by E. A. James
She let her eyes drift closed, but she couldn’t settle down to rest. A dark presence called to her from beyond the fire’s glow. With a power she couldn’t resist, it pulled her away from the people who loved her.
She kept her eyes closed for hours, but her racing heart kept her tense and alert. She listened to the fires crackle. Only when she heard them start to die down did she dare open one eye to peek out.
Sure enough, her two attendants dozed at their posts. Without a sound, she slipped out of bed. She laid her cloak and crown and scepter on the bed and glided out of the pavilion into the night.
A large orange moon, almost full, lit up the countryside almost as bright as day. She ran over the chilly grass, across the Common, toward the fields in the distance. She ran all the way to the plowed farmland beyond.
A huge black barn loomed some distance back from the road, but she ran straight past that. She wouldn’t find what she was looking for there. She crossed the bumpy field to the trees lining the stream of the far side.
The branches closed over her head and blocked out the moonlight. Margila hesitated next to a deep pool. She whispered into the dark, “Marcus!”
A black figure emerged from behind a tree. “So, you came.”
“I told you I would.”
“But you didn’t come for me. You promised you would come to me, to belong to me, after the Festival ended. That will never happen now.”
She rushed toward him and threw her arms around him. He stood stiff and still under her arms. Not a breath of life warmed him. “I’m here now. Oh, Marcus, hold me! I can’t keep my heart still.”
He put his arms around her, but his body remained cold and lifeless. “You shouldn’t have come.”
“I had to come. I had to see you.”
“You belong to them now. They’ll never let you go, and they’ll give you to the dragon. I’ll never see you again.”
She raised her face to his and tried to kiss him, but he dodged aside and turned his head away. “We’re together now. Can’t you love me anymore, now that I’m to be the sacrifice?”
“Do you think I can rejoice that you’re going to die, that you’ll be ripped away from me just when I was about to marry you? Go back to the Common, if you want someone to be happy about it. I would rather kill myself along with you than see you taken from me this way. It’s criminal, and I’ll use all my strength to fight it and stop it. You’ll see if I don’t.”
“Don’t talk like that. I had to enter the lottery, and I was chosen, just like hundreds of other young maidens before me. You knew this could happen. Now we just have to accept it.”
“I won’t accept it. I’ll never accept it. I’ll put a stop to this if no one else will. I won’t let the dragon kill you.”
Margila froze. “What do you plan to do?”
He grabbed her in his powerful arms, but his embrace frightened her. “Marry me, Margila.” He grabbed two handfuls of her buttocks in his fists and crushed her against his hips. He ground his crotch against her vulva. The movement sparked her old passion for him. “Give yourself to me tonight, before they offer you as a sacrifice.”
“You know I can’t do that. The sacrifice has to be a virgin.”
“That’s the whole idea. If you marry me and lose your virginity tonight, they won’t be able to sacrifice you. You’ll be free, and we can run away together.”
“I couldn’t do that. My whole family would be disgraced, and my father is Alderman of the village. Besides, if I back out now, they would have to do the lottery all over again. Some other poor girl would be sacrificed in my place. I couldn’t do that.”
Marcus flung her away from him. He strode down to the stream and stood with his back to her. “Then I’ll kill the dragon. That’s the only way to save you.”
Margila ran around to face him and she grabbed him by the shoulders. “Don’t do anything foolish, Marcus. You know you couldn’t defeat the dragon. You would only kill yourself trying.”
“Others have done it, so I can do it, too.”
“No one has fought the dragons for generations. The sacrifice is our only hope of living in peace with them.”
“We hear tales about knights of old killing them, hunting them to their lairs and cutting off their heads to save their maidens. If they can do it, I can do it.”
Margila smacked her lips. “Nonsense. Those are just old stories. Even if they did it now and then, we haven’t had knights fighting dragons in the living memories of our oldest villagers. Don’t endanger yourself. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you. This is the way of our people, Marcus.”
He didn’t listen. “I’ll hide on the mountaintop. When they bring you up, they’ll tie you to the post like they always do. Don’t be scared if you don’t see me. After they leave, the dragon will come. I’ll jump out and cut off its head. Then you and I can run away together. No one will ever know you weren’t sacrificed.”
“That will never work. The dragons will know I wasn’t sacrificed. When their comrade doesn’t come back with his virgin prize, they’ll descend on the village in force. They’ll be especially cruel when they find one of their own murdered. You and I will run away together, but we’ll bring disaster on our own friends and families. How can you think of doing that.”
“Someone has to fight these vicious beasts. All these old men like Aldermen Fallosi can only think of conciliation and obfuscation. I want to fight! I want to kill and maim and destroy. I can’t sit by and watch them send you to your death.”
“How do you plan to kill it?”
“I’ll steal that old sword hanging on the wall in my father’ study.”
“You have no battle training. You’re as likely to cut off your own leg as the dragon’s head.”
He didn’t answer. He stared off into the dark, full of his own thoughts
Margila laid her hand on his arm. He was solid and still as stone. “Marcus?”
He still didn’t answer. Nameless dread seized her. Why was she out here in the dark, risking everything for him? What was he to her, compared to her responsibility to her people?
She turned, and without saying anything to him, hurried back to the pavilion.
CHAPTER THREE
On the day before the full moon, no one came near the pavilion all day. Margila’s maiden attendants hung curtains around the pavilion to bathe her in a private tub. They perfumed her hair and dressed her in costly gossamer gowns. They decked her hair and wrists with flowers and crowned her with a circlet of gold.
Margila went through the whole process in a daze. She just couldn’t bring herself to imagine what was about to happen. This day, so like all the other clear autumn days she loved so much, could end only one way. She would go home to her own house and spend the evening by the fire with her parents. She would meet Marcus on the way and share a passionate kiss in some secluded spot. She would spend the evening dreaming of their future together in the fullness of love and tranquility.
By mid-afternoon, the maidens took down the curtains and the villagers gathered around the pavilion. They wore their best clothes and played music on homemade instruments. The children ran around and played and laughed. The spirit of joy and festive belonging filled the air.
Margila’s mother and father stepped out of the crowd and took their places on either side of her. Her father kissed her on the forehead, and her mother embraced her with eyes brimming with tears. Her father blessed her and thanked her for her sacrifice. Other people listened with clasped hands, and applause broke out when he finished.
Then the maidens and young men went forth from the Common. They adorned Margila’s path with flower petals, and the crowd sang all the old songs to mark the occasion.
Margila’s parents linked their arms through hers, and the whole village led her in procession across the Common, down the road, and out into the countryside. Margila didn’t see Marcus in the crowd, but she refused to think about him. He lay in her past. Whatever happened to him, she wouldn’t see h
im again. Their love no longer existed. The man she loved no longer existed. He’d changed into something Margila no longer recognized.
The road wound between farms and fields into the unbroken country beyond the village. The crowd kept up its exuberant music and song. Everyone ignored the mountain looming black and foreboding overhead. A single blackened post stuck out of its top. Margila kept her eyes down. She couldn’t look up the mountain without losing her nerve.
The road circled the mountain and rose into the heights. The gaiety and joy increased the closer they came to the summit. Margila’s heart beat faster, and her mother tightened her grip on her arm. Her father laid his other hand on her arm to steady her. She swallowed a lump in her throat, but she had no choice but to keep walking. The maidens’ ethereal dancing mesmerized her, and tambourine beat gave rhythm to her steps.
She put one foot in front of the other, but the air on top of the mountain got so thin she couldn’t breathe. She panted through parted lips and leaned on her parents for support.
All at once, the crowd turned a corner and the post came into view. The vast countryside, for hundreds of miles in every direction, lay spread out in a complete circle all around her. There was nowhere else to go, and nothing separated her from that post.
All the gaiety and merrymaking stopped in a heartbeat. Nothing remained but the raw truth. She would die up here, and nothing could save her. Raw instinct took over her mind. She struggled to break free and run away, but her own parents laid hold of her and held her back.
Her desperation gave her superhuman strength, and she fought with all her might to break away. She kicked and scratched. She screamed insults and threats, but the young men lent a hand and dragged her to the post. She begged her parents to help her, but they turned a deaf ear to her entreaties. Her father clenched his lips together while they tied her arms above her head and her ankles, one to the other.
Margila tugged at her bonds. “Please, Father, don’t do this to me. Untie me. I’ll do anything you say. I promise. Just let me go.”
Her father stood before her. Margila couldn’t remember such pain in his eyes. “Goodbye, my lovely. Believe me, your sacrifice shall not be made in vain.”
The other men surrounded him, and he vanished out of her life. Her mother came forward with tears streaming down her cheeks. She kissed Margila. “Never forget, I love you more than my own life. I would happily take your place if I could.”
She, too, vanished into the crowd. The sea of bodies closed around them and swept them away, down the mountain.
The young maidens came forward now, and Amara took her place in front of Margila. She took off Margila’s crown and removed the flower garlands from her wrists. She took off the cloak and the gossamer gown. She left Margila dressed in nothing but a plain cotton shirt.
Margila blinked at the woman who used to be her friend. “Amara? How can you do this to me?”
Amara gave her a gentle smile. “If I was in your place, it’s you who would be doing the same thing to me. You’re not the Harvest Princess anymore. You belong to the Raveniss now. Good-bye.”
Amara walked away. Margila yanked at the ropes holding her wrists. “Amara!” No one answered her, and the last maidens disappeared around the corner. “Amara!”
A deadly silence fell over the mountain. The wind howled through the rocks. Was Marcus hidden somewhere in those rocks? For the first time since she left him at the festival, her heart leaped at the prospect of seeing him again. She would gladly run away with him and condemn her whole village to death if he would only slay the dragon and free her.
She twisted one way and then the other, but the ropes cut into her hands. She whimpered in desperate terror. A cry hung on her lips, but she couldn’t muster the courage to call out or scream. No one would answer her, anyway.
The sun set blood red over the mountains. The wind swung around cold from the south and bit through her thin shirt. What would become of her? She hung helpless from the post. Her shoulders started to ache, and the ropes cut into her skin. She closed her eyes and longed for death to put an end to her suffering.
Shafts of sunset light touched her face when a shadow covered the sun. Out of the west, a huge shape blacked out the sun. It covered the whole mountain. Margila’s eyes snapped open just in time to see a massive dragon sail over the mountaintop. Its enormous wings glistened iridescent green and purple with the light shining through their skin. The dragon swept down and landed right in front of Margila.
She turned her face aside to hide, but the dragon strode toward her with acrid smoke billowing from its nostrils. Its head bobbed and weaved on its long neck, and its tail lashed the air with the whistle of a cracking whip. It lowered its head to peer into her face, and it sniffed at her dress.
Margila tried to cringe away. She crossed her legs under her dress, but the thing pressed its nostrils against her hips and inhaled a long breath. It exhaled with a low rumble deep in its chest. She sobbed under her breath. It would open those disgusting jaws and end her life here and now.
At that moment, a broken yell pierced the silence. Marcus leaped out from behind a nearby rock with his father’s ancient sword brandished in his hand. Margila’s spirits soared, but at the same time, she flinched in fear. That sword couldn’t cut a thick strand of rope, let alone the dragon’s scaly hide.
Marcus charged forward. He bared his teeth, and sweat flew from his disheveled hair. He must have been hiding on this mountain since last night, where he knew no one in the Festival procession would see him.
He dashed across space toward the dragon. With one powerful sweep of his arm, he slashed the dragon with his sword. He must have sharpened it, because it gashed the dragon’s shoulder, and black blood oozed from the wound.
In a rage, the dragon whipped around to face him. It roared in his face, and the rocks shivered from the noise. Its mouth gaped at him, and the blast of air from its beating wings knocked Marcus backward.
To Margila’s surprise, however, the dragon didn’t spit a jet of fire at him to kill him on the spot. It whipped its tail around and struck him hard across the chest. Marcus flew back and slammed into a big rock. The sword fell from his hand, and he slumped to the ground. His head lolled sideways, his eyes closed, and he moved no more.
The dragon bent its long neck and licked its wounded shoulder. It growled under its breath. Then it turned its attention back to its helpless prey. That hideous head hovered inches from Margila’s face. It took several deeps sniffs of her.
For some reason she couldn’t understand, its behavior caused a curious reaction in the depths of her being. Maybe the extreme fear of standing helplessly at its mercy confused her. Maybe being tied to that post excited her more than she realized. The dragon’s presence sent a quiver of electric energy through her nubile young body. It ignited all her passions, and her flesh came to life.
A trickle of wet warmed her tissues between her legs. She closed her eyes and moaned. The dragon sent out its forked red tongue and licked its scaly lips. The thing nudged at her legs. She uncrossed them, and her bare thighs rubbed against each other.
She couldn’t stand this maddening sensation any longer. She needed something down there to satisfy her deepest longing. Not even Marcus’s expert hands could bring her the fulfillment she so desperately craved.
The dragon’s head darted back faster than mortal eye could follow. Its tail lashed, and with a calculated flick, its sharp spikes severed the ropes holding Margila’s wrists to the post. They remained bound together, as did her ankles, but her body slumped forward.
The dragon caught her before she hit the ground. She draped across its neck, and with a powerful downbeat of its wings, it took off into the air. It banked west and flew away into the dying sun.
CHAPTER FOUR
Margila came to her senses and sat up. The first thing she noticed was the post wasn’t there anymore. The rocks looked different. She wasn’t on the mountain where the village people left her. She was somewhere e
lse.
The sun climbed overhead. She must have slept all night long. How far had the dragon taken her? How far away was she from her home?
She lay on a flat rock. A bowl of towering boulders surrounded her on all sides so she couldn’t see beyond them. Only in one direction, several mountain peaks jutted against the sky. She must be on another mountain.
Heat radiated up through the rock on which she lay. The boulders protected her from biting wind howling among the crags. She flattened herself on the rock to keep warm when she saw the dragon slither out from across the bowl.
Its red eyes burned, and its nostrils smoked. It dragged its huge body over the ground toward her. The ropes still tied her wrists and ankles together so she couldn’t run away. She cowered lower, but she couldn’t get away.
Its head bobbed one way and then the other. Its tongue flickered in and out of its mouth. She closed her eyes. Her end would surely come now.