Vorn, broad-shouldered and silent, walked ahead with shield raised, his keen eyes scanning for movement among the shadows. Behind him, Andreth Lasgalen moved with the grace of a whisper, her bow half-drawn, arrows tipped with moon-silver that shimmered faintly under the forest canopy. Thauriel Sulinde, robed in blue-grey, kept herwand low, the crystal at its head pulsing softly to mask their life-signs from the beasts that hunted by magic’s scent.
They passed the nests of lesser drakes — scaled horrors sleeping in the glow of molten vents. The air trembled with their breathing. Once, a young drake stirred, lifting its horned head, but Tharion's prayers, Vorn's Hammer, Andreth's arrows and Thauriel’s spells quickly left the creature slumped back into darkness.
By the third hour, the air grew thin and hot. Sulphur burned their lungs. Lightning flickered in the clouds above as they entered the nesting cliffs — the mating ground of the Wyrm’s consorts. There they saw them: two colossal dragons, scales gleaming like forged steel, coiled around each other in the shadows of the mountain. The Elves dared the fight — they crept along the ledges, steps timed with thunder, hearts pounding as the dragons’ rumbling breaths shook the stone beneath their boots...
At last, they reached the summit — a hollowed peak crowned with obsidian spires and bones the size of trees. In the center lay the nest of the Ancient Wyrm.
She was older than the mountains that held her — scales black as night, eyes like dying stars. Her wings were torn in places where centuries of battle had scarred her. When she lifted her head, the air itself seemed to recoil.
Tharion stepped forward, his voice steady though the others could barely breathe in her presence. “Great Mother of Flame,” he called, his Elven words echoing through the cavern. “Your age of fire wanes. The world turns anew. We come to end what time has forgotten.”
The Wyrm’s laughter rolled like thunder over stone. “Then come, little priest,” she hissed, smoke curling from her jaws. “Let us see if your gods still answer you.”
The ground split, the cavern blazed with fire, and the Elves of the Silverwood charged — light against flame, age against youth, as the mountain itself trembled beneath the clash of the living and the eternal.