These stories are the tales of species and nations driven to extinction by Deathbringer. Because he has driven so many species and nations extinct, it makes sense to put them together in a collection of stories.
The Last Laji[]
A story about the Laji.
Chapter 1[]
Lasai flew through the air on his powerful wings, watching the land whizz by below him. Not too long ago, he had passed the Ice Sea, after leaving the North. Ahead of him, he saw the Twin Lakes and The Neck. He considered dropping into their soothing waters to take a rest; after all, he had been flying hard for nearly an hour. However, another part of his mind told him he had urgent matters to attend to in the south.
Eventually, he decided to land. After all, he reasoned, he could not successfully attend to his matters in the south, if he was not fully energised. He landed in the waters, looking forward to the rest. However, hanging like a dark cloud in his mind were the matters he knew he must attend to at some point.
Five Laji had been found dead in the South. They numbered only around one hundred anyway, and such losses could not be afforded. As well as this, Lasai knew of no creature capable of slaying a Laji. After a while of deliberation, he had decided to investigate.
Pushing the dark cloud to the back of his mind, Lasai lay down in the waters and slept.
A dark, malevolent dragon sat at the top of its citadel, plotting. A smile of triumph played on its lips. It closed its eyes for several seconds, seemingly concentrating on something. Then it sighed, and opened its eyes. With a wave of its claw, one wall of the citadel disappeared. It stretched its wings and walked leisurely to the edge of the one-kilometre drop. And it leapt.
It spread its wings, halting the fall. Then, with slow, deliberate wingbeats, it turned round, and with another claw-wave, closed the gap in the citadel wall. It folded its wings against its body, and allowed itself to drop for about five hundred metres. Its wings snapped open again, and halted its fall at about four-hundred-and-fifty metres.
"Foolish Laji," it chuckled. "Death shall be brought unto you, for I am the bringer of death!"
After yelling its speech to the sky, the dragon beat its wings, fast, and set course for The Neck.
Chapter 2[]
Lasai rose from his slumber after a few hours. He hadn't simply woken from having enough rest; no. Instead he had been woken by a loud roar.
Hovering in the air about 200 metres from him was a large, dull-red dragon. Though it was large, Lasai was larger. "Who are you?" he asked.
"I AM DEATHBRINGER, BRINGER OF DEATH! TREMBLE BEFORE ME!"
Even Lasai, who was larger than Deathbringer, did indeed feel fear. However, he tried to stay calm and friendly.
"Have you, by chance, slain any Laji in the south?"
"Hm hm hm," Deathbringer chuckled, quiet and menacing. "So you've put two and two together. Yes, I, the Bringer Of Death, have brought death unto you!"
Lasai quickly got to his feet, and in two powerful wingbeats, brought himself to the same height as Deathbringer, who continued to chuckle.
"You believe you can bring death unto me? Try, foolish pest!"
This sent a rush of anger through Lasai, who powered towards Deathbringer, claws outstretched. Deathbringer, still chuckling, dodged under the blow, and propelled himself forward with a single powerful wingbeat, raking his talons along Lasai's flank as he did so. The white scales flaked off, and blood poured from three parallel, gaping scars.
Lasai stared in disbelief at the wounds.
"I AM THE BRINGER OF DEATH!" Deathbringer proclaimed in his normal booming voice, before twirling round in middle air, performing a neat barrel roll and severing the last ten metres of Lasai's tail with a single snap of his jaws. Blood spouted from the wound, and Lasai screamed in agony. Then, he spun round and sliced at Deathbringer. His claws connected, and skittered across Deathbringer's scales. The impact knocked him back a few metres, but other than that, Deathbringer was unharmed.
Suddenly, Deathbringer bathed Lasai in fire. He was blinded by the light, and in those few seconds, Deathbringer darted forward and delivered a deadly uppercut to Lasai's neck and lower jaw. Lasai heard the jaw bone snap, and felt some of his teeth shatter as the lower jaw smashed into the upper jaw. In addition, three deep red gouges had appeared in his neck.
Deathbringer flapped his wings and flew back, out of Lasai's range.
"YOUR SCREAMS WILL RESOUND AROUND HELL FOR ALL ETERNITY!"
Deathbringer folded his wings against his body and bulleted towards Lasai. One arm flicked out, and then Deathbringer had passed Lasai, and was out of range again. Lasai stared at his right wing, which now flapped in the wind, in tatters. He called upon magical energy to hold him in the air, but then Deathbringer flew up from underneath him, striking him in the underbelly with a closed fist.
Lasai immediately lost concentration, and fell towards The Neck. He stretched his arms and legs out, determined to take Deathbringer with him, but Deathbringer was no longer there. He was watching him fall from above, still chuckling.
When Lasai finally hit the water, it was hard as rock. The breath was completely knocked out of him, and he allowed his body to float limply. Water gushed through his open mouth; he felt it surging through his throat, cutting of his precious air supply. Red and black stars danced before his vision. He was dimly aware of Deathbringer hovering just in front of him. He saw, barely, Deathbringer's fist swinging towards his face. There was a crunch as the fist connected, and his vision went black.
Chapter 3[]
After Lasai's carcass had been discovered floating in The Neck with numerous wounds all over it, the Laji had decided they must take action. A temporary council had been put together to order their resistance against the new threat.
Now, a strike force of five Laji, flying in an arrow formation, passed over The Neck and continued the journey south. They were hoping that the creature that had been killing Laji would come to them, as they had no way of identifying the culprit.
Soon, a large dragon appeared on the horizon. Its scales were brick red, and its face bristled with horns. Its four legs were tipped with deadly, hooked talons, and its jaws opened to reveal rows of razor-sharp teeth. Its eyes glowed an unearthly bright blue.
As soon as it got within hearing range of the Laji strike force, it spoke.
"I AM THE BRINGER OF DEATH!" it proclaimed.
The Laji flicked brief glances between each other. "Target identified," one said emotionlessly.
They sped up, and as they got closer saw the dragon wasn't anywhere near as big as one of them. They thought it would be a massacre. And it was. Unfortunately, it was a Laji massacre.
Deathbringe dived towards them, yelling in his booming voice, "BRING DEATH TO THE DEATHBRINGER IF YOU DARE!"
He dived straight under the leading Laji, and passed underneath the Laji immediately to its right, before coming level with the Laji furthest back and right. He powered higher into the air, leaving deep vertical gashes on the Laji's flank as it did so.
Deathbringer then dived towards the Laji on the left closest to the front Laji. From a higher altitude, he bulleted towards it, changing his trajectory at the last second so that, claws outstretched, he smashed into its neck. The Laji spun out of control, and it was bleeding horribly from a fatal neck wound.
The strike force was now completely disorientated, and in chaos. Deathbringer dived for a third Laji, and his jaws clamped shut on its wings. With a sharp jerk of his neck, Deathbringer ripped a lump of flesh and bone from the Laji wing. The Laji quickly used magic to stabilise itself; however, with one of his hind legs, Deathbringer kicked it hard on the side of the head, causing it to lose concentration and plummet to the rocky ground below.
The Laji were organising themselves again, and becoming cautious of Deathbringer. They arranged themselves in a square around him, and each fired a jet of light fire. Deathbringer disappeard in the light. For a second, they thought he was dead. Then, the Laji with a neck wound suddenly cried out and convulsed. Deathbringer's claws raked along its underbelly, and, no longer having enough strength to stay in the air, it fell to its death on the rocky ground.
"ABANDON HOPE! YOU WILL NEVER DEFEAT ME!"
Deathbringer's tail slapped the side of another Laji's head, and then Deathbringer spun artisticly in the air, and clamped his jaws shut on the Laji's neck. He bit hard, and heard the bones crunch. Feeling the Laji become a dead weight, Deathbringer dropped it to the ground, just as the last two Laji converged on him.
At the last minute, he grabbed the Laji carcass again, and was pulled down with it. The Laji clashed with each other above him, and he let go.
Dark fire enveloped the last two Laji. They felt themselves heating up to intolerable levels, and their scales began to melt from the heat.
"Impossible!" one exclaimed.
Deathbringer's claws lashed out, slicing through the liquid scales of the Laji, and tearing through several arteries. It started bleeding intensely, and very quickly dropped from the sky to meet its death on the rocks below.
"YOU HAVE FAILED!" Deathbringer roared, flying in for the kill. The last Laji, desperate, attempted to unleash its white fire, but it was nullified by the dark fire licking around its mouth. Deathbringer smashed it round the head, and the Laji fell to the rocks below, to join the other four corpses.
Chapter 4[]
TBC
The Order of Dragonslayer Knights[]
A story about The Order of Dragonslayer Knights, and how Deathbringer destroyed them.
Chapter 1[]
Fifty knights rode across the plains. They were clad completely in thick, black armour, with a black helmet and a black visor that covered their faces. Their horses must have been very strong, as they too were clad in the same black armour, though their legs, tails and heads were exposed.
Each knight had a rectangular shield strapped to his or her back, and held a sword in their right hand, and the horses' reins in their left. A symbol was carved into each knight's helmet; that of a serpentine dragon curled around a black knight with lightning leaping from his sword. It was the symbol of the Order of Dragonslayer Knights.
A Rage Dragon appeared in the sky. It was flying towards the knights at quite some speed, and when it got in range, released a jet of fierce flame. The knights' armour protected them from the worst of the fire, but the horses simultaneously began to panic or fall, their legs and head burnt by the blast.
The Rage Dragon wheeled round for another strike. It smashed its tail into the ground, sending chunks of earth flying, and carved a path straight through the knights, knocking several off their horses, while lashing out left and right with its claws as it went past. When it took to the sky again, forty-three knights remaining standing, but only twenty horses remained on the battlefield. Whether the other knights were dead or unconscious, no-one knew.
As the Rage Dragon came towards them again, one knight raised its sword to the heavens, and a bolt of lightning seemed to jump from the clouds to the sword. The lightning crackled along the length of the sword, and then the knight sliced it downwards, uttering words in an arcane tongue as he did so.
The Rage Dragon easily translated the words into 'Dragonlord's Doom'. The bolt of lightning sliced down with the sword, and smashed into the Rage Dragon with a force shattering its scales and bones, and sending it dropping to the ground, where it landed in a crumpled heap.
"It's dead," one knight sneered.
"We proceed," ordered another, clearly their leader.
Chapter 2[]
Deathbringer lay at the top of his citadel, and scowled. All Rage Dragons had a slight telepathic connection with each other that allowed them to sense if another of their kind was slain. Deathbringer had just sensed one connection go out.
The connection also allowed Rage Dragons to send telepathic messages, but they would have to be short and very powerful. Deathbringer had heard two words before the link went out; 'Dragonlord's Doom'.
Dragonlord's Doom was an arcane skill he was very familiar with. However, no creature in all of Emiria, other than him, should have the power to use it. Others had once been able to - the Laji and Dreadfire were examples - but he had slaughtered them all.
Deathbringer smiled maliciously. Tracing the use of such a powerful spell would be simple. It was time for him to slaughter again.
"Another dragon approaches!" the lead knight called.
"It is another Rage Dragon!"
"It shall die."
The same knight called upon Dragonlord's Doom. The lightning leapt from the sky to his sword, and he brought the bolt crashing down upon the dragon, with a phenomenal bang.
The dragon kept flying.
"It is the Deathbringer!" one cried.
"Run!"
"IT IS TOO LATE FOR THAT, MEDDLING PESTS. I AM DEATHBRINGER, BRINGER OF DEATH! TREMBLE BEFORE ME!"
Dark fire blasted from his mouth.
"Foolish dragon! Our armour is fire res-"
He was cut short as the dark fire burnt through his armour and incinerated him.