Dragon's Valley

There weren't always dragons in the valley. The dragons came at the same time the nightmares were unleashed on humanity and the last nation was thrown into chaos. Or so the story goes. Only a few knew the truth, and only one had the courage to tempt the fates and test a child’s bedtime story against the endless legions of the bloodied sky.

Trislan woke up to his step-father banging on the door. The noon light slipped in around his curtains bathing the room in a dull light leaving shadows to fill the space where they should not be so late on a summer day. He lay in his bed breathing an exhausted sigh, staring up into the gray void above his bed. The banging came harder as the oak door shuddered on its hinges and whatever message the old gruff voice tried to convey was lost in the rattling of wood.

Trislan's stepfather, Liranso, was a good man, rough but good. He had taken Trislan's mother, Filian, as his second wife after he lost his first to childbirth, and she lost his father to a 'higher calling'. Or so she often mumbled when he had asked for answers as a child. Filian had passed away when Trislan was twelve, and it was only by the kindness of Liranso that Trislan was raised well. Their life was simple. They lived on the edge of a small village deep in the western valley, (valley seven to be precise) in an even smaller house just big enough for each to have a room and a shared kitchen, but not much else. Liranso was a blacksmith fixing farm tools and cookware in exchange for food and other necessities. His forge was modest if you wanted to speak kindly of it, and had been tacked on the side after they moved in. Once, many years before Trislan was born, Liranso was a well-off man with a decent shop in the larger city of Jortan. But Jortan was gone now, as were many of the larger towns. Those not destroyed were abandoned, too many warm bodies drew calamity to one's door.

Trislan, unable to ignore the hammering at his door any longer, rose from his bed and dressed in his simple faded blue tunic. He glanced quickly at the polished glass that made up his mirror and adjusted his long dark hair to cover his neck where the collar fell short of covering the dark pattern that crept up his back. He checked again just to be sure and wished (for perhaps the thousandth time) it were as easy to hide his mismatched eyes. The deep red iris of his left eye shimmered where the light caught it and brought back flashes of the dream which left him restless each night. A view of the land stretched out beneath him burning like a sea of fire, and the haunting voice from the smoke: ‘When the black marks burn and the red sky bleeds; head the fire’s call or follow the path where darkness leads’. Trislan shook off the words which had filled his dreams in one way or another his entire life and lifted the bar locking his door.

Liranso was an imposing man with his fist paused mid-swing, a saving grace for if it had come down it would have had Trislan laid up in bed for days. Despite their near-decade and a half together the two rarely spoke more than a greeting to each other in a day. Instead, they had taken to learning each other's mannerisms, expressions, and routines (which was for the best). Liranso was gruff and his words often carried a harsh tone even when he was in the best of moods, and Trislan's stutter made him an awkward conversationalist. So one might imagine Trislan's surprise when his step-father let loose a rapid torrent of words as he shoved a packed bag into Trislan's arms so quickly he nearly dropped it, and with such force he nearly dropped himself.

"Make for the wood's edge. Don't turn back. Don't stop for anyone no matter what you hear. There is enough in the bag for a week. I'll meet you in the valley's center and if I don't..." his heavy brow furrowed in what Trislan recognized as wary concern, the same eyes Trislan had seen each time he returned home covered in dirt and bruises over the years, "I'll meet you in the valley in five days."

Trislan wanted to ask what was happening, what made the calm Liranso so flustered, but he stopped short when he was pulled into the large barrel chest. Trislan could hear the frantic beating of his guardian's heart echoing in his chest. The heavy embrace lasted only moments, but it was the most affectionate gesture he had received since his mother died. It was then that the dread set in. Before he had time to think again he was being shoved out the front door.

"RUN! Never look back, and run!" Liranso shouted as a sudden crash of shattered wood and broken roof tiles filled the distant air.

Trislan ran. Without knowing from what, he rushed to the treeline several meters away and kept going. Over fallen logs and uneven ground, tripping over roots as he kept far from any path or road. Just as they had practiced, he easily navigated the unseen path even if his movements were clumsy. He held the pack tight to his chest, his eyes burning as much as his lungs with each step away from his home.

He was approaching the river when a strong south wind brought the scent of ash and blood to his nose. He stopped the scent bringing back memories long buried. He stood there deep in the woods close enough to hear the familiar crush of a waterfall that was just shy of the halfway point. He steadied himself for a moment before turning back toward the village. The smoke he saw through the few gaps in the canopy gripped his heart like a vice.

Lianso's words echoed in his mind as he turned slowly to continue his escape. His own breath began to weigh in his chest, his racing heart was slowly swallowing the words of warning. Run! Run! The words rang out fighting against the beating of his heart with the same blinding urgency of a midnight barn fine in spring.

Come to the valley.

A distant voice like the crumbling of a far-off mountain gnawed at the edge of Trislan's mind.

Come to the valley, Son of the Lost Kings. Come to me.

Trislan felt for a moment that his body was not his own and he raised one rooted foot to step toward the voice that filled his chest as much as his mind — like a memory long forgotten and left in the shadows trying to claw its way back into the light. When another breeze came north and brought again the scent of destruction, Trislan regained his senses. Without hesitation he spun on his heels racing back home, his breath coming in heavy puffs as his lungs protested the exertion.

He had never felt a deep love for Liranso, never like what he imagined existed between a true father and son. But the difficult, quiet, stubborn old man, towering twice Trislan's size, had been the only family he had known for fourteen years. Trislan had spent hours tending the smithy's flame as Liranso hammered away. The smoke had stung his eyes and the heat had blistered his hands. Each time they had finished the old man had ruffled his hair like he was a child and bandaged his hands with his clumsy calloused fingers. There had been care between them, even without the familial bond, he couldn't just leave him.

These were the memories that gave speed to his steps even as the avalanche voice grew louder commanding him to turn back. Flashes of memories drowned it out. Liranso's broad back, like a wall between himself and the villagers who called him a curse; his unwavering companionship as they were chased from one village to the next. He never once abandoned him even when he came of age and by all rights was no longer Liranso's responsibility. He had looked out for him in his solemn way, his eyes always soft and kind in his leather worn face.

The scent of smoke and blood was suffocating when Trislan broke the tree line again. The village up the hill was in flames; a few faint screams could be heard before they were cut short. Trislan rushed to the house and felt his heart return to its place from where it had taken up residence in his throat as the shuttered building came into view. He made his way blindly to the door, tears of relief building in his eyes at the sight of his home untouched by the nearby chaos, and threw it open.

He quickly fell back landing hard on the ground. The bag, all but forgotten in his arms, rolled to the side as Trislan screamed, holding his arms up as if he could hide from the monster that stood in the doorway.

The Squalid - an odious mixture of man and nightmare. They had come into the world thirty years ago, the same time the seas filled with monsters and beasts began tearing through the night.

The world had just come to peace, the five nations of the single remaining landmass had signed a treaty after the rest of the world had fallen to pollution and radiation following the Column Wars. The arsenals had been sealed as a promise of the everlasting peace to come: that had proved the young nation's downfall. Five years passed in harmony, the capitals of the old nations became the major cities of the New Alliance and the desolate battlefields had been tended with care to become vast fields to provide food and security to the war-tired peoples. It was a heart freezing moment for all who had suffered and sacrifice to reach peace when the sky turned red and opened in blinding flashes, like lightning that never reached for the earth. The cascade of creatures that poured out onto the island nation came in crashing heaps like meteors. At first, no one went toward the smoking craters; they were grateful the fallout didn’t level what little they had built and terrified of what could happen next as the once blue sky changed forever. Countless people waited for the New Alliance government to announce something. Anything. But no news came from sites even after half a dozen different teams went out. First were the scientists, two teams that never returned. Then the two rescue teams walked in laughing, they expected to find the first two groups too absorbed in their work to radio back. Next came a strike force, who did not even chuckle as they walked into the unknown. Finally, a recovery team, they were sent to find any bodies and bring them back.

Mere days after the impact, people began to get sick. It was the elderly at first, sudden fevers that no medicines could lower, and endless coughing filled the medical wards. Two weeks passed like that until one by one the patients fell silent their lungs filled with blood and fluid drowning them in their sleep. Open blisters and vibrant rashes were next, this targeted the young. Children died in waves; only three in twenty survived. Their corpses lined the morgues waiting for burial when the first news came from the craters, six weeks after the first team went out. Only a single word was heard through the radio static.

'Monsters'

The next day children began to disappear. No one thought anything of it, parents had been forcing their ways into the morgues for day and taking their children to be buried rather than have them examined like test subjects. Suspicion only grew when parents showed up wanting to know what happened to their child’s body when none could be found. Then, a week after the radio signal and entirely overnight, whole morgues were emptied across the nation: even New Grace, the capital city with its iron walls, was no exception.

The meteor sites were closed to public access and a perimeter was set around all twelve, high chainlink fences kept everyone out. No more government agencies or troops entered the area again. Most folks avoided the forests where the craters sat still smoking. Until the first report came. Three months after the sky opened, and over a month since they went missing, the children were seen walking in the woods. Reports came in from every town and village that bordered the forests. The parents were hysterical, leaving their homes in a rush and abandoning everything they flooded to the forests. They screamed and wailed that their children were still alive pushing past guards in a desperate attempt for the unimaginable to have been a lie. But they had yet to understand that the unimaginable would have been a reprieve. Because the things that came from the forests to greet the bereaved parents could no longer be counted as human, let alone children.

Their gnarled forms stretched ten feet in the air, dull purple translucent skin was strained too tight over the twisted vine-like limbs leading to a mangled torso. It was as if they had been ripped apart and stitched together again clumsily with bone jutting out at the wrong angles in every direction. Their stomachs were swollen and grotesquely out of place on their limp whip-like frames. Their arms dragged the ground behind them, their upper bodies bent backward as if they could not support their own weight as their large legs slowly swung outward with each agonizing step. But worst of all were the faces. They looked angelic and calm like sleeping children until they caught a scent and their heads opened as if on hinges to reveal the thing beneath. The skull beneath the children's flesh was a nausea-inducing nightmare that drove the children's parents to madness. The thin oval eyes cut high into the narrow pointed forehead, and what should have been the chin shot out ending in a downward spike that opened on the midline to reveal endless rows of teeth terminating where it cut up between the eyes. The nose, two high slits that ran the length of the face on either side of their split mouth.

The child-faced creatures left the woods at a slow lumbering pace stopping the on lookers in their tracks. By the time they opened their false faces to reveal their tortuous nature, it was too late, their bodies whipped to full attention and they charged the crowd with a hellish sheik. They tore through the parents ripping them like paper and leaving them scattered along the tree line. The Squalid then moved into the town, and finally the cities; the guard was no match without the guns of the Old Nations.

Still the squalid went down easy despite their size and speed they were weak to blunt force trauma but could heal quickly from a cut or a stab. And so the first wave fell, but the next night the dead rose again, and in the morning the empty morgues and missing corpses of what had become known as the ‘Squalid’ were the surest sign that it had only just begun.

The squalid were only the first wave and by far the easiest to deal with.

The first major city to fall was Halifun on the coast. The city was lost to the Squalid and the beasts that rose from the sea. After six weeks of onslaught the few remaining guards, civilians, and civil servants were locked in the old capitol building. Just as the final citizens sent up a flare to mark the loss of the city, the first dragon came. It flew from the southern mountain and scorched the city. That is when the evacuations started. Major cities began to fall like logs in a row each ending with a dragon rising from the mountains and burning the city to ashes.

The only refuge from the fiery beasts were the twelve valleys and so people took shelter there. It took years of failed settlements to figure out that the Squalid were attracted to large groups, and so the caravans split into smaller and smaller villages no more than a hundred or so in each location. Word came from time to time of a village attacked by squalid, but they were years apart now and rare enough that most who lived deep in valleys could pretend they weren’t happening at all.

But now they had come to Palun.

Trislan sat where he had fallen waiting to die in trembling fear. A sudden thump caught him by surprise and he looked up between spread fingers. The squalid lay on the ground to his left a dent in the back of its misshapen head. In the doorway was Liranso, a gushing wound on his chest. He looked down with wide eyes and opened his mouth to speak before he too fell.

Trislan tried to scramble to his feet, but his legs were far too weak to carry him. He crawled over the monstrous corpse shivering where he touched its soft squelching skin. He focused all his attention on where he was going and hurried to pull Liranso's head into his lap.

"Tris, you shouldn't have come." He coughed violently, blood pooling in his mouth, "The valley..." more blood pooled from his mouth as he struggled to pull air into his mangle lungs, "your de-destiny... Tris, find him. The dragon will..."

"N-n-no" Trislan shook Liranso who had suddenly fallen silent and still in his arms, "N-no! L-Lira! Lira!" His eyes burned and he shook his Step-father, beating on his chest as if he could restart his heart, "NO!"

Trislan wept, and in his grief was only barely aware of the sound like cracking whips in the distance. When he finally glanced toward the sound through blurry eyes he saw the twisted shadowy forms running toward him drawn by the sounds of his screams, their arms clashing together behind them as they moved too fast to hold their torsos upright. It was too late to run, with their speed they would catch him in moments. And his body felt too heavy to move anyway. He bent over burying his face in Liranso's collar resigned to the fate that awaited all who still drew breath on this forsaken rock.

Not yet Son of Kings. We have waited too long already.

The voice was back and with it a gale-force wind that threatened to rip him from the ground. Trislan looked up and saw the most terrifying of sights, the last thing anyone in the New Alliance could dread to witness.

The dragon.

Its wings spread out and it came to the ground with a crash. It was bigger than anything Trislan had seen in his life and yet he could muster no more fear than that which he already held. The creature moved nimbly for its size, raising its rear legs to stand tall it spun, its massive green tail smashing into the incoming squalid sending them flying toward the ruined village. It turned to him locking him in its amber sights.

Not much like your predecessors, but you'll have to do.

The rockslide voice echoed in his mind, drilling into him as if it could crush him to dust with a word. The force of the voice made the edges of Trislan’s vision go white from the pain and drove the air from his tired lungs. The dragon spread its wings again and with a powerful gust hovered just off the ground.

Trislan stared in hollow fear as a massive claw reached toward him. Again he buried his head into Liranso's neck when he felt the claw close around him he knew it was the end. As he felt his body leave the ground his vision went black.

____________________________________________________

Brydaks, the dragon of the Seventh Valley, flew carefully to the central mountain at the beginning of the valley, a place he had called home for longer than he could remember. A place that once overlooked a mighty kingdom and housed one of the great twelve lineages of the earth. He landed with care, his new Spark was still unconscious in his claws holding tight to his guardian's body even now. It had been twenty-two years since his last Spark had been burned out and the war was being lost with so few Sparks remaining. His first Spark this time around had been weak but brave. His Mark had not been strong enough to withstand the dragon’s fire, it had only been light grey and he could barely maintain the mental link that connected them. Brydaks had warned him of what would happen but the Spark that woke him from his ten-thousand-year slumber refused to heed his warning. Thankfully his offspring was stronger, with his sharp eyes Brydaks had seen the pitch-black Mark creeping up his neck when he hunched over the corpse and the red eye that had stared up at him in fear. It was the darkest Mark to appear since the dragons began to wake. Perhaps now, with eight of the twelve Sparks, they had a chance of once again purging the Dark Army from the land of the dragon kings; Draclithan might once again be free.

Brydaks gently set his new Spark down inside the cave, carefully nudging the boy away from his fallen protector. With a claw, he quickly dug a short trench to serve as a grave and set the body in it. He refrained from covering the grave remembering how humans tend to desire a final farewell to their loved ones and sat waiting for his Spark to awaken.

‘This time’ Brydaks thought to himself as he watch the boy toss in his sleep, ‘I will not fail. My Spark will thrive.’