Tiamat

5:14am is peaceful in the nexus city of Lyana-Ukrytiye, the horses pawing the dew-wet grass as sleepy revellers fill up their water-skins and merchants make their quietest sales of the day, voices gentle and lenient. The smell of baking bread wafts through the air from the bakers as the mill fills the air with a low rumble, its sails turning in the wind.

The low rumble grows and grows. A plume of grey smoke, drifting across the cyan sky, the fluffy white clouds begin to grow darker. Spots of black invade them. A few heads turn, hands raised to shield their eyes from the morning sun. There’s a haze coming in. Some murmur, perhaps a forest fire has come this way.

5:20am and everyone’s breath tenses on their lips. The horses tug at their restraints, the baying of a wild animal in the distance echoing as it runs across a bubbling brook, winds around the thatch-roof houses, the locals leaning out of their windows and feeling the static. The smell of wood smoke, usually so comforting, has become something alien.

The earth begins to tremble. The rumbling escalates as the wooden beams of handmade houses quiver, as goods spill from caravans and the horses tear themselves from their riders and run. As the early risers turn in alarm to watch their animals race away, there is a wordless shout. Someone is running towards them, chased by a wall of fire.

5:29am brings the song on the wind, a piercing shriek dancing with a low boom which shakes the air-

Deep into the ice with magma we claimed,
To take from the Ice God in Her Great Name―

Sound the horn and let slip the drakes of war; Tiamat of the Caller, leading the pack to deliver her kin's interests with tooth and claw.