The Sleeping Warrior

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley. For a long time, the sloping hills were crested with purple, as heather grew in abundance, and the river gushed through, carving out the mountains. There were even other creatures some rumoured, peaceful ones, who lived in harmony on the hills. The sun rose and fell upon the Valley and the land was quiet.

That was a long time ago.

Now, the once lush mountains are scorched to an ashen grey, holes clawed deep into the mountainsides. Above the Valley, the sky hangs lower, clouds roll in and fill the aching bones of the land, shrouding it in darkness. And the river, which had poured so gracefully from the mountaintops, is now nothing more than a dying trickle running through the ashes of the Valley.

Freya put down her book and looked up. Her brown eyes glowed amber as they met the horizon, which hid all but the crest of the slowly sinking sun. She sat, very still, watching as it disappeared out of sight. The evening was still bright and the sky blue, though tinged with purple. Funny, Freya thought, how much light the sun shares, with a part of the world it cannot see. For now, anyway.

Behind her, night had already engulfed the landscape. She stood up and turned around to watch the darkness roll in. The grass below her feet was cooling between her toes, which she curled into the ground as she stared straight ahead. It was strange, looking at this land she called her home. Perhaps she’d spent too long today with her nose in this new book, but the mountains that towered in front of her suddenly seemed slightly sinister. It was just the chill of the evening she told herself, but she held the book a little tighter between her hands, nonetheless.

She had found the book only yesterday, when walking along the seafront with her dog, Machrie. It had been sitting neatly, front cover up, on a pile of rocks. So neatly, in fact that it seemed someone had set it down and simply forgotten about it. At first, Freya thought nothing of it, but as she continued strolling along the beach, she couldn’t help but wonder who would’ve left a book in such a strange place. And as she thought about it more, the tide was going out, and those rocks would’ve been submerged by the sea only a few moments before. Assuming whoever left their book would soon return – it did look rather special after all – she shook off any curiosity and wandered further along the sand.

It was then that the strangest thing happened. As she looked out to sea, a dark red glimmer caught her eye. Could it be? The very same book she’d just walked past, was now floating amongst the waves, drifting with the current in the same direction she was walking. She looked behind her, checking to see if perhaps someone had moved the book, only to find herself completely alone on the beach. Well, she couldn’t leave it to sink to the ocean floor and be destroyed by the salty water, so she pulled off her shoes and socks and began to wade into the sea. Goosebumps ran across her arms as the icy water lapped against her legs. Machrie watched from the shore, perplexed, as his owner stood, thigh deep in the cold ocean, and reached down to pick up a large, dark book, which was now dripping with sea water.

Once she’d returned to dry land, shorts soaking wet, Freya inspected her new find. The book was heavy, and clearly old, as the pages were yellowed with time and sunlight. It appeared to be bound in leather, although it wasn’t leather. It was a material Freya had never seen before; brown on immediate appearance, but shinier than leather, and when she tilted it back and forth in the light, it almost glowed with a deep red hue. She ran her fingers across the cover, which was imprinted with characters she couldn’t make out. There was a bumpy texture to the material too, as if it was marked with some kind of cracked pattern. She opened it to the middle and lay it down on the sand, to let it dry out in the sun. Machrie sniffed it gently, his shaggy black mane brushing over the pages, which were filled with very small, cursive writing.

Thankful that the book wasn’t destroyed by the unforgiving autumn waters, Freya turned to put her shoes and socks back on, then bent down to pick the book up carefully. A sharp gasp left her lips. Where the book had been soaked through only seconds before, there was now not a hint of damp anywhere to be seen, each page as dry as a bone. More startling still, was the luminous green light that had shone, just for a second, from the gutter of the book as she had touched it. Surely it was the light playing tricks on her, Freya pondered. She hadn’t eaten yet after all, and she was known for seeing things that couldn’t possibly be there. Her mother had always said she had an active imagination, but this was rather peculiar, even by her standards. Determined not to let her mind run away from her as it tended to do, Freya brushed off her concerns, shut the book and carried it home.

Later that night she began to read, page after page, and found it full to the brim of fantastical stories of a land where mystical creatures lived. It was rather captivating, although she couldn’t help but question why such a work of fiction had no sign of an author’s name, a publishing date or anything of the sort for that matter.

Now, standing in her garden, book clasped between her hands, her eyes scanned the mountains that stood proudly behind her home, as they became harder and harder to see in the ever-growing darkness. Something soft brushed against her bare legs, and she looked down to see Machrie’s black eyes looking up at hers.

“Freya!” A soft voice came calling from inside the house in front of her. Machrie bounded across the grass and through the open back door. Freya took one last look up at the towering mountainside, before she hopped quickly across the lawn, placing the book down on the garden table, before stepping inside the house.

What she failed to notice, as her hands lifted from the cover, and she turned her back, was the very faint green light which had begun to glow from the pages of the book. And, as if in response, the same light was now shining, ever so faintly, from the very top of the silhouetted mountain.