Pendant of Dragons: The Aldrich Legacy (Book 1)

Chapter Three: Dark Intentions

The sudden ice cold and the crack of thunder startled me, bringing me out of the sleep that I had fallen into. I felt the harsh slap of a strange frigid air hitting me in the face and of hard gravelly ground beneath me. I opened my eyes, shocked to find myself lying on the firm ground of a desolate vale, a storm raging in the sky above me. I was cold, my long dark hair falling around my shoulders and neck to provide the only warmth my body had. I wore only my mauve nightgown, not even having a robe to shield my skin from the icy air.

Slowly, I got to my feet, the hard ground and the cold air chilling my skin. I looked around, shivering as I clutched my arms around me, trying to regain some warmth and a hint of how I got there.

What's going on? Where am I? Is... Is this a dream? But it feels so real.

I thought back to all that had taken place before I had gotten there, recalling having dinner with my parents before retiring to my room for the evening. Nothing unusual had happened and I felt that the night had been normal, yet my surroundings said otherwise. My mind led me to the only logical conclusion that was left: this was a nightmare.

The howling winds were so loud that I could barely hear myself think, my hair and clothes thrashing around me violently. I had never experienced a nightmare like this, but somehow I knew it too well, as if I'd had a dream like it before.

"Where am I?" I asked myself.

My words seemed to echo around me as though I were standing in a deep, underground cavern, but there were no walls, no mountains, nothing for the echo to have come from.

I wandered for what felt like hours until I came upon a strange light in the distance. It was an eerie turquoise colour, something that reminded me of ghosts and evil. Then, I felt as though I was suddenly thrown forward and I saw where I was.

Terrified, I stood in a dead vale full of black rocks, grey stone and twisting black peaks surrounding it. The sky above me was dark with a dry storm that held no rain, just flashing green lightning. Then, I stared up at the gigantic black stone and iron fortress that took the central point in the haunted vale with a deep dread in my stomach.

It was a twisted, frightening structure towering high into the sky, accessible only via a long black stone bridge across a deep chasm that surrounded it, that same eerie supernatural light glowing up from beneath in the darkness that lurked below. From the base of the structure rose two towers, one taller than the other, their malicious looking spined shapes tipped by a flat roof with five gigantic towering spikes. The tallest tower was the main fortress keep itself, the other tower and rock imbedded structures connected to it via various stone, steel and iron bridge walkways.

I stared up at this malicious structure, absolutely petrified by its sheer mass and dominating presence. I had never seen anything so terrifying in all my life and hoped now that this truly was just some awful nightmare.

At that moment I heard a horrible, piercing roar and dropped to my knees, cowering in the dirt. I looked up as a gigantic black and crimson dragon flew up out of the crevice, its eyes seeming to be a burning molten orange, its scales tinted with blue and violet. Its long jaws opened as it flew higher into the sky, letting out a rock shattering roar.

It flew to the very top of the fortress, clinging with its large clawed hands and feet to the side of the tower, its wings spreading out to show their purple and red colouring on their underside. Then it roared again, turning its mouth up and sending a blast of purplish blue flame into the darkened sky.

I staggered backwards away from the fortress and the monster atop its spire crowned peak, just wanting to run as fast as I could from this nightmare. As I moved away, my eyes fell to the spiked battlements of the fortress. I could see the dead patrolling there, each figure a horrible corpse-like guard staggering around with bony arms and skeletal visages.