Dragons

There weren’t always dragons in the valley. During the many long hours Aleina had spent painting the landscape, she had toyed with dozens of possibilities for the denizens of the boulder strewn valley beyond the narrow canyon in the foreground. She had almost settled on harpies when a sudden feeling of recklessness overtook her, and she began to fill the valley with dragons. They hunched among the boulders and jagged rocks, their rough, battle-worn scales blending in with the stone. They perched high on the walls of the canyon, surveying the terrain below like massive gargoyles and unleashing torrents of white-hot fire from their mouths. They dove and wheeled in the blue sky overhead, ridden by strange spindly figures wielding poleaxes and longbows.

Aleina wondered if she had gone too far this time. Dragons didn’t even exist, at least as far as she knew. Either way, it was too late now. The painting was done. It was enormous, dominating the wall it had been hung on. At ten feet wide and nearly seven feet tall, it was her largest to date. She felt proud, but she knew that finishing the painting was without a doubt the easiest part of her job.

“Here comes the hard part.” She mused to herself, still staring at the painting.

“Pardon. What was that M’lady?” One of her assistants looked back at her quizzically.

“Nothing.” She replied, biting her lip. “Cover it up. They’ll be here any minute.” The assistants obeyed without questioning further, mounting their ladders and draping a large cloth over the painting, completely concealing it from view.

As if on cue, the sound of loud voices and the clatter of armored boots drifted into the room from the hall behind Aleina. She turned, waiting for her guests to arrive. The one hundred seasoned skirmishers of 5th battalion’s 2nd company could move in complete silence on the field of battle, but as far as she could tell the heat of combat was the only thing that could persuade them to do anything quietly. They entered the hall like a flock of geese diving into an ocean of cutlery. The clatter of armor and weapons was drowned out only by the shouts, laughter, and general revelry amongst the soldiers.

Their commander, Aleina’s twin sister Alisza, strode to the front and ordered the company to attention. Silence fell over the soldiers instantly, and in a matter of seconds they had formed crisp, uniform ranks facing the painting and their commander.

The unit consisted of four platoons. An infantry detachment from the palace guard, archers from the ducal hunting society, conjurers from the royal artillery, and scouts from the expeditionary troupe. Each platoon was supported by a squad of enchanters handpicked from the finest graduates of the enigmatic Pinewood Veil Academy.

“Present arms!” Alisza’s voice rang out clearly and effortlessly in the hall. The platoon commanders responded immediately with a well-rehearsed drill. On Aleina’s left, the palace guard drew their swords in unison and executed a rapid cut and thrust maneuver before returning their swords to their scabbards and snapping to attention once again. The archers next to them rapped their various bows on the floor sharply and drew them once without knocking an arrow. The conjurers separated into batteries and summoned a pyrotechnic display from their intricately carved staves. The no-nonsense scouts simply saluted once, and the Pinewood enchanters merely dipped their heads in a shallow bow before returning to parade rest with their rough-hewn spruce quarter staves. Aleina rolled her eyes.

“You know I’ve seen this a hundred times, right? You’re going to need to come up with something new if you want to impress me.” Alisza chuckled and issued another order to the company.

“At ease.” The company relaxed out of attention. The palace guard platoon commander stepped out of formation and spoke.

“I’ll make you a deal, if you can kill me this time, I’ll have a new drill ready by tomorrow.” He was an absolute boulder of a man, no taller than Aleina herself, but approximately the width and consistency of a tree trunk. Aleina smirked at him, thinking about the dozens of dragons and rough terrain in the painting behind her.

“Deal. Any other takers?” The one-handed pyromancer, Cynix, stepped to the head of the conjurer’s artillery detachment, grinning broadly.

“I think we can make that work. Accidents happen on the battlefield you know.” He trailed off dramatically, winking at Aleina and shrugging disarmingly in the direction of the infantry. He had lost his left hand in the campaigns of the previous autumn, but the wound hadn’t affected his spirit or his combat prowess in the slightest.

“I’m hearing a lot of big talk, and that’s about it. Are you ready to back it up?” Aleina smirked and gestured at the painting behind her. Alisza nodded and took her place in front of the company. In response, Aleina stepped off to the side of the painting and signaled her assistants to uncover it.

The magic involved in preparing a painting like this was immensely complicated, but the results were nothing short of amazing. Aleina and her assistants had to painstakingly prepare hundreds of pigments with magical catalysts before they could even begin to paint, conscious of a need to blend not only colors, but magical properties as well. After that, she had to create the painting itself, which could take several weeks depending on the size and complexity of the subject. Then, when the time came, the painting could be used as a focus for a powerful ritual that placed all who looked upon it into an illusion that was almost indistinguishable from reality. There were many applications for this kind of magic, but this one was by far Aleina’s favorite. She could create scenarios for the most elite troops of the duchy to hone their skills without fear of injury or death.

As Aleina reached the edge of her painting, her assistants freed the cloth from its fastenings and let it fall away. At the same moment, she touched her forehead and performed the delicate gestures that would initiate the ritual. In moments, the empty training hall fell away, and the world of the painting swam into view around her.

As the creator of the illusion, Aleina was not enveloped in it the way the soldiers would be, but she retained the ability to view and control everything inside of it. As her world settled into focus around her, she assumed a lofty vantage point high on one of the canyon walls and prepared to create a living hell for the soldiers below her.

*

Alisza’s eyes darted back and forth rapidly as she and her company were transported into the world of the painting. They had trained using Aleina’s magic for nearly two years, but Alisza still found her sister’s illusions slightly unnerving. All around her paint swirled and melted, coalescing into surroundings just as real as any she had ever seen. The motion stopped, and she tried to figure out exactly where she was.

Nowhere good. It took only a split second for her to realize that she and her troops were situated at the bottom of a deep canyon. Behind them, a steep scree slope blocked any kind of retreat. She rapidly suppressed that part of her tactical instinct and scrambled up a small boulder to get a better view of what lay ahead. In front of her, the irregular floor of the canyon sloped gently downward for several hundred feet before falling off precipitously into a boulder strewn valley in the distance. Sightlines were poor in her immediate vicinity. Trees and rocks obscured most of the area around her, and the distant valley was the only thing she could see clearly. There was no question in her mind, she needed to get her soldiers out of this canyon immediately. Knowing her sister, limitless death and mayhem lurked in elevated positions above her on the canyon walls and concealed all around her.

“Form up! Infantry, take point along the left wall, skirmishers find me the fastest way out of here.” Her orders were obeyed instantly. The skirmishers formed up into small teams and scurried into the uneven terrain, rapidly disappearing. The infantry led the rest of the company toward the canyon wall to their left, moving slowly and keeping an eye out for ambushes. They had only been moving for several minutes when a jet of red light shot into the air and exploded off to their right. It was a signal for hostile contact from one of the skirmisher teams. Each team leader had a wand that could be used to fire many different signals, all of which could only be seen by an individual that had been attuned to the wand. It allowed the company to communicate information quickly without giving away their positions to the enemy. A split-second later, an incorporeal form appeared in front of her. It was a sending of the enchanter embedded with SK team three.

“Captain. Hostile contact on our signal. Unknown enemy. We are falling back to rendezvous with team two.” The figure faded as rapidly as it had appeared. Before she could issue an order, another red flare went off directly in front of her and another sending appeared, this time from SK team one.

“Captain. Hostile contact on our signal. Threat neutralized. Recommend establishing company waypoint at this position.” Before the sending disappeared Alisza clutched her command amulet and sent out an order to the entire company.

“Form up on SK team one.” Around her, the company began to move rapidly toward the second red flare. She let her seasoned infantry take point, following just behind them but in front of the rest of the company. Visibility got worse as they moved forward. They had entered a shallow wash and were now surrounded by tall trees. The flares they were using to navigate were no longer visible, but Alisza trusted her troops to lead them to the right place.

They were all stopped in their tracks by a deafening roar. It echoed off the canyon walls like a thunderclap, but it was unmistakably beastly in origin. It was quickly followed by a rush of air, and a massive shadow passing over their heads. The tree cover over the wash was thick enough that it was impossible to see exactly what had just flown over them, but thankfully, it meant that whatever it was wouldn’t have been able to see the company clearly either.

Without waiting for an order, the infantry point men started to move more quickly, leading the company toward the last known position of SK team one. Alisza silently applauded her men. By her reckoning there had been several opportunities to deviate from the wash and take a more direct route to their rendezvous point. Her point men had elected to remain in the concealment of the trees given an obvious threat from above and followed the wash until an area of thick vegetation in the shade of the cliff wall gave them an opportunity to leave it.

In another moment, the company had reached SK team one’s position under a large rock overhang in the cliff wall. She saw immediately that two members of the skirmish team were wounded. She moved to check in on them but then caught sight of the bodies of the enemies her team had dispatched. They were humanoid, but massive, approximately seven feet tall as far as she could tell. At first, she thought that they were wearing scale armor, but then it became clear that it was their skin that was covered in large, rough scales. Their faces were reptilian, lined with small horns, and their mouths were filled with razor sharp teeth.

Alisza was about to search out SK team one’s leader, but she turned away from the corpse to find Sergeant Carys already standing in front of her. The sergeant was a nearly a full head shorter than the company commander, but she always reminded Alisza of a mountain cat. Agile and deadly. The sergeant was one of the wounded squad members, there was a deep scratch above her right eye, and her left shoulder sported a bloody bandage as well. Before the commander could open her mouth, the sergeant spoke.

“Captain. I think this is a good spot to set up an ambush for our aerial threat. We can draw it in and then attack where it can’t maneuver.” Alisza didn’t need about the suggestion at all. It was a good plan.

“Agreed sergeant, good thinking.”

*

Aleina watched the hapless soldiers through the eyes of the dragon sentry that had flown over their heads in the canyon only a few moments ago. They had taken up a position under an overhang in the canyon, probably hoping that it would offer them cover. She wasn’t going to give them a chance to extract themselves from danger. The dragon made one final circle over the company’s position and banked into a steep dive, the wind whistling on its claws and horns as it descended. Aleina felt just a little bit of remorse. The company had no chance.