Serpent Heart: Know Thine Enemy

Chapter 1: FIRST BLOOD
The roads are still and frozen. The oddly-shaped snow mound entices my curiosity enough for me to be magnetised toward it as my feet crumple the shallow, soft bed of snow spread on the entire crossroad. I stop when I come up-close to the mound, kneeling down and determining that something must be hidden underneath the white blanket. I barely notice the sound of trees shaking behind me when I wipe away some snow to discover that something indeed is hidden underneath it: scaly, dark yellow skin and orange shoulder scales. A dead dragon lays in front of me, covered in snow. I yelp in horror before a near-deafening blast goes off behind me and forces me to body-slam the icy ground to avoid the razor-like pellets flying from this new and unexpected threat. I mostly succeed, with only a couple of signs of stinging on my back.
"Don't bother running, I've covered all your exits!" A deep, growling and ancient voice booms from behind me, in an old kind of Russian, no less. Good thing my mother got me to learn the language for a year. I never knew why until that fateful message... I quickly turn to find a huge, winged creature hiding amongst the trees, shrouded in frosty shadow...no doubt a dragon.
"Look, I don't mean any harm...I'm not a slayer!" I insist, fumbling for my pendant before holding it up for the mostly shrouded dragon. "I'm not even human!" I add hopefully.
"You truly are as foolish as you look...die, serpentine scum!" The dragon gloats at me. It is only then when I notice a shotgun poking through one of the many branches. I instantly propel myself to the trees behind me as two more blasts aim at my direction, one pellet hitting me directly in the leg. I grunt as the wound stings whilst I dive past a felled log, hiding behind it to crawl my way to further cover. I hear the dragon growl in frustration as he creeps closer to me.
"I can't hold back this psychotic dragon for any longer in my human disguise." I murmur to myself before pressing the symbol on my pendant, which surrounds me in the green, fire-like light once more to shift me to my much more powerful draconic form. But this shifting easily attracts the attention of my newfound enemy. "Come and get it, you-" I begin to taunt until I am interrupted by my foe - who is still almost twice my size - slamming into me. I then feel the full impact of hitting the snow-stained ground as the dragon pins me down. I can make out his features much clearer now; his scales are red, with dark yellow shoulder, feet, hand and knee scales. He has tufts of brown hair running down from the top of his head to the tip of his tail, much like my own back spikes. He appears to have a small (for his size), heavily tattered, and worn brown jacket slung on his shoulder, and a single horn on his head with an equally old and battered helmet stabbed through it. His eyes are full of both rage and satisfaction as he points his gun directly beneath my chin.
"Do me a favour, and don't scream." He boasts at me before pulling the trigger. I instinctively close my eyes, expecting to meet death. I instead hear a click from within the shotgun. This is followed by several clicks as the dragon realises that his weapon has ran out of ammunition. He emanates a sickened growl before throwing the weapon away in frustration. "I'll kill you with my bare-" he stops talking mid-way through thrusting his roughened, clawed hand at my throat. His eyes fixate on his own hand with a look that I did not expect from him: horror. He seemingly cannot help but let out a wavering whimper as he hurriedly lifts himself up, releasing me from his tight grip. He then makes a rapid retreat back to where he previously emerged, his pounding footsteps crashing into the distance. I rapidly seize my pendant from the snow before pressing it once more, my draconic eyesight once again serving me well. The fiery green light bursts around me and shrinks me to my human form, leaving me to pick up my bag of supplies and keep wandering the forest; I know I'm not where I'm supposed to be yet, but judging by that fierce attack and the sound of jet engines in the distance, I must be getting closer.

CHAPTER 2: FIRST DAY IN THE FREEZER
I walk for what must be two more miles now as the chilling weather devolves into a blizzard, its trillion snowdrops obscuring anything over two metres ahead of me. All I know now is that I have to keep moving forward in the ever-thickening snow, though I begin to doubt if I will ever find the dragons who fight the slayers...or at least, dragons that don't want to kill me. Just as I consider turning back, I catch a noise just ahead of me, made faint by the heavy rustling of the trees amidst this wintery storm. I slow down, wary that this may turn ugly, like when I fought that red dragon earlier. As I trudge forwards, the noise becomes clearer and clearer until it becomes a voice;
"Marco!...Marco!...Marco!" It continues. My heart lights up in relief and partial excitement; this was the signal I was waiting for. Most people would reply 'Polo' to this cry, but I know from beforehand that my reply must be different...and that I need to be closer to the owner of that voice before making that reply. I then see a vague figure ahead of me, and after what feels like half an hour, I can make out the person's features. They have a coat similar to mine, except more worn and wrapped in a camouflage net. We then stop approaching each other, yet the man (I can tell he is a man now) yells "Marco!" at me one more time before I respond;
"What day is it?" I ask, almost nervously.
"What day do you think it is?" He replies, eyeing me and reaching into one of the coat's many pockets, most likely for a weapon.
"Apple season." I reply again with a nonsensical answer. Then again, it's not like this passcode was meant to be obvious. The man pulls a pistol out of his coat anyway, but doesn't seem to be suspicious of me.
"Follow." He bluntly instructs me. He begins to trudge through the snow again, this time to the left of where I was headed. At least this guy knows where he's going, I mentally assure myself as we venture further into the wilderness. The man keeps looking upward instinctively as we move, despite the sky being blotted out by the blizzard. Either he's overly cautious, or there's more to this whole situation than I thought. Eventually, the blizzard begins to cease its relentless pounding of thickly-bound flakes as we both approach an impressive rock face. Its rough, column-like protrusions face the rest of the forest like a castle wall. "You figure the way in." My guide informs me, just as bluntly as with the last instruction. I nod hesitantly, as the uncertainty and secrecy of my movements dawns on me. I inspect the rock for a short while before noticing an area that was more chipped and had less snow than the rest of it, along with a hole two meters above me; this must be the entrance. This journey has been long enough as it is, so I decide to take the quickest method; I hurl my bag up to the hole before grappling the rock face and steadily (though much slower than I hoped) clambering the rocky obstacle. Just as I am about to make it to the hole, a bulky hand unexpectedly flings me up to it.
"Don't throw your damn bag like that! Thing looked like a bomb at first..." An aged, heavy voice pipes at me as I land faceward on the cold, stone ground. As I bring myself back up, I finally see who it is the voice belongs to; a bulky, towering woman who - aside from several wrinkles - looks like she could fling me to the top of the trees I went through to get here. She also wears a coat, though it seems less manufactured and more cobbled-together and battered with age, yet still tough. Tougher than mine, most likely.
"Uh...bomb?" I hurriedly query, dumbfounded by all of this.
"Just take this and go in." She asserts, chucking my bag at me. "You're new here. Go and see Gonovich." She adds sternly. Then the smell of the place hits me; a vivid musk, partially sweaty and with hints of smoke. Well, at least it's going to be warmer in here.

CHAPTER 3: WELCOME TO THE WAR
I cautiously step through the windy and surprisingly dry cave, a din of busy activity emanating from the chamber I head towards. Soon, I make out distinct voices as I shift through the natural arch before finally seeing the scene in front of me; several disjointed rows of tents and wooden huts, with a rather diversified group of men and women wandering between, rushing to and working in each of them. Most of them have their own pendants, and a few (mainly those standing near tent entrances) even have assault rifles to further remind me of exactly how serious the situation is. I hear the crackle of fires nestled within the makeshift structures, as well as the faint smell of cooking meat, which I can only assume comes from them. A quick bump from one of the passing crowd snaps me back into concentration. Gonovich...I need to find Gonivich, I remind myself. I move as quickly as I can through the nest of structures to find anything resembling an important location. There are signs on many of the structures in Cyrillic letters. I curse under my breath; I may have spent a whole year learning the Russian language, but I barely got to spend any time learning the writing. One of the guards with an assault rifle halts me as I nearly make a corner.
"Hold it...you're new here." He states as if he's seen this a thousand times.
"Gonovich...take me to Gonovich?" I ask him, my nervousness partially rising.
"Follow me." He orders, yet not too harshly...not yet, I suspect. He leads me to a tent-looking structure that looks like most of the others, with the exception of two more armed guards standing near it. I cautiously step toward the entrance as the guard that led me here almost chuckles handing me some advice; "Trust me, if you're dangerous enough for them to be suspicious of you, you wouldn't be here in the first place." With that in mind, I shuffle my way in, finally seeing what lays in the tent; an old, yet burly man overlooking a detailed map alongside an even older, yet still almost as fit man as they discuss something to each other; most likely strategies. I have no clue as to what they are saying, as they speak a mix of what must be a really old-fashioned kind of Russian slang and another, totally alien language. They notice me for a moment and then hurriedly finish off the conversation, the younger of the two hurrying to the entranceway and almost shoving me out of the way. The ancient face of the man still at the table looks dead on at me and gives me a dry, tired smirk; he must be Gonovich. He wears similar clothes to the guard that pulled me into the cave earlier, except many of his patches have more colour to them- red, green and dark yellow being the most predominant ones. It looked like some sort of parade dress from either of the world wars, fixed up over the decades to retain, and perhaps improve, its structure. He also wore a cap that bore a strong resemblance to a ushanka, and had a well-maintained beard that puffed slightly at his chin, below his lips and beside his mouth.
"English?" He knowingly asks me...in English.
"Uh...how did you-" I almost reply.
"I can tell where most dragons are from by their human veil from a mile off." He answers plainly. "I have been doing this business of fighting the slayers for a long time, you know. Lost count of how long...maybe that helps."
"Well...if it helps with anything, I found a full-sized, proper dragon on the way here...he tried to kill me, you know." Gonovich's brows raise in alarm.
"Tried to kill you? Did you shift?" He sounds more worried now.
"Into my dragon form, yes. I even told him I was one of his kind, but that just seemed to make him more...determined to-" Gonovich strides up to me and holds his index finger at me, and I shut up. For how old he looks, he moves so strongly and effortlessly.
"He is not one of our kind." He punctuates with the authoritative energy of a strict leader. "He is one of the enemy. Well...he's relatively rare to come across, but nonetheless...how did you survive?"
"He just...well...yelped and let go before clawing me. He ran...I'm not sure where to. What do you mean? Do the slayers have dragons too?" Gonovich groans a little before trudging back a couple of paces.
"Look, all you need to know is that if you see him again, run. Just run. What you need to know right now is how to help us fend these bastards off of our lines." He begins to brief me.
"Lines? Uh...what exactly are we dealing with here? A militia?" Gonovich glances at me and lets out a shallow sigh before sitting on a metal stool that looks like it originally came from a large machine.
"Not a militia, child. Not even close. What we face...is an army. They have a government behind them, supplying them with planes, tanks, artillery, and the means to modify them to better kill dragons like you and me." Upon this news, a severe chill overcomes me. Now the secrecy, the rifles, the jet engines roaring in the distance and the mad dragon's shotgun make sense. I knew from the start this would be dangerous, but I never thought for one second that I have just been drafted into a war.
"How...long?" I blurt, almost afraid to ask this dreaded question. "The w-war...how long's it lasted?" Gonovich stares blankly at the floor for a short while, perhaps trying to figure that out himself. Finally, he stares back at me again.
"It's best if you don't know that. Now...enough wasting time." He then shifts to Russian, as if to give me an example of how orders are usually made around here. "Join Greshinki's recruitment squad. He'll take you to a sector where there's almost no chance of encountering enemy units."
"G-Greshinki?" I query, still in the process of understanding the gravity of my situation.
"One with the long hair and a Dragunov rifle. They're at the eatery. Now go." He commands, though not as intensely this time. He then struts over to the map and surveys it, which I take as my cue to leave the tent.
"God help me." I mumble, shaking as I pass the guards.

CHAPTER 4: TRAINING DAY
I shamble out of what I could call the command tent, attempting to focus on what it was I needed to do; find Gono- no, Greshinki. That was it...images enter my mind of camouflaged assassins in the endless frosty forest, constantly interrupting my attempts to familiarise myself with the Cyrillic signs; maybe I can at least remember what each of them looks like before associating them to what the purpose of the tent is. The smell of cooking meat then clings to my nostrils, and after brushing past many disgruntled veterans with varying scars, I finally arrive at what is clearly the canteen, several fresh-faced recruits digging into meat wrapped in some kind of rag, possibly to avoid getting their hands slippy with the juices.
"You! Over here!" A rasp-toned, yet still stern voice calls to me. I immediately focus on a tall, slender figure with long, battered hair and an equally battered face. His clothing and equipment is noticeably lighter than most other people here, and - just like Gonovich said - tightly gripped a Dragunov rifle with one hand. He tilts his head to prompt me into moving quicker toward him, and so I do. I focus on the feasting recruits again, one of them about my age and another who barely looks 18, both of them wearing more 'manufactured' clothing, for lack of a better word, than the veteran standing over them. They have shreds of camo netting on them; it looks like it was handed to them barely an hour ago. "You've come far, now eat." The man, undoubtebly Greshinki, bluntly instructs me. I approach the canteen, where a cook (though he wore a similar outfit to most people in this den) handed me a rag and a small slice of roughly cooked meat, a far cry from the grand weekend meals of home. Nonetheless, I quickly grapple the meat with the rag and enthusiastically chew into it as I instantly recognise it as venison; deer must be an animal hunted a lot in this wilderness. When the eating finished, I stand with the two other recruits and pay attention to Greshinki's briefing. He opens it on a question; "Russian? Any of you speak Russian?" I nod, the other replying "Yes, sir." in Russian and the third, younger recruit gesturing his uncertainty on his ability to speak the language. "Well, I haven't got all day to spend in here, so I'll just let you follow my example." The boy nods, intimidated by Greshinki's tone. "Now, in case you haven't already been informed, you're fighting a war. If we're ever going to have to win it, we...you will have to fight dirty and with no restraint on morals or tactics." With no hint of doing so, he strides toward the exit, the three of us frantically following him. He continues the lecture as he goes through the cave that I entered earlier; "That said, you need to have an idea of where you and the enemy are, and he won't try to make himself known; anything smaller than a tank can easily hide in the forest. And speaking of hiding, you shouldn't be lifting your human skins for too long, lest the slayers find a great lumbering dragon for them to gut like a prize deer." He then passed the intimidating (perhaps more so than him) cave guard, who gives each one of us a piercing gaze. Greshinki then lumbers and leaps down the rock face, with us three recruits struggling to climb down and catch up. He curses at us and orders us to go down faster; "Christ almighty, a rifleman would have filled you full of holes by now!" He goads just before the youngest recruit slips and falls onto the ground, the snow barely cushioning his fall. A few minutes later, we travel by foot, at least two miles away, to a part of the forest littered with fallen trees and branches that jut from the ground like a hedgehog's spikes, only more jumbled and coated with thick snow. Greshinski then clambers on top of one of the mounds, constantly scanning the environment with his eyes as he does. "Now, one of you...get to that ditch!" He ordered. I sprung forward, yet then hesitated before rushing toward a gap between branch piles. "Now down, down!" He snaps at me, shaking his rifle to emphasise his command. I do so, body-slamming the ground in a similar manner to when I faced that mad dragon earlier. "Wait...and shift!" I fidget clumsily for my pendant before finding and pressing it. The green fire once again blazes me into draconic form, where I am still laid down. "Nice...for someone who hasn't seen battle." Greshinski remarks, though genuinely somewhat impressed by my demonstration. "Now, the key thing to do when shifting is to make sure you are in cover. A blazing light is a damn good target." He then drills the two other recruits into performing the same exercise, with the oldest of the two shifting into a green dragon with red shoulder and underscales, and the young one a tan dragon with yellow shoulder and underscales. The young dragon takes some convincing to stop panicking when performing a shift he clearly isn't used to, though since Greshinski's method of persuasion involves waving his rifle and pendant, it does not take long for the young dragon to conform.

CHAPTER 5: ONCOMING STORM
Once that is done, Greshinki sprints us to another location, constantly reminding us to focus on landmarks on the way so we can make our way back to base. Worryingly, one of those landmarks is an overturned and crumpled 4x4 car with what appears to be military insignias on its front grille. At certain spots, Greshinki halts us and makes us perform another exercise, such as precision fire blasts in our dragon forms and even climbing trees in human form. At this particular task, I clumsily heave myself up the tree, though I still perform better than the other two recruits. As the youngest recruit - a little more confident about his situation now - struggles up the tree, I hear jet engines zooming in the far distance. It just occurs to me that the sky is now a lot clearer from since I arrived at base. Greshinki grunts nervously, though I assume this to be his impatience at the Younger recruit's lack of progress. It then occurs to me that I don't know any of these recruits' names.
"Greshinki...uh, sir." I pipe up.
"Eh?" He replies with a hint of impatience.
"Can we introduce each other after this exercise, sir?"
"Pah, you don't need their names for now. Gets you too sentimental for them if they get gunned down..." He grimly answers. "Which might be soon." He adds, rather ominously. His focus then snaps to the distance, his hands gripping his rifle ever-tighter as the sound of the jets gets closer. I slowly start to piece everything together, and just before my survival instincts kick in, Greshinki hollers; "Small one, get off the tree! We're going back, move!" He hurls his lanky frame into a cumbersome sprint, signalling me and the older recruit to follow and the younger recruit to hesitate and yelp before falling off the tree, a snow pile beneath it partially breaking his fall. However, getting out of the sparkling white blanket results in him being far behind us, as we race behind Greshinki. I then catch a glimpse of something darting above where the younger recruit is; it is a blurred flash of reflective white, grey and a blip of red. I'm sure I would be able to see it in greater detail if I wasn't running as fast as I can from it. The jet's noise continues, this time screeching and echoing through the air above the trees. "Split, split!" Greshinki barks at us. It takes me and the older recruit a moment to figure out where exactly we can split off to; any memory of the landmarks Greshinki pointed out are overridden with panic and adrenaline. I take my first chance and dive into some partially snow-covered undergrowth, the bitter cold of it hitting me harder than the ground itself. I barely hear Greshinki yell another order, though I cannot tell what that order could be. I try and find a way to huddle closer to the uneven, frost-blighted ground before I hear a synthesised, mechanical chopping sound swooping in from the far distance into the near. It soon halts, so I finally peek from within the undergrowth to see where the noise comes from. I feel weighed down by pure dread when I see a long, slender helicopter with two bubbles for cockpit windows at the front, adorned with white-and-grey camouflage and a red star flanked by a crude, yet uniform symbol resembling the head and tail of a dragon. It drops a rope from its bottom rear before six heavily-kitted men slide down to the treeline in quick succession. I dryly gulp as I grab my pendant, fumbling it as I keep mentally asking myself; am I really prepared for this war?