Dragon's Bane

Chapter One

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley. Not until the war, where they were bred and tortured into cruel manipulations of their former glory. Used to fight their masters’ battles, ripping apart our world with tooth and claw, leaving destruction in their wake. Leaving the world in ruins. The Tuluks won the war, but in the end, their dragons turned on them, too.

Or so the old stories tell us.

Today, they gorge themselves on our natural resources, a burden on our planet. They are the apex predator, killing for the pleasure of it—because they can. It is only through dragon hunters, like me, that we stand a chance at lessening their populations enough to one day reclaim our world.

The drifting snow had turned to ice as I made my way down the slope of the tree-speckled mountain into the silver and white valley below. The jewel-toned behemoths lumbering about on the valley floor, devouring trees and rocks, stood out in stark contrast against the pale backdrop.

There were four dragons here, not two as the rumors and murmurings had suggested.

Four.

By the great mother, I had only ever taken on two dragons at one time.

Slinging the pack off my back, I pulled it open and began to rummage through the contents, my hand landing on the oiled leather bundle. Pulling it out, I unrolled the leather and examined the glass vial secured inside.

It was a concoction of my own making, deep plum in color, extracted from the noxious berries of the murk weed. It could sedate a dragon for a short period of time—if I had gotten the strength right, that is.

Holding the vial up to let the thin light shine through it, I attempted to gauge the strength of the sedative. It was a deep, rich color with no sediment suspended in it. It looked to be of high quality. One dose would likely down a dragon for about fifteen minutes, if injected in the right location. Unfortunately for me, the vial only contained four doses.

I tapped the bottle with my finger and watched the liquid swirl.

There would be no second chance, no backup sedative. I would have one dose for each dragon. My aim would have to be true. I would have to face each dragon and fire my inoculated arrow into the soft flesh at the base of its neck. Moving quickly enough to sedate each dragon and return to the first before the sedative wore off.

A near-impossible task.

I steadied my hand and filled a glass arrowhead with the sedative, screwing it onto the shaft slowly to ensure I didn’t break the glass. The arrows were of my own design, crafted to pierce through the skin and rupture, releasing the contents within my target.

Holding my breath, I placed the arrows into my quiver, arranging them so that they wouldn’t knock against one another. With deft hands, I strung my bow and began stalking through the icy woods.

My breath hung in the air around me as I crouched in a thorn-covered bush. I could see two of the dragons from here. Their massive jaws and dagger-like teeth were tearing out chunks of wood and rock and swallowing them whole. Large swaths of the valley had already been decimated by the beasts before me. Precious resources needed to sustain human life, wasted because of the greed of a few.

The dragons had once been peaceful creatures living off in remote parts of the world, but now they were overpopulated and cruel. I hate to take the life of any living thing, but I hate to watch my world be destroyed more. These deaths were necessary, they would save lives and resources.

I gathered my hair in a fist and tied it back with a cord. It wouldn’t do to have my vision blocked when I had such precise work to do, but my head was much colder now without the trapped warmth of my hair.

It was time. I grabbed a rock and sent it flying in the direction of the two dragons. It skittered across the ground and the tearing and rending noises stopped as the dragons’ heads lifted to find the source of the disturbance.

My arrow was knocked and ready. I could hear my heartbeat in my ears.

Thump.

My arm pulled back the arrow.

Thump.

I exhaled and released.

Thump.

The arrow landed true, and my next arrow was drawn and ready.

Thump.

My second arrow landed true.

The world sped up as the dragons swayed and collapsed to the ground. I shot to my feet and began to run through the slippery woods. I had to reach the third dragon before it noticed the disturbance and flew into a furry. A rampaging dragon would be nearly impossible to subdue.

I slid silently into a thicket of brambles, chucking a rock towards the dragon as I went. The dragon’s head rose at the same time as my bow and the arrow was loosed. The chink of breaking glass was just barely audible before the dragon slumped to the ground.

One more dragon to go before the next phase of my plan. This one was the farthest out, but I could get to it, sedate it, and have about ten minutes to get back to the first two dragons and end them.

My lungs burned as I sprinted across the valley. I was coming up to the dragon from behind, its massive, spiked tail swished from side to side as it gorged itself.

I slowed my pace and silenced my breath. Sliding from tree to tree, I made my way to the front of the dragon. As I rounded to his head, a loud cracking noise caught both of our attention. The dragon’s head swiveled to the left, his shoulder blocking my aim.

I cursed and ran to get into position, stopping dead at the curdling scream that came from across the clearing.

My heart sank as I spotted the girl, smaller than myself, who was sprawled out on the snow, her hands still clutching the tree limb she had been on.

The dragon reared up, its giant wings extending. The creature’s front feet hit the earth with a force great enough to send the snow falling from the nearby pine boughs. I could feel it reverberate in my bones.

It lumbered toward the girl sprawled on the snow-covered ground, but I had already started moving, racing for the dragon, twin daggers in each hand.

Dodging its spiked tail, I leaped onto the dragon’s scaled back, driving my daggers into its flesh. It screeched and reared up, flailing about, trying to dislodge me.

Using my thighs, I clung to the beast. It twisted and turned but I stayed put. I had trained most of my twenty years to fight dragons, I would not let one best me, or hurt another person on my watch.

A gust of icy wind rushed past me, and the dragon dropped back to all fours. It began rubbing its face on the ground and clawing at its snout. As it moved about, I could see a layer of ice across its maw. My eyes glanced to the girl who was now standing in front of the dragon, her hands extended out in front of her.

As I watched, sparkling white frost emanated from the girl’s hands and pelted the dragon, the breeze off of it whipping past me.

The girl had magic. Real magic.

It wasn’t possible.

Magic had died out centuries ago. The Tuluk King had nearly decimated the Skhall people during the war. The few remaining Skhall retreated to the Rift where they were exterminated by raiders still loyal to the Tuluk cause after the war. The magic of their heritage died out with them, yet here was a girl wielding ice from her palms.

The dragon lurched and I nearly lost my grip. I had to end this beast quickly before the other three woke up.

Wrenching my daggers from the dragon’s back, I ran up the length of its spine. As I reached its neck, the girl hit it with another blast of ice, causing the dragon to flail. My feet slid out from under me, the air rushed around me as I fell.

My daggers sunk into the beast’s shoulder and slowed my fall. I released them and dropped to the ground, rolling to dodge its swiping claw.

Pain seared through my right side as its claws raked across me from the other direction. I stifled a groan, yanking out my last sedative arrow, I lunged forward and plunged it into the dragon’s throat. The dragon’s body tensed and then went limp, collapsing on top of me.

The weight of the beast was unbearable. I squirmed and shimmied out from under its neck. My hand grasped onto another hand and the girl helped pull me the rest of the way out.

“You killed the beast,” she said.

I grunted and said, “Not yet.” Taking my sword from its sheath along my back, I walked to the dragon’s head and plunged the blade diagonally between the beast’s eyes. It quivered, then slumped further into the earth, smoke billowing from its nostrils.

“Now it’s dead.”

The girl looked up at me through white eyelashes, her eyes the palest of blues, like the heart of a glacier. I unstrapped another smaller sword from my thigh and held it out to the girl. “Can you use this?”

She chewed her lip and then nodded her head, taking the sword.

“There are three more sedated dragons. I need you to go as quickly as you can to that dragon,” I waved my hand in the direction of the third dragon. “You have about eight minutes to drive that blade into its brain, just like this one here. Go between its eyes, aiming for the back of its skull. Sink the blade in all the way to the hilt. You’ll have to press hard. Can you do that?”

The girl straightened up and said, “Yes,” then ran off in the direction of the dragon.

With a yank, I pulled my sword free of the dragon’s brain and took off for the first two dragons. I had mere minutes before they would regain consciousness.

Sliding to a stop before the massive emerald beast, I poised my blade. The beast quivered and began to rise just as my blade struck its hide and slide home.

Dashing to the second dragon, I met its gaze as I slammed my blade deep into its skull.

Pulling a chain from within my shirt, I exposed the dragon fang strung there. I gripped it in my palm and closed my eyes, letting my mind drift to the family I had lost. My parents burnt alive while they slept, my brother sacrificing himself to save me—his little sister. The death of these dragons was a part of my continuing promise to my family to rid this world of the evil that had left them dead and me alone.

The snow turned crimson with the blood and gore from my blade as I cleaned it off, slipping it back into its scabbard across my back. Now that the adrenaline was wearing off, the slash across my side was screaming in agony. I pulled some cloth out of my pack and tied it around my waist to stanch the bleeding. It wasn’t the worst wound I had ever had, but I had something else I needed to do before I could tend to it.

I trudged to the third dragon I had sedated and found the girl sitting in the snow staring at her hands, the blade protruding from between the dragon’s eyes like some beastly unicorn.

Grabbing the hilt, I pulled the blade free and cleaned it off on the snow.

Fastening the blade to my thigh, I walked over and crouched in front of the girl. “You killed the dragon, you have done a great service to this world,” I said.

She shrugged.

“Why were you in that tree? You nearly got us both killed.”

Her already pale cheeks paled further. She said, “I was hunting in the valley when the dragons showed up. I climbed the first tree I could find. I was in that tree for three days, I thought I was going to die.”

“Three days?” I gasped. “How did you not freeze to death?”

She created a vortex of snow and ice in her palm. “My magic keeps most of the cold away.”

The girl quivered; it was almost imperceptible, but my eyes were trained to observe the smallest details. “Are you Skhall?” I asked.

She blanched and dropped her head. “Will you kill me for it?”

“No,” I said. “I’m going to protect you. Come on,” I offered her my hand, which she took tentatively. “I’m Valora.”

She took a breath and said, “Neva.”

I smiled at the scared-looking girl and said, “Let’s get you some food.”

Pain shot through my body as I lead Neva out of the valley. Gritting my teeth, I put one foot in front of the other and began the long trek back to the nearest village.