Drakalops

Drakalops are lizard-like creatures of the northern steppe, sometimes called desert wind spirits, prized above all for two traits: astonishing speed across open ground and scales that almost nothing can pierce. A drakalops can cover in moments the distance a rider would spend half a day walking, and steel breaks against its hide rather than cutting it. In the badlands of Noxus and the arid reaches toward Shurima, these beasts are among the few mounts capable of carrying a warrior straight into a hail of arrows and out the other side. The best-known drakalops is Skaarl, the steed of the yordle warrior Kled. Her scales are dark metal shot through with gold, and a steel sword has been seen to shatter against her leg. Cowardly but fiercely loyal, she will bolt from something as small as a hooked grouse, yet she raises her great ears like bronze fans to shield her rider when crossbow bolts come flying. Kled berates her endlessly as a coward and a treasonous lizard, but the two are inseparable, patrolling the grasslands he has declared his own and charging anyone he judges a trespasser. Skaarl's contradictory nature was on full display at the First Battle of Drugne, the earliest recorded appearance of Kled. When he was thrown from the saddle in the thick of the fighting, his drakalops fled the field. Yet as the desperate Noxian warhost rallied to Kled's reckless courage, the beast returned, crashing into the barbarians' rearguard and clawing its way through to free its master. With his mount beneath him once more, Kled turned the melee, and word of the stand reached the Immortal Bastion in time for reinforcements to secure the foothold. Wherever Kled rides, he claims new land as his own, and the stories of his snarling steed have spread through countless Noxian warhosts. Tough, swift, and all but impervious to blade and bolt, the drakalops endures as one of the steppe's most formidable creatures and its most improbable war mount.