They’re coming for me now, their nasty little flying machines screeching towards me. How loud they are. How brash. How like the humans to build such things. How I shudder at the indignity of it all. But I will go through with it. I must. There is nothing else I can do. I am the last dragon and the Earth is no place for my kind now. Perhaps it never was.

I beat my wings, holding my position. My power is still awesome. I feel my strength as my wings whup! whup! through the air. The air is cold here, being so high. The sunlight, hard and brittle, warms my back. For all their speed, their fighters take an eternity to come and, in the stillness of the boundless sky that surrounds me, I remember my long, long life.

Kuomo is there. We are young and the world is ours. Wild and full of joy we play and hunt among the beauties of this glorious world. We wrestle and race across the endless plains and, in the moonlit mountains, we sit with the others and join the discussion and debate, the stories and the songs. The old ones, Gieron and Perras who had lived in darker times, share their knowledge and their wisdom and I sit quietly in the circle, feeling the great privilege of being there, at that time, in that company.

A long, long time ago.

"This is Red Leader to Big Momma. Red Leader to Big Momma. I have radar contact bearing zero one niner. No visual yet. I’m changing course to intercept."

"Copy that Red Leader."

No visual yet. How strangely they speak. I can see them as clearly as their radar sees me. Six little gnats hanging in the haze, their radars flashing at me and their radio chatter buzzing in my head. What would old Gieron have made of today’s humans, I wonder. He had always been so amused and delighted by them when they were young. He liked to take me up to his eyrie and show me them working their fields down in the valleys. "Such clever little creatures!" he’d say, snorting in delight at some new little antic or other. He had a favourite group that he looked after, chasing away the bears and wolves that might have threatened them. I remember the day they built their first water mill. It was a crude and simple thing and it fell apart within the year, but Gieron was so proud of them. "You just watch," he told Perras. "They’ll have another one built before the season’s out—and it will be better than the last one." And he was right. They did and it was. The humans have always been able to learn these mechanical things so quickly. Gieron would be so delighted with these little flying machines. He’d love the way they have adapted the principles of fluid dynamics to give themselves the power of flight. From the water mill to the jet aircraft. How good they are with the material things. Better than they were with magic.

It took them so long to learn. We used to joke about it. Kuomo and I used to sniff out their silly little wizards and chase them about. Sometimes we’d break up their workshops, smashing their pots and spilling their horrid potions. The wizards would wave their arms and shout and, in the end, run and hide. We knew they wanted power over us and that’s why we teased them so but we never meant them harm and they were so far off the track with their alchemy and their eyes of newts that they were more pathetic than sinister. Gieron said they were too rooted in the material world ever to become good magicians but Perras knew better. He always said that the humans should not be treated so indulgently, that we should take them more seriously.

I remember a summer night in the mountains as we sat talking in the ring. One of us had spoken of how our race was thriving in those peaceful, bountiful times. Another, perhaps it was young Ferrios, said; "Aye but look at the humans, they swarm across the Earth like flies on a cowpat!" A few of us laughed at this but Perras rose on his haunches and glowered at the ring of dragons. Without saying a word, he turned away and breathed out a mighty blast of fire at a nearby tree. We all flinched at the suddenness of it as the tree burst into flame. I remember glancing round at the others to see what they had made of it. I saw amazement shining from wide eyes and reflected flame sparkling on brazen scales. No-one spoke as the tree crackled and roared , lighting up the whole mountainside. Great spirals of flame flew up into the black night. Thousands of tiny sparks swirled among the flames, flying up and away, glowing brightly for brief moments before disappearing into the blackness.

"What do you see?" asked Perras. Nobody answered him but we all watched mesmerised as the tree burned.

"We are the tree," Perras said. "We blaze with power and vigour. We light up the world!" Still no-one spoke but I saw some of the older dragons nodding their heads as though they could see where this was leading. "Observe the sparks," said Perras. "How many there are. How brightly they shine. How soon they die. Fed by the blaze, they live such hot, short lives. We are the tree and the humans…" He paused to look around at us. The flames reflected in his scales made it look like his own body was on fire. "…the humans are our sparks." Suddenly he shouted "And when we die…" and he smashed his mighty tail into the blazing tree, shattering and obliterating it. A giant cloud of flame and sparks exploded from it and rose into the air. I watched it rise, red and golden and, for a few seconds, it was huge and beautiful. Then the sparks died, one by one, and soon all was darkness and silence.

"I see it Red Leader. Straight ahead."

"Copy that Red Fiver. Holy shit! What in God’s name is that?"

I almost laugh at their consternation but I feel their targeting radars come on, the little microwave pulses rattling off my body, telling their computers where to find me. Such clever little creatures! Kuomo was so bitter and angry about them but I don’t feel anything but admiration and pity. I think of Kuomo one last time. He is in his cave, gnarled and old. I remember him sick and dying. Kuomo, who fought and killed the last magician, fading like any mortal thing must.

The war had been long and bitter and the casualties had been horrific. Such power should never have been in the hands of such creatures but the humans were frightening in their persistence. Perras said it is because they don’t live long enough to learn from their mistakes so each new generation must make the same ones over and over forever. When the humans learned magic, Perras went out into the desert and howled at the moon for weeks without pause.

They used it to gain power over other humans. Their greed and their spite were boundless and many of us wept to see how they abused their strength. When they turned their new powers on us, they discovered there were forces in the world stronger than they could ever imagine. Yet, instead of humbling them, the discovery seemed to enrage them. They worked harder, they delved deeper into the great secrets and, in the end, they came at last to confront us armed with magic so dark and so terrible that we trembled in fear at what they might do.

The old ones led the defence but it was the young ones who died first. Ferrios, was their very first victim. A group of grey-robed magicians faced him one cold morning, found him asleep in his lair. They had an army of grim-faced men behind them but all the power they needed was in the words and gestures they had learned to use. Ferrios, whose scales were still bright and golden, shone like the sun as he rose to face them. The humans cannot see such things but the air around him was filled with the rainbow splendour of his blazing aura. He watched them with interest and then with alarm as the magicians worked their spells. Dark, unwholesome tendrils of power snaked out of them from that other place and ran through the ether like cracks in glass. Ferrios realised his danger too late. Even as he blasted the humans to cinders, the magic found him and tore into him, eating away his life force, destroying his beautiful soul. Seeing him fall, what remained of the human army sprang upon him and hacked at his lifeless body. In triumph they carried away his battered head, carried also the awful news that the dragons could be beaten and killed.

We fought them for centuries after that. One by one they tracked us down and one by one they killed us. They were determined and merciless but they paid an awful price for their genocide. In any generation, the humans could train only so many magicians and, of these, only a handful ever learned enough to face a dragon and win. Their short lives counted badly against them. Now that we were alerted to their intentions, we hunted down and destroyed their wizards and witches. Human knowledge is so fragile. They can pass on so little in a lifetime of teaching and, although they have learned to accumulate knowledge in books, books will burn so easily. The humans hung on to their magic by only the slenderest thread. Their magicians were forced to live and work in secret and this great power, that could have brought such a golden age of prosperity and understanding to them, was squandered in their obsessive struggle against us.

Yet we paid the price too. One by one they found us and killed us. One by one, the best and most magnificent of my people were trapped and slaughtered by these little devils. Although we live for millennia, we breed only slowly and, in such times of sorrow and misery, we do not breed at all. Our numbers fell. The bravest and strongest began to go. I remember Perras, mighty Perras, with a roar of rage and frustration, blasting a human city to rubble as the dark tendrils found him and fed on him. He had pursued the greatest of their magicians for almost a year, determined to stamp out all magic and all magicians. Half a human kingdom had been lain waste as the magician and his helpers had fled from place to place, fighting for their lives. The death of Gieron, his lifelong friend, had perhaps unhinged Perras. In the end, he had been careless, had given the humans time to weave the spells that undid him.

With Perras and Gieron gone, the rest of us were desolate. We almost gave up the fight and for many decades the humans hunted us down and killed us off. In the end, there were only a handful left. Sharill, Derrog, Sammor, myself and, of course, Kuomo. We gathered together in the cold, high mountains of the East and brooded on the extinction of our race. I had thought our spirit was completely broken and that all we could do now was wait for the humans to find us and put a final end to their dreadful pogrom. Then Kuomo rose up and spoke to us.

In the long years of our persecution, we had grown older and stronger. I looked on my playmate of a thousand years and saw for the first time the great and powerful dragon he had become; full-grown and at the peak of his powers. I forget his words—stirring, exciting words, full of anger and strength—but I will never forget his beauty as he spread his great wings against the night and vowed to destroy every last magician or die in the attempt.

The next day we swooped down on them from our mountain tops and devastated their cities. Kuomo, shining with might and purpose, would sniff the air and turn his mighty head to where he could smell another human wizard. Then, like angels of death, we would descend on their towns, breathing fire and screaming our fury. No-one escaped. The innocent died along with the guilty. The merest scent of magic and we raised whole cities to the ground. If we were to die for it, no book of the magic arts would survive, no practitioner would hand on his skills, nothing of this awful craft would last beyond this point in time.

The world is big. Our cruel labours lasted all that year and all the next. From time to time, we encountered men who would stand against us. Some of them powerful adepts who used their skills to hide from us or to fight against us. Sammor was killed the day we burned a nest of magicians who had hidden on a tiny Mediterranean island. Sharril went six months later when the humans mounted a desperate counter-attack. But, by the end of the second year, the end was in sight. We had not sniffed out a single magician, nor a single book of lore for over three months. The humans we caught and tortured told us the magicians they knew of were all dead. Yet we still heard rumours of a powerful wizard who lived alone and hoarded his magic, one who would avenge the humans. For the three of us, the suggestion of one such creature still alive was torment and it drove us on and on to find and destroy it.

"Red Leader to Big Momma. The target is acquired. We are go for final approach."

"Big Momma to Red Leader, you are clear to proceed. Engage the target at your discretion."

"And make sure you keep those cameras pointing right at it, you hear?"

"That you Professor Liebowitz?"

"I’m watching every move you make, Captain."

"How do you like these pictures, Professor?"

They are broadcasting images of me, shot from cameras mounted on the fighters. I see myself as a distant speck, dark against the bright sky. Even at full magnification they see me only as a vague shape. Their banter is disturbing. I think it is because they lack the intelligence ever fully to understand what is going on that they make light of things all the time. Or maybe it is that they lack perspective. Something stunts their appreciation of the significance of their actions and makes them so strange and unsettling.

We found the last magician in a lonely tower in the far north. He had no armies, no acolytes, just a couple of minor demons to serve him. We settled on peaks near the tower and considered how to attack. It was a bleak place of black granite and white snow. A cold river ran past the tower’s base and a few struggling shrubs clung to the rock on its banks. I could see the magic in the tower as clearly as I saw the lichen on its sides. The power seethed and writhed, it glowed within and its sickly light came right through the thick stone walls. We all knew this battle, whatever the outcome, would be the end of our struggle and, in my weariness, I welcomed whatever fate would bring.

Kuomo approached the tower and called out a challenge. In an instant, power lashed out at him, spitting and crackling and tossed him aside like a leaf in the wind. Without even waiting to see where he fell, I attacked, blasting the tower with as much force as I could. Rock split and walls crumbled. I saw Derrog swoop past me to deliver a shattering blow with her tail that rocked the tower on its foundations, stones tumbling down from its turrets. I blasted it again. White hot rock ran and oozed and a whole side of the tower began to crumble and slide, exposing the little chambers within. The focus of the power that faced us was clear and from it, dark fractures emanated, corrupting the very structure of the universe around us. Derrog, whirling past me, dived straight for the centre, gouts of flame streaking ahead of her but she was caught and twisted in the fracturing space she had entered. Amazed, I saw her disintegrate before my eyes.

Then I saw the magician. He was standing in an exposed room, watching me as I turned to destroy him. His demons were cowering behind him and the wooden floor he stood on was sustained only by his own, dreadful power. My flame erupted towards him, like the concentrated hatred it was but he moved his hands and made some spell that protected him, even as the very walls and floors around him were utterly destroyed. Furious, I drew back my head for another attack. Calmly, he spoke the words of command that would destroy me.

And then Kuomo appeared, streaking through the air like a bird of prey, straight for the magician. It was a suicidal attack, not even a dragon could hit the tower at that speed and survive. I turned to shout, to tell him to stop and that’s when the magician saw him too. For a second I saw the little man gape at the approaching dragon and realise it was all over and then Kuomo smashed into him and through him and into the remains of the tower. Blocks of stone erupted into the air in a tremendous explosion. My friend’s momentum carried him straight through the massive walls as though they were made of straw bales, not blocks of granite and he came to rest in a pile of rubble as the whole edifice collapsed around him. I rushed to his side, astonished to find him still alive, and pulled him free of the wreckage. Of the magician, there was no trace. I saw his demons, huddled and gibbering together and drew back my lips in a snarl. In terror, they twisted themselves out of this plane and escaped to their own domain.

With care and attention, Kuomo recovered enough in the end to take sustenance and even to drag his damaged body about within the confines of the quiet cave I took him to. He never managed to fly again, his wings being mangled beyond repair and, although his mind seemed just as good as ever, it was a struggle for him to speak and the exertion of talking tired him quickly. Nevertheless, Kuomo lived on like this for another seven hundred years, so resilient is our race.

When he died, I did not mourn—I had mourned the passing of his glory many centuries ago—but I knew what I had to do. Ever since our war with the humans had begun, we had not bred. There were no others of my kind left. I was the last dragon and it was just as Perras had explained so long ago, the humans had flourished as we had declined. Now they were so thick on the Earth they could barely feed themselves.

So I have come here, to this place. It was hardly any trouble to rouse them to pursue me with their noisy little machines—a burnt a town here, a crushed village there. I broke some of their fighting machines and, in a panic, they launched others to try to stop me. It is time to smash the tree and put out the fire that feeds this swarm of sparks.

Missiles leave their launchers and accelerate ahead of the planes, seeking me with laser beams shining from the fighters. They move faster than anything the humans can build to evade them but they are designed to chase their own fighting machines, not dragons and it is so easy for me to move aside and let them streak past. I hear them shouting into their radios. I can sense their fear grow as they realise their weapons will not work. For a while, I toy with them, dodging their missiles, burning up their little machines but there is no pleasure in it. Just bitterness. In the end, this is not why I am here in the high, cold air.

I take a deep breath and relax. For a moment, I look down at the Earth below me. There are forested mountains spread out there and a crenellated shoreline. The sea is vast and blue as it stretches to the far horizon and I savour this, my last experience of beauty. The human machines are turning clumsily to face me again. A puff of smoke tells me that one has launched another missile. Then the others launch theirs. I turn away to watch the blue horizon and wait for the end.