Saga of Bjorn Halgripson

Dry leaves rustled as the enormity of the dragon slithered over them. Smoke reeked in its nostrils, a smoke that was nothing of its own creation, a smoke birthed from a foreign fire.

The other dragon was long gone, and soon, there was no reason to doubt, this whole forest would be gone up in flames. The ashes of trees mingling with the ashes of peasant levies burned to cinders on the field.

The dragon did not think over much of the levies, it hardly knew one human from another save when they donned their iron scales and did battle. The levies had no such scales, though they were often ridden down by men in them. Among the dead were elderly, wardens, and hatchlings, these the dragon knew something of - some pieces of life are universal.

When it was a hatchling, it had known a warden. Its mother, perhaps, but then what was a mother to a dragon? The warden had cared for the dragon when it was young, fed and taught it, protected and warmed it through the frigid winters until it was strong enough to survive on its own. Then with a word of farewell, the dragon had left. Never looking back except, occasionally, in its dreams.

More smoke filled the air, and the dragon hunched lower to the ground. When the other dragon had set the land ablaze, there had already been a great many bodies for the battle had been long and bloody.

If the screams whose echoes still rattled through the trees had meant anything to the dragon, perhaps it would have felt remorse for the dead. But humans were not like its own kind, they were many and there was always more to replace the ones who burned. So many, in fact, that they could ignore their ancient wars against dragons and else kind and turn their blades on one another.

A cry broke the smoky stillness of the forest. It shattered the hollow silence left in the wake of echoing screams, and animals long since scattered by the fighting and the fire. It was a screaming wail, frightened and hungry.

Curiously, the dragon turned its head towards the sound and tasted the air with its long, forked tongue.

On the wind there was the smoke, the reek of human death, and the subtle tang of fear, but also something else. Something that did not quite fit with the rest. Something alive.

The dragon slithered towards the sound, conscious of its size and its weight, knowing that whatever it was that made the noise could be as easily scattered as deer. When it reached the place from which the scream had come, it recoiled, pulling its head back between its shoulders. The stench of death was strong in that place, and fear hung like an afterthought behind it.

In the middle of the clearing, surrounded by butchered bodies, a dozen humans stood. The dragon wondered that it had not smelled or heard them before, but the stench of charred flesh and the reek of death was so strong. It also wondered at the sound that had drawn it to this place. There was no screaming here, any noise the dead had made was long since faded.

Turing to each other, laughing in a way that rankled the dragon, the humans pointed at something at their feet. They stood in the midst of a slaughter, the wreckage of carts and wagons surrounding them, and laughed and pointed at something on the ground. The dragon craned its long neck to see what held the attention of the humans and wondered still more.

A human hatchling, barely past the men’s knees, was shrouded in a kind of blue cloth that humans treasured. A hunger for the cloth filled the dragon, it lusted after that which others treasured and thus wanted the cloth with its gold embroidery. But its curiosity was great, and it listened to the speech of the humans as they pointed with bloodied knives at the hatchling.

Their language was strange to the dragon, though it knew well enough what they must be saying. With a controlled blast, it loosed its breath on them; blackened flesh peeled away from white bone slowly singed to reddish coals. One by one the bodies of the humans around the hatchling fell, their iron scales half melted to glowing slag until only the hatchling was left. The dragon cared little for humans, the hatchlings or the grown, but this one was clearly coveted, and thus it must have it.

The tiny human’s scream died in its throat at it looked at the dragon, its silver eyes wide with a blend of terror and wonder. Gently, slowly so as not to startle the thing, the dragon brought its massive head down to the level of the human and stared into its face with one blue eye. The child reached out a trembling hand and laid it against the scaly nose that steamed gently before its face.

All things that are desired, the dragon coveted. With gentle jaws, it lifted the hatchling in its silk wrap, raised its wings, and with a powerful whoosh of air, leapt into the sky. Far below, the carnage of the caravan was slowly consumed by the flames. The blue and gold banners of the human Jarl, showing a dragon in flight, burning bright as torches while the flames consumed the carts, the animals, and the corpses.

And so began the rein of Jarl Bjorn Halgripson.

-0-

From the depths of a shadow, two eyes watched a dragon lift into the night sky and soar away from carnage that was its legacy. Dragon fire blazed through the valley, devouring the remnants of the ambush and the last memories of Jarl Halgripp and his war band. Beyond the Housecarls and landed warriors, there also lay the bodies of families, slaves, and followers aplenty.

But the ashes of those who had followed Jarl Halgripp Ring-Giver to war were not all carried in smoke towards the waxing moon as it hung low in the evening sky. Prince Bjorn Silver Eye still lived, wrapped in his father’s colours as though it were the blanket that lined his cradle, and carried from a wyrm’s jaws. So too the owner of the eyes survived.

The eyes watched the shape of the dragon, a great four-legged beast different to the wyverns that infested the southern hills just as men were different to monkeys, as it wheeled across the face of the moon and disappeared into the gathering clouds. Shifting to the devastation around them, the eyes considered the ambush and the fate of the Jarldom.

The fire would consume the evidence of the Khaliph’s treachery. It would devour the bodies of the dead and the weeping of the wounded, and leave not even the memory of the Jarl behind. Dragon fire could only be doused by the rain that even then gathered over the Tideless Sea. But by the time the storm made landfall, there would be nothing left to save. Bowing his head toward the body of his Jarl and spitting at the charred bones of the men who had surrounded the prince, the owner of the eyes turned north.

North was the direction that the prince had been taken, and so north the owner of the eyes must go. Where there were dragons in the world, there would be rumours, and where there were rumours, there were nuggets of truth, rare as gold in a mountain river but still there to be found. The war against the desert tribes was ended before it began, the Khaliph’s betrayal absolute, and the legacy of Halgripp Ring-Giver in the claws of a wyrm.

Visions of glory and of heraldry of his own dancing in his head, the owner of the eyes shouldered his pack and walked through the silent forest that would soon feed dragon fire. Prince Bjorn would be most grateful to the one who saved him from the clutches of the wyrm; and even if the last heir to the Jarldom was dead… the dragon’s heart would earn the man his own name. Jarl Wagner Dragon-Slayer, as he would have himself be known, emerged from the forest and strode steadily towards the great mountains.

-0-

What do human hatchlings eat?

It was a question that played on the dragon’s mind as it flew north. It assumed, given that it had seen them riding their hard hooved beasts on great hunts, that one of the things was venison. But there must be other things. Being a curious dragon, always hungry for that which others craved, the dragon had watched as the humans splashed in rivers and came up with struggling fish.

The dragon enjoyed fish, it was a different thing to the beasts of the land. But except for the fatty enormous air-breathing fish of the oceans, they could not easily sustain the dragon’s appetite. Such small things. Perhaps it could ask the human itself, such a thing was not entirely beyond reason, humans could definitely speak, and it could communicate with some of them.

Cracking its lips, the dragon flexed its enormous throat to form the words it needed, and asked the human what it ate. Since it was to possess this treasure for as long as it was worth having, it should keep the thing alive. But the human did not answer. It whimpered in a way that draconic hatchlings were wont to do when frightened. Perhaps the dragon could understand, if it truly stretched its intellect. If a thing as large as it was to the human picked it up and flew it far away from all it knew… especially if it was young…

Yes. For now, the dragon could forgive. But its patience was not limitless, and eventually the human would have to tell it or starve. And the dragon could never abide losing any of its trove, so the hatchling must not starve.

In the curiosity of the human hatchling, the dragon almost forgot the fine cloth in which it was bundled. The cloth which it held in its jaws. Curious that it would forget such a thing when it was likely worth more than the hatchling. Then again, the human had clearly been what the iron-scaled ones wanted, thus it stood to draconic reason that it was more valuable than even the fine banner. Odd that a living human would cost more than silk and golden thread.

When the dragon reached its home, the gaping fissure in the side of its mountain filled with beautiful formations of gem and crystal dripping from the jagged ceiling, it laid the bundle with the hatchling down gently. Looking at the human, who stared up in his own turn, the dragon felt something stir within its core. The flight had taken hours, though, and the hatchling was probably hungry. Which again raised the question of what it ate.

Deciding on trying something for its own sake, the dragon again took wing, leaving the human on the floor of its cave, staring up at it as it flew away.

On its return, the dragon dropped the twitching carcase of a deer before the human. Its own hunger was long since sated, and there was nothing left for it to do but watch its new possession.

It stared into the dragon’s eyes with something like courage. Interesting, most humans would only scream and run if the dragon so much as glanced their way. Perhaps there was something more to this hatchling, and its value was rising every moment in the dragon’s estimation. The humans that the dragon had burned, so different in appearance to the hatchling, had clearly desired it. But what could make a human so valuable?

Not unaware of human lords and their power, the dragon knew that the retinue it had found slain in the woods, and the bodies on the field, belonged to a lord’s service. But that lord was dead, and in the normal course each of that ilk were worth scores of their underlings, so it was clear that this hatchling must be more valuable alive than its sire. But why?

With a thundering sound, the hatchling sneezed and rubbed angrily at its nose with the silken cloth. The dragon thought that a fair trade, it got the hatchling, so it could keep its shroud. But there was something wrong, the skin of the human was not its regular hue, nor was it the colourless blanche of fear. Instead, blue tinged it about the small thin lips, and its hands and shoulders shook. What could be the meaning of this?

More time passed. Blood from the stag cooled and crystalized as the sun dipped towards the horizon and a chill wind blew down the mountain to the valley. Suddenly, the dragon understood, it saw how the human – despite its better judgement it would seem – shifted towards the ancient fire concealed beneath the dragon’s scales. In a rush, the dragon remembered what it had often seen in winter, when the world was quiet and still, humans huddled together around small fires, their hands held out to it.

Of course, the hatchling was cold.

The dragon stood, and delicately laid itself alongside the trembling human, arching its great wing over it and rumbling a small fire into its jaws. The heat slowly spread, filling the wing tent; and as the dragon watched, the human stopped shivering. It even leaned closer still to the dragon, all its terror forgotten. And there was wonder in its eyes at being so close to the jeweled underside of the great beast.

Pride filled the dragon’s heart. It wanted to be seen and admired for its wealth. Perhaps, if the human proved amusing enough, it would show the hatchling what other treasures filled its horde. Humans liked such things almost as much as itself, so it would make sense that the hatchling would be interested in the treasure.

Remembering then that humans had not the furs of beasts, nor the fires of dragon kind to keep them warm, the dragon shifted itself. The child shrank back, but the dragon moved slowly, carefully drawing a pile of furs and blankets into the tent of its wing for it. The child still eyed the dragon with something like distrust, but it accepted the blankets and burrowed into their warmth.

-0-

Bjorn Halgripson stared in wonder at the dragon whose wing was now tented over him. The horror of the last hours forgotten in the wonder of the moment. He could see his own tired, soot-stained reflection in the many facets of the precious stones adorning the dragon’s belly. There, in the hollow of the dragon’s shoulder, was a darkness that bespoke a crack in the armour and gems.

The boy knew his father was gone, he was too young to know death for what it truly was, but he knew that he would never see him again. His father, mother, nurse, and all others whom he had known were gone. And so, he wept.

When the tears were finished, he looked again into the dragon’s eyes. They were deep and blue glittering with millions of facets as though he were looking into a summer sky filled with stars. The dragon did not growl at him, nor did it speak to him as they so often did in stories, instead it watched him with something like curiosity. It was the same way that Bjorn might look at an ant or wounded bird, not necessarily kindly, but likewise not hostile.

A great claw was raised within the tent, and Bjorn Silver Eye flinched back from it. Still the dragon’s eyes were unchanged, only curious, so he tried not to fear. Carefully, the dragon stripped the dead deer of skin and surface fat, then brought it closer to the white-hot fire that flickered between its jaws. With tenderness and care, the dragon turned the venison, eyes never leaving the silver of Bjorn’s, as though it was testing him.

Trembling, he reached out when the fire of the dragon faded – the tent filled to bursting with the smell of cooked venison – and picked up a steaming strip of meat. The dragon had shredded the deer before him, shredded it as it cooked, leaving the meat in a pile on a patch of bare stone away from the blood of the butchering.

With a bow of thanks, and a silent prayer to the gods, Bjorn ate. And so ended the first night of Jarl Bjorn Silver Eye, on Dragonmount.

-0-

To the dragon, the hatchling grew with stunning speed during their time together. Within one moon cycle, the human gained inches in length and not inconsiderable weight.

It thought back to its own time in the brood, in the early days while the clutch was still hatching and squabbling amongst themselves. In those days it must have grown substantially also, though it could not recall the breadth of time it had spent with the Warden and could not guess at how fast the growth had been.

Walking with more confidence then when first brought to the mountain, the hatchling moved around the cave investigating the treasures therein collected. Again, pride filled the dragon as it saw its hoard admired. There was nothing greater in the world to it then knowing that its wealth could gain such admiration as it must naturally reflect also on the possessor as well as the treasure.

Still though, the human had not spoken. Perhaps it was too young, the dragon had never made a great study of humans and thus it could no more guess when they started to speak than at the weather a fortnight hence. Even then, perhaps it should try to speak with the human, if only to see if a hatchling like it could speak at all.

Pausing as it cracked its jaws, it wondered if the two of them spoke the same human language. The ones it had burned as they threatened the hatchling spoke a strange tongue it did not recognize, did that mean that this hatchling spoke the same? If so, then the attempt would be pointless…

“Do you understand me,” grumbled the dragon, blue within blue eyes locked on the human.

The human stumbled, dropping a golden platter embossed with the imagine of a knight at full charge, and whirled to face the dragon. This in itself did not answer the dragon’s question, instead it only proved that it had not been mistaken and accidentally spoken in Draconic.

Squaring its shoulders, the hatchling turned and looked at the dragon, meeting its eyes with only a tremble in its limbs to show how frightened it was. “Yes,” it said, voice cracking and awkward from disuse.

“What is your name,” the dragon spoke slowly. If humans were at all similar to hatchlings of its own kind, then speech of any complexity would be difficult until it was older. Though how much older was a question for the Celestial Ones.

“Bjorn Halgrippson,” replied Bjorn, still holding the dragon’s eyes.

It was a good name, and the dragon said as much. Halgrip must have been the hatchling’s sire and given that no hatchlings are ever far from their minders – little human ones never far from their sires – then that must mean that Halgrip was dead. The dragon did not know if Bjorn knew this, it did not know if the child could comprehend death and did not mention it. Either it did or it did not, there was no other way.

Moon cycles passed quickly, fading into sun cycles as Bjorn steadily explored the cave and puzzled over the things it found as the dragon watched. Slowly, having learned that the hatchling could barely speak given its age, the dragon taught it how to use its own human language. An odd experience, but again the dragon watched with pride, the rapidly growing hatchling quickly becoming its favourite possession.

After two more solar cycles together, the dragon taught the human to read also.

The hatchling learned quickly, absorbing knowledge like damp earth a fresh rain, and soon it was ready to learn about the Celestials. After the human wrapped itself in furs and blankets from the hoard, the dragon took it up to the sacred place atop the mountain – a flat of stone from which the whole dome of the sky could be seen on clear nights – and taught it the ways of the world.

It taught the hatchling of the elder dragons and their wars of wrath; of the rise of the wyverns and the destruction of Cl’athrandir where the first elves had dwelt; of the gods that rose from humanity’s prayers to do battle against the elder races, and the assent of the first dragons from their hoards and holds to watch the world alongside the moon, becoming the Celestials.

The dragon told of the flight of the second elves, who sailed beyond the endless sea with the spears of their freed human slaves at their backs. It taught Bjorn ancient and secret knowledge, keeping it warm with the fire within as it lay against the dragon’s diamond cuirass, watching the stars.

Finally, when the human was cycles older and again inches taller, the dragon taught it the secrets of fire.

Taking the human down, down through the hollow mountain and the ruins of a Dwarvish city abandoned before the wars of wrath. Through the hidden tunnels and across secret lakes, it brought the hatchling to the Source.

Nudging gently, it pushed Bjorn into the golden light, the heart of the mountain, the Source of Fire, and watched with a new kind of pride as tame tongues of flame licked its fingers.

And so was born the power of Jarl Bjorn Fire Hand.

-0-

A shadow passed over the sun, granting a moment’s protection a pair of questing eyes. The dragon was hunting again, it seemed. Wagner did not know how much a dragon must eat to maintain itself, save that the sum must be staggering, and that the dragon was often away from its roost.

When he had first come to the mountain where the dragon dwelt two years before, he was dismayed to find little to no rumour of its presence. While the locals could speak to him, it was as though they were looking at one another through a veil, meaning and nuance lost in passage. Finally, however, he learned that the people surrounding this mountain did not look on the wyrm as a monster to be hunted. Instead, they saw it almost as a god.

Disgusted, but finally certain of his path, Wagner hunted, foraged, and worked menial jobs to earn the coin needed to purchase the necessary supplies for his quest. All of this had to be done the utmost secrecy, of course. Killing a god could only turn people hostile who were already dissatisfied with his presence, so he also scouted a way around the mountain, through passes clear in summer towards northern and friendlier realms.

The climb was long and treacherous but finally, thin, hungry, and alone, he made it to a spot from which he could watch the cave. One day, with a roar of wind following its passing, the wyrm flew off. It was time to lay his trap.

Wagner shouldered his burdens and walked the last league to the wyrm’s cave.

He would wreak vengeance on the wyrm and that would cement him in the mead hall of the gods for as long as the sun burned in the sky. He would find only the prince’s bones among the treasures of the dragon. After all, what child could ever be believed to survive so long with the monster?

He journeyed long before reaching a shaded spot beside the flat before the wyrm’s cave and froze under the shade of a rock overhang. With disbelief, he stared at a sight that should not be possible – at a boy with silver eyes with silver fire dancing along his fingertips.

-0-

Bjorn Halgripson stared in wonder at the man who stepped out of the shadows. There was something to the man, something… but it was gone, whomever the man was he did not belong there, and Bjorn was about to warn him away – as once he had done to a mad hermit – when the stranger spoke.

“You’re alive, little prince,” said the man, his voice harsh from the thin air up the mountain. “Or rather, Jarl Halgripson.”

So the man knew his name. The dragon had ensured to tell him that Halgrip had been his father, though all memory of the man and the life before the mountain was gone. Scoured from his mind like snow from the mountain in a wind.

“That dragon,” continued the man as Bjorn struggled to understand who this man was, why he was there, and how he knew his name. “Where is its treasure? It seems a fearsome beast, but I imagine we could lure it to its doom if we captured its treasure. Why are you looking at me like that,” the man edged closer, eyes flicking distrustfully to the white fire in Bjorn’s hands, “one would think you weren’t happy to see old Wagner.”

Wagner was the man’s name, though it was meaningless to the boy. Something about the man’s face still pricked at him, though he could not guess at why. Clearly the man had known him when he was small, but what was that to him now? Knowledge of a name and the existence of a history do not old friends make.

“We’ll kill that monster,” said Wagner, voice coming too quickly, sweat beading on his forehead, tongue flicking over cracked lips. “You and I, we’ll claim its treasure then we can seek vengeance on the Khaliph, the man who killed the old Jarl. Don’t you want that?”

Revenge was a concept that meant nothing to Bjorn. His father, the dragon had not known him except as a name – and even then only as the giver of Bjorn’s patronym – was long dead. The dragon had not known how or why except that there was a great battle.

“It is my friend. It raised me,” he said, as though that would answer all the other man’s questions. “Look what it taught me,” Bjorn held up his hands, silvery fire snaking along his outstretched fingers. “Why would I want to hurt it?”

“That wyrm is the reason your father is dead, and magic is better left to the sages!” There was a foam at the corner of Wagner’s lips. “And if you won’t save yourself from it… then… then I’ll have to revenge upon it for killing you!” He stepped forward, drawing a knife from his belt.

Bjorn stumbled back, throwing up his hands between himself and Wagner.

-0-

Stones scraped along the diamonds encrusting the dragon’s chest as it slithered towards the edge of the cliff. There had been a noise near the entrance to its cave – a cave that was in truth an ancient door to a Dwarfish city – but it believed the hatchling could handle itself. Besides, it was never too far when strange scents were on the air.

Deep in itself, something had changed. It no longer saw the human as a possession, a treasure to cap its hoard. Instead, it was something else, and despite its intentions, the human was something more to the dragon. Something treasured for itself rather than its worth.

Looking down, it saw its charge stumble back and throw its hands up as another human – one that smelled familiar – advanced with knife drawn. Silver fire blossomed from the hatchling’s hands as it fell, engulfing the other human. The fire tore into flesh like wolves on a wounded deer. With a strangled cry the taller human fell, its singed limbs twitching as the fire – dragon fire cast from human hands – twisted across its body.

The dragon’s blue within blue eyes turned to regard its ward. It wondered how the human would handle killing one of its own kind. Other dragons were few, since the ancient wars, so the dragon had never had to fight another of its kind itself; not since leaving the hatchery anyway. And the hatchling sometimes reacted oddly to things that would not trouble the dragon.

When the hatchling only stared at the burning corpse, watching as the fire slowly consumed it, the dragon took wing and landed beside its charge. As soon as it coiled its neck around the hatchling, it buried a faced streaked with tears in its neck and wept great heaving sobs. Somehow, the dragon knew that the human did not weep for the death it had wrought, these tears were old and only just finding their way out.

“He knew me,” said the hatchling, gripping the dragon’s horns as it had done when it was small. “He knew me and knew my father. I want answers… I want to know what happened and why you found me as you did. Will you help me?”

The dragon could not deny the child. In its chest beat a heart as strong as any Broad Wing the Elder had lead to war eons before. “Yes,” it finally said. “Yes little hatchling, I shall help you. Gem of my hoard, you shall learn the truth. Learn your place in and rain fire upon this world.”

So began the legend of Bjron Halgripson. Bjorn Silver Eye. Bjorn Fire Hand. Jarl Bjorn Dragonkin.