Shadows in the Smoke

There weren't always dragons in the valley.

Once, not so long ago, the valley was lush and green, and teeming with wildlife. The people who lived in the woodlands that surrounded it would go to the river there to fish, snare rabbits, or to hunt the giant elk. Lukas remembered his father coming home with a stringer full of trout and stories of his mighty struggles to bring them in, and his mother would fry a few of them on the fire for dinner, and hang the rest up the chimney to smoke. Lukas had dreamed of the day, soon, when he would be old enough to go along and catch his own fish.

In the Spring before his eighth winter, when he could keep up, his father decided it was time to take him along to the valley to catch trout in the river. Lukas was no match for the large fish, but his father would tie a pebble to the end of a line for him to dangle in the little pools that formed along the bank, and he would watch the minnows and small perch nibble at it. Around midday, he and his father would have lunch on the large rocks along the water's edge, and when his father's stringer was full, it was time to trek back home, where Lukas' mother would have the cooking fire ready.

The first time Lukas had seen the valley, his eyes had grown wide with wonder. From the top of the ridge that encircled it, he had looked down on the trees spreading to the slope on the farthest side, and the glittering silver thread of the river winding its way through the middle of it all. After years among the tall evergreens that surrounded their house, he could scarcely believe that such a place could be real. The spindly things he knew were scarcely trees compared with the towering leafy giants that made up the canopy of the forest that filled the valley.

Nor had Lukas ever seen trees from above. At home, all he could do was look up and watch the distant treetops sway in the breeze. But gazing down into the valley from the ridge, he could see the wind ripple across the tops of the trees in rolling waves, giving the whole landscape the appearance of a single giant living thing.

Under the canopy of trees, it was just as magical. The air was close and still, and thick with the smell of earth and green, growing things. The light that filtered through the dense cover of leaves gave everything a verdant cast, making Lukas feel that he and his father both were transformed just by being under it. From every direction came the calls of different birds, and the small rustlings of other forest animals.

Once he had been to the river to fish, he began to dream of the day when his father would teach him to hunt. When you are as tall as the bow, he had said, then you will be ready.

But Lukas was a small boy, even for his age, and there were times that he doubted he would ever be big enough. Couldn't he just go along anyway? Even if he couldn't shoot? He was sure he wouldn't get in the way. But his mother was adamant, and so instead his father would tell him how important it was for Lukas to stay home to take care of her while he was gone.

"Who else will be the big strong man while I am away, eh?" he would say, ruffling his son's hair, a big smile sending creases across the tan and crinkling skin of his face. So on those days, Lukas would watch his father head off toward the valley with his bow slung across his back, and instead of joining him, he would spend the day fetching wood for the cooking fire, and pretending that he was a mighty hunter stalking elk through the trees around their small house.

The hunting and fishing became most important as the warm days of summer drew to a close. Winters could be harsh in those days, and before the first leaves fell, Lukas' mother was already taking stock of what stores they would have to carry them through until spring, when the ice was finally gone from the river and fresh shoots could be foraged from the woods.

But bringing home one of the giant elk in time to bulk up the stores for winter was challenging. Most years the family had been lucky, but even at a young age, Lukas knew how painful the pangs of hunger could be in those last few weeks leading up to the thaw. But he was a sensible, sensitive boy, and he knew his parents were doing their best. And so even if his tummy grumbled at bedtime, he knew better than to grumble along with it.

As his tenth winter approached, there came a day that Lukas would never forget.

Their neighbor Gareth came very early one morning and told his father that there was a large herd of elk in the valley, moving as if they intended to cross the river, and he should come and get some before they were gone.

"My oldest boy was down there late yesterday and says he saw at least a hundred of them. A hundred elk!" he said, emphasizing the number with a bang of his fist on the table. "Can you imagine it?"

"But why, Gareth?" Lukas' father asked. "Why so many, at this time of year? They should be miles from here by now. Why are they coming back across the valley now, so close to winter?" He frowned. "No, it just doesn't make sense."

Sitting back in his chair, Gareth scratched under his thick beard and looked out the window, where the late summer was quickly giving way to a brisk and early autumn.

"Well," he said thoughtfully, "if I'm being honest with you, Jakob, I don't really care why." He sat forward again, placing both his large hands on the table and looking Lukas' father in the eye. "Now listen, you've got just your wife and your little boy here, and you've likely got stores enough to last two winters. But we're six of us over at mine, and you know well enough what that means. My oldest boy eats almost as much as me now. And a hundred elk! All moving together! You're a bigger fool than I thought if you don't take advantage of such an opportunity as this."

He hunched forward conspiratorially and pointed his finger onto the worn table top as he spoke. "We could come down from the ridge and catch them as they pass. Three to a man, easily, I tell you. There'd be enough meat for all of us for the whole winter."

He paused, letting this sink in, watching Lukas' father's face. "But I tell you this, Jakob--we'd better hurry," he said, rising slowly to his feet. "It may be that they're not supposed to be here, but that also means that they aren't likely to stay."

Lukas' father stood, still frowning. "I don't know, Gareth. I'll admit the meat would be a relief, but I still don't like it." He paused, heaved a great sigh, and then asked, "When will you go?"

"I'm going back for my things, then straight up to the ridge. We'll meet you there. I'm willing to wait a little for you, but if you don't come soon, we'll go on without you." And he left.

There was little time for consideration. In the end, Lukas' father decided, albeit reluctantly, that it would be foolish not to go along. But Lukas could tell that he was ill-at-ease. His mother clearly knew his misgivings, and she urged him to stay.

"Be still, wife," he replied. "We'll be glad of the food soon."

"But Jakob, why are the elk moving like that? They stay west of the river until spring, you know that. Something isn't right," she said, wringing her hands in her apron and following him through the house. "I know you're wondering the same, Jakob. Please don't go. Let Gareth and his boy go, if they want, if they feel they need to. There's already plenty of smoked trout and turnips and tubers, and we've gotten by on less before. Please," she said, laying a hand on his sleeve as he adjusted the strap of his quiver. "Please, Jakob, this isn't right. The animals know something's wrong, or they'd stay where they're sent."

For a moment he paused and looked at her. Lukas, watching from where he stood by the hearth, could see the concern in his eyes. As he hesitated, Lukas thought he might change his mind and stay after all.

But then his father gave her a soft smile, and laid a hand on her cheek, and said, "Be easy, my little sparrow. If the elk are really so plentiful, I won't be long. And if Gareth wants his three elk, let him have them. I'll content myself with the first I see, and bring it back here straight away."

Then he came over to where Lukas was standing, and he crouched down in front of his son.

"Now, I need you to keep an eye on your mother, you hear? You know how she worries," he said, taking Lukas gently by the shoulders and looking into his eyes. "But I know she'll have nothing to worry about with a big strong man like you about the place."

And again he gave his son a smile, and though it creased his face as usual, Lukas thought that perhaps it didn't quite reach his eyes.

And then he ruffled the boy's hair, stood up, and started out the door, taking his bow from the wall beside it. Lukas' mother took his hand as he left, and he turned once more to look at her, gave her hand a squeeze, and was gone. She stood at the door for quite some time, watching his shape disappear into the trees.

The early part of the day passed quietly inside the house. Lukas' mother busied herself with menial tasks, and the boy hung about, feeling her anxiety. It was well past morning when she sent him outside to get more wood to stoke up the cooking fire.

"Your father will be back soon, and I'm sure he'll be hungry," she said.

As soon as Lukas stepped outside, he smelled it. And as soon as he smelled it, he also saw that the air wasn't right. It was after noon, he knew, but there was such a fog, and already it was growing dark. And the smell. . .

Slowly, almost without realizing it, Lukas began to walk away from the house, in the direction his father had gone. Toward the valley, where he could already see that the fog seemed the thickest and the darkest. As he walked, he sniffed at the air, and he began to register the smell. It smelled of burning, but not like the clean smoke of his mother's cooking fire, not like the woodsmoke that called him to the house and made his belly rumble with the promise of good, warm food. It smelled of the smoke of green logs and foliage, of leaves and pine needles. It smelled of things that don't burn easily, living things that hiss and sputter, protesting against the flames that have come to consume them.

Lukas began to quicken his pace. Soon he was running. His spindly legs propelled him between trees and over roots, and all the time he was thinking, Papa is there. Papa is hunting. Papa is on his way back and at any moment I will run into him, smiling and asking me, Lukas, my boy, where did you come from? Doesn't the air look strange today?

After a while, the trees began to thin and the ground began to rise. The smoke--he realized by now that it was smoke, and not fog at all--was thicker, and had a dark, ugly color. It swirled in the air above him, and now he could see it rising from beyond the ridge, coming up in billowing waves to meet him from the valley.

The way became steep, and Lukas began to climb, leaning against his knees with each step and pushing through his fatigue as he trod over loose stones and through clumps of grass. Nearer the top the way was steeper still, and then he was scrambling, crawling, pulling himself with his hands and his elbows. And then he was at the top, and his head cleared the grass there, and he was looking down into the lush green of the valley where the trout swam and the elk drank. . .

And everywhere was fire. The valley was ablaze.

He saw bright flames reflected in the surface of the river as it snaked through the bottom of the valley.

He saw the tops of trees engulfed in flames, their branches in shimmering silhouette, spurting black smoke as their green leaves smoldered.

And even as he wondered, even as his confusion swelled to fill his child's head, he became aware of shapes swirling through the plumes of smoke. Dark, sinuous, mysterious shapes that created spirals and funnels in the smoke as they moved. He watched them shift like shadows through the haze, in and out, and there were so many that he could not even imagine what they were.

Motion down on the ground ahead of him caught his attention, and tearing his eyes away from the shapes in the smoke, he saw three figures coming up from the valley toward him.

A small cry escaped his lips as he recognized his father, running up the hill through the low scrub and tall grass, his bow clasped in his hand. Lagging a fair distance behind him were Gareth and his son Galt, moving slowly and lugging a giant elk between them.

Lukas' heart surged, and he called out.

"Papa! Up here!" His father must have somehow heard him over the roar of the flames, because he looked up as he ran, and Lukas saw confusion on his face and something unfamiliar and frantic, like fear. He only broke stride for a moment, and then he was off again, straining his eyes as he went, trying to see his son through the smoke and the heat. Lukas saw then that he was yelling, and though he could hear his voice, most of his words were drowned out by the steady sound of the flames.

But there was one word repeated among the others that did come through.

Dragons.

Only very occasionally, when speaking of the majesty of the giant elk, had he ever heard his father make any mention of the great beasts of old. Beasts of legend, long lost to time, and entirely given over to the dominion of men. Never had anyone dwelt on the subject, for it was clearly ancient history, if it was truly history at all.

So what could his father be talking about? Lukas thought he must have misheard.

Suddenly there was a shift in the smoke behind the three men, and a large black shape burst forth, moving through the air above them all.

And as it appeared, Lukas was staggered by its enormity, the sheer size of the thing, and the shock of what he saw caused him to recoil so violently that he nearly fell back down the way he had come.

It was some huge creature, and as more of it emerged, Lukas saw leathery wings spread wide, a long curving neck, and a savage and toothy head, crowned with cruel spikes. Every inch of its black body glistened and shimmered, and it seemed to ripple with energy and power.

Surely this was a dragon.

Never had Lukas seen anything so big, so wild. The elk of the forest, so magnificent with their long legs and their tall antlers, seemed dull and lifeless, mere splotches of drab grey compared to this, and the grown men on the ground had never looked so small and helpless.

Even as he stared, open-mouthed, disbelieving his own eyes, the dragon began to swoop down low, and again Lukas cried out in alarm.

"Papa!" he screamed, his voice sounding small and shrill, but so loud in his head that it drowned out all other sound.

Before any of the men even knew it was behind them, the dragon lowered its head, opened its jaws, and a wave of bright orange fire rolled out from its mouth. From his perch at the top of the ridge, Lukas had one last glimpse of Gareth and his son, still struggling with their prize, before the ground around them erupted in flames.

For an unbearable moment, the incessant roar of the burning valley was pierced by screams of pure agony, and Lukas watched the shapes of the two men writhing as their bodies were consumed. Soon they were gone from sight, no longer distinguishable from the shrubs and grasses around them.

Lukas' father turned to look back at the flames that now filled the hill behind him, then looked up, and froze where he stood.

The dragon continued its descent.

Able to free himself for a moment from his paralysis, Lukas' father turned again to run as the creature extended one huge, taloned foot.

And then time slowed--

--and before Lukas could form any other words of warning, his father was seized from behind, and plucked from the ground as if he weighed nothing. His body jerked in the air from the force, and his bow dropped from his hand.

In an instant, Lukas was on his feet, screaming. He threw himself forward, scrambling down the hill. The smoke was in his eyes then, in his throat, choking him as he tried desperately to reach his father.

And as he stumbled downward, the dragon rose again, filling the air above him. He looked up to see his father's face looking down at him, his eyes wide with terror and surprise, his mouth open as if he was trying to call out to his son, but had forgotten how to speak.

The monstrous creature hovered for a moment, then banked sharply, heading back into the valley. Lukas was struck by a wave of heat as it turned, and the force of it knocked him to the ground.

Lukas watched helplessly as the dragon, with his father hanging limp in its claws, beat its powerful wings once, twice. The smoke swirled, the flames rose higher, and then both dragon and man disappeared behind the wall of smoke. The flames continued to roar, crackle, and hiss, belching their foul blackness into the sky.

Lukas sat on the ground, eyes burning, face wet with tears, and stared into the smoke. His body was racked with coughs and sobs, and he had no strength to move.

There were dragons--dragons!--in the valley. And his father was gone.