The Dragon's Nest

CHAPTER I.

WELCOME TO UPPER KULLABA

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley. In fact, for the longest time in history, dragon sightings were so rare that most inhabitants of the Seha River Land had come to believe that the creatures didn’t really exist. Or at least, that’s what they wanted others to believe.

Like most lands in the Tuwanni region, the towns in the Seha River Land had always kept a multitude of complex and extremely powerful defense systems in place to keep dragons at bay. Nobody knew if the royal Thunderspurs were to be lauded for the Great Peace that had characterized the past three centuries, or whether the power lay in the magic of the Covenant of Priestesses, but whatever the reason was, the result was that most people officially had never seen a dragon before.

How different this was for other villages in Tuwanni and the larger area of Wan Major. As children we all grew up with stories of the gruesome massacres perpetrated by these fire-mongering winged demons of drought. We were taught that dragons were descendants of Nannizz’I, wreaker of chaos and bringer of rainless days. If people died of hunger, Nannizz’I was to blame. If people died of thirst, they could either pray to the Stormgod or make offerings to Nannizz’I and hope it would distract the Serpent for a day or two. His descendants came blazing and burning, in groups of four up to sometimes even twelve, and could destroy crops, murder livestock and farmers, and asphyxiate entire communities with a single huff of smoke. One stroke of their wings could cause roofs to collapse wholly, and one scratch of their pinky nail had the power to tear open the ribcage of a grown man. For the turbulence that characterizes the internal politics of Tuwanni, the Counter Dragon Alliance was one of the few areas in which all cities had joined forces.

Therefore it was surprising for all visitors, whether they came from San’ah in the South or the Ahhan Isles in the Western Sea, that when they entered Upper Kullaba, called such because it’s built into the highest lying rock formations of the Sehan Valley wall, they found themselves surrounded by dragon imagery. Whenever they inquired about our army’s sigil or the eye-catching Dragon’s Gate, grandfather Uto—who had a face that was wrinkled like a folded rag left in the sun to dry for too long but also looked so sharp and stern that many a times people took him for one of the city’s Nakhii—would always say something along the lines of: “Dragons are nothing more than mythical imaginations devised by the royal court and other people in power to legitimize their excessive military expenditures.” If the visitors persisted, he would continue: “If you want answers more befitting your callow expectations you will find more wisdom two blocks down.” And he would point in the general direction of a ramshackle stone courtyard, which was where the public nursery was located.

The Nakhii were the members of Seha’s council of Elders and carried an international reputation for their masterful advisory role on both internal and external social affairs. The people of each major Valley town appointed one of their elders as a representative, six in total. Every electoral year, our village is the last to appoint a representative, because district numbers are counted from the lower lying regions up. The other half dozen members were retired honorary members of the College. They were often consulted by the ruling monarch whenever negotiations had run stale or whenever a plethora of different parties had to be appeased in a matter that seemed otherwise insolvable. The Nakhi’s long arms stretched across all pastures of Sehan society, and as such almost everyone accepted their verdict eventually. And in line with that, the village representatives are often considered the first point of contact for anyone interested in learning about our land. Which is why visitors would bother Grandfather Uto constantly. He, however, was not at all a member of the Nakhi.

Grandfather had never cared much for politics, is what my mother told me. He cared even less for the nobility and outright eschewed our king, Mushbali I, May Her Beams Dapple His Tread. My grandfather derived joy from raising cattle and caring for his ancestral library, which he opened for all the citizens of Upper Kullaba. Literacy rates are quite high here, which we at least partly have my grandfather’s generosity to thank for. Grandfather believed that everyone should be allowed a shot at their life of choice, even those of lower ranking social status like orphans or urchins. Looking back at it, he probably created it for them especially. I spent a large part of my childhood there, amongst the books and the goats, and the crying and cooing of children two blocks down.

And even though those visitors who approached my grandfather with their questions about our Land were asking the completely wrong person, their instincts were not too far off. The representative of Upper Kulaba was a wise woman named Sal Kuumti, and she was my grandmother. Her position as Nakhit required her to reside on the Inner City’s citadel most of the time and I could only contact her through letter exchange. She came back to Upper Kullaba only during official occasions and festivities. The last time I saw her was during Mushbali I’s Fertility Parade, when she presided over a number of meetings with local villagers to receive updates on developments here. Did we have enough barley stocked, were the alchemist labs respecting the borders of our nature reserves, where were the new Thunderspur recruits, are the preparations for the day of the Big Arrival on schedule?

As a youngling, I was not allowed to participate in these debates. This year, however, all that would all finally change.

CHAPTER II.

BEFORE DAWN

I rose this morning before the break of dawn. There was a restlessness in the air that I couldn’t quite place. My bedroom was dark, and it was quiet in the house, exept for the faint sound of Ino’s rhythmic snoring that came seeping through the thin glass, frosted glass of my window. The small knob of wax on my desk had smoldered itself down to a puddle and looking at the mess on the wooden surface I remembered why I felt so knotted up inside. I had been writing a letter to the Dragon Scouts requesting them to join on their next expedition, an aspiration mother had always vehemently opposed. It had been years since the last dragon was sighted, but I had overheard her talking about the uncovering of what could be draconic tracks near the foot of the western valley hill, and I wanted to learn more. Of course, if I sent the letter, it would be a mere flash before she’d find out and she would come after me fuming. She had threatened many times to hang Ino from a branch of one of the cherry-colored beech trees in the town square as an act of retribution. Maybe I’d wait another day before sending the letter and ask my sister Yuni about more intel first. She had a knack for uncovering information that wasn’t meant to reach her tiny ears. I was certain that one day she would make an excellent palace advisor or nakhit, just like grandmother.

I walked around for a minute, stretching my limbs one by one. My neck felt stiff and I figured I must have slept in an awkward angle, judging from the stack of pillows on my bed and the fact that my blanket lied sprawled out on the floor. Grandfather Uto would probably be up soon to feed the cattle, but right now Kullaba was still covered in a veil of dark silence. I walked towards my window and looked down at Ino who lied bundled up against the wall of the house, his pink belly slowly expanding and deflating with every humming snore.

Ino was an Oxynobus that I got for my seventh birthday. All newly admitted pupils to the Circle Academy are required to pick a sacrificial animal before they commence their educational journey. They are to feed and care for it until the Day of Arrival, on which we are to ritually slaughter it in front of the eyes of the entire village, as a sacrifice to the mother dragon. Grandfather had taken me out to his farm and allowed me to pick any creature that I wanted, granted it had a lifespan that lasted long enough to make it until the Day of the Arrival.

It had been an easy choice. I remember entering the small pigshed at the edge of the valley where grandfather kept all his suids and similarly sized cattle. Walking past all the cages one by one I made it to a back corner where a mother Oxy had just given birth to three sucklings. Two were white with black specks, and the third had an opposite complexion. Grandfather said that one might need an extra friend. Oxynobi are highly individualistic creatures and a litter of three is unusual. They only bond deeply with one creature during their lifetime and develop a level of deep, almost codependent trust with them. Often it’s the first other sentient being they see. If presented with multiple options, their bonds tend to be based on visual resemblances rather than scent or bloodrelations or other more common markers of familiarity. It was clear that the light furred piglets had already gone through the process, their movements and buzzing sounds complementing each other, the lower frequencies of the first supporting the high-pitched burps of the other suckling, and they had been taking turns demanding their mother’s attention and were even sharing their food. Even though I would argue that I don’t look like an Oxynobus, except for maybe my dark hair, Ino bonded with me the moment I stepped into the enclosure. He came waddling towards me in his black furry wool coat, making a light buzzing sound and wobbling on his short legs like a bee carrying too much honey. With his tiny black beady eyes, he observed every movement I made—a twitch in my finger, the blinking of my eyes, it felt like anything could disrupt the moment. I made sure to stand stock still, like a marble pillar in a shed full of moving and breathing creatures, and Ino stood there in front of me, motionless too. Then a moment later buzzing filled the air again, and Ino curled up down by my feet. And that was that. Oxynobi are extremely easy to catch, even for seven-year-olds. However, they are nearly impossible to tame, so generally not considered a suitable sacrificial animal. We have to strut down the entire main street with them in a bustling parade and perform precise rites established in the peace treaty of Antalya the Great and Nanizzi’I from which we are pressed not to deviate. The high augur Shulibuna had made this crystal clear to me when I presented the animal the next day at our inaugural assembly.

“An…Oxynobus?” he had frowned as he stood before me in his long, blood red flowy robes, inspecting the furry creature in my lap. He bent forward to look Ino in his eyes and stuck out his arms to pick him up. Ino yapped back defensively. The augur quickly retracted his sleek flingers into his sleeves, whisking one hand back in front of my face, pointing his index finger up as a warning. “This is highly unusual, Tamiyan Jr.,” he put a dramatic emphasis on junior, “the creature must be fit for the rituals. The parade, the dressage, the costumes, the sounds! It is paramount that every act is performed to the utmost perfection when the dragon arrives, or the seal of peace could be broken. Do you understand? If your creature spoils the procession to the Nest, the wrath of Nanizzi’I falls upon us all! Are you absolutely sure that you trust this—”

“His name is Ino—” I sputtered, dwarfed by the physique and power of the augur. He stopped in his movements, caught by surprise by my brazen interruption. “We’ve bonded. He’ll be loyal to me.” I spoke the truth. Ever since that moment in the shed the day before, Ino had been following me around wherever I went. A smart decision I should say, because I’ve been taking great care of him. Ino is 10 now and has never looked better. He’s fat and has a thick wool coat that I shave off of him in the summer months that we use we make yarn of. As the augur and my classmates slowly got accustomed to his buzzing and shy disposition, they grew fonder of him, even though nobody was allowed in his vicinity. A year later at the yearly inspection, which is when everyone’s sacrificial animals are assessed on health, size, obedience and a few other categories, Shulibunda the augur even complimented me about it.

I do dread the moment that I have to walk down the parade with Ino. All the creatures will receive floral garlands and the most delicious snacks on their way, and we will be cheered on by dancers and singers and all of us will receive blessings by the priestesses of Antalya, but we will personally have to end the lives of these animals we have been caring for so long. Once we reach the stone altar at the start of the Path to the Nest it will be the end of our journey together. There is of course a beauty in the process and it is an immense honor, but the thought of having to betray Ino this way makes my stomach churn.

As I was going over these memories, a strange noise filled the air. They were the brassy tones of trumpets blaring through the walls of the city, then the house, then my head. It couldn’t be a hangover. The noise grew louder, and then from the city’s Northern gate down to the Dragon’s Gate sentinels rose out of slumber, blowing their horns as the sound reached them, lighting beacons with a religious fervor like it was the one task they had been anticipating ever since their stationing on those tall towers. Ino jumped up in panic. Hooves came rushing over the cobblestones from a distance that were quickly getting closer, clacking on the hard surface in a hasty gallop. I swiftly grabbed my coat from the wooden pegs on my bedroom door and ran out to the street. Mother came right after me with a dim candle in her hand. Doors all around us swung open, pale faces appearing from behind doors in illuminated slits. Riders dressed in black plated armor with golden scales on their shoulders ran down the street, shouting ferociously, bellowing their banners in ecstasy.

“The dragon has been spotted! The dragon has been spotted! All rise! Prepare for the Arrival!”

CHAPTER III

DAWN

The Dragon Scouts looked even more impressive than I had ever imagined. They ran down the streets in a synchronized gallop, sounding like an army of a thousand soldiers marching down the mountain. I heard my mother gasp and run back inside, Ino ran past my legs into the hallway whimpering in fear, and I simply stood frozen in awe like the other people in the street. I squeezed my eyes, trying to look for winged shadows in the distance, but I saw nothing but darkness beyond the lights closeby. “It’s finally happening,” I thought to myself, stepping further onto the porch. The stonework was trembling underneath the chaos as more and more lights flicked on and people rushed to their assigned positions in preparation for the Arrival. “Ino!” I remembered. The creature was entirely my responsibility, and I had to find him and bring him to the Academy. Moving back inside I crossed my mother, who was walking towards the opposite direction, suddenly brandishing silver scales on her shoulders that glistened like sharpened fangs in the torchlights. She had put on her Scouting attire.

“Stay with Yuna,” she instructed, “and keep that animal of yours out of the pantry and in your sight.” She turned around, her broad silhouette in the doorframe. “You know what you have to do?”

I nodded, and she gave me a brisk nod back. Upon that she stepped out and let the door fall shut behind her, making her way to what I presumed was the audiency hall where she’d have to preside over an emergency meeting with the other Scouts, nakhii, the high priest and the governer.

“Tami?” The faint voice of Yuna came from a dark room next to me, “what’s going on?”

My little sister wobbled through a narrowly opened door, rubbing the sleep from her eyes with her hands clenched in tiny fists. From between the fingers of one of them dangled a frayed and frazzled ragdoll. She was too young to participate in the festival, and most children her age would be in the audience with their guardians, throwing confetti and flowers and cheering for the parade. But with our mother being Chief Scout she’d have to wait for Uto to come down to our house and look after her. I’d have to wait with her, before I could make my way to the Academy with the other First Years.

“Ino just ran into my room,” she sighed, “can you get him out? I was sleeping and he’s making so much noise.”

“The Arrival has begun,” I replied. I saw her eyes get big. “Go to the living room. Grandpa should be here soon.”

“I want to go outside!” she exclaimed. “Is she here? I want to see!”

“She’s not here yet.” It was impossible to predict when the dragon would reach our city walls. It could be mere minutes, but more often she would take a few hours, stopping on the way for food or to rest. The scriptures clearly describe the dragon’s route to the Nest, and the protocal everyone should follow once she commences her journey. It describes the division of labor, tasks for Kullaba’s citizens, and where everyone should be stationed the moment she reaches the city walls. I had to make my way up the citadel as soon as possible—I heard hordes of people moving about outside, probably on their way there. The Academy was a tall cone shaped structure located on the top terrace of the valley town, partly hewn out of the gray mountainous rocks it was embedded in. It was the final bastion before the Path to the Dragon’s Nest, which was marked by a gate manned by the six huwannai. At the Academy we would receive their final blessings and prayers of the religious officials. Shulibunda would be there, and no doubt he was expecting me. It would be an immense disrespect if we weren’t prepared in time, and that in turn might break our pact of peace with the dragons.

“You can’t, Yuna. You have to stay here with Uto.—” I kneeled slightly to see eye to eye with her, but she didn’t even let me finish.

“I don’t want to stay inside!”

Meanwhile I heard Ino scurrying around in the room behind her, whipping up papers and cloths and bumping into furniture. He buzzed frantically, clearly panicking because of the hustle and bustle outside. When an Oxynobus gets upset they can become extremely unpredictable, so I had to make sure to catch him and calm him down quickly. But I also had a defiant seven-year-old standing in the hallway, arms akimbo, threatening to run outside the moment I let her out of my sight.

Then, as if called upon by Antalya the Great, I heard a triple rap on the front door.

“Uto!” Yuna bolted instantly.

Grandfather Uto stood in the doorframe, his brow furrowing as he inspected the scene. He spread his arms as Yuna swung her body against his stomach in a hug, but he kept his gaze fixed on me.

“Where’s Ino?” he asked in a voice that betrayed a hint of doubtfulness in him.

“In Yuna’s room, he ran inside after the riders blazed in,” I found myself replying defensively. “The trembling must’ve upset him.”

Uto closed the door behind and gently moved my sister aside, who seemed to have calmed down or at least distracted a little since I broke the news to her. “You should bring him to the square soon, or you’re gonna be late.” Then he hinted at the bedroom door, from where he also must have caught a sound of the vague rumbling. “Are you certain you can keep him in check? If he’s acting up already… It’s better to refrain from participating then to disrupt the entire procession. You know that.”

Everybody always told me how Ino was a liability, how the odds of me successfully training him were unfavorable to say the least. Everybody also seemed to always conveniently forget that failing to provide a suitable sacrifice to the dragon would issue my immediate expulsion from the Academy. The embarrassment that ensued would be unbearable, not in the least because any chance I had of becoming a magician or dragon scout would evaporate that same second. Grandfather Uto had been one of the few people that always had my back when it came to matters like this, probably feeling partly responsible for his only grandson. After all, he was the first to provide me with books and stories and had hard-pressed my mother into allowing me to enroll in the Academy. But now even he seemed to backtrack.

He must have seen the frustration on my face, because he put his hand on my shoulder and said “I’m sorry, I know this is a big moment.”

“Why do you doubt me?” I asked.

Grandfather Uto sighed, and removed his hand from my shoulder. “I don’t doubt you. It’s just, you have to understand that this stirs up a lot of memories for us. The last Arrival was, well, you know, we lost many lives, lives of people that were very dear to us. And there was nothing we could do to stop it. But you can, and it’s up to you to avoid what could be a massacre. If we fail, I’m afraid the repercussions are even graver than last time.”

“Yes, I’ve heard this a thousand times before. I won’t let the peace be broken.”

The curly hairs on Uto’s chin glistened in white and the wrinkles around his thin lips and eyes moved up into a smile. “You carry a responsibility that none of us can unburden you from. You’re right. I trust you, I’m sorry if it sounded like I didn’t.”

Yuna jumped in. “Mom says that you’re irresponsible,” she continued, “and selfish too, she says, because you befriend dragons, but the dragons killed dad!”

“Selfish, me?!” I exclaimed. “Dad’s the whole reason why I’m doing this! She’s the one that keeps going off on expeditions and leaves us here to find for ourselves! I’d be damned if that was the path I wanted to follow!” That was a lie. Sure, the idea of pursuing the same career as my father made me feel closer to him, but I also simply liked the prospect of wielding magic and speaking Draconic—the power that came with being an Academic.

Yuna opened her mouth for a undoubtfully stingy response, she was good at that for someone her age, but Uto stepped in. “That’s enough,” he stated firmly, and he looked at me in a dismissive manner. I, of course, looked away. “Tamiyan, just go find that Oxynobus of yours and hurry up to the citadel. No more words of your father or your mother. We are all doing what we can.”

The tone in which he spoke made it clear that he tolerated no backtalk. I found it hard to swallow when people displayed this kind of dominance towards me, but at the same time I realized that the silence that ensued was a prime opportunity to walk away from the confrontation, before Yuna could think of something nifty to say that warrented a response from my side. Once again I grew aware of the precious time I had been wasting, so I turned around and went into the bedroom where Ino had escaped. Soft morning light glowed behind the closed curtains, and I could now vaguely make out the shapes of the furniture in the space. I knew the room like the palm of my hand, but judging by sounds from earlier chances were that items had been tossed and pushed around. Like I said, Oxynobi aren’t hard to catch, but one has to take their time for it—a currency I was rather short one right now. If Ino had been a regular pet I could’ve simply called out for him, or maybe whistle, or click my tongue playfully like people sometimes do with horses, but in this case that would be no good. All I could do was sit in absolute silence and wait until Ino made himself known. The moment he moved, his humming would betray his location. Bonded Oxynobi develop unique humming patterns that they use for all kinds of communication. Because the patterns are incomprehensible for outsiders and even more so for other species, it took me a while to finetune the intricacies of the craft, but over the years I had nearly perfected the skill. Now was the perfect time to put that skill to the test.

I tiptoed further into the room and silently closed the door behind me. I pulled out a thick, leather leash out of the pouch around my belt and pressed down the hook mechanism. It wasn’t sturdy enough to hold Ino by a long shot, but it would work well enough to keep him close if I managed to get a hold of him. I bent through my knees and crouched down in the corner, breathing steadily as to calm down the air in the room. There was a chair next to me that was knocked over, flowers that were splayed all across the floor, and a puddle of water next to the broken ceramic vase that had once cradled them. There were two beds in the room, and Ino was probably hiding underneath the blankets of one of them. I reached out to grab a shard of the vase on my left, aimed it at a bump that was showing on the furthest bed, and threw it in a light bow. It clanged softly against the fabric of the blanket, and it darted up. The tapered snout of the Oxynobus appeared, with its beady eyes and floppy ears, followed by his woolly fur coat and skinny legs that fired him off towards the door. Ino’s familiar, frantic buzzing filled the room. Gotcha.

“Ino, Ino,” I whispered quietly, “shhhh.” I sat there, trying to contain every singular emotion that went through my own body so that the animal would calm down. The moment he realized his exit was obstructed he blasted off into a perpendicular angle away from me. He repeated that move at least another four or five times, until it finally seemed to dawn on him that he had no where to go. I repeated his name, attuning the pitch with his buzzing and gurgling. In normal circumstances, he would have simmered it down a while ago, but it seemed that Ino knew tonight was different from anything else he had experienced. Then the creature dashed past me, nearly brushing my legs. Without a second of hesitation, I lept forward and hooked the leech around his neck. He yanked at it, even snapped towards my hand as I tried readjusting the collar, pulled it to all sides, crawling on the floor in a dramatic performance.

“Ino, what is up with you?” I asked in all earnesty this time. His buzzing stopped for a mere second, almost like he was giving in, and then he exhaled with a long, deep harrumph. With that I knew that he knew, I just hoped that he didn’t know the full extent of it. He stopped pulling the rope, and I moved towards him with a reciprocating buzz, folding my coat around him and lifting him up. I hated having to carry Ino around on a chainlinked leash, but tonight warranted precautionary measures. I walked out through the bedroom door, through the hallway, and out onto the front porch, that had grown significantly more quiet since I last stood there, and latched a metal chain onto the creature’s collar. I put Ino down and looked him straight in the eye, as I took the cloth that I had used as a makeshift straight jacket and threw it around my own shoulders as a coat.

“You coming with?” I asked, as the blood orange colored sun sawed his way up between the two mountains that created the river valley.

To be continued...