by GARY DARBY
He turns and moments later, Wind Glory is winging back over the barn in the direction of Draconton, taking Helmar to his roasted venison supper. Not to mention that he’ll be at the same table as the lovely and charming Cara Dracon.
I let out a long sigh. Venison, bread with honey butter, a down bed and comforter to match. A far cry from what I eat and sleep on. I admit, sometimes I dream about what I could be if I weren't here, if the dragons hadn’t come on that horrid night so many winters ago.
Could I have become a Dragon Knight, or a man at arms for a Dragon Lord? Or, maybe a sailor, or a tailor, or a blacksmith? Perhaps a farmer? I would settle for being the lowest servant in a Great House.
Or, as I watch Wind Glory sky in the distance toward Draconton, I could have been Master Boren’s novice and had the wonderful and giddy pleasure of being in the presence of his only daughter.
Could I —
No, I couldn’t.
What other job can you do when one arm and a leg are scarred from dragon fire, and barely useful? In my world, that leaves cleaning out the muck from the dragon pens and paddocks as the measure of your worth.
That, and nothing else.
The sun is close to setting, and I’ve just returned my four always-underfoot, annoying, irritating drachen sprogs to their mothers when Malo finds me. He savagely tosses a large straw basket along with a small hunk of cheese and bread wrapped in a dirty cloth at me.
“Here’s last meal,” he grounds out in that wheezing voice of his, “go out in the far meadow, past the Bread Loaf rocks. Helmar says he saw a patch of sugar grass on the far edge that the dragons haven’t found. Fill that up and give a portion to all the birthers.”
He pauses, wags a finger at me, and then coughs out, “Give a double portion to the golden.”
“Now?” I stammer. “It’ll be dark by the time I get to the meadow. There could be Nightfall Goblins, or Wood Trolls, or the drogs will — ”
“Be hunting for their supper,” Malo cackles. “So you best be careful that they don’t mistake you for a bony two-legged deer.”
He gives me a hard look. “Just make sure that basket gets filled and the brood dragons get an ample share.”
I can smell the strong barley ale on his breath. As they say, when the master’s away, or, in this case, the master’s novice, the workers will play. He and the cooks have brewed up a fresh batch and undoubtedly from the way Malo wobbles, he’s had more than his share.
I can also see in his eyes that Helmar gave him the order to send me out much earlier in the day, but the ale made him forget about the task, until now. And, it doesn’t matter to him if the drogs or trolls catch me or not. All that matters to him is that he can report to Helmar that he had me go search for the sugar grass.
He turns and over his shoulder calls out, “I’ll check on you later.”
I scrunch up my face in a mixture of anger and fear, mostly fear, as Malo plods away. I hate going beyond the paddocks and barn boundaries at night when we’re in the high meadows. It’s a perilous business. Not only is that when the drogs patrol, but there are other, hungry creatures that roam the forest, looking for a quick meal.
Like me.
I sigh, knowing I have no choice, pick up the basket, and make for the side door. As I open the creaky door, I’m surprised to find Malo standing just a short distance away. Hearing the door’s squeak, Malo turns and gestures toward the paddock walkway that leads to the meadows. “Drogs,” he mutters, “and would you look at what they’ve got.”
A whole phalanx of warty, thick-bodied drogs are coming up the pathway. What they’re herding causes my mouth to drop. Two lines of the gray-colored foul creatures are using their cruelly barbed dragon lances to prod an old emerald dragon up the slight incline.
“Isn’t that something?” Malo snorts. “Don’t see greens very often, they usually keep to the deep forest. But from the looks of that one, it wouldn’t have taken much for the drogs to capture it.”
I nod in agreement. Supposedly, no one captures green dragons. Nor do you find them on a dragon farm. That’s why it is so surprising to see this one being driven up the paddock lane by the drog guards.
It’s slow going for the old one, even with the brutes using their lances on almost every part of its body. Malo chortles as he watches the old one limp closer. “I don’t think Master Boren will have to cull an oldster from the herd to whet the drogs’ appetite, after all. That one will fill their bellies for a fortnight at least.”
I wrinkle my nose at his comment. Dragons are nasty creatures, but drogs are just as bad. They’re brutish, filthy beasts and for some reason, I’m extremely uncomfortable when they’re around. Sometimes, I feel like they’re sizing me up for one of their cooking pots, so I keep my distance whenever I can.
It’s apparent where the drogs are taking the emerald dragon — to their nearby encampment of scummy mud-and-stick huts. And there’s no guessing as to why. Drogs relish dragon flesh when they can get it, which isn’t often enough to suit their cravings.
As they come closer, I can see that this dragon has turned very, very old. Three of his four top carapace horns are broken and missing. Most of his once thick scales are worn and battered, some are missing, and several are barely hanging on by a scrap of dragon hide.
One eye is entirely white, and a thick, yellow goo seeps from his other sunken eye socket. He limps on two of his four legs, and the long, spiked talons that once jutted from his hoofs are now mere stubs.
He can barely lift his head, and his long, sinewy tail drags behind, slithering from side to side in the dirt. Occasionally one of the two broken tail spikes, once formidable weapons that could rip a man wide open with one swipe, snags on a grass clump until it springs loose.
He once was a forest giant, feared for his fire, fangs, claws, and monstrous tail. Now, he’s so feeble that he would have been an easy catch for the drogs. He painstakingly plods ahead, his head lowered to the ground, the fire and fight gone out of him as if he knows his grisly fate.
Nevertheless, every few steps or so, he lifts his head and peers around. The scrutiny from his one good eye and the way he acts make me think he’s desperately searching for something. But what could a green dragon possibly be looking for on a dragon farm? I shake my head to myself as my thoughts don’t make any sense at all. As if seeing an emerald dragon here makes any sense, either.
“Would you look at that,” Malo breathes out.
I turn to where he’s staring. From the paddocks lining the rutted road, I can see that the other dragons have come to the railing to watch the ancient one approach. As he begins to pass, each dragon slowly lowers its muzzle as if in homage to the old green dragon.
Even Wind Boomer.
The emerald gets halfway up the trail before he stops. The drogs don’t waste a moment before each plunges a Proga lance into his scabby skin. He doesn’t flinch, nor does he move. Instead, he raises his head as high as it can go.
For a moment, he holds it up, proud and composed, as though once again he’s a forest monarch. Then he lowers his grizzled snout towards the other dragons on each side of the path as if he were giving them a small head bow.
I can’t help but think that he is acknowledging the respect that the other dragons have shown him. But, of course, that’s ridiculous, dragons are dragons; that’s all they are, and nothing more.
The old one raises his head, swivels it around as if he’s once again trying to spot what it is that he’s looking for before he drops his once proud head and renews his plodding pace.
Dragons aren’t immortal as some people believe, but they do live for hundreds of seasons. This one could have been walking the forest when the first Lord Lorell founded Draconstead almost ten generations ago.
I’ve seen a dragon be perfectly healthy one day and within a week be dead from old age. It’s as though they live life fully, and when it’s their time to pass on, they just die.
He reaches the incline’s top, and for some reason
stops. He raises his head as high as it can go and turns it in all directions. Again, I have the feeling that the old one is urgently searching, trying to delay the inevitable until he finds what he seeks.
Then his one healthy eye turns on me. I’ve never actually stared deep into a dragon’s eye before. I haven’t ever wanted to, but now I find that I can’t turn my eyes away from his. For just an instant, I get the overwhelming feeling that I’ve seen him before and more so, that I know him and that somehow he knows me.
But that too is ridiculous, and I shake my head hard to rid myself of such a foolish notion. Then, something even more absurd happens. I have this almost overpowering desire to stop the drogs. That what they’re doing is wrong and should not happen to this dragon. I can’t help myself, and I take several steps toward the old green.
The drog pack is furious that they can’t make the dragon move, no matter how much they thrust their spears and Proga lances into its sides. They yammer and bellow, dancing around the green while continuously plunging their lances into him. I hadn’t noticed before, but Sorg, the Drog Master, is with this pack.
Sorg is more than mean and nasty; he’s pitiless and bloodthirsty. I’ve seen him lop off the head of one of his own comrades just because the brute didn’t carry out an order fast enough.
Did I mention that they’re cannibals too?
Sorg charges around the dragon’s tail and I don’t see him in time. His meaty, beefy paw of a hand catches me just behind the ear. The blow is so vicious and hard that it sends me flying into a nearby mud puddle.
As I sputter in the slop, I hear a cackling laugh from Malo and then the barn door slamming. Malo is mean, but he’s no fool; he snickered all the way into the barn scurrying out of Sorg’s way and to protection.
Sorg stands over me, shaking his clawed fist in my face. His bulbous, pox-filled face, is now puffy and dark red, and his flabby neck jowls jiggle and bounce as he yells, “You, boy, stay away from drog meat. Or, next time I use something else on you, eh?”
His “something else” just might be the barbed end of the overly long spear he’s holding. Supposedly, drogs have never killed one of us; that would break one the Forbidden Laws of the Great Houses and bring down the king’s justice on him. Meaning, he would lose his head to the executioner’s blade.
But there are whispers and rumors that they’ve gotten away with it more than once. I certainly don’t want to be the twice so I numbly nod and stay put. I make sure that my eyes don’t meet Sorg’s; he’d take that as a challenge and forget about the King’s Law.
If I was a Dragon Knight, I might have picked a fight with the whole lot. But I’m just Hooper and picking a fight with an armed, mad, and hungry drog mob, ravenous for dragon meat, is not something I want to do. Ever.
I hear a loud yell from the drogs and out of the corner of my eye, I see them scattering in complete disorder. Sorg is still towering over me, and he doesn’t see the green change from just plodding along into a rampaging beast that’s charging straight at him.
Something in my wide eyes must have warned him because at the last moment Sorg turns, but he’s not quick enough. The oldster catches him with a wicked swipe of his massive head that sends Sorg sailing through the air. He hits the ground with a kind of squishy thud and rolls up against the nearest paddock fence, belly down.
I feel warm, heavy breathing and turn my head. I’m face to face with the old green. There’s not a hand’s width between us. They say that just before you die your life flashes before you. It’s not true. I knew I was going to die right then, but my life didn’t flash before my eyes. The only thing I saw was this enormous emerald dragon staring straight into my eyes.
And not just any dragon. This wasn’t a Draconstead dragon, bred and trained to serve the Drachen Menschen. This was a wild dragon, fierce, proud, and untrainable. And, I’m sure, the killer of many Drachs in his time.
He didn’t blink, and I didn’t blink. I was too scared to blink. My eyes were so wide that I thought that my eyeballs would roll out of my head, down my cheeks, and plop into the mud.
But then, very gently, the old dragon put his muzzle in my lap. He closed his eyes and just for an instant, a crystal clear tear hung from the corner of his eye.
The tear slides down his face, but instead of falling from his scales, seems to float through the air until it settles on my tunic, right above my heart. I stare in disbelief until I remember to move and manage to reach up and clutch the jewel in my hand.
Grasped tight in my fingers, shaped in the form of a long, pointed teardrop is a colorless but radiant crystal — a dragon jewel.
The old green lifts his head and once again, our eyes meet for an instant. His expression changes from one of determination to one where he is at peace with himself and with his fate. My eyes are full of wonder and amazement at what has just happened between the two of us. I don’t know what to do, what to say, what to think.
An emerald dragon just gave me a dragon gemstone. What I once considered as foolish folk talk has instead become very real and very personal.
The old one then lifts his head high and for some reason, stares long toward the birthing barn. Then, there’s wild shouting and commotion from the drogs and in moments they’re all over the old dragon, thrusting their lances into his sides, his legs, his neck. Sorg has risen to his feet and in a frenzy bellows at his followers before he begins to pound his fists on the old green’s head.
The dragon gives me one last solemn look and turns away.
I know that expression all too well. It’s the look of one who is about to die.
Thoughts of Golden Wind
Oh, that this time had not come. Oh, that my heart didn’t overflow with anguish and fill my soul with agony’s fiery tempest. My sun, my stars have fallen from the sky. Darkness descends.
What I’ve feared from my birth has started, and it began with death.
The death of one whose heart I knew oh so well and whose heart I will miss with every breath that I take. A noble spirit whose strength lifted me when I was weak, whose faith inspired me to face the horrors to come, and whose joy in living filled me with life’s light.
Honor his name. Honor his memory. Honor his sacrifice.
Now I must be stronger than I’ve ever been and prepare for that for which I was born. The doors begin to open wide to unleash waiting, simmering evil. The time of blessed peace is over, and the thunder of war begins. No people shall be left unscathed. War’s dark wave shall flow across Erdron and this time of creation will be filled with rage and ruin.
There will be those who will desperately seek a safe haven but will find only an instant of calm before the wings of dread pass over. They who think that they have found sanctuary will know but a moment of tranquility before scarlet arrows fill the sky and demons shall be unleashed to ravage the land. The innocent ones will try to flee to the darkest wildlands seeking refuge only to find that even there, terror stalks their every day, their every night.
Like a snake that slinks unseen in the leaves, evil will slither into the mind, heart, and soul.
There will be those who at first merely recognize its manifestation, then they will acknowledge its presence, then they will accept, and then embrace the evil, making it their own.
Few there will be who refuse to give up their hearts to wickedness. Will those few true hearts be enough to face evil’s onslaught? Only the Fates know Destiny’s End.
5
I wipe away the brown mud and water from my face to watch the ancient green plod down the lane. I stay in the sludge until the drogs crest the small incline and fade out of sight, still clutching the jewel tight in my hand against my chest.
I hear the creaking of the barn door opening, and I push my hand, with the gem held tight, inside my tunic, and hunch over as if I’m hurt. A shadow falls across me, and I look up to see Malo grinning at me from ear to ear.
“You’re lucky to be alive,” he hoots, “ol’ Sorg was in fine form today. I thought he w
as going to land both feet on you. If he had, you’d be looking like one of the cook’s flat cakes with your guts squished all over the ground like someone had stomped on a ripe tomato.”
With another cackle, he bends down and splashes mud and goop on me. “And if you’re trying to wash the dragon smell off, boy, I hate to tell ya, but, you’re going at it the wrong way.”
His face grows hard, and he kicks my bad leg hard. He waves his Proga lance in front of me while stabbing a gnarled finger at my face. “Now out of that slop and back to work. You can clean up, later.”
I quickly roll over and stand, while still clutching the gemstone tight to my chest to make sure that Malo doesn’t notice what I’m holding. He ambles away, and I glance all around to make sure that no one is watching.
I grab the straw basket and in spite of what Malo said, at my best lurching gait, I limp down to the creek. At the stream, a series of stepping-stones form a natural stone dam that backs up a small pool of water.
I toss the basket across the brook to the other bank and then I literally throw myself into the pond. I splash and splutter from the water’s icy cold feel, but in a few seconds, most of the dirt and stink are gone.
Making sure that no one can see, I open my hand to stare at the jewel. I run my fingertips across its glistening surface. Once, Lady Lorell visited Draconstead, and the wind blew her silken scarf off her head. When I fetched it for her, it was as if the silk caressed my fingers, smooth and utterly soft.
That’s how the jewel felt, silky, and cool to the touch.
It’s barely bigger than my thumb and tapered on one end while the other end widens out like a tulip bulb. I thought it would be heavy to hold, but it’s light, almost feathery, and so perfectly balanced that it sits upright in my palm.
I’m surprised that it doesn’t sparkle. Instead, it’s as if it soaks up the sunlight until there’s a blazing clear radiance that fills the crystal from one end to the other. I suck in a breath as inside the jewel’s center, I see the barest of movements. It’s a tiny, closed plant that appears to be a water frond that sometimes edge the creeks and streams in the meadows.
