Shadows Guarded

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley.

Though of course, there wasn’t always a reason for them. There was not gold, or greed, or men who swore magic flowed in their veins in place of blood. There was not always death. There was not always darkness.

It could not be said surely when these things did come or why, but their progress could be mapped by the age of the headstones next to the village hall, or the number of empty houses left on a street once filled with merchants. In those days, the sun shone brightly, and the trilling song of laborers and traveling folk swept through warm summer air. The heat was bearable, and the flows of ale made any unpleasantness fade away. The solstice was the last happiness anyone knew, and after that, it seemed decided. Sunsplit Valley could no longer be home to men.

Most left, but not all. Those that stayed… well they were no longer men at all. When the dragons came, something else settled in the Valley. It corrupted those that stayed. Father, mother, son, daughter — kinship meant nothing. A hunger replaced all feeling. A violence. A sickness. Those with the sense to leave wanted nothing to do with it, for how could they want to see what their home had become? But they knew that something greater was at risk if anything now living in what remained escaped. The dragons - they hardly even saw a sign of those. It was as though they they flew into the Sunsplit, charred it with their breath, settled into the caverns that looked out over once verdant valley and died there. Their rot became the air, their sulfur and ash became the crop of once fertile earth.

It only took one man to realize they could not leave. At the crest of the Valley, where the only road led them to the outside world, he stopped. He remembered all the times fireworks burst over the Valley crest as traveling merchants signaled their arrival in spring. He remembered helping his father guide sheep along the steep cliffs surrounding them, and hearing of his father’s first journey doing the same, and he knew always of how every man before that shepherded between the arching slopes that welcomed them home. Now they curved like tooth and claw and he could see no warmth in the land. How had eyes ever looked upon it and called it a valley? It was a gorge at best, but truly just a festering wound split from the earth. Surely the sun did grace it once. But spring had not brought heat as it should. The winter could not be chased away.

He stopped in that gateway of dragon’s jaw and swore that whatever took their valley would not leave it.

The village had no leaders, nor ever any need of them. They saw in him courage they never had before - but they never had any need of courage. Village stubbornness, yes, and quite a bit of fortitude. Never courage. Just like the dragons, just like darkness, there was something newly found on the crest of their valley. They did not know how to fight. They only knew how to wield a plow and rake. It was their fortitude that guided them more than courage. They would ward off any who came near, and stay just until they could build a wall around Sunsplit. A wall built high, built thick enough so none could pass over it, or tear it down. they must build shelter too, where they could stay, but their desire for a warm home had left.

A fortress grew there at the valley entrance. The darkness did not fade from below. It worsened. They watched as trees dies, grass withered, and all color washed away into mist and decay.

With such a sight, they knew without a doubt they could not leave. It had nothing to do with hope. Only with duty. Kindness, they had forgotten. A family was nothing more than a way to continue a legacy, to guarantee the Valley remained guarded. All knew better than to leave, even as the world forgot them. They too forgot what the world was. When the first caravan was turned away by faces once familiar now set with the same stone they used to build their fortress, the merchants found no reason to return. Traders spoke to one another. Word spread quickly and clearly among them. There was nothing worth the travel left to be found.

Only stone and grim weapons, for slowly they learned to craft those as they had not before. What their blacksmith had not known of swords, he learned, and the people discovered a new use for the calluses on their work-worn hands. Flocks did not linger with them, for the sheep and chickens and cows did not could never settle on the Valley’s edge. They learned hunting. They learned hunger.

When summers passed, they were as cold as the winters and just as barren. Little signified the passing of times. Birds did not come or go with the seasons. Only every now and then, not even once with every changing of the moon, or when the seasons should turn, but in time they forgot how to measure - only sometimes did the earth shift. With a distant rumble, they were reminded of what brought change to their land, for it was their land still.

As long as there was darkness in the valley, so they would remain.