Where the river bends

There weren’t always dragons in the valley. Memories of Nan’s storytelling occupied her thoughts as Brenna reached beneath her knees to grasp a handful of sand. She brought the sodden clump to her nose and inhaled deeply, breathing in the scents of her home and feeling its coarseness slip between her fingers. Nan had always filled her head with tales of before, when the clan had lived free.

We’ve kept this valley pure for a thousand years. Brenna looked into expanse above, watching the tuft of a white cloud dance along the winds for the first time in weeks. Nan believed the dragons were tainting the Jotun youth, filling heads with fanciful stories, and spreading lies about the glories to be found outside the valley.

It’s our way to tend wood and water and stone. Nan would have hated the chains that chaffed against her wrists and ankles. Not because they bound her, but because they were metal. Worked metal was a blight on the soul, dirtying the crafter and all those it touched thereafter.

The Ever-Song will not allow the wicked to bring discord. They will be silenced in this world and denied succor in eternity. The crowd around her hummed Justice, a few called notes of Loathing or Anger. She looked down again, her eyes idly tracking leaves as they raced downstream, carried atop the glossy surface by strong currents roiling beneath. Hundreds of dark eyes watched her in turn. Faces she’d always known as friendly now twisted in disgust.

“Brenna Os’Kenset, you are accused of crimes against nature and Clan. Blasphemy, corruption of the youth, conspiring with evil, and the practice of sorcery. How pleads the accused?” The voice of D’rron seemed distant, like she was hearing it from the other end of a long tunnel.

“Guilty.” Brenna’s voice was small, but enough to carry across the river to where Scale Holder D’rron stood atop a rock outcropping that jutted over the water. She looked at him now; his usually bright features appeared wan and drooping as he nodded his head to someone behind her.

“You are hereby convicted of blasphemy, corruption of the youth, conspiring with evil, and the practice of sorcery. Your life is forfeit.” A gray hand covered her eyes and pressed her head back before a line of searing heat ran across her neck. Warmth flowed down across her chest and thighs.

Gravelly, stilted tones of dragon speech cut through the agony burning across her neck and reached her consciousness. “This one has given her lifeblood as demanded by the old laws. Her Song has ended. This is good and right. Should breath return from across the void, House Agaron lays claim to the vessel.”

The gray hand slipped from her forehead and Brenna crumpled. The leaves gliding past seemed lazier now, moving as if the river flowed with sap and not water. The water was different now too. Pretty ribbons of pink water pushed downstream, weaving after the leaves as they were swept along.

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D’rron stood mutely atop his outcropping and watched the slow procession of the dragon’s retinue stride into the trees. Brachuss Agaron, Shield of the Western range and Patriarch of House Agaron, had gestured at Brenna’s form before turning to leave the clearing without another word. Two lithe Sprites in the green and black heraldry hoisted the limp weight between them before joining the long train of sycophants that followed behind the old bronze dragon. His retainers came next, styling the latest fashion out of Orbon, long stiff coats that trailed in the mud behind them. Sleeveless for the males to show off their upper musculature; a diamond cutout down the back for the females to let their silken wings extend behind them. Brown scales first, then a gaggle of smaller blues and greens. Behind them came more of the house pledges, tiny fair haired sprites that glided gracefully across the mud. D’rron didn’t have much good to say about the pointy eared creatures, but at least they didn’t leave tracks on the land in their comings and goings.

The gathered Jotun watched them go in silence; what came next was not for outsiders.

Hundreds of Jotun stood among the sounds of the forest and stream. Bugs began to swarm as the air turned to evening cool. Birds chirped as they whirled in the hunting dance. No word was uttered but the silence spoke as much as any Song could.

Brenna had been adored by the Seven Winds Clan. She had been a daughter and granddaughter. She had been a sister. She had been vibrant and youthful. Many had regarded her as the future of the clan. She would have been a strong matriarch someday.

A leaden stone solidified in D’rron’s stomach as he saw Halmut push passed others in the crowd stand where she had lain. The pain the child was in must have been unbearable. He and Brenna both shared their mother’s square features but had their father’s impressive bulk. Both had been strong for their age and muscles rippled beneath his pale grey skin as he fought to contain tears that leaked down his cheeks.

Smearing red sand across his cheeks, Halmut rose and took a few sucking breaths before wailing into the heavens. He spread his feet and began to stomp the rhythm of Rage, striking his shoulders to accent the beat with Anguish.

D’rron did not approve of the choice for the mourning song but could not go against the wishes of Brenna’s only remaining family. Atop the outcropping, D’rron stripped to his waist and planted his feet, wailing his own mourning cry before joining the cadence. D’rron put his whole body into the cry, high and keening in a way that strained his vocal cords nearly to tearing.

The rest of the clan joined, losing cries and allowing tears to fall freely now as they vented their pain at the loss of a daughter of the clan.

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D’rron stumbled over root and bush as he made his way back to the river. The mourning song had ended hours ago, and the Jotun had returned to Kul’heim to share a meal. Lerna Kaligger had been stewing a cauldron of her famous mush-mash, and the tasty reputation seemed well earned. However, a few bowls of mash and kvah to wash it down had done little to lighten his heart. So D’rron had left to walk alone and found himself treading the path back to where the river bent around his stone.

The river bank was churned up and muddy from the mourning song earlier; D’rron looked but couldn’t find even a trace of pink sand, so he knelt where he remembered her laying and stared at his rock. His rock. As the tribe’s Scale Holder, it was his place of judgment. He had stood upon the rock and pronounced judgment on nearly a hundred Jotun, each more worthy than he. The muddy sand beneath him, churned with blood and sweat, felt a more appropriate place for a wretch like him.

The moon had waxed into a beautiful, pearly orb that lit the clearing with pale rays. With bright light comes deep shadows. Beneath the canopy, D’rron saw the faces of all those he had sent to the Ever-Song for judgment.

He wanted to tell someone. To step from his shadows and come clean. To sit on this sand with a surety that he could only pretend from atop that stone. His heart quavered at the thought, and his stomach recoiled from the familiar taste of cowardice. He knew he could not do it. D’rron wept.

You are a wicked piece of butchers’ castoffs.

Through his weeping, he felt the pull. That call from beyond that tempted him with sweet damnation. He railed against it, striking the sand with fists of rage.

Hypocrite! Coward! Vile sinner!

D’rron vented his self-loathing but felt the call grow louder, throbbing in his ears. It burned in his chest as he held his lungs from filling, grunting with the effort to stay quiet.

Just one verse. You can sing quickly. So quickly. Let some out and be gone from this place. You didn’t ask for this, but you have to live with it somehow.

He let the first note escape quickly before he had time to object. He filled his lungs and sobbed the next note, low and droning; it slithered from him and charged the night air around him. He reached across the void and touched the nectar that was only found across the void. When he sang he felt like he was at a market, bartering for a price both he and the vendor knew he’d pay. But the formalities, the customs, were important to remember and honor. So he sang the song that had found him as a boy. The one that tasted so good on his tongue. Altering his breaths to produce the right pitch he felt the song crescendo inside him and move outward.

Frost licked at the patches of grass nearby and a thin layer of ice creeped around the edge of the Still-Water. He pumped his lungs and knew he could not stop at one verse. The words were in no language he could identify, but it didn’t matter, the song was not for him but for the void.

D’rron gave himself to the Song. The sweet nectar of the forbidden gushed into him, and he rejoiced.

Around him plants shrank down, laden by frost. Swirls of snowflakes settled on the thick ice that now spanned the river and blew upward into the boughs of leafless trees that minutes ago that had been healthy and green. He shivered as the long icy fingers of an unseasonably cold wind danced across his back.

D’rron finished and lay shivering, half covered by a thin blanket of snow. Tears of joy and shame frozen against his cheeks.