The Fall and Rise of the Ashkari

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley.

In fact, there were no dragons anywhere in the world as far as we knew back then.

For thousands of years, they were hidden from us until our world was invaded by the elves, and humanity’s reign came to a swift end. That’s when the dragons appeared. They had come to liberate and protect us. At least that’s what the textbooks say and what we are being taught.

I wasn’t so easily convinced of their ‘protection’.

Dragons were believed to be the stuff of myths until then, not actual living, breathing beings made of flesh and bone. And in a sense, the creatures we call ‘dragons’, described in those myths, are still extinct. The real deal is far more dangerous than an overgrown lizard with impenetrable scales, sharp talons, and gigantic bat-like wings that with, but a few flaps can take you across a mountain.

No, the real dragons were nothing like that, at least … at first sight.

There was a sense of danger, an overwhelming power buzzed around all dragons, but even amongst them, there was a special breed of dragons that was considered a predator even within their own kind – the Dragon Lords.

All dragons looked almost identical to us, but still, you can never mistake when one entered your home. Just like the one who ripped the hinges off my front door mere seconds ago, especially if that particular dragon is also the Dragon Lord of the Valley you reside in.

He didn’t even bother knocking as one would expect as common courtesy. He blew in like a furious storm, reducing every piece of furniture in his path to a pile of toothpicks, looking furious as all hell.

He took a deep breath and slowly exhaled, smoke coming out of his nostrils as he did, and started looking around the table, with a wild look on his face. We were quietly having our meager scraps from last night and trying to stretch them to last for yet another dinner.

Every single person around that table had frozen mid-bite with their mouths agape at the sight of our Dragon Lord.

As soon as the dragon’s eyes stopped roaming around the rest of my family and zeroed in on me, his brows rising in a look of surprise and nostrils flaring once more, I knew what this unwelcomed visit was all about, and I cursed my unlucky stars.

We had tried so hard to hide it for all these years.

In the back of my mind, I always thought my days were numbered but I always kept hope.

Hope…

Is there a more useless feeling than hope?

Being born as an Ashkari was not a life I wanted. Many dreamt of it, not me. For most, it was an honor, families celebrated for days when it happened. They bragged to any other villager who would listen about their Chosen child, an Ashkari, but not mine. It was the worst thing that could happen to us.

We lost all three of my older brothers, my father was badly injured in the last elf attack, and my sisters were nowhere near the marrying age. They were all stuck in this house for years. Someone had to step up, care for them. That someone being me.

I went out every day to hunt, do work in the fields, and even took on some odd cleaning jobs in the closest town for one of the rich dragon families whenever I could spare the time.

Help would most certainly not come from the damned Dragon Lord of this Valley.

All dragons cared about was collecting taxes from ‘their subjects’, but when it came to protecting us, they were always mysteriously late with the help or missing for the whole attack entirely. It was certainly convenient to be this misinformed all the time when it came to fighting.

The unsavory truth was they used us as a shield, a distraction so that they have plenty of notice and can prepare for when the enemy was storming their own walls and can focus all their efforts on protecting other dragons within their fortresses.

'Protectors of humanity' … Sure.

I hated dragons, but I hated the elves even more. All except one.

I didn’t even know if that statement still held true. For all I knew he was the one who killed my brothers or injured my father. If that was the case, I would end him and won’t even blink an eye, that much I was certain of. That was the whole dynamic between humans and elves anyway.

Humans were caught in this war between two monsters with no way of getting out, but at least the dragons used people like me and let us live, unlike the elves who drained us for all we were worth and discarded the dried husks like yesterday’s garbage in some pit filled to the brim with rotting corpses.

To the dragons, we were Chosen, warriors of immense power and knowledge to be used as a weapon in this never-ending war. Beings so in tune with magia, that to this day no other species could reach the level of proficiency we could. Even with all the best education in the world. Magia was a special gift from the Gods to my people – the Ashkari.

To the elves we were a source, blood bags that can lengthen their own unnaturally long lives and imbue them with more power simply by drinking our blood.

In a way, I had to reluctantly admit, the dragons were indeed protecting us, but only us, their precious Chosen ones, not the normal humans. They only ever needed humans to procreate, so there are larger chances of someone like me being born into the world.

Ashkari were long gone from the elves’ lands, so they were now actively invading the dragons’ in search of us. This is what the war was all about. Who gets to claim the remaining Ashkari and do what they please with them.

The Dragon Lord began walking towards me, his heavy footsteps echoing in the room of startled and frozen in fear humans that were my family. He stopped right in front of me and looked down, his eyes roaming my form. Dragons were normally larger than humans to begin with, but this one, in particular, would tower other dragons as well.

He is hardly a few years older than me, but when he was in his dragon form flapping his enormous wings in the sky, he looked ancient, powerful, and eternal. A terrifying beast, ready to swoop down and squeeze you with his talons until you popped or simply rip your head off. The possibilities of how your death might go were endless with a dragon, which is something you couldn't stop picturing once one was looking at you all murder-y like the Dragon Lord was at me right now.

He settled on my eyes once he was done assessing the rest of me and finally spoke, clearly making an effort not to act on any of the violent thoughts that must be going through his head for having been deceived for all these years.

“You have done well to hide as long as you did from us, but it’s time to go now.”

He still looked furious, but at least he was trying to wrestle back his rage. Dragons were famous for their anger management issues. And this one was certainly simmering and ready to blow his top off if provoked. He had a reputation for being particularly nasty and bloodthirsty and I had no intention of finding out if all those rumors were true.

I cleared my throat to reply and find a way to mollify his seething anger, but my mother beat me to it, her chair screeched on the wooden floor and suddenly she was bent over and on her knees in front of the larger than life dragon, her cheeks streaked with tears already as she began begging him, “Please, my Lord, not her, she is not a boy. She doesn’t have what it takes to be Ashkari.”

“Get up,” the dragon spoke calmly, but his patience was clearly waning.

“Please! She cannot go! It’s already too late for her training. She can marry, she can have children, they could be born as Chosen. I swear by all the Gods, we will submit any Ashkari children she beares.”

My mother was forgetting who she was talking to. Begging and bargaining with a dragon would never work. I almost rolled my eyes at her for the futile attempt. They were not fools, everybody knew it was a matter of chance and not lineage. You could have two Ashkari mate time and time again until they were old and wrinkled and still end up with a dozen ordinary rosy-cheeked human babies.

The dragon pinched the bridge of his nose, and I knew I had to say something, or he might lose it altogether and take my mother’s head off with a swipe of his index talon if she got him any more pissed off.

“Do I need to take anything with me, Dragon Lord?” I spoke directly to him, my eyes hard. He had to see I am not rattled by his menacing presence in my home, even though I was shaking in my boots right now. If he sensed fear, he and his buddies will beat it out of me, and I would rather not take a beating where I can avoid one. Though regular beatings were certainly in my future now that I have been discovered.

“No, just go now, before I decide to have all your family publicly executed for having hidden you for so many years. You should have been training since you were old enough to stand. Look at you! You are a WOMAN!”

He started shouting and completely lost it as he turned over the table and started kicking the chairs and throwing the rest of our meager furniture all across the room, splintering into pieces. My sisters began crying and scrambled over to the left corner, cowering. My mother had prostrated herself on the floor, her forehead firm to the ground in submission. At some point, my father had joined her, despite his injury and they were both repeatedly mumbling prayers of forgiveness to the Gods and most importantly, the raging Dragon Lord, currently hard at work in his endeavor of turning our home into a pile of rubble.

A sudden moment of insanity came cascading over me like a downpour at the unfolding chaos.

“THAT’S ENOUGH!” I shouted at the dragon’s back. I have no idea where that came from. I even startled myself with my actions and the harsh voice I had used. I was seconds away from soiling my undergarments from fear and yet I somehow stood there glaring at the monster and telling him to stop his temper tantrum.

The room went deathly quiet, more and more smoke was rising from where the dragon stood, almost obscuring him from view. He must be seconds away from shifting and blowing this entire house to smithereens if he did. His back was still to me, and I could tell he was just as shocked by my tone as I was, he had frozen in place just like the rest of my family. Their mouths agape and their eyes larger than the plates we were just having dinner from.

The dragon turned around sharply and stalked in a furious manner right up to me. He leaned down until his still smoking nose was pressed right to my own and glared daggers into me as he spoke, “What did you just say to me?”

I took an audible gulp but managed to stand my ground, “I said to stop destroying my childhood home. I already said I was going, so what was this tantrum about? Let’s just go.”

The dragon straightened up again, still glaring, his jaw working furiously, grinding his teeth, mulling over my words. Suddenly, a light entered his eyes as he came to some unknown decision, and tipped his head back, uproarious laughter spilling from his mouth, followed by more smoke.

Nobody joined him. It was a joke only he knew the punchline to.

I tried to look unfazed and glare threateningly at him until he was done laughing. His huge body finally stopped shaking and I even saw him wipe a tear from the corner of his left eye. He looked at me again, his hard lines gone and replaced with a toothy grin.

“An Ashkari girl with balls. Maybe there is hope for you yet. I am glad I didn’t fall prey to my initial instinct of having you killed in your sleep when I found out about your existence earlier today.”

I did not know what to say to that. I looked around the destroyed room and into each of my family’s eyes, uttering my silent goodbyes. My father’s shoulders began to silently shake as he caught my meaning, my mother was openly wailing like a banshee, her cries splintering something deep inside me at the sheer pain emanating from her.

She was losing another child.

My sisters were still holding each other tightly in the corner crying as hard as if the world was about to end. And perhaps for them, it would. Who will take care of them now? I wanted to join them so badly. I wanted to cry and scream in anger. How did the dragons find me? Who betrayed me? I have been helping the people of this village all my life with what little spells I could perform, so who would dare do this to me? I made their miserable and hard lives bearable. The betrayal stung like a gut wound.

I took a deep breath and exhaled, trying to calm myself. Somehow, I commanded the tears prickling the back of my eyes to not spill. I would not allow the dragon to see I have a heart, that I cared about something. As soon as I did, he would tell all his little friends and they would use the knowledge to control me.

Once I was done looking at my family’s grief-stricken faces, I stormed out of the house without looking back and hardened myself. This is the last time I would ever be in this house, the last time I would look upon the village and my family’s faces, and I could not even share a final word of goodbye with them. A final hug or kiss. My life has been changed irrevocably in a matter of mere minutes and whoever was responsible for this would pay in blood. I swear it on all the Gods.

For the time being, however, survival was my most pressing concern. I was not convinced the Dragon Lord is past his initial thoughts about my murder. The tales of his cold-bloodedness echo across the entire Empire and the road to his castle is long and treacherous.

One does not gain his level of notoriety at age sixteen and become the youngest Dragon Lord in known history without being cruel and absolutely cutthroat.

Everything can happen to an untrained Ashkari female as he pointed out, especially when she made an enemy of the Dragon Lord in charge of her life…

⁕⁕⁕

As soon as he had heard about my existence, the Dragon Lord had flown here. Smoke was still rising from the trees he had torched with his fire breathing in his fit of rage as he flew all the way to my backwater village. But now that he had a passenger, he needed horses.

Unfortunately for him, this village was dirt poor, barely paying the required taxes, so he was stuck with a single mule. I wanted to laugh when I saw his furious face but thought better of it.

I have courted Death enough for one night.

I felt bad for old man Uriel though. This single mule was his one and only claim to being the richest man in the village. The word ‘rich’ being very loosely used in these parts of the Empire, of course. Now, he was as destitute as the rest of us and had to travel by foot when he went outside the village.

The dragon kept scowling at the mule but eventually hopped on top of it. The poor animal buckled under his hulking frame but by some miracle remained upright and when the dragon motioned for me to hop on too, I shook my head in refusal.

“No way, that poor creature cannot handle both of us.”

He stared at me for a second like he had no idea what I was talking about and then just shrugged in acceptance. He turned the mule around and whistled for me to follow like I was a damn mutt. I grid my teeth but said nothing again and did as I was bid.

It was a long way to the castle, but we needed to go there first for supplies and proper horses. The road to the capital, where all Ashkari are trained, was dangerous and long.

The dragon and I walked side by side for a full hour before I finally decided to ask him what I was dying to ask.

“Will I get paid for the work I will be doing from now on?”

“Paid?” The dragon tipped his head back and laughed again, that deep rumbling laugh of his, “Of course not.”

I grid my teeth once more as I mumbled under my breath, “Of course …”

He caught that and arched an eyebrow at me.

“Do you think you deserve to be paid? Is it not enough that you will be provided protection, trained as both a warrior and a caster of the highest order? Everything you could ever want will be given to you and you still want riches?”

He shook his head in disgust like everything from now on will be a fairy tale life for me. As if I wasn’t being plucked out of my life, of my home, of everything and everyone I have ever loved and cared about, to be beaten and abused on a daily basis, turned into some emotionless, merciless killer, and potentially still get captured by the enemy and used in the most grotesque manner until I died a slow and painful death.

“Why would you need money anyway? To send to your family?” He quirked a brow in question at me again, clearly hoping for an admission that I cared about something.

“Of course not, I just enjoy the occasional dress shop and would like to continue looking this good,” I shot back at him. I was onto his game and even though my words were clearly dripped in sarcasm, I would not confirm his suspicions.

He chuckled as he looked me over, taking in the rags I was dressed in, and spoke again, “You are riddled with weaknesses, girl. You are an old, untrained, weak human and a female to boot. You are already so far behind and so disadvantaged that I almost feel bad for you, but then I remember the fact that you have been making a fool out of me and my family for what? Eighteen years? More? You have been under our noses all this time, in MY Valley, and remained undetected. Do you have any idea of the consequences of your actions, both to yourself and me? I will relish watching you fail and get beaten down for all the humiliation and mockery that is coming my way from the other lords. But two weaknesses are particularly glaring with you. You are a bad liar and love your family. If you even think about trying to send money to them, however, I will make it so that that hovel you call home becomes your family’s tomb.”

I shuddered at his words. I had little doubt he would make good on his threats if I ever stepped out of line. I had to reluctantly admit that this is where I have to part with my family for good. But I could still make something out of this. And I will most certainly get my revenge on whoever sold me out to this beast riding next to me.

⁕⁕⁕

The night had grown pitch dark, and we could hardly see where we were going. The mule looked a hair’s breadth away from death by exhaustion too, but the dragon bastard would not hear of taking a break.

The thick woods around us obscured the sky and all we had to guide our way was the barely penetrating light of the moon. It was unnervingly quiet. Not even wild animals wandered around these parts. Maybe they could sense when other more volatile and dangerous beasts skulked amongst them, like the enormous dragon riding beside me.

It was so quiet that it was a surprise to no one when we both heard the crunch of a twig from just a few feet behind us.

I knew that the dragon had heard it as well, but we both said nothing as we straightened up and suddenly became more aware of our surroundings. He appeared completely unimpressed, but I could sense by his rigid silhouette that this was not the case at all.

The crunch was followed by a clear shuffling of feet, that sounded closer now and looked like they were gaining fast on us.

The dragon was done with pretenses. We may have considered the first sound to have been from an animal, but this was so clearly not a wild animal that swift actions were required.

He drew his sword out and motioned for me to go behind his back as he took a defensive stance.

Who in their right mind would even contemplate attacking the Dragon Lord in his own lands? Only a mad man or … an elf.

The bushes before us rustled and a dark figure stepped out of them and stood before us. We could not see who it was, but one thing became abundantly clear.

An elf had come for us.

Absolute dread washed over me in droves. I had not seen one of these beasts since my brothers’ death. I thought I would be furious the next time I saw one, that I would jump at him and tear his throat open with my own teeth, but that is not what happened. I froze. I could not move, breathe, or think. I could not even blink. As though my body was afraid that if I took the chance to do something as human as blinking, the monster will take it as an opportunity and slice my head off.

The dragon had the exact opposite reaction to mine. He was grinning like a kid who had woken up on Christmas morning to a room full of presents.

The elf did not wait for an opportunity to strike, to him any chance was as good as any. This was what was truly terrifying about them and why they were so feared and have clearly been winning the war over the past few decades. They do not wait, they strike, like vipers in the grass.

He swung his elegant moon blade towards the dragon’s head and missed, of course. This was no mere dragon he was fighting, no matter how savage.

The dragon did not hesitate to strike back either, they went back and forth with snarls and powerful swings, their blades clinking and vibrating each time they crossed. Just as it looked as though the dragon might win, two more elves stepped from behind the bushes.

They must have sent him to test the dragon and now that they have seen one of them cannot possibly win against him, two more had joined the fray. This was not good. Who knows how many more there are behind those bushes?

The Dragon Lord’s grin faltered. He was thinking the very same thing I was. We could not win like this. We are incredibly disadvantaged. We needed to flee. But his pride would not allow it.

He bared his teeth as he charged all three elves at once.

Stupid lizard.

No wonder we were losing this war and by the looks of it this fight as well.

The elves jumped back and forth, striking at the dragon, more and more cuts appeared on various parts of his muscular body. He may be strong, insanely so, but he was not invincible. I had to do something but what? I had my magia, but I did not know any offensive spells. All I had were spells I could use in daily life to do housework and plow fields. I was useless in a fight. I could at least heal him. He would not be able to do so himself whilst fighting.

I began casting and his wounds started to close only leaving pink skin behind them. The dragon roared, “DON'T! Stupid girl!”

I was stupid. I didn’t even consider what I had just done. I had revealed myself to the enemy. An enemy who wanted to take people like me captive, string me upside down and cut my wrists open to drain me of every bit of blood I held inside my body.

The three elves swiveled their heads my way and their eyes widened. I heard them whispering amongst themselves. Ashkari. We found one.

Fuck.

I need to get away from this place. I turned around and ran like a pack of wolves was chasing me. I scarcely heard the dragon cursing behind me, trying to hold the elves down, but then a fourth one sprang up from behind the bushes and took chase after me.

He moved like the wind. I did not think speed like this was possible.

The dragon could not hold him, the elf slipped by him and barked some commands at the other men.

My mind was spinning I could not hear or understand anything that was happening behind me. The amount of blood that was rushing to my brain from the adrenaline spike was making me dizzy. All I knew was that I needed to run. My life quite literally depended on it.

As I panted and ran, I felt a large hand land on my shoulder. It stopped me in my tracks with brute force, turned me around, and lifted me off my feet. I was thrown over wide shoulders in a matter of seconds. The elf began running again with me over his shoulder.

I tried to beat at his back, wriggle out of his grip, but he had the strength of a python and the more I struggled the tighter the snake wrapped itself around me.

One thing was strange about this though. I had thought he would turn around and run back to his friends, instead he headed off-road and into the thick of the forest surrounding us.

From somewhere in the distance, I heard a powerful roar, and the sky was on fire a second later.

The Dragon Lord had shifted, and he was out for blood. His booming wings made the trees behind us sway. The elf picked up his speed, even more, when he realized a monster was coming for him.

Moments later he dropped me on the floor of a cave. He mumbled something under his breath and several fireballs were thrown into the air illuminating the space around us. I could finally face my captor and look at his dreadful face as he drained me from my life, but I would not do it from the floor.

I slowly began rising and dusting off my dress, I turned around and gasped as I saw him.

My captor.

My enemy.

My best friend… Elias…

He had grown so much that I would not have recognized him if it weren’t for the cheeky grin plastered on his face and the violet eyes that always seemed to sparkle even when he was in deep shit like the night I first met him all these years ago.

“Hi, Celia, it’s been a while. Did you miss me?” He teased and I wanted to scream in both frustration and delight at the sight of him.

He had changed so much and yet not at all. He was an enemy and yet he was the one person in this world who I had told every single secret I had ever held, every fear and every dream.

He was a paradox of unparalleled proportions, but he was also a liar, and I knew that I would never trust him the way I used to as a child.

I may have been riding along with a monster towards an unknown future, but now I found myself in the clutches of a former friend, who happened to be one of the most notorious warriors of my people's sworn enemies.

No matter how close we were in the past and how much we owed one another I was in no way safe with Elias and my only hope of seeing another day rested in the taloned hands of an angry Dragon Lord who hated my guts and had already contemplated my murder not even twenty-four hours ago.

The odds were not in my favor …

Who am I kidding? I am as good as dead come tomorrow.