Death in the Valley

There weren’t always dragons in the valley. Not always. That was common knowledge. The reckoning of when they came and the tales of the destruction they caused however, changed constantly depending on the night and what bar you were in. An off duty soldier with his feet on the table would insist over his ale that the official report said it was one hundred and fifty two years ago exactly that the valley burned along with everything in it. The local gossip would hint through pipe smoke and chatter that she figured it was about fifteen family lines wiped out only four generations ago. An Innkeeper in particularly good humor would slip you an extra pint and tell you of when his great grandad was a boy and one of only six survivors of the building of the barricade and had the scars to prove it. No two stories were alike. But two things were absolutely agreed on. The dragons were in the valley now. And they were always hungry.

Brock had never seen the valley in person. He had never been so unlucky. Now, like it had been for so many others, it would be the last thing he saw. He tried not to dwell on his upcoming final moments as the barred and padlocked wagon packed with those condemned to die lumbered ever closer to that ominus place. Images of teeth the length of his forearm, scales larger than his open hand, and a burn he’d gotten from a hot pan as a child ran through his mind unbidden. He tried to remember every wives-tale and rumor he’d ever heard in case one had mentioned an escape. No. None had. Some form of mangled survival, maybe, but never escape. Brock tried to push his racing thoughts back, but that left him with nothing but the sound of himself and two dozen other fear stricken men bound and hooded and barely breathing while they listened for any trace of beating wings above.

Despite the suffocating wool sack over his head, Brock closed his eyes in silent desperation. He could feel the methodical sway of the sturdy wagon as his face rested against the bars. The sound of the heavy wheels turning on oiled axles over what seemed to be the best kept road in a thousand leagues was barely audible through the pounding of his own heart. Nor could he make out much of the muffled footfall of the horses as they pulled their load of doomed men slowly and steadily on unshod hooves. Slow and quiet. Yes, that was the goal. So far the sky had been quiet too. Brock silently prayed that the dragons’ eyes would be less keen and their flaring nostrils be less bent on searching out the scent horse and man than the stories suggested.

It was in this manner, standing pressed between unwanted thoughts and unfamiliar bodies, that Brock had been confined since late the night before. He had no sense of what time it was, but he could see light through his hood now. Over the course of what felt like an eternity, the air changed from warm to hot to unbearably hot and then back down to just unpleasant. He felt the cords cutting into his wrists, a blister forming between his boot and heel, the dryness in his mouth caking, and the sweat soaking through his shirt. Just as he was pondering the merits of a swift and unexpected death, the rolling prison came to a stop.

In the silence and stillness, a deep and quiet voice began to speak.

Not a sound you lot, unless you want to be cooked in your cage.” The voice sounded rasped from the heat and the hours of silence. “You’re to receive one last ration of bread and water, then you’ll be sent through the barricade and into the valley to pay for your crimes against the crown.”

“I didn’t think trying to feed myself was a crime against the crown.” piped a voice.

Thud

The sickening sound of spear-butt meeting skull sent a fresh hush over the convicts.

The soldier’s voice continued unphased.

“Your execution will be a final penitent act in service to your King. Not only will you pay the penalty for your failures as a subject, but you will serve and protect your King by keeping the dragons well fed, content, and far away from us law abiding citizens.

“That man is no true king.” muttered Brock under his breath. Perhaps his impending execution was making him more reckless, or perhaps keeping quiet seemed suddenly useless. Either way, not even under the threat of dragons would he call that arrogant, cruel, quick tempered fool locked away in his citadel his king. Neither would many who were born and bred in what used to be the free lands of The Mountain Region. But now even saying such things out loud could be dangerous. Brock’s jaw tightened as the thought passed through his head. That kind of talk could land you here.

He heard a soldier's heavy boots outside the cage and braced for a spear-butt for his remark, but the blow never came. As he was wondering if the guard hadn’t heard him, the sound of a cup scraping the rim of a water jar, the feeling of bodies shuffling, and the sound of chewing cut through the silence. Before he had time to worry about retaliation more, it was Brock’s turn. He felt a hand pull him up roughly against the bars and a second hand pull the sack just far enough up his face that his mouth and nose were exposed. He barely had time to get in a full breath of clean air before he felt a stale hunk of bread shoved into his mouth and heard an unfamiliar voice whisper in his ear.

“No king indeed. Drink, but no more than I give you. Stay awake. Stay quiet. And for your own sake, stay still.”

Before he knew what was happening, Brock had choked down the hard bread and immediately felt the cup at his cracked lips. He drank as fast as his dry mouth would let him, but the cup was pulled away before he’d even gotten a mouthful. He would’ve fought every murderous man in the cage with him for just one more taste of water, but with the whispered words still fresh in his mind, he decided to hold his peace.

Within five minutes, the hushed orders began to make sense. Brock’s head began to swim and his limbs felt heavy and like water all at once. Limp arms and shoulders of the men who’d been standing next to him began to collide with him on every side and he could tell that some in the group had buckled at the knees. Through the dizziness he remembered the instructions, closed his eyes, and let his body go slack. Within ten minutes he was still conscious, but he had a feeling that he was the only one who was.

“Are they all down?” asked the voice that had given the men their final verdict.

“Yes, sir.” said a second.

“Alright, load them up.”

The key clicked in the lock. The door creaked on its hinges. The cage shook as soldiers climbed in and prisoners were dragged out. Brock felt two hands pull him out onto the dirt and four hands stack him onto something hard and dusty. As they left him to carry out another, they ripped the sack off his head. For the first time all day, Brock could feel fresh air on his face. He desperately wanted to open his eyes, but something told him to wait.

The soldiers piled men next to him. When they ran out of room, they began stacking men like cordwood. Not until a limp and foul smelling hand draped over most of his face did Brock dare to open his eyes. When he did, it was good he was half drugged or he would have risked everything and bolted.

Although the sun had begun to set, the sudden light made his eyes narrow back down to slits. As they adjusted to the brightness, he found that the thing he was on was an iron cart. And it wasn’t covered in dust. It was covered in ash. Ahead of him and stretching as far as he could see lay what many had told stories about, but few alive had seen. The barricade.

It stood impossibly high. Hundreds upon hundreds of feet of rubble mounded under the lowering summer sun. Boulders, rusted tools, remains of burnt out houses, barrels, whole trees, metal wheels; anything that wasn’t attached firmly to the earth had been thrown into a dam against ruin and destruction. Along the top he could see the glint of pikes, metal spikes, and spears by the thousands pushed in at odd angles with their gleaming blades pointed straight out towards anything that might try to land on the barricade. He had heard that the length of it encircled the valley for miles on end, but from where he lay he couldn’t tell.

With a jolt, the cart turned and began to move. Brock couldn’t see much anymore, but he guessed that they were heading straight towards the barricade. He tried to get a last glimpse of his unmarred homeland behind him before it was gone forever, but soon the familiar sights of mountain and tree and road faded out of his vision, and the fear in Brock’s heart turned to a cold numbness that spread through his body like the drug.

As the last sweet, green thing disappeared, a line of stones, growing up to the height of a wall, blocked the view of everything else. It seemed to grow higher and higher as it went on. When the wall became so high it began to block out the sun, Brock realized that it wasn’t a wall at all. They were going down into a tunnel that he guessed was a passage underneath the wall and out onto the other side. When the light of the sun was fully gone, the procession stopped. Brock snapped his eyes shut and tried to slow his breathing.

“Alright boys. Give us your torches to light.” said the familiar voice.

“Can we speak down here, Captain?” This voice sounded young.

“Oh yeah. Down here the nasty beasts can’t hear us or smell us.” replied the Captain. “We’re far enough down.

“How long is this tunnel?” asked the younger voice.

“About four miles since we don’t want to feed the beasts too close to the wall. But we can breathe easy until we reach the end of it.

“Four miles? Why can’t we keep one of the horses to pull this lot? They’re heavier than they look.

“Horses will spook from even the smell on the other side of this place and you don’t want a panicked horse in a small tunnel like this.” The Captain responded casually, as though he had heard this line of questioning many times before. This was clearly not his first green recruit. Brock wondered what had happened to the others.

“Why can’t we just kill all these inmates and feed their corpses to the dragons? Wouldn’t that be easier than keeping them quiet all day and then drugging them?”

“You’d think so, but dragons only like fresh meat. They won't eat anything that’s already dead. They want to hunt it and kill it themselves. But believe me, it’s worth the effort. The only thing that keeps those monsters on their side of the fence is that they have their food delivered to them. If they ever had to come looking for it, we’d all be dead in our beds before we knew what hit us.”

Brock felt his heart sink into his stomach where he lay.

“And if we drugged this lot for the whole day, it’d be like giving a cat a sleeping mouse. Where’s the fun for them in that?” The Captain laughed, but the sound sounded hollow as it bounced off the stone tunnel walls. “Alright. No more questions now. This lot deserves what’s coming to them. Right now all we need to worry about is getting these thugs to the other side and out the door before they wake up and murder us all.”

The cart jolted back into motion. Four miles. Brock could make out maybe five or six different sets of footsteps. One pushing or pulling on each corner of the cart and one or two in the front leading with the torches. Four miles. The thought spun on a loop in Brock’s mind. Was he so close to death? To know the day and hour of doom was bad enough. But to even know the distance? The captain was wrong. Nothing he had done was deserving of this.

Thump

The cart hit a raised stone and just as it did, Brock felt something thin slip into one of his boots. Was it coincidence? Maybe something falling from another convict? It was hard to tell. Not long after though, a hole in the floor was hit.

Thump

This time something more bulky was hastily shoved into the other boot under the pretense of keeping Brock’s leg from slipping off the cart. It was all Brock could do to relax and not kick out. Luckily the drugs were still making him slow and only a moment later it occurred to him that perhaps the strange messenger was at the corner near his feet. It seemed the soldier had kept track of him and was making his own moves.

The rest of the trip was uneventful. The dark and cool of the tunnel would’ve been a welcome break from the heat in any other circumstance. Brock thought of how he would’ve given anything to be sentenced to life in a dark prison cell under the mountains instead of this. No. He should try not to think of that. Unfortunately, in too short a time, the cart stopped for the final time. Brock shut his eyes again and felt them sting with sweat.

“Alright” said a voice that Brock could now recognize as the Captain’s. “We do this quick and dirty. Once we’re out there, we’ll most likely be visible. So there’s no time to be subtle. Get out, get in, lock the door, and then we’ll see who can run four miles the fastest. Otherwise you’ll boil in your boots. Ready?”

It all happened so fast. There was the sound of straining men, the deep creek of a heavy metal door, and the cart was shoved immediately out into the open. The men next to and on top of Brock were ripped unceremoniously off the cart and rolled onto the ground which crunched like they were being thrown onto dry sticks. When it was his turn, he felt two hands under his arms dragging him and for the very last time, heard the mysterious voice in his ear.

“Play dead for two minutes, then get up and find the well. It’s to the east. Look for a circle of stones. Tell the man that you find there to go to the oak at the next new moon. Tell him I haven’t forgotten.”

Brock landed across two other bodies, and lay still. He counted out two minutes. His breath came out stuttering and shaking from inside him. He took a few deep breaths to calm himself, then he opened his eyes and looked up.

A fresh wave of fear froze him down to the marrow. The entire floor of the valley was covered in bones. Dry, brittle, soot caked bones. He recognized the skulls of cows, horses, sheep, and humans nestled in a bed of ash along with countless bones of different shapes and sizes. They had been the reasons for the crunching sound he had heard. The few trees that still existed here and there were blackened trunks that stood alone. The high hills shouldering the valley were scorched and caves had been cleft into their faces by claws with unimaginable power. Brock could see now that the barricade, a few miles behind him, was a crescent shape that hemmed in the valley like two forbidding, outstretched arms and ended where it met the feet of the nearest mountains on either side. The captain was right. It was a deterrent, nothing more.

Small movements from the other convicts shook Brock out of his thoughts. They were waking up. He better move. East was what he wanted. A circle of stone. He checked the sky. The reddening sun was now more than half set and was quickly disappearing behind the right wing of the barricade. He could still find his direction. That was something. With his hands still bound, he dragged himself to his knees and tried feebly to stand, but his limbs felt loose and weak and he staggered. As he went back down to his knees, the object in his boot twisted into his foot. He had forgotten about that. He pulled his boots off with his hands still bound and shook them out. A small paper packet closed with wax, and something skinny, the length of his hand, and wrapped in fabric fell onto the ground. The packet he slipped back into his boot as he pulled them back on. Clumsily he began to unwrap the other object. A sharp pain shot through his finger. He had cut himself. The object was a knife.

Brock bit his tongue to keep from shouting out in triumph. The others were stirring much more now. He had to hurry. He slid the cloth down to one end of the blade and gripped it between his knees. As fast as he could he dragged the chords binding him along the blade until they gave way with a gratifying snap.

With two hands free, he staggered to his feet again. He put the sun behind him. Reinvigorated by his victory, he stumbled step by step towards the east. After he’d managed a few hundred paces and was feeling steadier, he turned back to look behind him. The others were walking now too, although not as steadily. It didn’t look like they were following him, but it did look like a fight had broken out about what to do and where to go. If they had more of their wits about them, they would have noticed six large silhouettes becoming visible in the sunset sky above the hills just behind them.

Brock didn’t wait to see more. As soon as he recognized the shapes, he ran. With the knife clutched in his hand and the bones and ash shifting beneath his feet, he turned his face east and ran with whatever strength was left in him. Behind him he heard a roar like murderous thunder. He ordered himself not to turn around to look. The roar turned into a chorus of wicked screeches and roars and rumbles, and the mighty rush of wings. He ran faster. Stones in a circle. Stones in a circle. Where could they be? Wait. He thought he saw it. Fifty paces away, Brock saw a ring of stone rubble that was too close to a perfect circle to be anything but man made. That must be it.

With his target in sight, he risked one quick look back over his shoulder. The six dragons had just descended upon the other convicts who were scattering and trying to race back to the barricade. As Brock looked on, one dragon breathed a white and yellow column of fire down on one of the slower men who flailed violently and fell screaming to the ground. In a flash the dragon was on him. Stunned by what he was seeing, Brock froze where he stood, unable to look away. Five long, scaled and winged forms began encircling the group of convicts like they were sheep being herded. Five? But hadn’t there been six?

Panic gripped him as his head whipped around, searching the sky for the sixth. In a moment he saw it. And it had seen him. It had broken off from the pack and was making directly for him. In his mind he screamed at himself to move, to run. But he remained frozen where he was. He was paralized, unable to move. In his fear he squeezed the knife in his hand. The cut it had given him earlier was apparently deeper than he realized. The searing pain snapped him back to reality and before he could think further, he turned and ran.

By the time he reached the stone circle, the dragon had closed half the distance between them. The well house had been ripped off long ago, but he could see where the well shaft was dug. To his dismay a heavy stone lid sat tightly in the mouth of the well. Brock checked over his shoulder. The dragon was closing the gap. He looked back at the well, his body drenched in sweat. The stone cover had no handle, but it looked like it had been recently moved. It must be able to come off.

Brock dropped to his knees. He tried to find a crack he could fit his fingers into. There was none. Frantically he began to dig with his hands, the blood from his cut mingling with the dirt and the ash. It was useless. The cover was set too deep. He looked back. The beast was so close that he could make out each individual scale on its body, every vein in its leathery wings, and every fang in its hellish mouth. The ashes started to blow past him from the powerful downsweep of the mottled wings. Without thinking, he grabbed the nearest rock and started pounding on the well and bellowing “He told me to find the well. He told me to! Let me in! Let me in! Please! Let me in!”

He frantically smashed the rock with both hands over and over into the well sending chips of stone flying everywhere. The dragon bellowed back at his prey and a wave of thunder shook Brock’s body so violently and was so loud that he couldn’t even hear himself begging and shouting and smashing the well. He couldn’t feel the pain in his hands anymore. He couldn’t feel the ripping in his throat or the taste of copper as he screamed at the slab of stone to let him in. The dreadful roar stropped, but the wind from the wings was so strong that Brock knew the moment was here. The dragon was here. Brock fell to the ground and covered his head in a final act of futility. Hot ash swept over him. He could feel the heat from the dragon's breath above him.

At the very moment he was sure he was lost, the lid of the well shifted suddenly and quickly lifted. A hand came out of the gap. Brock didn’t stop to look who it belonged to. He grabbed hold as the dragon made a gasping sound he didn’t fully understand. Seconds later a searing heat washed over him. With a jerk that almost broke his arm, the hand dragged him away from the blinding light and into the gap and down into the darkness. Brock arched his back and screamed as he fell into nothingness. The smell of burning hair and flesh followed him all the way down as he fell.

Then, in a single flicker of a moment, everything went black.