The Infestation

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley. That was before the pain. Before the terror. Before the bloodshed.

Hayden stirred from his mat, woken by the scarlet-tinged light that shone through a crack in his old wooden shack. He woke up this morning angry, just like every morning. The light was irritating and upset him more and more as its glare was consistently the first thing he saw at the start of every day for the last three years. He groaned and shielded his eyes with his weathered, cloth covered right hand.

The mat laid on the dusty plank floor in the corner of his home, next to the tree trunk around which the shack was built. It was more of a folded blanket than a sleeping mat, only as thick as his fist. Moving the mat away from the crack in his roof would have been no harder than dragging his foot across the room, but Hayden had tried that once already. The next morning he was unable to stand up without the aid of the stub of a branch that jutted from the tree trunk, which was then across the room. So there his mat remained, and his anger persisted.

Hayden rolled onto his side to face the tree trunk, grabbing the natural handle with his right hand and pulling so he could get his left underneath him. When he had done so, though not without straining himself and trembling, he was able to sit upright. Now, however, he was plagued with new challenges and fresh pains. The only thing he hated more than being woken up by the red beam of light was actually being awake. He never dreamed of anything he could remember, but at least there was peace and comfort in being unconscious.

The fog of sleep faded, soon to be replaced by a throbbing headache that worsened the harder his heart beat. Hayden’s heart rate spiked at even the smallest movements due to his physical state. Even so, Hayden gritted his teeth and forced himself off the ground. Lightheadedness blurred his vision briefly, but he knew how to manage the symptom and it dissipated with a few measured breaths. The next step was food. He wasn’t hungry yet, but the sooner he ate, the sooner he could remedy the pain he felt both inside and out.

The second he’d finished his wheat-and-goat-milk porridge, he began gnawing on the leaves of an herb that alleviated all types of pain, including that of the Infestation. The plant was in high demand across the Valley, and while selling his supply would solve Hayden’s financial troubles, he relied on the stuff to survive the day. In better times, he would have made the leaves into a tea, but desperation got the better of him and he cared not that it tasted sour. His sense of taste had been dulled by mouth sores anyway.

Humans were not alone in their need for the herb called Bless Leaf. Other creatures, once thought immune to the trivialities of humanity, have suffered in kind. The elves were wiped out by the Infestation, Titans became scattered and few, and the homeland of the Dragons was devastated such that no living thing could survive there for any length of time, all within a year of the Infestation’s first appearance in the realm. The Dragons were welcomed into the Valley by the Lord of Mankind, a decision Hayden was none too fond of. His anti-dragon sentiments were shared among the inhabitants of the Valley, but the Lord of Mankind insisted that this affliction was unprecedented and that there must be cooperation among species.

Hayden’s thoughts swirled through his head, many of them stoking the fire of his rage. He donned his outdoor tunic and opened the front door to his neglected wheat fields. The daylight was dimmed and tinted red by the clouds of particles that drifted from the destroyed territories beyond the Valley. Hayden coughed wetly into his bandaged hand, and saw that there were fresh blood droplets over the dried ones, only bigger this time. The Infestation was getting worse not only on the outside, where Hayden could bandage as needed, but also on the inside. He cursed softly and rubbed his furrowed brow. With a sigh, he grabbed a cane leaning against the front door and headed off down the dirt path that stretched out past his fields and disappeared behind a hill.

Gother was nestled into a basin next to a river, surrounded by verdant hills on all sides. The residents had a clear view of a mountain range that stretched across the town’s eastern horizon and curved sharply to make itself visible in the north. Being only a twenty-minute’s walk across would seem to indicate the town had little in it, but this was not so. Wooden buildings were pressed close together so that many neighbors shared walls. Shops occupied the bottom floors of most buildings, while their keepers lived upstairs. The roads that crossed through the town in a grid were unpaved and wide, which was why many shops spilled out into them. Further down was the residential area centered around a school house adjoined to the Church of the Illuminator.

There were other churches in the town, but none so popular or so central as that of the Illuminator. The acolytes and pastors of these churches were undaunted, remaining ever present and ever zealous. Hayden could hear them before he could see them. He hobbled over the final hill and began descending into the settlement, where now he saw the source of the racket. A priest in blue robes with gold trimmings recited from a large leather book under the main archway leading into the town. Hayden ignored what he said as he crossed the threshold, glad to be surrounded by other travelers so he could not be addressed directly by the priest. Now walking the main thoroughfare, Hayden saw a mixture of urgent shopkeepers and fervent faith-men, all shouting their agendas.

“Healing oils! Cures all ailments, even the Infestation!” One shouted, an obvious lie.

“Praise be to the Blood God! He has sent us this blessing to show us the error of our ways!” wailed a different priest, draped in red and black robes.

“Dragons not welcome here! Leave the Valley! Find your own land!” said an elderly woman, pointing at the sky with a thin finger. At least someone has some sense in this place, thought Hayden.

He maintained a steady, albeit slow, pace through the market strip, sparring not so much as a glance for anyone. He did inevitably see his fellow man, many of them similarly adorned as he was. Those not afflicted by the Infestation physically and mentally evaded those that were, despite it being common knowledge that the disease was not contagious person-to-person. The clamor of shouting voices and shuffling feet slowly diminished behind Hayden as the number of people began to thin toward the farther end of the thoroughfare. About fifty paces before the street split off in three directions after an intersection, Hayden turned into a small shop with a red awning over the entrance and bead strings covering the windows. Bony, tight-skinned fingers met stripped branches bound into a door, and Hayden pressed lightly. The door gave way easily and made a welcoming creak as it swung up. The opening released a sweet, flowery scent into the outside world, surrounding Hayden and drawing him to its source. He smiled. The tap of his cane against the wooden floor announced his presence to the shop’s attendant, who was standing with her back turned, watering a row of multicolored flowers. The woman was tall and thin, but fit, wearing tan trousers and free-flowing white linen shirt with tassels hanging from the wrist and upper arm. She turned on her heel swiftly and her hair, done in a red braid, waved with the movement.

"Mr. Callister!” She nearly shouted. “How are you today?”

He couldn’t help but match her smile. “I’m…I’m well, Alyna. I’m well.”

"That’s great, I’m glad.” Alyna knew Hayden was not actually well, but did not press the matter and risk souring the mood.

Hayden's manners escaped him a moment and he looked down, then back up at the young woman and said, “And, uh, how are you?” He shifted his weight and turned slightly to a table lined with small decorative plants, pretending to be interested in them.

"Oh I’m great, Mr. Callister!” said Alyna. “I finally crossed a Galthan Lily with a Festonic Sun Rose! The marbling on the pedals is gorgeous, but I’m still waiting to see if their effects have mixed as well.”

“That’s impressive work, Alyna. I am as eager to see the results as I am sure you are.”

“Thank you, Mr. Callister,” Alyna replied with a blush. “That is high praise from a Plantologian of your renown.” Hayden gave a smile and tipped his head down to acknowledge the compliment. He had long since given up denying her praises or insisting she call him by his first name. To do so, in Alyna’s eyes, was a grave insult to both an elder and a master of her field. In truth, she was only a couple years younger than Hayden, but his condition had aged him significantly beyond his years. Alyna assumed from the knowledge he shared and his use of the past tense in reference to his time as a Plantologian that he was a learned scholar of much prestige. Hayden allowed Alyna to believe this for her own comfort, or so he told himself. Hayden feared that if he told her the truth behind his constant visits, it would ruin the relationship they had now. Even if the dynamic was built on a lie and doomed to platonic stasis, it was the only joy Hayden had in life and to jeopardize it so close to the end was foolhardy. “Is there anything you need today?”

“Oh no, thank you,” said Hayden, “just in town for a few things and thought I’d stop by to say ‘hello.’” He smiled at her, and she smiled back. Then he continued, “I did wonder if you’ve looked into expulsive flowers as a means to administer effects over an area? Or perhaps for a consistent period of time?” Alyna was receptive to the idea and Hayden was more happy to explain further.

The two spoke for some time, as was their habit, and were interrupted only briefly when a customer came in and Alyna had to help them. Their conversation could have lasted all day, which would not have been alien to the two Plantologians, but Tashtax had stitched a different fate for them on that day. Alyna and Hayden were discussing the varied theories tying the gods to the effects of flowers when they heard screaming coming from down the street. Before they could surmise what to do, a loud crack billowed through the town and shook the wooden shops to their foundations.

Hayden lost his balance and fell to the ground next to a glass case of potent herbs. Alyna caught herself, and as soon as she was sure footed she was moving to help Hayden off the ground. He stood and got his cane under him, but was still unstable. “Stay here, Mr. Callister,” said Alyna with more grave a tone than Hayden had ever heard from the girl. He was too weak to protest and cursed himself for it. Alyna opened the door and the shop was flooded with the sound of screaming people, young and old, man and woman. Beyond Alyna and through the cloud of kicked up dust Hayden could see the sources of the screams running farther into town with an urgency that supplanted pain and physical limitations.

Alyna practically threw herself outside the shop, looking in the direction the crowd was coming from, near the entrance gate of Gother. She investigated for but a moment before her eyes widened unmistakably in terror. “We have to go!” she shouted back into the shop, where Hayden was bracing against the glass counter. He hobbled as quickly as he could to the entrance and Alyna’s outstretched hand.

The two of them got out of the shop and started to move with the crowd. Hayden glanced back toward the marketplace as they went. Where hours before he had seen shops and shouting merchants intermixed with groups of patrons and animal-pulled carts now he saw a mass of shimmering orange scales that was as wide of body as the thoroughfare, and as long as the marketplace. It was a dragon, slain and torn from flight.

Hayden would have said the dragon's state of being was a good thing under different circumstances. Simple prejudice against dragon kind was, however, vastly out shown by the evil given life from the dragon’s death. Red pustules burst all over the gargantuan reptile. Out of the wounds oozed a writhing tide of black and red insects, which swept out from the dragon like blood spreading across a polished stone floor. Gashes the length of a travel wagon scored the dragon’s hide, widening and deepening per the feasting habits of spider-sized creatures. Hayden shivered and picked up speed.

The two Plantologians were near the back of the crowd, Alyna running at Hayden’s pace despite his urging her to speed up. Her compassion was her undoing. They had not even crossed the intersection at the end of the street when her heel was slashed by the scythe-like claw of one of the insects. She fell with a sharp exhale, and Hayden halted only steps ahead of her. Alyna was quickly consumed, her screams drowned out before they could make it out of her mouth. Hayden froze in place, staring at the waves of insects that crashed down on the area Alyna had lay less than a second before.

A few more seconds passed before Hayden looked down at his feet. The sanguinary swarm had broken formation and gone around him on either side. He was a stone in a river of blood. Hayden did not dare move. He was breathing heavily from the fear and the effort, shocked and awed like he’d never been before. He looked up at the winged hyper-lizard’s mangled body and the onset of hatred began to mar his shocked expression.

Before he could fully experience that so familiar emotion, Hayden noticed something on the corpse which baffled him almost out of his senses. The belly of the dragon, upturned at a steep angle, was bulging sporadically in an unnatural rhythm. Hayden tried to focus his eyes on the phenomenon. No sooner than he did, the white underbelly of the large reptile exploded outward in a fountain of blood. This time, though, a flood of insects did not spill out with the blood. In their stead, a single black blade of chitin the length of a man stretched toward the sky, dripping with crimson. A drawn out click and rattling sound, like the warning mechanism of a venomous snake, resonated from inside the stomach wound, originating from the claw’s owner. Another blade stretched out of the dragon’s stomach, followed by an array of multiarticular legs ending in sharp tripod points. The legs, at least six that Hayden could see, lifted a creature of otherworldly anatomy out of its apparent prey. First came an elongated ovular head of teeth and armor plates and too many eyes, followed by a segmented neck that connected to a sloping body covered in chitin plates like the ones on its head. When the creature had fully emerged from the corpse, Hayden could see the entire beast in all its hellish glory. It was a larger version of the swarm creatures that were infecting the town like a growing bacteria seeking food. The massive arachnoid creature skittered off the dead dragon and onto the ground with exceptional agility, the motion more serpentine than insect-like, where its brothers and sisters flooded around it. The creature raised its bladed forearms over its head and stood on its four back legs. With its head raised toward the bright midday sky, the beast released a shriek that blurred the boundaries of known animal sounds and logic itself. The cacophony of roars, hisses, and clicks coming from a single throat seemed to spurn the swarm on to further destructive potential.

In Hayden, the screech caused a different response. Where before he was simply frozen in fear, now he was utterly paralyzed. He could not move or feel his arms or legs, and the swarm that had been ignoring him now pressed closer and brushed his feet as they passed. Their bladed shells cut him as they went and he fell into their numbers. Again they made room for him, and he hit the dirt hard. The larger insect’s cry continued to ring through the air. Hayden began to feel something again, but it was not his senses returning to him. He felt something within himself moving. Pain shot up his arms and legs as the sores beneath his bandages pulsed and writhed. He could not move, as was human instinct when faced with pain, nor could his mouth form words or cry out. His head swam and his vision blurred, the sound of the monsters around him filling his ears. Somewhere on his body, he knew not where, something burst, then another and another. Hayden’s last sight was of tiny arachnoid legs flooding over him like a thousand walking needles, and then there was only red.

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley, but neither were there Blood Locusts.