Faith and Nine

There weren't always dragons in the Valley. Only the backbreaking affliction of slavery.

Day in and day out, our pickaxes clanged, their sounds competing for dominance with the languid grunts of the men, women, and children who swung them. Our people worked from sunup to sunset, gathering stones and gems, braving rockslides, and unceremoniously dumping our haul into carts, all in our service of the Darnal, our oppressors. All in the shadows of our taskmasters and their vile pets, the nedulsa.

They were the size of a plow horse, with six wings, devilishly glowing eyes, and corrosive spit. If any of us tried escaping, they would take to the sky and hunt us down. They were the sole reason our nation fell to begin with, destroying our weapons and boiling our warriors in their own armor. They mocked us with their fanged grins, and they tormented us with inhuman screeches as we toiled. But they were most dreaded as our executioners.

Any individuals too old, too fatigued, or too sickly to work were killed, fed to the nedulsa. Healthy slaves who did not reach their daily quota would meet a similar end, but slower, beaten first, every bone broken, and then thrown to the beast. It would eat your head and torso last, and sometimes not the head at all, leaving your face to rot and putrefy in the heat like discarded fruit, your last moments of agony visible to passing slaves. And all who saw you knew that one day, maybe not tomorrow or the next, maybe not even years from now in this wretched existence we called a life, but someday...someday, they would share your fate.

You would think that with such a name as the Feya Valley, the region would be plentiful and green, filled with hope and rebirth. And I suppose at one point, it might have been, before the Darnal came and took it all away. Ever since, there was only the mountains, the rock walls, and the dust. There could be no rebirth if you believed the gods were kind. Who would wish to be brought back, if this was all they would live for? But perhaps there was one single aspect of hope, if you could call it thus.

The hope that you would die before the nedulsa reached you.

Some found a way to ensure this. Behind the mountain where we labored churned a steady and powerful river. If you could climb to the top of the rock wall you dug upon, you could tie your anchor rope to a large, loose boulder instead and fling yourself into those liberating waters. You might get lucky and die on impact, or you could relish the few moments of agony as your lungs screamed for air, for you knew the blissful sleep that would follow. This was your last and only act of defiance against those who would have enjoyed prolonging your torment.

And that is what I had planned to do.

Bear in mind, I was sixteen at the time, and rather filled with angst. I had seen my mother die a month ago. She’d slipped on some loose stones and broke her neck. My father carried on as long as he could, until his heart gave out, just that morning. Broken heart, maybe? Though I mourned them, I envied them. They had both escaped. I also was angry at them for leaving me behind. I was tired and alone, and when I saw my chance to end my suffering, I took it.

Some slaves needed someone to clear out a hornets nest, at the top of the cliff which resided above the rocks being mined. If disturbed, the angry insects could swarm and send an entire group of men to their death. It was best to use a long stick to knock it away from a distance. Being small and nimble, they’d believed me the best candidate. So with my trusty tree branch equipped, like a soldier going to battle, I scaled the jagged outcropping to face my vespid foes. Even the Darnal did not want to lose that many workers in one sitting, and so they had agreed to let me go.

But they watched me closely. After so many over the years, a suicide had become a sign of rebellion, and they would plant an arrow in your shoulder if you tried. Then they’d feed you to the nedulsa. I feared that the most. More than death itself.

The nest fell after a few pokes, careening down the other side of the cliff. My eyes followed its descent into the river below. Those white waters beckoned.

I needed to be smart. Pointing up toward another outcropping, I signaled that there was another nest. I knew the glare of the sun would make it impossible for my captors to confirm my story, so they did not shoot me as I pursued my pretend quarry. I moved like I was attacking a target with ardent loyalty, and then I acted like that target had waged an offensive against me. I shrieked and swung my hands, flailing and crying for help. And then, before the bowman could recover from his confusion, I theatrically tripped over the ledge, and fell. As I felt the wind take me, I heard the enraged yells. I smirked, believing I had won.

My plummet to the river and my salvation ended abruptly on solid rock. Unbeknownst to me before I’d jumped, there was an earthen ledge perhaps fifteen feet below, hidden behind a veil of shrubbery that had grown from the rocks. When I’d recovered from the collision, I cursed the offending flat stone that saved me. I was about to jump off even it, when I found myself staring up at two slitted eyes.

I blinked. The creature blinked. We considered each other for a moment. And then we both screamed. I fell back and almost fell off, and the animal ran in the opposite direction, deeper into a hole in the stone. When I’d scrabbled back up, I was struck with a curiosity that compelled me to investigate.

I crawled through the vegetation which draped the entrance, and the area opened up before me. It was a decent cave, big enough to house a family of four, but it held nothing except rock and the balefully growling shadow before me.

The size of a horse, the winged reptile backed itself against the far wall and hissed, catlike. At first, my fear was that I had roused a wild nedulsa from its slumber and I would die to one after all. But something in its eyes was different. Not hateful or murderous like the rest of its brethren. Instead, the monster looked…frightened. Sad, even. Lonely, if you could glean such emotion from a glance. Or perhaps I was projecting onto it my own feelings.

Interestingly, there was also fear. It regarded me like I might kill it. Then I remembered the dried meat I had taken from my father’s rations that morning. As dark as it might sound, he wasn’t going to need it anymore. After eating my own portion, I’d stuffed his in my shirt, where it still sat. This nedulsa, that hadn’t eaten me yet, might decide to keep not eating me if it had already eaten something else.

I could throw decently, but not enough to reach my target outright. The slab dropped halfway between us. The creature regarded me with distrust, then the meat with desire, then back to me, reptilian eyes narrowing as if demanding to know my intention. When I didn’t move, it gave a quick air snap as if to keep me at bay, and then lunged, snatching the ration and slinking back into the shadows to eat it. Gone in seconds, in much the same way I’d seen a nedulsa swallow a man’s leg. Though I couldn’t so easily shake that mental image, the creature before me did not evoke in me such terror. In fact, as I watched it sniff the cave floor for more food, I couldn’t help but pity it. Something so big, yet so helpless struck me as an odd contradiction.

Unlike the nedulsa, which featured broader heads, this entity’s skull was angular. A nedulsa’s tail possessed barbs at its end, used at times to impale or pin a helpless victim. Ask me how I know. But this animal’s tail had no such appendage, just a smooth tip and a line of finlike scales. It also had two wings instead of six. And those wings seemed too small to carry its large body. At the size it was, a nedulsa would be full grown, yet the creature before me wobbled about like a baby. Perhaps it was a genetic defect? Unlikely. A nedulsa would kill any reject before it could grow, and if it had been lucky to survive such a culling, it would have died of starvation long before it reached such a size.

There was…one other possibility.

When I was younger, my parents told stories of flying giants that lived beyond the mountains. These mythical beasts were fabled to have powers that gifted wealth, health, and long life to those who believed. They never went near to our civilizations, and they were never found in the Valley, choosing instead–if they were real–to soar and raise their young in loftier regions outside it.

Was this thing one of them? Why here? Why now? Perhaps the Darnal had destroyed much of the land outside our borders and therefore creatures thought beyond our reach were venturing out to find food elsewhere? If so, then the animal before me was the first of its kind here. It was hungry, which meant either it had lost its parents or been abandoned.

I suppose I felt a kinship to it then.

As I pondered what to do, how to win its trust or if that was even possible, a yell behind me spun me around.

A Darnal had followed me. The taller man was struggling to crawl further in, but the entrance had barely fit even my size, and I was small for my age. The unnamed creature behind me shrieked in panic. If the Darnal succeeded in entering this cave, he would kill not only me. In that moment, I feared this reptile’s pain more than my own.

I noticed a rock deeper in. The beast snapped toward my reaching hand, but didn’t connect, a warning, nothing more. When I backed away and did not use my bludgeon against it, it relaxed somewhat and instead watched me. I returned to the approaching Darnal, who had almost fully entered our space, crawling on his stomach. His hand reached toward his waist and I assumed it would return with a sword.

My rock came down faster. I gave that blow everything I had, aiming for the skull. And when I wasn’t sure if my first attack had done it, I landed two more until I was certain he was dead.

Nerves spent, I collapsed to the floor on my rear. I had just killed a man. I had attacked an individual more important than myself. I had committed not just an act of rebellion, but murder. God, no! If the other Darnal found out….

A high-pitched trilling interrupted my thoughts. The creature had come closer, and it must have possessed some form of sentience to understand I had acted to protect it. It leaned its head against my shoulder, and nuzzled me. “Thank you,” it seemed to say in its cooing.

Tentatively, so as not to scare it, I touched its face. The scales beneath my fingertips felt silky, not coarse. Its eyes bore a juvenile innocence that I never thought possible in a beast.

And in that moment, my heart felt a stirring for this creature. My pulse beat with a need to help it survive. But that meant returning to my enslavement. And it meant not dying like I’d wanted.

This creature had damned me, and saved me, with one action.

I had a purpose now. I had a reason to keep going. I smiled and dragged the dead Darnal into the cave. As my new friend considered my offering, I tilted my head and set a finger to my chin in thought. “Now what to call you,” I pondered. My words came out in the Darnal tongue, and it sickened me, but for years I had been conditioned to speak it first before my own language, the language of the Shay.

I considered that matter as I watched the animal eat. Some of the elder slaves had taught me words from our heritage. They had been passed down orally through stories that other slaves had risked their lives to tell in secret. Some of us tried hard to retain what we had lost in our once prosperous country of Reun.

And we had lost a lot. For starters, it was no longer called Reun. It was called Geisan, or "Dominion" in the language of the Darnal. My peoples’ culture had been stamped out, and nothing, not even the naming of places, could have our influence. It was one of the many ways the Darnal reminded us of our hopelessness. We were a people without even a land.

I looked at the tattoo on the back of my hand. The Darnal number for one million twenty-six, the designation given me. Even our own names had no value to us. Any books from a time before our defeat were burned–not that any of us could read to understand them anyway. A number and a wealth of blisters made up every Shay slave. If we were lucky, that was all we had. I saw some of the Darnal whip people for smiling, because yes, our captors could take away even that.

I lowered my hand and gritted my teeth. I hadn’t realized how important it was to retain our heritage. I had always been a cynic, accepting there was nothing we could do to change our situation. But now, the desire to fight and defy became a stronger force within me, creating some new existence for myself. Perhaps rebirth really could happen in Feya Valley.

“I’ll keep feeding you, Fin,” I said, in my language. I decided the name fit because of his scales. "Don't forget me. But never come find me."

Unsure if Fin understood, I climbed back over the cliff and back to my captors. The other Darnal, confused that I’d returned at all and that I would come willingly, held back on whatever cruel punishment they’d planned for me. I arrived shirtless, claiming I had lost it in the fall. Not entirely a lie. I instead had left it at the cave entrance, tied to a branch above it, marking the ledge so that I might know where to aim my meat rations in the future.

I was subtle about it. I chose the dangerous missions to the top and when the Darnal realized I didn’t desire to jump, there was no need to aim their bow my way. As long as I did my work and descended back to my hovel for rest, they had no need to make an example of me, which saved them on arrows, which saved them on money, I suppose. My oppressors were at least practical.

But they were also quizzical. They regarded me with the same curiosity a child has for a new species of bug. To them, I was an anomaly. I was perhaps the only slave who had, after receiving a taste of freedom, opted for imprisonment. They believed me insane. And an insane slave had nothing to lose. Even the taskmasters, with their arrogant attitudes and desire to break spirits, would lose their swagger and step to the other side of the path when I’d walk by.

For a week, this went on, me eating only a portion of my ration and performing a full day’s work on half my needed intake. The other half went to my companion, who I feared was still not getting enough food to substantiate his larger body. The dead Darnal I'd left him would have been a feast, but surely that would have been all used up by now.

I knew I could not keep my secret to myself. If Fin was to survive, it would take a village to raise him.

I started with those I knew would keep my secret, those with an inner longing to fight the ones that owned us. As expected, when I told them of my find and confirmed that the myths were true, they jumped at the chance to help.

Their rations, at least part of them, joined the offering pool.

Days later, those people told other people whom they trusted, and before I knew it, my trousers hid enough meat to feed an army, or at least one hungry baby monster.

Months passed. More Shay dropped offerings. To them, Fin had become a god, a being that could solve their problems. Some began tossing the meat with uttered prayers. I did not see Fin at all during this time, and I began to worry that he had in fact died despite our efforts. But the other Shay with me clung to that faith that he existed. He existed and would one day appear to liberate us. I hoped that day never came, for I knew if Fin ever showed himself, the Darnal would surely kill him.

Our masters had seen a change in their once soulless servants. And they did not like it. They regarded me with disdain. They must have believed that I had sparked something in the people somehow, for their conversations would revolve around the improvement of slave morale, and what to do about it.

The morning they dragged me from my hovel and threw me down before their leader, however, must have been the day they finally figured that out. The Darnal emperor had traveled all this way just to see me. I should have felt honored. As he sat upon his cushioned seat, his narrow face and pointed nose regarded me with smug malice. Armed men around him awaited his order like obedient dogs. He spoke his wicked Darnal words before the gathered slaves.

“I hear from my men you believe your kind is deserving of hope. To what god do you pray?”

No one answered.

The emperor then glanced at me and waved one of his men to bring me closer. I was unceremoniously hauled to my feet, and then pushed to my knees, forced to look subservient before him. He placed a hand on the top of my head as if anointing me.

“The Darnal have but one god,” he continued. “Their emperor. As such, I am tasked to cleanse this nation of those who would defy me. Your hopes, your faith, your desires to rebel, all fall at my feet and are devoured by my divine beasts.”

He produced a dagger from the folds of his ornate white cloak. I could see the gems encrusted on the hilt, and the dried blood on the blade. My heart quickened.

“This boy, your inspiration, is no god.” The emperor spat my designation as if condemning it. “Even his name is cursed. When the numbers in his name are added together, they equal to the number nine.” He twirled the dagger idly. “Nine. How quaint. In your culture, it means an end to a cycle.”

The other slaves whimpered amongst themselves. Those who bowed their heads to pray were the first to be stabbed. I remembered crying with them as they dropped, faithful to the end, clinging to a religion that would not save them. I snarled at the others to leave me, let me alone to my fate. I had brought it upon myself, after all. I had dared to hope.

The emperor called his guards back and the stabbing stopped. For a moment I thought he might release me, for he had made his point that I had no power over him.

But he instead drove the dagger into my gut.

The shock hit me first. The agony next. I gasped and stared downward.

I felt another bite of searing pain as he ripped the blade free and tossed it aside. I fell forward, my legs no longer supporting me. He grabbed my hair, and he dangled me before my people. "Here is your savior!” he taunted. “Watch his light fade! See how he dies!” He then released me, letting me drop to my side. “He is no god,” I heard him jeer as my world and my sky tunneled. “He is no hero. He will not save you!”

The wails of the other slaves became a distant hum as all sounds and thoughts congealed into one. My strength, my life, and my spirit began to seep from me as surely as my blood. As everything began to fade, I thought I saw, for but an instant, a shadow stretching over the lip of the Valley’s rocky wall. Nothingness took me next.

And then, warmth. A voice spoke in my head, in a language I did not understand, but one I knew I could trust. Its benevolence carried me from oblivion's clutches. Regaining consciousness, I realized I had no more pain. No more bleeding. I was alive, and I was, somehow, completely healed.

Opening my eyes, I looked into the slitted pupils of a much larger angular face. So massive, in fact, I could not see his other eye simply by looking forward. “Fin?”

My companion, huge as fifty horses, bellowed in affirmation.

The other slaves, those who had been stabbed before me, also rose, falteringly, and then dropped to their knees in gratitude. “Dragon,” they chanted. In the language of the Shay, it meant Hope Bringer. And it very well seemed like he was.

But why heal us? The words of my parents flowed back to me. Fin was a creature from the stories, and as such, he had brought gifts to those who believed. But were we worthy to achieve a second chance? I can assume that it wasn’t just our combined rations that had saved him, either. His gargantuan size would never be sustained on the paltry handouts we’d tossed down alone.

But perhaps we had given him the time he'd needed until his wings could grow. Time. He repaid us with the same. The time to make it right. The chance to be free.

Yells from behind us. I turned to see the Darnal emperor and his men. They must have fled a safe distance when Fin landed. Realizing now that this monster was just another oversized beast, the leader of our enemy unleashed his nedulsa against him. They came at Fin as one, a massive herd of teeth, claws, and screeches. I picked up the dagger the emperor had tossed, and I readied for the fight, but Fin swatted me away with one of his giant wings, casting me aside just before the monsters impacted him. Helplessly, I watched my companion being ripped at and gouged, bitten and torn, and I seethed at the laughter from those behind me.

The emperor and his men were watching the fight. Fin took to the air in an effort to escape, and the spectators’ attention followed. Why did the Darnal not go after me instead? Perhaps they had not noticed my return from the brink of death? Fin’s body must have hidden me when he’d touched down. The dragon had indeed given us all a gift, perhaps even a rebirth. I vowed right there that I would not squander it.

Bearing the dagger, I snuck toward the distracted Darnal, and I plunged the blade deep into the emperor’s heart. As their supposed god dropped to his knees, I looked down at him.

“My name is Nine,” I snarled in my Shay tongue. “I am an end to a cycle. Your end. Your cycle.”

As I yanked the blade free and watched the light fade from his eyes, I braced for the steely retribution bound to follow.

But it didn’t. Instead, I heard the clanging of metal. The sound of swords and bows dropping. The Darnal warriors and taskmasters stared in terror. And then I understood why. They had seen me, a simple mortal, rise from the dead to slay their deified champion. To them, that could mean only one thing: I was a god. I saw my opportunity. If they wanted to see me as a divine being, then I would demand their compliance like one.

“Call off your nedulsa,” I boomed, deep as my young voice could allow. “Take your men, and your people, and leave this country! If you return, I will take the life of the next emperor you crown!”

They didn’t hesitate to obey. The winged demons returned to their masters, and shortly after, bore them from the area entirely. Any warriors left without a mount simply ran as fast as their feet could carry them. The exodus of our enslavers began.

But it did not come without cost.

When my anger abated and I regained my sense of concern, it first went to Fin. We all watched as our dragon fell, crashing to the ground with an impact that shook our faith. The majestic giant writhed. His body bloodied and ravaged, his wings broken from the crash, he struggled to stand, but couldn’t. I knew the truth. My friend was dying. He had come when I'd told him to stay away. He had given everything for us,

I found myself going to him, leaning my head against his heaving chest. “I’m sorry,” I whispered, choking back tears. “I should have never told anyone about you.”

Fin’s wings curled over me, embracing me. Perhaps he was sorry too? Or perhaps...he was saying goodbye.

The other slaves were gathering. One by one, they moved to me. A sea of believers swarmed us, placing their hands on Fin, and if they could not touch him outright, they lay their palms on the person before them. In unison, they chanted, and they bowed their heads. I watched, in awe of their zeal. They still believed he was their Hope Bringer. Unlike the Darnal, who lost faith when their god fell, the Shay seemed to gain more determination to keep their faith when all seemed lost. Was this what it meant to believe? Was this the true power of a people that had for centuries nothing to believe in?

And then their bodies began to glow. The light flowed like ripples on a pond, except in reverse, moving from the outermost person to the center, to Fin. I gaped in wonderment as the dragon’s wounds began to close. "How….?"

“You do not know your heritage, Nine.” An elder Shay smiled, enjoying the name I’d chosen for myself. “Your people have always had magic. But without hope, without purpose, they could not use it.”

That day, I witnessed two miracles. First, the salvation that one abandoned baby could bring to a nation. The second was the extent of a peoples’ inner power, once they’d freed their hearts to recognize it.

Fin stuck around for many months. He helped us rebuild. Then he returned to his own kind, beyond our borders.

That was eight years ago.

Feya Valley now has villages and happiness. Green grass and lush trees. But the Darnal have returned, their arrival confirmed just this morning. They claim to have found a way to combat our magic. The late emperor's son, now emperor himself, demands I face him, or he will burn Reun to the ground. If I can stop another war with one more death, then so be it.

I will end this entry here. As I ride to what may be my last breath, I regret nothing. Within me burns hope that my name may hold the same power it did before. Fin, wherever you are, please watch over my little girl. Malia, may you grow up strong and free.

...I must have faith you both can forgive me.