by Jill Cooper
Could it really be?
“Is it….” I couldn’t bring myself to ask.
Sebastian nodded. “It’s what you fear. Dragon.”
My skin quaked in a way I didn’t think was even possible. A dragon? How could we begin to think we could out run, out fight, or escape a mighty dragon if it wanted to sink its mighty claws into us? Or roast our flesh until our skin charred and roasted like a gooey marshmallow?
As her movements cast a shadow along the cliffs, Sebastian took my hand. We jumped from rocky cliff to cliff until we were on solid ground. We ran across the rocky terrain and jumped down into a valley with twisted rock above us for cover. I gripped the edges of the rock and peered up at the form of the dragon as she stomped forward.
Never in my days did I imagine I’d see something so big. The expanse of her wings cast darkness on us as if she blocked out the sun. Her hide was covered in thick, black scales, and her head was angular with strands of spikes coming off the top. Each individual paw was the size of a horse led wagon. They sunk into the ground, her claws churning the rocks as if they were a hoe and the Earth was nothing more than mud.
Her tail slashed just above the rocks hiding us from view. Instinctively, I ducked down and hid, quivering. I couldn’t breathe as Sebastian lay his hands on my shoulders to still my quaking.
The dragon turned her head, looking for something. At the very least, she was on patrol. Her eyes formed with rolling mist inside of them. I pulled my forehead down low, against the rock, so she wouldn’t see me. Something deep, something primal, in me shook at the notion that this creature, this thing would know me the moment she saw me.
I squeezed my eyes shut and wished for all of this to be part of a bad dream.
“Tarnish?” Sebastian whispered against my ear. “We have to be ready to move when the beast turns the corner. We have to run for the valley and head for the city. Once we’re there, we can regroup. See where the remnant will lead us next.”
Nodding, I lifted my head and gazed back at Sebastian. There was warmth in his brown eyes along with strength and compassion. We both placed our feet onto the rocks, and as the dragon’s tail swished out of view, I grabbed the rocks overhead and used the momentum to swing forward onto the ground.
Sebastian and I both landed already in a full-on sprint. Arms swaying and legs pumping, we charged across the broken and fragmented terrain toward what once must’ve been a towering city. I was a merchant’s daughter, and I had been far and wide, but this far, no one had ever dared to come.
No man’s land, this was the forgotten world. What lived and roamed here other than dragons and masters? Haven was one thing, but now we were getting further into a bleak world I didn’t recognize. I felt so far from home, so far from Momma’s protective embrace.
We drew closer, and my lungs burned for a deep breath of air. Glancing back, I saw the dragon’s snout peeking just past the mountain range as she started her way back on her patrol.
“Don’t look back!” Sebastian ordered. “Just keep running.”
I didn’t have the spit to answer back, and he was right; we’d need every second to make the distance. We lept up onto the rocks, and from there a quick jump down led to an old road. The gray fog swirled and seemed to swallow us up. It wasn’t the cobblestone I was used to, but a black material, overgrown and shattered by grass and trees. It’d provide the cover we needed if the dragon got too close.
As we started our way down, my leg felt like it was on fire. The remnant in my satchel was glowing so bright, I could see it through the thick leather material of my bag. I stopped to pull it out, but the roar of the dragon shattered my confidence and I nearly dropped it. Her scream shook the air, sending the clouds running from her direction as her giant paws rushed toward our location.
With fear, Sebastian gazed back. The dragon charged toward us, her head down low to fit beneath the arc of stone and her wings tucked back to air in her high-spirited run. She picked up speed, a thundering beast as her head splintered trees and dove beneath archways as she went, and I gave a little yelp as I sprinted forward, with Sebastian at my side.
“It knows we’re here! It knows what you carry somehow!” Sebastian yelled at me.
I shook my head, barely able to breathe, and certainly couldn’t talk. The cloth wrapped shard in my hand was glowing brightly, nearly hot. I couldn’t hold it much longer, but there was no time to open my bag, either.
The dragon gained on us, her shadow casting darkness over us. We ran through the withered and broken trees as we reached the city limits. If we could find a building to hide in, maybe she’d give up and go away. I had hope as Sebastian took my arm and steered me left down the hill and toward a series of buildings crumbling off in the distance. They were taller than anything I had ever seen before.
Had man really been allowed to build up high enough to touch the sky?
“That way,” Sebastian said.
As we started our way over, the dragon overtook us with a thunder clap from her wings, and she soared through the air above us and landed to block our exit. Sebastian stumbled as we came to a full stop. He stood in front, as if to protect me, with his arms wide as the dragon took delicate steps backward and to the side, as if she was trying to guess what our next movements would be.
“Run,” Sebastian whispered, “go!”
If he thought I was just going to leave him, he had another thing coming.
The dragon growled, her mouth opening wide, and it turned into a deafening scream. The glass remnant in my hand turned so hot, I gasped, barely able to touch it. I unwrapped the rags around it, and it shone so bright, I could barely stand to look.
The dragon whimpered and backed up. She was afraid of it? Maybe she knew what it was.
It gave me an idea.
I held the shard up over Sebastian’s shoulder high enough for the dragon to see. “Is this what you want?”
The dragon backed up, the tail low onto the ground like an apologetic puppy, but her wings flapped together as if she was afraid. I stepped forward, the shard leading me toward the dragon. She didn’t back away but warned me off with a noise that sounded more like a bellow than a growl.
A whimper. A beg and a promise rolled into one.
“Tarnish, no!” Sebastian screamed, kneeling in the pebbles, his hands positioned so he may spring up at any moment.
“You know this, don’t you? You see what it is.” I got close enough I thought I might touch her. Outstretching my other hand, I could almost touch the dragon’s hide. What was it about me and the shard that calmed this mighty beast?
“That’s it,” I whispered, “don’t be afraid. I’m not here to hurt you.”
She pulled back a step, her mighty paws shattering holes into the blackened pavement. Her head lowered in front of me, and I was able to stroke her snout, ever so gently. So surreal, to touch her thick hide and gaze into her misty eyes, now looking sad above all else. She submitted to me, actually submitted, and I had to wonder why. Was it because of everything Markus had said?
“What are your secrets?” I asked as I stroked her cheek.
The dragon roared and pushed me forward out of nowhere. I backed up, but not fast enough. The dragon snared the cloth of my sleeve in her mouth and flung me wide. As I screamed, I bounced along the ground, lying beside the foundation of a building. The wind was knocked out of me as my body ached, and off in the distance I heard a whining whizzing noise, almost like a bee.
As I rolled up to my knees, Sebastian reached me, clawing and crawling his way through the dirt. He helped me up as the dragon was nearly upon us, but something reared from behind as the dragon charged. It had two wheels, a center light… and a person rode it as if it were a tiny carriage, except there was no horse and steering bars on the top.
The person all dressed in leather, including a cap and goggles, flung a flaming spear at the dragon. The dragon called out in pain and took flight to the sky. I thought she might be circling for another attack, but instead
she seemed to just be going away, back to the domain in which she patrolled when we first found her.
“What luck we’ve had,” Sebastian said, “are you all right?”
I nodded as the person stepped off her vehicle device and headed toward us. I realized it was a female with two long blonde braids as she got closer and slid the goggles off her face. Her long jacket was leather, and the clothes she wore beneath it, I had never seen anything like it before.
“I thought you might be insane when I saw you approach the dragon,” she said, “when I saw you touch it, I knew you were.”
“Well, thanks a lot,” I muttered.
She shrugged. “Turns out, I like insane. Certainly wasn’t going to let it eat you, am I right? Name’s Ella.” She offered me her hand.
Heartedly, I shook it. “The name is… Tarnish Rose. This is Sebastian.”
“Tarnish… funny. Nice to meet you both.” Ella shook my guide's hand, and he nodded his head toward her.
“Thanks for scaring the dragon off.”
“No worries. I do it whenever I want to cross the treacherous pass, but it’s never come down this low before. She must’ve liked the way you smelled.”
I didn’t acknowledge what the dragon had really been after. With the beast gone, the shard in my hand no longer glowed, so I quietly slipped it back inside my bag as we walked over toward Ella’s transport device.
“What is it?” I asked as she grabbed it by its handlebars and started to move it as we walked.
“This?” Ella snorted. “It’s a dirt bike. Haven’t you ever seen one before?”
Sebastian and I both shook our heads.
Ella laughed. “You must be from under a rock, but that’s okay, I like rocks.”
Raising my eyebrow, it suddenly dawned on me Ella might not be playing with a full deck. We were short on friends, so if she was willing to help us, I would go along with whatever she said… for now.
“Gas is scarce, almost gone where I can get to, so I don’t use the bike very much, but it seemed like you guys were in a row and needed my help.”
“We do appreciate it,” Sebastian said, “thank you.”
“Sure, right then. Why don’t you come with me? Home ain’t much, but I have food. You hungry? Thirsty? C’mon, you know you want to say yes.”
“Very,” I said. “Thank you, Ella.”
I didn’t think Sebastian agreed with me by the look he cast me over Ella’s shoulder.
As we rounded deeper into the destroyed city, the cobblestone was replaced by busted pavement that had been ruptured by something. The buildings lining the streets were gray and decaying, glass windows had been replaced by plywood. Old street signs hanging on poles were covered in dust, and their metal was twisted, as if melted in a great fire.
Off behind the city street was the greatest skyline I had ever seen with buildings so tall, they appeared to reach the heavens. In their day, I’m sure they brought great prosperity and light to its people, but now the remaining scaffolding swayed in the distance. This place was once great, but now it was a ruin.
“What was this place?” Sebastian asked with a slight tremor in his voice. Maybe he saw what greatness it had been once.
“The first to fall,” Ella said and pointed up at the sky.
My heart stopped as I gazed upward at the clouds swirling like an upside-down tornado. Glancing into the eye of the storm, I saw ravengers swirling as they entered the funnel, slowly flying downward into the world. On instinct, I reached my arm out for Sebastian, and he squeezed my hand.
“We better keep moving,” Sebastian said, and we picked up speed. I glanced up at the skyline, and as we got closer, I could make out the edges of ravengers perched on the exposed metal beams of a previously great building.
“It’s not far,” Ella said.
“Why do you stay here?” Sebastian asked, his eyes trained on the same spot mine had been. “Don’t you feel the danger as we do?”
“They don’t hurt me.” Ella turned down another street, and her pace picked up. Lightly, we jogged to keep up with her. “If you stay with me, they won’t hurt you, either.”
The narrow alley turned, and she led us toward a building. The panels of glass were dusty, but I could make out old signs hanging in the windows. This place had once been a bookstore, and it was that building Ella led us to, but instead of going in the front, she turned to the side and opened a basement door stuck in the ground.
“Why don’t they hunt you, too?” Sebastian’s tone nearly accused her of something.
Ella slowly shrugged. “I stick to myself. They don’t mind you if you don’t break the rules. I’m not a rule breaker.” Ella threw the basement door open. “Follow me.”
I moved forward, but Sebastian stopped me. “I don’t like this, Tarnish. Something about her is wrong. We should stick to ourselves. What if she works for them?”
Works for the ravengers? I nearly laughed out loud. “I know you’re used to things going a certain way. I respect that, but don’t you see what this building was? Used books for sale. This was a bookstore.”
Sebastian’s eyes still were confused and clouded over. He didn’t get what I was trying to say.
“Ella chose a bookstore for her hideaway when she could’ve picked any of these other buildings.” Excitedly, I rushed on. “She rode to our rescue when she could’ve been doing a million other things.”
Sebastian shook his head. “You’re romancing it.”
I pressed my lips together stubbornly. “What if we were meant to find each other? What if only together we can find the next remnant? Maybe it led us to her.”
Sebastian laughed, propping his hands on his hips, and shook his head. “You’ve read too many books.”
“Maybe, but it doesn’t change anything. I need to eat and get some sleep before anything else happens. We’ve been traveling for over a day now. We need to recharge. You do, too, even if you won’t admit it.”
I headed down the basement stairs, confident he’d follow me. The darkened basement only had few lanterns for light on a wooden table, the walls were a red brick, and in the corners old sleeping bags were stacked up. Ella was over in the corner pulling cans out of a white cabinet, and I couldn’t keep my eyes to myself.
They were drawn to the old, empty bookcases against the largest wall. I rushed over to them and gazed into the empty boxes, looking for something left behind. My fingers traced across the dust until I came to a small globe of the Earth. I gave it a delicate spin, watching the colors blend together as it spun. Could it be true? Was the Earth really not flat?
Ella slammed a stack of cans onto the table. I quickly read the labels as peaches and corn before I tore my eyes away. “I hope you’re not one of those Earth-is-round conspiracists.” Ella smirked with her hands on her hips.
Sebastian sighed in exasperation as he entered the room. “And what would you have us believe? That it’s flat?”
“Far as the eye can see,” Ella said. “I’m not even entirely sure we’re a planet. In space?” Ella snorted. “Please. Stories they told children to terrify them, no doubt. There is nothing except what we can see.”
Sebastian opened his mouth to argue, and I held my finger up.
“Thank you, Ella, for allowing us in your home. I’m sure these canned peaches are lovely.”
Ella’s eyebrow furrowed. “How’d you know they were peaches? I haven’t even opened them yet.” She bounced the can opener in her hand.
“By the picture on the label, of course.” I laughed, hoping she didn’t realize I couldn’t see the picture from where I stood.
“Oh, right then.” Ella spun the can opener and got to work opening a few cans. She tossed some forks onto the table. “Not gourmet, but there you have it. A meal fit for… whatever it is you guys are. Strange travelers, that’s for damn sure. Anyone who thinks the world might be round can’t be trusted, but you have to eat. I won’t watch simple folk go hungry. Even if they are daft.”
We pulle
d out the chairs and sat down. The peaches were in a thick syrup and tasty. I hadn’t realized any canned goods had survived this long, but as I drank what was left in my can, I was grateful. Ella watched me carefully from over her can, slowly munching on some corn with the fork still in her mouth.
“Is there anything left here from before the ministers came?” I asked.
Ella shook her head. “They burned it all, I reckon. Nothing left here except for what you see. Upstairs, everything’s been shattered and destroyed, at least the things worth using. Nothing to sell, and no one around to barter with.”
The news deflated my spirit.
“What about you?” Ella asked. “Why are you guys here? Why’d you cross the treacherous path? You know how stupid that was, right? Once you’re on this side, you stay on this side. Civilized country, this ain’t.”
“We can pass the dragon again if we need to,” Sebastian said, and Ella responded with a snort and roll of her eyes. “We can. I’ve done it before.”
Ella made the OK symbol with her fingers. “Sure, pal. Tell me another one.”
Sebastian’s eyes widened, and I leaned forward. “We’re going on a quest to save the world. Rid the world of the hunters, the ministers, the ravengers, all of it.”
“Tarnish!” Sebastian chastised me, but it was true, and I couldn’t keep secrets from the person who had saved our life and just fed us, now could I?
Ella pushed herself away from the table. “I don’t need to hear such lunacy. The ravengers rule this place, and if they hear what you just said, if they suspect, they’ll bring the Temptress and she’ll put an end to that kind of talk… I don’t need friends like you if you’re going to say things like that. I’m fine on my own.”
Sebastian stood with a nod. “Fine with us. We’ll be on our way. Thank you for the peaches—”
I leaned forward across the table and grabbed her hand. “You happy living like this? Scavenging like a rat? Alone in this city?”
