Trial of a Warrior

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley.

Grandmother Aud spoke of a time when her own grandmother was a girl, when they could walk the Valley freely, bare toes in the grass, and tend their crops without needing to turn watchful eyes skyward for the shadow of wings on the wind.

Dark strands of hair, escapees from her long braid, whipped about in the breeze and tickled Juve’s cheeks. Soon, when she passed her warrior trial, she would be allowed to shave her head. Until then, she was still a child in the eyes of her clan.

But not for much longer. She was crouched on a rock outcropping, peering over the vast Valley laid out before her. Not twenty paces away, one of the dozens of waterfalls lining the Valley’s mighty walls dove, slim and elegant, hundreds of paces to the ground below. Juve’s eyes searched the distance for her quarry, a glimpse of dark wing or metallic tail whipping around one of the stone towers that cluttered the lands before her.

Juve had been tracking the female for days, sleeping in the damp hollows of cliffs under her sheepskin cloak, eating dried elk and scavenged berries. It wasn’t quite enough, but her hunger kept her sharp. Focused.

There.

In the distance, crouched in the misty shade between tall, crumbling piles of rock, a broad shadow moved. It was far too large to be one of the great bears that made their home here. The female’s lair must be close, for Juve had spotted her several times in the area around those particular rock formations over the past few days. Juve calculated the distance in her head. The safe route would be to continue climbing, skirting around the edges of the Valley, clinging to the walls like the shaggy sheep her people shared the cliff face with.

Of course, the flying predators could still pluck her off the rock face as she would pick a ripe berry, or use their flaming breath to turn her into a smear of charcoal on the crag. She wouldn’t be the first of the Rahka Clan to meet that fate. But dragons were lazy by nature, and much preferred the ease of hunting prey in the lowlands, like the herds of elk that proliferated in the lush fields. Or unwary humans.

While safer, sticking to the walls would be slow going and take her at least three days, whereas if she cut straight across the Valley, she could be where the dragon rested now by nightfall tomorrow.

She pictured the celebratory feast when she returned, the dancing, the entire roasted goat, Melron shaving her head and pronouncing her a full warrior of the clan. She also took a moment to picture the look on Tulvo’s face when she brought back a finer prize than the one he had gathered the year before. He had returned only an eight-night after departing for his trial, crusted in debris and blood, but triumphant, an inky black scale in his fist.

Despite the rivalry between them, Juve had joined the rest of their clan in admiring the scale, as large as a man’s palm and splayed fingers, so black it seemed to soak in the light from the fires illuminating their assembly cave. Tulvo wasn’t the first Rahka warrior to return from their trial with a dragon scale, but he was the first in decades. During the feast, he had been unbearably smug. “Don’t worry Juve,” she remembered him saying, a smirk on his handsome face. “I’m sure you’ll bring back something from your warrior trial as well. Perhaps a dried bit of dragon dung.” Her mouth twisted at the memory, but she had a much finer prize than feces in mind.

Juve clutched her stone knife a bit harder than necessary as she shimmied to the edge of the rock ledge and began her descent, callused fingers deftly clinging to minute nooks in the cliff’s surface. She scooted further from the waterfall. Although the mists help shield her from the view of aerial predators, the icy water numbed her fingers and made the rocks slick and treacherous.

She made her way rapidly down the vertical wall, sometimes clinging by her toes and fingertips like a spider, sometimes dropping several paces down to tiny ledges. You didn’t survive long in one of the cliff clans of the Valley if you couldn’t climb. Juve had been scaling the sheer walls of her home since she was three summers old, and before that she had learned the rhythm of the rock from a pouch on her mother’s back. Unlike some of the other clans, Juve’s people lived in a cavern system relatively high in the vertical cliff face, so she wasn’t fazed as she made her way down, down to the misted valley below, knife now settled in a pouch at her hip.

Despite her speed, the climb down took several hours, and her arms and fingertips burned by the time her feet finally touched earth. The high Valley walls created an early twilight as the sun meandered towards its nightly resting place. She would soon need to find a sheltered place to rest for the night as well. Dragons weren’t the only danger that stalked the Valley.

She took a moment to eat a piece of dried elk, scanning the landscape before her as her jaw worked on the tough strip. From above, the path to where she believed the female’s lair was located was clear, but once on the ground, her perspective was hopelessly limited. She had made sure to mark the sun’s location and large landmarks to help guide her. Her first step was to go to the base of the waterfall and follow the stream that flowed from it until she reached a dense strand of trees near a small lake. Then she would turn west and head towards a particularly large rock pile that Juve thought resembled a fat woman lying down on her side. Once there, she should be able to see over some low hills to the twin pillars where the dragon had been.

At the base of the waterfall, she drank deeply and refilled her waterskin. She had packed light, favoring moving quickly over comforts like a bed roll or extra food. Perhaps she could catch a fish tonight and risk a fire from the shelter of the woods.

Most of the Valley was verdant grasslands, so vibrant green in the sunlight it hurt her eyes, though more often it wore a cloak of cloud from the cool, moisture-rich air. The ground was exceedingly rocky, and her people had to carefully tend the soil to make their rice crop bear fruit. Randomly interspersed with the low, lush hills rose toppling rocky spires, some barely taller than her, others reaching up halfway to the tops of the cliffs that encircled the vast Valley. Her grandmother Aud told of how, when her people first came to the Valley long ago, a race of giants dwelled here. Rather than welcoming the newcomers, the giants decided to hunt them down, harvesting their skin to make supple tunics, their teeth to adorn giant nicks, and prizing their flesh as more succulent than the most tender wild lamb.

A great priestess of the clan, Ambra, saw her people getting slaughtered, and went to treat with the giant king Gulack, offering elegant painted pottery and massive sacks of rice in exchange for halting the bloodshed. The giants laughed, and Gulack said he would slay Ambra and wear her skull on his crown of bones. But the priestess was prepared, and powerful: she cut off her own hand and used the power in her blood to turn all the giants to stone. Even as she bled out, using the last drop of her lifeblood to ensure every giant was transformed, Ambra smiled at her work, knowing her clan was now safe. Of course, that was before the dragons came.

Sometimes when Juve looked at the peculiar spires, she thought she could see faces in the stone, written in eternal fear and agony, but Tulvo always mocked her for believing childish tales.

It was cool walking next to the stream, and Juve tied the rope fasteners holding her cloak on tighter. She disliked being on the Valley floor. It made her feel vulnerable and small, untethered without being able to see great distances laid out before her. She was in the Huran clan’s territory, but she saw no signs of human habitation. The Huran were clever and hid themselves well from dragon and rival clan alike. There were norms and treaties dictating safe passage for members of other clans completing their warrior trials or traveling on trading expeditions, but she still had no desire to be stopped and questioned by a Huran warband.

A hint of shadow overhead in the fading light jerked her out of her thoughts. Dark wings had just passed overhead. She could see the dragon in the distance, flying away from her. She could tell from his smaller size and emerald coloring that he was a male, likely just waking up and on the hunt. She crouched in the tall, fragrant grass by the stream, praying that he hadn’t seen her, that he would keep flying.

Just when she dared hope, the dragon dipped a wing, spinning in a lazy circle back in her direction. Juve swore. Two hundred paces ahead stood the stand of trees she had been heading towards. The copse would give her cover since the dragon was far too large to fit amongst the dense trunks, but he could easily flame the entire area, catching her in the inferno.

Her other option was the small lake slightly further and to the west of the woods. No one knew whether or not dragons could swim, but no one Juve knew had ever seen one try. Although he could use his talons to pluck her out of the lake, she could hold her breath and dive low, deeper than he could see. But how long could she hold her breath? Would he be fast enough to catch her when she surfaced for air?

She only spent a moment wavering before sprinting for the lake. It was an ugly choice, but she would sooner drown than become a human torch. The dragon was growing closer every second, her path taking her towards him, but there was nowhere to hide behind her save the cliffs too far to reach.

The creature let out a screeching roar, almost too low to hear with her ears, but the concussive wave smashed into her chest, making her stumble. It was a hunting call, meant to throw prey into a state of frenzied terror. He had definitely seen her. Cursing, she forced her exhausted legs to go faster, dumping her pack on the ground as she ran.

Although she had seen countless dragons from a distance, she had never before felt one’s attention on her, felt like a hare in the eyes of an osprey. A massive osprey that could breathe fire. Breathe in, breathe out, keep your legs moving. The lake was just fifty paces away now, but she was almost within fire range of the great beast before her. He had sunk low in the sky, his massive semi-translucent wings casting green shadows in the evening light. She thought she could make out his slit pupils focused hungrily on her.

Twenty paces to the lake. Ten. She was sinking into the marshy mud now, cattails clawing at her clothes. She lost her boots in the sludge, and each time her feet came up they made a wet squelching sound. The dragon now filled her vision, blocking out a significant portion of the horizon, his cruel beady eyes focused. He opened his wide jaws, revealing rows of bright, needle-sharp teeth, just as Juve flung herself forward towards the water…

She felt a jet of flame fill the air behind her back as she was mercifully swallowed by the cold, hazy lake. She made desperate strokes towards the deeper waters, willing her body to sink. The dragon’s shout of rage sent ripples through the water as Juve dove downwards, pushing herself all the way to the lakebed, and latched onto a boulder in the slimy muck, using it as an anchor to stay submerged. Although she had played in the pools at the bases of the waterfalls near their cliff village, Juve was not a strong swimmer. She had no doubt that if she released the rock she couldn’t prevent herself from floating back to the surface.

Despite her burning eyes, she scanned the murky water above, attempting to pinpoint her hunter’s position, but it was as impossible for her to see the dragon as it was for him to see her. Her lungs were already starting to ache, the last desperate breath she sucked in as she dove almost spent. How long would he wait? Dragons were clever. He would know she couldn’t breath underwater and would need to come back up. Her only hope was if he decided she was too troublesome a quarry and to go after an elk or bear instead.

The urge to inhale was becoming unbearable. She closed her eyes, focused on her heartbeat. Her warrior training taught that one’s skill with a weapon or tracking a foe was secondary to mastery of the self. She never understood how that could be the case, but she had wanted to impress Master Melron, so she had meditated daily. As she fought through the panic clouding her mind, she thought she finally understood. She had to think, not just react. She needed air and soon, but she couldn’t simply rise to the same spot she had dove in–if he hunted her still, that would be where the dragon was looking.

She let out her last bit of air, allowing the bubbles to rise to the surface, then scooted in the muck and slime, gripping to rocks and submerged logs until she was in a different part of the lake. She hoped it was far enough–the pain in her lungs had become too much. Mental discipline couldn’t replace the need for air.

Gripping a disintegrating log, she braced her feet against the murky lakebed and pushed as hard as she could towards the surface, shutting her eyes tight against the stinging water. Once her head breached the surface, she gulped in air, looking about wildly. He was there, perched at the edge of the lake near where she had jumped in. His head jerked up, predator’s eyes locking on her, and within seconds he was airborne, skimming low over the water, mouth opening to emit another blast of flame.

She hadn’t regained as much breath as she would have liked, but she dove back down, forcing her weakened arms and legs to propel her to the bottom of the lake. Above her kicking feet, the water churned as the dragon plunged his taloned back legs into the water, groping for her.

Too late, Juve thought with a wild grin. There was something thrilling as well as terrifying about using her wits to evade the dragon. This will make a great story to tell on cold nights around the cavern fires. Should I survive, that is.

She felt another one of the dragon’s roars sending shock waves through the water. She clung to a slimy log and did the same maneuver as before, crawling along the bottom of the lake, letting out calculated air bubbles to mark her passing. Then, last of her air spent, she scrambled, half climbing, half swimming, as far as she could from her last exhale. Once again she shot up into the evening air, the sun now painting the lake brilliant shades of red and orange. This time, the dragon was circling low above the lake, but he was focused on where her last breath had risen to the surface. By the time he noticed her, she was already submerged.

And so they continued to play the game. To throw him off, she changed her tactics, sometimes not releasing any air bubbles at all and ending up on a different side of the lake, other times rising at the same place as before. But she knew it was a matter of time before her luck ran out and she would be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Also, the amount of time she could hold her breath was steadily decreasing, and she could feel herself mentally and physically deteriorating from lack of air.

She was losing track of the number of times she had surfaced. Had it been ten? Twelve? As she rose again, sunlight still kissed the edges of the sky, but a few bold stars had appeared. For the first time, there was no beat of wings or roar of frustration. Juve glanced about desperately, and saw the outline of her enemy’s wings silhouetted on the horizon, flying away from her. She could have laughed with relief, but the cautious survivor inside her insisted that it might be a trick to lure her prematurely out of the water.

So she floated there, eyes turned to the sky, treading water. Her head felt light from repeatedly reaching the end of her breath-holding limit and her muscles were sluggish. After several tense minutes, she saw a dark figure dive out of the sky over the rolling planes in the distance and come back up, a large form thrashing in its talons. Good. He’s caught his dinner. Now it’s time for me to get out of this lake.

She was a good distance from the shore, and as she swam, blackness encroached on her vision. Just a bit further. You didn’t save yourself from that dragon just to drown due to exhaustion. But her body simply wasn’t listening. The shore was thirty paces away now, but each stroke of her arms and kick of her legs grew weaker and weaker. And what was in the woods in front of her? Was that a shape moving in the dark, or just an illusion caused by her failing eyes?

As the darkness took hold of her fully, she heard splashing and felt something grab her. She thrashed feebly, thinking the dragon was back after all, but her limbs wouldn’t work properly, and as she was dragged from the water she thought, at least I tried.

~

Warmth on her face. Her body shivered under her heavy cloak, but her face burned with the heat of a nearby fire. Why was the sleeping cavern so cold? And why was there a fire so close to her when they usually burned at the perimeters of the cave, where clever vents carved in the rock carried away the smoke? Was Bruy cooking a midnight snack? That boy was always eating…

The dragon. Her trial.

She sat bolt upright and was rewarded by the protest of what felt like every muscle in her body. The cloak that tumbled off her torso wasn’t familiar. She had let her own float away in the lake as she fled from the dragon.

A cheery fire danced several paces away, where a strange man crouched, two fat trout roasting on a spit over the flames. Her sodden cloak hung on a nearby branch, close enough to the fire to help it dry but far enough to not catch fire.

The man was humming softly to himself and ignored her as he tended to his dinner. She gave a small cough, and he turned towards her, a friendly smile lighting up his face. “Ah, you’re alive. I wasn’t sure if you’d wake up when I pulled you out of the lake like a sodden piece of driftwood. How do you feel?”

All the clans of the Valley spoke the same tongue, but his accent was peculiar, slightly rolling, all of his words flowing together so that it took her addled mind a moment to parse his question, then another moment to consider her answer.

“Okay–I think.” She eyed him warily. He had obviously helped her, pulled her out of the lake when she surely would have drowned otherwise. But he was a stranger and she had little experience with people outside her own clan save the periodic visit from a trading expedition. He was perhaps a few years older than her with the same straight black hair and light brown skin, but his eyes, like all Huran, were rounder and less hooded than her own, giving him what she thought was a perpetually surprised expression.

“What were you doing in there anyway? Other than trying to drown yourself I mean.”

She scowled. “I was trying not to be eaten by one of your flying gods, lowlander.”

He paled. “One of the Sky Lords hunted you?”

“Yes–a male. He was quite determined.”

He considered. “That was probably Te’Averik. He likes to hunt in this area. Not many survive once he sets his sights on them.” The young man’s face was open and friendly, seemingly not put off by her hostility. He even seemed impressed.

“You’re not upset that I didn’t become a meal for one of your ‘sky lords’?”. She let disdain drip from her words, but her companion just shrugged.

“I don’t want to be a dragon’s meal any more than you, but I do not begrudge a creature for doing what’s in its nature. Like a bear hunts trout or a man hunts elk, sometimes the dragon hunts us. Needing to eat does not make a thing evil.”

She considered. “Perhaps, but nor does it make it worthy of worship.”

“Alright my damp friend, what would you have me worship? Humans long dead and gone, or the most powerful, long-lived beings in existence? Is their size, power, and flame not a sign of divinity, or at the very least being blessed?”

She was too tired and raw from her near-death experience to debate theology. “Thank you for saving me, but I must go now. I have a task to complete.” She stood up shakily, her vision once again going black and fuzzy at the edges.

“Don’t be ridiculous. You’re dead on your feet, which are without shoes, and your cloak is sopping wet. You have no food and it won’t be light enough to travel for hours yet. Stay and rest. You won’t serve your task well if you can barely stand.”

She scowled again, mostly because he was right, and sat down, wrapping herself back up in his cloak. He went back to his cheerful humming and pulled out a stone knife, which he set to sharpening. Juve let the silence stretch, waiting for the questions about who she was and what she was doing on Huran lands. But they didn’t come. Finally, when she couldn’t stand the silence any longer, she asked, “What are you doing out here alone?”

He glanced up with a startled expression, as if he had forgotten she was there (or was it just those round eyes that made him look surprised?). “When people in my clan pass twenty summers, we spend an eight night alone in the wilds, hunting and fishing to survive. At the end of that time, we must bring something back to our clan. Something special and new, that we either discovered or made with our own hands.”

“Like a warrior trial?” She knew very little about the traditions of other clans.

He snorted. “You could say that. Though we value discovery and creativity over martial prowess. By making each member build or find something new, our knowledge is constantly growing and members of the clan prove that they can contribute to our future.”

She sat in silence, thinking. On one hand, it seemed weak to pass into adulthood without proving your strength and bravery. But what he said also made sense. She was determined to bring back a dragon’s talon, a fine trophy, but what good would that actually provide her clan besides impressing visiting delegations from other parts of the Valley?

“What are you going to bring back then?” she blurted, unable to suppress her curiosity.

He put down his whetstone and knife and slid the sizzling fish onto two separate large leaves, handing one to her. He was silent for a long while, and she thought he wasn’t going to answer, so she tucked into the fish. It was the finest meal she’d had in days, and soon the trout was nothing but bones. “Thank you,” she said, sucking on her fingers.

“You’re quite welcome.” He sighed. “At first I wanted to make something to help us travel the Valley floor to fish and hunt that would shield us from the eyes of the Sky Lords. Like a cloak, but covered in leaves and twigs that we could throw over ourselves.” She nodded. It was a clever idea. “But the lands change so much, we would need grass cloaks for the plains and leaf cloaks for the forests. And cloaks that resembled rocks for the stone fields. And the grass is bright green but dries to brown when cut, so I would need to find a way to keep it looking lush and alive.” He sighed. “So I have given up on that idea, and now I only have four days and nights left to create or find something new.”

He was still a stranger to her, but he looked melancholy, so she said, “I am sure you’ll come up with something.”

He smiled at her. “You don’t know that and it is not your concern either way, but thank you.” They sat in companionable silence as the fire wound down. Juve wasn’t sure when wakefulness transitioned to sleep.

~

The cold dawn light filtered through the lush canopy, songbirds arguing in their sweet voices overhead. Juve, who had already recovered her pack and tried and failed to find her shoes, gazed down at the sleeping man who had been so kind to her. She left a water lily from the lake in the cold embers of the firepit, then was on her way, striding north through the grove. She had been walking at least an hour before she realized she had never asked the man’s name.

By midday, she had left the forest for the grassy, rocky hills. The ground was rougher here so she wrapped her feet in strips from a spare tunic. It wasn’t much, but fortunately the skin on her soles was already thickened from living her entire life in caves and scrambling on rocky ledges. Ahead lay the twin pillars, this time with nothing but true shadow between them. They looked deceptively close, but she knew it would take her the better part of the day to get there, especially because she’d need to scout carefully for the dragon’s lair once she approached.

Some dragons made their lairs in the high caves of the Valley’s cliff walls like those in which Juve’s clan lived, but the naturally formed caverns were mostly too small for the massive beasts. Most of them made due with digging burrows in the stony grasslands–since they were the apex predators of the Valley, they didn’t have to worry too much about sleeping in the ground. Juve was almost certain the female she hunted was a burrow-dwelling dragon since she had spotted her several times sunbathing on the nearby plains or hunting the skies but never flying near the cliff-face.

It wasn’t too difficult to find the dragon’s burrow. She had carefully scouted the area, concealing herself behind brush and rocks, making increasingly narrow concentric circles around the area just as she’d been trained. There was no sign of the dragon save of her passing, areas of churned earth and massive piles of dung. The freshest she found seemed a few days old, likely from when Juve had spotted her from the cliffs.

Finally she reached the base of the twin pillars and saw the gaping hole in the earth carved into a hillock right behind them. From this angle, the crumbling stone resembled a gateway, or perhaps two sentries standing guard. She fished two long knives out of her pack but left the rest of her belongings at the base of one of the pillars.

Juve stared into the hole. Her future lay in those walls, be it the glory of bringing a fine prize home to her clan, returning with something less grand but still adequate to pass her trial, or a violent death. Juve was only prepared to accept one of those outcomes.

Taking a deep, steading breath, she scooted forward into the depths of the cavern. Her plan relied on subterfuge, so she took her time, keeping one hand on the cold burrow wall. When the light filtering in from the entrance was spent, she took her knife and cut a long, shallow slice along her hand, reciting ancient words of power her mother had taught her. Her blood began to pulse and then glow with a soft white light. She smiled, smearing the blood on the tip of a branch she had brought for this purpose. She may not have the power to transform giants into stone, but she was grateful for this small gift from her heritage. A flame would almost certainly give her away to her quarry, while the blood torch provided just enough light to see.

After several minutes, the tunnel abruptly opened up into a much wider cavern. The ceiling above bristled with stalactites and monotonous dripping echoed off the walls. She couldn’t see much with her blood torch, but it seemed the dragon had dug her burrow into an existing cave system, for this was not the work of dragons. Several tunnels led away from the main cavern, and Juve crept over to study them. Each bore marks of taloned feet, but the largest one was worn smoother. It also radiated a faint rotten smell, suggesting where the female ate her prey was somewhere down this tunnel.

Juve took a moment to master her nerves, then silently crept in. She still hadn’t heard a sound from the dragon and disliked not knowing where the creature was. Would she come up behind her, home from a long hunt? Had she abandoned this burrow entirely? Juve felt a flash of relief at the thought, then immediately a sense of shame. She needed the dragon here to take one of her talons.

In places the walls were smeared with rusty dried blood, and piles of old bone clustered in crevices. She jolted as she recognized a human skull in one pile. This time you are the hunter and a dragon the prey, she reminded herself.

Soft light appeared from around the next bend. There must be some holes in the cavern ceiling. There was a scraping sound ahead as if a great body was heaving itself across stone. A whispered incantation and her blood torch went dark. Peering around the corner in the faint light, she saw a massive black shape, bigger than any dragon she had seen before, crouched in a wide cavern. Her inky hide caught and reflected the light, thousands of sleek scales fastened into a nearly impenetrable armor.

A repulsive stench hung in the dank air from a heap of rotting animal carcasses. Juve spotted elk, bear, and mountain sheep piled on top of one another, some relatively fresh, others leaking putrescence onto the stone floor. She had never heard of a dragon storing kills like this. Typically they preferred fresh meat and hunted daily. Why hasn’t she eaten it? Elsewhere in the burrow lay piles of strange items: a massive knife that gleamed silver instead of the dull gray of stone, the fossil of a strange humanoid creature with fins, various shells and rough gems.

Juve crept forward, keeping as low to the ground as possible. She had rehearsed this moment countless times in her head. She would catch the dragon unaware, leap onto her head, stab her eye (the most accessible vulnerable spot on a dragon), and while she thrashed, disoriented and in pain, Juve would use her second knife to slice off one of her talons while trying not to get shredded in the process, then flee. Looking at the enormous beast now, her plan seemed more foolish than brave. She could change her mind, slip out with one of the items from the hoard…but no. She had come too far to give up now. The memory of being hunted by the green male gave her a burst of determined anger.

A deep rumble broke her out of her thoughts. She froze, exposed and just twenty paces from the dragon as her sinuous neck slowly rotated her head along the ground, fixing golden eyes right on Juve. Just her head was taller than Juve and several times as long. Brutal bone-white teeth poked out from her powerful jaw. The rumbling growl became a roar, long lines of drool dripping from fangs as long as her arm.

The dragon shifted on the ground as Juve stumbled backwards, but something was wrong. The creature didn’t make to stand and snatch her up, or even blast her with flame. Instead, she thrashed feebly on the ground, her roar fizzling into a frustrated rumble.

Is she wounded? Ill perhaps?

Juve, not quite believing she was still alive, stayed where she was, the dragon’s dappled bright eye fixed on her. Neither of them moved for several long moments, then Juve cautiously walked forwards, a stone knife held at the ready in each fist. Shockingly, the dragon let her approach, her growls sounding half-hearted, even melancholy. She was clearly sick, perhaps even dying. All thoughts of maiming her had fled Juve’s head, replaced by wonder at the massive predator now only a few paces away.

She admired the fierce ridges across her snout, the twisted black horns that sprouted from her skull. Juve cautiously reached out a hand to touch her cool, armored cheek. After a moment, the dragon convulsed, letting out a sorrowful wail that cut into Juve’s heart. She had never thought of dragons as beings that could feel pain, only inflict it, but the anguish in her voice sounded almost human. She rotated her head away from Juve, focused on something she couldn’t see over the dragon’s bulk. With a final shudder and sigh, the great beast stopped moving.

Moments later, her body began to disintegrate, scales falling off, flesh turning to ash, organs rotting then fading to nothing before Juve’s eyes. Finally, all that was left was a vast skeleton, ribcage large enough to house a family, sightless black holes where her golden eyes had been. Through the skeleton, Juve saw what the dragon had been looking at with her last breath, and suddenly the rotten piles of flesh made sense. The dragon hadn’t been hunting for herself.

She’d been hunting for her baby.

An enormous egg lay nestled in the space between the skeleton's rear leg and torso. It was almost as tall as Juve and the delicate fleshy pink of a trout’s belly. The dragon must have known she was dying and wouldn’t be able to hunt for her hatchling, so she had hidden here, filled the cavern with her kills and waited to die. As Juve stared, the egg shuddered, a cracking sound echoing off the cavern walls.

The egg was hatching.