The Red Death laughed, long and low and loud, and the sound echoed pleasingly through the cavernous empty nest. The dragons were all out, sent on a raid, and soon they would be back. Back with piles and piles of delicious food that all went to her alone. Not that they knew that.

She laughed again, pleased with her own cunning and deception. Oh, how she could act. The humans are evil, she had insisted. They kill us just for sport, she had lectured. They were an evil race that needed to be defeated, for the sake of goodness. The dragon raids were not unprovoked attacks on humans best left alone. No, they were heroic crusades against the powers of evil in this world. Praised acts of defiance against the maleficence of the human race. She was simply leading them all in a rebellion, a battle, a war. A great, great war in which goodness would surely triumph.

Oh, yes. They had all bought into the story. They had all been tricked, deceived, brainwashed. The Red Death used them, day after day, for her own lazy enjoyment, and not a single one of them was the wiser. The lava beneath her bubbled up in a sudden but pleasing escalation of warmth, and the Red Death grinned a terrible grin, full of teeth and fangs and villainy. Soon all the little dragons wrapped so neatly around her claw would be back, dumping loads of the vikings' food down into the pit of lava so conveniently hidden by steam and smoke. Getting rid of the vile and contaminated food into which the humans had seeped their corruption and wickedness. Or so they thought. The idiot inferiors all believed her so readily, it almost made her sick. Well, you know. Almost. The Red Death's stomach growled suddenly as she anticipated the onslaught of rich nutrition and flavor; the sound of it rumbled through the volcano like the tremors that precede an eruption. Quietly, she lowered herself into the steaming lava bath, letting the vapors rise around her in an obscuring veil. And she waited, intently, for the whispers of approaching wings. She grinned again, allowed herself one last, evil laugh before the others would return.

Oh, it was good to be wicked...

...

The night fury streaked expertly through the sky that was filled with the yells and roars of humans and dragons alike. The humans' fires lit the night sky, and illuminated the total chaos that erupted from every direction. Dragons flew every which way, human weapons sailed through the sky, nets sprang up from the most unlikely of places. But none of this chaos disturbed the night fury in the slightest. He was used to this. He was professional. He was skilled. Just a couple of shots from him, and the fight turned abruptly in the dragons' favor. Really, it was almost too easy.

The night fury fired another plasma blast with consummate ease, and that was precisely when it happened.

Mid-flight, from seemingly nowhere, a figure appeared suddenly in the sky before him. Black as the night, its silhouette barely visible in the night sky, it stayed, stationary, before him. Of course, such a sight would be nothing out of the ordinary, if it were another dragon. But this figure... this figure was no dragon.

With a swooping sense of dread, and an intense sense of surreality, the night fury realized that the figure before him was... a human. A viking. A kind of chill ran down his spine as the dragon remained in place, transfixed at the impossible sight before him. How was he seeing this?

The viking moved a few steps closer, walking as if the air beneath him was solid ground. And although closer, the viking's features were no more distinguishable beneath the long black cloak that was draped around him. Seeming too big for the noticeably thin frame, the cloak obscured the viking's face and body the way the darkness of the night obscured the night fury himself. It unsettled the dragon to no end, but he did not move - only watched as the figure moved slowly closer still. A glint of starlight reflected suddenly off of something, and the dragon noticed, with a further thrill of fear, that the human was holding a length of cold steel in its left hand - a small but sharp dagger. And as the viking continued to approach, the night fury noted that the dagger was not clean. The blade was dripping with blood. The figure stopped its movements, and stood still just a few feet from the night fury. For a moment, there was only silence as time stood still. And then the figure spoke.

"Follow me." And without thinking about it - without knowing why - without even registering it - the night fury followed the mysterious figure, compelled inexplicably forward like a moth to flame. The figure retreated, still facing the dragon, and then, quite suddenly, it dropped. Obediently, the night fury followed.

And just as the dragon dropped, a bola whisked with deadly force right through the spot he had just been occupying. It missed him only by inches.

With wide eyes filled partly with fear and partly with curiosity, the night fury studied the vision of the viking. This viking had saved his life. Had he not lured the dragon out of the way, he surely would have been hit, and downed.

"Why did you save me?" the night fury asked. Although he knew humans did not ordinarily understand the tongue of dragons, he had the feeling that this figure was different. But the viking did not respond. Only stood there, draped in darkness, the dagger in its left hand still glinting dangerously. After a minute of silence, the dragon tried again.

"What do you want?" he asked. Again, silence. Thick, heavy silence that could be sliced with a claw. But this time the dragon did not attempt conversation again. Something told him that there was something important coming, something he needed to hear. The viking held his complete attention, and suddenly, the noises of the raid seemed to vanish. The screams and yells and roars dimmed to a dull, unimportant background, and the viking's ethereal presence seemed to fill all of the night fury's awareness. The dragon waited with bated breath.

"Six days, fourteen hours, thirty-seven minutes, twelve seconds. That is when the world will end." The viking pronounced this gravely, his voice full of meaning and gravity. His cloaked head nodded once, slowly, to the night fury, and then the figure was gone.

Nothing remained but the blackness of the night, the cold glimmer of distant stars, and the faint resounding echoes of the battle below.