Hell Hath No Fury

You know that saying ‘when hell freezes over’? Well, apparently hell is the name of a dragon that breathes ice shards instead of fire. Who knew such a thing existed?

Well now I do and it's my job to vanquish this beast before he conquers any more of my kingdom for the sake of his mistress.

I thrust my sword toward him as the black-scaled monstrosity lunged at me.

His teeth bared and his nostrils flared as he took a deep breath in preparation for another blast of ice. Hell's sand-coloured chest and belly scales swelled as he reared up on his hind legs, eyes bulging in hungry excitement.

I hesitated for a moment, weighing my options only to throw caution to the wind as I ran full-scale at the beast. Sword poised as I am ready to plunge it into its ice-filled belly.

But before I can reach my target the beast swats me away like a fly.

I slam into the adjacent wall and scramble to get to my feet. Breathing heavily as I will myself not succumb to the pain and exhaustion.

Hell opened his mouth and breathed the sharp ice shards in my direction. 

I dove out of the way, clutching my sword in hand and scrambling to my feet. I ran at Hell slashing at his thick black scaly tail, but the pursuit afflicts no damage. He hardly seems to have noticed as he barely reacts, only turning towards me because he knows I’m there.

As Hell turns himself to face me once more, my sword is suddenly slashed from my hand by the undamaged tail I had just attacked.

Weaponless and witless, I backed away from the beast but not before he breathed ice shards in my direction again. His searing cold breath cut through the arm of my armour and burned more than I presume it would have if he’d breathed fire upon me.

Wincing in pain I fell to the ground and immediately began scrambling to get to my feet once more.

Out of ammunition, Hell paused for another deep breath in preparation to finish me off.

I searched for anything I could use as a weapon. Anything that might penetrate dragon skin.

The sharpest and closest things were the still frozen and extremely sharp ice shards. But even then they were just out of reach and there was no telling what might become of me if I touched them.

I glanced around at the pieces of my frozen, shattered, and fallen comrades. Being the last of my battalion, I was the kingdom's last hope at getting rid of Hell.

I threw caution to the wind one last time and lunged towards the shards. I wrapped my hands around the largest one I could reach. Then with the last bit of my courage, I ran at Hell and plunged the shard deep beneath the sand-coloured scales of his belly.

Blood began to ooze out of the scales, dying them a horrific shade of red. Hell cried out as I continued to thrust the ice shard deeper into his belly, using all my body to plunge it as deep as possible.

Hell thrashed for a moment before freezing both unexpectedly and abruptly.

The sound of ice cracking drew my gaze, to the dragon’s tail first which began to turn to ice. I followed the tracks as the ice made its way up his body, slowly moving toward where I held his ice shard. At this point, the dragon had burst into a thousand little pieces and shattered like glass. Showering me in the thousands of tiny ice shards that once was the dragon known as Hell.

Hell had officially frozen over.

I stood there in shock as the adrenaline began to wear off, I fell to the ground in a heap among the ice shards. Still clasping the original one in my hands, or so I thought.

As it turns out when I used my entire body to thrust the ice shard into his scales. I had accidently impaled myself, I could feel my extremities beginning to tingle with cold as I slumped over onto my side.

Looking down I saw the ice begin to make its way up from my feet, towards my ice shard. Laying there I accept death as an old friend and was ready to depart from this life. I closed my eyes and awaited the inevitable. But my peaceful hero’s death was interrupted by the shouting of a woman I did not recognize.

“My dragon!” She cried, running toward me and scooping up a few ice shards that were beginning to melt.

As my world began to fade, only one thought entered my mind.

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

I smiled to myself at a mission accomplished, only slightly regretting that I’d never know the true meaning of this saying. Sighing in relief as I succumbed to my injuries and the ice overtook me.

Like this? Here's part 2: