AN: Hello! Welcome readers, new and old, to another Merlin fanfiction by yours truly, Spiritus Rex (but you can call me Ghost.) I've got two other currently updating Merlin multichapter fics (one of which is very close to closing up!) Buuuuuut this fic idea has been a fan favorite (so far) on the poll that I've got set up on my profile, so I decided to post chapter 1 as a little taste.

Notes: This story will contain elements from a few original Arthurian Legend tales, so if you see a name or a place you do not recognize from the Merlin show, I recommend a quick google search!

Disclaimer: I don't own Merlin

Enjoy!

"RUN."

The smell of fire and blood was heavy in the air, choking the man as he turned and fled from the armored soldiers approaching. He stumbled twice in his haste, the second time because he had looked back to his second-in-command who had told him to run in the first place. He was leaving his men in their thick cloaks behind to face the red armored soldiers, leaving them behind in favor of fleeing. It was not strategic, it was not a display of strength, it was cowardice, pure and simple cowardice.

"Balinor, keep running!"

He turned away for the last time, resolved to never look back again no matter what he would hear. Balinor did not want to see the destruction and devastation that would surely befall his people. A dragon roared in the distance to his left, a high, pain-filled sound that shook him to his very core. Another dragon screamed to its kin's aid, and across the battlefield, the same situation was happening over and over again as dragon after dragon was attacked. The Dragonlords that led their dragons shouted and screamed in their attempts to overwhelm the forces fighting against them; armored men that marched seemingly without tiring, their flags and crest mocking the efforts of the Lords with the image of a bright golden dragon sewn into red fabric. The flags were flying freely in the wind, the fabric bending and curling over itself lazily as if the ground beneath them were not shaking with the battle that raged.

Balinor was filled suddenly with the urge to snatch one of those flags down and set it ablaze, but he was not so foolish as to turn around and risk his life simply for something so meaningless. Perhaps when the battle was over - and won, he had to hold onto that hope that they would win - then Balinor would return and tear up the flag of Pendragon right in front of Uther's face.

Pendragon, what an ironic name of nobility for the killer of dragons to have. In Balinor's opinion, the disgusting man that was Uther did not deserve to call himself a son of dragons, not after his mass deception of the Dragonlords to draw them to his kingdom and subsequent attempt at genocide of them and their dragon kin. Uther did not deserve anything, much less the name Pendragon.

A flaming arrow whistled over Balinor's head, drawing his mind from his swirling, hate-filled thoughts and back to the battlefield he fled from. He did not dare to spin to see where the archer was stationed, instead allowing a pulse of magic to emanate from him and push back all those who might have wished him harm. The sound of metal armor clanging and clashing as the soldiers - swordsmen and archers alike - fell was music to Balinor's ears. His stride did not falter though in its quick, almost hysteric, pace, even after all perceived threats had been pushed out of range and prevented from shooting at his turned back.

Balinor had nearly reached the edge of the forest without turning back even once, running as his men had commanded him to run out of concern for him, the highest of them all. But of course, that was all before the first dragon took to the skies.

The beast shot upwards, the grey scales of its claws and haunches slick with dirt, blood, and ash. It's massive head bobbed upon its tree trunk of a neck as it weaved its way through the sky, unaware that it had caught the attention of Balinor and halted him in his path to refuge in the forest. The second dragon went up then, mere moments after the first, this one with rough auburn scales and one claw that bled heavily from two missing toes. Balinor watched in shock, unsure of if he should feel dread or relief, as more and more dragons began to flee the battlefield at their Dragonlord's command. They were losing the battle, even with mighty creatures the likes of which were rarely outmatched upon their side. So Balinor's men were fleeing - but not without first thinking of protecting their dragons, as they were the true targets of Uther's attack. Uther feared the dragons, this was no secret and was known across all the five kingdoms. He feared them and their massive power; a power that was balanced by the mystic wisdom characteristic of most dragons, that both frightened and awed the magic-less king. A dragon's connection with its Dragonlord frightened Uther as well, for to have such a great creature of the Old Religion - some longer and larger than most castle towers - bow to a mortal simply at the sound of their voice-! It was too much power to leave unchecked, too much power for others to have and not him. After the dragons, there was no doubt that the mad king would come next for the Dragonlords who had fought against him and of whom he was jealous and so very afraid of.

A roar of rage, one that was startlingly close to him, alerted Balinor once more to the danger he still was in. His mother and his wife had always told him that he had always been easily distracted, prone to stumbling clumsily as his head became caught in the clouds. He spun just in time to stagger back as a sword sliced down the air where his shoulder had been moments ago. The sharpened metal tip caught upon Balinor's thick cloak and pulled, ripping the fabric cleanly and very nearly cutting into his skin. He let out a yell of surprise, having thought all adversaries and enemies knocked unconscious or pushed back by his earlier pulse of defensive magic, and sent another concentrated wave out towards this helmeted man that was now trying to strike him. His eyes flared golden, and the attacking soldier was spun backwards and tossed against the trunk of a tree that was near. Balinor breathed out sharply and took a step backwards, closer to the forest that all the other Dragonlords had also begun to flee to. The dragons filled the skies by now, healthy and injured wings alike carrying them away from the white walls of Camelot. For one heart stopping moment, Balinor glanced away from helmeted soldier to the dragon-filled sky, and was shocked when he did not immediately spot his dragon, Kilgharrah. The moment was over though as soon as his panic cleared and allowed him to remember just where the Great Dragon was, and Balinor allowed himself a small breath and a faint smile.

"What are you grinning about, Dragonlord?"

His smile froze, and he turned blazing gold eyes to the man who had dared to attack him. The helmet now was slipping from his head, having been dented and dislodged when the soldier had hit the tree. But Balinor did not need the helmet to be removed to know who it was who now held a sword to his chest.

"Uther." Balinor snarled, hand reaching for his own sword which he very rarely used. Uther's sword twitched towards his neck as Balinor did, and so the Dragonlord's hand stilled just short of the hilt. Meanwhile, the Pendragon king wrenched his dented helmet from his head, revealing his face to his rival and one-time acquaintance.

As the battle and fire burned around them, Uther and Balinor stood in a still stalemate, with no one coming to Uther's aid, and no one coming to Balinor's aid. Balinor wondered for a moment, distractedly again, what fate had befallen his second in command, or his other Dragonlord kin and subjects that had fought beside him, or his wife. "What were you smiling about?" Uther demanded again, expression cold and closed off as the tip of his sword dipped towards Balinor's sternum, hovering just around the area of the Dragonlord's heart. Uther's lips curled in disgust as he spat, "Your people are conquered, your dragons have fled. You have lost, Balinor." Balinor glared with all his might at the king standing before him, and Uther returned his glare in kind, "So why did you smile?"

Foolishly, Balinor could not help but glance again towards the sky.

Slowly, Uther slid his eyes to the sky as well, as all the color drained from the highest Dragonlord's face once he realized what he had done. The King's eyes squinted to see the dragons as they fled, the beasts heeding the bellowed words of their Lords and escaping the kingdom of Camelot, never to return. Each dragon that flashed by, scales rippling and shining, was examined as closely as Uther could do so before they were gone from his view. Balinor knew the moment Uther brought his eyes down that the king of Camelot had noticed Kilgharrah's absence.

Uther had been acquainted with Kilgharrah in the time before he had begun his genocide of the dragons and Dragonlords, back when he and Balinor had been on civil terms with each other; allies almost. He could recognize the Great Dragon by merely his gold scales, a color of scales which no other dragon possessed.

Uther's sword tip pressed painfully into Balinor's collar bone, and the Dragonlord felt blood seep from the wound and stain his shirt. Uther's narrowed eyes were mere slits of suspicion, and he pinned Balinor where he stood with them. "Where is the Great Dragon?" Uther snarled, "Where is he?"

In the face of Uther's obvious discomfort and fear at the absence of the Great Dragon, Balinor smiled daringly, even though he had Uther's sword already poking in his flesh. "I don't know." Balinor lied, grinning even wider as Uther's face went red.

The King made a mistake then, as he pulled back his sword and swung his arm up, readying to strike Balinor down. But in the time that Uther took to wrench his sword away, Balinor took the same time to artfully slide his own sword from its scabbard and bring it crashing upwards towards his enemy. Uther's skin, just above his right eye, was cut open and began to bleed heavily as the sword finished its arch. He cried out in pain and clutched at the wound with his left hand, covering half his face as he did so, yet still holding his own sword tightly in his right. Balinor danced backwards, showing an agility and skill that one would not think of him having if one had seen him stumbling as he fled the battle earlier that day.

Uther snarled and snapped his teeth, tasting blood as his head wound did not stop bleeding and continued to paint the right side of his face a frightening red not unlike the color of his crest and flags. He removed his hand from where it held the wound and returned it to the hilt of his sword, gripping the weapon tightly with one clean glove and one blood slicked one. Balinor had not managed to cut Uther's eye, but Uther's vision was still blurred and impaired, making him clumsy as he thrusted forward with his sword in an attack on the Dragonlord before him.

Balinor, now with the upper hand, completely ignored the roaring sounds of his losing dragons in the distance as he continued to back away tactically from Uther's swinging blade. The Pendragon was angry now, and in his anger his attacks were unrefined, no matter how skilled or trained a warrior he typically was. In any other battle, if Uther had been wounded he still would have still been able to fight competently, and yet when facing his greatest enemy and greatest fear, with the Great Dragon's absence looming ominously over his head, Uther was becoming frantic trying to stop Balinor from successfully fleeing the battle. If Balinor - the highest Dragonlord, the Lord of them all - slipped through Uther's fingers, then another great fight loomed on the horizon, and Uther knew he could not win against the strength of dragons a second time.

In his efforts to escape Uther, Balinor had forgotten something though, and the thunk of an arrow as it pierced through his thigh reminded him.

Balinor went down to one knee, a groan escaping his gritted teeth despite his efforts to hold in the sound of pain. Uther paused in his assault with his sword and blinked, startled as if he had been unaware that he and Balinor were not alone on the battlefield, and that a Camelot archer had taken it upon himself to shoot and incapacitate his King's opponent. Uther did not turn toward the archer at all, did not acknowledge his assistance or thank him, and instead focused solely upon the Dragonlord now bending at his mercy. In one quick movement with no hesitation, Uther took the opportunity presented to him, and brought the hilt of his weapon down upon Balinor's head while grinning. Balinor fell sideways from the force of the blow against his temple, sight rapidly dimming with the one strike. He had almost made it to the forest, had almost managed to run successfully, but now, he had failed.

With another strike from Uther, Balinor's consciousness left him for someplace no doubt more peaceful. His last thoughts as the smell of fire and blood faded from his senses were of his son.

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