Vorthak watched them approach with what might have been amusement. His massive bulk remained perfectly still, scales reflecting sunlight in icy sparkles.

His foreleg swept across the ground in a massive arc.

Pyra dove under it, the limb passing inches over her head. Frozen earth exploded from the impact behind her. She rolled, came up burning, and sprinted closer.

Kindle launched herself over using fire-propulsion, controlling her flight with bursts from her hands. Ember hit it head-on, catching the limb with both hands, flames erupting as she tried to burn through scale and muscle thick as fortress walls.

The impact jarred through her bones. Her feet carved furrows in frozen earth as the dragon's strength pushed her back. The scales barely scorched.

"Tough bastard!" Pyra circled behind him, looking for weak points.

Vorthak's tail lashed around faster than something his size should move. Pyra caught it with both hands, flames erupting where flesh met scale. The dragon roared and spun, dragging her through frozen earth that tore furrows in the ground. She held on, burning hotter, pouring fire into the wound she was creating.

Scales cracked. Flesh charred. Blood steamed black in the cold air.

The dragon's spin accelerated. Pyra's grip held through sheer determination but physics had opinions. The centrifugal force multiplied with each rotation. Her flames carved deeper but the tail was massive, layers of muscle and scale absorbing punishment.

Kindle hit his right foreleg at the joint, trying to cripple his mobility. Her flames concentrated into cutting edges that carved through scale and exposed the softer tissue beneath.

Blood steamed immediately, black and thick as tar. The dragon's leg buckled slightly but held. She poured more fire into the wound, burning deeper, seeking bone.

Ember climbed his left flank, using his scales as handholds while fire poured from her hands in continuous streams. Each scale top became a molten pool that dripped onto frozen earth. She kept burning, kept climbing, and steam hissed off her in clouds.

Vorthak shook like a horse throwing flies. Her grip tightened and she burned hotter.

"Mother said you were different," the dragon roared, slowing his rotation enough for Pyra to release and roll away across frozen ground. She came to her feet, breathing hard, bleeding from scrapes on her exposed skin.

"Damn straight we are!" Kindle yelled, flames roaring from her as the dragon's jaws snapped shut inches from her head. She darted inside his reach, burning through the damaged joint.

Vorthak's claw moved faster than its size had any right to, punching into the ground where she'd been, then pulling back in a savage rake that forced her to dive and roll between the dragon's hind legs.

Kindle scrambled backward, buying space and time. Frost giants lumbered toward them from the ice army's main body, drawn to defend their creator.

Pyra launched herself at one. Its marble shield caught her charge, but its feet cracked through frozen turf, digging furrows. She burned harder. Cracks spider-webbed the shield, spreading across its surface like frost on glass.

The giant stumbled. Its shield shattered as the giant swung a club at her. She slid beneath the attack on knees and elbows, sending a focused burst of fire into its exposed stomach. The blast nearly cut it in half, sending viscera and ice in equal measure across the ground.

Behind them, the battle devolved into desperate grinding.

Force Alpha's shield wall buckled under renewed assault from ice creatures. The right flank gave ground, contracting inward as frost wolves broke through. They tore into infantry before battlemages could redirect fire. Knights charged in, their hooves thundering on frozen earth, and turned the tide with flashing swords.

Cinder arrived in the midst of them, unleashing flame that scorched the frost wolves into nothing. The knights rallied around her and charged together, driving the wolves back and sealing the gap. Arrows fell around her like fire rain, driving the remaining ice constructs into retreat.

Thale fought on the front line, his sword work steady and his face set in a grim mask. He killed an ice spider with a overhead chop that split its head open. Spun and drove his blade through a frost wolf's throat. Pulled the sword free and caught a humanoid construct's spear thrust on his shield, stepped inside its guard, and shattered its torso with a shield bash that sent fragments everywhere.

Officers maintained the line through voice and example.

"Close ranks! Shield wall!"

"Wounded to the rear!"

"Mages, covering fire!" Their voices cut through the chaos, urging soldiers on.

Vorthak's breath erupted from his throat in a wave that swept across his front like a breaking tide. Frost spread in its wake. Ember's feet lost their grip and she fell.

Pyra dove behind a dead frost giant's marble shield, which exploded under the cold pressure. The blast knocked her backward, blood running from her ears as she gasped.

Kindle tried to burn out a portion of the breath, turning a swath of it to steam.

It wasn't enough.

The frigid air hit her from her left and spun her away from the dragon as ice encrusted her body, blinding her. She crashed to the ground ten feet away and rolled, breaking off chunks of ice as quickly as possible.

Ember's flames absorbed most of his frigid breath, but the exposure slowed her. She dropped to the ground and leapt to Pyra's side to help break away chunks of frost. Kindle's fire melted the last of the ice from her body, and the three of them stared at Vorthak. Cinder sprinted back to join them.

The dragon advanced slowly, confident and unstoppable as an avalanche. Blood poured from his right hind leg where Kindle had nearly severed it, and his left tail joint was a ruin of cracked scales and seared flesh from Pyra's assault, but the wounds weren't enough. His scales scorched and cracked where their fire had done the most work, but they hadn't broken through to damage him enough to seriously injure him.

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Force Alpha was holding, but barely.

"He's too tough!" Kindle dodged another tail swipe, flames streaming behind her. "We're not doing enough damage!"

"Then we do more!" Pyra grabbed onto the dragon's hindquarters, burning with everything she had.

Flesh charred. Scales cracked with sounds like breaking pottery.

Vorthak roared pain and fury, shook his massive body. She clung like a barnacle, flames erupting around her as he tried to crush her against the earth. She twisted, found purchase with one foot, and flipped onto the dragon's back, digging her fingers in where scales were already damaged from Ember's earlier attack.

Cinder arrived next, driving both feet into a crack that hadn't had time to scab over. Her fire ignited flesh beneath the surface, sending streams of smoke escaping from gaps between the dragon's armored plating. He staggered, and his flailing sent her rolling across frozen ground.

Ember jumped onto the dragon's front, driving fire deep into an open wound. Blood hissed where it met flame. Vorthak reared back, roaring. She held tight and burned on, pouring energy into him.

Scales split, muscle tore, and blood fell in black sheets. The dragon's strength drove her back, and Ember pushed off, landing near the other three.

They advanced as one, the cold air meeting the heat of their aura in clouds of steam.

Behind them, Force Alpha fought with the desperate determination of soldiers who'd run out of easy days. They'd bought the minutes the hero unit needed to do what it was supposed to.

"His rear left!" Kindle shouted and they struck together. Pyra hit first, punching a hole clean through layers of scale, bone and meat that sent gore and viscera in all directions. Her momentum drove her through the other side in a spray of blood that sizzled as it hit frozen turf, turning it into boiling mud that splattered her with muck and gore.

Kindle hit the wound next, her fire cutting a wedge deeper into his body. Scales split, flesh burned like fat thrown on embers, and the smell of charred flesh filled the air. She ducked under his retaliatory claw strike and dove through the gap, tumbling end-over-end as she landed on her back.

She scrambled to her feet, diving away from a frost giant's club swing, somersaulting in a twist that ended with her slicing through its neck with twin trails of concentrated flame that severed ice and stone like candle wax.

Ember and Cinder struck next, their twin blasts driving into exposed, damaged flesh. White fire poured from Ember while Cinder focused hers on a tight cutting edge, and together their attack blasted a hole right through the dragon's side.

They fell back, breathing hard, flames rising and falling around their shoulders in time with their breath.

Vorthak slowed. Blood stained the earth where he passed, each step leaving prints in the muddy ground. His wounds leaked thick streams of blackish red, scabbing and congealing in the cold.

But he didn't fall.

"You think pain can stop me?" The dragon's head lowered, eyes regarding them with hate. "You think this will make a difference? If you want to stop Mother's plan, you'll have to do better!"

Vorthak's roar became a gurgling scream.

He thrashed, dying but not dead, his strength still enough to kill them if they made one mistake. His tail caught Kindle, sent her flying into a rock outcrop hard enough to leave cracks in the stone.

Pyra dodged, burning more of the tail as it swept past.

Ember and Cinder circled, looking for an opening in the dragon's flailing death throes. Each wild movement of its head or claws promised crushed bones or torn limbs, and their energy wasn't limitless.

"Stop moving and die, damn it!" Pyra shouted. She dove, grabbed one of its flailing limbs, and held on, letting the twisting motion slice open its damaged flesh with her fire.

Ember climbed his neck, flames pouring from both hands to burn a path through cracked scales, and the skin beneath scorched. Her fire poured inside the breach.

Vorthak screamed, lifted his head toward the sky, and breathed his freezing cloud at nothing.

Cinder drove fire into his skull from beneath, concentrating to create a cutting blade of white hot heat that sliced cleanly through the bottom of his jaw and up through his tongue and palate, carving a wedge of destruction through the dragon's head.

Dragon blood showered her like a storm cloud's downpour.

Vorthak's body shuddered once. Twice. His massive legs kicked in death throes that sent frozen earth spraying. Then went still.

The ice creatures shattered.

Every spider, every wolf, every construct, every giant dissolved into steam and shards that fell like deadly rain. Coalition soldiers raised shields against the fallout, protecting themselves and the wounded.

The shards pattered against wood and steel and flesh. Then silence spread across the valley like falling snow.

Ember slid off Vorthak's corpse, hitting the ground on legs that trembled with exhaustion. Her shoulder wound throbbed. Her chest ached from exertion, and her stomach reminded her she hadn't eaten all day.

Kindle groaned, wiping blood and slush from her face. "Is it over?"

"Phase one." Cinder nodded, helping Kindle to her feet. She grunted at the effort, and they leaned on each other, each supporting the other as their legs shook beneath them.

Pyra stretched, rolled her neck, and winced. She kicked the body once, hard, ignoring the way the burned, damaged flesh squelched under her boot. "Just gotta do it nine more times."

Around them, Force Alpha remained standing. Bloodied. Battered. But standing.

Soldiers leaned on their spears, sucking air, too exhausted to celebrate. Mages slumped over their staves. Officers helped the wounded and called out commands to secure the area.

Thale approached through the carnage, his sword dark with blood that steamed in cold air. He sheathed his weapon and nodded at Vorthak's corpse.

"You did it. You actually did it."

"How many?" Ember's voice came hoarse.

Thale's jaw worked. "Eighty-three dead. Another hundred and twenty wounded, thirty of those critical." He looked at the soldiers tending their injured, at the bodies being laid out in careful rows. "Could have been worse. The wards held. Your support kept the ice creatures from overrunning us completely. We held our ground."

Eighty-three dead. The number sat like iron in Ember's gut. Eighty-three people who'd woken up this morning, prepared for battle, trusted that victory was possible.

Now they cooled inthe winter air while their companions tried not to look at what remained.

"Commander." One of the junior officers ran up, breathing hard. "Message from Command via signal mirrors. Next dragon engaged Force Beta ten minutes ago. They're requesting immediate support."

Ember checked the position of the sun.

They were already behind schedule.

"We need to go," Cinder stated the obvious, her pragmatism cutting through exhaustion.

"Now?" Thale looked at them. His eyes widened at their obvious exhaustion and the blood streaming down the left side of her face. "You can afford yourselves a little bit of rest."

"Yes, now." Ember took a breath, forced her tired body to straighten. "How far to Force Beta's position?"

"Five leagues northeast." The junior officer consulted his map, finger tracing the route. "Along this valley and over a ridge."

"Tell the other forces we're inbound." Ember fought to keep her voice steady. She wanted to curl up in the mud and sleep for a week.

It wasn't an option. Not today. Not when lives were counting on them. They could sleep later. For now, they had work to do.

They ran.

Fire trailed behind them across frozen earth, less vibrant than before but still burning. Coalition soldiers watched them go, some cheering, others too tired to do more than stare.

They faded quickly, lost behind ridges and hillocks.

Another dragon down. Eleven to go.

And one mother of dragons to kill.

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