The Warrior and the Wyvern

The goal was to create any short piece, and the prompt was ‘Double’. I was inspired by this prompt to revisit a previous challenge (writing something from two perspectives), and create a short piece between two characters, then send one version to the group, but read out the other perspective version during our session.

I have emulated this below by including the other character’s voice in the hover text of the first character’s voice! So hover your mouse over the italicised coloured text, and enjoy…

<Hover text of the first character’s voice>

The chamber shifted and danced in the ruby glow of the fire, whose brilliance and ferocity was intensified by the surrounding plenitude of gold and gemstones.

The warrior, Barth, stood alone within the ancient doorway, his skin close to boiling beneath his plate armour as the heat of the gargantuan chamber enveloped him.

The wyvern, Naarthupax, sat atop a low mound of gold in the centre of the room, his haunches and tail consumed by the flames that he had wrought.

“Hell demon! Unnatural beast! You may have bested my companions, but you shall fall by my blade!”

Barth drew a deep breath, then roared a cry that almost met the din of the inferno. Raising his claymore high above his head, he ran powerfully toward his foe.

“For honour! For my fallen brethren! For the Empire!”

Naarthupax lifted his calloused head up and began to spread his mighty wings, the motion and altered weight displacing a stream of gold beneath his talons that ran down the pile like a gilt tear. The warrior continued his approach.

“I know your game, monster; you will not take flight before my sword has found your black heart.”

With wings completely unravelled, Naarthupax drew back and beat them down in one huge motion. The burning air, caught within the scaly sheet of each wing, was balled up and propelled by the powerful movement, a shallow tide of surface treasure followed in its wake.

Barth had reached the base of the pile, yowling his battle-cry the entire way there.

“I shall not succumb to your hell-fire!”

The ball of flame struck the warrior, and seemed to consume him whole. The fire dissipated as it lost momentum to reveal that the warrior was simply knocked back a few feet, and now lay on his back.

“Ha! You cannot harm me so easily, lizard beast! My quest, my destiny, is to vanquish you!”

Barth rocked over onto his side, his metal garb scraping noisily over the stone floor, and then laboured himself to his feet. Naarthupax now saw that the human’s skin was a remarkable and bright red, as the sweltering heat within his armour and the full force of the blast had combined so to stain him.

“Die”

The hero howled once more and hurtled himself forward, slowly ascending the unpredictable pile of gold. He had managed to trudge halfway up, when one of the wyvern’s sharp clawed feet met him perfectly in the solar plexus, thrusting him silently through the air, to a loud and crunching landing back on the stone below.

Naarthupax followed with phenomenal agility, arriving at the crumbled mess of warrior a fraction of a moment after his inelegant landing.

“…D- de… de… m.”

The Wyvern’s rock-slab sole collided with the warrior, compacting him to the thickness of an old winter coat.

Naarthupax returned to the flames.