Everard's Tale

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley. This much Prince Haiden knew.

For one, it was warmer than they preferred. The dragons were believed to spend the bulk of their time farther north near the Pruin Peaks. There, the fire that burned in their bellies and coursed through their veins was tempered by the frosted air; the combination was said to keep them at their most comfortable, and most alert. It was also believed that the Valley was confining for the dragons. An expanse of fields, marshes, and low forests surrounded steep slopes was like an enlarged arena –– and while no dragons alive today had ever been forced into combat for sport, they, like men, inherited the horror stories of their ancestors.

In ordinary times, dragons were rare sights. One might be seen from time to time roosting at the Valley’s western end (where the peaks were highest). And one –– a shimmering golden beast the children called “Tiara” –– was fond of circling the skies over Falian Castle whenever she passed south (presumably to hunt one favorite prairie animal or another). For the most part, that was all the people of the Falian Kingdom saw of the dragons. In ordinary times, at least.

These were times of conflict, or at least there were about to be. Prince Haiden had been privy to the knowledge longer than most: The throne in the Atraland had passed to an infant child, and the regent ruling in the child’s stead had an appetite for conquest. Smaller kingdoms had already fallen, and the regent –– Astulus, they called him –– had already turned his attention to Falian. Lookouts had reported swelling ranks overcoming villages with no resistance; Prince Haiden’s father had sent emissaries who never returned.

The armies of the Atraland wouldn’t reach the Valley for several weeks. But the dragons saw what was coming, and so they had arrived –– in a time of conflict, as they’d supposedly done before. And it was the dragons, rather than the gathering army a month’s march away, that had led Prince Haiden and so many others to visit Everard’s this warm, still evening.

“Settle down now. You stop botherin’ Lyssa long enough, I might answer a question or two,” the old soldier rumbled from his seat atop the counter.

Everard was the sort of man who might have grown out of the ground to become what he was. He’d been born in the Valley, raised in an uncle’s tavern, and conscripted to stave off an invasion from united northern tribes when he was only 16 –– the age Prince Haiden was now. Everard had fought alongside Prince Haiden’s father, long before anyone in Falian had uttered the words “King Alien.” The two had become friends and storied warriors at that, and when the battles had ended and Falian Kingdom was rebuilt, Everard had fixed himself a tavern of his own. He lived and worked there still, just inside the outer wall of the Keep, as if he’d always thought that one day it might need his protection again.

The crowd in the tavern quieted some. Everard folded his arms, and the ribbed scars along his forearms flashed in the torchlight. Lyssa looked to him from behind the counter, shining with sweat and smiling slightly, with several mugs in each hand.

“Serve them as you can, dear, they’ll be patient enough with a story in their ears.” Everard turned back to the crowd. He thought it might have been the most people his tavern had sheltered since the last autumn’s trade season, at least. “That’s what you all want, yes? You’ve spotted the beasts in the Valley, and you want me to regale you with tales of dragons past? Eh, soldiers?” He addressed a table of young men in the forest-green tunics of Falian, who raised full mugs in response. “Eh, Prince?” His amber eyes found Prince Haiden near the door; a few men toasted their future ruler, and a few women smiled and lowered their eyes. Prince Haiden smiled and inclined his head.

“Well. I suppose you’re entitled your curiosities,” Everard continued. “And I suppose the most important thing is what they want. Yes?”

A murmur of agreement spread across the tavern.

“If you’ve grown up hearing the same faery tales about dragons that I did, I’ll settle the bulk of your unease now: They’re not after your gold, and they have no bloodlust for men. It’s no accident they leave us alone.”

“What do they want then?” a young man queried from a table near the counter. Everard turned his head to look at the man, and many chuckled.

“Many thanks for your prompt,” Everard joked, not unkindly. “They want what’s left when a war is lost. They want material. The dragons nest and build in their homeland, around the Pruin Peaks. I’m told to see it is to look upon a castle the size of a kingdom –– so vast as to have been built by gods, yet pieced together only with spare stones and broken planks.

“The dragons build, yes, but they do not share our disregard for the world within which they do so. They loathe to tear down trees and refuse to cut boulders; they do not melt snow to free rocks, though they could do so with a puff of breath. Instead they scavenge, and there is no better time to do so than in war. They have little to fear from us, but much to plunder once we’ve finished havin’ at each other.”

The silence that followed was a bewildered one, but Everard cut it off quickly with further explanation. He was not one to build suspense.

“Of course, that is not necessarily their only purpose here. No doubt you’re all aware that dragons fought the last time Falian was under siege, and I’m not here to tell you otherwise. For better or worse… they can be bought.”

“Bought?” The question came from multiple men at once.

“Bought,” Everard nodded. “Not with gold –– not necessarily. Not with anythin’ specific, in fact. They are complex creatures, and each one has its own desires. And much as they disregard us in most matters, they see that we are not without value. In my time, one of the chieftains of the north bribed a dragon with a location –– that of an icy lake filled with fat and delicious fish that could not be hunted anywhere else. The dragon was Dexcidorus.”

A hush fell over the crowd. The name was known, and the destruction the beast had wrought was infamous. Everard nodded slowly as the message sunk in.

“Now,” Everard continued. “You all know the beast was repelled, and the battle was won. Only three dragons fought, and the rest stood by to plunder the tribal camps, as well as the ruins of some of our own outposts. I can only expect the beasts in the Valley are here to play similar roles. And that,” he spread his thick arms, and hopped off his counter, “is truly all I’ve got to say on the subject. Go about your drinks, and worry about the war when it’s here.”

It was a short history, but it had given the crowd plenty to discuss. They returned to their drinks in earnest. Prince Haiden drained his own mug and peered at Everard, who was back behind the counter helping Lyssa serve. The prince stepped through the door into the gentle breeze, and propped himself against the city wall, just out of the torchlight. He withdrew his dagger and a hunk of stout wood and settled into aimless carving, glancing up whenever the tavern door swung open one way or the other.

“Are you so shady a figure now that I’ve got to come and find you in the dark?”

Prince Haiden’s face snapped up, and there was already a grin spreading across it. He hadn’t heard the voice in two years’ time, but he knew it immediately.

“Hello there. I’m Cecilia,” the girl said in mock introduction. She stepped closer, having emerged from the tavern.

“I didn’t realize you’d arrived,” Prince Haiden stepped forward to embrace her. “I should have expected.”

“Yes, well, war is coming. Time for the nobles to hide within your family’s gates,” she said, her eyes amused. “Father and mother wanted to wait, but I gather your mother sent a message urging that we come under protection. Father’s most anxious to see how you’ve grown in two years.”

“You mean he wonders if I’m fit to fight in the battle that comes?”

“Of that we’ve no doubt,” Cecilia almost whispered. “Let us only hope it doesn’t come to fighting dragons. You know Everard,” she glanced back over her shoulder toward the tavern. “Do you think everything he said was true?”

“I do,” Prince Haiden answered. “But I think there’s more he didn’t say, and I mean to find out what it is.”

“Why do you say that?” she frowned.

Prince Haiden hesitated. He wouldn’t have voiced his thoughts to many, but he trusted Cecilia, and always had.

“I’ve looked at those scars for many years, and never believed that a sword could make them. And tonight Everard told that room more than a man would know from observation and battle. Ask yourself how he could have come across most of that knowledge.”

“You think he… met them?”

“I think he must have. I think he met them; I think he’s seen their home. And I don’t think that is a stranger to the old soldiers of Falian.”

He pointed to the sky, and the pair of them looked up to see dark and massive figure streaking across the stars.