Crown of Thorns

There weren't always dragons in the Valley.

But then again, nor were there always men…

The valley belonged to those whose hunger did not lie in the death of other living things. Spackles and Neatheons, equine-like creatures, roamed the vast valley, it’s high ridges corralling the gentle beasts who grazed the tall grasses and waded into the calm lakes to sleep while aquatic-life feasted on the day’s muck dried to their hooves. The great valley would rumble strangely on occasion and the weeping trees would shudder in the earth at the force of the growl far beneath the ground. The lakes would bubble and warm, enticing all manner of forest creatures forth to soak in the temperate waters, minerals releasing from the mud to ease their ailments and refresh their health. Such occasions were times of harmony amongst all that gathered, even the solitary feathered creatures of the trees and the reclusive sleeping clans of the deep caves.There was an understanding between all living things that the earth provided and so the earth was mother and the valley, her womb.

The horrific end to this sublime utero was the day that man came.

A strange horn sounded faintly and all valley creatures looked toward the far Eastern ridge as a large heard of men appeared and began to descend into the forest gully. Only one of their kind stayed atop the ridge, straddling a four legged animal, gazing down upon the valley, her eyes like pits of burning oil, alight with the hunger of desire.

A woman, seemingly feared and obeyed by all who followed her, wore a hideous crown of brass, lined & inlaid with small thorns of the sharpest thickets. Streaks of her blood, stained her face from the thorns that hooked themselves to her scalp, the gruesome price of power that tormented each who wore it. Most times, until either insanity or infection took their lives. The queen’s fever dreams had brought them to this place, visions of her young daughter lost to disease danced through her mind and faint voices had whispered seductive promises of resurrection.

There was no weight to her claim that consuming the heart of an infant dragon would bestow her with the power of resurrection but amongst the delirium brought on by the infection of the crowns wounds, the madness had taken hold and the path to revive the child was clear to only her.

A man in silver armour appeared at her side, his mount enormous and muscular, it pawed at the ground, uncertainty in it’s shifting weight. The man in the saddle surveyed the forested basin, his tense jaw bringing such uneasy anticipation to his tired, grey eyes. His and his army’s allegiance to the unstable queen was a pairing of convenience, a necessity of his oath to prevent his brother king from eating the dragon’s heart himself and ending their long lineage. He knew his brother would not allow him to live once the promised eternal life had been acquired, competition for sovereignty would be eliminated and the king had stated he would not father children for he will consume the dragon heart, live forever and reign supreme.

The man in silver armour looked to the North to see his brother’s army of red leathered soldiers positioned at the lip of the canyon, poised and rigid, each man knowing full well that they were brought here to die for one man’s greed but daring not speak of it.

Warring one another now would be senseless as, if there truly were dragon’s here, they would need sheer numbers to bring one to the ground.

The hoards of men swept through the valley like a plague upon a village, the ignorant creatures were slaughtered and consumed, the trees were felled and burned for warmth and after the men had had their fill of the valley’s boons, they soaked themselves in the bubbling lakes. Alas, before the sun could sink from the sky, the waters, though still warm and active, had turned black and pungent, the stain of man dissolving the sacred pools.

The ground shuddered with ominous ferocity. Their presence here was known and though the men stood fast, the fury beneath the ground was undeniable, the natural order here had been violated, skeptics were now believers and all knew in their bellies; reparations would be sought fiercely.

The combined forces of the silver-armoured man and the manic queen gathered in clusters, piling large rocks by wooden contraptions they had erected from the murdered trees. Soldiers in red-leather kilts across the plain, lined areas with roped rows of sharpened spears while others dug shallow trenches, poured in urns of oil then sprinkled dirt and grass upon the liquid.

Before further murderous traps could be set, the ground beneath them began to shake, vibrating the ridges of the canyon and loosening boulders perched up high that tumbled into the basin, ripping their path through the land. Suddenly there was silence, not a breath or whisper. Then as time stood in place, an enormous, long snout emerged from the depths of a nearby lake, the black slimy water coating it cupped in two huge nostril creators, was expelled with great force, drenching the closest standing men. The sheer breathtaking grandeur of the beast was realized as it’s head surged from the pool up into the sky, followed by it’s long neck, and thick legs pulled the beast up and out onto the grass with ancient talons, each wider than the length of a man.

Mouths hung agape at the sight of what should have been fiction as the gargantuan monster adjusted to the light of day, it’s growl rumbled deep in it’s impenetrable belly and as effortlessly as it had emerged it unfolded it’s colossal, dark scaled wings and blocked out the sun. It lurched it’s head forward to inspect and sniff the mounds of creature carcasses from the army’s feast and a strange moan sounded from it’s jaws. Before any man could recover from the shock, others of it’s kind began to emerge from lakes in the valley then a significantly smaller beast emerged from the mud of the first dragon and joined it’s mother on the grass. A single command was bellowed by a general and so the battle for unthinkable power had begun.

Boulders were lifted into several stretched leather saddles, then heaved back by ten men and flung into the sky with great force, many rocks hitting their marks and earning the attention of the great creatures who turned to inspect the source of the unpleasant contact. Once the first attack was executed, so began the second and the third and the fourth and the fifth… Each more violent and merciless than the last.

A slender dragon with powerful front legs in a low, wide stance, hissed at a group of soldiers who poked at it’s feet with their swords and lured it toward a trench where it stepped into the oil and a man dropped a flaming torch to the dugout. The flame surged in mere seconds to where the dragon’s foot was dipped and lit up the oil on it’s scales. The beast was startled by the sudden blaze and jumped a little sending a shudder across the ground. Some soldiers remarked victoriously but soon their faces dropped as the creature inspected the burning oil on it’s leg, unfazed by the flames and turned, grumpily back to the armed men with swords who now looked as though they would rather poke themselves in the foot with their swords than be standing before the dragon.

A screech tore across the gully as a boulder hit a tall bearded beast in it’s head, the dragon stumbled and shook it’s head as if a bee where wreaking havoc in it’s skull, then thick dark blood began to leak from it’s nostrils and was sprayed across the ground as the dragon tried to recover from the painful blow.

A legion of men rushed forward toward it, their swords drawn and hacked at it’s scales. The other dragons hissed and clawed and flicked their tails menacingly as attacks launched from all sides. One dragon staggered backward at the frontal assault and a group of soldiers lying in wait behind it, heaved on ropes that raised rows of spears and as the dragon was pushed back into them, the weight of the dragon itself drove the spears into it’s rump. It roared a hoarse and dangerous sound and turned to spew flaming lava onto the men.

The queen watched from afar but could not wait any longer for her prize, the baby was in sight and it’s heart was hers. She kicked the belly of her mount and it launched them into the thick of action.

The man in silver armour fell to the ground, heaving air and clutching a deep, gushing wound to his abdomen where his brother had withdrawn his blade with rough enjoyment. The king threw his head back and his arms out beside him and laughed into the sky, he could taste his victory. The man in silver armour suddenly launched himself from the ground, colliding with the king with all his weight and sent them both tumbling to the ground. The silver armoured man was weak and when the king drove his long blade through his brother’s shoulder, he smiled, but in a moment, was knocked with great force by a rogue dragon tail, flung across the ground and impaled by the broken branch of a burning tree. Nearby, a hoard of men fended off a particularly irritable bearded dragon.

The silver armoured man coughed as he lay dying, his blood soaking the earth that had nurtured so much life, watching men eaten and burned alive around him, their pained screams touching his ears and echoing with regret. He stared up into the blue sky, pristine and cloudless and felt his body relax but suddenly the Earth beside him quaked, showering him with dirt and debris. As it cleared and he blinked his eyes free from soil and he was faced with a terrifying eyeball mere inches from his nose. The tiny dragon had fallen and a deafening scream ripped through the valley, vibrating the very air and the pools of blood across the ground. It’s mother tore through legions of men and showed no mercy as she valiantly decimated the threat to her child. The baby’s breathing was fast and panicked as it lay wounded beside him, her wide eye filled with terror, focussed on the man’s face and as he stared into the eye of the beast, the scene around him dissolved and he saw the indescribable; Men, humans. A world of chrome and refined machinery, castles and kingdoms of strange shapes built high into the sky, medicines for which he had no words to define. Men built of metal but not quite men at all, operating on their own like chrome slaves, men rode shiny silver birds that swamped the skies and sailed the stars, violence of such sophisticated trepidation, decimated earth, an ocean left wanting any evidence of life. A dragon curled into itself far beneath the ground, woken each millennia to cleanse the earth of it’s parasites.

It had all happened before… and it would happen again.

He returned to the battlefield where he lay, eyes wide and mouth dry, his life bleeding out of him. Ragged breathing grew closer and he turned his head to see the deranged queen, still crowned and bloody, crawling along the grass toward him, a crooked, chilling smile curling at her lip. As she struggled closer, nursing an injured leg, she drew a curved dagger and used the dying man’s armour to pull herself next to the huffing dragon. 

The man in the silver armour had seen what no others had, the crimes of his race, the consequences of their greed, the purpose of these ancient guardians. He shakily reached up to the queen as she raised her dagger above the baby dragon, and yanked her backward where she fell upon his chest, he wrenched the crown down her head to her neck. She cried out at the pain and with the remaining strength left in his broken body, he pulled the crown back, pinning the queen to him as the thorns within the brass, cut into her throat. He held her there long past the ceasing of her breath, staring into the fading eye of the magnificent creature dying beside him. Tears escaped his eye and dripped into the blood below him as he finally had no more strength to hold on. His grip released and he slipped away from the carnage with the queen upon his chest.

Soldiers fled from the valley, some dying from their injuries upon the scorched ground, some cowered beneath trees but the dragons in their harrowing grief, lit up the forests with their breath as their mournful wails sounded for miles in heartbreaking agony. They mourned their slain child in a ruined valley decimated by the greed of men.

It was said that their screams could be heard across the oceans where far away civilizations bloomed, but to those clans, the tale of their anguish was lost in the breeze. I still here them sometimes on nights when the sea is anxious.

This is my history. This is the story of how I was brought the heart of a dragon, how generations of men were lost and how I sealed the valley of beasts, leaving them to slumber until they come once again to wipe us from their mother Earth.