“Get behind me, sword up,” Quartes ordered.  As Keto rushed to draw her blade, the bulk of Keid settled before her.  The shield hovering just below her eye line.  In the same moment, Cheriss and Ras had settled alongside Quartes, hovering like a pair of horns, ready to both fend off and deliver attacks.  Quartes stood, old sword raised in one hand, the Hilt Shard of Lehn in the another.

The growl was gaining in volume, reverberating in her chest as the swamp rose up before them.  Keto held her sword in a low guard, free hand covering one ear as the muck of the swamp gave out a long sucking sound, branches and fallen trees snapping.  Water flowed away as the mud continued to rise.  It was the teeth that she discerned first.  Rows of them running back longer than she was tall, a stark white against the brown of the swamp.  Back behind them was a quartet of eyes, golden rimmed irises around a pair of wide set pupils and gray-green irises around a pair of forward facing slit pupils.  Four powerful legs pushed it higher than either her or Quartes, mud falling away to reveal skin studded in what looked to be hardened scutes.  They had trekked into the swamp expecting to be hunting dragonkin, a worst a hagerc or too.  This seemed like much more.

The flash of light and subsequent crack of thunder, forced Keto’s eyes shut.  The lightning still lit up the darkness behind her eyelids in a flash, leaving her with a glowing after image as she reopened her eyes.  A section on the beast’s back hissed with steam, water boiled from mud and the armored skin beneath bloodied.  The creature was undeterred.  It’s long maw opened and issue a roar.  Keto fell back a step, eyes shutting against the sound, her sword hand rising by her head to try and plug her other ear.  To her mind there was no doubt now, nothing this side, nothing with this raw power could be anything but a Dragon.

Quartes showed no hesitation, bounding forward as best as the knee high water allowed.  Cheriss shot forward, lashing out at the beast’s pointed snout as Quartes closed.  Even as the curved sword skittered off of the armored hide, Ras darted forward and plunged into the monster’s shoulder.  Quartes came in the swords’ wake, lunging up to grab the Ras’s hilt and hoist himself up onto the Dragon’s back as a second roar set the waters of the swamp vibrating.  The Landian had found his footing, sword raised to plunge down, just as the creature rolled.  Keto reached forward, grabbing onto Keid’s handle as the waters of the swamp bore up in frothing waves with the monster’s moment.  Quartes was thrown from the Dragon’s back, plunging into the turbulent waters.  Keto sputtered, gagging on the putrid water that had been thrown against her, staring over Keid’s rim as the monster righted itself.  That long snout and the forward pair of eyes then turned aand  settled upon her.  Keto glanced to where Quartes had disappeared, her eyes drawn back as the creature launched water up into the air.  A thrash of its tail had propelled the Dragon forward.  Keid held firm, a series of rent and screeches going up as the long rows of teeth parted around the shield, a quivering keen vibrating in the air as the maw sought to crush the metal in on itself.

Keto had dashed back as much as the swamp’s water allowed, the parted maws still drawing close and affording her an unpleasant view of the teeth before Keid had halted the assault.  The shield was rammed far into the Hagerc’s mouth and while the beast was struggling it was also slowly pushing forward.  Keto scrambled back several more steps, all too conscious of the rending sounds coming from usually steadfast shield.  Then there was a flash.

Quartes had surfaced, one hand holding tight to the blade of Cheriss as the sword finished pulling him up from beneath the marsh’s waters.  In the other he still clutched the Hilt Shard of Lehn.  Another crack and yet another bolt struck the back of the monster.  With a wrench Keid freed itself, Keto seeing fragments of cracked teeth scattered into the waters as yet another roar was unleashed.  It somehow drowned out the crack of thunder, dwarfing the sound of attacks as easily as it seemed to weather their impact.

The Dragon was squaring up on the landian, those forwards eyes focusing on him even as one of the rear pair kept an eye on Keto as Keid settled before her once more.  Quartes for his part had released Cheriss, hand reaching down to his belt to draw forth a soaked bundle, with a flick and a shake he undid the tie and dumped the contents into the water.  The shards of metal made a series of splashes as they sunk beneath the surface and then the monster’s tail thrashed once more.  The beast propelled forward, waves spreading in its wake as its head turned sideways in the beast’s aim to to snap its massive jaws in around the landian.

Quartes for his part pulled the Hilt Shard into both his hands and swung.  The broken blade wasn’t long enough to touch the monster, the swing to early to even brush the tip of its snout as it neared him.  The released shards however responded to the memory of what the whole blade had once been.  Disturbing the surface of water like rain drops in reverse, the shards gathered along the arc of the once mighty blade, cerulean lightning snapped and arc between each fragment.  Even if the collection of sharpened shards was but an echo of what the whole blade had been, the echo was enough to match the beast.

The impact was blinding, adding another afterglow to Keto’s vision in the outline of a once massive blade.  The cracks and pops that followed was not of thunder but the breaking of the tree that the monster had collided with ten feat away.  Keto blinked, noting the thick tongue that lulled from between Dragon’s jaws, the twitching of a scaled leg that was pointed towards the sky.  It wasn’t dead yet but the blow had clearly stunned it.

Quartes was on the move.

The landian held the Hilt Shard out to his side, a few of the shards orbiting about their old places along the broken blade.  Rips and spurts came from the beast as the shards that had embedded themselves in its skull ripped free and rejoined their compatriots along the arcing blade.  The monster seemed to be regaining some of its sense when Quartes neared and lifted the thundering blade above his head.  Keto hid her gaze behind Keid this time but the crackling cascade of thunder was unmistakable.  When she looked again, the monster’s neck had been severed.  It was not the clear cut of a true sword, marked instead with ragged tears and crisscrosses of blackened flesh.  The effect though was same as the enormous head toppled and sank partially beneath the march’s waters.

Quartes stood watching the head for a time.  His pale gaze looking into the lifeless eyes of the Dragon.  Eventually the landian raised his free hand, palm upwards, and each of the shards settled in turn into a tidy stack.  Cheriss hovered over, the discard sack resting on the tip of her blade.  The Hilt Shard tucked back away, Quartes took the sack and carefully returned the stacked shards to it.  His pupil-less eyes looked up as Keto sloshed towards him.

“You’re ok?” he asked, drawing the sack shut.  Keto nodded, turning again to look at the bulk of the beast before them.

“That wasn’t just some hagerc was it?”

“No,” Quartes answered, “that was a Dragon, I made a mistake.  I thought people’s fears had darkened the swamp, I didn’t see the signs that a Dragon had settled in here.”  He had tied the pouch back onto his belt and stepped over to the body of the Dragon, pulling himself up onto its back.  There was still mud, and the coloration alone meant that if she hadn’t seen it moving Keto would have thought Quartes was just standing on an island in the swamp.  Bending down Quartes grasped something and a moment later pulled Ras free from where the blade had stabbed into the Dragon.

“Will the land get better now?” Keto asked.

“It should,” Quartes answered, turning and looking about the swamp from his perch.  His face was frowning as he scanned the murky waters.  “Normally, I would burn the body, it seems to quicken the recovery but that won’t be an option here.”  The Landian sighed, his gaze still drifting over the waters.  “We’ll let it take its course,” he looked to Keto for a moment and forced a smile, “maybe you singing a song about its death will have the same effect.”

“Might need some time for that one,” Keto started before calling up to add, “regardless some place warm and dry would be nice.”  Quartes nodded but his gaze had gone back to the waters.  When he didn’t move she continued, “Is there a reason we’re not getting out of her before the muck fully sets in?”

Quartes sighed again, “I dropped my sword when it tossed me.  I’m working through exactly where I would’ve lost it.”