Altars of the Dragons

There weren't always dragons in the Valley. Hadn’t been for longer than any of the villagers could remember. But the peddlers who traveled between villages in their jingling, barrel-shaped wagons selling their traded wares and bits of news old and new, they said the signs were everywhere for those who knew how to look. But most said there had been no sign of those horrendous creatures since the last great war so many generations ago that only the peddlers remembered any of the passed down tales. Tales of terrifying weapons of war that had burned alive entire armies, scorching the earth and leaving blacken fields where nothing grew to this day, the only sign they had ever existed, that and the dragon mounds.

Dram considered himself a down to earth young man and put little stock in the tales of peddlers looking to improve their sales of talismans with wild stories of doom and destruction. The stories they spread of southern armies marching north from the desert, with sorcerers riding at the fore on massive black beasts with flaming eyes, were just that, fanciful tales.

But Dram still jerked his gaze upward when he heard a faint screech from the clouds, stumbling on his way up the grassy hill and tumbling forward on his face. He quickly raised his head, looking around embarrassed at being spooked by what was undoubtedly a crow, but no one else was around this early in the morning. He rolled over, brushed his red hair out of his eyes, and looked upward, but like always, there was nothing in the sky. Still, he felt a tingling shoot up his spine, but it was probably just the rock he had rolled over on.

He pushed himself up to his feet, brushed the wet grass from his worn tunic, and continued up the hill. Trudging up the dragon mound added to his morning walk to his job at the pub, but he couldn’t resist stopping by the ruins. And he didn’t mind the delay in starting another day of mashing the wheat, tending the barrels, and readying the mead. Ma would complain he was putting extra wear on his leather boots, but she would just sigh and mend them again.

As Dram reached the crest of the hill, the grass and weeds thinned out as if in reverence for the ruins. A circle of broken columns surrounded a waist-high, five-sided stone altar about two outstretched arms across. The altar’s flat top was covered by a large carved five-pointed star with words in the center too faint to discern, even if he could read the ancient language. In the middle of each of the five sides of the altar, the hilt of a sword protruded a hands-width below the top surface. Each hilt had a different colored gem that glowed softly in the morning light. He gently touched each of the five hilts as he circled the stone. Countless times he had come here over the years of growing up and tugged on the sword hilts to no avail. And countless times others had come to wrest the swords from the altar to protect themselves from the supposedly returning dragons. All had failed, some spectacularly, since if you don’t respect the stone, you will pay the price. The stone wielded some ancient magic, a sparkling blue lightning that defended the stone.

When Dram’s Pa was still alive, he had delighted in telling the story from his youth of when the mountain chieftain from the north was sure that the dragons were returning, as had been foretold by his hearth witches, and he needed the swords to protect his mountain home. Resplendent in his furs and leathers inscribed in protective magic runes, he had swung his massive war hammer high above the stone, ready to shatter it and collect the dragon swords. As his hammer had reached the apex of his swing, the blue lighting had crackled straight into his boot, traveled up his body, and sparked skyward from the top of his hammer. He had clenched his teeth so hard that one scraggled tooth snapped and flew outward, hitting Wino Willie, a very frequent occupant of the pub who had leaned in too close, straight in the eye, and he was henceforth known as One-Eye Willie. The mountain chieftain had fallen over like a mighty tree, frozen in that position with his hammer extended straight over his head. His men couldn’t even pry the hammer from his hands, so they fashioned an extra-long litter out of branches and hides and dragged him back to the north. And Dram remembered Stinkie Sam who had got so stinking drunk one night that he staggered up the hill to challenge the stone. After stumbling around and unsuccessfully yanking on each hilt he had shouted “Piss on it!” and dropped his trousers to do just that. The blue lightning had flashed and nearly burned off his member. He was henceforth known as Squatting Sam.

More importantly, five sorcerers had come from the deserts of the south to dragon mound just last month, bringing rumors of war and armies marching from the south. They were terrifying to behold, with spiraling tattoos covering every inch of their bodies, necklaces of fangs and small skulls, and had their teeth filed to sharp points. They had chased away all onlookers to the base of the hill, poured multicolored sand in a circle around the stone, and chanted from dusk until midnight. Those who had stayed said there was a brilliant flash of blue lightning that made their eyes burn, and then a sphere of crackling blue hellfire had arisen to encompass the entire top of the hill. When they had dared to climb the hill at sunrise, all that was found was a scorched circle and five small mounds of ash.

Dram circled the stone again as he touched each hilt before stopping at his favorite, the one with a small red gem in the handle. He gave it his usual tug but snatched his hand away when it moved and he felt and saw a blue spark. He leaned forward and lightly touched the hilt with one finger, and felt in his spine rather than heard a tingling buzz like a swarm of bees. He steeled his nerves and firmly grasped the hilt, and with one quick motion pulled forth a long curved blade that sparkled in the sun. A brilliant red fire ran up and down the blade, and he dropped to his knees as the buzzing filled his head. A long screech shattered the sky, ending in a mighty roar as a red-scaled dragon the size of ten cottages dropped from the sky, billowing its wings like a sailing ship to land lightly just outside the circle of columns. It dug its talons into the earth, with curved claws each the size of the sword in his hand. Dram hastily jumped to his feet and held the sword unsteadily before him. The dragon lowered its head filled with sharp teeth down towards him, the red eyes regarded him closely, and then it said, “Before the sorcerer’s armies arrive we must find the other four sword bearers.”

The dragons had returned to the Valley, not to scorch the earth and burn them all alive, but instead for riders against the coming storm!