Valley of Chains

There weren’t always dragons in the valley.

This is what my mother told me. She whispered stories to me, when I was a young girl sitting beside her in the dark. Stories about a time long past, when our people didn’t cower in caves. When the shadows didn’t darken the rolling grass below, and we didn’t spend every waking moment craning our necks to watch the sky in fear.

She says there was something in the water. Something magic in the crossing rivers that kept the beasts at bay. But the magic was stolen, ripped from the rivers Thyn and Spiders, ripped from the land through which they flowed. And in the wake, the dragons returned. They set our valley aflame, and we scrambled into the mountains.

My mother would tell me the stories as we listened to the roar of fire and the mighty screams outside our caves, and she would clutch my trembling body to her own. Then, in the midst of everything, her voice would become light, and she would rest her chin on top of my head, and speak of a future where the magic is found and given back to the rivers. A future where the dragons disappear to the darkest corners of the world, and we are free once again to live under the sun.

But these are only stories. Empty words whispered to a fearful child in the hopes that she wouldn’t cry too loudly. These stories died with my mother.

_____

The sun beats down hot on my back. Already my tunic sticks to me with sweat, but I don’t mind. I smile up at the striking blue sky, and will my skin to swallow every measure of sunlight that it can stand.

No dragon has been spotted for three days, and the people of my village spend every moment outside of their tunnels and caverns, and the air is filled with their laughter.

This happens sometimes, in the summer. We don’t know where the dragons go, or why they leave, but we say a prayer of thanks to the Summer Gods, and bask in the moments of freedom we are granted.

Rahan walks before me, a skip in his step as he scrambles down the rocky path. He is twelve years old now, and too quickly becoming a man. My mother would have been proud.

He works without complaint. He does everything I ask, and he is never angry with me. He is kind to the children of our village, and respectful of the elders. A part of me wishes to take responsibility for who he has become. Our mother died five years past, when I was just fourteen, and I became everything Rahan had. I have raised him.

But he is more than I ever taught him to be. Better than me, by far. Whatever goodness is in him came from our mother, and not from me. And yet, when the women of the village give me a smile and tell me what a wonderful man he is becoming, I cannot help but feel proud. He is my whole world.

“Tilek!”

I snap out of my reverie to find Rahan looking up at me, a wry confusion on his face.

“Did you hear a word I said?” He asks. I furrow my brows.

“Oh, have you been here this whole time?” I say, with what I believe is convincing sincerity. Rahan narrows his eyes.

“What I said,” he continues slowly, deliberately, as though I were a small child, “Was that we should try for the Second Spring. Mihra and Nalalek say the water is still cold, even this late in summer.”

“Oh,” I sing, with a grin, “We’re on a first name basis with the Old Ones, are we?”

“Well I am, at least,” says Rahan. “You are not. And you’d be wise not to call them ‘The Old Ones,’ they really don’t like that.”

I shake my head and laugh softly as I ruffle Rahan’s dark curls, and we continue down the rocky path.

At the Second Spring it seems the whole of our village has arrived before us. Children are laughing and splashing each other in the shallows. Women sit on the rocks with their feet submerged, and gossip.

Rahan joins two other boys, Yakim and Suhran, and the three of them run to the water, shucking off their shoes and tunics, and pushing each other in play.

I can’t keep the smile from my face. There hasn’t been a day like this in months. A day when Rahan is a child again, and we breathe the open air like the valley folk who came before us, and every care flutters away on the warm breeze like a hair pulled loose from a lover’s head.

I toss my shoes to the side and wade into the spring. It is gloriously cool, just as the Old Ones said, and I reach down to splash some on my face, raking in a wild breath at the shock of it.

I can’t help myself. I lower into the water, submerging everything but my head, and the cold pulls a gasp from my lips. I lay back and float in the shallow water, listening to the muffled laughter around me and watching the feathery wisps of clouds make their slow, easy way across the sky.

Later, I sit on a warm rock with my toes in the water. Medina, a weaver from our village, joins me for a time. She tells me what a wonderful man Rahan is becoming. She talks about her three daughters, about how beautiful the eldest is already, at eleven years old. I give her a wry smile and shower her daughters with compliments. We both know it is much too early to be making matches, but it’s a way of passing the time. I like to imagine a future where our children find love, orchestrated though it may be, and make happy little families of their own.

After a while, all the fresh spring water I’ve drunk forces me up from my warm rock. I leave the sounds of the spring behind me as I weave my way between tall rocks to find somewhere private to relieve myself.

Halfway down a wide path, I stop. Ahead of me, just past a large boulder that cuts into the path, making it narrow, I can see someone lying facedown, their dark brown hair light with the dust of the mountain. I hurry forward, afraid the sun may have gotten to them. It isn’t uncommon, on warm summer days, to succumb to the heat. I myself have nearly collapsed almost a dozen times.

I kneel down beside the boy, and tilt his head carefully to the side. It is Suhran, Rahan’s friend.

“Suhran,” I say softly, shaking his shoulder. I am about to try and lift him from the ground when I notice a dark stain on the rock beneath him. I touch my finger to it, and it comes away a bright crimson. My heart drops into my stomach. I turn to call out for help.

The words never leave my mouth. I shoot to my feet and step back. Before me are two men I don’t recognize. One burly and bearded, the other lithe and clean shaven. I suddenly feel conscious of my still-damp clothing, clinging to my body.

“Are you all right?” Asks the bearded one. “What are you doing out here all alone?”

I take a step back, saying nothing. My heart hammers against my chest. The man speaks kind words, but there is no mistaking the malice in the air. There is a bloodied boy on the ground before me, and I am alone with two strange men. I don’t know where they came from, or why they are here, but I know that everything about this is wrong.

I don’t wait any longer. I scream. But the men are faster than they look. My voice is cut off as the bearded man’s fist collides with my ribs. I feel an instant, cracking pain, and my breath goes out of me. I would sink to the floor, but the smaller man holds me from behind, and clamps his hand over my mouth. When my breath returns I try to scream through his flesh. But the sound is muffled, and I’ve walked far enough from the spring that no one will hear me.

I begin to panic, raking desperate breaths through my nose as the bearded man looks down at me, leering. His fingers brush the side of my face, and I recoil as much as I can. My arms are pinned, but my legs are free, I realize suddenly. I bring my knee up between the man’s leg’s as hard I can. He doubles over with a furious growl, and the small man moves his hand just enough that I sink my teeth into his flesh. I bite down until I think my jaw might crack, but it’s his finger that cracks beneath the force. He screams, and I pull away from him like a wild woman, blood filling my mouth.

I turn to run, but I don’t make it two steps. The bearded man has recovered enough to grab my arm in a vice grip, and throw me the ground. My skin breaks over the dry rocks. I scream, and this time they can’t stop me. My voice echoes, rough and then piercing, through the mountain.

The bearded man grabs my ankle, but his grip is weak, my leg slick with sweat. I shake him off and kick his face. He stumbles back, not from the force, but from the dust. He rakes at his eyes, furious.

I scramble to my feet and begin to run down the path. Away from the spring. I should run towards it, but the bearded man is blocking the narrow way back up, and I have no time to think.

A moment later, I feel something dense hit the back of my head with a crack. My vision goes white for a split second, and I fall. The momentum carries me down the sloped, rocky path, and I tumble like a sack of apples.

It is quick, and it lasts for hours. I am falling, breaking over sharp rocks and dull rocks, breathing in dust and bleeding into dust.

I hit the bottom, and my breath takes a moment to return to me. I gasp. Pain radiates from every corner of me. Inside, my bones ache, and my muscles pulse. My skin stings and my head pounds. But I have no time to dwell on it, to pity myself. The men will come.

I spot a dark cavern a few meters away, and crawl towards it. I try to be silent, but I know I am not. It takes ragged breaths and muted grunts and stifled cries to get me across the small expanse, and into a shadowed corner of the mountain.

I brace myself against the wall, and put my hand over my mouth, willing myself to be silent. I close my eyes and focus on my trembling breaths, doing my best to calm them.

I hear the scattering of rocks, and the short echo of men’s voices, still far above me. Tears fall from my eyes, and my body is shaking.

I scold myself. What good will tears and trembling do me? Pain is nothing but a warning, and it can be silenced. I need a clear mind. I will never escape if I behave like a scared child. I haven’t been a child for a long time. I am a woman, and a mother.

I say these things to myself, but the pain doesn’t lessen. It is still sharp and throbbing, and impossible to ignore. Yet I find I am breathing easier, a small blessing in this dark place. I take my hand from my mouth and breath deep, controlled breaths, straining my ears to listen.

Then, from somewhere in the dark before me, an exhale.

I freeze. Whatever calm I had achieved is gone in an instant. I stare into the dark, willing my eyes to see. My chest rises and falls so quickly I feel like a bird, slight and defenseless and terrified. If only I were a bird, and I could fly away.

Something moves out of the dark and into the shadow, as though floating. A head, half the size of my own body, like a great, chiseled rock. Eyes, slitted and bright. Another exhale, through its nostrils. It comes into the light, scales shimmering a pearlescent gold, and every bone in my body, every inch of skin, stills. I stare ahead with wide eyes.

The face of a dragon stares back.