The Pact

The Valley of Bones was an apt, if unimaginative name. The valley floor was littered with them from one tall escarpment to the other: old and new, whole and cracked, from isolated fragments from indistinct species to entire intact skeletons slumped against one another in piles. A thick fog hung over the valley that the midday sun could not vanquish, swirling in eddies around Nerys and her hired laborers as they made their way among the relics of the dead.

Nerys paused to survey the mist-shrouded landscape. In some places the skeletons were stacked a dozen deep, tangled in and among one another. Now and again a pile would reach nearly halfway up the escarpment. "These must have been piling up for years," she mused, half to herself.

"Ever since they butchered the Tyrant," one of the laborers said in a slow drawl. He was an ox, a bulky broad man a foot taller than her and twice as wide. He and the other worker--whom Nerys suspected must be his brother from how alike they looked to her--bore their heavy packs and tools without complaint, and up to this point had proceeded in companionable silence. Oxen were sanguine by nature, but she suspected that her presence had a calming effect on them as well. What need had they to fear curses when a unicorn walked among them?

"And people still dump bones here?"

The ox rolled a shoulder. "A good a place as any. Killers, too. Anyone ain't good enough for a proper burial."

It had been two centuries since the Tyrant--once known as Volkhezaron--had been slain. His bones were the ones she was after; as far as her companions were concerned, she was here to perform a cleansing ritual to help dispel the haunted pall that had settled around the dead dragon's ignoble resting place. There was little chance they'd have agreed to escort her here otherwise. But if those bones were hidden amidst two hundred years' worth of murderers and rapists, her task would prove... tricky.

"And his children?" Volkhezaron was said to possess a legendary libido and an equally prominent disregard for the species of his consorts. All the records she'd read suggested the dragon had sired a virtual legion of offspring, and indeed the catalyst for his ultimate downfall was supposedly related to his demand for a steady stream of breeding stock from the people living under his shadow. But these days there was a notable lack of draconic features among the population.

"Supposed to have rounded 'em up, cut 'em down, sent 'em to rest with their sire." The ox cast half-lidded eyes across the misty valley. "Could be plenty of 'em piled up here. Grampa said they were dragging half-bloods out of holes for years afterward. Ain't no more of 'em left around now, that's for sure."

"What do you think would happen if one of them showed up today?"

"A half-blood?" He shrugged. It was hard to maintain that degree of hatred for long, and Nerys suspected that despite their general fear and distrust of the valley and the stories attached to it, no one truly gave Volkhezaron the Tyrant any thought in their day-to-day lives. He was a folk tale, a footnote to history, a way for mothers to scare misbehaving children. In a way, their ultimate punishment of the proud dragon was to cut off his legacy and resign his memory to oblivion. They had succeeded at that so well that mustering even token bigotry toward his kin took more effort than it was worth.

Nerys continued onward. Bones crunched beneath her hooves, and she was forced to hold her gown up past her ankles to avoid catching it on the jagged protrusions. It was a light and airy thing, pale blues and golds, tight about the waist but loose and billowy above and below. The outfit bore a deceptive resemblance to the priestly garb of the worshippers of the divine dragons in the mountainous lands far to the southeast, though without the iconography or decorative frills that were so distinctive to that style. People readily assumed that she was a priestess even before she opened her mouth. Certainly these two laborers believed her to be a client of some undefined nature goddess, and they lacked the intellectual curiosity to question which one.

She hoped that the dragon's skeleton would prove prominent enough that she could spot it at a distance above the ground fog. She had no worries about it having faded away: dragon bones were unusually dense and resilient. It would be more likely that they had been stolen or displaced--and if they were, she would have to start her search all over again. She directed the two oxen to comb the edges of the valley while she took the center, on the lookout for anything that would signal Volkhezaron's presence.

She made slow progress as she picked her way through the bones. Any that were cracked or broken she could safely ignore, but there were so many of them that she found herself kicking over accumulated piles for the sake of thoroughness. She was tempted to retrieve the runed onyx from her pack, but it needed to be so close to a dragon bone to register the residual vitae that she would still have to virtually crawl along the ground to find anything.

She had been searching without success for an hour when one of the oxen called out to her from a spot near the eastern escarpment. She hurried over to find him standing before a half-buried rib cage.

"Nearly broke my ankle when I was kickin' the bones aside," he said. The ribcage was unscratched, though it was surrounded by hard, dry soil and piles of intact skeletons--bipedal ones, large and small. Some of the skeletons had wing-bones attached to their shoulder blades, and most showcased sharp teeth and claws. Volkhezaron the Tyrant, cast into the pit along with his offspring.

Nerys knelt and withdrew her onyx from a side pouch in her backpack. The black stone, etched with shallow geometric engravings in complex and interlinked patterns, dangled from a long silver chain. She meant to use it to verify the provenance of the ribcage, but the moment she drew the gemstone out, a powerful, sickly green light spilled from it. It would have been bright enough to read by on a moonless night.

Her eyes widened, and she quickly cupped her hands around the gemstone. It was nowhere close enough to the dragon bone to react like that--especially a dragon bone that had been collecting dust for two centuries. She cast her eyes about the valley, half expecting to see specters rising from the mists, but the air was as still as it had been for hours. She found herself now less sanguine about the calm that surrounded her, and her ears swiveled atop her head unconsciously, alert for disturbances.

"Ma'am?" One of the oxen wore a freshly concerned expression, disturbed by her unexpected response.

Nerys cleared her throat and smiled up at him as she rose to her feet. "As I expected, the... blight is very dense here. I believe this is the epicenter. Once we've gathered the bones together, this will be the place to purify them." She put on a soothing façade that belied her racing heart. Something was different here, something unexpected. And she didn't know what; she had no idea what to make of the onyx's powerful reaction. She slipped the stone back into her pack as the laborers nodded along.

"They're probably in this pile. Clear away the excess, and collect the dragon's bones... hmm, there." She pointed at a wide, flat area in the middle of the valley floor, with relatively few bones scattered around it. "Clear out a circle about twenty feet across, there. The dragon's bones go in the center. Here, kneel, both of you."

The laborers, who had grown increasingly uneasy at the thought of physically handling the dragon bones, glanced at one another before lowering themselves to a knee in front of her. She placed one hand on each forehead, and closed her eyes to concentrate. She drew a slow, deep breath and reached inside herself to draw forth a pulse of energy--just enough to cast her spiraled horn in a faint argentine glow.

When she opened her eyes, the oxen had relaxed considerably. "They won't touch you," she assured them soothingly, drawing one gloved hand down along each man's cheek in tandem. "Now, be swift."

Swift they were, and industrious. She had done nothing to them, but all it took was a few gestures and a flash of light and they thought themselves blessed by heaven. It was true enough that the dragon's bones wouldn't harm them: they were just bones. There was nothing sinister about them aside from their grisly provenance. Still touched with lingering traces of vitae, of course, but almost all remains were so infused. But there was still the question of the onyx--it suggested more than just trace vitae here. Was it the accumulation of bones? Perhaps an ossuary would give the same reading; she had never tried.

As the two men began uprooting the half-buried dragon bones, she seated herself on a rock to the side and shrugged off her pack. Amidst the sounds of clattering bones and shovels and picks striking hard, dry earth, she withdrew the onyx once more and cupped it in her hands. It still glowed brightly, pale green light pulsing in its depths like a steady heartbeat. The shade, smooth and clean, was indicative of dragon vitae, with no admixture. That might have been caused by the presence of enough dragon-blooded bodies thrown into this pit, she supposed, but she didn't have enough practical experience with half-bloods to know whether she should expect to see adjustments to the spectrum. And surely there were non-dragon bodies piled up here, too. It was yet a mystery to her.

She replaced the gem in her pack and waited for the men to finish. Inspired by her "blessing"--and, she imagined, by the faintest subconscious hunger that her brief touch to their cheeks had sparked--they worked tirelessly and without hesitation. Once the circle was cleared of bones and the debris of scraggly vines and bushes, they began hauling the dragon's bones into the center, piece by piece.

The man was not exaggerating when he said that Volkhezaron the Tyrant had been butchered. It was not an intact dragon skeleton that they carried into the circle. The unfortunate dragon had been cut to pieces like livestock, all his limbs sundered, his ribs and spine pried apart, and even his head separated from his own neck. Each wing was broken in two pieces; his tail, in three. But she noted--with pleasure--that all of the separations had been at the joints, between the bones. Not one of the bones that the oxen retrieved was so much as scratched in its own right.

The sun was low over the horizon by the time the workers had retrieved the last of the bones. She had to join them occasionally to help separate Volkhezaron's from those of the other dragon-blooded skeletons, but by the end she was persuaded that they had found all of them. They lay in a disorganized pile in the middle of the empty clearing, ringed about on all sides by the lesser bones that the workers had swept out of the way. It was perfect.

When she dismissed them, their concern returned, this time for her. "You'll be all right?" one asked.

"Yes, of course. Thank you, but you needn't worry. The things that lurk here have no power over me." She paid them the remainder of their fee: a healthy sum, enough to satisfy them and then some, while at the same time not appearing to be so extravagant as to be outside a humble priestess' ability to pay. They were simple people, but it wouldn't suit her purposes if they grew resentful from being underpaid. Assured of her safety, and packs newly laden with coin, the pair of them set off the way they came.

The sky still bled from the last of the sun's rays, but the valley itself was dark, deep enough that the western escarpment cast a shadow across the valley floor from one end to the other. Nor did the moon, at the height of its dark phase on this night, offer any succor. Once the workers were out of sight, she unpacked her bags and began her own work. Her first order of business was to change clothes--she shucked her faux priestess garb, kicked it to the edge of the circle, and changed into a fresh robe from her pack.

It couldn't have been more different: where the old gown had been light and airy, verging on translucent in bright light, her new robe was black as night and considerably more form-fitting about her bust. It was a personal affectation only, having no effect on the enchantments woven into the cloth: symbols sewn in silver thread looped around the hem, waist, and sleeves. Her legs still had plenty of freedom to move, though the robe was slim even there, and accented with thigh-high slits in the cloth along each leg.

She adorned her horn with loops of thin silver, attached to a small polished onyx that she tucked snugly against her forehead just beneath the horn. Her thin white cloth gloves were replaced with heavier black leather ones that terminated bare inches before her elbows. The back of each hand bore a silver inscription of a magic circle, the interior of which was latticed with elaborate, complex geometrical patterns. So adorned, she was prepared to begin establishing the circle.

The first step was setting up the torches she had brought. Six in all, each was affixed to a collapsible pole; each pole terminated at one end with a sharp spike that she used to drive the torches into the earth. She erected them in a ring at the edge of the clearing, in precise intervals, such that they would form a six-pointed star if lines were drawn between each of them. After the torches were placed and lit, she retrieved a heavy wooden box filled to the brim with fine, purified salt, and walked a circuit around the perimeter. She lay a line of salt as she go, forming a ring; after the ring was placed, she circled it twice more, checking and rechecking her work to ensure there were no gaps.

Next, she drew an ebony-handled knife from her pack, its blackened steel blade etched with runes, and knelt next to Volkhezaron's bones. Her breath came slow and deep as she schooled herself to calm, and then reached inside herself once more, touching the power that she knew was there. Her eyes closed, but images formed in her mind, symbols, shapes, silver lines hanging in an ocean of darkness. She touched the flat of the knife with her free hand, and the symbols in her mind's eye melted and flowed like quicksilver out of her thoughts. When she reopened her eyes, the knife glowed with its own radiance.

She had to find the key bones and mark each of them. The backs of his claws, fore and hind; the joints of his legs. A rib on each side, the one that would have rested above his heart when the dragon still had a heart to protect. Each wing took a mark at their bases, where they once attached to the rest of the dragon, and at the joint where they would have folded and unfolded. His spine, in four places: just shy of the skull, the middle of his back, and the base and tip of his tail both. Everywhere her knife touched, it brought a subtle hiss into the air and left a black etching in the bone almost as if she'd set a firebrand against it. Fire would not have charred these bones, but her power stood above mere flames. The marks were simple but careful, each one interlaced with symbols representing fragments of her own name; immutable proof of her ownership would be seared into every corner of these remains.

Only the skull remained, then, and she hefted it into place onto the ground in front of the pile. Thick, backward swept horns dominated a stern brow, with smaller rows of horns lining the back of the skull beneath them. Not a fang was out of place. Though the flesh was long since melted, and the eye sockets lay dead and empty, the visage gave her some impression of what it must have been like to look such a dragon in the face at the prime of his life. Her heart quickened, ever so slightly.

Upon the center of the dragon's skull, she made her final sigil, this one far more complex: a circle circumscribing a six-pointed star, and within it further elaborations. She was careful to take her time with this mark especially, every now and again glancing down to the back of her hands for reference, as the sigil upon the dragon's forehead matched those upon her gloves in nearly every respect. The only additional detail was a ring of miniscule script identifying Nerys Morgan as the possessor and owner of the skull and all to which it was attached.

The final step was to draw a star--one to match her gloves and the rune upon the dragon's skull. This had to be laid down in silver dust, and Nerys was especially careful as she carried the box containing the material to the first torch. She took shallow breaths--lest a careless huff scatter the valuable dust across the ground--as she laid thin, gleaming lines from one torch to the next. When she had finished laying the lines, the dragon bones sat in the center of the hexagram. When she was satisfied that the lines were complete and unbroken, she returned all of her materials to her pack and cleared a small spot to stand just outside of the circle.

She guessed it was close to midnight. She had spent quite some time ensuring that everything was in order--a careless error could cost her dearly. But midnight on the new moon was an ideal time to begin the ritual, and she was pleased by the timing. Already she felt the thrum of power manifested by the circle, humming against her hands and through her horn. The dragon's bones would rise--and then bend to her.

She took several slow, deep breaths in an effort to calm her racing heart. It was an uphill battle; she could not suppress her excitement, nor the coiling thread of adrenaline as it wound its way up from the pit of her belly. Everything was in order, she was sure. This was not her first time raising a skeleton. But it was her first time with a dragon. Fear and anticipation at once bubbled within her, and she hesitated for some time before finally raising her voice in a chant.

She spoke slowly and precisely, taking her time. There was no need to rush. The incantation would take only a few minutes to complete, and it was far more important to get it right the first time. Despite her practice and preparations, speaking the words now felt... different. Each syllable in that nigh-forgotten language weighed on her tongue and passed her lips with invisible, intangible force. Soft at first, and hesitant, then with increasing confidence and volume she spoke, buoyed upward by the rising hum of power she felt flowing into her, through her, out of her.

The dragon bones rattled. An unseen force twined around them, binding to the vitae locked within--a force directed by her hands, by her thoughts. The power was resonant within her now. Her horn hummed with it, amplifying its potency. To use her own body and its gifts as a prism through which to focus such energies, energies so thoroughly despised by her kin and so deeply inimical to her own essence, was a perverse thrill. The hairs on the back of her neck pricked; her tail lashed behind her beneath her robe as though animated by its own mind.

With a gesture, Nerys bid the dragon bones move. And move they did, lifted and angled by that unseen power, every last bone turning to seek its brothers in an elaborately choreographed dance. Piece by piece, the skeleton reassembled itself before her eyes, joints linking together like they had not for two centuries. Necromantic energy bound them together, gave them movement without muscle, life without life.

The air hang dull and heavy around her. The valley fog had grown deep and thick from the long night. She spoke almost automatically now, her own voice strange in her ears, booming and soft all at once. She felt, more than heard, whispers hissing at the edges of her words, otherworldly essence clinging to them as the mist clung to the hem of her robe. She lifted a hand, and the complete dragon skeleton rose to its feet.

The incantation faded. The thing was raised. Ancient, powerful, nigh indestructible save by her whim. All she needed to do now was assert her control over the skeleton, an exercise more of will and keenly felt inner impulse than of intellect or incantation. But as she extended her hands toward it, she felt something... different. At once familiar and not, like a half-remembered dream lurking in the cobwebs in the corners of her mind. The dull hum of energy, which should have subsided as she lapsed into silence, remained electric in the air.

There was a presence. She felt it, there in the darkness and the mist, swimming through aether as a shark might swim through water. It was aware of her, aware of the draconic skeleton standing still and ready before her. She felt that awareness like a weight on her shoulders, and she reflexively widened her stance as though to better bear the burden. Pressure, at her temples. The root of her horn throbbed with the unyielding rush. This wasn't right. The energy should have long since dissipated. She wasn't sustaining it; the presence was.

Hair pricked all along her arms, her back, her legs. Her concentration faltered, refocused, faltered again. It knew, somehow. It could see her, feel her. She sucked in a breath and tried to brace her thoughts against the crushing burden even as the edges of her vision began to dim. Something had been watching, waiting for this moment--waiting to reveal itself and strike. And she hadn't even guessed. But what could such a presence want? It would find assailing her to be a tall order. She was a unicorn: she could shield herself against the depredations of a wandering spirit.

Even as she was growing distracted by the prospect of raising a defense, the ambient energy vanished like a high-tension wire snapping; a pulse rippled outward across the valley from the center of her magic circle, knocking her over and sending bones scattering every which way. And then: silence. Just like that, the presence was gone, the weight lifted from her shoulders. She lay there for a few moments, dazed. What had happened?

Nerys propped herself up with one hand and looked over at Volkhezaron's skeleton. It was still there, and untouched. She held her breath, watching it, but the dragon was silent. Was that it? Had the spirit merely fled? She sat up and rubbed at her temples, then sought out her focus again. She had not finished bringing the skeleton under her control, but the spirit's interference had not ruined her work, only delayed it. A few more minutes and she would be finished--then she could leave this place with her prize.

As she reached out toward the skeleton with her will, it shifted: creakily at first, like an old man awakening after a long sleep. A forelimb lifted, bony claws flexing, then raked across the ground, gouging deep furrows in the hard soil. One by one, the thing's limbs sprung to life, mechanical and awkward, but mobile. Its head panned around the valley, swiveling on its long neck, then fixed its sightless gaze on Nerys where she sat. Points of bright and gleaming green, pale and sickly, burned within its eye sockets.

"Who has awakened me from my sleep, and breathed life into my bones once more?" The voice boomed, hollow and resonant, pitched so low it made her own bones rattle.

Nerys scrambled backward across the ground, eyes wide. No, that couldn't be. She was raising a skeleton, not animating a dracolich. It shouldn't be able to speak--shouldn't be able to move without her command. Certainly it shouldn't even know, or feel, or think. The presence she had felt: was this its doing? Her stomach clenched. It had said "my bones". It couldn't be. She had not performed the ritual to summon or bind a spirit. Even if she had known Volkhezaron's spirit still clung to this place, she wouldn't have trusted herself to try to bind a dragon's soul. She couldn't have animated him. How was he here?

She had given him a vessel. One long familiar to him.

He stepped forward, scattering the lines of silver dust as if they were nothing but sand. The circle was intended to contain and focus necromantic energy, not provide a physical barrier. If something other than her were moving the skeleton, there was no way she could stop it. The skeleton's movements were fluid, now, as natural as they would have been had they been wreathed in flesh and blood. "A unicorn," he said, a distant rumble like thunder echoing in his empty ribcage. Was that amusement in his voice? "I bred your kind once. Yes. Strong and durable, with so much potential, spirits to match bodies, strength upon strength--" He paused then, head canting to the side. Something had caught his attention.

"A name. I feel it, winding." He looked back to her, and Nerys felt the weight of his unearthly stare as she had felt the weight of his invisible presence but minutes before. "A name. Nerys... Morgan. A weak and feeble chain, unicorn. I do not fear your name. It does not bind me. In life or in death." His voice took on subtle menace, and his wings spread as his head lowered. Each step tore clumps of the ground free.

She pushed herself to her feet and backpedaled, hands upraised. Her heart pounded. This was unthinkable. She had brought Volkhezaron the Tyrant back from the dead, given him his own body back to inhabit, infused him with the strength and resilience of the grave. And here he was, proud and looming and more dangerous than anything she had ever seen in her life. She braced herself against his approach and flexed her fingers.

"Come no further, dragon! Your body obeys its master!" Her voice wavered, and her thoughts were scattered, but she pushed forward with her will. She pulled open the floodgates within her, pushing hard, now. Volkhezaron recoiled in surprise at her sudden force. Control over the skeleton was already half established. If she could seize it, she would not need to worry about--

The dragon parted its jaws and roared. From whence came the sound, she did not know, but it billowed forth like a physical force, an icy wind from the deepest depths of winter. Pale mist streamed from his mouth and nostrils, billowing like smoke from a bonfire. The sound and ferocity shook her, and her composure broke. Reflex seizing her, she turned and ran.

She did not make it half a dozen strides before Volkhezaron caught her. Bony claws closed around her ankle and pulled her leg out from under her as she ran, dragging her to the ground in a rough impact that knocked the wind out of her. As she struggled to catch her breath, she felt a heavy weight against her shoulder blades, and more of his claws curled about her. Two claws curled around her neck on either side, the bony digits nearly thick enough to encompass her throat all on their own. The mere touch of the dracolich leeched ice into her veins.

"I do not belong to you, unicorn," he snarled above her. "Your words do not compel me. Your name means nothing to me!" The claws closed in against her throat, frozen daggers aiming for the hot blood that pumped through her carotid.

"Wait," she wheezed, her voice raspy and weak. She still struggled to catch her breath, sucking in great gulps of air as she fought to speak fast enough that the dracolich would not kill her. "I can help you." She felt stabs in her neck, smelled blood. He wasn't listening. She fumbled for the right words, the right promise. "The--the people who killed you--"

The claws stopped. Time seemed to stop along with it, as the dracolich's head dipped low and close to her own. His breath, if she could call it that, flowed in cold gusts from his skull, and the green lights in his eye sockets spilled over her. Moments passed, which felt like eternities stacked atop one another. She could feel a warm trickle staining her collarbones. Had those claws sank a fraction of an inch deeper, she would be dead.

"What of them?"

Nerys grasped for stability. Volkhezaron's presence was overwhelming. The pallid lanterns of his eyes promised her swift death were her promise to prove unsatisfactory. Her fingers curled into the dirt uselessly but reflexively, as though she could find some handhold there to weather the storm brewing above her. "They were unicorns," she whispered at last. "Like me. Some of them were. They have--they have descendants. A family, a ruling family, a clan. I know where they are, who they are. I can help you find them. Reach them." She did not need to elaborate upon what she would help the dracolich do after that.

A longer pause, punctuated by deep, voiceless rumbles. Her ankle, where he clutched at her, was on the verge of going numb, like it had been packed in ice, and the chill was spreading up her leg and down into her hoof. Then, slowly, the claws around her throat relaxed. "You will take me to them. I will find them. All of them, every drop of blood that sprang from those accursed forebears. And I will... I will..." He trailed off, losing himself in thought. Nerys did not want to imagine what might be going through his mind at that moment.

With the dracolich distracted, she pulled on her ankle, hoping his relaxed grip would allow her to wiggle free. It was a mistake: the moment she began to squirm, his claws tightened again and his attention refocused upon her at once. "You are going nowhere, unicorn. You dared to lay claim to my bones, to defile my remains with your signs and your sigils. Do you imagine I would forget that, or forgive it? No, you foolish, stupid girl."

A chill altogether unrelated to the icy claws around her ran down her spine. What did that mean? He couldn't still mean to kill her--could he? She had read references, in oblique texts, to black arts that could siphon not only the life but the very thoughts and memories out of a person. But he surely could not do that. He was but a spirit inhabiting his own remains, untrained in the necromantic art. Or did his contact with the aether grant him insight that she lacked? Could he tear her thoughts away from her, and dispose of her?

It would destroy him. Were she to die, his skeleton would collapse and become a tomb. Did he know that? She opened her mouth to warn him, to save herself, but in that selfsame moment he lifted his foot from her shoulders and wrapped his claws instead around her horn.

"Aaaahhhnnn!" She convulsed against the touch. His claws encompassed her horn in its entirety, from base to tip, and everywhere those bony digits touched her was like a knife driven into her. She had channeled dark power through her horn before, but the simmering thrill that sensation had always aroused in her was a drop of water in the ocean that was the direct and unfiltered contact of the dracolich's spirit encompassing her spire. She felt sick, even as the initial shock faded away into a dull, uneasy throb.

It was several long seconds until awareness of her body returned. As it did, she felt a trail of cold along her right leg, from ankle to thigh--confusion soon gave way to the revelation that the dragon's claws had risen along her leg, hiking the hem of her robe as it rose. It clung now to her thigh, close to her waist. She squirmed in his grip, at first tentatively, and then with greater fervor as he refused to yield. But there was little she could do: his hold on her was ironclad, and strong as she was, she could not so much as budge him.

His skull hovered low over the back of her neck, freezing breath coalescing icy crystals amidst her mane. "You made to lay claim to me," he breathed against her, and even now his voice rumbled with a force that rippled through her from horn to hoof. "You have failed. And now I lay claim to you." Something touched the back of her neck--something firm. She clenched her eyes shut. The contact spread, sliding through her mane, down the right side of her neck. It felt... thick, flexible. Heavy. Muscular? Like a--a tongue.

She sucked in a breath and held it. Was the dracolich so potent as to manifest like this? The hatred of two centuries must have fueled a profound transformation in his spirit. And now bound to a physical vessel, without the strain of having to physically anchor himself, he could bring that ancient power to bear. The spectral tongue, invisible, slid down the side of her neck, wrapped like a cord around her throat all the way to the other side. It squirmed, squeezed, and retreated with a wet slurp, leaving her mane and pelt slick with--not saliva. Ectoplasm, the residue of a spirit interfacing with the physical plane.

"Please, Lord Volkhezaron--" She babbled, as if deference and politeness would save her now. But her words brought only a twist of his claws around her horn, and she was cut off with another groan. The bony claws at her thigh moved inward, curled beneath the waist of her panties, and with the same effortless gesture that a child might use to uproot a blade of grass, he tore the garment into pieces. Scattered black strips of cloth fluttered to the ground beneath her.

No. She couldn't believe it--wouldn't. "You can't mean to--it's not possible--" But the memory of the spectral tongue pulsed against her throat.

With one forelimb he hauled her to her knees, but kept her horn and muzzle firmly planted against the ground. The dracolich drew himself above her, a looming, monstrous skeleton, bones bright by the light of his own pale eyes and the burning torches behind him. The hem of her robe had been shoved up above her waist, baring her legs, her thighs--everything from the waist down. The valley mist clung to her pelt, and beads of moisture wicked from the air into her hair, where it soon froze into tiny crystals of ice in his presence. Her tail lashed above her, as if trying to ward him off, but she met nothing but air. No essence. No resistance. Nothing.

As she flailed, he descended. Something impossible touched the inside of her thigh--something firm and dense, like the sensation of the spectral tongue against her neck. Its touch was cold, and she twisted reflexively away from it--then grew still and tense as soon as Volkhezaron's claws dug into her hip. The... thing... against her leg rose, sought between her thighs as the great dracolich's bony hips moved in mocking pantomime of the carnal act.

She squeezed her thighs together, another reflex, but the chill touch of the phantom organ against her skin undermined her resolve and made it easy for the dragon to bull past her. For a thing without muscles, it brought to bear a force that she could not easily resist. His icy touch slipped up and down between her thighs; its brush against her exposed labia brought a whimper, a flinch, and a jolt of sensation unrelated to the cold.

"I feel... yes, something in you," he growled close into her ear. "A readiness. Do you not feel it, mare? Or do the attentions of a powerful dragon shame such a fair maiden?" Mocking. She was no maiden, and he knew. He had to know. But she did not respond. She wouldn't give him the satisfaction. She clenched her eyes shut instead, tried to close out the sensations, tried to distance herself from the numbing cold seeping through her like a poison.

He was not fazed by her silence. The false-flesh against her folds pressed in, prying her open and readying her for conquest; it must have been matched to the dragon's body when he was alive, for the wedged tip quickly gave way to dense, heavy ridges and bulbous contours. He was sunk but an inch or two within when he thrust, ruthlessly, spearing her with an impact that would have shoved her across the ground were his claws not curled around her at that moment.

The force jolted her eyes open and ripped an embarrassing, high-pitched whinny from her throat. Heat and pain bloomed in her loins, and she was perversely glad for the fire newly burning along her inner muscles, as much as it helped to counter the numbing chill of the phantom erection now spreading her. Head still pinned to the ground, she looked backward, between her legs, as though she would see anything but the dracolich's bony hind claws and his tail swaying in the mist beyond. What she could not see, she felt, intensely and acutely, every knob pulsing against her walls, every ridge digging into her muscles. He was big, and equine or not, she was not designed to accept it. But accept it she would. Accept it she must.

He dragged back out of her, angling his retreat to emphasize the sharp contours as they raked her flesh. Where his essence touched her, slick fluid coalesced, forming a sticky, dripping sheen that coated the inside of her pussy; when he thrust again, that same ectoplasmic mucus spilled from her, soaking her labia and dripping down her mons in rivulets. The thrust drove the dracolich's cock--already she was thinking of it like that, however much it was a phantom manifest by his own will--nearly to touch bottom inside her, and she fought to suppress a shiver of errant and unwanted satisfaction. The monster's girth and force were no easier on her now, but the smooth slickness of his essence leeching onto her corporeal body eased his thrusts as well as if she were soaking wet with lust.

She wasn't. But for all of Volkhezaron's ruthlessness, and the frozen grip of his claws, each leisurely thrust of that phantom cock threatened more and more to spark in her a tremor of pleasure. Even the dragon's ferocious size, stretching and gaping her as he pleased without a hint of concern for her desire, threatened to become less of an agonizing burden and more of a tense but thrilling challenge. She had often seen dragons from afar, wondered what it would be like--

No. No, she wouldn't. She squeezed her eyes closed again, tried to concentrate elsewhere. She struggled, for what began as unhurried, practically lazy thrusts accelerated from stroke to stroke, and fixing her mind on something other than the cock plowing into her was proving more difficult than she had hoped. The sounds, too, wet and lewd, embarrassed her, each squelch and slurp of the knotted organ raking back and forth echoing in her ears, time and again.

Harder, faster. Was he drawing pleasure from this? She was beginning to, hating this drake all the more for it. She gritted her teeth, jerked her head against his grip around her horn. Her muscles felt slow to respond, her reactions sluggish. She was so cold. Slowly, she dragged one hand in front of her upon the ground, struggled to prop herself up on her elbows. She managed it, with effort, and looked down to the circle etched on the back of her glove. That. She needed to focus on that. She had not taken control of the skeleton yet. The beast was fucking her, but she could use this time, use it to--

A sudden hard thrust, one that would have put his scaly loins flush to her own thighs if he still had them, physically rocked her in his grip, and she cried out; the sound, half mewling, half a peal of pleasure, brought Volkhezaron's skull low beside her. _"Is that delight I hear, fair maiden?"_Her stomach tightened, and she shook her head weakly. His breath flowed across her ahead of a low rumble, laughter that sounded like distant thunder. Ice crystals were forming in the locks of her mane that fell to either side of her face.

Wordlessly, she refocused on the circle. Extend her will, control the skeleton. Another thrust, sending a thrill up her spine. Another, and her pussy clenched around the invisible thing inside her. Just a tremor, but a humiliating one. The dracolich rewarded her with another rumble of laughter and another deep thrust, one that forced her ass several inches into the air. He held her there, deep, for long, long seconds. She held her breath, held her voice, until he began to rut her like that, ass hiked high.

"Nnngh! You'll... you'll regret--aaah, fuck--" Focus! It was so hard. So hard to keep her eyes open, too. Her tail twitched above her, as though her feeble gestures could fend him off--and even lifting her tail to do that proved difficult. He was enervating her, just by touching her. By fucking her. She was feeding him even as he had his way with her.

"I'm sure I will," he replied, and accelerated the pace. Short, fast strokes, wet and deep, thumping her body soundly as if he were hammering her into the ground. Harder, faster. More urgent. Could this thing even climax? Was it all just another pantomime? It didn't feel like one. It felt like a man drawing close, a man hungry and eager and desperate and exultant in his own power and the inevitability of his triumph. He released her horn at last and curled his foreclaws around her waist, keeping her ass hiked as he railed her into the ground.

She looked back, eyes blurry from the mist. Between her legs she stared, trying to fix her eyes on some portion of his body, some bone or limb that she could concentrate on to complete her spell of control. As she focused, she saw a pale glow in the air just behind her, between the dracolich's hind legs. What...? As she watched, it grew brighter, as though a dim and distant star were seen hurtling from the sky toward her. It... coalesced, as though it were leeching light out of the air around it.

No, not light, some kind of glowing... fluid? Some new ectoplasm. Something she had never seen, nor anticipated. Her heart skipped a beat, and by reflex she lifted her hand back to shove at the dragon's foreclaws, but she might as well have been pushing against the earth itself. He did not even respond. Each thrust into her saw the dot of fluid hovering in air grow, like it was condensing from the air around it. It sloshed with each stroke of the rut, each slurp and splash that sent goo spattering across the ground and the insides of her thighs.

"Hahh... s-stop... please--"

His only response was another savage buck. A whinny spilled from her throat as her nerves lit up anew. She had very nearly cum! The sudden humiliating impulse to shove her own hand between her thighs washed over her. She didn't. She wouldn't. She would conquer him, she would show him her power and resolve. And between his hind legs, the globule of incandescent green goo continued to grow. What was it? It was about where--

Oh, no.

She squirmed again, suddenly panicked. "Please. P-please, you--aahh--you mustn't--f-fuck, stop it!" She gritted her teeth, squinted her eyes. "This... oh, oh, this isn't--"

Faster. Frenzied, now.

"No, no--ohh--"

His fangs caught the back of her neck and fresh sensation rippled through her. She tensed, shook--

I like that--

No, I don't!

Squeezing, blinding light, muscles spasming, shaking, her voice calling out words she didn't remember. Her hand clutched at the bones of his foreclaw for support, tense, tight, and she didn't know if she wanted him to leave or go--

Through eyes narrowed to slits she watched as the globule of green goo tense and compress. The dracolich bucked, held, kept her pussy spread wide open front to back with that spectral erection. The fluid quivered in midair, then shot like an arrow, coursing the distance between it and her and shooting into her with a force she could feel in the deepest depths of her pussy. It spattered inside her, freezing cold, heavy, sticky, and she felt something else, an energy spike into her, something dark and filthy and grasping.

Her orgasm struck, convulsive, true climax garbling her senses and blinding her to all but that pinpoint moment of white light in the midst of her brain and the rolling savagery of the electricity sparking every corner of her nervous system. Her voice was lost in the wordless cries spilled with frenzied intensity upon the ground pressed to her cheek. She didn't know how long it lasted. Too long. Not long enough.

Sensation and awareness returned slowly. Volkhezaron was waiting for her, waiting for her mind to reassemble itself, and only then did he drag that great thick savage phantom cock out of her and pull along with it a streak of glowing green ectoplasm--

--cum--

--to drool like pudding from her ruined pussy. It painted her right thigh and leg as it oozed down to splash on the ground. Volkhezaron released her waist and she collapsed onto her side like a rag doll, smearing more of his... fluids... over her fur and staining the hem of her robe. Green and clear ectoplasm mingled together, along with her own juices, in a wet mélange that was in that moment the least of her worries.

Volkhezaron still loomed above her, but he merely watched with amusement--if amusement was what she detected in those candlelit eye sockets--as she struggled to pull herself up. Her whole body was cold, as though she had spent a night in a blizzard; frost coated her mane and pelt everywhere that her robe did not, and a few places where it did. When she pulled herself to her hands and knees, it was with tremendous effort; as she dragged herself to a semi-standing position upon a rock nearby, her legs shook as though she were a day-old filly. It was only by gripping the rock tightly that she was able to hold herself upright at all. She left a trail of glowing goo behind her as it dripped from between her thighs.

"A pleasure I have not known in two centuries," he boasted. Reflexively, her eyes went between his hind legs, as if she expected to see something hanging there, dripping with fluids. There was nothing, no shimmer, no evidence whatsoever. All of the dracolich's... cum... had spattered on the ground around where he had fucked her near senseless.

"A pleasure--" Her voice was hoarse, and she paused to swallow, to catch her breath. "A pleasure you'll not know again if--if you don't obey me." Focus, Nerys. Focus. She wasn't being fucked, now, wasn't being tossed around atop a dragon's cock like a plaything. Her limbs shook and her mind was hazy, but the distractions were gone. Most of them. The icy knot of goo still clung to the deepest depths of her pussy; its chill spread upward into her belly, making her womb tense. A brief moment of worry flashed through her mind. The dragon was dead. A spirit. He couldn't be fertile. It wasn't possible, not in the most haunted madman's most fevered dreams.

Climax had lightened his mood, for Volkhezaron only laughed. "Obey you? The only obedience I will give you, unicorn, is when I obey the demands your exquisite body place upon my desires." Casually, he stalked toward her, tail lashing behind him. "No, filly, I have claimed you. You will serve me in whatsoever manner I please. Because of your knowledge and your delightful carnal talents, and because you have given me the means of achieving my vengeance, I will spare you. But I will not obey you."

She did not make eye contact, kept her head bowed. Her eyes were fixed on the silver circle on her glove. Almost there. She had made so much progress before the dracolich manifested himself, and even now, as he waxed long about her subjugation, he gave her more time to finish. Her heart raced. If she failed, it would be the end of her, knowledge or not.

"You belong to me. My name is written on your bones, Volkhezaron."

His skull dipped low and the lights of his eyes flared like lanterns. "Are you testing me, you wretched two-legged insect? I am Volkhezaron the Tyrant! I reigned for five hundred years! Even death could not stop me!" He thundered close to her, claws tearing up great gouges of soil, and drew his skull down close to her, jaw parted as he might have bared fangs when still alive. Frozen mist streamed from his nostrils. "I will do whatever I wish with you! I will fuck you whenever I please! I will--"

Nerys lifted her eyes to his, scarcely two feet away, blazing green lights in an empty skull. "Sit."

The light in his eyes flickered, and jerkily, as if uncertain why he was doing it and shocked that it was happening, Volkhezaron sat upon his hind legs. His jaw hung open; she smiled to imagine for herself the expression he would have worn on a face that yet had flesh and scale. "You--"

She squeezed her right hand into a fist. The leather crinkled tightly around her fingers. "Shut up." His eyes flared like miniature suns, but no words came.

Relief flooded her; she dared not allow herself to embrace it until the proof was before her. And even then, with the dracolich obeying her command, she felt a tremendous pressure against the back of her skull. She controlled him, now, but he was fighting her savagely. Even holding the upper hand, she was cautious. A caged beast was dangerous. Despite what he had just done to her, perhaps even a conciliatory approach would be best--or perhaps she was just too exhausted to contemplate indulging in the kind of petty vengeance that she might have had the dracolich not drained her of half her essence. She would recover. Retribution could come then.

"I don't have any intention of double-crossing you," she began, conveniently glossing over the fact that this itself might well be considered a double-cross. "I meant what I said about the... other unicorns. And I will help you. We can both get something out of them." Some of the furious luminescence in the dragon's skull dimmed. "But I'm not going to just set myself up for being disposed of like a useful tool when you're done. I think you can respect that. You don't want someone that stupid guiding you, do you?" She flexed her hand, returned his speech to him.

"There are better ways of forging a pact. Ones that don't run the risk of ignoble death when they end." Despite the threat inherent in the words, his voice was measured.

"Yes. And you had no intention of doing that until your pretty little unicorn proved she had teeth." She smiled weakly. "Did you enjoy having me? You weren't the first to taste me, dragon."

His skull tilted, eyeing her, and one foreclaw worked at the ground. "I would do it again."

She was surprised to discover that she wasn't sure if his words pleased or repelled her. The realization gave her pause, and her thoughts must have been echoed in her face, for another rumble spilled from between his ribs. "Am I to become your carnal pet, unicorn? Is that what you would have in exchange for your knowledge and aid? A leash about my neck as you command me to mount you?" Laughter.

"You could have killed me," she protested. "It was like being mounted by an icicle, besides. You are a spirit, dragon, not flesh. You are not... meant for that."

"These bones were not meant to walk unaided, yet here they are. And the pleasures of the flesh are not so easily forgotten. Even a holy one such as you cannot escape their allure."

Nerys' cheeks flushed hot. "This--this isn't up for discussion. I don't want your cock. I want your power. Your knowledge. Centuries beyond the veil must have given you insight beyond what scraps I've found written in rotting books."

Volkhezaron was silent for a few moments; her words had apparently taken him aback. "Much I saw as I slept. Much that would frighten you. More that would feed the lust I feel in your heart. You seek power, unicorn, and you care not whence it comes. These precious few tastes of beyond which you have savored have only stoked a black fire in your belly." She allowed him to dip his head slowly, draw it close to hers once more. "I will feed this hunger, Nerys Morgan. And you will feed my hunger for vengeance."

Smiling, she lifted an arm trembling from weakness and brought her hand to rest against the side of Volkhezaron's skull. She felt a tremendous coursing rush of vitae in the bone beneath her glove, the spirit of the ancient dragon inhabiting this skeletal vessel. Her fingers flexed against the bone as if she could reach out and take hold of it even then.

"Then this is our pact?"

"This is our pact."