Pendragon

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley. That’s what Seren’s father said. She was never sure if he was just telling stories, though. It didn’t seem possible that there was a time before the endless trudging across scorched earth, through withered trees and around broken mountaintops, always listening for dreaded wingbeats. Dragons were a fact of life for Seren, and life was cruel.

“Wake up, girl,” Rhys grunted. “You dream too much.”

Seren tore her eyes from the horizon of her mind.

Rhys kept hammering at the black mud, bringing the wooden mallet down with a practiced ease. “There now, quick!”

Just as the writhing began, Seren went to her knees in the dirt, seizing the worms before they could realise their mistake and wriggle those muscular bodies back down into safety. She’d once asked her father why the worms fell for it every time, drawn by the mallet to meet their doom.

“It’s in their nature,” he’d said. “Can’t fight your nature.”

Rhys wiped sweat from his brow while Seren worked. Dreamer or not, her hands were quick, and soon the sack was half full of the worms, thrashing about in the burlap.

“Less than last week,” Rhys muttered.

He didn’t have to say what that meant. When the food ran out, they’d have no choice but to move again. That meant a trudge beneath the open sky. It meant crossing the Valley.

They’d never crossed the Valley without losing someone.

Rhys caught her expression. “Come on. Let’s head back. Did I ever tell you the story of Arthur?”

She wrestled the bag onto her shoulder and followed. She’d heard that story more times than she could count. The legendary king, the master of dragons. It was too fantastic for her. You could no more master a dragon than you could ride a hurricane. “All of them. The sword and the dragons and the glorious kingdom far from here. You’re not as good at stories as father.”

“Fair. What would you like to talk about then? Lludd? You used to like that one. How he defeats the dragons and buries them.”

Seren liked Lludd even less than Arthur. Dragons were enough of a constant in her life without having to talk about them all the time too. “Tell me about the tree again.”

“Again? You’ve heard it a hundred times.”

“I want to hear it again.”

“Well, it was tall, I remember that much. Tall as five men stood on each other’s shoulders. And broad, not like these witherlings you see now. Father couldn’t have got his arms around the trunk. The bark was dark brown and smelled like…well I don’t know what it smelled like. Life, I guess.”

Seren found it hard to imagine. Every tree she’d ever seen was pale and fruitless, like a skeleton. “And the leaves? I like the bit about the leaves.”

“They were so green, Seren. Green like you’ve never seen.”

Movement overhead sent them into a frozen crouch by pure reflex. Moments passed in stillness and silence. Seren heard only the pounding of her own heart and worried that it was too loud.

Rhys stood. “Just a bird.” His hand slid from the dagger at his belt. It would do no good at all against dragon scale, but it would do just fine on human skin. They both knew it was better that way. Most of the time, the dragons just killed people but if they took someone alive…there were all sorts of stories about what happened next and none of them were good.

“Are you sure?”

“Course I am. Come on. You should care more about Arthur, you know. Father says he was our ancestor, way back down the line. Before dragons came to the Valley.”

“What help are ancestors?” Seren muttered, still eyeing the sky. “About as much as stories.”

Rhys’ expression turned sour. “What help is daydreaming? You do that often enough.”

“Why’d they come to the Valley anyway? What do they want here? Father won’t talk about it.”

“Because he doesn’t know. No-one does and that’s the truth. For hundreds of years, they left us alone. Now, they won’t let us leave. Won’t let us live.” Rhys caught himself. “Let’s talk about the tree again, eh? The fruit was called ‘apples’ and they were bright red.”

A scream hit with the force of a whirlwind, raw power slamming them to the ground and threatening to burst their ears. Seren’s heart dropped. There was no mistaking that sound. Only one creature could be so loud.

She’d heard it a handful of times and each had burned a memory into her forever.

That time great wings had blocked out the sun. She was too young to run so father had carried her, dragging Rhys by one hand. When the darkness had lifted, half her clan were gone.

A year later, trapped in the dark while great claws tore at the stone, trying to get into the cave where they were hiding. Father’s knife was in his hand, gleaming in the dark like a grim promise.

“I won’t let it take you,” he’d told her, but it sounded like he was really talking to himself.

The last time, the terrible scream mingling in Seren’s memory with the sound her mother made when fire from above took her.

The terrible noise stopped, and Rhys hauled Seren to her feet and out of her memories.

“It wasn’t a bird,” she said, shaking in his grip. She could barely stand.

He met her gaze, pupils wide in a sea of white. His hand twitched towards the knife at his belt. They both knew what he was supposed to do.

“Seren-”

The scream came again, loud as the end of the world, and threw them apart. Seren bounced and rolled down the slope, thick ash and mud coating her. It got in her eyes, her mouth, as the world tumbled.

An impact like the fist of a god crashed down nearby and hurled Seren into the air. A hard landing left her lungs empty and aching. She desperately tried to clear the blinding black muck from her eyes. The screaming had stopped but that didn’t mean the danger was over. Where was Rhys? Would he really have used the knife? Where was the dragon?

Seren got an answer once her eyes were clear.

She’d never seen one up close. It was even bigger than she’d imagined. She hated them, of course she did. Dragons ruined the world. Still, she couldn’t help but be awed by the size of it. Father could have stood inside that enormous mouth without touching its roof. It lay in the crater of its fall, unmoving.

She was so distracted by its enormity, those great teeth and sweeping horns and gleaming golden scales, that she didn’t notice the wounds at first. Huge gouges, wider than her whole body, had been torn right through its armoured hide. They ran across its ribs, down its neck, deep in the muscle of its powerful shoulders. The thick leather of its wings had been shredded too. Perhaps that was why it had fallen.

Dragons were the unquestioned masters of the world. Their power was absolute. Since they first appeared, no-one had been able to slow them down, much less stop them. You couldn’t fight a dragon any more than you could fight the changing of seasons or the waves of the sea.

Its blood sizzled on the blackened soil.

Seren found herself drawn towards the great broken body.

What could do this?

“Seren!” Rhys came slipping and stumbling down the hill. “Fires above, get back!”

Seren ignored the curse words that would normally shock her and earn Rhys a beating from their father. She had no shock left in her. “I think it’s dead.” The words felt impossible in her mouth.

Rhys stopped in his tracks, struck dumb by the notion. Dragons didn’t die. They couldn’t, they were a force of nature. No one had ever even seen a dead dragon. Yet here one lay, unmoving, not breathing. Seren thought she should feel some kind of joy at its downfall, a feeling of victory at seeing the greatest enemy of mankind brought low. Instead, it felt almost like sacrilege. Perhaps that was something in her nature. “Can’t fight your nature,” her father had said.

She crept closer.

Something in the body stirred. For a moment, she thought it was only playing dead and this whole thing had been some strange trick. But why would a dragon need to do such a thing when it could kill them so easily?

Its great eyes remained closed. Its chest remained still.

There was a shudder across its body and a wet noise. Something heavy hit the blackened dirt then all was silent again. The thing was almost as tall as Seren, a rounded black shell giving off palpable heat. She knew what it was instinctively. Reaching out, she felt the heartbeat inside.

Rhys arrived beside her. “What do we do?”

Seren smiled. “Father says we’re descended from Arthur, right? The master of dragons.”

“I thought you didn’t like those stories.”

“Maybe I’d like them more if I was in one.”