Sorry I didn’t write for a while. I was moving house.

Havirk Flamebreath paused in his work, wiping sweat off of his brilliant red scales. Lifting boxes for the biggest crime lord in the harbor of Westwind was hard work, and he was ready to take a break. His mind drifted as he leaned against the nearest stack of crates-no doubt filled with alcohol or plants that you couldn’t get here. He thought back to his childhood. To the time. 

To the Sundering.

It had been fifteen long years ago, and Havirk was now an adult. Wyrmbloods aged at the same rate as humans, but they matured faster. It had been his birthday, and the entire clan hall was decked out in style. Hundreds of bottles of the finest Elvish wine lined the long oak table. Harvik, at the intellectual and mobile level of a three-year old human, remembered it all. The cakes that his father secretly handed him, the wine that his uncle had let him taste, and the feats of legerdemain performed by a Dwarf. It had been the perfect day.

Then it had happened.

It began around ten o’ clock, he thought. Dull booms echoing around the valley that the clan hall was in. Everyone-the Elders, his parents, his many relatives-had all thought it was entertainment for the feast. About and hour later, the drums stopped with a final loud boom. Everyone had looked at Havirk and cheered, shouting “a very happy birthday!” But that was cut short as a horrible sound started-the piping of Orcish war flutes.

At once everyone had scrambled around looking for weapons and armor, but the orcs were already at the doors. With a crash they poured into the clan hall, yelling Orcish curses in their foul language. The Elders were slain first, their green blood staining the hard-packed earthen floor. Arrows soared into his relatives and other kin. The acrobatic Dwarf had grabbed Havirk and escaped from the hall. Havirk had not been able to thank the Dwarf enough then, but now he swore silently, by the fire in his veins, that he would slaughter the Dwarf when he next came. The Dwarf had brought him to Westwind, sold him as a slave to Swiftwalker, a Rodentrian crime lord, and told him to wait until his fifteenth birthday. Havirk was now fifteen, the day was ending, and the Dwarf had not returned.

A crack around Havirk’s legs reminded him where he was, and he sighed as he lifted another barrel-full of Dwarvish rum if his nose was right. He was just one of about two hundred sighing at that time, in the cruel city of Westwind.