The Night They Arrived

There weren’t always dragons in the valley. I’m old enough to remember that fact, though I suspect few can say the same. I was but a boy in those days—a year shy of thirteen—but in the farthest reaches of my memory I can still smell the wild harebells and musk mallows on the hillside behind the family cottage, their sweet scent carried on the spring breeze of a cool morning in the age when men ruled that land. I can still taste the berries we’d pick off the prickly bushes that grew between bracken and moss-covered stones near the clear stream past Haveshire road once our chores were complete and we were free to run and play as children do. I can feel the dew on the grass beneath my bare feet as I ran in a fit of laughter with other Davonry children—for that was the name of the dale village in which I was raised. I hear still the songs echo through the valley, hymns of forgotten words sung, it seemed, by a chorus of angels in every corner of the basin, whether from home, schoolyard, or field. At times, one would nearly believe that the birds had joined in on rhythm and the butterflies danced along, though I suspect imagination the culprit of such thoughts. Though the lyrics have long-since escaped me, the melodies return to me now and again even in my old age, reminding me of what once was. I hum along to the song in my head, closing my eyes to see a lost world once more when the valley was green rather than black, and happy life blossomed as if ignorant of such a thing as death. I see my family cottage. I see the water wheel on its northern wall, dipping its troughs in a cool mountain stream. I see the chimney on its southern wall puffing out a bit of smoke. I see a wooden sign in front of the home and, on the sign, I see a name painted—Darrow.

But of all the images, vivid and distant, none visits me more often in my sleep than the memory of the night they arrived. I speak, of course, of dragons. Before I go on, there are a number of popular misconceptions regarding dragons that I must first correct. The most common and, by far, the most dangerous of which is the notion among some that they do not exist or that if ever they did, they do no longer. The second misconception is that they are large, heavy beasts whose steps could shake the very earth. Though taller than a man if standing on its hind legs, a dragon is smaller, quicker, and nimbler than typically depicted in stories and paintings. The paintings also get the color wrong. Every portrait of a dragon is done in brilliant reds, greens, or purples with a shimmering pattern of scales cascading down the back. In reality, there are no scales but instead, something like an exoskeleton, and there is no color but the entirety of the beast is black as a starless night. Only their white teeth and red eyes are any other color. The fourth misconception is that dragons are lonely creatures. The truth is, they hunt in packs and will often use their claws with greater regularity than their teeth or their fire. I’ve seen men’s bodies rent entirely in two by a single swipe of a dragon’s claw before my eyes as if he were a willow branch snapping in the wind. The final misconception is that dragons are somehow less intelligent than men, when I fear quite the opposite is true.

Furthermore, dragons do not so much breathe fire as spit it. They crane their necks upward as a sack between the jaw and the throat expands and begins to glow from within and then with a hideous shriek, they vomit unquenchable liquid flames from their mouths, consuming all that lay before them. To describe this sound is an errand a bit arduous for the shriek itself sounds not all too unlike the horrid screams of the beasts’ victims and as the noises bounced from the east valley wall to the west, it soon became impossible to distinguish the one from the other.

There is a certain smell to a dragon’s smoke. Just as a fire that burns on wood has a different smell than a fire that burns on grass, a dragon’s flame carries a certain odor as if it has a component of sulfur to it. If so lucky, one might even detect this pungent scent before the dragons arrive and so have time to prepare a defense or, if wise, flee. As it so happened, we were not so lucky.

The Men of the Mountain were not the same sort of men as the Men of the Valley. Somewhere in time, I suppose, their clan and ours were spawned from a pair of brothers for we shared much in the way of appearance, from our jaws to our noses to our hair; but for generations, we warred on and off over land, resources, and whatever else our forefathers fancied. Sometimes, we allied and joined forces against a greater enemy and sometimes we declared peace and laid down our arms, but we always found our way to war again.

The Men of the Mountain comprised the largest clan of the House of Gideon as well as the bulk of Gideon’s fighting force, while for years, the Men of the Valley were an unaffiliated clan under the protection of the House of Jhoran against the western border of Gideon’s territory. This arrangement lasted until my father’s day when the final war between the House of Gideon and the House of Jhoran ended with the Greater Dale within new borders and our clan coming under the protection of the House of Gideon and the Men of the Mountain. A deal was struck—not without controversy, mind you—that the Men of the Mountain may eat of the produce of our fields in the form of tribute and mine the precious stones from the valley walls and in return, they would guard us with their armies should an enemy venture an attack. At the time, the old farmers scoffed at the idea that the Men of the Mountain would come to their rescue. But in the few opportunities that presented themselves, they did just as they had promised and by the time I was a child, something of an amity had come between our two clans, one might even have dared to call it peace. The House of Gideon’s military engagements were now focused elsewhere, on the House of Caravel to the east where a vicious war was entering it’s seventh year.

Not unlike many other children around my own age, it was my duty to bring to the Men of the Mountain that portion of our product deemed tribute for their protection. Once a month, I would guide our mule, cart in tow, up the steep winding road out of the valley to the cliff city of Tel Garrin where the Men of the Mountain bored into the stone their homes, their barracks, their schools and of course, their mine shafts. The cart was filled with milk and cheese from our dairy and had to be guided with precision over the ruts in the road lest the contents spill. We could not afford to lose twice the tribute.

Rynn Tallion was the name of the officer to whom the delivery was due for inspection. A towering military commander, he offset his booming voice with a gentler tone that embodied the bridled power of his military prowess. Kind is perhaps too generous a word and too filled with warmth to describe Rynn Tallion, but I’m certain there is a word of similar nature that would apply. I recall on more than one occasion, he lowered himself to a knee to look me in the eye and impart some bit of wisdom gleaned either from the battlefield or the Academy in Attarix, the capital city from which the House of Gideon ruled. It was enough to prevent me from altogether dreading the journey to Tel Garrin.

It was a spring morning sometime near summer when I made my final tribute delivery up the mountain, though I scarcely knew it would be my last at the time. I guided the mule to Rynn Tallion’s station and he greeted me with a solemn wave.

“Young master Darrow, how did the journey treat you?” Tallion asked as he flipped through his book to find the proper quantity of tribute due.

“Fine, I suppose,” I replied, lifting the lid on the cart so as to offer a glimpse within. “I suspect you will find all is in order.”

“Twelve liters milk, eighteen cases of cheese…” Rynn Tallion read from the book before beginning to count the contents I had started unloading onto his table.

“And two loafs of bread,” I added as I placed the two carefully wrapped loafs atop the cheese cases and closed the lid on the now empty cart.

“And two loafs of bread,” Tallion repeated.

He closed the book and sat it down beside the tribute, opening his mouth as if he had something he wished to say, but if he had, he was prevented from doing so when two soldiers brought a ragged farmer before him whose sullen old complexion I recognized. The farmer’s surname was Portamier and he had the sort of face in which the skin appeared to be attempting to escape the skull by way of the chin, drawing every feature so far downward as to expose a shocking amount of the inner side of his eyelids. He worked a farm some way between Davonry and Ailbane to the north.

“Rynn Tallion!” came the herald of the first soldier, drawing to a halt at the side of the table where the milk, cheese, and bread now rested.

“What seems to be the matter?” Tallion inquired in such a manner that I could not quite make out whether he was irritated or genuinely interested.

The soldier now thrust the old farmer before Rynn Tallion as if discarding a worm-ridden piece of bread, “This man cannot bring tribute.”

Tallion turned his eyes to Portamier, “Is this true?”

“I can explain!” Portamier answered, so frantically, in fact, that a spray of spittle escaped his toothless mouth along with the words.

“Failure to pay tribute is a criminal offense,” the second soldier noted as if he had written law himself. “You could lose your land.”

Tallion raised his left hand and in an instant, the two soldiers had quieted themselves.

“I know this man,” he said. “He has never failed to pay what is due. If he says he requests a chance to plead his case, I will grant him that request.”

“But, Rynn, you haven’t yet heard what he has to say,” the first soldier objected.

“He’s lost his mind,” chimed in the second.

Portamier vehemently shook his head, “Don’t listen to them, master.”

“I’m listening to you,” Tallion assured Portamier. “Speak.”

“My crop was ruined,” the farmer explained.

“How so?”

“It was burned.”

“Burned?”

Portamier’s drooping eyes lit like a star flashing from one horizon to the other and his mouth formed a grin marred by rotting and missing teeth.

“That’s right. By dragons, I think.”

Rynn Tallion furrowed his brow.

“Dragons?” he repeated the word.

“That’s what I said, isn’t it?”

“You hear him, Rynn?” the second soldier cried. “Carrying on about dragons—he can’t be serious.”

“Today they were burned by dragons, next month he’ll say it was stolen by trolls!” the first soldier added with a scoff.

Tallion paid them no mind but kept his stone gaze fixed on the strange, frail old man before him.

“Even if I believed your story, you mean to tell me they burned your crops but left you alive?” he posited.

Portamier shrugged his bony shoulders, “I think they wanted to send a message. I think they were angry.”

Rynn Tallion raised an eyebrow and replied slowly, “You think the dragons wanted to send a message?”

There was no way he could have spoken the words in which the sentiment would have rung any more stupid but Portamier continued on with a fervent nod nonetheless.

“They burned my property right up to my home but they left me alive—for now, mind you! And, ya know, it’s not just me, either. They got Hennie’s land, too, and the Mafferty’s! And they even killed Adonias’ cattle—the lot of ‘em!”

“Adonias told us those cows were killed by bears,” the second soldier disputed.

“Bears!?” Portamier burst out with a chuckle. “Adonias had near fifty head. Now you tell me…what bear kills fifty fatted cows and leaves ‘em to rot?”

A silence fell over the gathering, the old farmer’s words, however ridiculous, sinking ever deeper with each passing second. Rynn Tallion’s eyes were locked on the middle distance, his hand on his chin as he thought. At last, he spoke.

“I don’t have to believe your stories about dragons for your crop to be lost,” he reasoned. “Follow him to his farm, if for one reason or another, what he says of his crop is true, he shall owe no tribute for three months. But if you find he is lying, he shall owe double tribute for three months at the end of which time we shall determine whether or not he gets to keep his land.”

At those words, something resembling careful hope flashed in Portamier’s eyes.

“Fehr-Rynn Terrek would not approve,” the first soldier protested.

“Then we won’t tell him,” Tallion replied firmly.

At that word, the soldiers left with Portamier, back down the mountain and into the valley. It was not long before I, too, departed from Tel Garrin and was on my way down the winding mountain road from whence I came, into the valley I called home. On the descent, I passed the many caverns cut into the rock by axe and hammer. Some lay dormant, some were collapsed, and some were lit from within by the flittering light of a host of torches—from these, the sound of metal clanging against stone thundered forth like a thousand feet of some terrible beast making its way through the mountain. Like a drum off beat, the clattering accompanied the coarse singing of the miners within. Their song was nothing like the angel songs I was accustomed to in the valley but more akin to a drunkard’s ballad sung out of tune. Passing by, it sounded as though each miner sang the same song though every man sang a different part of it all at the same time and it was impossible to figure whether this horrendous noise was because the men singing were too stupid to know the distinct parts of the song or because each man was so stubbornly certain that his part was the correct part that he insisted on singing it even louder, rather than simply sing along with the man beside him. When younger, I thought perhaps these mine shafts were some gateway to hell, but by this age, I was certain of it.

When I arrived home, I tied up the mule behind the cottage and filled his feeding trough with a bushel of hay. From where I stood, I could see my father at the neighboring cottage, assisting Mr. Fenton with mending his fence and I wandered toward them. Mr. Fenton’s daughter, Taria was also with them, sitting on a sawed-off tree stump watching the ordeal with piqued interest until she saw me approach at which time, she lifted her gaze long enough to wave at me before turning her eyes again on the repair. Taria was a year older than I and not at all like the other girls her age, though I gathered she quite liked it that way. She preferred to hunt a rabbit than to cook it, a matter which, to varying degrees, both embarrassed and intimidated me as I could manage neither. I had always been somewhat fond of her and her fair hair, kind smile, and fierce spirit, though I knew it was foolishness. Her days running in the grass with the children were fleeting. She would be deemed a woman before I was deemed a man and would have a child of her own before I was wed.

When I reached the fence, my father greeted me with a slight grin.

“How was the journey, Cade?” he asked as he drew a nail out of a pouch.

“All went as it should,” I replied, debating with myself whether or not to tell him what I overheard the old farmer say of his crop. I bit my tongue.

“Very good.”

My father set nail to wood and began to smack it with his hammer.

“Old man Portamier was there,” I finally burst out as if the statement itself meant anything at all.

Mr. Fenton smiled, “How was he?”

“He couldn’t bring tribute. He said his crop was burned by dragons.”

“Dragons?” Taria repeated with a sideways grin that I took to mean either she was interested, or found me a mockery.

“Cade—” my father started in a disapproving tone.

“He said the same thing happened to Hennie and the Maffertys! And they got Adonias’ cattle! All fifty head!”

My father shook his head.

“There are no such things as dragons,” he told me sternly.

“Makes for a good story though!” Mr. Fenton replied more lightheartedly.

He and my father continued down the fence carrying on about the weather, the spring yield, and what little word had reached Davonry of the distant war between the House of Gideon and the House of Caravel. As for myself, I was not thoroughly convinced of Portamier’s tales, though I was certain they deserved more than a shrug and a scoff. I was also now painfully aware that I was alone with Taria and in such circumstances I never was quite certain what to say. Oftentimes, I would say nothing or merely walk away rather than risk making a fool of myself. But this time, Taria quickly came to my rescue.

“Cade,” she said my name softly, as if sharing a secret.

“Yes.”

“It is not far to Adonias’ pastures—I know, I pass it whenever I visit my grandmother,” She continued, leaning in toward me as far as she could without falling off the stump on which she was perched. “If we hurry, we can make it there and back before dinner.”

“Are you certain?”

“Yes!” she replied emphatically, taking my hands in hers. “Don’t you want to see for yourself if old man Portamier was telling the truth?”

“Of course!”

“Then let us get out of here while we can!”

Taria leapt from the stump and we started on our way. I’d lie if I said I was not at all concerned about how to fill our long journey together with conversation, though as usual, Taria had no trouble with such matters. She was the sort of person who liked people and whom people liked. As we walked, she filled the silence with a number of humorous stories involving people I did not know but I laughed along as though I did. But the merry stories were not to last. As soon as we passed the final cottages in the village, crossed over Haveshire road, and walked over the stone bridge that spanned the stream that marked the Davonry border, the conversation took a decidedly more serious turn.

“Have you thought much of marriage?” Taria asked after a brief lull in which I figured she had been debating with herself how or if to ask the question.

“Marriage?” I replied as if the topic were more distant and stranger than it ought to have been. “No, I suppose I haven’t thought much of it. Have you?”

I now wondered if this conversation was the real reason Taria had asked me to walk to Adonias’ pastures.

“I try not to, but my parents say in a year or two, my time will come,” she answered, casting here eyes to the dirt path in a manner quite unlike her usual self. “Don’t misunderstand, I do want to get married, but only when I’m good and ready. And only to a man I truly love.”

She shrugged her shoulders and I could do nothing but nod.

“My mother said I’ll fetch quite the dowry if ever she makes a proper woman out of me,” Taria continued. “I figure they’ll find a soldier, likely one of the Men of the Mountain, likely a man my father’s own age.”

“Do you think they would accept someone younger, perhaps from our own village?” I mused, with the ridiculous thought in the back of my mind that somehow, I’d be a man in a year’s time.

Taria lifted her face, aglow with that certain smile a mother might show when her child says something naively optimistic.

“I would like that,” she answered, but I could tell her smile only masked a heart that seemed truly broken.

It was in that moment that a certain stench of death struck us both. The smell was overwhelming to the point of nausea and a growing buzzing sound filled the air.

“The cattle!” Taria exclaimed.

She left the path and hurried up the green knoll before us and I followed quickly behind her. What met our eyes when we reached the top was a truly horrid scene. Cows and parts of cows were strewn about across the pasture, blood pooling in their midst. The creatures had been viciously torn to pieces and a terrifying number of flies blanketed the remains. Taria lifted her hands to her mouth.

“Adonias thinks it was bears,” I said.

“This is the work of no bear,” she breathed, shaking her head in utter disbelief. “Whatever did this is coming back.”

“We need to warn the others!”

“They won’t believe us—not until it’s too late!”

There was a rustling in the bushes across the pasture. Our eyes shot to the place and I felt her hand grab for mine. The bushes continued to shake with such great ferocity it seemed they would soon give birth to some terrible creature that would do to us as it had to the cattle. But each of us was frozen, unable to do anything but watch the movement in the bushes and pray it was our senses bowing to our imagination and not whatever vile beast our minds had conjured up. Then, abruptly, the movements stopped. There was a moment of stillness, a moment of peace, a moment of quiet; before the startling belt of a horn, the sound of galloping, and we were both lifted into the air from behind. We each screamed aloud before we came to our senses and realized we had been swept up by my father onto his mare with him.

“What were you two doing?!” he scolded as he carried us swiftly back to Davonry.

There was a certain concern in his voice and his mannerisms that I had never seen or heard before.

“What is going on?” I queried, my own voice reflecting that same sense of peril.

“Word has come from Farrowbrook. The valley is under siege,” my father answered, his concern now seemingly entirely usurped by some mad determination.

“But the war is nowhere near the valley!” Taria exclaimed.

“This enemy is not of the House of Caravel,” my father corrected. “In fact, I fear this enemy is not of man at all.”

Inadvertently, the word slipped from my mouth, “Dragons.”

“Have the Men of the Mountain been alerted?” Taria asked.

“We tried. It would appear that the Men of the Mountain have abandoned us. They left Tel Garrin before we could reach them. Whatever this enemy is, they want nothing to do with it. I fear the fight before us is one we will have to fight on our own.”

When we arrived, it was near nightfall and the village was full of frantic men preparing weapons and armor to fight an enemy unknown as women, children, and the elderly joined a long procession out of the valley to the abandoned cliff dwellings of Tel Garrin—the one place where they would have any hope of remaining safe from whatever was coming.

As we neared my family cottage, Taria jumped from my father’s horse and into her own father’s arms. This was the first time I had ever seen her cry.

After a very short embrace, Mr. Fenton pulled her off his body.

“Your mother is on her way up the mountain, you must gather your things and join her,” he instructed.

“I can fight,” she insisted.

“There is no time for this!” Mr. Fenton objected. “You will do as you are told!”

Taria wiped the tears from her eyes and reluctantly entered her family cottage.

My father and I dismounted and I followed him into our home where our food stores were strewn about as if we had been robbed.

“Take what provisions you can carry and go with Taria to meet up with your mother and Mrs. Fenton—I already sent them on their way,” my father ordered. He thrust an armful of bread and water jugs into my chest. “Make sure everyone gets into the mine and the door is closed behind you. Whatever you do, don’t open the door. When all this is over and it is safe to leave, we will come for you.”

As if caught in a whirlwind, I found myself quickly outside, standing next to Taria, each of us weighed down by packs of food and medicine and the like.

“We should be helping them fight,” Taria protested, gesturing with a nod to the farmer army of teenagers and old men gathering in the street. Were I a year older, I likely would have been among them.

Swallowed by the stream of refugees, we began to march the winding path to Tel Garrin. Though the stars were coming out above us, torches were strictly forbidden out of fear that it might give our position away, so we marched in darkness. Even the lights of the cliff city and its mining shafts had gone out.

Taria nudged me as we climbed the valley wall.

“I snuck a pair of blades under my cloak,” she whispered. “When the others drift off to sleep tonight, I plan to leave this place and join in the fighting. Will you come with me?”

The question could have set me on my back, but nonetheless I whispered back, “Yes” knowing it would undoubtedly be a mistake.

When we reached Tel Garrin, it was just as my father had described it—empty. Gone were the miners and their singing, gone were the soldiers and the tribute they received, gone were the weapons in the barracks. The Men of the Mountain had broken their bond and left us defenseless. We filed into the mine with no light but the moon to illuminate the cavern before us. Taria and I found a seat on the cavern floor near our mothers and younger siblings and after the final members of our procession passed through, the steel mine doors creaked shut, closing us in without light and immersing us each in infinite nothingness. There must have been hundreds of us, though each of us might as well have been alone.

I felt as though I would suffocate on the darkness. As if the dark were not the mere lack of light but another malevolent substance altogether. I could feel it in my lungs, I could feel it behind me, I could feel it wrap its long, cold fingers around my neck and squeeze my throat. I was drowning in a bottomless sea, sinking ever deeper—no pulled ever deeper—into the infinite black.

As it so happened, my hand was resting on a round, smooth stone and I discovered it strangely calming to caress the remarkable smoothness of the stone and so I carried on for some time. As my fingers worked their way about the round stone, they stumbled upon a curious hole on its side, and shortly thereafter a second hole directly next to the first. My fingers felt around the two strange holes for a few inquisitive seconds before at last the thought occurred to me that the holes were eye sockets and that my stone was a skull.

“Bones! Bones! Bones!” a woman cried from across the cavern.

Suddenly, in the midst of the infinite black, there arose an uproar and shouting and screaming in response. I quickly flung the skull across the cavern floor with the same sort of reflexive motion one might make if he were to glimpse a spider on the back of his hand. But as quickly as the ruckus had broken out, it subsided again into eerie silence. Our collective fear turned to hopelessness, our hopelessness to sickness, our sickness to madness, and our madness to fear again—a fear worse than the first. The Men of the Mountain, it turned out, had not abandoned us. The Men of the Mountain were dead. A dreadful fear paralyzed every one of us, as if any movement or sound would be our doom. Even babes ceased their crying. And it was then—when all was dark, and all was quiet, and all was still—that from somewhere deeper in the mountain, somewhere in the nothingness behind us, somewhere not all too close but not all too far, there came a deep, low growl and the potent smell of smoke.