The Storm’s Hunger

Wulfric the Swift. So many stories are told of that dragon. Too many, perhaps. And most of them miss the truth. For in the end, Wulfric did not hunger for food, nor gold. He did not crave dominion, nor vengeance. He was not driven by the old draconic sins.

He hungered for something far worse. Fame. Or, more accurately, fear.

The youngest child of the great draconic prime, Wulfric was born of royal blood, enough to open every sky to him. A storm dragon, at one with wind and thunder. The high peaks were his home, and there he lived with his kin… until the hunters came.

From the Empire they rose. Airships blotting out the clouds. The age of men had turned upward, and they could no longer abide creatures greater than themselves ruling the skies. So they hunted. First came the war. Then came extermination.

But Wulfric was young then. Sheltered. Raised in the comfort of royalty, his troubles solved before they ever reached him. His future was endless, and he revelled in it. In the freedom. In the attention.

He would be known. He would be remembered. And so, he raced.

He outran his siblings, and in time, nearly matched his father. The winds bent for him; the storms chased him. Before long, they named him the Swift. And the name carried.

He challenged the frozen dragons of the south, and left them wheezing in his wake. He crossed the Sea of the Dead faster than the great sea wyrms could surface. He tore through the eastern jungles, outpacing even the forest dragons in their own tangled skies.

Wherever dragons gathered, Wulfric flew faster. Wherever stories were told, his name followed.

But fame is a thin thing. It fades quickly. And admiration… admiration was never enough.

When the hunters finally came for him, Wulfric discovered a new hunger. Fear.

The first airship he tore from the sky burned all the way to the ground. The second never had time to scream. Soon, a pattern emerged. A body would fall from the clouds. And then the storm would come.

Men learned his name the hard way. Taverns went quiet when it was spoken. Campfires dimmed. Mothers pulled children close when thunder rolled in clear skies.

For if you saw Wulfric the Swift upon the horizon… You were already dead.

All the while, more of his kin fell to the Empire.

Where others fought to survive, Wulfric fought a different war. Not for land. Not for life. He fought to be remembered. To be feared. Destruction followed in his wake, horror riding the storms that bore his wings.

In time, it was not only men who feared him. His own kin began to whisper his name.

His father fled with what remained of the royal brood. The last of the storm dragons abandoning their ancestral peaks, seeking higher, safer climbs beyond imperial reach. They begged Wulfric to follow.

He did not.

His siblings called him a fool. He did not listen. These mountains lay close to imperial territory. Close to the skies where arrogance dared to rise. Close to those whose hubris had brought them into his domain.

Let them come, he thought. Let them suffer. And so, he stayed.

There was one hunter, not a soldier, not a brute. A wise man. One who understood that strength had never been Wulfric’s weakness. A man who too hungered for fame. The glory of defeating an impossible foe, and the gold that would come with it.

He did not arm himself with cannons or thunder. He armed himself with patience.

He came in the dead of winter, when the storms turned inward and the peaks vanished beneath snow and silence. When the mountains themselves seemed buried beneath the cold. And beneath that cold, beneath ice and stone, Wulfric slept.

The final prize of the Empire.

With Wulfric dead, airships would cross the Severed Belt unchallenged. Eldara would trade freely with the southern realms at last. Empires would rise on the certainty of safe skies.

He was the last obstacle. And so, a price was placed upon his head, vast beyond measure. Perhaps the greatest bounty ever spoken aloud. Enough, they said, to buy a kingdom.

And so, the hunter dug into the snow.

He traced the old tunnel networks, passages mapped and remapped by wandering peoples across centuries. Lines half-forgotten, scratched into bark, stone, and memory. He searched for signs of Wulfric’s lair, a home long theorised to lie deep within the mountain itself.

Once found, it could only lead to one end. When winter retreated, so did the hunter.

Without the cover of snow and silence. Wulfric would surely find him, and his end would come swiftly. So, the hunter withdrew. And waited.

He returned the next winter. And the next.

Each year he carved a little more truth from the mountain. A new map. Another crevice searched. Another cave dismissed. Seasons passed in patience and frost, while above, the skies still roared.

The bounty dwindled. The Empire lost interest. Merchants learned new routes. But the hunter remained.

Wulfric aged with him, though age did nothing to dull the dragon’s fury. The Empire left the mountains alone at last, yet still Wulfric descended upon the lowlands. Cities on the fringe. Outposts in the snow. His war no longer had a purpose beyond itself.

The storm roared. In time, he became the monster they had always believed him to be.

Decades passed, and Wulfric the Swift became something else entirely. A terror of the skies. A name never forgotten. A warning whispered among mountain folk.

A dragon who rode the lightning. Who brought death in the thunder. The last storm dragon. There fear of him, was all he had left.

Finally, twenty-three years after the search began, the hunter found it. The home of the horror.

Hidden deep within the highest peak, the cavern was choked with bones. Walls clawed and scored until the stone itself seemed to scream. It was a place of rage, of solitude… of long, aching hunger.

And deeper still, curled within the mountain’s heart, Wulfric slept. The hunter had reached his goal at last. With a map of this place, he could have returned. Gathered men. Steel. Fire. Together, they might have slain the dragon and claimed the prize.

But the bounty had withered. What once would have justified an army now barely tempted a handful. And what remained was no longer worth sharing.

It was worth only one life. His own. So, he took his chance.

Armed with a magi-tech spear, the hunter crept forward. Every step measured. Every breath stolen and held. But Wulfric knew his home better than he ever knew the skies. And the hunter’s steps were too loud.

Wulfric woke. The hunter did not have time to think, only to lunge.

The spear struck true. A roar tore through the cavern, so vast it seemed to crack the mountain itself. The world went dark.

When the hunter awoke, he was far above the clouds. Cold air tore at him. The pressure in his ears screamed. A claw had punched through his shoulder, pinning him like a trophy. Blood streamed away into the sky.

Laughter rode the wind.

The great dragon had carried him far from the mountain. Night had bled into dawn, the first light of morning spilling across the world.

Below them lay Eldara, the vast city spread wide and helpless beneath the clouds. Above him loomed Wulfric. The spear still jutted from the dragon’s flank, lightning crawling along its haft.

Wulfric had not brought him there to simply kill him. It was a message. A final act by the monster he had become.

He felt their fear and drank it in. Below, Eldara scrambled. Airships clawed into the sky, cannons were armed, weapons of war flared to life. A city panicking beneath his shadow.

But his flight faltered.

The spear had bitten deep. One wing no longer answered him. It was his speed that carried him this far, his hunger that kept him aloft.

The hunter’s screams did nothing to slow him. He was the last storm dragon, and he would be remembered.

So, Wulfric released his grip. The hunter fell. And he followed.

Lightning split the sky. Thunder roared in answer. In his wake came fire and ruin.

But the empire had grown too skilled at killing dragons. And so, Wulfric the Swift. Terror of the skies, last of the storm dragons. Struck the earth and broke.

His unending hunger for fame and admiration led only to madness.

To destruction. To war.

And, at last, to his doom.

…

…

“And, and what happened then?” a little boy asks, eyes wide in the firelight. “Did Wulfric live?”

The farmer only laughs, low and rough. “Wulfric was never meant to be the hero of that tale, child.”

“But… did he survive?”

“Please,” another voice presses. “Tell us. Did he?”

The farmer’s smile fades. He stared into the flames for a long moment before answering.

“No one knows what truly became of him. He left a crater where he fell. A scar upon the land. But no body was ever found.”

“He’s alive,” another child whispers.

“Ah, ah.” The farmer wags his finger, dismissing the thought. “We don’t know that.”

The children lean closer to the fire, the night pressing in around them.

“All that’s known is this,” the farmer continues. “The empire still won’t cross those mountains. No airship dares that route. Even the mountain folk avoid it.”

The fire crackles. The wind stirred through the trees.

“And on the darkest, stormiest of nights,” the farmer says quietly. “It’s said you can still hear his laughter riding the wind.”