--

It was the blow that ended him.

The explosion threw him into the side of a stampeding mare. He felt his shoulder shatter. He went down, tumbling with the terrified animal, skidding to a halt in the grass. Bits of corrosive slime of some unknown origin clung to his chest. They brought his scream on faster than the pain of his now-useless shoulder; the substance cooked the skin into his clothes, making it begin to slough away, but the stuff was sticky and untouchable.

Groaning, he reached for the axle of an overturned car and dragged himself to his feet with his good arm. He did not even look at his left. He thought about fleeing this hopeless scene and decided not to; without his dominant arm, he was a maimed hunter. The jackals of the world would know it, and the vultures would know it. Wherever he went, whey would watch him, waiting for their chance to confront him alone. It was the natural way and there was no shame in it, but he had not come here for that.

By simple luck, he found the knife he had dropped. He picked it up, looked to the black sky, and closed his eyes, listening for the heavy sound of giant, beating wings.

He smiled as he heard the sound and felt the rush of air buffet his face. One was landing nearby. He opened his eyes and followed it. The noise took him to a ruined hovel smouldering in the fire these beasts seemed to breathe.

His heart leaped and his brow lifted.

Out of the fire, born of the night beyond the smoke, rose the creature's carnivorous head, crowned in spines. Its metal hide flickered dark red and orange in the raging light. Its voice shook the ground with a basal growl filled with a violence that matched Kenton's own.

Kenton knelt in the falling ashes and shielded his face from the heat, staring straight at the beast through narrow eyes rimmed with soot.

The monster climbed on top of the burning house, heedless of the heat, and perched there, beaming hot, emerald green at this singular survivor who had not the good sense to flee. Its catlike haunches supported a long, muscular body and broad, sky-encompassing wings. Glowing green eyes considered him with impassioned, predatory intelligence.

Kenton found himself smiling, a light in his own green eyes, however muddier than those of his final, grandest prey. The excitement of his racing heart drowned the pain of his bones and flesh, tearing his soul free of the pall cast by so many ruined years. His suspicions were true; thoughtfulness, sanity, a consciousness, a mind regarded him from behind the eyes of a monster's body. He was looking into a mirror.

He tested it. "Nothing they could do to me mattered!" He cried, agonized happiness in his dark eyes. "I'm in hell, but I'm still here!"

A low, humming tone rippled the smoky air as the creature took three slow steps towards Kenton. He stood his ground, holding his weapon ready, at once gauging how close he would have to be to stab at the monster's thinking eyes and thinking how terribly beautiful the thing was. "What are you waiting for?" he shouted at it. "Are you afraid?" The thought made him laugh a little.

The creature's nostrils flared. Its armored, crested head tilted, its eyes narrowed. It watched him. It listened to his broken words.

It understood.

It opened its fanged jaws, and it answered. "Do you want to die?" asked the creature, its voice like an avalanche, the words precisely chiseled by a huge, flat tongue. Its breath smelled of metal and blood.

Kenton swallowed his heart, rubbed a straggling strand of black hair from his face, dragging in a painfully deep breath. "Of course not," he panted, watching the creature's eyes with determination and wonder. "But I came here to find you, and now is the time. I'm too ruined to go back. I'm too ravaged to keep going. But I'm not lying down. This is my death. It belongs to me, and no one else. Not even you."

The monster stared at him for what seemed like hours, stone still. Only its eyes, flicking with thought, indicated it had not died standing up. Kenton waited patiently, content to die of exhaustion in front of the creature, if that was how it should be.

Finally the beast blinked. It drew itself up, curling the talons of its great hands to its plated chest. "I would be honored to offer you the death you long for," it spoke.

Kenton smiled. "Is that true? I've heard you can project an image of the things you consume. Is that it? Is that it, or is it more than an illusion?"

Armored eyes clicked. "There is no illusion. We take the form as our own."

Licking his cracked lips, Kenton took a step toward the dragon, jabbing the knife in the direction of its face. "Do that, then. With me. Kill me, chop me up into a thousand pieces, but don't you dare forget me!"

The monster lowered its head, blasting Kenton with its breath. "It won't save your life. You will die."

"Did I ask you to save me!" Kenton roared.

The creature drew its head back again. "It will be hell for you," it rumbled.

"I'll be the judge of what hell is."

The creature made a strange clicking noise, like a creaking oak door. "Then, I will consume you, broken man. I'll absorb you, and you will experience every last moment. You will become me, the shracken Xantrei, and you be used in whatever way suits me, for as long as I am alive. That may be a very long time. Is that what you want?"

It was the one moment that gave Kenton pause. He stared at the beast called Xantrei, the creature called shracken, and wondered if, in this brief encounter, he could rightfully judge if he could trust his image to it. But Xantrei's words had a familiar sentiment; they were pertinent, blunt and without deception. The creature was greater than simple malice. Its violence existed side by side with a thoughtful mind.

So he smiled darkly and nodded his consent. "Do it."

--

This is an excerpt from a story I'm writing. Illustrated by  aggrobadger