Unburdened

Screams cut through the stillness of the forest. Deep in his bramble nest, Rho was wrenched from sleep. He threaded his serpentine neck through the surrounding tangle of thorns but saw nothing through the trees. He listened. All he could hear was the pounding of blood in his ears.

The dream. It must have been the dream again.

It had haunted the dragon with growing frequency the further south he flew. The closer he drew to the red valley.

He blinked his one yellow eye and shouldered his bulk through the bramble wall. Thorns skittered off the emerald armor of his scales. Even in the colorless half-light of twilight, he was an incandescent mountain of jewels.

The dream washed away with each step. As he wove through the twisting trunks, following the sound of running water, Rho shoved the familiar wave of images back into their mental prison. There was a long journey ahead – he needed to focus.

The dragon clambered down slippery rock to the edge of a creek and drank deeply. The snowmelt burned as it slid down his throat. He raised a dripping chin and noticed something unusual. He blinked.

A boot.

It was caught on a slimy branch poking up from the creek bed. A tattered thing, falling apart at the seams, and yet Rho did not think it had been there long. He stretched across the slate water and sniffed at the worn leather.

His first thought was that this boot had been worn recently. His second was that humans smelt horrible. The dragon’s neck recoiled. He shoved his snout into the nearest pine bough to rid his nostrils of the scent, huffing and glaring at the offending item. Something small and soft brushed against his forepaw. A torn scrap of cloth had been shaken loose from the branches. Rho stared at it for a moment. Faint screams echoed in his head. Had he merely dreamt them?

Rho tilted his head skyward. Dawn was fast approaching. The world paled, dripping and dew-soaked. He tasted the pine-rich air, sensing the language of the skies dragons innately understood. It was a cloudless morning. He should take advantage of it.

But something pulled him back to the ground. He was staring through the trees in which the cloth scrap had snagged. A dark patch of the forest that made his skin prickle.

A quick look. Where is the harm in a quick look around?

The sky beckoned, but curiosity had dug its claws into him now. Rho bowed his head against the whipping branches as he shouldered through the trees, that strange feeling guiding him deeper into the gloom.

Many of the corpses were missing teeth, boots, and hanks of hair. None of them seemed to have been carrying packs or belongings of any kind. Rho’s crunching footfalls came to an abrupt stop. He had not wandered far into the trees. He could still hear the splashing of the creek. All around him, dark shapes were slumped at unnatural angles between the trees. Broken arrow shafts sprouted from their torsos. Raiders, Rho suspected.

Their desperation seemed to grow with each passing day, fueled by the competing desires of the petty and the powerful. Apparently, these human squabbles had reduced men like this to kill for gold fillings and meager travel rations.

Sometimes, I forget humans can be monsters to each other too. The dragon let out a grumbling snort, a mixture of disgust and the need to clear his head of the fetid stench. Death hung heavy in the air – pine suffused with an oily rottenness, raw and red.

It was time to leave the confines of this forest grave. He turned his back to the dead. Weak sunlight was filtering through the branches now, forming crisscrossing patterns over his scales as he retraced his steps to the creek.

Thud.

Rho spun around with a strangled growl. Something behind him had stirred. It was another second before he noticed movement and even then, his mind failed to grasp what he was seeing. Impossible…

One of the dead was moving. A gray-haired man lying facedown in a bloody detritus of leaves. He wore a tattered green cloak, though more prominent still was the fatal collection of arrows puncturing his back. He gave an unnatural lurch. Rho took an automatic step backwards, his wings snapping to his sides. Was this some dark sorcery?

The fallen traveler fell onto his face with a sickening thud. Rho took an unsteady step closer. He could see something stirring from beneath the corpse. It was caught in the folds of the dead man’s cloak. Then a hand, impossibly small, freed itself from the cloth. The cloak fell away from an inhuman, blood-smeared face. It clambered onto unsteady feet amongst the pile of bodies.

It was a baby. No, a child – or something in between. Rho could never tell with humans (such pitifully short lives to begin with!). Though she appeared uninjured, her limbs and dark curls were streaked with gore. The blood of her travel companions must have provided her an effective disguise during the attack. Whether by the child’s limited wits or sheer dumb luck, she appeared to have fallen amongst the dead, allowing the visceral camouflage to coat her tiny limbs, and lay as still as the corpses around her until the raid ended.

For a moment, the girl and the dragon stared at each other in silence. They were both waiting, Rho realized. Waiting for another body to stir, another living being to miraculously gasp for air and – more miraculously still – sweep the child away from this forest and out of his life forever.

Fire rumbled in his belly. Why had he stuck his snout into this? He should leave now, back to the skies and towards his destination. But something stilled his wings. Her fate had been shoved in his claws. They were alone in an isolated forest, surrounded by raiding gangs and, inevitably, hungry creatures. His inaction was as good as a death sentence.

But, whispered a soft voice. What did he owe a human child?

He glowered at the filthy creature. She wore a dull, blank expression. Shock, he imagined. Or dimwittedness. Reluctantly or not, he was now responsible for her fate. The ugly hole once occupied by his left eye began to throb. Hadn’t the men who took it also been children once? How long until this girl grew strong enough to fight, to plot, to wield a sword?

He ran a tongue over the sharp edges of his fangs. The pain in his eye socket lanced deeper into his skull. The dragon lurched back to his full height with a growl, a mass of sharp edges and deadly, snapping fangs.

Hers would not be the first young life he had seen cut short.

The vacant look had drained from the girl’s face. The cloak caught at her legs as she stumbled. Her small, red mouth stretched into a scream.

Rho lunged.

The dragon soared through an orange and purple sky. His shadow rippled across fields of lavender. The sun was sinking lower on the horizon. He would need to find a place to rest soon, but for now he closed his eye against the soft wind, feeling the warm glow of sunlight on his wings.

The illusion of peace was yanked away the next second. He peered down at the bundled green sack clutched in his back paws. It gave a disapproving wriggle. He shook the makeshift bag in return. The squirming ceased at once.

It had been a rash decision, really; one that he was beginning to regret. The dead man’s cloak had been hastily converted into a crude sack. It was the only way Rho could think to transport such a fragile being. Riding was out of the question. The girl was too small to sit astride him. Besides, he shuddered, was he a common mule? Carrying her in his cupped paws might have worked, but for how long could he maintain such a position?

No, instead he flew with an awkward bundle in his grasp, much in the same way a hawk carries off an unfortunate mouse for dinner. They had covered quite a distance in this manner, but now the child was starting to squirm. Rho too, was growing weary, but he could not stop yet. He had been scanning their surroundings since they left the forest, searching for any sign of human civilization amongst the sweeping ravines and scattered woodland. Anywhere he could unload this troublesome burden, and his guilty conscience with it.

It was in the dying rays of sunlight that he spotted it at last. Smoke on the horizon. A delighted rumble filled his throat, but his wings ached at the distance between himself and the white plume. He would have to fly through the night to reach it. Reluctantly, Rho dropped from the sky. The hazy purple earth rose to meet him. He deposited the balled-up cloak before he hit the ground, dropping it in the softest-looking patch of lavender. It rolled several times before ejecting the grimy child. Rho landed nearby and tucked in his wings.

Soon, he had a small fire blazing. The girl sat opposite him across the crackling flames, her eyes glassy and hollow.

We will sleep here, Rho growled at her, though doubtful she could understand. I saw smoke in the distance, which means more of your kind.

In the tall grass, glowing eyes watched them from a distance. He could hear the canine howls and yaps of their pack nearby. Rho met their hungry stares and snarled. The glowing eyes winked out of existence. He spoke to the girl, though his eyes never left the retreating predators.

We leave at dawn.

He slept fitfully. The hollow gurgle of his stomach kept sleep at bay. It finally yielded to a kaleidoscopic wave of images, each more bizarre than the last. Twisting wings and blank white eyes. His claws carved trenches in the black soil as his mind reeled.

Rho found himself in a red valley. The place was familiar yet somehow wrong, like a well-known face stretched to unnatural proportions.

He saw a glittering ball of hatchlings wrestling in the grass. Sunlight caught the tips of their wings. A flash of blue from above. Dragons swooping lazily overhead. A memory, he knew. Not a dream.

He glanced back at the playful hatchlings, but they were gone. Instead, he stood before a heap of split skin and blood-stained earth. The dead travelers from the forest.

Behind him, a shout. The sky blackened with a sudden rain of arrows. The earth was shaking with the pounding of hundreds of footsteps, splitting his world apart at the seams. Rho’s ears flooded with the echoing cries of an ambush. He turned to see the red glint of a blade, and his vision burst in a wave of hot blood.

Rho’s body jerked. The dream slipped away. He was trembling, his chest heaving. It was a long time before he noticed the foreign, gentle touch on his neck. A small hand was stroking his scales.

Through a haze of exhaustion, he saw the glowing eyes were back. They gleamed like the dying light of the fire. The girl had seen them too. This time, she dropped before Rho in a protective crouch and emitted a feral growl. Her hand never left Rho’s side.

He closed his eye. He should signal her to leave him alone. A warning snap of his teeth or a flick of a wing. He should be repulsed by the fleshy touch after his dream, but his body sagged with weariness.

Rho inhaled a lungful of lavender and slumped back onto the cool earth. All the while, the girl continued to run a soothing hand over the scales of his neck. For how long she sat with him, he did not know, for he soon fell into a dreamless sleep.

At some point, the grassy hillsides and oaks gave way to a dirt road. Rho did not know when it had appeared, only that his shadow now stretched over a snaking path leading towards a distant mountain range. A human construction.

He had spotted smoke yesterday, so they must be close now. Perhaps the road led to a village, somewhere he could leave the girl with her own kind. The bundled cloak swayed as he tilted, following the curving track.

Then he saw it ahead: a cluster of wooden buildings surrounded by golden fields. A lone farmstead. Rho flew straight for it, wind howling in his ears. He was streaking over a sea of swaying wheat. Shouts of surprise rose from below. Farmhands scattered as the dragon dropped from the sky.

He landed before the main yard, a horseshoe-shaped patch of grass around which a farmhouse, a barn, and a leaning outbuilding were grouped. Curious faces emerged in the windows and from around doors. Rho stepped to one side, so that the cloak on the grass was visible to the onlookers. From out of the green folds popped the child’s head.

“What have we here?” A woman was crossing the yard towards them. She was hard and thin. Gray hairs stuck to her sweaty brow. She planted her hands on her hips and stared up at the dragon without a trace of fear. Perhaps the surprise showed on Rho’s face, for the woman rasped out a laugh. “You’re not the first dragon we’ve seen around here. There’s a whole thunder of ‘em,” she jerked a thumb in the direction of the mountains, now glowing in the sun. “We leave 'em be, and them us.” Crunching footsteps signaled the approach of a man with a streaky black beard. He was wiping his calloused hands on a red-stained rag.

“A northerner, is it?” he cocked an appraising eyebrow at the girl. She had not moved from her makeshift cocoon. Her brow was wrinkled. “We’ve seen a lot of refugees. Well,” he added with a sweeping gesture. “I s’pose that’s obvious.”

Most of the workers had drifted over to them by now. More than a dozen tanned, skinny faces peered from beneath wide-brimmed hats, or over the tops of shovels. They were hardened from labor, their shoulders jutting out at harsh angles. Something in their faces echoed the girl’s. She seemed to have realized this too, for she had risen to her feet, taking in the yard.

“Careful now.” The girl had drifted towards a fenced garden nestled against a nearby shed. Jagged, tufty plants sprouted from within the enclosure, their leaves a deep purple – almost black. “I’m the only one allowed in there,” the woman said. “And for good reason. That’s Witchtongue.” She smiled, revealing yellowed teeth. “Poison.”

“People come from all over for Marcei’s garden. Soldiers mostly, now we’re at war. They buy botanicals by the cartful. Poultices for their injured, sedatives for the nightmares –”

“And poison for their arrows!” chimed Marcei.

Rho was half-listening, unable to respond in a tongue they recognized. He was anxious to return to the air now that he was rid of his burden. He did not desire to spend a second longer listening to talk of human wars. Human greed. He knew it firsthand. The ghost of his missing eye was throbbing again.

“You must be hungry, dragon.” The bony woman had lifted the child into her arms. “We’ve just had a pig slaughtered. Armonn…?”

The man nodded and gestured to two of the farmhands. They trotted off in the direction of the barn. Then he faced the rest of the workers with a lowered brow. “You know the deal! An honest living for honest work. Not keen on a hot meal tonight, are you?”

The onlookers scattered at these words, back to the fields or various corners of the yard. Their eyes kept darting back to Rho. He could see white scars on their limbs, the occasional stump where a finger should be.

“They forget themselves,” Armonn growled. “It’s a wonder most don’t bother with their lot.”

“Dead men can’t work.”

Thump. Rho had not heard the farmhands return. The dead pig flopped onto the ground. Its tongue lolled in the dirt. He saw the girl shrink back in Marcei’s arms. His desire to leave was abandoned as his empty stomach twisted. He bent his head over the fresh meat, mouth watering.

“Please, eat,” Marcei said. “We’ve taken in plenty of her kind.” She tightened her grip. “Even small hands are useful on a farm.”

“Safe travels, dragon,” Armonn said with a bow of his head. Rho jerked his chin. Then, as the couple retreated with the girl, he tore into the creature. He ate so voraciously, that it was a moment before he realized one of the farmhands had lingered. Rho raised his bloody maw. The farmhand was skinny and bald, with wideset eyes that did not blink. He appeared to be mouthing something through cracked lips.

Rho shook his head. He did not understand, and he wanted to resume eating. The man continued to mouth, though nobody was within earshot. A muffled gurgle was rising from his throat. Rho stepped over the bloody carcass, nettled. The man trembled, but he continued to form urgent shapes with his mouth.

Help. Us. The cracked lips mouthed.

The man made that burbling, animal sound again. This time, Rho caught a glimpse of the inside of his mouth. Help. Us.

They had cut out his tongue.

The farmhand scrambled sideways as Rho leapt forward. A wet, furious roar issued from his throat. Armonn spun around. Marcei was bent forward, one clawed hand tangled in the girl’s hair. A spurt of flame spilled from Rho’s jaw as he towered over the shaking pair. His teeth snapped. They did not speak his tongue, but his meaning was clear:

Let her go.

“We’re not doing wrong by ‘em!” Marcei howled. “They came here, invading our land –” But these words were cut off by another roar.

Armonn wrenched the woman’s arm. He was pulling her towards the house. Marcei relented, flinging the child from her grasp. The girl tumbled to the ground with a shriek.

“There! Take her!” But a red heat had suffused Rho’s vision. The taste of blood soured to a repulsive film in his mouth. This was human nature. Greed. Entitlement. Knowingly causing suffering for their benefit, even if the rewards were inconsequential. Murder over old boots. Neglect for cheap labor. Dragon-slaying for a pocket of wilderness.

The girl had stumbled towards Rho. He almost loosed a jet of flame at the house as the couple fled for it, but hesitated. Who else was inside? Then, should I care?

His neck swiveled. A burst of emerald fire poured from his maw. Flames engulfed the side of the shed, the fence, the garden.

“No!” With a strangled cry, Marcei pulled free of her husband’s grip. She sprinted to the burning garden as if he had set her own children aflame. For a moment, Armonn looked as if he would follow, but then turned heel and ran around the side of the house. Rho made to pursue, but –

“Don’t move!” Marcei stood with her back to the glowing flames. She had seized the girl by the hair. A silver knife gleamed in her other hand. Smoke was billowing from the shed behind her. Embers crumbled from the remains of the garden fence. Her precious plants were gone, but Marcei was somehow smiling. The twisted grin grew as she pressed the blade to the girl’s throat. “Leave us,” she barked.

Rho’s tail thrashed. He would not leave. A line of blood beaded at the girl’s throat as the knife dug deeper. She let out a strangled wail, and her watery eyes met his.

All the fight left Rho. He lowered his head. His heart was hammering against his ribcage like a trapped bird. It was too much. The flash of the blade. Young cries of terror. His reality and his memories pooled and congealed in his mind, blocking all other thought. Suffocating him. He had lost so many. Lost everything.

Was any human worth saving after what they did to them – to all dragons?

Blood trickled down the child’s neck in red trails. Rho raised shaky wings, backing away from that sinister smile. Marcei had won. The woman’s shining face sagged with relief. The knife lowered ever so slightly in her grip.

None of them had time to register the blur of movement. The flurry of limbs. Marcei screeched as a skinny body crashed into hers. The knife flew into the air and skittered in the dirt. The bald farmhand wrapped a scarred arm around Marcei’s neck. With the other, he snatched at the woman’s flailing hands. Gasping and crying, the girl ran to Rho. Her face was streaked with a mixture of snot, sweat, and tears.

“Get off me! Get off!” Marcei was screeching and kicking at the shins of the tongueless man, spittle rolling down her chin. Her elbow caught him in the ribs with a solid jab. The man doubled over. He tried to maintain his grip on her wrists, but Marcei was too quick. She twisted free and burst into a run.

But she could not outrun a dragon. Rho bounded after her. Once, twice –

With a swipe of his paw, he had her pinned to the ground. Her squirming movements ceased as sharp claws protruded by either side of her head. The rough scale of his paw pressed into her stomach, grinding her into the earth. Squeezing the breath from her lungs.

“Enough!” The voice echoed across the yard. Rho looked up from the captive Marcei. He found himself staring at the sharp point of an arrow.

Armonn had not fled. The bow in his rough hands was drawn taut. His eyes were black and wild. They narrowed as he fixed his aim on Rho’s face. His intent was clear. Armonn intended to blind him.

“You have the girl,” he said. “We have nothing else for you.”

Rho glowered and jerked his head in the direction of the barn, where most of the workers had amassed. They had run for their lives at first, but now watched with a mixture of fear and desperation on each emaciated face. Armonn’s eyes flickered in their direction.

Release them.

He pressed his claws against Marcei’s skin. She began to squeal and babble incoherently. Understanding flooded Armonn’s brutal face. His brow twitched.

“Them?” He shifted his hold on the bow. The arrowhead flashed in the sun. Rho saw something shiny, viscous, dripping from its tip. “They’re not yours to take. They came here, where they know they don’t belong. They’re mine.”

The bowstring tightened as Rho curled his lip. A splash of molten saliva hit the bare skin of Marcei’s wrist.

“That burns!” she gasped.

Armonn fired.

It was a warning shot. Rho felt a hiss of air as the arrow sailed past his right cheek. The unexpectedness of it made him hesitate, then lift his paw. His claws retracted as Marcei scampered to her feet. Armonn nocked another arrow as she bolted across the yard.

There was no warning shot from Rho. With a pounce, he loosed his jaw and bellowed green flame. It illuminated Armonn briefly, drawing everything else into deep, black shadow. At the same time, the bowstring snapped back.

Rho felt a sharp sting. The fire died in his throat. Hot blood dripped from a jagged tear in his wing. He roared in agony, his tail crashing into the side of the barn.

Armonn’s blackened corpse collapsed in a heap of charred cloth and melted flesh. The smell of burnt skin and hair joined the smoke spilling from the still-burning shed.

Marcei, meanwhile, was fleeing for the main road, screaming and cursing. Rho could not chase after her. Every scale of his body ached and burned. His punctured wing felt leaden and stiff. Marcei was going to get away.

Then, from out of the fields, the workers emerged. They ringed around her, cutting off any exit. The crowd gathered at the barn had also joined the pursuit. They surrounded Marcei, who ran in panicked circles. Someone caught hold of her bony wrist, and the woman was wrenched backwards. She disappeared into a mob of flailing fists and stamping feet.

A familiar, small hand reached for his leg. He knew the girl was beside him, but he could no longer see his surroundings. Stars burst in his vision. Rho moaned as his wound sent a sharp twinge through his body. His heartbeat slowed as poison seeped into his bloodstream. Distant shouts drifted around him, but that too was fading…

Rho collapsed, and the world went dark and quiet.

Ruby-colored lichen stretched like a network of veins from the riverbank. Soft grasses tickled his underbelly as he crouched, eyeing his prey. With a wriggle and a pounce, he sprang at the gold hatchling and let out a crow of triumph. The young dragon snapped playfully, and the two took to the deep blue sky, resuming their game.

“I’ve only seen the effects of Witchtongue on other men…”

“Kills them in minutes,” said another quiet voice.

Rho shifted. Fevered memories spilled into his mind.

A peaceful stretch of valley. A figure atop a ridge. They were being watched.

‘Back to the others,’ Rho warned the young one. When he looked back to the ridge, it was teeming with men.

Pain and more pain. He felt raw. His body ached inside and out. Was this how it felt to die? He wished for the agony to cease. For it all to end.

A battalion. Impossibly huge. Too many for the colony to fight – to defend themselves from the onslaught. What had they done to incite such an attack? This was their home…it had been their home for generations.

The hatchling was shot down as they fled. Her small body crumpled and fell back to earth. Rho’s panicked cry seemed to go on forever. How many would escape in time?

He could open his eye, though a slick film coated his vision. Blearily, he could discern soft voices. A sky dripping with stars. When had night fallen? His wing throbbed, and his eyelid drooped.

Alone. He was all alone. Rho had waited. For how long, he did not know. Part of him was still there, scanning the skies for a familiar flap of wings. None had survived.

His colony. His family.

“This might sting.” The soothing voice broke into his thoughts. He flinched as something cold touched his injured wing. A woman was scooping handfuls of yellow-green paste onto the torn membrane. The arrow, Rho realized dimly, had been removed. The poultice prickled, but the next second he felt a wave of relief. The pain was still there, only fainter now.

Soft footsteps approached his head. It was the girl. The cut on her throat was pink and puffy, but she looked alert. Alive. She collapsed onto his snout with her small arms extended in an embrace. He could feel her tears trickling down his face.

Rho could not help it. He closed his eyes and snuffled into her warm skin.

In the weeks it took his wing to heal, the farmstead had been restored. The bodies of the old owners had ben unceremoniously carted off, and the burnt buildings had undergone repairs. The workers had even constructed Rho a shelter of sorts: an awning that kept the straw-padded ground beneath it shady and cool. The girl joined him there most days, playing in the yard or napping in the crook of his leg.

I always thought, Rho reflected, that I would never join a new colony after what happened. I’ve been alone ever since they were killed…and thought nothing but revenge would give my life meaning. I planned to go back. To burn them all. And then I met you.

The girl stared up at him, her mouth parted, as if she somehow understood.

I did not want to find others I could someday care for. A new family to love. How could I relive such heartache again, if I had no one left to lose?

He turned to the lone mountain range on the horizon. It had seemed distant and alien at first, but now he was comforted by the sight, even drawn to it. Marcei had said other dragons lived there, hadn’t she? The girl laughed and jumped up to reach his wing as he stretched. His muscles felt stronger. He would be fit to fly again soon. Rho snorted with amusement as a small body tumbled into the straw before him.

I suppose I failed in that regard. He blew a hot puff of air at the straw sticking up from her curls. Though you are half the size of the smallest dragon, and somehow twice as loud, I consider you part of my colony. The girl twinkled up at him, and he felt a bloom of warmth in his chest. He scooped her gently into the curve of his neck.

They watched the sun set over the mountains. In his mind’s eye, Rho already saw himself setting out for those snow-capped peaks. Flying on a healed wing to that rumored colony. To a new start.

A new home.