Fiction logo

Lore

All demons great and small

By Gina KingPublished about a year ago Updated about a year ago 25 min read
Like
Midjourney image

The ragged peaks over black trees slashed through with blood red ribbons of shrubs, the sailing dinghy surging on a sea recoiling chaotically from its forced union with that accursed land, the full-body exhaustion of fighting to control the tiller and mainsheet to keep the lunging craft from capsizing altogether.... A lesser spirit would have been overcome by such trials.

Harrah’s was not a lesser spirit.

Not that she would ever brag of any inherent superiority - no, she was but a vessel swelled to overflowing with the spirit of the creators. She had been born with Ares on high and deeply honored to receive his call before this day’s dawning. It was a call to go forth cloaked in his courage to seek survivors of the lost ship Delfinus on this wretched shore. She looked into her peep stone’s rabbit leather pouch to scry if her parents or other pilgrims would be granted the faith to understand her mission, but saw no glimmer in favor of such hope.

So it was that she had set out alone, first gathering a few provisions, a waterskin, and the longest knife she could find, then stealing into this dinghy and lowering slowly down the side of the ship. It took an additional prayer to drop those final feet into the blackness huddled against the great overhanging cliff of the ship, then row swiftly beyond any spotter’s gaze to where the sail could be safely raised.

She had asked Hermes to guide her way and Poseidon to calm the path before her, and now with the sun climbing high, Isle Pytho lay dead ahead. Hermes had guided her well. Poseidon’s sea calming wanted for improvement. But then, something must have angered him greatly, to have cast the smallest of the pilgrims’ ships against the rocks an endlessly long day and night ago. And here, of all places.

She had been angered but unsurprised at the captains’ joint decision to mount no rescue. The Isle Pytho was ruled by a dragon, who relentlessly patrolled the shorelines. If anyone had made it to shore, they would not have survived long thereafter. There was a sense of resignation to the gods' demand for sacrifice, and whispers of the divine favor now bestowed upon this pilgrimage. She too had taken some comfort in that notion.

But now Harrah was certain that threads of Ares’ plan were yet to be woven into this tapestry, and she had been chosen as an instrument of his weavings.

A few larger pieces of debris lay on the beach ahead - decking, casks, shredded sails hanging from fragments of yards - and one small pale shape moving beyond these on the sand.

She lifted her father’s spyglass to see if this was merely a gull. No, it was a child! She caught only a glimpse before a swell jostled her view, but it was unmistakably a child toddling toward the forest.

She gasped and struggled to find it again, but Tyche herself must have nudged that circle of sight up to reveal a more urgent matter: a huge flying creature descending toward the beach. The dragon! Huge deep blue wings like a bats, but a disquietingly unnatural four additional limbs on its slender, reptilian body. A 6-limbed beast was surely a thing molded by a rogue god - a dissonant note in the symphony of nature.

She leapt to lower the sail and make herself less visible. When she looked up again, the dragon was banking and alighting on the strip of sand with unexpected grace. It landed facing away from her, toward where the child must surely be walking. The creature hesitated, then undulated up the beach. It somehow squeezed itself into the low forest.

Harrah grabbed the oars and pulled hard for shore, propelled by only the vaguest notion of how she might prevail. She watched over her shoulder until finally the thing emerged from the forest. She watched in horror as the dragon unfurled its wings and launched upward then swung around toward the mountains, a small pale shape grasped in its right forefoot.

Another Midjourney oddity

The first glimpse of the ship’s wreckage filled Rownoo with rapacious glee. Finally first to a treasure! Wait until he took some back to Wooshroo and led her to the find!

The creature on the beach, though, that gave him a start. He had never seen a human, alive or dead, but surely this was one. An animal walking upright on its hind legs - was there any other such abomination? He swept downward, watching it hobble along with morbid fascination. He noted with revulsion that its skin seemed to be sloughing off in sheets, yet there was no blood visible. Perhaps humans molt? It had made its way into the forest fringe by the time he touched down, and he hurried after, squeezing through the trunks with growing anxiety. A forest was no place for a dragon - it would get away if he didn’t hurry.

But it stood waiting in a small canopy gap watching his approach. It had sandy brown fur on its head and what had appeared to be molting skin was just a tattered wrapping of material much like the great sheets that washed ashore with their broken ships. On its lower legs were intact pieces of the same material cleverly shaped to its form. The legendary workmanship of the humans extended to so many crafts, large and small!

The human examined him, eyes and mouth wide.

There was nothing to it. Tempting as it was to quickly gather hoardings on the beach, how could they compare to possession of an actual crafter?

Rownoo sprang forward and gathered the human up, squeezing himself around to lumber back free of the trees and leap skyward.

****

Rownoo landed awkwardly on the ledge, having transferred the human to his hind left foot. This next bit would require delicate communication. If there was one thing he was very, very good at… well, it was certainly not that.

Wooshroo lay near the cave entrance, smacking and crunching her way through a still smoking mountain sheep carcass. She looked up, blood on her fangs glinting splendidly in the sun. She could singe the fur off and leave the organs rare like none other.

“My dear,” said Rownoo. Her amber eyes narrowed suspiciously. Gods - she was so intuitive, he might as well be transparent.

He cleared his throat. “Fabulous news! A fresh wreck at Waxing Crescent Beach!”

She was poised at the ledge in a flash. Then her eyes narrowed again. “Why didn’t you bring any back?”

Rownoo could feel the stupidity burning on his face. “I… was so excited to share it with you I returned immediately!” he recovered. “Let me just have a bite of sheep and I’ll follow. You can’t miss it!”

She shot him a look that suggested she wasn’t quite buying it, but didn’t care enough to delay. She left him in a swirl of sandy wing wash.

Rownoo spit sand as he gently deposited the human against the wall behind his favorite smooth chinrest rock. It looked up at him with brown eyes. Good, he hadn’t killed it. It watched him spit again and made what sounded like a happy gasping. Strange.

“Just… stay here!” he admonished. Its eyes widened again. “Staaaaaaay heeeeeere!”

The human’s mouth widened. It burst forth with gibberish. “Doggy doggy!”

Perhaps that was human for “magnificent dragon.” Or “I will slay you all.” Well, no time for language lessons now. Rownoo headed after his mate, still clueless what to tell her.

****

Harrah groaned as she pulled the boat the last few feet up to thump into the hollow against a low ridge of rock tapering down from the treeline toward the shore. Her muscles screamed for rest, but the boat was still far too visible from the wreckage to which the dragon would likely return. She climbed back into the boat and pulled hard at the lower of 2 bolts running through a metal brace at the mast's base. This was a clever hinge, but it took hard shouldering of the mast to get the pin to wiggle free, letting the pole swing down and thud onto the stern. That was a little better, anyway. She grabbed her bag and made her way up, treading on rocks to avoid leaving tracks and finally stopping to rest only once within the first low trees and shrubs.

She had barely settled when they came; the first with backlit wings glowing turquoise then fading to deep green as it swung down to alight by the wreckage, the second smaller and bluer - likely the same one she had seen before. The one she had thought to be the only dragon. In a mad flurry of limbs and wings they fell to dismembering and sorting. A pile of ropes and metal grew to one side, many of the iron cleats, rings, and plates still bolted to boards, with loose items such as pitchers and platters clattering onto the pile as well.

They had ripped a few smaller sails free and were pushing their loot onto these when the larger dragon froze. Its reptilian eyes were looking straight at the rock ridge below Harrah. The back of the boat was surely visible from where it stood. Suddenly those immense wings were carrying the beast toward the horrified girl.

Harrah tucked herself into the smallest ball possible amongst the shrubs. She coudn't even breathe, lest the motion betray her.

She heard scrabbling claws, shifting sand, then the great wings pulsed again.

By the time she dared look, the dragon was back at the wreck, mounding sail-wrapped treasure into Harrah’s sailing dinghy with muffled crash after crash. It finally grasped the dinghy and pumped hard into the air. That one must be the alpha male, for the smaller one hastily rebundled the piles that had been knocked asunder in the proceedings and flapped madly in pursuit. A few items caught the sun in their long twinkling tumbles from the packets in his claws.

The girl felt herself hollowing as the dragon bearing her only way off of this rock grew smaller and smaller, finally slipping through the left notch of a W-shaped valley in the sharp peaks on the horizon. She swallowed hard.

Then Harrah smiled. She even laughed wryly. For what more powerful sign could the Gods send that her path lay ahead? She threw her bag over her shoulder, offered up a prayer for Tyche’s continued protection over the child, and marched on.

***

Rownoo flew hard, trying to beat Wooshroo back to the cave, vacillating wildly between fear that the human would still be there and fear that it would not. But even with her heavier load, Wooshroo’s broader wings gave her an advantage and she alighted first.

Oh, the human was definitely still there. It stood in full view, completely naked and munching on bits of sheep it pulled from the more cooked outer carcass. It looked up at Wooshroo towering over it and Rownoo landing behind. Its face contorted oddly.

“What is this???” bellowed Wooshroo.

The human opened its mouth and a hideous wailing issued forth.

Rownoo dropped his hoardings and pushed by Wooshroo to grab the human and leap with it around the bend into the furthest reach of the treasure den. He could hear crashing and scraping in the entrance, then Wooshroo appeared, dragging the boat laden with her bundles and collapsing remains of his as well. “Shush that thing before someone comes and sees!” she hissed as she swished back around the bend to retrieve the rest.

“Hush, hush, huuuuuuuush!” he crooned as he set the creature down in a great nest of coiled rope. The human’s wailing sputtered to a halt, though its breath still shuddered.

Wooshroo returned to drop the remaining gleanings. Her glare flicked up and down between the two of them.

“Look, my one!” Rownoo exclaimed. “Think about it! Our own human! We wouldn’t have to race to find these broken makings,” he gestured to the decades of accumulated flotsam around him, “we could have brand new things made for us!” The human watched him speak and chortled.

She lowered her head to inspect it more closely. “Are you even sure this is a human?” she asked. “It’s so small. It has thin skin like a fish.” She sniffed it, eliciting another chortle from the creature. “It smells like one, too.”

“A fish?! It’s nothing like a fish! Look at it standing there!”

“Oh, that’s not what I mean!” she protested. “Just… if THAT little thing is a human it can’t be more than a hatchling.”

He looked at it appraisingly. “We don’t know that. You haven’t seen one any more than I have. Besides, if it’s young, all the easier to tame it!”

“I’m not sure it’s any less dangerous if it is young. Remember the human in the Legend of Atroo - it was small but STILL had a stinger and killed the Five of the Wing in their sleep!”

“Well… yessss…. But the Twice-blessed Crafter Greenwing was taught to craft by a young human…”.

“‘And it sang a haunting song of making that filled each object with a magical vibrance’...” Wooshroo quoted thoughtfully. She weighed the evidence. She gave it another sniff. “We can keep it for now.” Happy tendrils of steam danced from Rownoo’s nostrils. “But it must stay hidden! And at the first sign of trouble, I will roast and eat it.”

He nodded at the eminent fairness of this decision. “Now, keep it tucked away and let’s see what more we can grab before someone else finds the trove,” she said.

Rownoo nodded again, then dragged a heap of the new finds alongside the boat and spread them to complete a low wall before the human. He followed Wooshroo to the entry ledge then paused. He snatched up the sheep carcass and trotted back to the treasure cove to drop it in with the human. As it watched in fascination, he gave the sheep a quick roasting, cooking it deeper and releasing a delicious aroma.

Rownoo nosed it closer. “We’ll be back shortly… little Fish.”

***

As Harrah climbed, Bastera, Goddess of all that is green, provided a thick cover of low evergreen trees with well-spaced twisted trunks. She chuckled at the cleverness of this perfect screen - one a righteous warrior of just her height could navigate with but a slight stoop and occasional crawl through a low tight spot. Well, she had been born with Bastera rising.

This cover thinned by early afternoon, calling for more care in choosing a route. At a quick break for water and hardtack her heart quickened at the shape of a distant dragon flickered through the canopy. It might have been the larger one she had seen earlier. Or there might be even more than one pair. She quelled a shudder at the thought.

No matter - the scene was already set before her. The magnitude of the challenge was built to be her match. This would be a story for the ages.

***

The human was happily striking a spoon against a brass bowl when they returned. It had its leg wrappings on again but had left an odiferous pile of waste and patch of damp sand against the wall of the treasure cove. Rownoo hastily incinerated the mess and tucked the human into a small enclosure of rope and barrels with its metal clangings.

“He might well be crafting something already, love!” he said brightly.

“Perhaps something to kill us with!” she answered, just as brightly. They both paused to eye it suspiciously, but neither of the objects seemed to be changing appreciably. Perhaps for the best.

Nervous as they were about what Fish might do, dragons are dragons and Rownoo and Wooshrow applied themselves to sorting the trove from the beach. Bits of net and rope on the end near the human, then the pile of sail remnants, then small wooden objects, large curved beams, straight timbers, and finally anything with metal. These last objects were arranged and rearranged several times among those gleaned over the years on beach forays, with many debates as to the proper consideration of size vs shape in groupings, and if all wood should be stripped away and added to the wooden object piles. Finally the small boat was shifted to sit just so in the center of the floor - a place of honor for such a fine, intact crafting.

As they stood quietly admiring their work, Fish let out a great bout of babbling and came clambering over the ropes to pick out a wooden rod and jab it fiercely at the boney remains of the sheep carcass. The dragons exchanged a glance, then through silent agreement set to moving all pointy metal objects way back towards the wall with heavier ones stacked upon them.

***

Harrah started before dawn aiming to reach the bare top of the ridge before daylight could fully expose her there. As she reached the lichen-covered crest the details of the surrounding landscape were becoming clearer by the second. Tufted forested slopes climbing from the beaches behind, the w-shaped cleft in the taller ridge ahead. And in between…. Her heart sank. A deep valley still buried in shadow. All of the elevation she had fought for would be lost, with a steeper, longer climb thereafter and no telling how much further to go beyond that. And her with nothing left to eat but a couple of chunks of bread and cheese.

She had to just keep moving. Get herself out of sight of dragons and the cold reality of what lay ahead out of her own sight.

Something looked out of place below, an odd little jumble of sharp and soft edges. A mountain sheep, she came to find, or the burnt remains of one. She considered: George had worn a snow-white fleece when he slew the great dragon. It might be a sign. Not that she would literally be wearing a fleece from this creature. What was left uncharred was barely enough to fashion an ear muff.

As she plucked meat from the carcass it came to her. It came to her with queer conviction. A call to faith a hair’s breadth beyond the five senses; not quite seen or heard, but almost felt, so nearly tasted, not quite of - but perhaps borne upon - the scorched savory mutton scent.

The Gods would feed her body with this body, its spirit cast from the physical realm by the unnatural creatures ahead. And with its strength in her bones she would rain the Gods’ wrath upon them. All of the dragons must die.

***

Rownoo watched closely as Fish made his way along the line of potential foods he had collected for the human. He called out a running narrative to Wooshroo, exclaiming, “Oh, Fish likes the fuzzy orange fruits!” and “Oh ho! He spat the grub out clear over my tail!”

He was undeterred by the lack of response. It would have been along the lines of, "Why did you name that thing, anyway?"

When she finally spoke it was to say, “I’m off to the shadow plays, are you coming?” She was unsurprised to hear he was not.

Coola had already begun when she arrived, the light of the bonfire dancing on his vibrant orange hide, his clawed hands twisting artfully to illustrate the tale in enormous shadows on the cliff at his back. She settled into an opening on one of the natural shelves that wrapped the gathering bowl, joining the dozens of other dragons listening with just the barest adjustment of wings and scraping of claws on rock.

Coola was at the part of The True Saint when the human, Foul George, turned on the heroine Bostroo, capitalizing on her naïve trust. The shadow human stung Coola's shadow again and again, the dragon shadow collapsing further with each sting.

As Wooshroo watched the shadow tale, it came to her. It came to her with queer conviction. A call to faith. Rownoo was a fool, but he was her fool, and only she could save him. The human must die.

****

Harrah lost track of the hours she lay in the valley, racked by spasms along the bank of a rushing creek. The sheep might not have been sent by the gods after all. Whatever strength might have come from it had been evacuated through her bowels, in the least legendary turn of events imaginable.

In a moment when she thought she might be well enough to soldier on, she attempted a few steps up a game trail ascending the far side of the valley, only to find that gravity did not seem to be working properly. It grabbed her erratically, finally casting her back down to the silty bank.

***

“Please, little Fish” Rownoo whispered, “favor us with just a small making or song.” He glanced over to the great bulk of Wooshroo, her sides slowly rising and falling as she slept. “Her patience is wearing thin - she needs a proper sign soon!”

Fish babbled back at him from his little nest of blankets piled in the prized wooden craft. He slapped the smooth rail with his little hands, declaring, “Doggy oggy, boat boat!”

Rownoo sighed and speared a couple of the little orange fruits from the pile to drop in with Fish. “Well at least quiet down while she’s sleeping. Perhaps tomorrow you’ll be ready.”

***

Harrah was simultaneously elated and disheartened to find herself overlooking the valley of dragons. For she had come so very far to stand on the rim of this stunning bowl, so near her quest’s end. But the dragons spiraling overhead were many, as were the smooth-lipped lair entrances punctuating the slope. Still, how could her heart not soar when Tyche guided her spyglass to a cave just across the left curve from her position, at such an auspicious angle that she sighted the small figure moving in a shadowed alcove at once. The child was alive!

***

Wooshroo landed on the entrance ledge with the small black shape of Elder Hosyoo folding in close behind.

"What is she doing here!" shouted Rownoo. He grabbed Fish but there was no sense trying to hide him now. If Hosyoo hadn't spotted him immediately his wailing was like a bonfire illuminating him now.

"We need to be smart, Rownoo!" Wooshroo urged. "Smarter than the Five of the Wing! Smarter than Bostroo! Just let Hosyoo help us decide what to do with it!"

Rownoo could feel the heat glowing in his breast, saw a flicker of fear in Hosyoo's eyes at the sight of that glow.

"Fish is not dangerous!" he howled, tightening his clutch on the human. "He's a crafter and singer - he's just not ready to show us yet! Because YOU" he glared at Wooshroo, "keep scaring him!"

Hosyoo spoke calmly, "Now Rownoo, let's keep our heads. The legends are clear on how beguiling, yet deadly, these creatures…"

"Scorch the legends!" Rownoo raged. "I am the only one here to know an actual human and I tell you, they are not dangerous!

It was at this moment that Harrah, cloaked in Ares' strength and Tyche's protection, strode onto the ledge, knife held straight and sure before her.

Three pairs of huge, vertically-slitted golden eyes turned to her, plus one pair of small round-pupiled brown ones. Even Fish had fallen silent and all stood frozen.

Harrah announced with all the ominous portent she could muster, “Free the child or the wrath of the Gods shall rain down upon thee!” Her voice squeaked a little at the end.

“Well, whatever that was, it certainly wasn’t a song offering,” said Wooshroo.

Harrah looked at her with surprise - she had heard a strange dog-like yowling on her final climb down to the lair, but there was something wildly incongruous about watching these sounds emerge from this fierce beast’s mouth.

Rownoo was struck by two realizations in quick succession: one, that Fish was indeed a hatchling; second, that in his astonishment he had relaxed his hold and said hatchling was now toddling toward the taller human with the stinger. “No, careful!” he yelled.

“You’re warning IT??” snapped Wooshroo.

Hosyoo was closest to the humans and glared at them with a glow building menacingly in her breast. Fish reached Harrah, who pulled him in close with her left hand. At the same time she held the blade yet higher toward the little black dragon, who appeared to be the most immediate threat. Hosyoo drew her head back to fire.

“No, don’t!” bellowed Rownoo, surging at Hosyoo. The engulfing fury of noise and motion set Fish wailing again. Harrah’s faith and composure crumbled completely and she found herself wrapped around the little boy, the ridiculously small knife clattering to the stone. He shook as liquids pouring from his eyes, nose, and mouth soaked her shirt. The dragons yowled and scuffled and she dared not look to see if death was coming by fire or claw.

A flash of bitterness swept through her, quelled quickly by long-practiced capacity for acceptance. Perhaps she had misunderstood the sort of tale she was living. Perhaps what she was living was a test to see how faithfully she would follow the Gods’ bidding even to certain death. If so, her calling now was to dignity and to help this child meet the end in peace.

A song came to her. It seemed fitting, with bittersweet lyrics over a deceptively buoyant melody. She started singing it to the boy while stroking his hair, singing of waves of golden wheat where the warriors of Ayndarro lay, that their people could survive to seek their true home yet to this day. The boy calmed and even warbled along a bit.

She was struggling to remember the lyrics to the third verse when it struck her odd that this should prove necessary. Her voice faltered away into silence.

She looked up in puzzlement to find three enormous creatures staring at her.

“Sorry, I’d have picked a different one if I’d known I’d need to sing the whole thing,” she said.

“Ah ha! You see! I was right - Fish was just too young to sing. They’re the magical crafter breed of humans!” shouted Rownoo.

“I was the one who said he was young,” countered Wooshroo, but he noticed she made no statement against the more consequential assertion.

Rownoo gasped, seeing Hosyoo was yet moving towards the humans, extending curved claws toward them as they stood frozen. But she just hooked a claw over the stinger on the floor and flicked it out the entrance to fall away with a faint clink-clinking.

She circled back to Rownoo and Wooshroo. “In this matter, I side with Rownoo: the humans may live.” She glanced back at the two small creatures. “They may remain here until the Council decides how to best use this resource for the Colony.” With that, she launched herself away and was gone.

“What a splendid turn!” said Wooshroo.

“Wait… what?” said Rownoo.

He looked at Fish and the taller human, hugging each other and looking about in understandable bewilderment. He imagined the splendid things they might craft together - clever and beautiful creations of metal and glass and polished wood and rope, all saturated with magical singing.

He imagined them in a dark cavern, held there to create for the rest of their days.

He said, “Wooshroo, we need to talk.”

***

Harrah held the laughing boy tighter as the boat touched down with a hollow thump and slid slightly in the sand. What an extraordinary - nay, legendary! - experience: the undulating flight with solid wood beneath and vast beating wings above, gazing down at a landscape far easier to appreciate for its beauty when crossed over in minutes rather than slogged through for days.

The dragons watched attentively as she hoisted the mast erect and fixed it in place. The smaller one even held it steady between two great claws while she thumped the pin in with the end of an oar. The boy was gathering the fuzzy orange fruits that had tumbled loose and dropping them back in their bag. She seated him where he would be safely out of the way and wrapped him in one of the blankets lying in the hull.

She started pushing toward the water and the smaller dragon was there again, pushing so fast that all she could do was leap in and be grateful for launching with dry feet.

The dragons watched as the boat cleared the breakers and Harrah stowed the oars and lifted the sail. She gave a last wave.

Rownoo looked at Wooshroo, then beyond her down the beach. “Hey,” he said, “looks like nobody else has pillaged the wreckage yet! I believe more has washed ashore!” She released a happy puff of steam and they loped off to scavenge together.

Fantasy
Like

About the Creator

Gina King

Wildlife biologist, Northwesterner, reluctant passenger in this wild 21st century ride.

Reader insights

Be the first to share your insights about this piece.

How does it work?

Add your insights

Comments

There are no comments for this story

Be the first to respond and start the conversation.

Sign in to comment

    Find us on social media

    Miscellaneous links

    • Explore
    • Contact
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms of Use
    • Support

    © 2024 Creatd, Inc. All Rights Reserved.