Blood on the Snow

There weren't always dragons in the Valley, but war came and brought them with it. Black armoured soldiers with featureless helmets came riding them as weapons of war, silver and blue soldiers came leading them as beasts of burden, red soldiers in leather armor brought the dragonlings on harnessess as scouting beasts... and they died. Great dragons fell from the sky and died in pained heaps on the ground, small dragonlings were trampled underfoot by their larger siblings.

After each battle there were more carcasses and, sometimes, a few injured dragons growling and whimpering for the masters that had left them behind. This is called the Valley of Bones now, and it's easy to see why; the ribs of the largest dragons that fell jut from the ground like bare trees, creating the parody of a forest. My daughters found Sunny, Sunshine to them, curled in the skull of a larger dragon, wing membranes torn to tatters, leg badly broken. Old wounds, writhing with infection. She must have been living on the carcasses, at first, and then, when the food ran out, curled up and waited to die. Instead she was coaxed out with berries and cheese, made omnivorous by necessity, and led all the way to the door where three days of begging and promises to take care of her meant a visit from the animal doctor, the cutting away of dead flesh and an amputation. Daisy, my eldest, turned her brilliant mind to the problem and made Sunny a brace of sorts. A fake foot of wood with a base of scrap metal from Barra the Blacksmith, who's always been too fond of her to deny her whatever she asks for.

A dwarf species meant to live in the sulphur fields of the far west, Sunny was meant to fly in short bursts and roll in the dirt the rest of the time. She's obstinate, lazy, and gluttonous. In the first three months we lost thirty chickens to her appetite. But she's also a marvel with a nose sensitive enough to sniff out prey miles away - with a little love and trust, she started hunting for herself. Then she started to bring game back. To wake up to a more or less whole deer on the doorstep was a surprise.

But a whole human arm? That was something new.

At first there was just the cold, as if I had plunged into an icy lake. Sunny shook her body and circled, flapping her skeletal wings before settling into a patch of sunlight. Just as she usually would. As if there was no difference between a human arm and a leg of deer... and perhaps to her there wasn't. A door banged open in the distance, making me scramble to hide the arm, suddenly too hot, too shaky, too breathless to pretend everything was alright. The neighbours boys trudged past on their way to pick stone from the fields, breath misting in the snow, laughing about some girl or other as they stopped to tickle Sunny's back and belly,

"Ey, Finan, you up?" One called, and I stepped, shamefully, from the shadows of my hiding place,

"Only just," I said with a wave and pretended to scrub at the iron grey hairs on my chin,

"Must be nice to be old," Rob, the youngest, chortled then looked at the door step, "Sunny's been hunting, I see?"

"What?" I asked, ice seeping through my veins - there was blood on the doorstep, "ah. She must have eaten it this time."

"Ey well, at least you don't have to feed her," Rob said and nudged his brother in the ribs, "not like your mutt."

"Leave off, he's old," Iain grumbled and shrugged his big shoulders, "later Finan."

"Walk safe, boys," I said it without thinking, then cursed myself for the strange looks they shot over their shoulders as they left. When their broad backs disappeared from view I stuffed the arm into a homespun sack and stepped into the morning light, "Sunny." She opened one lazy eye and grumbled, "Sunny don't you ignore me," I whispered and she opened both her eyes, huffing a plume of smoke, "where did you find this?" I open the sack to show her the arm, as if she needed to see it. She could have smelled it through a field of sulphur springs, never mind a rough cloth sack. She licked her lips and leaned in, "no!"

With a petulant grunt, Sunny struggled to her feet, turned twice, scratched the ground and lay down once more. With her back to me.

"Oh no, not today, up!" I hissed, "get up and show me where you found this." Nothing, but a quick trip to the smoke shack raised her head. A side of salmon, by the Gods it hurt to take it down, but I shook it in front of her and she lumbered over, reaching for it, "no." She growled, eyes narrow when I showed her the sack again and pointed to the woods, "show me, damn you." She sniffed the sack, and trilled, cocking her head from side to side as if remembering something. She turned and walked towards the forest and then turned back. Fumbling with the knife at myt belt, I hacked a piece of salmon off and tossed it to her, "good, yes. Good girl." She hovered for a moment, looking for more, but moved on eventually. The salmon ran out long before we arrived, and though Sunny grumbled, she kept walking and walking. And walking. The forest became dense, the path sputtered out and she slunk through the bushes still. A stream became a river to our left and she pushed on, "I know this place." I whispered moments before the forest cleared and the lake spread out before us. She had made a day and a half trip to the shore of the nearest lake in a few hours by some hidden path - if I could mark it... The thoughts ran dry as something bobbed by the shore. A shoe, a womans slipper, and feet away a trail of blood through the snow to a large stone on the bank. A body without an arm, dusted with fresh snowfall, leered from its top.

Rue was a witch, or so everyone said, but the truth was she was more of a healer. Had been more of a healer. Though there was plenty of magic in the world, she had been given a slim share, she said. It seemed she was right about that, for if she had access to more she would have used it to save her life. The body was grey and hard, but the blood pooled on the stone just under her was tacky. It had been a hard, frost-bitten spring; she hadn't been dead long,

"Did you do this?" I asked Sunny, scalp and tongue tingling, but she only blinked her golden brown eyes at me and settled onto the muddy bank with a grumble, "no, you didn't do this." Not just wishful thinking - though animals had clearly been at the body, though Sunny had brought her arm, the cause of her death was clear once her hair was pushed aside. Someone had cut the old healers throat and I prayed that meant she was dead before the rest was done. Arms and legs gone, all gone, along with the eyes and, when I pushed that weathered jaw, her tongue. Alll gone but for the one in the sack. In the tongues place a scrap of vellum, thick and glossy with a single shape inscribed. A swirl with sharp edges, triangles on triangles that worked their way down to a loop with an arrow at the end.

The lake was still, Rue's hut in the distance was dark, but smoke trailed from the chimney still. The windows leered like blackened eyes and there was the sudden sense of being watched. I dropped the arm onto the ground, hissing through my teeth as Sunny tried to creep up and grab it,

"No." I whispered, suddenly too afraid to speak. The forest could hold a thousand sets of eyes and never give them away. I placed the note back into her mouth and backed away, "come on, Sunny," I whispered, but as she tried to turn back clicked my tongue, "no, not that way." Onward to Creele and the royal guards barracks. The air had the scent of darkness, the forest was too quiet. This was no ordinary murder.