Dragon Fist

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

Holdyn’s voice was quiet in the darkness. The rest of the fist sat still and listened as his low voice reminisced about times before they were all born. He rarely spoke of Before, but when he did, he was always guaranteed a rapt audience.

“I remember when dragons were colorful illustrations in children’s books. They showed up in fiction stories frequently. Usually as wild animals that could breathe fire and fly higher than eagles. They were depicted as cold-blooded egg layers, though sometimes had sentience and the ability to communicate with humans. In one story, I remember dragons could telepathically link with the human mind…”

Amused by such ridiculous stories, Kendal shook her head. No one saw her gesture in the darkness. She did not speak her amusement as she had learned the value of silence. Holdyn only spoke of Before when everyone was silent.

“Before the dragons came,” Holdyn went on, “there was no complete darkness. We had light even at moonless midnight. Light was one of the magics we had that we did not know was magic. Like temperature and speed and distance. But that all changed when the dragons came. We first lost distance and speed, which was claimed by the dragons. Soon, temperature went. Last, we lost light, and had to learn to adjust to the darkness.”

Kendal found the idea of magic light as unrealistic as telepathy with reptilian dragons. Yet Holden had spoken of the light every time he mentioned Before. Kendal had a hard time imagining light that could be carried, embedded in ceilings and walls, or set upon a table. Holdyn spoke of these things as ubiquitous “Before.”

“The Valley was full of people and tall huts—stacked seven and eight huts high!—and rock-hard roads. At that time, fists were not called fists, and they could be any size, could live anywhere. From the bench of the Great Mountains to the base of the Humble Mountains, from the Low Point to the Salt Shores, people spread out across the entire Valley. It was impossible not to see people everywhere we looked.”

His tone became melancholy as he lowered his voice further. “We did not value slumber. We did not respect darkness. We did not comprehend our privileges. So, when the dragons came, we were perfect for them. We were easy. We were destroyed.”

There was a brush of movement in the small room as someone shifted on their hammock. Fidgeting was a normal reaction to the discomfort from talk of destruction. Yet Kendal would have liked to curse at the perpetrator. Holdyn’s voice did not resume his retelling of life Before. His voice faded away, and when the shifting stopped, there was silence in the room. This was a silence so deep that it washed away all the contentment of a long night’s work well-done. It put its ravaging claws into their meager joys and ripped them apart. Fear crawled in its wake.

When Holdyn’s voice returned, it was gruff with authority. “Sleep now. The sun is rising, and we must rest before the desert heat takes hold.” He said “we,” but he would not sleep. Kendal knew he would be on watch first. They could not all sleep at the same time. Slumber was one of the Risks, just like light and noise.

No one argued with Holdyn. His age garnered respect, suggesting he was careful and smart enough to survive in the harsh conditions set by the dragons. Kendal knew he was called Holdyn the Wise by some strangers. No one within this fist would give him such a formal title, of course, but it was out there. It was whispered among other fists, among the travelers and within the fisher fists across the river. There was not a sunrise that Kendal was not grateful to be fisted with Holdyn.

She spoke, her voice little more than a whisper, “May I watch with you, Holdyn?”

He did not answer her right away. The others shifted about, settling into their hammocks and bunks as tendrils of gray light slithered beneath the door. Shadows that had, minutes before, melded with the dark background, began to take shape. Leigh, the youngest in the fist at only seven years old, was already snuggled into her nest of blankets on the floor bunk. Tryp, nearly twelve years old, climbed silently into his hammock near the door. Reid, barely a year older than Kendal, rested in his hammock across the room.

“Come,” Holdyn whispered as he slipped past the curtain at the door. Kendal followed without a sound. When she came through the curtain, he was lifting the latch on the slatted wooden door. More gray dawn leeched in as he pushed the door outward. He had told her once that doors used to open inward, as if welcoming visitors inside. Kendal could hardly believe people used to be so trusting. Their door swung outward, so it could serve to push away anything that tried to get inside. Kendal knew, though, that dragons didn’t need to go through doors.

The gray light of morning was a startling contrast to the darkness of the hut. Kendal seated herself on the bench beside the door as Holdyn pushed the door back into its frame and propped it closed with a rock. He moved silently. His hair was long and unkempt. It had a gray tinge but was still mostly brown. There was not enough light to see the vivid blue of his eyes, but Kendal knew it by heart. Though she rarely had time in the light to look at the other people in her fist, she knew each of them down to their birthmarks and scars.

Holdyn lifted a basket of reeds, brought it over, and set it beside her on the bench. Then he lowered himself to the bench, too. His clothing was made of patches sewn over one another. Kendal’s clothing was the same. The patches served as a colorful clutter rumored to keep dragons away. Also, there was so little cloth that it was unthinkable to make an entire garment from a single piece of fabric. Everything in the fist was equally shared, including cloth of all types. Adding patches to ripped, worn, or soiled clothing was an ongoing task. Kendal had grown several inches upward, and now her trousers showed a stretch of ankle beneath them. She would need to patch them soon.

Reaching into the basket, Kendal pulled out some reeds and set to the silent task of braiding them. Braided strands could be sewn into carrying baskets, packs, or even rough shoes. The fist all went barefoot currently, since they had not been able to find sole leather yet this season. They would be fine until the winter came. But desert winters were brutal this far north. They would need shoes for survival then. Her old shoes would probably patch well for one of the younger kids, but she would need to find sole leather and make a fresh pair for herself.

“Not tired?” Holdyn asked, his voice hushed. Though he needn’t have been this quiet, he always set a good example. Noise was a Risk. Kendal had learned from his example to move and speak with evenness.

“Not yet.”

His hand squeezed her arm gently as he reached for more reeds to braid. “My story caught your fancy, I think.”

She offered him a flash of smile before lowering her eyes back to her task. The work wasn’t easy to see in the pre-dawn light. Fortunately, she knew braiding well.

“I wonder sometimes how much of your stories are your own fancies and how much is honest truth.”

His tone was amused while at the same time scolding, “I never lie to my fist.”

She smiled again but did not laugh. She remembered laughing once. She had a memory of laughter ringing out of her mouth, bubbling up from her belly. In response, she had been tackled and a hand slammed over her mouth. Holdyn had held her in trembling arms, and reminded her in a hoarse whisper, “Noise is a Risk.” What she had learned, though, was that joy was a risk. She did not seek joy anymore. She was wiser now.

“Huts stacked seven high?”

Her skepticism spoke louder than her actual voice. He lifted his eyes and smiled at her once more. “They weren’t huts. They were much stronger. And they did indeed stack up toward the sky. I went to the Ruins once, before you joined the fist, and saw the skeletal remains of a few of them. My own memory of them grows hazy. I can hardly see them in my mind as they were Before.”

Eagerly, Kendal looked into his face. “I heard a traveler once say that Before was full of games and playfulness. Is that what you recall?” There was a bit too much wistfulness in her tone, she knew. Like a child.

He studied her eyes for a moment longer than usual, then dropped his head back to the task of braiding. “Life has always been about survival, Kendal. Survival Before looked a little different than it does now, but it was still survival.”

She lowered her gaze to her work, humbled by his words. It was hard not to imagine everything as better Before. Now was hard. It was full of fear, and silence, and darkness. It lacked joy. More than anything, Kendal wanted to feel joy.

As if he knew her thoughts, Holdyn began humming a tune. Quietly, of course, because he was always quiet. Kendal joined, holding herself to a low harmony with him. Their voices intertwined, braiding themselves together like the strands of reeds in her fingers. The music was unobtrusive, but it filled Kendal’s mind and relaxed her heart. She began to feel the clutches of sleepiness.

Their hymn was broken by a shattering rumble. The sound was like boulders falling, hundreds of them all at once. Their heads jerked up to look beyond the nearby river. Kendal’s breath caught in her throat as she saw the dust fill the air—not a mile away—and something appear in the cloud. What was normally invisible to the human eye took shape. Wings stretched, batlike, several meters across. Kendal froze, staring in horror, as the shape seemed to pivot in the falling dust. She saw the angular head for a moment before she remembered what she’d been taught. She flung herself face down on the ground and covered her head.

Do not look them in the eye. Whatever you do, do not let them see you see them.

Holdyn had taught her that when she had been a tiny child. The only other time she had seen a Dragon’s wingspan was during a heavy rain. She had been mesmerized by the sight until Holdyn had shoved her face into the dirt, hissing at her to shut her eyes and lay still.

Now, she followed those same instructions, her heart pounding in her ears.

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley. It seemed impossible there had ever been a time before the fear. As another thunderous explosion sounded across the river, Kendal trembled from fear. She thought of the familiar fists that lived beside the river. Who had taken a Risk? Who had caught the notice of the dragons? Who had brought them down on the innocent heads of the nearby fists? Kendal did not know anyone by name if they did not live with her, but she knew some by sight. She knew the boy who cared for the sheep. She knew the fisher girls. She knew the child who tended a small garden and would often come near their fist boundary to pick berries from the patch. Kendal heard shrieks in the far distance and knew that at least one fist near the river was paying the price for someone’s negligence.

Holdyn lay prostrate on the ground beside Kendal, breathing raggedly. Another explosion, like rocks being blasted into dust, made him tremble. Kendal reached for his arm, desperate for the comfort of his warmth, desperate to remember she was not alone with the wrath of the dragons. Internally, she was relieved to be out of the line of attack, and also guilty that she was relieved. Someone’s life was over. Someone’s fist was irreparably damaged today. Kendal knew all the signs of the dragons’ displeasure. She knew dust clouds and explosions meant destruction of a fist. It meant death.

A new sound reached Kendal’s ears as she lay clinging to Holdyn. A whine, she thought at first. Then, the sound grew to a howl. A child’s cry. She felt Holdyn stir, and she opened her eyes. He was crawling on his belly toward the open door of the hut. Toward Leigh. She stood in the doorway, staring toward the explosions with wide eyes, tears leaking down her face, dirty blond hair whipping around in the wind.

“I can hear them,” she sobbed. “They’re searching for me.”

Too loud, Kendal realized in horror. The child was crying out loud and pointing toward the distant sky. Kendal saw Holdyn drag the girl to the ground, hushing her, pressing his fingers over the child’s mouth to stifle the sound of her cries. He squeezed his own eyes shut, but not before looking toward the horizon, toward the dragons.

Then Kendal felt the shift in the air. The hairs rose on her arms and the back of her neck. Unable to control herself, she looked toward the river again. There was nothing to see now. No more dust filled the sky. If the dragons were coming, there was no way to see their invisible forms flying through the morning light. Then, out of luck, Kendal managed to see a hint of something. Above the river, as if floating, she saw two shining blue stars. Except night had completely fallen away now, and there were no stars left to be seen in the sky. The blue was too vivid, anyway, to belong to stars. It glistened more strongly than the blue sky behind it; a glow that seared her soul. She heard the word fire in her head, although she knew fire to be orange. Yet the blue crackled and she knew. Dragon eyes. They searched for the sound of the crying child.

Holdyn desperately tried to stifle the girl’s cries. The blue stars glistened, searching and soon locating the child in Holdyn’s arms. A blast of air disturbed the trees near the river, and the blue eyes of the dragon were gone. No, Kendal realized with terror, not gone. Coming.

Kendal moved without thinking. She bounded to her feet and ran. A sound exploded from her mouth. Not screams and shrieks, as those did not come naturally to someone who had trained themselves not to make frightened sounds. She had to force the sound out and make it heard. She sang.

Song was familiar, though it was usually quiet music shared over handiwork, and little more than a hum. Holdyn had taught her many songs over the years, knowing that some soft singing improved industry and made labor more palatable. But what escaped from Kendal’s mouth was not gentle songs like those. She belted the tune she had been singing with Holdyn before the dragons attacked. She sang the words like an anthem, and she ran. All she could think was that she had to get the dragon away from Leigh. Away from Holdyn. Away from the fist.

Not holding back, she made as much noise as she could. She crashed through the brush, belting the tune while flapping her arms and kicking up dust.

She saw the blue stars again. They were closer now.

“Me!” she yelled as she ran. “Find me!”

She felt the stir of the wind, the downstroke of massive wings.

Where is it? It taunts me. Where is it?

The words filled her mind, crashing into her brain. She slammed her hands over her ears to stop the onslaught but found that did nothing. The words crashed into her brain again, forcing out thoughts of Holdyn and Leigh, forcing away the words of the song. She was consumed with the metallic words grating in her mind.

What is she? What is the swirl of her?

Swirls. She looked down at her clothing. She had been taught that dragons were confused and repelled by mixed colors. But the voice in her head did not sound confused. He sounded angry. Her shirt was a tatter of patches whipping around in the wind. Her hair, red as sundown, flew around her head. She was a swirl, a swirl of color.

“I am here!” she yelled, waving her arms as she reached the crest of a hill. She pulled her shirt off and used it as a flag, waving it in the air. “Here!”

She felt the words again, felt the wind again. What is she?

The downbeat of the wings pushed dust into the air, and she saw the outline of a monstrous shape above her. She did not look at it, though. She knew looking at the dragon would make her cower. She looked instead down the hill, back toward the unassuming hut where Holdyn lay wrapped around Leigh. His gaze was filled with horror.

“I am here!” she yelled, her voice raking over the quiet landscape. And then there was something blocking her view of Holdyn. Two sparkling gems of blue. She looked the dragon in the eye, shouting, “Here I am! Here!”

She sees me! The words shattered her focus, and she cried out from the pain of them. Instinctively, she covered her head, as if she could stop the sound of the dragon’s words in her brain. But she answered the dragon.

“Yes!” she yelled. “Yes, I see you!”

It was not strictly true. She saw only the outline of him as the dust settled, and the vivid, shimmering, cutting blue of his eyes. She lied, though, because she sensed he was startled by her.

“I see you! I see you!”

He answered, ferocious words attacking her brain, I see you.

A swirl of color surrounded her as the leaves of nearby trees rained down and dust clouded up. An explosion beneath her feet knocked her down. This is what she had known was coming. She was being killed for the noise and the swirls and the taunts. Tomorrow night, Holdyn would have a silent mourning vigil. Maybe her fist would risk coming to this place to search for a body to bury. Kendal’s body. More likely, her remains would be buried in the dragon’s avalanche of falling rock.

The ground beneath Kendal’s feet was gone in an instant, the hill turned to rubble. Rocks and dirt showered down. But Kendal was above, enclosed in a cage she could not see. She was lifted above it all, dangling over the broken landscape. The ground fell away from her, and she clutched at her invisible cage. She could not grip it. It kept slipping from her consciousness, as if it was only partly in existence. Solid enough, though, that she saw the world beneath her get smaller and smaller. And she knew then that she was airborne. She was held in the tight grip of the dragon. Holdyn and her fist got smaller and smaller as she moved away. She soared upward, her breath coming in gasps as she experienced height and speed simultaneously. She heard nothing but the roar of the wind as giant wings beat the air. She began to feel lightheaded. This was her end, she thought. The dragon would drop her to her death. The last thing she would see was the tiny figure of the only family she had ever known.

“Mine,” she whispered, watching Holdyn’s and Leigh’s intertwined forms become a speck on the retreating landscape. The grip around her tightened, squeezing the air from her lungs. She expected any moment to feel the weightlessness that meant the dragon released her. But it did not come. Her stomach flipped as she changed direction in midair, headed toward the mountains, leaving the Valley behind her.

Mine! The voice in her head declared, and Kendal knew then, that the dragon was not finished with her yet.