The Valley of Seven

There weren’t always dragons in the valley. Or so the people thought. Of course, they also thought that they were safe, and they were for half a millennia. Long enough for the warning stories to become folklore then to become nothing more than fire stories to scare the younglings. They were fools the lot of them. There was a reason the rest of Berul left the valley dwellers to their own. There was a reason no one stepped foot past the southern pass. Elsewhere science and magic had moved on from the rustic practices and punitive guess work the valley relied on. The studies of these creatures, all creatures great and small had taken great leaps forward. You see, the valley dwellers were under the naïve impression that dragons had gone extinct. That they had all somehow, mysteriously died and were now nothing more than history.

However, there was one dragon left outside of the valley, a small, stunted thing, captured off the west coast of Meha some five centuries ago. Confined behind steel bars through its adolescent it’s growth never did reach its full potential. This did not stop it from slaughtering hundreds the first year it was moved to the facility though. No one had ever studied these fire-beasts for long before, no one ever survived more than a couple of months. But this team did, they came prepared and protected. Some call it a miracle, others call it the work of dark magic. Until this beast no one had ever been able to witness the routine of a dragon. So, no one knew, not a single soul before them had the knowledge that the dragons didn’t disappeared. They never went extinct or moved on to different pastures. They hibernated.

Deep in the rolling hills of the valley they slept. Oblivious to the civilisation sprawling across the outside world. Oblivious to the mining the valley dwellers insisted on. The valley dwellers, or Dwelds as the rest of Berul called them, had been taken over by greed. Not so many years ago a young lad, foolish in his bravery was exploring one of the valley caves. These caves had been barricaded for years due to a rockfall centuries ago but this one had loosened and made the perfect temptation for a young man eager for adventure. He did not get far before he came across that first, fateful piece of gold. When he left the cave, he was leaden down with coins and jewels unlike any he had ever seen, and a yearning for more. By dawn the next day a team had assembled, and the mining business had been birthed in the valley.

It took a few years to break through the rocky barriers that separated the Dwelds villages from the world hidden within the valley hills. New tools had to be invented, a pulley system to lift the heavy rocks was invented, a track put down to help with the removal of debris. Greed overtook the Dwelds, it consumed them, feuds broke out in the desperation to be the first into the golden caves. Families were torn apart, murders committed, betrayals of the deepest levels acted out, all for hope of collecting a gem or two, maybe even a gold coin. Greed seemed to emanate through the walls of the cave, through the slopes of the valley, it was almost tangible. And then they broke through.

See, it was discovered through some experiments, some observation and some severe guess work that a dragons hibernation works different from the mammals you may find across the planet. There was no exact end date to a dragon’s hibernation, their lifespans apparently beyond measure they hibernate until there is a reason not to. In other words, until they are disturbed. Say, for example, by a rowdy group of bipeds that have taken it upon themselves to destroy your home and loot your precious treasure.

When the dragon awoke there was no time to warn the others, no time to tell the villagers to run. The initial blast of fury took out all the haphazard miners in one foul swoop. Within ten minutes the villages burnt, the sky turned black with ash and the golden yellow scales of the beast shone red and orange amongst the flames that consumed it all. Those on the outskirts attempted to run but the valleys way of life had isolated them from the mainland. The bridges burnt long ago there was no where to run, and the valley did not just have one hill cave, no, it had seven. Seven hills, all moving, all crumbling around them and when the golden dragon let out its roar, six more answered.