Dragon Valley

There never used to be dragons in the valley. Not real ones, anyway. There still aren’t. Just don’t let those idiots who decided they wanted to take over and call themselves dragons hear you say that. Since they moved in and declared themselves The Dragons of Dragon Valley, they will beat anyone who says they are not to unconsciousness. Not enough to reduce their ability to work, just enough that people have stopped pointing out the obvious discrepancies.

First of all, the Valley got its name because some cartographer thought it looked like the shape of a dragon. It kind of does, but there are no real dragons in this area and never were.

Second, while our “Lords” are greedy and violent as dragons have been said to be, they are human. The fact that our valley has only one entrance means that unless one knows where it is, it is virtually impossible to get to. So, if you have a handful of fighters, especially since the natives are a peaceful agrarian group, controlling the valley is easy.

Now don’t get me wrong, we have our share of hotheads who resent these outsiders coming in and taking over our lives. They have been convinced by our elders (and the beatings) that patience will drive these invaders out as it has all others. Should they feel the end of their patience approaching, they go to the caves at the far end of the valley and meditate on their future.

This has always been our way. But ways change.

These so-called dragons have insisted we give them food and service as “tribute” for their protection from the outside world. Nothing new here. What is new is that this group has decided that our young men and women must be presented to them upon reaching the beginning of their maturity. When their bodies begin developing from children to adults.

The male children are then forced to fight for their lives to determine which will be kept and trained as fighters for the invaders. This “Honor” goes against all the ways of our people. Once the young ones are chosen, they are no longer allowed to return to their parents.

The females are evaluated by some inscrutable method and about a third to a half vanish. We later learned that they are taken to the outside world as slaves and sold.

The stealing of our children and forcing them into unnatural activities had become unacceptable. Especially since some of them had already decided on who their life partners would be and were preparing their new homes for when they would remove from their parent’s homes and start a life of their own.

This was leaving some elderly people with no strong helpers and during the cold and lean times. Our people began dying. The wisdom that had kept us to our peaceful way of life was dying instead of being passed on to the next generations.

So the elders went to the caves and held conversation with the ones who had run out of patience. It was decided that, since we had no way to stop these monsters from destroying our lives and people, we must be rid of them. And our valley must be closed to prevent any others from ever coming here again.

For the first part, we would need help. Some of the young men had embraced the weapons and attitudes of our conquerors, although they never forgot the homes and loved ones left behind. We did have contact with them and while none of them would ever be comfortable back in the valley, they agreed that the dragons must go. But they could not do it.

There were soft metals and rocks that would shine if cut right in the walls of the caves. We had learned over the years that many outside our valley prized such things and would do much for them. This was a two-edged sword because we dared not allow the monsters currently infesting our home to know that they were there or we would never rid ourselves of them. This was known.

Still, those living in the caves applied themselves to acquiring the metals and cutting the stones and forming them into accessories to be traded for outside help. It was decided that a party of four elders, six adults and a dozen of the young fighters would venture forth and try to find help.

The elders and the adults would wear as many of the accessories as they could under their clothing to hide them until they were ready to exchange them for whatever they could in the outside world to get us the help we needed.

The fighters were chosen very carefully because we feared that some of them had given in to the dragon’s encouragement and joined with them wholeheartedly. We could not afford to have the plan discovered before it could be put into action.