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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/Internal-Ad6147 on 2025-10-14 07:16:12+00:00.

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Heat and poison shimmered around the cave mouth.

Jagged rocks jutted like blackened teeth, framing a darkness too deep for torchlight to reach.

A man stood before it, armored in black and green steel. His tabard bore a dragon skull crowned in thorns, its eyes painted the same sickly green that now glowed faintly from within the cavern.

He knelt before the cave, bowing low. “My king,” he said, his armor scraping stone.

From deep in the abyss came a sound like stone grinding on stone, a breath pulled through centuries of dust. A single, vast green eye opened, ancient and watchful.

The mountain itself seemed to tremble as a voice rumbled from the dark.

“Is it ready?”

“Almost,” the man replied. His voice wavered under the weight of the words. “The final preparations are being finished. We’re nearly done, my lord.”

A deep, echoing sound followed, the scrape of claws across bedrock.

“Good.”

The darkness shifted. Massive wings unfurled from the shadows, and a black dragon emerged, scarred and terrible. A great wound marred the left side of his neck, patches of scale still missing from ancient burns.

His single good eye burned like a star in a poisoned sky.

“Show me,” he said.

The man rose, his legs unsteady, trembling as the dragon stepped forward into the light. The dragon’s movements were slow and deliberate, each step causing smoke to billow from his nostrils, each breath thick with smoke and hate. The world outside dimmed, as if the sun itself dared not shine too brightly in his presence.

As they went deeper, the air grew hotter, thick with ash and molten breath. The sound of hammers on metal echoed through the cavern in a steady, relentless rhythm.

When they turned the corner, the source came into view:

Dragons and humans working side by side.

Massive beasts exhaled jets of flame into great forges while smiths, sweat-slick and soot-streaked, hammered glowing steel. The sight could have been a miracle of unity, but instead it was a blasphemy.

Men and dragons, bound together in service, not peace.

Weapons of war filled the chamber. Spears of blackened iron, blades inscribed with runes that pulsed faintly green, and armor plates stacked like dragon scales waiting to be reborn.

The man led his king across the busy floor of the forge halls to the center. There, he stopped beside a colossus of armor suspended by chains of darkened steel, black as night and carved with runes matching those on the dragon’s hide.

It was not made for man, elf, or dwarf.

It was made for the black king.

Each plate glowed as forge heat licked its surface. The helmet, massive and horned, waited atop a stone altar.

“How much longer?” the dragon rumbled, his voice shaking the chains.

“If nothing goes wrong,” the man replied, bowing his head, “mid-autumn. But if the snows come early, we’ll have to wait until winter passes, or risk losing the supplies before we march on the first kingdom.”

The dragon’s eye flared brighter, reflecting off the molten pools like a shard of emerald fire.

“I’ve waited half a century,” the dragon growled, his voice a thunder that shook dust from the cavern roof. “A few more seasons mean nothing.”

Scars along his neck seared. Even now, after ages, he still felt the pain of that fire.

He remembered the sky aflame with his own breath, the air trembling with the roar of war. An army of foolish men had come to challenge him, their banners bright, their courage hollow. He laughed as they advanced, their pitiful bolts flashing like sparks against a storm.

Then one struck home.

He remembered the bite of it, how it tore into his side, the pain searing deeper than any wound he’d suffered since he’d hatched in his mother’s nest, centuries ago. Rage filled him. His answering fire turned the hills to glass and cooked men inside their armor, yet still they fired.

Each bolt carried its cursed runes, draining his strength, eating away at his flame. He could feel his fury turning to exhaustion as the sky itself darkened around him.

And then there was him.

One man still burned in his memory, the one who stood his ground as his comrades fell, who loaded his final bolt even as his armor melted from the heat. The dragon saw his crew charred at his feet, yet the man did not falter. He fired, and the shot struck true.

The world exploded in light and agony. The bolt tore through his eye, lodged deep in his neck, and the strength left his wings.

As he fell, blinded and broken, he saw the sky turn against him. The rivers rose to swallow him whole, and darkness claimed him.

They must think me slain from that day.

The river saved me, carried me away from fire and ruin. I hid in its depths and healed. But my pride… my pride did not.

How? How could lesser beings have laid me low?

Even among dragons, I was unmatched. My wings blackened the sun, my breath scorched armies to ash. And yet, mere men brought me down.

For years, I gnawed on that truth. I searched for the answer until I understood.

They are weak, yes, but not blind to it. They built armor to shield their soft flesh. Weapons to reach farther than their claws could strike. Magic to bend the world to their will. And when one fell, another took his place.

It was never strength that made them dangerous.

Their unity. Their numbers. Their resolve.

So I learned from them.

From the dwarves, I took their steel, harder than scale, sharper than fang.

From the elves, I stole their spells, the songs that bind and break.

And from men… I took their will.

I learned their words, their bargains, their lies. I learned how to command loyalty not just through fear, but through belief.

Now, they forge for me.

Now, they die for me.

What they once used to kill dragons, I will turn upon the world itself.

Outside the cavern, ash weighed the air, and molten light pulsed from below as the Black Dragon emerged from the caldera, his scales glinting like armor forged from midnight. He gazed over the shattered kingdom—his kingdom, remade by his command.

Below the cliffs, his army gathered in silence among the broken bones of Verador. The banners of men fluttered again, stitched with the sigil of a crowned dragon’s skull. The forges burned day and night; the clang of hammer on metal echoed up the slopes.

A man in a tattered cloak of royal black and gold approached and knelt. His face was carved with the lines of age and guilt, yet his eyes still burned with ambition.

“Soon,” the dragon rumbled, his voice deep enough to shake dust from the stones, “our bargain will be fulfilled.”

The man lifted his head, still cloaked in the dragon’s mantle, scales taken from the black dragon himself. “Aye, my lord,” he said, his tone reverent, nearly worshipful. “Even if a king must bend to your will, the dream will be realized. Verador will rise again, and all the continents will kneel beneath one banner.”

The black dragon’s jaws curved into something that might have been a smile. “You speak well, Vladin. Serve me faithfully, and the world that cast you down will burn at your feet.”

The old king bowed his head lower. “Even if I must crawl through the ashes to see it done… so be it.”

High above, the ruined volcano belched a dark plume into the red sky. The age of dragons had ended once before.

Now, it was about to begin again.

A young red drake stalked forward through the smoke and iron, indignation steaming from his nostrils. “This is wrong,” he spat. “We’re bred to rule the skies, not crawl in the dirt with men. Where is your pride, old one?”

The massed black dragons answered with a low, hungry rumble. He watched the red upstart with slow, cold amusement. In one lightning-fast motion, the black beast lunged. A foreclaw slammed into the young dragon’s chest and threw him back, sending a spray of embers and grit into the air. The red drake skidded across the hot rock and lay gasping.

“Not even a century, and already loud,” one of the older dragons mocked. “Scorchling, who are you to lecture us?”

The elder descended from his perch, molten light rippling along his scales. He leaned low, scenting the air, smoke curling from his nostrils.

“You have Lavres’ scent on you,” he said at last, voice soft but heavy with recognition. “Her spawn, then. Do you have a name, whelp?”

The red drake coughed; smoke curled with each word. “Kaevric,” he rasped. “My mother was Lavres. She cast me out at birth. My name was her only gift.”

A single good eye fixed on him, glittering like a forge. The black dragon lowered himself until his muzzle nearly touched Kaevric’s trembling snout. “Lavres?” The name tasted like ash. He snapped a foreleg down; the ground shuddered. “You bear her blood. You bear her arrogance.” He let the word hang like a knife.

Kaevric swallowed.

“Pride chained us,” the black dragon growled, rising until he towered over the gathered throng. His voice rolled out, not quite a roar, more the slow, inexorable turning of a furnace. “It made us predictable. It gave men a place to aim. They learned our patterns; they learned our wounds. Pride is what cost us the skies.”

Around him, the forges beat on, a chorus to his words. As he spread his great wings, not in display so much as demonstration, the black membranes caught the glow and threw it back like a warning. “No more,” he…

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