The kobalin king stood on a frozen outcrop in the northern mountainous region called the North Ridge. He scanned the edge of the frozen tree line at the base of the mountain, unaffected by the crystalline air. His dark, tarnished armour was stained from battle, and his eight-horned helmet, which he never removed, became the fierce visage of the lord of monsters, known by all, and feared by all.

   The sheer, icey walls of the North Ridge of Noominia mocked even the most skilled elven climber. Near the peaks, the wind licked the sharp outcrops of icy rocks. The sky bled sheets of sharp snow across the landscape. Dark gray clouds scraped slowly and heavily overhead like floating mountains, and the sun never seemed to slice through the gloom. Although the cold air helped to cover the stench with its frosty touch, plumes of sulfuric smoke rose from the ground, stifling each breath.

   In the belly of the mountain, the kobalin hoards chipped away at the rock, forming catacombs of long tunnels, marked by nodes of yawning caves. They dug deeper and deeper into the rock, goaded on by their masters, who whipped them when they slacked. Deep within the mountain squirmed an infestation of vile monsters and unnatural beasts unleashed by the kobalins and their shadow wizard king.

   The kobalins formed a patchwork army of dark marauders whose ultimate goal was hidden from all but the kobalin king, the lone compelling force in a hive of mindless drones. And one thing they surely did not wonder, if they could have wondered at all, was about the purpose of digging deeper into the bottom of the North Ridge mountains than they had ever done before.

   How could they know what the kobalin king desired? They could never have unraveled his plan to harness the power of a shadow dragon—a beast of myth which was said to devour the light of the fairies. The kobalin king conspired to awaken a shadow dragon, a creature of such keen darkness only a unicorn could vanquish its overwhelming dread.

   The kobalins could not understand these ideas, but they thrived on swarming the fairy folk of Noominia. They enjoyed attacking and killing them, and burning their forests. Even digging in the darkness of the mountain was a source of frenzied power for kobalins. None of them knew where they aimed and none of them cared, as long as they left destruction in their path.

   Untold leagues beneath the feet of the kobalin king, the shadow dragon slept in the darkest, furthest pit of the mountain, waiting, growing, hibernating in a curled and twisted knot.

   Away from the elemental onslaught of the winter wind, a few steps inside a chamber clawed from the mountain, several kobalins tended to a stable of livestock. The kobalins were not known for their taste in food, or in anything else for that matter. They were crude monsters who craved raw and bloody meat. When they didn’t find fairies or elves to eat, kobalins survived on boofaloos—large, tame creatures used primarily as a source of food, and sometimes as beasts of burden.

   Further within the grotto, the cave fortress opened to reveal the throne of the kobalin king, built of a shock of bones, tusks and spikes—an unspoken threat to those who would dare move against him.

   Just behind the throne, in a small antichamber, the Atriumbravis—the lost magic book—hovered in the open air, held there by unseen forces. An invisible magic protected the book from those who would dare to steal it from the kobalin king. Whoever controlled the book could wield its power. The Atriumbravis gave the kobalin king the power to crush the fairy queen, and her descendants. He would eliminate the lineage of the fairies, including the one to come, the name in the whispers—the unicorn princess.

   The kobalin king watched the fog weave through the trees, just beyond the ice bridge, when suddenly a platoon of kobalin soldiers dripped from the edge of the forest like a tear of blood. Their terrible screaming echoed through the hills as they scrambled toward the mountain, toward the safety of their misty mountain lair.

   Soon, the kobalin king spied through the fog several flying warriors known as noc owls, diving and attacking his troops from above. The noc owls organized their attacks from the air, making it difficult for the kobalins to defend, and driving them to retreat. At the forest’s edge, the noc owls perched in the trees for a moment, then withdrew from the icy winds, back to the safety of the forest.

   The commander of the kobalin troops headed the retreat across the ice bridge— a narrow passage of ice and rock, deadly steep on both sides, connecting the lower pass to the fortress gate.

   As the retreating kobalins approached the gate, the kobalin king—twice the height of the average kobalin—stood blocking their passage. The commander stopped and came to attention, and the others followed suit. The kobalin king stepped forward slowly, a lion among gazelles, a slow, deep growl in his chest.

The commander, bloodied and wounded, dropped to one knee.

   “We have failed you, master. We ask for your leniency, your mer—”

   The kobalin king lifted him from the ground with one hand, as though he were a doll. He noticed the commander’s crest pinned to his tunic and ripped it off. Then the kobalin king held the ex-commander high in the air for the rest of them to see.

   “P-please m-maste-ahhhh!” the ex-commander croaked.

   The kobalin king threw him off the ice bridge without a thought. The fall was so far and long, the echo of his scream trailed until it faded to nothing.

   The others all dropped to their knees, quaking with fear. The kobalin king picked up the next in line, roughly pinning the commander’s crest to his tunic.

   “Next time, don’t fail,” the kobalin king said, then he turned back toward the gate of his mountain fortress and entered.

   Once the king was inside, the rest of the kobalin troops slipped and tripped, clambering toward the safety of the fortress.