, and the dawn hadn't improved the scenery much. The ground, such as it was, was churned beyond recognition with the passing of innumerable men and beasts and littered with all manner of foul, disgusting waste the impromptu camp hadn't gotten around to removing. He grinned to himself, remembering when, as a scant hatchling he had taken a human form for the first time and enlisted in their armies. He had expected to learn to swing a sword and maybe insert himself into a wall of shields like the inspiring tapestries of his mentor had depicted. In reality he had spent far more time wielding the blade of a shovel than he had ever spent with the blade of a sword.

He studied the men too, noting that the majority of them were either very young or very old. He had expected there to be a lot of young men, given that work was short and there had been a baby boom with the end of a particularly bitter struggle between two fractious kingdoms years before, but the old ones puzzled him. He surmised that they were the diehards, the professional sell-swords whose life was and always had been led by banners. He had met their like before; salt of the earth, but bloody good at their job, so good in fact that though they spent years talking of quitting one day and buying a patch of farmland, they never seemed to get around to it. They had fought so long and hard upon the bloody battlefields that they had left a groove in the sodden mud and would never be able to leave it. When their time came, that groove would become their graves.

He stepped out into the furore, swaying as he did. Even after conquering the primal terror of the human mind last night there had been no question of setting up camp. The long, hasty journey had taken its toll and he was exhausted. Dutifully, he found a line and joined at the end of it, noting that few of the men appeared to be in better condition than him. Judging by the grime some had been travelling for weeks. At the opposite end of the line was a Dwarf recording names and signatures on a tattered piece of animal skin, and beside him a human in antiquated armour, studying the shuffling mass of bodies with a disdainful eye. Occasionally the moustachioed Captain, to judge by his stripes, ducked and conversed quietly with the dwarf who either nodded or shook his head. Tents were arrayed behind the two like an armada of white sails upon a trampled ocean. Men in the camp were running around carrying armfuls of equipment, dockets or simply sitting around a handy fire with their friends, watching the newcomers. There were others too, Melanth noticed with amusement. The perennial Metamorphicates, always present near a gathering of humans, managed weapons stalls and set up even more tents further back in the camp. In their natural form they resembled a curious mix of feline and human, walking on their hind legs in the manner of men yet with the features of a cat and covered head to foot in thick, luxurious fur. Though the shape-shifters largely abstained from the actual fighting their abilities made them valuable for mundane tasks and general drudgery. The Metamorphs themselves didn't mind though; they were kleptomaniacs by nature and the relationship gave them ample opportunity to pursue their favourite hobby, which mostly consisted of collecting shiny objects, purloining anything not bolted too tightly to the floor and playing with balls of string. Dwarves were a different matter entirely. Stoic and reserved, they had little time for humour or flight of fancy. Their society had not long since divided itself into two main kinds; those who travelled above ground and those who did not. As the human empire had expanded it had encountered their subterranean dwellings and some enclaves had forged alliances with them, against the outcry of the more hidebound, traditional Dwarves. A civil war had recently rocked their nation in which the conservative traditionalists had been victorious and the rebels had been outcast into the human lands. He suspected there would be others who were less than keen to openly reveal themselves as the Dwarves and Metamorphs had, but that was their prerogative. So long as they were fighting at your side and not your front, soldiers didn't really care what shape or colour their allies were.

The line shuffled slowly forwards as men filed down the rank and headed into the tents for food and equipment. Already the morning sky was foretelling rain with auguries of ominous grey clouds. By the time Melanth made it to the fore of the queue spots of water were already falling from the threatening thunderheads.

"Name?" The Dwarf asked irately, pencil hovering over the scrap of hide.

"Why do you need it?" He snapped, annoyed by the little creature's imperiousness. More than that, he wagered that with the sheer number of men here there was going to be someone he had met on his previous travels, and he was far from eager to revive an old feud when he was out on business.

"So that if you's is killed we knows what to write on yer headstone." The Dwarf grinned wickedly, revealing teeth that could have doubled as a chess board to count the blackened stumps. Melanth studied the creature, noting the typical features of a dwarf; tree stump stockiness, eyebrows that could be used to scrub dishes and a certain bullet-headedness that suggested the Dwarf could go through a brick wall face first. As was customary of those dwarves exiled from their clans, the Dwarf had shaved off his beard in metaphorical semblance of the humans they now lived with, though his stubbly chin could still have been used to sandpaper wood. There was cockiness to his attitude, a swagger in the way he talked and moved that screamed drill sergeant in about a million different languages.

"Melanth." He grunted, making to move into the tents, but the captain raised a hand and caught the edge of his armour, stopping him in his tracks.

"That's it?" The man queried, looking down the bridge of his nose suspiciously. "What's your last name soldier?"

Melanth sucked his teeth, pretending to think. If he could convince the captain he was a fool, he would be at an advantage later on. Already he could see that this venture was not going to go as he had planned.

"Brokkan'dé," He said finally, nodding like an idiot. "Brokkan'dé Melanth is my full name sir."

"Brokkan'dé?" The captain said, narrowing his beetle eyes. "Odd name. It sounds foreign." The sudden rustling of the man's trimmed moustache told Melanth exactly what the officer thought of foreigners. "It seems to me," He continued, poking Melanth in the chest with a bony finger, "that you are running from something Melanth, and I will be watching you. Just put a foot wrong, and that's all." With an abrupt wave he signalled Melanth through, never noticing the dragon's smirk. So he was one of them types, was he; an officer of the bloated Imperial aristocracy. The man had probably never slept rough or had to steal his nosh just to survive through a siege. Melanth wondered why a Rupert and not one of the many hard-bitten Imperial veterans been assigned to such a dismal and distant command. Generally the wealthy upper class officers didn't stray too far from their personal holdings when foes were abroad. He must have cocked up big time to be sent all the way out here to this backwater.

A short search and the interrogation of a nervous drudge turned up the armoury tent and its stalls. There were uniforms, though they weren't much to look at. He declined them, preferring to keep his battered armour and his own sword, though a sash was forced onto him to conform to regimental regulations. Next to that busy tent was another containing bedding material which he gathered up, and then set about locating an unoccupied tent, a process tat took considerable finesse as there seemed to be more people than accommodation. It took an hour to locate one on the edge of the camp that had just been erected. Melanth knew to would not remain on the edge for long. Industrious Metamorphs seemed to be raising a canvass city that covered the entire expanse of the plateau upon which the camp was perched. Wagonloads of bollards and prefabricated wooden walls were being carted into position around the edges of the steep rocky defiles that surrounded the camp on all sides, and pickets were already established on the few access routes with watch fires. The location was quintessential for an amassing army, but to judge by the amount of portable fortifications it seemed that the Rupert expected them to have to outlast a siege or two. Melanth shook his head at the thought. Clearly the stuck up Captain hadn't a clue how to conduct the operation. Ashkar needed to be met with overwhelming force and above all, relentless and highly mobile pursuit to whatever bold-hole that they retreated to. They were masters of ambush and guerrilla warfare, and would likely move their own camps regularly to confuse scouts and battle plans. By setting up a static camp the Rupert was leaving them wide open to the hit and run style of war that the Ashkar preferred.

After setting up his bed for the night, Melanth set about locating the mess. Hunger gnawed at him like a ravening wolf from within, and he belatedly remembered that the last time he had eaten properly had been some weeks ago. Dragons didn't need much food so long as they had the sun's warmth. After a short search he stumbled into an open area in the centre of the plateau in which rows and rows of soldiers were seated upon crudely hewn and stripped logs. A large skillet had been positioned over a firepit in the centre and was being surreptitiously stirred by a fat, scummy man in a stained vest and apron who spat constantly, missing the cauldron only by chance. The contents of the skillet bubbled and swirled with the same consistency and edibility of freshly mixed concrete. Occasionally a lump of something wobbly and grey breached the pallid surface before sinking back down the depths with a greasy floop. Melanth's stomach roiled at the thought of ingesting the nightmarish stew, but nevertheless he took his place at the end of a long line of men, many of whom were barely concealing their own worried expressions of distaste. He even managed to force a smile as the man ladled a chunk out of the sluggishly swirling mass and slapped it into a cheap bowl. The smile rapidly turned into a rictus as he found an unoccupied space on a log and stuck a spoon into the mass. The spoon stood bolt upright where he had stabbed it and quivered slightly.

"You're actually going to eat that?" Inquired a piping, disbelieving voice from behind. A spotty youth, lanky and not even into his twentieth year sat on the log with his own bowl clamped in his hand as though it would escape if left to its own devices. He was clad in worn and moth eaten attire that still smelled faintly of horses.

"I was thinking of giving it a shot." Melanth drawled, turning his own bowl upside-down. The stew stuck to the poorly kilned clay like a hardcore drunk past last-orders clung to a bar.

"You're a braver man than I then." The youth shrugged, "As for me, I'd rather not put this murk in my mouth. I find it has more artistic uses though." He flourished his bowl, tipping it so that Melanth could see the contents. Inside was a remarkable accurate but soggy stew-sculpture of a dragon standing on its hind legs, wings open as though for flight.

Melanth roared appreciation, startling a couple of nervous looking farm boys from their seats. He regarded the grinning youth with affability. It had been a long time since anyone had made him laugh like that.

"Didn't your mother ever teach you not to play with your food?" He asked, eyes watering with mirth.

"Aye, but I'll wager this stuff would play with you given half a chance." The lad retorted, staring at Melanth's bowl which was still clamped inverted in his hand. The spoon remained standing to attention where he had left it, but was slowly being consumed by a growing stalactite of mush. "The name's Dun," He said, holding out a stained hand, "Cael Dun."

"Melanth." The dragon-in-human-form said, taking it in a firm grip. "What do you say we ditch this crap and find some real food?"

"Sounds good." The youth, Cael, agreed heartily.

The two slipped out of the mess, weaving their way through the sea of tents. Melanth followed his nose, his superior sense of smell guiding him unerringly through the multitude of odours, many of which were overpoweringly unpleasant. Finally turning a canvass corner, Melanth found himself facing a peaked tent of clean, red dyed fabric with gold trimmings. The Captain emerged suddenly, his hooked nose piercing the concealing curtain, thoroughly engrossed in a map as he wandered off on some task or other, heedless of subordinates stopping and saluting at his passage. Melanth wasn't interested in the Rupert though, his eyes were firmly fixed on the dancing shadows and smoke behind the tent, as well as the delicious odour of roasting meat coming drifting from behind, as irresistible as a siren's call to the hungry dragon.

"Wait here." He instructed, sidling out from between the tents and wandering purposefully into a small lane before circumnavigating a tent. A lower ranking officer, most likely the Rupert's batman, was dutifully and distractedly turning a spit upon which a whole venison was merrily sizzling. Licking his lips, Melanth ducked and palmed a stone from the ground, tossing the smooth pebble thoughtfully in his palm before flicking it at the batman's helmet and striking the metal like a resounding gong. Whilst the young officer struggled to recover his senses Melanth dived forwards with his sword unsheathed and lopped off the deer's hind legs with quick cuts, catching the roasted limbs and stuffing them into his cloak with practiced ease before darting back the way he had came, launching himself back into the alley where Cael waited.

"Get anything?" The boy asked, grinning peevishly as Melanth licked meat juices from his sword then sheathed it. He tossed Cael one of the pilfered haunches, gesturing him into an unoccupied tent to enjoy their ill gotten spoils.

"Damn this is good." Cael muttered between muffled mouthfuls, just as the batman's aggrieved cry resounded through the camp.

***