Outside, other families were stirring. Pulling together the preparations they’d made for the long flight west along the Trader’s Road. Some were screaming. They too had heard the horn as it was cut off.
Amanda gathered up her little brother, who protested his sleepiness, and both their bundles of winter clothing. Ameris, a heavy pack of food on her back, opened the door and put her head down against a driving gust of snow. The dogs of the village barked relentlessly, another alarm of the approaching horde, as yet unsilenced.
Her father was desperately trying to hook their two gaunt horses up to the wagon. She could see his hands were clumsy from cold and fright. Her mother slung their food in the back and moved to help him. Markh complained of the cold and a need for sleep as his sister pushed him to climb into the wagon.
Amanda stared east. Villagers from the far end of the settlement, the end facing the border, were running in their direction. Like animals fleeing a forest fire burning all in its path. She watched her parents’ fingers fumble with leather straps and iron buckles.
They weren’t going to make it. They should’ve left yesterday. Or any other day before today.
Damn Grey, Amanda thought as she watched her friends and neighbors run past, their faces stricken with terror. Damn all dragons!
The dogs were yelping now, not braying – crying out as they attempted and failed to protect their masters.
She could see The Bane charging into the village from the south, cutting down everything in their path. First one, then ten, than dozens.
Massive warriors on huge, shaggy horses. Horned towering helms, topped by animal heads fastened upon them to make their bearers appear larger and more frightening. Half covered in black furs, half exposed muscles, heedless of the freezing cold, swinging weapons of iron and wood. One warrior leaned over as he galloped by and swung his warhammer so hard, the head of the village blacksmith left his shoulders and bumped along the ground. He was so large, Amanda guessed that the fearsome giant on horseback must be The Bane’s leader.
“Father! Mother! Grab the food and clothing, we have to go!”
Amanda leapt into the wagon and gathered up Markh in her arms again. No way we’ll get out. No way, she thought, counting the carnage in her head as if keeping score in a game.
The Bane were simply galloping through from one end of the village to the other, murdering indiscriminately. They seemed content to pick the slaves from the survivors later.
The terrifying warrior with the stag’s antlers atop his helm saw the family struggling with the supplies on their wagon and wheeled his horse around. Amanda released her brother and found the axe they used for chopping wood in the bottom of the cart. She picked it up and stood her ground as her parents screamed at her to retreat with them to their hut. Seeing her, the warrior smiled and kicked his heels into his horse’s flanks, raising his gigantic warhammer, a promise that her fate was sealed.
Amanda heard the whump of his wings before she saw Grey. She thought it merely a gust of wind playing a trick on her ears.
When she looked back for the source of the sound, she could hardly see the dragon—a dusty blur of wings and claws against the white sky of winter. His roar seemed to command everything to stop its movement, as if time itself were surprised to hear the boom of a dragon’s voice again after so long an absence, an assumption of extinction.
Grey drew his wings in and plummeted through the air, then expanded them again to sweep fast and low over the tops of the huts and heads of startled villagers. Even they halted their mad flight westward to watch in awe as he glided gracefully by.
The mounts of The Bane fought their human masters, instinct making them thrust their hooves out in front of them and shy away from the shrieking dragon. Even the monstrous warrior with the warhammer diverted. He jerked his mount left and away from the girl with the axe standing boldly and alone in the wagon.
Amanda watched, unbelieving, as Grey swept by overhead. She thought she saw him blink or wink, but in the haste of his flight, she couldn’t be sure. But she smiled. For her people and for Grey’s. She smiled for friendship.
The fire was weak when it came. But Grey’s wings pumped, working the bellows of his belly and neck to vomit flame upon his enemies. A screaming cry of roasting horses and men wrapped in blazing furs rode the arctic wind. It coursed the length of the village like a banshee’s wail of suffering.
The Bane’s leader turned his horse back to his warriors and shouted something, gesturing at the dragon, now turning to make a second pass. Bows lifted in unison from fifty different directions and loosed their arrows. Many bounced off the dragon’s thinning hide, but some did not.
Grey thundered his pain and rage and unleashed another, lesser stream of fire at the ground. Amanda watched him pass again and saw blood from a score of wounds streaking red the dragon’s grey hide. Still, his fire set as many of The Bane aflame as arrows he carried.
Her father rushed past her. As she watched him running toward the invaders, pitchfork in hand, she saw another villager hurry by her, then another. They were fighting back.
The mountain with the warhammer dismounted and stood in the middle of the settlement as his warriors engaged the villagers. He raised his weapon high and shouted at the dragon as it banked against the wind.
He looks weak, thought Amanda. She could see Grey struggling to turn. A maneuver that would’ve been easy for him before—when he was younger, with tougher skin, and unhurt—now appeared difficult to execute.
The Bane’s leader swept his arm forward and another brace of arrows arced through the air. There were fewer than before but these tracked more sure. Many of them found their marks, tearing rents in the thin membrane of the old dragon’s wings.
Amanda watched him fight to stay aloft. He was aiming his next attack at the leader, she could see. But when he passed over the massive man’s head, Grey could only roar, and weakly. There was no fire.
The mountain with the warhammer shouted in triumph as the dragon passed over him. His exhortations made clear that The Bane had won. The beast was wounded and heading down.
Amanda’s eyes followed Grey as he angled toward the ground. The holes in his wings and drooping rudder of a tail made his landing rough and awkward. The earth threw up snow and dust at the impact, and then all was still.
Ignoring the fighting around him, the leader of The Bane walked toward Grey, savoring the moment.
She shouted the dragon’s name against the howling gust, but he made no response or movement. She shouted again, this time at the enemy’s leader, but he ignored her as he strode toward his fallen foe. Raising her axe, she shouted a third time, a warrior’s cry, and leapt from the wagon.
Grey lifted one eyelid. He saw the man in the black furs—arms bare and bulging, warhammer in hand—stalking toward him with purpose. He lifted one lip in a feral smile.
The giant of a man reached him and stared down at the one eye open looking up at him. Saying something in a language Grey didn’t understand, The Bane’s leader removed his horned helm and threw it aside. He raised his warhammer in triumph, the gesture making it clear to all who saw that he’d be wearing a new helm made of dragonhide soon enough.
Amanda, screaming. Grey heard it before he saw it. The girl running at the warrior. The warrior turning to meet the new threat.
Grey roared. Again no fire came, but he pushed himself from the frozen ground with cracked claws. His tail whipped around, sweeping The Bane’s champion from his feet. The air whooshed out of the huge warrior when he hit the ground. Grey placed one weathered foot over the savage king’s head and used the bulk of his body to hold him down. Amanda reached them and stood over the writhing leader, who beat uselessly at the dragon’s claw.
“Do what must be done,” said Grey.
His voice was dry and wheezing, full of pain compounded by age. Desperate to be done with all of this.
She looked at the creature that had caused Grey’s suffering. That had led The Bane on their que
st to rape and murder her family and all the people in her village. She watched him struggle under the dragon’s great weight.
“Do it now, Amanda.” Barely a whisper.
She summoned the courage of their friendship from deep inside her, channeled it through her arms, raised the axe, and split the chest of the struggling champion. Then she pried the axe from his breastbone and brought it down again. And then again.
Grey’s tail at last came between her stroke and the rapidly cooling corpse on the ground. “It is done,” he breathed. “Are they running yet?”
Amanda came back to herself and, with some effort, pulled her eyes from the gaping chest of the mutilated man in front of her. What remained of The Bane was scattering. Villagers were finishing off those too wounded to run.
“Yes,” she said, mostly to herself. Turning to Grey, she fell down beside him and wrapped her arms around his head. “Yes! They’re running!”
A grunt of acknowledgment from the dragon. “Kill their strongest, the weaker run. It’s old knowledge, but good knowledge.” Despite the pain of his wounds, he smiled at her.
“I’ll get the healer,” she said. “He’ll help you—”
“No,” said Grey. As final and willful as when he’d refused her pleas for help in his cave. “No, he wouldn’t. And there’s no need.”
“But Grey!”
“You should know, Amanda,” he said, his breaths coming shorter. “I didn’t do this for them. Not for the humans of your village. I did this for you. For the friendship we forged together.”
“Grey, please—”
“Make a home in the cliffs, Amanda. And don’t come down,” he said. He laid his head down and winked sluggishly at her to show that, in his humor at least, fire remained. “It’s old knowledge, but good knowledge. Don’t forget.”
Then, when Grey closed his eyes, the last of the dragons passed from the world of men.
* * *
The sun of twilight was descending below the mountains in the west, and he was lost. That much the boy knew. Lost and alone, and soon the temperature would be freezing. And tomorrow his parents would be furious with him. But at the moment, he was concerned only with one thing—surviving the night.
He climbed higher, hoping to find shelter. With wood and flint stone in it, if he were lucky. Something, anything, that would burn until morning. This was the last time he’d take a dare to climb Grey’s Peak. The absolute last time, he swore again to the household gods, asking them to bring him home safe, if only so he could worship them and thank them for doing so.
The boy found the cave as the last of the sunlight descended into the west. It would be cold, dark, and many hours until dawn. But at least he’d found shelter.
The cave felt warm as he entered.
But how can that be? he wondered.
“And who are you?”
The boy nearly slipped on the floor of the cave’s entrance, slick with melted snow. Heat wafted to him from within. He wanted to run and hug it like a mother, but the old voice had startled him. Fear of the unknown crept up his spine.
“Well, boy?”
“My name’s Markh!” he called, trying to be heard over the wind. Strange that the voice coming from within needed merely to speak to be heard. Perhaps the warm air made it easier for him to hear somehow, the boy thought.
“I had a brother by that name,” said the voice, sounding ancient but still young in its wistfulness. “He died many years ago.” Less musing, more melancholy.
“I’m sorry your brother died,” said Markh, shivering. He didn’t know what else to say and so offered another silent prayer to the household gods. One thing he knew for sure—he really wanted to embrace that fire.
“No need. He lived a long life. Will you stand out there to become a frozen statue as a warning to others? Or would you like to share my fire?”
Markh leapt into the cave. When he saw her, his eyes grew big as saucers.
“Sit down before you fall down,” she said.
“You’re the Matron of Grey’s Keep! You guard the dragon’s hoard!”
“I’ve heard I’m called that,” she said, folding her auburn hair, streaked with grey, away from her face. “And you can call me Red. But there is no hoard of gold here.”
The boy’s face fell as he moved deeper into the cave and nearer the fire. He was disappointed by the old woman’s news, but his eyes glowed hungrily as they focused on the fire.
“Come! Use that blanket there to pad your rump,” she said, gesturing to the wall opposite where she sat. “Sit and be warm. I’ll tell you how this mountain came to be named. And how dragons came into the world.”
A Word from Chris Pourteau
I’m a fantasy geek from years back. I’m one of the folks who thought Tolkien was cool long before Peter Jackson came along. My early ’80s lunch table in high school was like the round table in Camelot—the launching pad for many a quest courtesy of Dungeons & Dragons (first edition!). And I bought the first mass-market paperback copies of Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman’s Dragonlance series to roll off the presses. After that it was Terry Brooks and David Gemmell, Warhammer: Fantasy (I painted an entire army of Dwarfs, which is how Games Workshop spelled their name)—my list of “fantasy loves,” like Bilbo Baggins’s road, goes ever on and on.
So, when Samuel Peralta asked me to write a story for The Dragon Chronicles, my geek meter immediately spiked to 11. I was excited about joining my story with those of so many authors I admire, but I was also terrified. I was about to contribute to a canon I’ve revered for as long as I could read. No pressure.
At first, I only had the title. Approaching 50, I find I’m a little more attuned to issues of age, and so I knew I wanted my dragon to be old and rather decrepit but—as I hope for myself—not quite ready for retirement yet. I love exploring relationships in my stories, and so I gave Grey a friendly foil in Amanda to create the crux of my story. One of the themes I explore is the idea that, if we can just get to know one another as individuals—without bringing all the baggage of prejudice and preconceived ideas to the table—we might find friendship faster. While instinctively frightened of dragons (and all reptiles really) when she first meets Grey, Amanda is quickly won over by his kindness. As a little girl, she hasn’t yet been indoctrinated by human propaganda to hate all dragons, so instead, she comes to know him as a friend first. Grey’s ultimate answer to Amanda’s request for help is his way of overcoming his own prejudice, long ingrained in his race. Ultimately, Amanda returns the kindness by becoming the oracle of dragon history—as they, were they still around, would tell it themselves. I hope you enjoyed reading the story as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Before I let you go, I need to thank a few folks. Samuel Peralta has done a wonderfully generous thing by inviting independent writers to participate in his Future Chronicles series, and I’m personally very grateful to him for asking me to contribute to this collection: thank you, Sam. My wife, Alison, is my alpha reader and always offers wonderful advice and support throughout the writing process; thanks, sweetie, as always, for being a friendly but honest first reader. Hank Garner, David Gatewood, Dawn Herring, Debby Stapleton, and Catherine Violando provided awesome feedback as beta-readers and helped me to improve the story for you.
If you want to find out more about me and my writing, please visit me at http://chrispourteau.thirdscribe.com or email me at [email protected] and say howdy.
The Storymaster
by Vincent Trigili
“PAPA, IT’S TIME to get up,” came the ever-cheerful voice of my eldest granddaughter.
It most definitely couldn’t be time to get up yet. “Go away, Myrill,” I groaned and pulled the thick wool blanket tighter in a vain attempt to ward her off. I was sure she was shorting my late afternoon nap more and more each day.
“Now, Papa, the children are waiting to hear from the Storymaster,” she said.
“So go find one, and let me sleep,” I grumbled.
“I d
id, and he’s in here shirking his duties,” she chided.
I think she thoroughly enjoyed putting me through this every day at this time. Maybe it was payback for all those times I’d had to wake her up for something when she was a small child. Or maybe she just had a sadistic side. Probably both.
I knew there was no escaping it; I’d have to get up. It was just that it was so warm under the blankets, and the thick feather mattress was very comfortable. It would grow cold once I got up and I’d have to warm it up all over again.
I slowly rolled back over and tried to untangle myself from the blanket. “You better have some tea on if you expect me to travel all that way in the bitter cold.”
“Papa, they’re just in the next room over, and we have a good fire going,” she said.
“Still, there’d better be tea, or I’m coming right back here! Now, where did you hide my cane this time?” I asked as I finally got my legs free.
“It’s right here, exactly where you left it, of course.” She picked up my old bamboo cane. It was worn smooth at the grip, and the base was rough from use. It was a good solid cane, one I’d had for many years now. I could walk without it, but my old bones much appreciated the help.
She handed it to me and I slowly made my way out to the room where my great-grandchildren were playing. Seeing their energy and vitality just made my advanced age feel even older. I wondered how many of them would remember me after I was gone and they started having their own children.
I knew that Myrill was right. I needed to get out of the bed and move around. I really did enjoy the children, but moving was getting harder with each passing day. The long cold winter nights didn’t help either.
As I lowered myself into my rocker by the fire, Myrill tucked a wool blanket around me. She had made it for me earlier this winter, and despite my complaining, I really did appreciate all the attention she paid to my comfort.
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