I don’t remember much of my life before the wagon train to execution. Everything is hazy, as if I had no existence until then. But the blade of a steel axe rising high above my head, I distinctly recall. The smell of copper dripping from the last poor bastard to kneel upon the stained wood beneath me. The stench of horses. Mud. Gravel. Brimstone. When fire unexpectedly exploded around us, raining in a torrent of deadly chaos....I felt something within me come alive. This fever, igniting, under my sizzling flesh. It filled my senses, rushing my veins like growling ecstasy. I ached with a knowledge I couldn’t grasp into words. But I can comprehend it vibrating in my bones. It is what whispers to me now as I drive my axe forward, striking soft pebbled scales in a frantic blow for survival. That consuming molten honey humming in my muscles, chanting ‘kin of my kin, blood of my blood’ , while massive sharp teeth snap and snarl at circling soldiers. My heart constricts, knowing