Sandglass

“There weren’t always dragons in the Valley,” Edobu said.

“I know, but that was a long time ago,” I said, looking at him, his milky blue eyes looking out of the open slit between panels on the caravan wall.

Though the gap was but a sliver of open air, the daylight pierced through it so sharply. If men could go blind twice, then Edobu surely would have by now. He stares out of that slit every day as we ride out from the camp, warming his eyes from their darkness. And every morning, he will tell me of how the dragons came to the desert.

“They used to live on the Old Continent, until the humans there drove them away,” he’ll say. Then they settled in the western deserts, the Valley of Sands, where our ancestors lived among them for years.

They are typically docile creatures, spending their days sleeping on the sand, letting the sun warm their thorned backs. Until they are angered, when they roar and let out a spray of flame from their vicious maw.

In order to coexist, our people found ways to avoid contact with the winged beasts. We knew how to read signs of their movement, track their hunting grounds and burrows. That’s why the Imperium didn’t eradicate us.

“I wonder, if the dragons had not come here to live, perhaps...” Edobu starts, but he is interrupted.

“Move out,” the man in black armor calls as he opens the back door of the caravan and lets a fury of light in. Typically there are six or eight of us in the back of each caravan, and two Imperium soldiers driving. We wrap our heads with dampened cloth to keep cool as we step out onto the sand, rakes and trowels and sand sifters in hand. The guards transform the caravan doors into a shaded corner for them to sit and watch over us. They carry swords and whips on their belts in case we try to flee or act out.

I grab Edobu by the arm to help lead him onto the sand. I always make sure he gets a sand sifter, as it is the easiest tool to use, and he can tell by the sound and the weight in his hands when he has a larger object in the tray. I stay nearby, listening to him sing old hymns under his breath as he shakes his tray, while I rake long lines along the sand. We forage every morning for sandglass, a rare crystal that comes from the carcass of a dragon, though we rarely find any.

My people do not practice magic, so we had never found any use for the stuff, save jewelry and decoration. But when the Imperium discovered it many years ago, they came in droves to our lands to find more.

Edobu says that with sandglass from a single dragon, their mages can keep the Emperor alive for another fifty years. He is nearly three hundred years old now.

At midday, another caravan comes to take some of us back to the camp, and drop off others for their shift. The younger people do multiple shifts in one day- one shift of foraging, and another of dragon keeping. Older folk, or the injured, typically do one longer shift of either task.

Before I leave, I tell Edobu to take care, and to not sing too loudly or the soldiers may scold him again. He is not my blood, but he was a friend of my father’s. I am fond of him, but some days I think it may be out of pity for the old, blind man.

As we file into a line for the next caravan, shackled hands hanging limply at our hips from exhaustion, we are given a ration and some water to have on the ride. One of the men in front of me tries to grab an extra ration from the basket, and when the guard catches him, he commands those in the caravan to step out. We must all watch him receive ten lashes for this, and if anyone else disrupts this process, we must restart the process again. If there are two or more incidents, the guards will confiscate our rations and water as punishment.

Though their faces are mostly covered, I can see their narrowed eyes between a gap in their helmet. They watch over us with such hatred and scorn, yell at us in a language many of us hardly understand. I see how they take some delight in punishing us, just as they are delighted when they kill dragons.

We ride back to the camp and the guards open the heavy iron gate for the caravan. The settlement for the slaves is a series of tents, surrounded by the guards’ lodgings and walls as tall as six men. Inside the camp they remove the shackles on our arms, but keep the weighted shackle on each of our ankles.

The guards lead us down to the caves where the dragons are kept. Some of the slaves are working on digging out more rooms in the rock for additional dragons, and the sound of them chipping away at the stone creates a constant rhythm along the walls.

The others tend to the dragons- feeding, cleaning, and doing the taunting. We have to taunt the dragons to make them use their fire breath, as it increases the chances of the sandglass forming in their body. Every day, one or two of us take spears and stab the beast until it roars flames, and we continue until it can cough nothing else but sputters of smoke and blood.

Today, I brandish a spear, and begin to dress in light armor to help prevent burns. The slaves before me had already done the feeding and cleaned the pen, and as I look to the dragon curled in the corner of the room, I know she is aware of what comes next. Her dark brown wings lay over her sides like a blanket, hiding the collar that chains her to a hook in the ceiling, and I can see her golden eyes peering at me from just over her tail. She may look as if she is about to sleep, but I know her senses are more heightened than ever.

All the dragons we keep are female; it is very rare to find a male, even rarer to capture one. Though the females are larger, they are less aggressive. Though I know this, it offers me no comfort. These beasts do not take kindly to pain.

I hold the spear at my side. It is a few feet taller than I, with a long, sharp head carved from stone. I let it fall to my side, feeling its weight in my hand, knowing how many beasts this weapon has tortured, and how many beasts have burned my kin.

This knowledge, I do not relish.

The first act is a dance. The careful movements of my feet and the steady grip of the spear invite her to join. My goal is not to kill her- not yet, she has only been here a few weeks. But I must strike her ivory belly, that is best for igniting their flames; and unless she accepts this invitation, she will never give me the chance.

I move about in circles the width of my legs, the sliding of my feet echoing in the silent room. I grip the strap of my wooden shield tighter to my body. Her eyes move with me, and I can see the barbed tip of her tail flicking at the ready. The movements become quicker as I move closer to her, and her wings begin to recede as she moves to her feet, limbs bent to keep low to the ground. The stone floors are unlike the sand dunes she is used to skittering on and burying her claws into. Here, the sharp claws scrape along the floor with a terrible screech at every step.

Then, the first strike.

She turns away from me to swing with her tail. The spiked end of it completely batters my shield, the wood splintering as I am thrown back. She turns back toward me, racing at me with her mouth wide open, but I reach for my spear and manage to hit her belly. A dribble of red along her paunch. She roars in pain, and a burst of flames erupts from her open mouth, singeing the hem of my sleeves as I roll out of the way with the spear.

I scramble to my feet as she prepares to lunge for another attack, and as she roars again at me, I get another stab between the base of her arm and neck. A spray of flames flies wildly about. She is a younger dragon, she does not yet know how to control its direction. But this is even more dangerous, I barely manage to evade it.

She begins to retake her defensive stance, beginning to cover herself with her wings. If I let her do this, she will not open herself back up again for a proper attack. When she begins receding, I lunge the spear toward her again to stop her, and it pierces a hole in one of her wings. She wails without flame as I retract my spear, and dash once more for her belly, stabbing too deep. I see the blood begin to leach out as I draw the spear back, and she attempts one more roar but the flames come out in bursts, followed by blood blackened by soot. Though she is finished, she has not fallen, and she retreats back to the corner of the room, covering herself in her wings.

When she moves away, I see the long lines of blood that she left in her tracks. I drop my spear suddenly, fearing I may have injured her too severely, and begin to rush to her despite myself. Seeing me approach, she moves forward, snarling at me. I back away again, trying to find the spear with my hands, but see her stagger as she curls back into a ball. The long chain descending from the ceiling and connecting to her neck begins to shake as I hear a loud rumbling hum coming from her. She is comforting herself, she is crying.

I take the spear and the armor and place them against the wall. I move toward the door once again, but as I do I hear some clamor and see a group of slaves carrying another of us in a linen stretcher. The left half of his body from his eyes to his forearm are covered in terrible burns, blood oozing from the raw, pink flesh between the black char. This is a common sight, and the slaves who are tending to him begin to bandage his wounds with practiced hands. The guards watch on, unmoving, with their callous gazes. One of the slaves turns to them, demanding their help, that they get one of their medics or mages. But the guard removes the whip from his belt, and begins lashing this slave. The others try to stop him, but the other guard holds them back, threatening to do the same as his counterpart. The burnt slave’s bandages begin to dye red as those who came to his aid are beaten on the floor.

I turn back toward the room, sinking to the floor with my arms around my knees. I look across the room at the dragon, who is staring at me with a cold, unfeeling gaze, blood still dripping from her wound.

I don’t know which of us to feel more sorry for.