Valkyrie's Moon
Art by my friend Punkin!
A scream pierced the air, shrill and crisp in its volume and intensity. Edvin's pointed ears pricked up the slightest amount, even as dread dropped like a cold stone to the pit of his stomach. In the moment that it took for him to turn and look back towards Cloverbrook, dozens of other voices joined the first, their terrified shrieks carrying over the fields to fill his sensitive ears. An unnatural orange glow colored the backdrop of the village, flames licking at the walls of the dwellings -- and whoever was within them, he realized with the thudding of his own heartbeat speeding up. As soon as he took his first step back toward the village, a great shadow passed over him from above, nearly blotting out the sun.
The dragon roared, a raucous snarl of a noise that shook Edvin to his core. The sound alone would have been enough to bring just about anyone to their knees, but it was the roar and the gusts from the great wyrm's flapping wings that kick-started Edvin's adrenaline rush.
The Alfan boy began sprinting, dropping the crook he had taken with him when he had left with the sheep that morning. He had seen dragons from a distance, or in sketches from the retired knights who had taken up or returned to farming in their later years, but part of him still had had the detachment of childhood to keep his thoughts from the War. Surely, it had guided his family's way of life, but it had been more of a backdrop to their reality than an immediate threat.
Or so he had thought.