Chapter 2
“I have been born anew, my bones reformed and as I stretch out my wings I feel as though I am free.”
Except from Litania’s diary
I can breathe, was the first dim thought that flickered quietly in her mind as she surfaced, awakening to see a thin slit of light before me. She reached for it, dug fingers deep into the earth and pulled. Pain burned and then she was out. A weight was lifted from her body. She gasped, sucking in air greedily, as she rolled onto my back. The bright, clear sky held over her.
As the pain retreated she sat up slowly and looked over at the wyvern, dried blood pooled about it. She glanced down, saw that she was saturated in it, the fur caked with it. With a shudder she got to her feet, swayed a little, then stood firm. She was alive. Somehow. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from the wyvern, which was the size of three or four carts, weighing twice as much, trying to fathom how she hadn’t been crushed under its weight. How she survived.
Trembling uneasily, she walked over the wyvern and knelt down, pressing her hands against it. A silly idea was caught in her mind, one stubbornly clinging there, the kind she knew she wasn’t dismissing. She tried, then she dug in her heels and pushed. The wyvern rolled over, as if it weighed nothing at all. On its side she saw it, the sword sunk right down to the top of the hilt. Even that tiny glimmer of dull black leather gleamed before her. Without thinking she shoved her hand, her stomach twisting as the still warm flesh curled around her hand, and she grabbed the sword, yanking it out.
She staggered back a little, then stood up and held up the bloodied sword. It was impossible to see any marks on it, so she walked over to the pool of water and knelt down, setting the sword into the water. The water brushed her hand, soaked through her gloves, dissolving the blood off it – and she felt how warm the water was. Frowning, she removed the sword, gleaming silver and clean in the water, and set it aside. Then she yanked off her gloves and shoved her hand into the water, the kind of water she imagined baths were intended to be – not the icy dousing she was accustomed to.
Seeing how caked she was in blood she was shedding her clothes before she could process the next thought and wading into the warm water. She didn’t feel how cold the air had been before. Hell, it even felt normal. Dismissing that thought for the moment she washed herself, scrubbed the blood from her skin, then dragged her fingers through her hair. When she came out the air was still, warm even, and she didn’t feel cold like she usually did after bathing. Not even as she braided her hair out her face, then pulled on her inner furs which were mostly free of blood. She scrubbed her outer coat, gloves and vest. Glancing skywards she guessed she had a little time before sun fell, so she wrung out her clothes as best as she could, then used her coat as a make-shift bag and carried it out of the clearing.
She’d seen a nearby house just beyond the pass, which would serve as shelter for the night. Tomorrow, she’d figure out how the hell she’d get down, given that the space between the farms she’d been taken from and where she was mostly sheer cliff, impossible to cliff. There had likely been once structures – wooden stairs, maybe – that had connected it to the ground below but they’d long rotted away. Even the joints where they’d been fastened to the rock were worn smooth, poor hand holds to climb with. Still, there had to be a way down, even if it was a long way. She just had to find some gear – anything she might use to climb. If she found extra clothing, then that was a plus. She’d cook up the wyvern and dry out the meat as best as she could in the night, eat what she could, and fill up her last skin with water.
As much as she might want to explore for her own curiosity she had to get down whilst she still had supplies. Whilst it was still possible. That, and she had to assure everyone she was very much alive. Vaughn would, no doubt, spin tales about how she bravely drew the wyvern’s attention, saved them all. Then, in the face of such tragedy, it was he whom held the team together and led them back down safely, proving that he was a capable leader.
Shaking her head, she trekked through the pass and into a wild, rocky landscape with outcrops jutting out from cliffs, houses fastened to the sheer rock. There were a few doorways, darkened, that sat beneath the houses, which, upon closer inspection, held a steep set of steps winding upwards – likely into the house themselves, a secondary entrance. She realised that the stories were true. The people who lived here had been with dragons – maybe even Wyverns, too – and had flown them about. It suited the strange way houses seemed to sit out in the middle of cliffs. She studied the rock around each of the houses. Many were too high, too far away, but she saw what looked to be worn indents – from strung up bridges, perhaps.
She stared into the dark steps before her, thick with shadow, and carefully made her way up. She held one hand on the stone, using it to guide her way up. Nearer to the top light pierced the darkness, a rectangular shape appeared above her. A doorway. She moved slowly through into a short hall which led into a living area. Tall ceilings, wide spaces, sparsely arranged furniture greeted her. At the far end the tattered remains of a large door and the shadowy scraps of fabric guarded the threshold to the outcrop.
Back in there was a door off the main room, which was revealed to be a sleeping area. The bed frame itself had mostly rotted away, looking like a mangled clutter of wood and some fabric. Next to it was a chest, which actually seemed in fairly good condition. She lifted her gaze from it, eyed the room with interest. There was the palest hint of a painting across the walls, a mural of sorts. Much of it had flaked it away but the unmistakeable shape of a dragon stretched over the back wall, majestic, eternal.
She reached out curiously and touched the mural, running her fingers over the picture, drawing it with her hand. In her mind she tried to picture the dragon for real, imagine it soaring above her, landing, greeting her. Old stories said how the dragons could talk, that they were extremely intelligent and that their human counterparts, the Dragonairs, whom lived just as long, could take the form of the dragon. Was the mural, she wondered, of a dragon or a dragonair?
Drawing her hand, she returned to the living area and set her wet items out on the out crop, stretching them to dry. She then set about searching the house for supplies. It was a stretch, of course, to assume there would be anything viable left but she had to be sure. In what might’ve been a kitchen area she found jars of spices, though long rotted and only their feint scent remaining. She found some jars of wine, which she tasted but spat it out. The taste was sharp and left her mouth numb. As she rubbed her mouth tenderly she searched through the rest of the house. What little she found she left; scraps of clothing, blunt tools, a few bits of jewellery made of stone and what might’ve been precious stones. All of it seemed to speak of someone leaving here, that when they had left, they had intended to return – or they’d left with very little time. It was as though one day they simply ceased to be, leaving behind only echoes of their presence.
She checked her coat but it was still a little damp so she returned to the clearing. There, she used the sword and her daggers to carve chunks off the wyvern, then wrapped it up in some cloth she’d found. Then she drank greedily at the pool and filled her skin before returning back to the house. Using some dried fabrics, some wood she’d scavenged from the bedroom, and the flint stones she discovered in the kitchen, she started up a small fire in the living room. She cooked off the meat, which tasted bland without any spices; still, it filled her.
By the time started to dip below the mountain peaks, darkness rapidly descending with a swift hand, she had set up a small bed with cloth. Still, she wasn’t tired so she sat out on the outcrop, her legs dangling over the edge. From where she sat she saw all the houses, how they peppered the jagged cliffs, varying in size, though all containing an outcrop. Advancing her gaze upwards she spied the thin layer of cloud, which in the hours since she’d really looked up, had dissolved and there she saw it – a castle. It dominated the peak itself, a pale white structure that seemed very much apart of the mountain itself. Outcrops dotted its sheer walls. There were several large towers that rose up impossibly high, like the outstretched fingers of a hand, grasping for something out of reach.
Her grandmother had told her stories of the rulers of this land; of Queen Evanya, of her two children – Alfor and Yelena – and those who ruled before. Wren’s favourite story was of the enchantress Dragonair, Litania, who had the heart of prince Alfor himself. Yet, for all the stories, the sight of the kingdom abandoned – forgotten, really – tempered any excitement she felt. For all their power something tragic had happened, practically erasing them from history, reducing them to a child’s story. She wanted to tell the village of what she saw but they wouldn’t believe her. They would call her mad, her mind addled from the cold.
In time, even this place would be blurred in her memory and it would retreat further into the darkness, forgotten.
With that sobering thought she returned inside with her dried clothes and sat by the fire until it was little more than a smouldering pile of ash. There, she curled up and let the dreams of dragons fill her, carry her away on the back of their wings.
It was the fierce cry of a wyvern that shocked her awake. She quickly scrambled to her feet, dashing to the bedroom and peered out of the small window there. At first, she saw nothing; then, a flash of grey which shot straight to the ground below, hitting the stone, hard. Surprise burst through her as she realised what she saw. It wasn’t a wyvern. No, there was no mistaking the shape of it’s body, the distinct spikes that ran from the tip of the tail, along the long, lean body, advancing to the snout itself. Even how it staggered to its feet, stretching out those large wings, trying to look bigger than its already colossal size.
It was a dragon.
And flying right at it, teeth barred, was a wyvern, shooting in for the kill.
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