Kaldera:

Chapter One: Strength in Numbers

A- Badlands

There weren’t always dragons in the valley. There was a time when life was so much simpler back in the days of King Jovana Grace, a man focused on his own royal family and less on a focused rule over his rightfully given lands. The forests were lush and green, the lakes pure and clean, teaming with life. Animals scurried throughout the forest as not only a source of food for the many who inhabited the lands but controlled the populations of invasive plants and rodents brought into the kingdoms via ships at the port. Kudzu from the far eastern lands destroyed many trees, but the hares and boars ate the Kudzu and other grasses and weeds, while the sabre cats ate the boars, and man hunted sabre cats as a source of tradable furs and hides. There were also large deer and wild bovine that roamed the grasslands near the swamps, and the lakes were plentiful with many species of fish. There were the coast lands where the Sulphur Sea provided cuttlefish, shellfish, and shark meat for the lands, but all of that was different now.

The badlands grew bigger after the now dormant Mount Fuego had erupted, and with its platinum-rich crusts and lava beds, it became the home to the nefarious beasts who fed on destruction and ash. It was a good thing the dragons only chose to feast on the burnt flesh of their victims once a moon cycle, but as the populations grew on the side of the demonic beasts, the inhabitants declined of both human and animal throughout the kingdom. Water levels in the lakes diminished, and whole portions of the forests were burnt to cinder and ash. It wasn’t bad enough that the volcano reduced a quarter of the island to cinder and jagged rock, but then the dragons took their place as the real tyrannical rulers of the lands.

Queen Shimmera tried her best to bring down the draconic populations by sending scouts to locate the drakes and destroy them before they were old enough to take to the air or develop breath weapons, but oftentimes doing so brought on the wrath of the dragon mother, the oldest beast inhabiting the lands. Even the magical queen of the forest lands with her armies of Elf and Fae had very little effect on the reduction of their population. With every half a dozen drake killed, another crop of eggs hatched it seemed.

B- Forests

Marla, the Queen of the Fae, did have a plan. In her mind, the plan seemed like a good one. If her elven scouts could locate the nest, harvest several eggs, and care for them when they hatched, she had high hopes that through training and care, the drakes would become powerful allies to the forest dwellers, even provided a mounted elvish army who could fly into the dragon nests and destroy the evil dragons. However, she worried that controlling such powerful beasts could be dangerous, and there was always the possibility of them turning on her subjects when commanded to attack their own kind. It was worth a try, and she was sure she could summon the magic to bind riders with the beasts so they would have no choice but to protect one another. It was a dangerous pairing but necessary for the survival and control during training.

Queen Shimmera was not fond of the idea, as many talks between the queens about such a decision never resolved favorably—and in some ways reduced the level of friendship the two women once shared. Queen Marla, however, was on the verge of making such a decision to raid the nest of its eggs with or without Queen Shimmera’s approval. It was her forests that suffered the most during the cyclic dragon attacks and more and more of her forests were being reduced to ash, and her populations of the forest Fae were dwindling because of it. It was draining on the Fae to rejuvenate the destruction with new saplings, and creating trees with magic also had a price. About a third of the imbued trees became animated creatures that roamed the forests instead of remaining in place as a tree should. These dryads would take the form of women nymphs and would seduce men who hunted the forests, trapping them in a wooden form, and were used as blockades against the dragons almost sacrificially to protect the other trees. The seed they received from these men impregnated the dryads, allowing them to give offspring called hamadryads, who were half man and half oak. Almost a golem-like creature only made of wood instead of clay or iron.

There was no controlling the dryads; they followed no rule of either Fae or queen, and they were almost as much as a nuisance as the dragons when it came to the population cost to mankind in the areas around the forests. They were the first of many magical creatures that were truly neutral with no loyalty to rule, good or evil. The decision was made to not harm the creatures as they only harmed those who made the choice to fall victim to their charms; they never killed out of anger or revenge, and in Queen Marla’s mind, culling their numbers could change that delicate balance, so it was decided they would be left alone if they kept to the forests and had no maliciousness in their spirit.

C-Townships

Sherriff Granger posted signs on both ends of town, warning townsfolk the dangers of the dryad and the unlikeliness that a beautiful naked woman would be roaming the forests with eyes for them, and to not be deceived. Despite the warnings there were many men who fell for the seduction, and like a male mantid, were given the comfort of intimacy for the last time before their bodies were infused with the curse of the Pithy Forest and forever memorialized as a wooden totem at the edge of the forest borders. The population of Gorgana and Middleton fluctuated with every moon cycle, but the boats continued to bring in more folks with the promise of work. Bounty hunters flooded in with the promise to cash in riches of gold and silver for taking down a dragon and offering its head to Queen Shimmera. This once again turned the previously controlled town of Gorgana back into a ruffian city, attracting dregs, highwaymen, thieves, and fortune seekers of every kind to the nearest town from the port.

Grainger’s son Lance was the appointed sheriff of the new and booming town of Middleton that grew from a mere camp along the path to Kaldera Castle and was nestled on the far edge of the Pithy Forest and Clear Lake along the Frio Mountain ranges. It offered ill-prepared travelers the chance to adorn warmer gear for the cold mountain passes and an opportunity to rest at the Clear Lake Inn. Middleton was also safer in its cooler climate from the dragons, which didn’t care for the cold. It made them sluggish and breathing fire less effective. If they could not burn, they had no way to feed or attack, and the beasts knew their survival would be less likely in the cold. Dragons, even young ones, learned very quickly from the death of other dragons that they were strongest in the hotter climate of the badlands. Survival instincts dictated their lives therefore, and they only attacked the forest under the cover of darkness when there was no moon in the sky to reveal their nefarious presence. Granger trusted his loyal son to control Middleton as he was safer there from the draconic attacks, and Granger worried about his inexperience a lot less in Middleton. God knows he had suffered enough over the years—losing a son, the burdens of protecting a town, the strain this all had on his marriage—and he was growing older every day and growing tired of his lot in life.

Arid had his hands full advising his wife, Queen Shimmera, as well as governing the palace and castle grounds. Training camps were on constant rotation to replace losses from the battles against the dragons, and it was getting harder to recruit new men into the armies of the queen. He didn’t want to start going from town to village, taking the sons that come of age against their will. This never worked out well for kingdoms, and the low morale of the recruits made it hard to train them to survive. It didn’t help that he lacked the authority being only the Queen’s Consort, and any official orders that were passed down under advisement still needed Queen Shimmera’s endorsement before it was law. Whether he liked it or not, his position never really changed by marrying the queen, and his burden was to keep falling from the grace of God and letting temptation put him in his place.

Arid longed for the days when he was still King Jovana’s advisor and wondered if he would have succumbed to the temptation of his daughter if he were still alive today. He was always raised that the man was the rule of his household, which clearly that didn’t apply in the house of royalty, and on some days, he regretted his choices to stray from the pious man’s path. He felt more like the queen’s errand boy now than a husband and preferred the days of knighthood to glorified scribe. Although he trained the new troops and taught them how to fight, ride their battle horses, and defensive tactics, he wanted to go out with them to the battles against the dragons. He wanted to seek out Gatlin and try to make a new alliance with him, as he was the only man he knew that had actually tamed and rode a dragon, and he had once been a good friend.

He hadn’t seen Gatlin since that final day in the woods with Bloodgriez. As a matter of fact it had been almost as long since he’d seen either of them, and he always assumed that they were both captivated and tempted by the evil Nightwitch once again, which was where all the dragons were believed to have come from. Arid just wanted to go out into the badlands to see if Gatlin was riding these dragons, training them for battle, and at least try to find the real purpose the beasts were in his back yard posing a constant threat to his kingdom. He always wondered why the beasts never attacked the castle, and always thought it was maybe out of respect that Arid and Gatlin had for each other, even if they were now on opposing sides of the battlefield.

Arid observed the latest regimen of seasoned troops interact with the new recruits and shook his head in disgust at how soft his men had become. He made a conscious effort to don his armor and address his men with what he would hope to be a motivational pep talk, and as he made his way down to the training grounds, his beloved wife called out to him, “You know you are too important to me to meddle with the troops. Come here, husband.”

Arid clenched his eyes shut and clasped up a fist as he stopped and paused for a moment. Slowly he relaxed his stance and turned to face Shimmera. “I was merely going down to give them guidance, my love.”

He felt trapped. Even though this was his loving wife, she still had the power and authority to order him as his queen, and he had watched her change over the years as she became intoxicated with her ruling power. Like a scolded child Arid marched back up the stone steps and followed the queen into her chambers to do her bidding, whether he wanted to or not.