Embers

He kept his head just behind the shadow at the cave’s entrance. A gentle breeze disturbed the dust as some of it rose to catch the last rays of light from the setting sun which also reflected in his golden eyes. It was almost time. Soon he would be here and a short time after that, well, then it would truly be over. Ardon sighed and lay his head down on his front paws. He was tired. Thoughts of taking flight, of running from the imminent battle had found enough strength to allow his mind to entertain the possibility, but the brave idea lost momentum as quickly as it grew. He sighed again but this time it was a memory rather than the future which filled his thoughts.

“Father, why do they hate us so much?”

The two dragons perched just out of site as they surveyed the settlement in the Valley of Dien. Men were interesting, if not fascinating at times and young Ardon could not really see past that in his supposedly naïve young mind, hence the question to his father who smiled knowingly, gazing into his dear son’s eyes.

“It is their nature, Ardon.”

The young dragon furrowed his brow, eyes alight with curiosity and desire to figure it all out. But he was puzzled by this.

“Their…nature?”

His father turned back to gaze at the settlement below as he answered,

“Inside of them, Ardon, is not the capacity to do good. They take. They kill. They…”

He swallowed and Ardon caught just the faintest glimpse of something he had never recalled seeing before from his father, tears forming in his wise old eyes.

“…they ruin everything.”

Ardon turned to face his father fully. He had always been an intuitive child and what he had perceived in his father’s watering eye caused his young heart to temporarily let go its boyish joy and contemplate something miserable and dark.

“Did they…did they cause mother to die?”

His father turned his head slowly toward Ardon, closing and opening his eyes, a gentle tear ran down his impressive face and Ardon found within it all he needed to know. For the rest of that evening, they sat in silence, the voice of eagles all that broke the stillness and the distant clanging of metal on metal from the human camp below as they readied their weapons once more.

-

Ardon looked up in terror. He was found. The shadow of the warrior stood in silhouette in the cave’s mouth, the sun all but gone. He drew his sword as Ardon pushed himself up quickly from his resting place. His intention was to spew fire at his adversary, reduce him to ashes where he stood, but his weariness did not allow for such a potential taxing of his scarce resources. Instead, he met the gaze of one of the man’s eyes. It was dark, cold and without hint of mercy. Fear rose like a flame inside of him. Once that flame would have burned a beacon of strength and power but now terror was the driving force inside his huge heart. The warrior drew ever closer and Ardon closed his eyes to accept the inevitable end…

-

The dragon let out an audible gasp as he woke from the dream. His great heart pounded so hard that it quietly echoed between the cave walls. The sun had long set, and a full moon now greeted his eyes. In the trees, owls called out into the night as a wolf howled in the distance. Though shaken, he quickly let the feeling of the dream go and returned to himself. It would happen tonight, Ardon was sure of it. They often hunted in the full moon because that was when a dragon’s flame was at its lowest. Ardon almost laughed despairingly. At his age, a full moon made him about as fearsome as a squirrel, one that had run itself ragged and could barely find enough energy to eat a chestnut clutched in its small hands. Ardon shook his head at the irony of humour still alive in this setting.

As he thought on it, something stirred within him that almost made its way out in tears. They could not take that from him. Humour was there and not just that but hope still. Yes, hope rested inside of him. Hope in the face of what must surely be certain doom, not just for the dragon, but the whole of his kind. Ardon made his way out of the cave’s mouth into the moonlit valley. A gentle stream ran just to the left of where his great feet stood. He closed his eyes and took in a deep breath. The peace and serenity of this place was what he craved, he always had. He continued thinking about hope. Where did it come from? Why did it reside in his heart when to do so almost seemed like cruel mockery when faced with an adversary who almost had every advantage in this, the final conflict.

But what about him? Father had explained that their kind had not the capacity for joy or good, yet surely, he had lost family, friends, loved ones? It was not as if a dragon could get to know a man to find out what made them tick (thought there had been rumours about such meetings occurring in history – but the overriding rhetoric always leaned toward the impossibility of these supposed events), so most of Ardon’s thoughts on the matter were from his of cogitations about them. As he turned his head this way and that, listening ever so intently for the sound of human footsteps, (dragons could hear extraordinarily well, especially at night) a wonderment filled his mind and made its way to form a puzzled look on the dragon’s face.

He was alone too.

Ardon had not considered this until now. Strong and horrific as the loss of his kind was, humans were now represented by a lone warrior also. There were two. Ardon and him.

Standing in the moonlight, Ardon recalled the burning villages and the bodies that lay littered on the hot ground, dragon, and man. The war seemed like it would rage forever, but instead, a different war waged against them both. Extinction. Death.

Out of nowhere, Ardon let out a mighty roar, a sound that was mixed with an exceedingly bitter cry. Then it turned into a word.

“Whyyyy?”

Afterwards, gasping for breath and legs weakened, Ardon let the tears fall as he stumbled against a large rock near the stream, resting his head upon it. Here he would wait. He would wait for death to find him, unless…

He lifted his eyes to the moon.

…unless hope found him instead.

-

The warrior gazed into the fire that had cooked what may well be his final meal. He lifted his eyes to the moonlight and breathed slowly, deliberately. He needed his senses to be keen. They had not failed him thus far, not in what felt to him many lifetimes of battle. Of pain. He hated them. The murderous beasts had torched his village, his family and now he knew, the last one would seek to burn humanity from existence.

“It will be the end for you too, Dragon,” he said audibly as he stared at the flames dancing in front of him. “Even if you slay me, death will find you at last. But you will not. I will remove your stinking head this night. I will paint my victory on the cave walls.”

He lifted his eyes to the sky once more and to the bright stars still flickering despite the washout from the moonlight.

“When they come from beyond, they will know that Man was triumphant.”

He dropped his head and reached for his sword. Holding it in his right hand and admiring its polished blade, the warrior let it drop into the fire, while still holding it by the handle. When the blade grew red from the heat, he stood up, lifting the glowing blade into the sky, toward the moon. He continued his monologue but raised his voice as if to have it reach the ears of his adversary.

“They will know that my blade wrought victory! Then, because of me, they will grow and thrive without fear, without – “

He let the sword drop into the earth.

“– without dragons.”

He breathed in and out once more, as if filling his lungs with purpose and his heart with courage. He plucked the blade from the earth and kicked dirt over the fire. As the flames died out, the faint glow of embers reflected in his eyes. He would soon pick up the trail, he would soon confront the foul beast and he would remove the embers of his tyranny forever.

-

Ardon woke to see a small bird hopping not far from him. The tiny creature seemed almost completely ignorant of him, which made the dragon’s eyes light up with curiosity and a certain amount of joy.

“Hello there.” Ardon reached out his giant arm, laying his great hand palm up upon the ground. The bird tilted its little head, eyeing the sight and then hopped right onto it.

Gently, Ardon lifted the little bird up from the ground and looked into its tiny black eyes, as he mused upon what this might all mean (dragons were generally spiritual at the best of times, but Ardon was somewhat of a seer, at least, his mother always used to say so. Father would sometimes scold her, wanting his son to be practical, aware of his surroundings, but deep down, Ardon felt mother was right).

Suddenly, the bird fluttered its tiny wings and then, as if knowingly, it looked back up into Ardon’s eyes. After a moment of connection, the bird took flight, first around Ardon’s head and then off across the trees, into the distance.

“Fly.”

The thought was so clear, especially in the serenity of the valley, that Ardon could almost hear it being carried by the gentle breeze.

“But I can’t,” he answered himself. “I’m too tired. I’m…”

“Fly.”

“I…I cannot…”

“Fly.”

In a moment, mother’s face flashed across his mind as a shooting star also did in the sky above him. He was young, not much older than when father had taken him to view the humans in the valley. Mother had prepared Elm Loaf, Ardon’s favourite, and the memory of her kindly eyes lit up his heart, just as much as the little bird dancing on his hand had done minutes before. She had been so encouraging, almost always, but this night was special. Ardon had saved that memory, treasured it all these years.

“When you fly, son,” she had said with glowing eyes, “fly.”

Young Ardon replied, “What do you mean, fly, mother? Isn’t that what we do when we flap our wings? If we are flying, well, we are flying?”

Mother gave him a knowing look to which he replied, “Aren’t we?”

Suddenly, he had been aware that, as was often the case, mother had more in mind for him to learn than what floated on the surface.

Aged Ardon lifted himself up, standing on all fours and turned to the stream next to him, nodding as though mother had talked to him once more from its gentle waters.

“Yes,” he answered. “Beneath the surface.”

Ardon looked at his wings, first right, then left. He lifted them, one at a time and then both together. He was weary, tired. He was despairing and there was a full moon. Yet that was, as it were, on the surface. If he reached deep inside, if he could harness the hope that seemingly could not be extinguished, perhaps he could…

…fly.

Suddenly, the still and quiet of the valley shook with a mighty wind which blew away the surface of the ground and the dust swirled like a tornado beneath the great beast who had lifted himself one last time from the confines of gravity. He would fly tonight, but not just with wings of flesh, scale, and bone. No, these wings rose upon something much stronger than that.

-

The warrior stopped amid the forest, where the moonlight splintered through the tops of the trees like vine through a lattice. He listened. The noise was unmistakable. Dragon wings. He smiled as a cat would spying a mouse cornered in front of it. He drew his sword from the sheath and shouted with furious rage mixed with murderous determination,

“Dragon! Drraaaggoonn!!”

The sound of his words disappeared like mist before the latter part of the day and their echo gave way to silence once more. He walked confidently on. He had been heard, yes, the beast was on its way. One last time, man and dragon would meet in battle.

-

“These walls speak.”

Tricia looked up at her father as he held up a form of a lamp against the side of the cave, not quite understanding what he meant.

“Huh?”

He laughed gently and put his free arm around his daughters’ shoulders.

“What I mean, Tricia, is that they tell a story. Some even believe they tell us real history.”

Still a little baffled, but with some light dawning in her young mind, Tricia looked at the paintings and etchings on the cave wall.

“Hey you two!”

Father and daughter turned, slightly startled, to see Tricia’s mother standing in the entrance of the cave.

“Hey,” father answered, wanting to keep looking at the cave drawings, aware that this was probably the last moment he could before they had to depart.

“Hello mummy,” Tricia said with a smile. “Daddy is telling me about the cave drawings!”

Mummy smiled, enjoying the spark in her daughter’s eyes.

“The walls speak, you know!”

Daddy hid a smile and Mummy raised her eyebrows playfully, “Oh, do they indeed!”

She walked toward her family, evading a few cobwebs that hung from the rocks near the cave’s entrance while the dry dirt crunched beneath her feet. Her husband moved the lamp across the walls face.

“Wait, Tom, go back.”

Tom turned slightly toward his wife and answered, “Where?”

“Excuse me honey,” she said, gently moving Tricia aside to peer at the wall up close.

She extended her finger to point out etchings on the surface, which were certainly there, but a little unclear. Putting her face closer, with husband and daughter growing more and more curious she squinted her eyes.

“I don’t know, perhaps it’s nothing.”

Tom moved the light closer to the spot on the wall and his eyes widened. He blew the dust away from the etchings which revealed, unmistaken, a word.

“Well, I’ll be…”

His voice was interrupted by another from the cave entrance.

“It’s time sir.”

“Copy,” he replied.

Tom turned back to his wife and said, “Take an image.”

-

As they left, the sun was just starting to set, like it had done the night Ardon found, within his heart, the hope to face the human warrior and the courage to fight, if indeed it would be for the last time. If he were still here, he no doubt would have returned to this place, where the stream flowed gently, where the little bird had, despite its smallness, spoken of great things in its brief glance into his own eyes. He would rest here, in the cave’s entrance and gaze at the moon and the stars. His ears would greet the peaceful voice of owl and wolf while he breathed the air, fresh and still.

The wall of the cave would speak to him too. It would fill him with joy as it did so, day after day, night after night.

“Fly,” it would say.

And so, he would.