Dragon Bound

There weren't always dragons in the valley. Today, thank both the gods, was one of those days. Regardless, the dark clouds rolling over the high peaks in the distance not only promised rain, but blocked what remained of daylight from reaching the deep places in the valley floor. The shrouds of endless mist that rose from bogs and crags, swirling in the afternoon breeze could be hiding anything.

Pausing to rest under a clump of scraggly brush, her back against a moss-covered boulder, Isha looked out from her deep, fur-lined hood that hid her fiery, red hair, back up the valley at the ground she had covered. Rocks jutted from the marshland, their bone-white surfaces, pocked and covered in moss, reached like the fingers of long dead giants who had perished in the boggy depths.

She shuddered at the mental image. What was she doing here? Why had she agreed to this fool’s errand? She had felt honored when the council had selected her. Her name would be written in the scrolls and she would be remembered as one of the greatest of her clan. She felt no such honor now. The clan chief had pressured her into accepting the errand as a way to bring honor back to her family. But why had they delayed so long in making the decision? No one ever returned from the valley who had entered so late in the day. Even on a day with no dragons. If she made it back to the gathering she was going to punch the soothsayer right in his fat, stupid mouth.

Her pale, freckled skin prickled with gooseflesh, not only from the cool, dampness of the air.

Pulling the cork from her wineskin, she took a long, courage-building pull of the thick liquid inside. It burned her throat, as it did every time, and she quickly covered her mouth with the heavy fur of her cloak to stifle the resulting cough.

Immediately she felt her doubts leave. There was still time to make it to the end of the valley and return before nightfall. If she failed, her family would be sacrificed to pay the price of her failure and satisfy the demands of the gods. She would not let that happen.

She put her wineskin away and pulled the yellow-brown parchment from her satchel, unrolling it to reveal the detailed map of the valley. The safe path through the marsh was clearly marked in red line. She quickly found the spot where she now rested and scanned the map for the path ahead.

Notations in fine script warned of what lay between her and the end of the valley. She looked down at her mud-spattered clothes. Her leather boots were caked with the black muck that lay in wait beneath the spiney grasses that covered the valley floor. It had taken her nearly three hours to come this far. Another hour or so would put her at the base of the jagged crags that sat below the foothills where the dragons made their home.

If the soothsayer was correct, the cave she sought should be easy enough to find. She just had to get there.

She rolled the parchment and stuffed it back into her satchel before closing her eyes and breathing deeply. The image of the map played in her mind, the fine lines leaping up to take shape as though she were walking along the path. She could see the mossy ridges and stones surrounded by the thick, black sludge of the marsh with its deceptively inviting greenery. The rise and fall of the ground rolled before her closed eyes at a breakneck pace, she could see where each footstep would land, the ground holding firm beneath her feet, could feel the splash of the muck as it tried in vain to pull her down. The vision faded as her mind reached the craggy wall rising above the edge of the marsh.

She rose to her feet, keeping low beside the boulder. Pulling out the wineskin, she took one more pull of the fiery liquid, feeling the familiar burn. She could feel the heat of the drink settle deeper into her, and knew her nearly black eyes would have a slight reddish glow to them, if there were anyone there to see them. She was one of the few in her clan who could drink the nectar, which is why she had been tasked with entering the valley. Without the nectar she wouldn’t have made it this far, even with a map, the path would have been impossible to follow.

She grinned fiercely at the fire she felt in her bones and stepped out from behind the boulder.

With the nectar she could see the path in her mind, and the pitfalls along the way that would try to consume her, but the drink did not give her the ability to see living creatures that would threaten her, which is why she did not see the long, vine-like appendage that shot from beside the boulder to wrap around her ankle.

A shriek of anger and pain sprang from her lips as needle-like barbs pierced the leather of her boots and dug deeply into her leg. Before she could react further, her foot was ripped from under her and she landed hard on her back as the vine began to pull, dragging her off the path.

She reached out, scrambling for any kind of purchase, but the moss of the stone pulled free, and the spiny grasses ripped from the ground, in clumps, spattering her face with the black mud beneath.

The vine pulled at her in fits and jerks, tearing at the flesh of her leg. She pushed against the ground, kicking with her free foot. In response, the vine squeezed tighter, forcing another shriek from her lips.

As the spiny grasses began to give way to a black sludge, she saw the source of the offending appendage. It protruded from a large, red-hued boulder sitting in the depths of the marsh. As she was dragged into the edge of the water, the boulder opened to reveal a black mouth with small, barbed teeth. It was a boggrel, one of the few creatures that lived in the marshlands.

If it was able to drag her into the sludge, she would be done for. She would drown quickly in the thick muck, and the boggrel would hold her, coiled in its vine-like tongue until she had decayed enough for it to consume her.

She threw herself forward, maneuvering into a sitting position, as the thing continued to drag her forward. She seized the long knife from her belt and began flailing with it, trying to cut herself free. It was no use, cord-like tendrils wrapping around the thing deflected her blows.

She sank inches deep in the thick, black sludge of the marsh. She did not want to die like this. In a final, desperate attempt, she stabbed down hard with her knife. The blade pushed between the chords, sinking deep into the flesh of the thing.

A piercing squeal came from the boggrel, and the knife was ripped from Isha’s hand as she was flung backward, feeling the spines tear the flesh of her leg as they ripped free.

She slid in the muck, coming to a stop on a slime-covered stone, as the boggrel’s vine-like appendage flailed. She saw her knife come free and fly into the black depths of the marsh, before the boggrel gave a final, mournful squeal and sank below the surface of the water.

Breathing hard, Isha scrambled back from the water, feeling the thick muck pull at her as though it, too, were alive, and wanted to consume her. Pain flared in her leg with each step. She could feel the putrid water of the marsh in her torn flesh. She had nothing with her to clean her wounds. Along with the pain, she could feel the burning, tingling sensation of the boggrel’s venom.

She would have to push herself harder to make it back to the gathering. The boggrel venom was slow to act, but would decay the flesh, if not seen to. She could make it back only to find that she would lose her foot from the venom’s rot. That very thing had happened to her uncle. He had suffered a boggrel attack and lost his entire leg.

She reached the boulder where she had paused to rest and let herself fall against it, slumping to the ground, still panting. For a moment, she closed her eyes, pounding a fist against the soft, mucky ground beneath her. How had she let that happen? She knew how dangerous her journey was, knew the threats around her. If she were going to be this stupid, she might as well walk into the marsh and just let herself die.

“Stupid,” she chided herself, as she opened her eyes and seized her muck-covered, water logged satchel, “you can’t be stupid or you’re going to die.”

She threw open the satchel and pulled out a small leather pouch. The only medicinal store she had with her was a bit of coliver weed. It was a last resort. It would slow the spread of the venom, and ease the pain a bit, but too much would also dull her senses, something she couldn’t afford.

She pinched a small amount between her fingers and stuffed it into her cheek. Immediately, her gums and tongue on that side began to tingle. She put the pouch back in her satchel, and heaved herself to her feet. She knew her leg was bad, but she didn’t have time to look at it, and didn’t have any way to care for it here at any rate. There was nothing to do but move on.

Frustrated at her slowed pace, she trudged forward, limping through the spiny grasses and muck. The path still burned in her mind. Every step would be painful, but she would not let herself stop.

The ground rose and fell, and her sweat mixed with the wetness of her clothes. She could feel the numbness settling into her leg from the coliver weed, as well as the fogginess in her mind. Her thoughts felt slow. It was as though her eyes saw things, and it took a moment or two for her mind to catch up to what she was seeing.

It was pure luck that she was on top of a boulder when she saw the vine-like appendage of another boggrel waiting ahead of her. In her current state, she would make easy prey. She skirted the spot where it lay in wait, moving as quickly as her maimed leg would allow, gritting through the pain as she did her best to sprint and avoid a confrontation.

She looked back, breathing a sigh of relief as the reddish, boulder-looking creature slowly sank back into the marsh. As the tip of it disappeared she found herself feeling thankful for the second sighting. Boggrels didn’t come out to hunt when dragons were in the valley.

It took longer than the original hour she had planned, and the afternoon grew dangerously late, when she crested a small rise overlooking wide pools of black water sitting below red, granite cliffs that gave way to barren foothills.

A small ridge of rock and muck wound its way between pools of water, where it met a rocky embankment at the base of the cliff. She scrambled along the ridge, several times having to leap spans of water to continue moving forward. Her leg spasmed with each landing, and she bit off cries of pain. This was too close to the cliffs for boggrel’s to live, but who knew what else dwelt beneath the dark surface.

It seemed an eternity before she stood on the rocky embankment, looking up at the sheer face of the craggy cliffs. She turned, looking back across the marshland. Her body ached with exhaustion, and she shivered as the chill wind bit through her still damp clothing. If any mortal land could be described as a hellscape, this was surely it.

She gave herself another small pinch of the coliver weed, followed by a short pull of the nectar from her wineskin. It warmed her insides, and she welcomed the courage and numbness the two combined to bring her. She knew she had to use both sparingly. One would surely kill her if she took too much, the other would run out, and she would not make it back through the valley.

With a final glance at the treacherous waters, and a heavy sigh, she turned and scrambled across the embankment, making her way toward the narrow crevasse she could just make out further down the cliff face. She could feel stones as they broke free under her feet, some sliding to crash into the water with nearly every step. So much for not disturbing anything living in its depths.

The thought urged her forward, and she felt a surge of panic as her sluggish mind played tricks on her. Was that a ripple she saw out in the pool? Did she hear a splashing from further out in the fog?

As she reached the crevasse she was shuffling as fast as the ground and her injured leg would let her go. With a small squeal of panic she lunged into the crevasse, squeezing between the walls to get as far from the water as possible.

Abruptly she paused, breathing heavily.

“You’re an idiot,” she said aloud with only her own ears to hear..

There was nothing chasing her. She had enough real danger to consider to let her imagination run wild with unreal threats.

Deliberately she shuffled forward, the closeness of the cramped passageway requiring her to walk sideways. The air was still, the only sounds, that of her breathing and the scrape of her clothing along the rock.

The shuffling side step made her already fatigued muscles begin to burn and ache from her efforts. The pain in her leg flared with every footfall. If only she could turn and step the other direction, but there was not enough room between the walls. She had begun to curse under her breath at nearly every step, wondering how much longer this could go on, when the crevasse turned, and suddenly opened wide enough to walk normally.

“Oh, thank the gods,” she said, bending forward to rub at her burning legs.

She straightened to look up through the crack, at the cloud-covered sky overhead. How long had that taken her? Minutes? An hour? There was no way of knowing. With the fog of the coliver weed at the edges of her consciousness, time was beginning to have no meaning to her beyond the knowledge that she had little left. She could only move forward and hope that it would not run out and darkness fall. There were no other options. No one had ever survived a night in the valley.

She gave herself a mind-clearing shake, and limped forward, following the crevasse as it continued to wind through the rock. At least she wasn’t walking sideways any longer.

Abruptly, the crevasse ended, and she faced a jagged wall only a few feet wide, but with plenty of handholds for climbing. This, at least, was something she would have no problem with, well no problem if her leg weren’t injured.

She had grown up climbing the cliff walls above the lake that sat between her village and the great flat planes. She could out climb anyone in her village, even on her worst day. Well, that day just might be today. She smiled at the thought. What a time to test herself, when literally everything was in the balance: her life, her family, her clan’s protection by the gods.

She reached up, taking a firm grip of the course rocks, and began to climb.

The wall rose some thirty feet, and she was sweating with the exertion by the time she reached the top. This would have been an easy climb under different circumstances. Unfortunately, the rain that had begun to fall when she was half way up hadn’t helped.

She pulled her hood forward to block the fat drops that fell in a torrent. At least the rain would wash some of the muck off her. She shivered as a wind pierced her wet cloak and tried to pull the hood from her head.

The top of the cliff was a ragged landscape of jagged rocks and towering boulders that had crashed into another cliff face that was the base of the foothills.

Isha scanned the distance as far as the rain would let her see. The cave entrance would not be far from where she stood. She set off at a lumbering pace, moving along the cliff wall between boulders in the direction the soothsayer had told her to go. There was no path on the map from here, the markings on the map would be nothing but blurred smudges now anyway. She thought that odd. Why was there no map beyond the border of the marshes?

As she considered this, the ground suddenly opened into a wide hollow. There was a large, smooth bowl in the ground, its slick walls glistening wet in the rain. Across the bowl, at the base of the cliff was a perfectly round hole whose opening looked as though the rock had been molded and shaped smooth by a master artisan.

She suddenly came alert. This was the cave. She didn’t know what she had expected, but to find herself here so abruptly made her heart race.

As she peered at the entrance, the rain slacked to a drizzle, and some distant sunshine peeked through the cloud cover. A single beam of light pierced the gloom, lighting the entrance to the cave.

The stone glistened, and sparked, its surface as smooth as the lake on a still, windless day. Hughes of blues and grays showed through in hints of marbling in the white surface. If she weren’t facing the entrance of a dragon’s cave, she might have marveled at the beauty. Instead, she shivered. What kind of omen were the gods sending her?

Taking a calming breath, she dug in her satchel to retrieve her small hammer and chisel. She felt naked without her long knife. These would be poor weapons, yet holding them in a fighting grip gave her a measure of courage, and she moved forward into the bowl.

The surface was more slick than she expected after the rain, and she immediately fell, sliding down the slope toward the opening. Coming to a stop on her back, her arms and legs splayed out uselessly, she cursed, again, at her own stupidity. How had she even made it this far?

She rolled over, getting back to her feet. She retrieved her hammer and chisel from the pool of water collecting at the base of the bowl, again holding them as though ready for an attack. Being more careful with her footing, she moved forward, the smooth opening of the cave entrance towering over her. She was tall for one of her clan, but the cave entrance was taller than her hands could reach.

A scent wafted from the cave, a strong sweetness like overly ripe fruit. The powerful smell was pleasant at first and made her stomach rumble. How many hours had passed since she had eaten? Immediately after the sweetness came the bitterness, like that of fruit when it just begins to turn sour. The combined scent was on the verge of tantalizing and stomach turning.

She hunched in a fighter’s stance as she carefully made her way forward. The cave ahead was dim, but not completely dark. She could see the tunnel ahead, curving in the distance. The smoothness of the perfect circle continued into the rock, its slight marbling in the white was visible in the dim light.

The soft scuff of her leather boots echoed down the passageway, and she cringed with each step. She could still hear the whisper of the wind behind her, and a slight, warm breeze rose from within the cave, caressing her freckled face, carrying the combined sweet and cloying scent, yet beyond the whisper the cave was silent, eerily so. As she glanced around she realized there were no signs of life whatsoever. No dirt, or debris. No scuffs or scrapes on the smooth walls. The surface was polished, slick, and unnaturally clean. She imagined if the light were right, she could probably see her reflection in the surface, like the polished stones used in the mill in her village.

She continued on, down the single long tunnel. Walking forward she found the source of the dim light in the cave. High in the curvature of the wall, above her head, and off-center from the vaulted top of the cave, there was a hole in the ceiling, just large enough that she might have been able to squeeze into it, if she were a few years younger.

She stepped over and peered into the hole. It was long and arrow straight. She could see a dot of light far down the small tunnel. The smooth surface inside reflected the light in a thousand shimmering colors as it made its way down the shaft. Looking ahead she could see patterns on the cave floor where light was shining in from a half dozen similar shafts.

On the floor of the cave, below each, including the one she stood beside, was another hole, roughly the same size, but plunging into darkness. Water, she assumed from the rain, trickled in a small rivulet from the hole above down the one below.

Amazing! And terrifying. Any other time she would have wondered and speculated at what or who had created the shafts. Under her current circumstances however, the implications brought more fear than curiosity.

She continued on, following the trail of dim lights that illuminated her way, careful of the holes in the floor, as the cave curved, then dipped, before rising in a single switchback. She moved cautiously up the rise to find a cavernous opening with a high, dome of a ceiling. Three tunnels broke off from the cavern into the depths of the rock.

She recognized this chamber as the final destination of her journey. On the floor of the chamber, standing like oversized eggs made from the same material that coated the walls of the cave, were two chrysalises. One nearly reached the height of her shoulder, the other was more squat and bigger around. The bottom of each seemed to flow, as though molded from the same rock that made up the smooth floor and walls

The fragmented remains of several other chrysalises were spread around the chamber. The bottom of each protruded from the floor, their shattered sides reaching towards the ceiling. Oddly no broken pieces were visible, as though someone had come and cleared it all away after they were broken open. Pock marks around the chamber floor appeared to show where older chrysalises had once been.

She looked at the two that stood, solitary on the chamber floor, gripping her hammer and chisel tightly. The contents of one of these would appease the gods and save her family. In her satchel she carried a sack made of a goat’s bladder. She would break open one of the chrysalises, and carry its contents back to her village. She had made it. All that was left was to recover what was inside, and get back to the gathering before night fell.

Approaching the shorter of the two, she quickly dropped her satchel, and pulled off her fur cloak. The air was considerably warmer in the cave than outside, and she felt herself sweating, despite her still wet clothing.

She knelt beside the oversized egg shape and immediately began chipping at the side with her hammer and chisel. The sound echoed through the chamber, and her heart raced. There was no way of doing this quietly, so she would opt for speed over silence. The surface scraped away, in small layers, almost like the scales of a fish.

She discovered quickly that slow and steady was better than rapid hammering. Trying to pierce the material by direct blows only resulted in small chips falling to the cavern floor. Instead, if she chiseled slowly and deliberately, larger layers, like flakes of hair thin rock, would peel away.

Losing herself in the rhythm of the work, sweat beading on her forehead, she had chiseled a canyon nearly a quarter of the way around the shell, and maybe a finger’s width deep when she paused to shake the soreness from her fingers.

She sat her hammer down on the cave floor and used the back of her sleeve to wipe sweat from her eyes. Rolling her aching shoulders, she closed her eyes for a moment and let her head hang. As she sat in the stillness, she heard a whisper through the cavern.

Her body tensed, and she listened. Had she imagined that sound?

She heard it again, like the hint of leather scraping across stone.

She opened her eyes, crouching low, peering around the large chrysalis.

Her mind began to race. It couldn’t be a dragon, could it? The soothsayer had said today there would be no dragons in the valley, but what if he was wrong? How much did he know about these caves? Had he ever been here himself?

She moved, feeling panic rise in her, searching frantically for a place to hide. One of the broken chrysalises looked big enough, she might be able to get in it and crouch down, maybe.

She scrambled to her feet, dread compelling her to act. She was about to turn when a head the size of a small hut burst from one of the tunnels. She froze where she stood, fear holding her in place, as she felt a warm wetness trickle down her legs.

It was pale, cream colored, like aged marble. Its over-sized mouth bristled with thick, jagged teeth. Where eyes should have been, its head was covered in a smooth, hard carapace that flared like a helmet and visor, sweeping back over its stubby neck.

It moved like a snake, coiling its long body into the chamber. It was covered in large, overlapping, scale-like plates. Rows of spines ran down either side of its back and on either side of the dull, grayish snake-like plates of its belly. Short, powerful legs pushed it further into the chamber, where it paused as if searching.

Isha could see a deep reddish glow between scales as it moved, like the white-hot embers of coals in a forge. She could feel heat radiating from it, hot enough that the moisture in her clothing began to steam.

Small slits below the carapace flare open and closed, before its massive head lunged in her direction.

She screamed as it moved, throwing her hands up in a pathetic attempt to defend herself. She expected to feel the maw, which was big enough to swallow a horse, completely enclose her.

Instead, the maw of the beast closed and a plated sack below its jaw swelled. An orifice below it’s jaw opened, and a pale sludge, the color of the walls and floor, spewed out, enveloping her completely.

She tried to turn, but the sludge was too thick. It clung to her, thick and heavy. The weight of it pulled her down, too thick for her to even sink all the way to the floor, instead, sticking her in a half crouch.

Immediately she felt her body begin to go numb where the sludge came in contact with her bare skin.

In mere moments, the sludge began to harden as she tried one last time to break free, finding she could not move at all. She was encased in a stone-like cocoon…a chrysalis.

She tried to struggle, to fight, but it was no use, her limbs were losing feeling. She could feel her heart rate, somehow, begin to slow, along with her breathing. A sense of restfulness began to settle on her, her mind fighting between sleep and panic.

As the panic faded and tranquility settled over her, she thought of her family, they would be sacrificed because of her failure. Or was it a failure? She was sent out too late in the day, did the soothsayer know what would happen to her? She realized what the chrysalises in the chamber were…she was the sacrifice

She noticed her leg didn’t hurt anymore, this thought was the last she had, as a fog settled on her mind, and she slipped away.