Echos of Remuz

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley. Now, one scoured its coarse sand. Her tail, a long coat that swayed side to side below her knees. Way word granules nipped at the face beneath the hood. Her fangs were two blades. One slung at the waist in a timeworn scabbard. The other road along her back in an open sheath. Its bleached steel glinted the rays of the desert sun in a miraculous fashion. Her cerulean eyes carried a living flame that scorched them into a vivid violet. Her tanned skin, smooth as milk glass, was adored in leather and dragon scale battle armor. The crest of her gorget, the steel plate protecting her throat, a symbol of her people, was a monstrous beast blooding a man who screamed into oblivion. She, like that beast, she was a Dragon. She was Hazel Azul.

She lifted a canteen to parched lips. The sweet and satisfying nectar of all life it self, water, flowed onto her tongue. Her throat tightened with soreness from having been starved for hydration. The canteen fell weightless as the last drop gently rolled to the edge and dripped out. The valley was wide, empty, seemingly unyielding. Hazel’s thirst was quenched but would return. It was only a matter of when, not if. She examined the horizon and found only the emptiness of the Argos desert valley. Over a dozen armies of man had tried to cross it before. They had all relented to some form of the Argos’s great power: distance, heat, or dehydration. Yes, the Argos was mighty indeed, she knew that. But none who had crossed it before had been her and she knew that too. She replaced her canteen and carried on.

In the day she would find shade beneath rocks or what middling foliage there was. Once the sun fell from the sky she would begin her march, through the night, and into the early morning. Before her water had run dry, she had been going for seven days. After it ran out, she had endured another three. Hazel subsisted off of nuts and what little game she could stalk. It was never enough yet she went on anyway. Driven by one, single, insatiable desire.

One night she had begun to notice the sudden appearance of more and more small parcels of weed grass. The goal was growing nearer. The Argos was coming to an end, and so she went on. She went on even as her eyes started to narrow against her own will. Even as her steps became a lingering shuffle. Hazel noticed a dune, imposing in height and flecked with low barley, before her. Her muscles felt like they were beginning to melt away. Her vision blurred into a thin haze. She pushed until her eyes narrowed and finally shut. There was a rush of wind and a buckling in her knees. Her chin buried into the sand of the Argos to rest, as so many had before.

As she laid there, relenting to what may be the end of her quest, she found her way back to the lake. Hazel stood atop a small hill just a stones toss from the pristine, unclouded waters that embraced the shore and rippled in gentle rolling waves. The breeze sent strands of her russet hair dancing across her cheeks. She could smell the scent of sweet tree sap and wet moss. A thin cotton dress as blue as a clear sky clung to her young silhouette. The bottom of it had been soaked dark by waters. There it was only her, the warm sun, the soft sand, and…him.

She felt him slip a hand into the small of her back and the other caress her cheek. He brushed a strand of her hair away. They pulled each other close. Hazel rested her head on his chest. His heart beat like a steady drum into her ear. Her own heart matched his. A single tear left a salty stain on her lips. Then, he was gone. She looked out into the lake. The soft beach turned to hard earth. The lake faded into a sea of people, Dragons like her, all clad in their own armors. Her leather coat and armor gorget replaced the gown that once rippled across her skin. She was no longer alone in the Argos desert or at the lake but instead was in the center of a gladiatorial area. Millions shouted her name “HAZEL AZUL! HAZEL AZUL!”

She turned to face her opponent. The man donned in black, with a silver gorget of his own signifying his high rank in the Dragon Army. It was him, the traitor, the bastard, the mutineer.

“Shardock.” She hissed. “SHARDOCK!” He faced her with an evil grin.

“MUTINEER!” she screamed. The sky melted into a sinister combination of hot gold and blood red. Hazel drew her swords. A dual pair of alabaster steel blades. They had an innumerable number of nicks, cuts, chips, and dents from a hundred battles yet their edges still held sharp. They had been the blades of her master, Remuz Darcarion, the Dread Dragon. The hilts were wrapped in fine oak and the pommels were the heads of serpents. She took her stance, feet wide, body low, one blade out front the other lifted overhead.

Shardock drew his blades, equally as white and damaged as her own. He took his stance. His feet wide, body low, one blade out in front the other lifted over head. There was a moment of stillness… then they struck.

Shardock parried her first thrust. He countered with a swing of his left blade, she ducked beneath it and stepped to the side. Now she was below his arms. She swung both blades at his gullet, he stepped back but one cut into the leather hide protecting his stomach. Hazel stood and brought her master’s blades down onto him. Shardock blocked. A burning sensation filled her chest with each exhale, only to be stoked by an inhale. Their swords clashed and clanged. Sparks flew from the impacts. She swung wildly, without control or plan. There was a ding, ding, ding, ding, dinging of the blades. Shardock had once claimed he killed a thousand men, a notable achievement if true. Yet he had never faced her. He had never faced Hazel Azul.

They became like silhouettes, shadows, ghouls facing one another in the evening of a crimson sky. Each of her strikes was more ferocious than the last. She was young, he was old. Soon enough she had overwhelmed him. Shardock thrust forward attempting to give her the end of his blade, instead she took his hand. He reeled back in agony. She seized her chance at taking his other hand with success. After that, Hazel went rabid with her strikes. She cut his legs to ribbons. When he fell to his knees she readied both blades at his neck. The moment she had been waiting for, lusted for, was here. She made for the kill but Shardock vanished, as he had done to her before. Hazel bit her lip as the stadium, the arena, and everything else faded away.

She left that world with one last word. “SHARDOCK!”

She awoke where she had fallen. Ding, she could hear it now. She lifted herself from the sands. Hazel embraced the warmth of the morning sun. After a quick moment of meditation on her desire she focused on the dinging. She fell to all fours like a low reptile upon land then made her way stealthily, up the grassy dune. At this point she was forcing her body to move on nothing but sheer will. The ding became louder, with it she could make out the voices of girls laughing.

“Amulet, don’t stray too far!” a mans’ voice cried.

Hazel Azul stayed low as she reached the crest of the dune. She couldn’t shake the dream she had. Everything she’d wanted was just within her grasp, then gone. Her duel with the mutineer ran again and again in her mind. She knew it was dangerous to lose focus, to let your imagination carry you away when you’re on the precipice of the unknown. Remuz taught her that lesson long ago. One more sudden ding rang from over the dune. Hazel looked up and realized that she had, after all, been carried away. She stared upwards at a lovely yet fragile looking child. Their eyes met and hesitated in an equal measure of astonishment. Hazel thought quickly of the name that man had called.

“Amulet?” Hazel whispered.

Amulet quickly swung around and opened her mouth to scream, to warn the others that a bloodthirsty Dragon was on their doorstep. Hazel, being exhausted but still fast, shot a hand out and clutched the little girl’s ankle. She pulled and Amulet fell to the ground. The impact of her jaw hitting the dirt shut her mouth and kept in the shouts. Hazel pulled her in tight. She placed a hand over little Amulet’s mouth. She struggled in Hazel’s arms. Hazel leaned close to Amulet’s ear.

“Little Amulet,” She spoke softly as the girl struggled to get free, “Little Amulet.” Amulet looked at her, tears beginning to flow. Hazel pressed one gloved finger to her own lips and said “shhhh."