Of Kings and Corruption

There weren’t always dragons in the valley, nor was there always a valley. Instead, a giant seated in the heavens reached down and rent a hole in the earth. A giant, Sharir pondered to himself, sitting on the edge of the new valley. No, surely not a giant; a giant could not make a valley over a hundred meters deep, nor could a giant split steel swords in two, rend dragons from the sky, or burn with glory redder than a hundred red suns, he thought.

The night before, there were two armies and no valley, and now no armies and one valley. And the water in the valley, where the mixture of two-legged creatures and winged creatures lay, far below where he stood, was redder than wine and the scent thicker than sin. The bodies of men, giants, and dragons alike floated like dung on the water that filled the valley. For none still lived to bury them.

An eagle landed near Sharir on a small precipice. Its head jerked quickly to the right, then to the left, then alternated between glaring at him cockeyed and rubbing its beak on its wing. Sharir spoke, “you won,” he said to the eagle on the precipice. The eagle stopped rubbing its beak. Sharir gazed at the eagle and then back at the valley where the water, red as rubies, brought the bodies closer to him. “Oh, enemy, what is to become of us now,” Sharir whispered, not knowing if it was to himself or the eagle.

When he returned his gaze to the precipice, the eagle was gone, and in his place sat a man. Massive, broad-shouldered, a forearm taller than the average man. He opened his mouth, “I was wrong,” he breathed to Sharir. The man’s left hand grasped his right, and he began to rub them together as if washing them. “If you hadn’t been winning the battle, we wouldn’t have been forced. . ..”

“I don’t care,” Sharir interjected. “I don’t care,” he repeated, softer. “My wife, is dead, my countrymen, dead, dragons, dead. It is done, and whatever revenge I could have, you have drowned here.” The large man bowed his head; he moved closer to Sharir. Sharir made as if to resist, but the large man wrapped his arms around him. Sharir stopped, feeling as small as a kitten in the paws of a lion. He felt the man’s arm begin to quiver. Then the man’s shaking became more exaggerated, more violent. Sharir looked up to see snot and tears running down his face and a thin strand of saliva connecting his upper lip to his lower. Sharir hugged him closely and felt his own lip begin to tremble. They crooned, like the moaning of a woman for her stillborn child.

It was Sharir, at long last, who stood. Then he used his regal purple garment to wipe away the snot on his face; whose snot it was; he did not know. The large man looked again at Sharir and said, “can you forgive me, my enemy?” he said. “Can you forgive your once friend?”

“My enemy, to forgive is divine, a gift from almighty Boh, and I can find nothing of divinity today,” Sharir said.

“Then may it be said that we have killed all that was left of the divine”

“Yes, may it be said”

Silence

Then Sharir turned back to the valley and the rapidly rising water, and he heard the soft ring of a long knife. Then he bowed his head. The large man spoke again, “enemy, when they write my story, let them not remember this day.” Sharir’s eyes remained shut, but suddenly he heard gasping and heavy breathing behind him, limping footsteps, then a smack. He looked down just as the large man’s body rolled off the side of a dragon’s hide and then lifelessly fall into the water, bouncing up and down. Sharir stared at the bobbing figure of the large man, turned, and left. And as he went, he said to himself, "If he greatest born among women has failed, what then am I."