Taming the Swarm

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley. At least not in living memory. For the past age, the Valley had been seeded with the most impossibly vibrant wildflowers—handpicked from the most obscure and inaccessible corners of the world. Nowhere could claim to rival the biodiversity found in the Onora Valley.

Of course, that was long before the dragons. Long before the war. Back when industry and coin mattered in the region. When the Valley was abuzz with myriad of wings, the humming of the daughters and sons of Aristaeus, the sound of gold coins clinking against weighted scales, the constant squeak of merchant carts and the jovial sounds of tankards crashing together.

The village and surrounding region were home to a special breed of bees, thought to have origins that traced all the way back to the God Aristaeus himself. These bees of Aristaeus were native to the Valley, but it was the colossal, lush flowers imported by the villagers that made them grow to the size of a sow and produce the richest nectar. The people of the village grew rich as beekeepers, producing some of the best products in the world. Honey, balms, medicine—and of course the drink of Wise Kvasir: Mead.

They sold gallons upon gallons of sweet golden mead around the world to quench the thirst and to steady the hands after the bitter clash of battle.

In fact, the entire region benefited from these great pollinators and prospered with the healthiest crops. That is, until war came to the Valley.

Driven by jealousy, a rival king from a far-off land asserted the people of the Valley had no right to claim these bees as their own. Afterall, a great many of their flowers were responsible for producing the gargantuan size of these immense pollinators. An invading army began systematically lighting the flowering fields ablaze.

Many had no choice but to leave or send their children someplace safe as they defended their homeland. This is how Mesarus came to study with the Mages Academy at the Great Pyramid far off in the center of the sea.

Outraged by the unprovoked invasion, King Edthar of Onora would not stand for this injustice and began raising an army of his own—though the people of his region were farmers and beekeepers, not warriors. The result was devastating. All the strongest men and women went off to defend their lands and the casualties were numerous. Many who remained to care for the bees also met untimely ends due to their inexperience. Afterall, a fully grown bee could pack a stinger the length of a short sword.

The defending army required food and lots of it. The fertile surrounding fields were picked bare, and within the Valley itself, the flowers diminished with no one to seed them. As a result, the bees, which so many depended on, began to perish.

It was around the same time that King Edthar made his most desperate decision yet. He sent a single ship with his most trusted advisors far to the East to secure dragons from an ancient kingdom. Dragons had been hunted to near extinction and the few that remained were small and entirely dependent on people.

The ship, equipped with a dozen pairs of dragons, returned to King Edthar and a rapid breeding program ensued. However, there was an unintended consequence. As more and more dragons hatched, they became harder to contain and several escaped into the Valley. Free of their trainers, the dragons learned to depend on themselves and began feasting on the great bees of Aristaeus. Even with their declining numbers, the bees provided enough nourishment to trigger an explosion in the population of dragons.

The dragons in control of the King turned the tide of the war…for a while.

Eventually, the wild dragons wreaked havoc on the domesticated dragons, as well as both armies. The dragons came to completely overwhelm and dominate the region.

The outcome of the war was irrelevant. There was not much left to attack or defend. And anyone who strayed too long on the surface didn’t survive for very long. The few who remained tunneled deep into the walls of the Valley. And the bees had all but disappeared.

After several decades at the Mages Academy studying all that lives and grows, both within texts and in the field, Mesarus earned the robes of a Green Mage. He became an expert in Earth magic, as well as in the flora and fauna of the world. But to earn the title of Arch Mage, he needed to complete a great quest to prove his worth, and so he made the decision to return to his homeland.

With his satchel and staff in tow, Mesarus stepped onto the shores of his birthplace and made his way to one of the last remaining settlements in the region to purchase supplies. He spent most of a moon phase returning to his long-lost home on foot, since dragons could smell horses from miles away.

Mesarus was shocked to see how much the Valley had changed. After carefully scanning the skies, he went to where his house had been and found only the foundation and one standing wall. Where the field of beehives once sat, only dirt remained. He knelt in the dirt and for the first time in a long while, he wept. When a winged shadow passed over the sun, it was time to look forward and not dwell on what might have been.

Initially, his intended fate was to run the family meadery, which meant he spent most of his youth observing the behavior of the bees and learning how and when to harvest the richest honey. At the Mages Academy he learned about dragons in scrolls and old texts but had never seen one up close. Just as he did with the bees, he spent a great deal of time hiding and watching.

These dragons, which were technically wyverns, were actually much smaller than he expected—about the size of a pony. Still, with their razor-sharp teeth and talons like knives, they were enough to make a grown man quake in fear.

He spent two more turns of the Wheel of The Year studying these wyverns from afar and slept in the tunnels left behind by the villagers. Besides a few skeletons he gave a proper burial, nothing else dwelled in the darkness.

Mesarus even surprised himself with a startling discovery. Mostly all species of dragon are solitary creatures. And yet these wyverns were everywhere. Interestingly, they seemed to congregate at the peak of the nearest mountain…a sort of hive. Furthermore, every single wyvern he observed was a young male, not yet sexually mature. Rather than finding a secluded place to tear into their prey, these seemed to be bringing their catch towards the congregation of dragons at the mountain. This behavior had never been recorded in any of the texts he studied at the Great Pyramid.

There were many similarities he observed between the dragons and his beloved bees. He theorized that a dominant female had come to roost at the peak of the mountain. And that all the juvenile males had gathered for protection or the chance to mate when they reached maturity. In return, they must be bringing food and offerings to her nest.

He recorded his observations, theory and plan of action on a scroll and returned to the settlement where he had made landfall two years prior. He handed his scroll to a Messenger of Hermes and sent him to the Mages Academy so they may learn of his fate in case he should fail. After purchasing many supplies, a bow, quiver, and arrows, he set off once again for the Valley and the mysterious mountain peak where the dragons resided.

After three phases of the moon, he had his first real up-close encounter with a green wyvern. Luckily, this one was only about twice as large as himself. Clutching his staff, he conjured an abrupt gust of wind at just the right angle to spin it off course. It angrily wheeled around but after a few more bursts of air, the wyvern deemed he wasn’t worth the effort.

As he got closer, the encounters became more frequent, and the dragons became larger. A formidable black wyvern clad head to tail in spikes blocked his path on a narrow mountain pass. Too clever to take to the air, it swished its tail and hungrily waited for him to approach. As Mesarus slowly crept closer, the impatient juvenile beat its wings to show off their span. So as not to miss this chance, he let out a burst of air and blew the wyvern clear off the side of the mountain. He expected it to fly right back up, but it did not.

After pausing for several minutes, he slowly made his way down the path. As he reached the spot where the wyvern had been he heard a shrill cry and looked up just in time to see black wings tuck themselves against its scaly body as it dove, talons outstretched. He had only a moment to mutter the spell and raise his staff, which abruptly let out a deafening crack as a lightning bolt exploded into the dragon’s face. It crumpled to the ground in a smoking heap. One more crack of lightning ended its suffering.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered as he knelt beside the body and recited a prayer in Elvish. As a Mage of the Green Robes, he was obligated to spare a life unless it was absolutely necessary to take one.

Dragons were known to be very smart, so even in his haste to defend himself he was very careful to only use natural magic of Gaia, the Earth Goddess. It was plausible that a dragon could be struck by lightning. But an arrow would have alerted the other dragons to his presence, assuming it was strong enough to pierce the tough scales.

From then on, he moved cautiously in his ascent and avoided any more close encounters. He simply hid and waited for any dragons to pass, masking his scent by caking his robes with mud, grass and herbs.

Finally, his aching muscles pulled him to the top of the adjacent mountain peak and he was lucky enough to find a cave without any wyvern droppings. After resting and observing for a few more days, it was time to put his plan into action.

He ripped off a strip of cloth and wrapped it around an arrow. He unstoppered a bottle he had been carrying for quite some time, carefully plunged the cloth-laden arrow into the bottle, removed it and held it until the last drop fell back into the bottle and then quickly pushed the stopper back in. After several tense moments he felt safe enough to continue.

He exited his cave, crawled to the edge of the peak and found a perfect vantage point looking over the cave where the dragons seemed to be congregating. He knocked an arrow and fired it into the mouth of the cave with a skill that would make Artemis herself proud.

Driven by the scent of a female rival’s urine, a Red Elder Dragon of epic proportions burst from the cave in a rage of fiery breath intent on confronting the intruder. She furiously fanned her wings and then outstretched them to their fullest—roughly the width of a longhouse—and let out a bone-shaking roar. Even from the opposite peak the Mage could feel the rock tremble beneath his body. Mesarus was aghast. He had an idea of what to expect but no amount of research could have prepared him for this experience. She was beautiful and terrifying.

His theory proved to be correct. A dominant female dragon had taken over the Valley. He knew that if he dealt with her, the rest of these predators would disperse, freeing the region of its oppressors.

But there were two major problems. He had no idea how to confront a dragon of that proportion. And because of the arrow, she now knew he was coming.

After regaining control of his trembling appendages, the Mage painstakingly crawled back into his cave and began to work on his plan…