Little Heroes

Little Heroes

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley. And the dragons and the giants weren’t always at war but as they say, things change. My Great Grandmother used to tell me stories of when the dragons first came into Lander’s Valley centuries ago to flee from those who hunted them in the East. Though they arrived long before she was born she would hear tales from the town elders and the dragons themselves about when the dragons first arrived and spread their kin throughout the land to seek out new and safe homes for their dwindling population.

Then, everything changed when a group of particularly well-healed dragons got into a dispute with a powerful giant clan over who had the rights to the Grey Summits, an enormous mountain range they both wanted for its land and recourses. After a ferocious battle between the two races, all-out war was declared and both species enslaved the less powerful humans in the land they inhabited.

All those of stronger stature were drafted as soldiers at age of 17 to fight neighboring armies while the smaller and weaker like myself were enlisted as lower servants such as nurses, cooks, and weapon attendants. Safer than soldiers but even servants in the army were captured and killed like my parents, leaving Erron and I in the care of a local foster home.

Many people though, tried to escape to the big city of Griswold in the south which was controlled by neither the dragons nor giants and was a safe haven for those fleeing from the war. Like us. And now as I Mags, my brother Erron, and our friends Gwen and Jacob look at our small town of Farkan for the last time from a hillside overlooking the valley.

“Do you really think we can make it?” He asked quietly. Jacob is fifteen, two years younger than me. He looks a lot like me with short stringy brown hair, a small turned-up nose, and skinny arms and legs. The only real difference between us is that I’m much taller than him and I while I’m chatty and adventurous, he’s shy and timid. It took me at least two hours to finally convince him to go with us. To be fair he had a good reason to be afraid of getting caught. Anyone who was caught trying to escape the draft was death. And not the quick and painless kind.

“Of course we can. I’ve been plotting this for months and I’ve mapped out the entire route.” Said Jacob, our other friend and Jacob's polar opposite. While Erron was small and timid, Jacob was big and boisterous. He was fit and muscular from years of competing in our local wrestling league and had long curly black hair and very chiseled facial features.

He fancied himself a real catch with the ladies and was always claiming to be good at any task that presented itself. Most people found him obnoxious but having known him for years, I knew that the macho façade he put on was only to impress others. He was really a kind soul who would give you the shirt off his back and was always there to help you when you needed it.

“As long as we follow the river and stay away from any encampments, we should arrive in Griswold in no less than four days.” He said.

“And should we encounter any resistance of the dragon or giant type?” Gwen asked, sensible as ever.

She had been my best friend ever since we were seven. While I was the wild and adventurous one, she was always the voice of reason, talking me out of crazy ideas and making us think before we acted. I’d never admit it, but she had saved me from getting in trouble more times than I can count. All she had to do was stare that disapproving stare and the matter was settled. She was a larger girl like me with thick black hair eyebrows and a face that always made her look serious even when she wasn’t. Unlike me, she had been drafted as a soldier which was rare for a woman but given her size and fierce displays of fighting in local arenas, the dragon council's agents had made an exception.

“Then, we shall run and hide.” Jacob replied simply.

Erron’s eyes grew wide at that. “I don’t think we can outrun a giant or a dragon.” He said quietly. I put my arm around him and said, “I know it’s scary Erron but you have to be brave. If we don’t go, we’ll be drafted and will most likely be killed anyway in the war.” I looked around at the three of them. “I don’t know about you all,” I said. “But personally, I’d rather die heroically escaping oppression rather than fighting in a pointless war that none of us even wanted.” They all nodded emphatically.

“Here here!” They chanted. I looked around at my brother and two best friends. The only real family I had after my parents were both killed in the war.

“Only one thing left to do.” I said. I reached into my pocket and took out the letter that we had all received three days ago.

“Magdalena Sands, you hereby ordered to report for induction into the Dragon army on the first day of spring at the Farkan Town Center. Failure o report for induction will result in execution.”

I looked up from the letter at the other two who were holding theirs as well. They had been drafted as soldiers like me. Then I tore up the letter and the pieces into the wind. As I watched the pieces fly away with the morning breeze, I looked over all the lands that had been my home since birth. The rolling hills, the creek at the edge of town, and our small town of Farkan, with its many brick and stone buildings right in the center of a green field. Though I knew leaving was the right thing to do, I would miss the walks with my friends in the valley, the hours spent in the river on hot summer days, and the friendly people of the village.

I looked over at my friends and said, “Shall we?”

They all looked down at the valley one last time and nodded. We then turned around and made our way down the hill towards the river in the distance. We walked for about twenty minutes in silence before Jacob started telling us a story about when he had saved a bar one night by beating three drunkards in hand-to-hand combat, but none of us paid much attention. We finally reached the river around midday where we saw an old man with a wide-brimmed straw hat sitting asleep on a dock next to his small wooden boat. I walked up to him and said, “Excuse me sir.”

He tipped his hat up to reveal a sun-beaten face and grey stubbled cheeks.

“Yeah” He grunted. “What is it?”

“I was wondering if you’d be willing to ferry my friends and I down to Griswold. We can pay you of course.” I asked.

He eyed each of us in turn and said, “You kids wouldn’t happen to be deserters would you?”

“So what if we are? Is there a problem with that?” Gwen asked automatically.

I turned and gave her a reproving look and turned back to the man about to apologize but he was already scolding Gwen.

“Yes, there is a problem with that young lady. A very big one. And it’s that the problem that if I’m caught smuggling deserters, I could be executed just like you.”

Just then Jacob reached into his sack and pulled out a small jangling sack.

“Look.” He said. “We’re not deserters. We’re just a few kids with pockets full of coins who are looking to go on a camping trip downstream for a few days and if you’d like to help take us on your boat we’d be very grateful. Otherwise, we’ll take our money elsewhere.”

The old man looked at Jacob, and then at the sack of coins.

“Alright. Thirty copper pieces and I’ll take you.” He said. We all exchanged worried looks since that was most of the money that we had between us. However, since there was no better option, we gave him the money and climbed into his boat. To all our surprise, he was quite agile for his age. He steered at the back of the boat with an oar while we sat in the middle and watched the forests and fields passing by as we traversed down the river.

Just before nightfall, we could see the far away city of Griswold with the spires of its many tall buildings silhouetted against the setting sun. We pulled into a dock to start making camp for the night. We were in a small ravine with a small forest on one side and a giant rock wall on the other. The boatman (Whose name we learned was Truman) Told us to set up just at the edge of the forest since There would be shelter there but we would be close enough to the boat to make a run for it if needed.

We were just beginning to unpack our bags when we heard rustling in the bushes. We were just about to go on with unpacking when Jacob all of a sudden shouted, “Run!”

We all turned around and headed for the boat only to see Truman paddling down the river in his boat. We all shouted and cursed at him to stop but he merely turned and shrugged.

“So these are the latest sacrifices to the cause.” Came a voice behind us. We turned to see 5 figures dressed all in black approaching us. There were three women and two hulking men all carrying blades.

We each made a break for it but were quickly perused. I was tackled by one of the girls and had a brief wrestling match with her. I put up a pretty good fight until I felt a needle go into me and I could feel my body slowly seizing up. It was as if my muscles were contracting and I couldn’t move them no matter how hard a tried.

“A paralyzing agent,” I thought to myself. The girl then tied my hands behind my back and dragged me back to the edge of the river where I saw my friends tied up and paralyzed as well. Both Gwen and Jacob were bleeding from their faces and I noticed that the two men and one of the girls also had open wounds on their faces. They had obviously put up a good fight.

“We’ll wait a few minutes so they can talk again.” Said the woman who appeared to be the leader. She was tall and gaunt with hair so blonde it was almost white. She couldn’t have been more than thirty. Like her fellow black-clad friends she had tattoos on her face with infernal writing and bones. Then I knew that we had been captured by the black guild.

The Black Guild was a society in the land that practiced black magic, demonology, and devil worship. Their numbers had been growing as the war raged on. Mostly humans who were seeking protection in a larger society of their own species. The legion however was despised by all of society though. People hated the giants and dragons for the pain they brought with their stupid war, but they liked the pure unceasing evil of devils and demons even less.

Finally, after a few minutes, I was able to move my mouth and the rest of my body just a little bit. I was about to say something when Gwen suddenly spat, “What do you want with us.”

The woman in charge looked over at her and sneered.

“Servants or sacrifices.” She said simply. “You will all now dedicate yourselves to the cause or bringing our infernal brethren out of the fiery pits. of you will be sacrificed to them.”

“No way!” Came the voce of Erron. I looked over at him to see that he was staring defiantly at the woman.

“We’re out here to escape the war. So that we wouldn’t have to serve a pointless cause. So we sure as hell aren’t going to serve you and your wretched friends!” He spat at the woman’s feet for emphasis.

Even though I was horrified about what would happen next. I had to take a moment to take pride in my brother. My little brother who used to run from bullies, never talk at parties, and stop me from killing insects that got into the house was now looking at these fearsome cultists with courageous resolve.

For a moment she looked as if she was going to scream at him. Then a small smile came onto her face and she said, “Funny you should mention hell.” She drew a curved dagger from your waist. “Because it’s closer than you think boy.”

I screamed as she approached him with the dagger. Erron tried to keep his composure but as he looked at the dagger, a tear fell down his cheek.

All of a sudden a tremor shook the ground. Then another. And another. They continued and got louder. They sounded and felt like footsteps. Though I had never seen one, I knew enough to recognize giant footsteps.

The Black Guild members did as well because after the fourth tremor they all began to run off towards the forest. They only just reached the edge when from out of the forest just yards from there the cultists were, emerged the giant.

All the legends and stories could not do justice to the power of seeing one in person. This giant was twenty feet tall with grey skin and hair. He wore rusty blue body armor and brown spartan sandals and he carried a battleax twice the size of me! He looked down at the cultists and boomed in a voice loud enough to carry across the valley, “I thought I told you so stay away from my shores!”

The cultists wasted no time in continuing to run away. With incredible speed, the giant swung his ax down, nearly uprooting a few nearby trees. The few cultists that weren’t crushed by his ax went flying and landed hard on the floor. The giant disposed of them with a few good stomps of his enormous foot.

He then turned his attention to us. The whole ordeal had shocked us so much that we hadn’t been able to move. Even now that we weren’t paralyzed from the cultist’s needles.

“Don’t move!” The giant shouted. “I need to speak with you.”

We did as he commanded. He approached us slowly and eyed us curiously. Then Jacob cleared his throat and began speaking with a high-class accent and a huge fake grin. “Greetings good sir. We do thank you for saving our lives and say hail to the giants and death to the dragons. And now we would…”

“Spare me the fancy talk and lies.” The giant scoffed in a voice as rich and deep as a bass horn. “I know you’re dragon defectors.”

Jacob’s face fell and he spoke in his normal voice. “Alright yes. But how did you know? And why did you save us? And what’s the black guild doing out here?”

“Well to answer your first question my name is Korbin.” The giant said irritably. “And I knew you were defectors because you came In Truman’s boat. He’s made a deal with the black guild to bring defectors to this dock and hand them over to the black guild. I’ve seen him do it once before but I arrived too late to do anything. You’re lucky I saw you through the trees.”

“Well thanks again for saving us,” I said. “But you still haven’t told us why you saved us.” I was surprised I had spoken up. Just a few moments ago I was too scared and memorized by him to speak. Korbin closed his eyes and said, “Because I’m tired of this silly war. Too many lives have been lost on both sides all over something as pitiful and land and treasure.”

We were all amazed to hear a giant or anyone for that matter say they didn’t approve of the war. Such talk back home was grounds for being arrested and executed.

“Well can you help us get to Griswold? That’s where we were headed” I asked.

Korbin shook his head and said, “The rumors of that city being a safe haven are just that. Rumors. There are factions within the city who like Truman, find defectors and give them to agents of the giants and dragons and in some cases, to the black guild. I know because I am in still in the ranks of the giants to see if there is any way to stop this ridiculous war from the inside.”

There was a moment of silence before Jacob asked, If you don’t mind my asking, what made you not want this war?”

“As I say, the waste of precious life is the main reason.” Korbin replied. He paused and then said, “Follow me. I need to show you something.”

Without question, we followed him. We practically had to run to keep up with his giant steps through the forest. We walked for what seemed like a mile when we came to a huge boulder embedded in a slope in the forest. Korbin lifted it up as easily as if it had been made of straw to reveal a wide opening in the ground with a steep path leading downward. It was enormous. But then so was Korbin.

“In” He said simply. I could tell my friends were hesitant about going down this dark hole, but none of us dared disobey Korbin. So we each climbed down the steep wall of the hole. What little light there was in the cave disappeared when Korbin entered the hole and covered up the entrance. From there we had to hug the walls of the cave and feel our way foreword. I couldn’t help but chuckle quietly as Korbin squatted and wiggled around to try and pass through the cave.

Finally, we saw a faint glow of light as we rounded a corner. As we turned, we saw that it came from an enormous cavern It looked to be a hundred feet wide and the ceiling one hundred feet tall. It had rough stone walls and a small waterfall in one corner. Enormous torches the size of humans lined the walls illuminating the entire cavern. In the opposite corner nestled up and resting stood… I never thought I would say this but, a dragon. A real live dragon. It had green scaley skin, a pointed head, and enormous yellow eyes with vertical pupils like a cat's.

As soon as we entered the cavern, those giant yellow eyes peered over at us and the dragon unfurled itself. We all stood in awe as it stretched its long neck up towards the ceiling and stretched out its body, revealing sword-like claws as it stretched its feet out. Once it was done waking up it said to us in a voice as loud and commanding as Korbin’s yet as soft and smooth as velvet, “So, Korbin’s decided to let you in eh?”

None of us could answer. We were too stunned. We had only seen a dragon once before but only from a distance as it was giving a speech to our village at an amphitheater near our village. And even then that was a smaller younger dragon tasked with overseeing the human agents working for the more powerful dragons.

This dragon was fifty feet long and sixteen feet tall with green scales that glistened in the torchlight and enormous yellow eyes with vertical pupils. The dragon eyed us and said in a voice as commanding, loud, and powerful as Korbin’s and yet smooth as silk, “So, Korbin has allowed you in I take it?”

None of us could speak. Korbin had been big and intimidating but this dragon was well… Magnificent. That is the only word I could use to describe it.

“I have indeed” Korbin’s voice boomed from behind us. We had been so surprised by the dragon that we had completely forgotten he was behind us.

“Perhaps if we explain the plan to them they may feel inclined to lend a hand” He continued.

“Plan?” Gwen asked.

“Our plan to stop the war.” The dragon said. We looked from one to the other of the two colossal beings that were looking down on us. I had so much I wanted to say and so many questions but all I got out was, “How did you two…”

“Find one another?” Korbin finished for me. “Well many years ago when I was a younger and angrier giant, I was with a party of other giants hunting for dragons when we came across the cavern we were in right now. We thought it was a lair of adversary dragons, but we found only a young Sarus…” He indicated the dragon. “ And her nest of eggs. I thought at that point we would just take her prisoner and perhaps get information out of her. But all at once, my fellow giants began smashing the eggs and pummeling Sarus herself.” As he spoke we could see a hint of sadness and even… fear in Korbin’s eyes. It was very strange to see that expression on such a creature. I looked over at Sarus and though the dragon’s facial expressions are hard to read, I’m sure I was sure I could see the same feelings on her face as well.

“Seeing the anger and pure hatred I saw in my companions and the cry Sarus let out at the wanton slaughter changed something in me. I then knew that all we had supposedly been fighting for was a lie. It was a was of pure spite fueled by ridiculous notions of entitlement and superiority. And so, I turned on my fellow giants and joined Sarus in fighting them.”

“He was amazing.” Sarus interjected. “There were two of us to five of them but together, we emerged victorious. We have been life partners since then and have devoted our existence to stopping the war. And that’s where you all come in.”

“Us?” Erron squeaked.

“Yes you.” Korbin said. “Sarus and I think that the best way to end the war by finding a mutual enemy of the giants and dragons in the black guild. A few members of the black legion were lurking outside the cavern one evening as I was coming out and I “Persuaded” them to tell me about what the legion has planned. I learned that they are close to being able to summon Rakner and other demons from hell so that they may take over the upper planes as well. Something no being anywhere desires.”

“ So if you all can infiltrate their ranks and expose their plans, Korbin and I can rally each other’s species and bring them together to thwart the guild’s plans.” Sarus said.

It was so much to take in and none of us know what to say. Finally, Gwen piped up, “How exactly do we infiltrate their ranks?”

Korbin did a small smile and said, “Well I’m sure the guild members I took care of outside won’t mind if you “borrowed” their garments. Their main meeting place is in Griswold. If you have a map, I can show you where. Once inside, you will learn all you can about the guild and their plans and report back to us. We will not be far outside the city.”

Sarus then stretched her long neck down to our eye level and looked at us seriously.

“I realize this task is not without risk. However you must realize that like it or not, you four may be the last hope to not only stopping this war, but saving the entire land as we know it from the forces of hell. Are you up for it?”

I looked around at my friends and my brother. All of whom I had known since childhood. We had grown up together, been there for each other when we had lost family and friends, and ventured out into the cold and unforgiving world together. Alone I would never have done it. But with my found family at my side and with the help of these two powerful creatures before us, I felt we could truly change the world. And the expressions they all wore told me they felt the same.

So, we turned to Korbin and Sarus and said in unison, “We’re in.”