Last Words, Long Shadows

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley. The hills had been prolific then, covered in vast legions of spruce, fir, and red cedar; creeks flowed, throwing up fine mists into the air that drifted like curtains in the breeze, and with each breath one partook in the venerable strength of mountains.

When there were dragons in the Valley, all had come to ruin. They’d torn labyrinthine tunnels into the earth, leaving the land scarred, deformed, and dead; nothing flourished here but engines of destruction, as the dragons bred in the dark places they’d created. The vile reek of sulfur clouds choked the life from the air, driving away the birds and poisoning the fine mists.

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley.

And there never would be again.

The ragged man who ostensibly called himself “Quilt” leaned heavily on his staff as he crested the hill, a small smile creasing his features as he drew near its summit. The sun had begun a lazy descent towards the horizon, bathing the world in a golden, muggy heat. Looking out over the Valley, Quilt was impressed by how well the land had recovered. Lupines, blackberry, and fireweed formed a surging sea of white and purple, stirred by a soft westerly breeze that carried the heady scents of mixed pollen and petrichor. Higher still, the stubborn suggestions of a returning forest waved at him from the knees of the mountains, each tree no higher than his waist. Damp clung to the hem of his robes and chilled his sandalled feet— but he wanted to feel the land passing beneath him.

No birdsong yet graced the wound-sore Valley, but the alarmed whistles of watchful marmots rang from the hills in its place, and the steady hum of bees formed a rich bed of sound beneath it. Quilt slowed, watching a pollen-heavy bumble make its way down into the rusting ruin of a lost helmet, disappearing into an eye slit with its precious cargo. The echoing drone emanating within the helm’s hollows suggested the bee was far from alone in there.

Stepping carefully around the hive, Quilt turned his attention back to the path. The gnarled oaken staff in his hands bore a spidery script burned into its length, a weaving that spoke of the mysteries of the Gods, and once they’d glowed as such with starlike beauty.

Much like the man who carried them, the words hadn’t held power in many years.

Rising from the hilltop was an array of sickle-like edifices that towered over the earth, each bone-pallid and ending in jagged splinters that cried a violent end. They were ribs, belonging to a calamity of astounding scale, a cage broken and buried in the dirt with only these fragments standing in monument to the terror that once dwelled here.

Laboured breaths troubled him as he finally crested the hill, his staff doing more to keep him upright than his own knobby knees. Sweat beaded on his hairless brow, and ran down his neck beneath his beard, soaking the collar of his sun-greyed robes that still remembered a time when they were black. He paused only when he fell under the shadow of the dragon’s bones, relishing the cool shade. A slick green film stained the bones’ undersides, smelling of mildew, while the outer crests facing sunward had a bleached, pock-marked roughness to them. Each rib bore ivy-like scars that cut deep into the bone, running saw-toothed up their lengths. Quilt had to crane his neck to follow their curvature end to end.

Quilt set a weathered hand against the dragon bone closest to him, tracing the cuts in its surface with one chestnut brown finger. Sorrow tugged at the corners of his smile, and he heaved a sigh. “Hello old foe,” he said, giving the dragon bone a flick. “It has been a terribly long time, hasn’t it?”

Setting his back to the edifice, Quilt slid down onto his rump with a groan, shifting until he had himself settled nicely with a view looking down the Valley. Other hills bore their own dragon bone crowns, but none so formidable as those shading him.

“You’ve done rather well for yourself,” Quilt said as he set his staff down onto a heap of leafy pinegrass, the stuff flecking the hilltop in lush, springy tufts. “A whole marmot village has taken up residence in what used to be your innards, no doubt having a grand of it time too. A rather quaint end, considering they once called you ‘Sire of the Apocalypse.’”

Quilt shook his head. “Those were simpler times, Nauram. You were a distinct and significant threat to us all… not much “grey morality” in a dragon horde burning up the land, kingdom by kingdom. It was a fight for survival, and the realm’s rulers were eager for victory, whatever the cost.

“It still took me three lives trying to end you. Two of those you took yourself.” Quilt shivered, remembering the brief-yet-vivid horror of being bisected by a single swipe of Nauram’s red hand. “And you nearly got me again anyway, at the very end. It took all my power, down to the last drop, to keep us alive when you and yours descended on us like a hammer from the Gods.”

Quilt closed his eyes and saw the hot flash of raw fire pouring from a crimson sky. He heard the thunder of wings, loud enough to rattle his teeth, each beat sending furnace-hot gusts of wind raking over his flesh. He remembered the thrill of it. Of having everything decided by that one cast, their desperate need to survive the first onslaught while the dragons were strong and unified; before the arrows flew and the dragons at last tasted swift death, the earth shuddering as they surrendered the skies and broke, one by one.

Victory could be such an ugly thing.

When Quilt opened his eyes again, he looked down at his hands, the wear of a lifetime etched into his leathery palms. “Hydra’s venom on the arrows, and a little sorcery. It’s sad that in the end, that’s all it took to beat you. I threw all the heat from your fires into the nearest ocean… thought myself quite clever too, until I found out that three villages were washed away in the rain from the resulting steam cloud. I was powerful then, Nauram. Now… I can’t so much as turn bread into toast.”

The marmot calls were fading, the little creatures either losing interest or simply forgetting that he was still here. Not that he would be bothering them much longer, either way. He checked the sun’s progress.

Soon, I think. They won’t hesitate once they figure out where I am.

“Of course, it was the boy who struck you down. We forged enough power into that accursed lance of his to end a nation. And still it was a near thing— if Hadrian had missed his mark, it’d be you chatting up my bones right now. But Gáen-Bolgia struck true, and down you went.” Quilt recalled the terrible wound the ensorcelled lance had wrought— a black, bloodless thing that cleft a cavernous track through Nauram’s great chest, while steel barbs threaded his body like a malignant ivy. He winced. “Yours was a harder death than I would have liked, ‘Sire of the Apocalypse’ or not. But we had only one chance.”

He looked over his shoulder, addressing the scarred bones directly. “And I regret it. I regret all of it. The victory was yours. You should have burned our whole world to cinders, just as you’d promised to. Better that, than what I’m leaving behind.”

A spasm in his neck forced him to turn away, and grief formed a catch in his throat as he carried on. He knew this confession was absurd, spoken to the remains of a foe so long contended that he was nearly a friend.

But it was all he had.

“You even warned me. Hadrian and I stood by once the battle had ended, and you were long in dying. I actually thought you were praising him, but now… you knew what he was, didn’t you?”

A massive serpentine eye stared back at him from the dark folds of memory, unblinking, despite the terrible agony piercing its body. Orange, threaded with veins, and slit by a jet-black pupil, like a canyon running through rust-red sands.

He heard Nauram’s voice, dry as grinding stone: This boy is a dragon in the skin of a man.

He pushed the memory away. This was hard enough, without getting lost at every turn. “I thought defeating you would be the last terrible deed of my lifetimes. But this…” He choked, tears blurring his vision. “I keep telling myself it had to be done. But why… why did it have to be me? He trusted me like a father. He brought peace to the realm, just as I’d hoped he would. To have it all end like this…”

He lowered his head into his hands and let out a sob. If there is any consolation here, it’s that this is my final life. I’m finished now… twelve lifetimes in service to the realm, as dictated by the One. But what a bitter farewell!

A crack of thunder sounded in the Valley below. Quilt raised his head in time to see the air warp, and six riders shot into view as if from nowhere, grey cloaks streaming in the wind as they galloped towards him.

Unwise, riding blind through a Gateway—

Quilt barely had time to grimace before the lead rider went down, his mount’s leg dipping into a marmot hole, twisting and breaking with a sharp crack, the violence of the motion hurling the rider from the saddle to crash hard into the grassy hillside. The other riders sawed at the reins and pulled their mounts up short, while the horrific braying notes of equine screams jolted the once-peaceful air and set Quilt’s teeth on edge.

The riders dismounted. Two made for their fallen leader, while another edged his way towards the thrashing horse. Quilt could just make out the flash of a dagger in his hand, and then with a swift plunging motion the screams ceased. A shocked silence returned to the Valley, save for the drone of bees.

Quilt dried his eyes and waited, watching the figures bear their leader up, while the rest led their horses on foot towards him. Each figure wore brigandines over mail, marked with the white dragon skull of Hadrian’s army, and full-faced helms with the visors down, the steel blackened without gleam. Stiff blue trousers and tall boots clad their legs, and each carried a longbow with a quiver full of black-fletched arrows, long daggers sheathed at their sides. Quilt almost smiled when he saw them: funny, how the necessities of a single battle could become the symbols of an entire nation.

When the soldiers finally joined him atop the hill, those not assisting their leader fanned out in a semicircle, letting go of their reins to notch arrows into their bowstrings— not drawing, but by the set of their shoulders he knew they would shoot without hesitation. Their leader struggled onward, right leg dragging, while his arm on the same side hung limp, and he finally stopped to shrug away his companions’ support. He tore off his helm one-handed, and Quilt’s eyes widened, recognizing the mess of dark brown hair plastered to the forehead, the angry blue eyes beneath, and the pain-laden snarl in the woman’s face, her figure disguised by the bulk of her armor.

“Aeran—”

He half-rose, only to duck with a curse as she threw her helmet at him with such violence that it chipped the dragon bone where his head had been, striking hard with a metallic bang and tumbling off into the grass. The bone didn’t so much as shiver, but a sprinkle of dust drifted down from above before the breeze sucked it away.

Aeran almost toppled from the force of her own throw and needed help from the two soldiers nearby to right herself. “That was my best horse!” she shouted, jabbing a gloved finger at him. “She and I had survived all of this—” she gestured broadly around her, “and every battle that followed in making Hadrian’s Peace, all for what? So some gopher hole could end it all? Why, Quilt? Why did you do it?”

Quilt tried to rise, but a warning growl from one of the soldiers stilled him. He lifted a placating hand. “I’m sorry Aeran.” And not just for the horse.

Aeran sucked back a steadying breath, and her voice lost some of its edge as she looked around the Valley more closely, its verdant splendor evidently catching her off guard. “And why here of all places? Feeling sentimental?”

“Wouldn’t you?” he replied. “This is where it all began. And where it could have ended, had things gone differently.”

Aeran’s pain-laden eyes roamed the dragon bone spire at Quilt’s back, and a joyless smile touched her lips. “Yes. I suppose there is a certain… symmetry. He’ll be pleased.”

Quilt’s heart lurched, and the sweat on his brow suddenly felt like ice against his skin. “Hadrian is alive?”

“He is. You came close, High Chancellor, but it wasn’t enough.”

“I spent every coin I had,” Quilt said, swallowing a rush of sickness. “The Ashlund Vipers are the best there is— I bought the entire guild—”

“And now they’re dead,” Aeran said with shrug. “Rather, those that live are now sworn to him. It’s over.”

No. A hollow ringing filled his ears, and his hands wouldn’t stop shaking.

“What did you expect?” Aeran asked. “You plucked up a boy from the street, liberated him from poverty, and whispered words like prophecy, destiny, and power into his ear. You pressed him into a hero, fit for battle against your enemies, believing… what? That once Nauram fell, this man wielding the treasures of seven nations would march out of here, with the most powerful army in the realm at his back, and simply retire?”

“I wanted peace,” Quilt said. His eyes searched hers, hoping for a glimmer of compassion. “I didn’t think that—”

“You raised a monster,” Aeran said. The soldiers gave her sideways glances, but their expressions were unreadable behind their helms.

Quilt sank down into himself, resignation leeching away his strength. “No. The only monster here is me. Give the order, Aeran.”

“I can’t do that.” She grimaced, shoulders tensing. “He’ll give the order himself.”

A chill crept into the air, as if the sun had passed behind a heavy cloud— but it shone on in the blue-gold expanse unhindered. All sound in the Valley died, even the drone of bees, and a grave silence dripped like venom in the ear. The horses shied, and the soldiers had to grab for their reins before they bolted. Quilt shrank back against the dragon’s bones in a rising panic, his body screaming at him to get away.

“He’s here,” Aeran whispered. She suddenly dropped to the ground as if struck, her body wracked by convulsions. She clawed the grass like a beast, a wet retching sound coming from the back of her throat, rising into a low and guttural moan. The soldiers retreated a step, but like Quilt they could only watch as Aeran retook her feet in awkward lurches. She rose to her full height, heedless of her crippled leg, the motions sickening to behold. All color had drained from her face, and blood ran from her nose in a steady stream, spilling over her lips to drip from her chin.

Taking up his staff, Quilt pulled himself up as well, ignoring the warning cries from the soldiers. “Hadrian,” he said, meeting Aeran’s sunken eyes— which regarded him in turn with a detached and foreign gleam. “You would use the Godhand on your own friends now? Aeran deserves better from you.”

“What do I deserve from you?” Aeran’s voice bore a new cadence, with intonations coming from deeper in her chest. “Knives in the dark? To die cruelly in my sleep, as you intended?”

“Yes.”

Behind Aeran’s eyes, Hadrian flinched.

“What was I supposed to do, boy? What choice did you leave me? I didn’t agree to be your High Chancellor just to stand by while you sow chaos.”

A crimson smile peeled Aeran’s lips away from her teeth, the blood from her nose still flowing. “Chaos? I have delivered quite the opposite old friend.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I delivered the rich to the poor. I offered them the necks of their oppressors, and the noose to hang them with. Generations of frustration and want, freed to avail themselves as they pleased. And once it was done, I awarded them all the pleasures they once lacked, making each a king of their own worlds.”

Quilt gaped. “At what price? The dragons themselves claimed fewer lives than your mob.”

“Price... nothing but a little blood, and food, and wine. Nothing but easy sex, free music, and the sweet taste of victory over their enemies— they sold me their lives for a pittance. They will drown in their desires and love me for it all the while.”

“Is that what all of this is for? So you can be loved?”

“All of this is so I can rule. They would surrender it all to me, every difficult choice, provided their pleasures endure. And I will use that to forge a peace never seen. No more wars, Quilt. No more infighting, or petty squabbles over resources.”

With terrible jerking steps that shook Aeran’s whole body, Hadrian forced her to stagger forward— Quilt almost screamed, glancing again and again in disbelief at her wounded leg and knowing what harm the brutal motions must be doing. “Those that survived the slaughter,” he sneered, “they are mine now. Yours was the gift of twelve lives, but I will do more than you ever dared with only one.”

A nearby soldier lifted his hand and stepped forward, moving to grab her arm, only to hesitate at the last moment. “My Lord, please. Don’t approach him— the High Chancellor is still dangerous.”

Hadrian laughed, sparing him an amused glance. “Your concern is unnecessary. He won’t hurt me. Not like this.” The man lowered his arm, backing away, while his liege shambled forward.

Quilt stood his ground, having little other choice with the dragon bone spire at his back. “You intend to strip them of their humanity. Generations of this will turn them into animals, Hadrian.”

“When a dog bites whatever it wants, you beat it. When a dog bites what you want, you feed it. I am raising… wolves.”

“This can’t be sustained.”

“It doesn’t have to. My world dies with me. The rest will carry on in my wake, living and dying as they are able, but that’s not my concern. In all their days, they will never forget me.”

Quilt gripped his staff so tightly that the wood groaned beneath his grip. “I should never have taken you—”

Hadrian lunged forward, seizing Quilt by the front with Aeran’s good hand and pulling him off balance. Startled, Quilt tried to break the iron grip, dropping his staff in the process; as soon as it hit the ground, Hadrian drew the knife on Aeran’s hip— her arm eliciting a wet creak as he forced the broken limb to move— and stabbed Quilt in the stomach.

Immediately released, Quilt dropped to the ground, curling up around the wound as hot pain roared through his guts. He gasped, panic pumping hard on his lungs, but each surge of breath brought new pains that threatened to steal his consciousness. He could see nothing but the dirt and pinegrass around his head, blurred by tears, and a distant brown smudge that might have been Aeran’s boot.

Her voice bore down on him from above, but processing her words was difficult. “Taking me in was the only thing you ever did right,” Hadrian said. “You’ve saved this world, Quilt… whether you wanted to, or not.”

Quilt felt an impact through the dirt pressed against his face, and he blearily looked up into Aeran’s pain-wracked face, laying on the ground next to him. The suffering in her eyes was genuine, her mouth full of bloody teeth twisted into a scream— she was master of her own body once again.

For a time, all either of them could do was give voice to their terrible hurts together.

But pain was not the end. A numb warmth steadily suffused Quilt’s body, radiating outward from the wound. Soon it hardly pained him at all— astonished, he looked down, but the blood kept coming, and he knew it was fatal.

But where has the pain gone?

He pushed himself upright, eyes roving the landscape in a daze. The green of the hills shocked his senses like a cold splash, the bright flowering plants a dreamy mist of swirling color. A soldier knelt next to Aeran, helping her sit up before attempting to bind her injured limbs that Hadrian had so cruelly treated.

Aeran spat, flecking the grass with red dew, and wiped her chin across the back of her hand. The soldier managed to get her arm into a crude sling, fashioned from strips cut from his own cloak, and he handed her a rolled leaf from a pouch on her belt— lotus, if Quilt had to guess. Chewing deliberately, and after several visible swallows, Aeran spoke. “Secure the perimeter, and ready the horses. We ride as soon as I watch the light leave his eyes— the Lord General will want it confirmed.”

“He lost his hold,” Aeran said as Quilt propped himself up against the dragon’s bones with the last of his strength, the soldier moving out of earshot. “Too weak even to watch. You came so close…” She saw the unspoken question in his eyes and offered him a sad smile. “Hydra’s venom. It was the only mercy I could give you that would escape his notice. I’m sorry.”

Quilt nearly laughed. Oh, how fitting. “He could have chosen any of them,” he whispered, looking between her soldiers. “But he used you.”

“The Godhand is hard enough to control even with a willing host,” she said. “Our familiarity made it easier, weak as he is.” She hesitated. “He uses me as he pleases.”

Oh Aeran. He didn’t insult her by saying it aloud.

“Was there any way we could have known?” she asked him, a desperate longing heaped upon each word. “Any way at all?”

Quilt grimaced. A great weight settled upon his chest, and each breath took an enormous amount of his fast-fading energy. “There were no signs.” He stumbled over his words, blinking hard in the fight to keep his eyes open.

“He told me once, long after Nauram’s fall, that he threw his own brother down a well. Quilt, there had to be something—”

“No. No signs.” The boy had always been aloof, but not cold. Ruthless, like suggesting the hydra’s venom for their arrows, but never cruel. Intense. Watchful.

I didn’t raise a monster.

I couldn’t have.

“Even if there were signs,” he croaked, “I loved him, Aeran. I loved that boy. You… of all people… can understand that.”

She flinched. “Yes. I suppose I can. But you don’t have to live with the consequences of that.” Her hand drifted towards her stomach, eyes distant, looking inward, but when she noticed what she was doing her hand flew away.

Quilt pretended not to notice. It was easy to do— the dark was coming fast now. His head slipped down onto his chest. It had become such a heavy thing.

Nothing left now but a patchwork man, he thought. Twelve tiles stitched together in one bloody cloth.

Twelve lives spent. Twelve lives of labor, as dictated by the One.

When did time get so short?

He drifted, nearly lost, when a stab of adrenaline shot through his body— the last gasp of a body still desperate to live.

His eyes flew open, and he sucked down a shuddering lungful of sweet air, violent enough to make Aeran recoil and her soldiers reflexively reach for their weapons in alarm.

Quilt took two more deep breaths, seizing hold of that brief clarity in his mind with all he had left.

“Aeran! Aeran, listen to me.” He clutched at her arm, but she was beyond him. “It takes a monster to kill a monster. One last mistake. Aeran! There’s hope for you… there is… someone.”

His strength was already fading, his tongue thick and heavy in his mouth.

Aeran frowned, her eyes murky with doubt. “Who? Another one of your failures?”

“Yes. He’s… my son.”

He nearly let go then, but Aeran struck him hard across the face and shook him back into himself. “Your son? Quilt, who is this man?”

“My son… my son. He shares my gifts— eight lives should remain to him. He has… time.”

“Where? Where can I find him Quilt?”

“West. Go west. All the way to where the sun… dies. Go west. His name is… Gray.” He didn’t know if she heard any of it. He could see Aeran’s lips moving, but her voice never reached him.

“His name is Gray.”

Quilt fell back against Nauram’s bones for the last time. A flicker of motion between he and Aeran’s fading face drew his attention— a bee, zipping to a halt in front of his eyes and hovering there, as if unsure of what it looked upon. Quilt saw in its faceted eyes a million possibilities, times and places in myriad form, all ending with him upon that hillside, resting in the long shadows. An eternity passed between them, and its wings nearly slowed to a halt as the world let out one long sigh.

The bee spun and flew skyward, weaving between the arching ribs that lay like an open cage. There was much for it to do— much left to rebuild in the dragon’s wake.

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley.

But there could always be something worse.