
"They say, in those continents across the Seas, that there are lands they call Plains too. Except, their grass is green and flecked with daisies."
Vhagor glanced across at the Battle Queen of the Na'zarak who was surprisingly silent for a woman with six legs to contend with. On foot as he was he had to tilt his head up slightly to meet her fully black eyes. They seemed darker with the red paint she had smeared around them in twirling patterns that were echoed on her cheeks and chin, then across all four of her muscular arms. As was tradition for the Na'zarak's her upper half was entire bare to the elements, whilst her crustation lower half required nothing. The hard casing of her legs and back were better than most armour a human could forge.
Unless they had dragon flame.
"Then it must be a land of the weak," Vhagor snorted at the very idea. What type of creatures lived there if their earth did not bear the scars of thousands of years of war? What soft folk currently sailed for Malakath? One colony had already popped up from the land of Aniria, leagues away from Thanasis. He only knew of it as an excited cadet had reported on stumbling upon them and had claimed they held the gifts of dragons in their own hands. It always paid to keep an eye on folk, yet he struggled to imagine those same people walking through fields of flowers. Vhagor preferred the dirt and hardy yellow grass of the Tsukiren Plains. There was less to trip a man out here and the soil soaked up blood like a thirsty lamb sucking on its mothers teat. He couldn't imagine how hard it would be to clear a field of flowers of bodies. Perhaps they were monstrous flowers that fed on blood, like the Gardens of Soothkah to the South. He doubted it though from the tone of the Queen. It was almost... wistful.
The battle Queen flashed him a smile that showed off every filed point of her teeth.
"Then it is good you were born on Malakath soil and are strong. You and your riders will win us this day," her Honour Guard shook their wooden shields in agreement. The teeth of their enemies they adorned them with rattled, reminding Vhagor of the windchimes his mother had once hung outside their home to warn of when a dragon was passing. He repressed the shudder at the unhappy similarity.
"As it please Your Majesty," Vhagor intoned, and kept his face neutral as he turned his eyes once more to the army lining up opposite them on the plains.

They were as large as a young adolescent dragon with vicious talons and four insect like wings. Vhagor had never confirmed if the creatures could actually see out of any of the six eyes that beaded its head, but their scent of smell more than made up for it. It was said they rivelled even that of the Ichemon the Jarlax used to hunt for dragon eggs deep beneath the ground.
"It would please me greatly to mount every single Za'raken head upon one of my spears by the end of this day," the Queen mused, drawing Vhagor's eyes away from his observations of their prime target. "It is, after all, why I have bled my people dry to pay for you. Prove your cost is worth it." He gave a courteous bow, sensing a dismissal when he heard one, and wandered back to where Nyx and the other Riders assigned to this mission sat waiting.
Drums began to beat from the opposing army.
"Remember what I told you all - stay away from those creatures mouths," he called to the others who were already mounted whilst he clambered onto Nyx's back. "Their spit is poisonous - to you and our dragons. If your dragon is hit you have ten minutes tops before it starts to corrode the scales of your dragon. Disengage and get into that lake," he pointed to the one just behind them. "Wash it off then rejoin. Understood?"