A Shadow Dark as Noon

With one week until autumnfeast, we were all working hard. The children were picking the last of the ripe berries in the small fields we'd managed to cultivate, or fishing in our streams. The adults were out, in foraging and hunting parties off in the forest, where every minute was filled with danger, even for the strongest of dragons. Most of them went despite the danger, because the woods were where the food was. In town, us apprentices were occupied in our various workshops, laboring double time to get the town prepped for an entire day of feasting and fun.
That was when the shadow came. At first I didn't notice it; I was inside, patching up yet another quilt. Sewing, weaving, quilting - they were some of the most important jobs in town. Skilled and dexterous as dragons were, clothworking was never on of their strengths. But Icehelm is cold. Frigid cold. There's not much temperature variation in the sky, but for some reason or another, our little village can get so freezing in the winter that even dragons will drop dead of frostbite. But Icehelm also where the metal veins are, so we stay, and the merchant flights that pass through reward us handsomly for the resources we mine. Still, the cold makes fabric blankets and insulators some of our most important resources.
That's where I am: bent double over a quilt as I sew the finishing touches. This one is big, and heavy. Large enough for a draconic warrior. For the most part, the quilts are used as insulation, but who knows? Everyone loves a good blanket, right?
Anyway, that's when the screams started. And then the roars.
I won't bother to fully explain what sort of chaos I saw when the other apprentices and I dashed outside. Suffice it to say that sky had been blotted out by a huge black cloud, and panicked people dashed through the streets. Some shouted to run, others called 'to arms!', and others still cried out that we needed to fortify our resources; we couldn't afford to lose our storages this close to winter.
I wasn't entirely sure why the dark cloud was so impactful - until I realized it wasn't the only thing they were fleeing from. And because a haze and cough momentarily took me, it wasn't until he was much too close that I saw him.
The specter.
Six feet tall - not large compared to a dragon, but that didn't stop the dragons from flying scared - he was made of a group of shadows coalesced in the shape of a man - aside from the red rings that served as eyes shining out in the dark of noon. He strolled casually, but seemed to be moving at a pace faster than a run, and anyone he touched lost color in either skin or scales and collapsed. They breathed shallowly, but looked nearly dead, as if on the Reaper's door.
Of course, there was also the fire behind him. All he had to do was snap his fingers and the sparks would surge. Already there was a thick plume of smoke streaming from the forest, some of the buildings at the edge of town, and the outpost at the mines. Where the cloud did not cover the sun, the smoke did. I stood frozen in fear as the specter drew closer, mind racing as I wondered if I, too, would become lifeless and pale, when he suddenly turned. He was heading in a new direction, as if he'd heard something and was following the sound. Where was he going? Past the buildings, almost out of town, like he was walking straight for...
The berry fields.
Thomas!
My Bond couldn't help me now; Rafe was an apprentice hunter in the forests. So I was forced to sprint after the demonic being. If I could beat him to the fields, find my little brother...
I took a turn, dashing through the sidestreets. Just a little farther, and the fields would be in sight...
It was then that I felt it. A creeping at the back of my neck; first icy chills, then a hot breath. The noon got even darker as I skidded to an alley's dead end. Impossible. I'd grown up here; I knew this town like the back of my hand!
'Hello, Anya.'
Unable to stop myself, I slowly turned to face the voice that sounded like smoke. Those red eyes. What I swear was the flash of a smile. Light from behind, but nothing in front of my but shadows. The specter seemed so solid...but the shadows that stretched unnaturally from his feet to the wall behind me weren't. They writhed and twisted. And those unblinking eyes watched me so intensely that I felt my throat constricting, as if a cold, ghostly hand was squeezing my neck tigher and tighter...
"What...." I croaked, voice raw. "What are you?" Blessedly, the cloud broke just a little, and a ray of light broke through. The specter took a step back, seeming offset for a brief moment before he turned back to me. I could swear he was smiling, but my feet seemed frozen to the ground.
'Your future, Anya. Short as it is.'
The words were less words and more a prickle of ice that stabbed across my chest with awful reality. The specter cocked his head.
'Did you really think that you could beat me to the little ones?'

Grand Charter...
We are under attack. Five villages in two weeks. The council fears we will not last the winter. We don't know who the specter is, where he comes from, or why he seems so bent on attacking us, but we need help.
Please.

It was in answer to this plea that the 57th expedition was dispatched to find and exterminate the terrible specter...

It hadn't been twenty years after the official establishment of the chartership when the small, independet villages on the outskirts of the united sky found themselves under attack. A specter, a shadow, and a cloud.

There wasn't much known of him. But here's the 'facts':

• His shadow was unnaturally long and never played by the rules - and it was always there, even at night.
• His eyes were red rings that glowed - especially when he spoke.
• His voice was described from several witnesses as 'melodious', 'gravelley', 'smoky', 'clear', and 'cold'.
• He never ran, but moved as fast as a dragonet bounds.
• He seemed to target individuals and hunt them down, spreading chaos as he did so.
• He never came at night, but a cloud at around noon heralded his arrival.
• Supposedly, he was repelled by sweetspice, but not official way to ward him off was ever discovered.
• His touch was devastating: people lost energy and color in scales and skin, and items crumbled to ash.
• He could summon (?) fire.
  

Out of the dozen villages he attacked, five were wiped out entirely - taking with them the invaluable metal veins that ran through their clouds, and with them the only remaining sources of metal in the sky. Of the five, the largest was Icehelm, and although charters have managed to recover some of their artifacts, the village itself and the surrounding clouds were destroyed.

Since then, tales of the specter have been embellished on and incorporated in many a spooky story told by casual friends and professional storytellers alike. The accounts of him are as scrambled and confusing as the fairy tales, which is part of what makes him so mysterious - and so terrifying. Was he ever real?

Since the attacks, no believable encounters with the specter have been reported. Many dismiss it as a fluke - unfortunate string of events, like wildfires. Many of the people in the surviving towns could've been delirious with smoke-sickness, and embellished accounts of outskirt animals they saw in the chaos. And the survivors of the villages that were destroyed were either smokesick or children.

Regardless, it's a fun historical mystery that many scholars love to discuss. And it's one we'll likely never know the answer to.