The Boy From The Ocean Town

“There weren’t always dragons in the Valley, you know,” the older man said, stoking the embers of the fading fire with his crooked stick. Zori, he called himself. The younger man, who'd introduced himself as Venga, looked up suddenly, awakened from his thoughts.

“What’s that again?” He said, cocking an ear towards the man.

“Dragons,” he repeated, twirling his finger in a circle. “There was a time you could drive a caravan of wagons through here safe and sound. Now…” He paused and lit his pipe. “Well, you should just be thankful you’ve got me. I’ll get us through unscathed, don’t you worry about it.”

Venga nodded, unimpressed. Without a word, he reached over to his knapsack and pulled out a glass jar, half full of some dark, brown liquid.

“Ought to show my appreciation, I suppose.” He opened the jar and took a sip, closing his eyes as the liquor burned its way down to his belly. He tilted the jar towards the older man.

“Aw I shouldn’t,” Zori said. “Mornin’ comes early. We wake up late here…dragon food,” he said with a macabre grin.

The young man only raised his eyebrows. The older man smiled, and got up with a grunt. He came over and sat next to Venga, taking a deep drink from the jar. He looked approvingly at the jar, then at Venga.

“Not bad my boy, not bad at all,” Zori said. “Where’d a lad like you find some fine whiskey like this?”

“Oh here and there,” Venga said.

Zori nodded approvingly. “Here and there. I like that. Been here and there myself.”

“Plenty of here’s out there. How’d you find this one?” Venga said, taking a small sip from the jar. He handed it back to Zori, who obliged willingly enough.

“One jar of whiskey ain’t enough for that tale,” Zori replied. “It’s a long one.”

Venga gestured towards his sack. “Time and whiskey are two things I’ve aplenty.”

Zori shrugged. “Came to the Valley, oh, maybe twelve cycles ago, ‘fore the dragons came down from the peaks,” he said. “Met a girl, convinced me to stay around for a bit, and never left.”

Venga nodded as though he understood. Zori offered him the jar, but he waved it away, pulling another from his sack. He raised the jar towards his older companion, and they both took another drink.

“Gods be damned but that’s fine stuff,” Zori said.

“Where’s the girl now?” Venga asked.

“Gone,” Zori said simply.

“Gone where?”

“I dunno,” Zori said flatly. “Wherever cheating whores go when their throats get slit.”

Venga nodded, neither surprised nor cowed.

“But I stuck around. Spent lots of time here, away from the town. Things ain’t like they used to be, I tell you,” said the older man.

“Was you always a guide?” Venga asked.

“Wasn’t always nothin’, Zori said. “Done lots of stuff. Wasn’t a guide back in them days. Did more…what’s the word the sky men might say…unsavory stuff.” He raised his hands in a matter meant to be disarming. “Not anymore though. Ole Zori’s straight as an arrow these days, that’s why the Squires sent you to me in the first place. And the Squires don’t lie…it’s their code, as ye surely know.”

Venga nodded. Indeed he did, better than most.

“Been guiding lassies and lads like you through the Valley for over eight cycles now, and in all that time only lost one person,” Zori said

“What happened?” Venga asked.

“Some young fool who thought he knew better than I,” the guide replied. “That dragon had a fine breakfast that day, let me tell you. Don’t worry; stick with me, and you’ll be fine. More’n one person owe their lives to ole Zori, that much I’ll say.”

“Zori the guide, saving lives,” Venga said, a hint of a smile in his voice.

“Saved me fair share. Ended a lot of ‘em too though, so I s’pose it evens out,” Zori said with a laugh.

“It all evens out in the end,” Venga replied.

“Always does, m’boy. Always does,” said Zori. He took another deep pull from the jar, which was now over half empty. A red flush, almost crimson in the reflection of the flame, was spreading across his face.

“What about you lad? No business of mine o’ course, but curious what brings a boy of your age through here, alone no less.”

Venga stared into the fire. “You know, I’ve asked myself that very question more’n once. I guess I’m here for duty, if I had to call it anything.”

“Duty,” Zori repeated, an unmistakable note of derision in his voice. “What is it about duty that makes people want to throw their lives away?”

“Some things are worth more than a life, would you not agree?” Venga asked.

“Depends on the life,” Zori replied. “Ain’t never seen nothing that was worth my own. Helped a few pay that bloody price in my time though. In the end, don’t think any of them found it to be worth it either.”

Venga looked him over. “Your words ring true to me, Zori. Whatever you are now, I do believe you were a killer before.”

Zori eyed him, but if the directness of the comment bothered him, he didn’t let on. He took another drink, then shrugged. “Is what it is, can’t change the past. Yeah, I was a killer. But,” he hiccupped, almost startling himself. “But like I said, no need to worry about ole Zori.”

“Yeah yeah, straight as an arrow,” Venga finished for him. Zori smiled widely, and patted him on the back.

“You know it!” He said with another laugh. Venga found the sound of it deeply unpleasant.

“That’s good. Wouldn’t do for me to die now. I’ve come a long way to get here,” Venga said. “I’m originally from out west, near the Ashen Mountains. Ever heard of ‘em?”

“Have I?” Zori asked incredulously. “Spent half my life there, whereabouts you from? And don’t tell me here and there.”

“After my parents died, I weren’t nothing but a boy you see, I went and stayed with my aunt out in Tull,” Venga said, his eyes firmly peering into the flame, unfocused. It danced and flickered in their dark recesses.

“Tull…Tull,” Zori said, mulling it over. “I think I’ve heard of it, the Ashens are a big place, but I used to run with a crew out of the Borgia Pass.” He chuckled too himself, fondly recalling some private memory. “A whole ‘nother lifetime.”

“Why’d you leave?” Venga asked. Zori said nothing, simply stared into the fire. “Come now, I shared my whiskey, least you can do is share a tale.”

Zori smiled, a nasty grin showcasing his black and misshapen teeth. “Fair enough, lad. Tis not a glamorous tale, I’m afraid. Like I said, I ran with a crew back in them days. Had some times with them, that I did, but...” He stopped, seeming to consider his next words carefully. “Things change. People change.”

“What kind of crew?”

“A bad one,” Zori said simply, draining another finger of whiskey from the jar. “Like I said, another lifetime. Ancient history now.”

“For some,” Venga said.

Zori eyed him, unsure of his meaning. Even drunk (and he was plainly drunk), he was a man who did not enjoy being unsure of anything.

“What d’ya mean, lad?” Zori asked.

“I’ve not been home in a long time,” Venga said. “So long I can barely remember it. Ancient history…except sometimes, nights like this, I can almost feel it again. My dad, he used to take me fishing. I can still remember the smell of the salt from the pier. It used to sting my eyes.”

“Aye, no stranger to the ocean myself,” Zori said. “Tis something that sticks with you.”

Venga nodded, almost sadly. “That it does.”

Zori looked out at the Valley before them. It was getting late. “Long way from Tull to here. Must be some duty,” he said.

“It is, it is,” Venga agreed. “But, as I sit here with you, I think to myself it’s not an altogether unpleasant one.” Zori looked back at him, giving him an approving nod. Venga sighed.

“Would you like to hear the story of my parents?” The young man asked.

Zori raised the jar of whiskey, which was now barely clinging to the last drops of whiskey inside. “I’ll hear whatever you’d tell lad, though our time grows short. We must be up early, if you’d like to avoid the belly of a dragon, that is.”

“I’ve no fear of that,” Venga said. “Like I said, my parents died when I was young. You see, there was an attack on my village when I was a boy, a vicious one that left my town a flaming ruin. My ma…I remember her running up to me, so scared, telling me to hide. But da…there was no fear in him. He picked up his sickle, he weren’t much of a fighter, my father, and went to face the men who had come.” He continued staring into the fire as he spoke. “Next time I saw him, his head was on a pike.”

Zori shifted uncomfortably. “That so?”

Venga looked at him, and Zori saw an entirely different person sitting next to him. “Aye,” Venga said. “You see, they left the men as a warning. The children too, those that didn’t hide at least. They took the women. I tried to find them, find her, but…all I ever found was an abandoned camp. There was a woman, wearing her dress. I can’t be sure, her face was so badly swollen it was unrecognizable, but still, I knew. I know. The monsters responsible, scattered across the six realms. Not easy to track folk such as that.”

They looked at each other, a moment frozen in time, a heartbeat that lasted forever. In that moment, Venga knew, and a moment later, too late, Zori did too. With a flash, Venga pulled his dagger and buried it in Zori’s chest. He fell to the ground, clutching his chest in pain. He grabbed the hand holding the dagger, but Venga held firm.

“No,”Zori gasped. “The…the ocean village?”

“Elma,” Venga said simply. “We called it Elma. It was home…until the so called Sons of Sorrow came. But you know all about that, don’t you…Ruben.”

Zori, known as Ruben the Red back in those days, gasped again, a thin line of blood dribbling from his mouth. “But…how?” He said, his barely a whisper.

“Took some convincing,” Venga said. He pulled the knife from the old man’s chest. “This was my father’s knife. It did most of the work for me. The rest, well...you and your crew made no shortage of enemies.” He bent down, until his nose was almost touching Zori’s. “But you can’t outrun the past, no matter how hard you try.”

Zori tried to raise his arms, to push the boy away, but his fading strength was no match for the young man. Venga shoved his arms aside, stood and kicked the old man in the stomach. Zori doubled over, coughing up a fresh batch of blood. As he tried to gather himself, now running on only his self-preservation instincts, he felt something pull at his legs. Then a white-hot flash of pain in one ankle, then another. He tried to scream, but could only manage a faint gurgling sound. The boy had cut the tendons near his feet.

“My father used to tell me anything worth doing right is worth doing yourself, bit a knife is better than you deserve,” Venga said. “Come morning, well, you know better than I what a sight you’ll be to a dragon. A fitting end to a life such as yours, ending as a pile of excrement in a lost valley.”

With that, Venga stood, and pulled from his sack a large leaf, and a small jar of ink, along with a quill. He carefully, almost reverentially, unfolded the leaf, revealing a small, used piece of parchment. He found the name he was looking for, Ruben the Red, and made a single cross over it. This made the third name on his list he has crossed out, but more remained. Some were names, some were only descriptions. No matter, he thought, they would all be ghosts soon. Just like him.

He wiped his father’s dagger clean with Zori’s cloak, who could do little but watch in pain and horror. With that, he gathered his belongings, stomped out the fire, and began heading back the way he had come. He couldn’t go back to Volcburg, he couldn’t risk the Squires seeing him. He’d heard a rumor of a man in Diceton though, one that intrigued him greatly. He carefully sheathed the dagger, and took his leave. There was nothing remaining for him in the accursed Valley.