Auron could feel the oppressive heat pressing around him. His feet grew uncomfortable as it permeated up from the black stone underneath. He continued on across the stone all senses strung tight on high alert.

The path of melted stone came around a vertical spire of cliff face and there were runes he did not recognize the meaning of carved into the floor on either side. Yet another mystery he added to the back of his mind. His ever growing list of questions. Though all of the surroundings were taken in in incredible detail, no lingering thought was left upon these questions, they were stored and they would wait. This was not a time to be anywhere but here and now.

Around this vertical cliff face there opened a strangely shaped clearing. Strange, because it did not look like a natural geological formation. Yes, this was it. A large shallow bowl with a flat base not far from the peak. Circular with a small opening only a hundred feet wide or so in the mountain side. Sheer vertical black stone soared upward all around.

In less than fractions of a second this majestic throne was taken in. Auron had felt a presence the moment before he turned the bend. It was the presence of another being.

A large pile of smoldering black stone that filled a large portion of this open space before him shifted, rose, and molten black rock sluffed off of the huge creature as it uncoiled itself and lifted its great graceful bulk upward from where it lay. The black rock that had covered it like so much snowfall was molten where it had lain against its hide and slid to the ground and began to slowly cool from red to black. It had drawn up on all fours with its chest high and its serpentine head lithely curved to gaze upon him with startlingly knowing eyes. It snapped its wings open, flicking any remaining molten stone from its vast wingspan. And as it had uncoiled and stood poised there the scales of its impenetrable hide had turned from the black and red that made it look so much like the rock throne upon which it sat to a pure and glorious white that radiated heat and light.

Never in his life had Auron imagined there could be such glorious, majestic beauty in any living creature, nor anything more terrifying.

His hammer and shield were long ago to hand. They gazed a moment longer; the two still as the hot stone around them. Auron turned awe and fear aside and set his jaw. This was it. One thing and one thing only filled his mind.

 ....

Auron did not know the passage of time, he did not understand, nor did he need to, that he had been fighting the great beast for hours. A task at which other men wouldn’t have lasted two seconds. It struck so fast you could not see it clearly and it used its tail and fangs with the skill and grace of a Sword Master.

So long Auron had trained, so long he had toiled and fought for the weapons to aid him in his fight. All through those long hours of battle not one thing had entered his mind but how to end this creature. Yet it seemed an entirely impossible task. He had rent stone from the walls and cracked the ground with his hammer, but each time he had missed by fractions of an inch.

He was worn, the spells that had kept him hydrated were wearing and almost gone, he would last a minute at most when they faded. The dragon stopped its assault briefly to look upon him. Auron could see the excitement and pleasure in its eyes. This was not a normal beast. This was not an animal, it knew things. Auron could sense in those terrifying eyes depth and knowledge.

He was heaving for oxygen in the scorching hot air. He bellowed in frustration at the creature. It seemed amused at this. He bellowed again, this time a curse in the old tongue. What was this? There was recognition in its eyes! Yes! Unmistakably! Its great tail lashed out and Auron had to spring back and glance the blow from his shield.

Again he cursed it in the old tongue. Its expression had changed, was it… indignant?

“So you can understand words, Beast?” Auron spat. “Then heed me when I say I will have your hide.”

Auron meant it. From some unknown store deep within his soul he drew strength he did not know he had. He felt it course through him and he gripped his hammer a little tighter, now searching for a way to land a killing blow upon the dragon.

A sound rumbled up out of the dragon that seemed as though great stone boulders were being crushed together inside its massive chest.

It struck again and Auron predicted exactly how to land his hammer. He had been learning how the great creature moved. He knew now what would happen when, for a split second, the lithe spines of the dragons neck compressed ever so slightly.

It pulled back with a screech that immediately rolled into the sound of crushing boulders. It went on longer this time and the creature shook slightly. Laughter!

Auron felt whatever had risen in him start to slowly fade, that blow would have split apart a rock the size of his ship. Fact. Yet the dragon was laughing.

It looked at him briefly, very pleased, Auron thought, just before it engulfed him in a river-like gout of white-hot searing flame.

Auron had brought his shield into play, but no magic that anyone on this world knew existed would have stopped that great river of flame. Despite what had been said about the powers he had unearthed to wield against this great creature, his armor and weapons turned to liquid and his flesh was seared until it was gone in an all too slow and agonizing second.