by RyFT Brand
myself…I mean change into something formal.” My attitude was bombastic despite how heavy I hung in the guards’ arms.
The elder elder shouted something and the circle opened behind me. The guards dragged me toward a flat-topped stalagmite with chains and cuffs mounted to the top of it; I took this to be some kind of altar. A fire burned in a huge brazier beside it. And beside that stood a wooden table covered with candles, totems of worship, and burning incense. I couldn’t help but wonder if the incense wasn’t there more to cover the terrible stink of rotting meat then an actual part of the religious rights about to proceed. Two, apparently naturally occurring stalactites formed an X behind the altar.
A Draconian female was chained to the X, her arms high overhead. She was decked out in a chainmail bikini. Odd choice of dress, lizards are egg layers and therefore lack breasts. Weird ascetic, this bunch was befuddling. Everything here was off a little, tainted, not fully Draconian, which was not normal for a species so attached to tradition. Her yellow, lizard eyes were swimming and unfocused, she’d apparently been drugged to help ease her through the exceptionally long and slow Draconian sacrificial ceremony.
I kind of doubted they’d been easing my passing any.
“You have been chosen to welcome our master to ceremony blessed one, you have truly been graced for a species so low. Granuffla.” The shopkeeper/spy continued to interpret from behind me.
“Granuffla,” all the gathered repeated in a chorus.
Yeah, yeah, halleluiah for me.
“You have been prepared, and your coming foretold. Welcome lowly daughter of ape to the highest altar of the black scales.”
I could hear the elders, then all the gathered warriors falling into line behind us. Two robbed lizards unchained the dopy-eyed female from the stalagmites. She flopped into their arms like she’d been at an all night frat party. They dragged her away, her head flopped back and forth and drool ran from her long snout. She looked worse then drugged—poisoned maybe. But that didn’t make sense either; poison would effect whatever dragon consumed the sacrifice. I had a growing doubt about what exactly this ceremony was dedicated to.
One of the guards unshackled my wrists. “Great, thanks, because my hands were falling asl—eep!” I shouted as the two huge warriors heaved me off my feet and slammed me down onto the stone altar. “Ooof,” the air rushed out of my chest, but, by some miracle, I managed to keep the back of my head from cracking down.
The warriors held my arms outstretched as two robed dracs secured my wrists, then moved down and clasped my ankles.
This was normally where I’d add a tort remark, but I was still working on catching my breath.
The eldest elder came over and waved his hands over me as he hissed a chant.
“Hey, I’m a Jehovah’s Witness, this ceremony is against my religion so I’ll have to leave, sorry about that.” Yeah, I’d finally caught my breath.
He ignored me and continued. His long white chin feelers dragged over me and kind of tickled. When he’d finished he took a ladle from a bucket and spooned something sticky and acrid all over me. Blood, of course, what else would it be?
Once I was dully covered and feeling a right mess he stood at my head, raised both his arms, and shouted, “Granuffla!”
“Granuffla!” the congregation joyfully repeated.
Something lurking in the cavern’s shadows, something huge, moved, making an unsettling rattle.
The priest hurried away and the cavern’s rancid reek grew more intense. I heard the rattle again, now closer. I strained my head and looked, trying not to gag from the stink. I was already coved in blood; I wanted to avoid adding my own vomit.
A shadow fell over me and I felt a chill that did not come from the dank air. I forced myself to swallow though a tight, dry throat, then, as the gigantic lizard’s head reared up over me, I felt my eyes bulging.
The smell was indescribable, like a thousand rotting corpses dumped in your front lawn in the middle of summer. And corpse was the appropriate word here because this dragon had been dead for some time.
There wasn’t a single scale left on it. It was more bone than flesh, the remaining scraps hung from it like scabs ready to drop off. Its eyes dangled from their sockets and had shrunken many times over. Its tongue had slipped through a hole in its lower jaw and looked like a piece of jerky. All that was left of its wings were two nubs of bone that rattled and waved uselessly and unnervingly.
Truly disgusting.
I may have actually screamed, I’m not sure, but the very sight of it was revolting beyond the rancid reek of it. Despite my intelligence I strained against the shackles. The idiots, the desperate, demented, dabblers were necromancers. Of all the unthinkable, of all the abominations, they’d raised a dragon, a zombie dragon.
I was dead, and now so were my friends.
JAZZ, Monster Collector
Season One: Earth’s Lament
RyFT Brand
Episode-11: The Lizard Wears Black