Above the Ashes

“There weren’t always dragons in the Valley…”

Just days before he died, this was how my father had started to reveal the truth to me behind the mysterious Before. We had made camp on Kindle Valley’s border, among great redwood trees that provided shelter from the great winged beasts. Beasts that now slept on the flat grassy basin not more than a hundred yards from us.

“I am one of the last that can explain to you, the fundamental reason we, as Hunters, do what we do. Not many of us from Before still live, and the ones that do will refuse to tell you our story. Simply because if everyone knew the truth, chaos would consume our people.”

I had never heard my father’s voice crack. He had always been the strongest of our village, never breaking, eternally steadfast much like the scaled armor that rested near the tents behind us. Not only was I finally learning of his past, but I was also learning that he was indeed, human after all.

Are those tears beginning to well in his eyes? I wondered.

“Nothing could have prepared us for that which would come to be known as The Fall. We were in an age of technology that was allowing us to predict the falling of stars, but no warning was announced. So with tensions between continents having reached an unsettling point of animosity, we were left only with the thought of nuclear warfare when fire and rock began to rain down from the sky. It shook the earth beneath us with a force that had never been measured before.”

Nuclear warfare?

He dismissed my questioning glance with a wave of his hand, “There are things from Before that you will never understand. You need only accept this fact as I continue. We were a weak and complacent people once, and now us few that remember are a scarred people.”

Curiosity gripped me and I could feel myself beginning to sweat with anticipation, but I knew that I needed to stay calm lest my father cease his tale. I chose to cast my emotional and visual attention to the dragons lazing away. Their strikingly brilliant colors shined in the last hour of the sun.

I watched one of the beast’s breathing rhythms, but still listened intently as I nodded in understanding. My father continued, “For months we sat in an underground fallout bunker. When the screams from above of those burning alive stopped, and the ground finally found peace, we waited. Perpetually sweating in the heat that came from above. It is still a wonder to me that we didn’t bake alive as I’m sure thousands of others did in more inadequate bunkers.

“Even with an ample supply of food and potable water, the people in my shelter began to stir. Our predetermined leadership had no choice but to start probing the earth above us. They were worried about radiation, but when no sign of it was found, stir turned into restlessness which then transformed into anger. With threats of riots and mutinies at hand, our leaders, once again, pushed their boundaries out of necessity.

He paused as the dragon I had been watching awoke. It rose from the ground and stretched it’s large and tattered wings before struggling slightly in its ascension towards the sky. This marked a much older dragon that would’ve been perfect for hunting but It was clear by my father’s casual inaction, that he had no interest in hunting that day. Much like the older dragon, I think he was beginning to struggle with his rising.

“When they asked for volunteers to surface and investigate, I was one of the first to step forward. Me and your uncle. Not out of impatience, but rather curiosity. To see what had happened to the world for ourselves. Within moments of that bunker door opening though, we knew there was nothing left to investigate. There was nothing but a thick smog of grey, and the flaking ash beneath our feet. Everything and everyone, burned.”

It was a hard thing for me to even consider believing as I looked around at the lush greenery that surrounded us that evening. Trees swaying and insects buzzing, flowers blooming in season, and a creek bubbling nearby. Colors from the sun’s setting painted the canyons in my father’s face and skin like oil on a leather canvas. I would have never imagined a world full of such grey destruction and was filled with an intense desire to know more. My anticipation almost got the better of me as my father sipped water from his dragon-scaled waterskin.

He wiped his mouth, obviously savoring the refreshment, “I see the disbelief in your eyes, son. You see, we knew the world would regrow at the time. We had seen it done frequently, just, never on such a large scale before. For all we knew, the world had been engulfed in fire and the further we searched, the more that became a harsh and even more probable reality. No communications, and no life. Just those of us that had survived in the bunker. Until we stumbled upon our first dragon.”

The sun began to sink and illuminated a bright wash on the snowcaps of the mountains in the distance. Soon, more dragons would rise from their nocturnal slumber but my father, knowing this, continued on with no more than a casual nod towards my fingers as I finished biting my fingernail. I kept them firmly in my lap from then on.

“I’ll never forget the way it took me off my feet. I was two weeks into a six-week expedition. It was no use fighting hopelessness at that point. The further I traveled and the more that I saw, only left me feeling more and more hollow inside. A few days into that second week, I was beginning to actually debate whether it was worth it to keep on living, when we stumbled upon a glowing pile of ash. Heat radiated from it but no one could make out what it was. Curiously, and without caution, your Uncle Basitt slammed his edged shovel into the mound, and we were all thrown back by the resulting explosion.”

“A Hatch…” I whispered to myself quietly, seething with envy.

My father grinned, “Indeed. For a long time, I blamed Basitt for the scar on my face from that. You know why it wasn’t his fault though, right?”

“Because it wasn’t the shovel that made the egg explode.” I said, recalling my schooling, “It was the embryo sensing danger and responding. From the moment an egg has established itself inside of an ash pocket, it is ready to hatch. The wyrmling inside would prefer to incubate longer but will hatch if it must and with force if it must.”

“These are important things to know.”

He smiled and suddenly the warm color of his olive skin turned to a pasty white. His eyes drooped and it looked as if he was going to fall over. I instinctively bent towards the direction he was leaning in but he managed to keep himself upright. All the while, quietly grunting in pain as magic coursed through his human body.

It was the mark of The Brave, a reaction to the mana that dragons emitted when they died. Usually, it was contained within their scaled bodies but occasionally Hunters would sometimes talk of an immense heat that flowed through their veins after a kill. I wondered how many times it had also happened to my father.

How many times did he feel he had to hide it from me?

The Mark of the Brave was a highly respected symbol of bravery and strength in our culture. But it was also a mark that a Hunter’s life was very close to being over.

Seeing the fear in my eyes as his skin returned to its proper shade, he returned my shock with a weak chuckle broken by a gravely serious tone, “As you can see, I am not long for this world, my boy… You will do what you must, and take my place. But before you do, there is something you must know.” His eyes shed wet streaks as he looked at me.

It was the first time I had ever seen him actually shed tears. My father, The Slayer. My father, The Undefeated. My father, The Unbreakable. Reduced to this, because of memories unearthed, that he had buried long ago.

Was it disappointment? Was it mortality? Was it pride?

It was all of those things, but I believe it was the sheer relief of letting such a heavy burden go.

“We teach you all that we are the reasons the dragons came and that is why we hunt them.” He went pale again but not in the way of the mark, “In reality, it was They who brought them. They who came to burn our world to the ground and harvest our ash.”

Confusion battered away at me as if I was a hanging sheet in high winds. My father’s knuckles looked as though they were white grapes ready to burst, “But it was also They, who delivered us a secret salvation.”

“Who?” I whispered.

He stood up and looked down at me stoically. Shaking his head, he debated.

“Who?” I asked again.

More tears fell from his cheeks, making a towel of his tunic. His lower lip quivered, “I didn’t want to tell you this. Especially with so little time to explain. But understand, you are my son.”

Bewilderment, rage, exhaustion, and anticipation filled me then to the point of explosion.

“Who?!” I roared.

“Your kind.” He finally breathed.

“What do you mean, MY kind?”

His expression gave away that the worst of this conversation was over.

He met my gaze and nodded towards the dragons in the distance.

The dragons that had not always been in this valley.