Peasant's Luck

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley.

On the same fateful day that the dragons arrived, the forces of darkness were defeated and true light broke out across the land. Fuelled by a righteous need for vengeance; dragonfire and magic were used to shatter ensorcelled defences that no mere mortals could penetrate, and the Lord of Darkness Nazh’ruuk fled as his power was broken and armies destroyed. A great flight of dragons heralded the new age, roaring and breathing fire into the sky as they perched on the battlements of the liberated Sentinel Castle.

That had all seemed really good at the time.

Now I just wish the bloody lizards had buggered off after they were done, or better yet - never shown up at all.

If they had, it might have saved us all a lot of trouble and pain in the long run.

Especially me, not to put too fine a point on it.

I managed to live my entire life under the rule of the world’s most powerful, stroppy, evil sorcerer and never came close to being murdered by any of his minions. The irony has never been lost on me that three weeks after being “freed” by the supposed “good guys”, I end up getting beaten, thrown in the dungeons and meeting the second-most terrifying person imaginable.

A person who would be singularly responsible for the resulting horrors about to overshadow my once blessedly dull life.

Him and those bloody dragons.

***

Don’t get me wrong, at first I was very thankful to the dragons, as was everyone else in the Valley of Destiny.

Those were hard times under old Nazh’ruuk. I was still a young child when he first came through and all but wiped out the Praetorian royal family and their army, not to mention everything and everyone tougher than a sign with the word “boo!” written on it. Nazh’ruuk was determined to make a point about the poor life choice that entailed rebelling against him, and those that survived took the hint.

I grew up under his rule and to call it depressing is underselling it. Our new lord renamed our home to the Valley of Darkness, Domain of Nazh’ruuk the Terrible, which should tell you everything you need to know. I’ve heard that outsiders called it The Valley of Despair, which wasn’t far off either. We mostly just called it The Valley of Dank and Dismal Living.

Have you ever tried farming in a valley where the sun is almost permanently shrouded by clouds, magically conjured by a mad sorcerer king? The same king, by the way, who has a taste for cakes but had to import flour because it turns out wheat can’t grow if you turn the place into a lightless bog. Apparently practising the eternal powers of the dark does not make for strong agricultural management skills.

Even for years after the dragons burned those magic clouds away everything still tasted of mushrooms to me. Wheat may not like magical darkness but mushrooms thrive to an extent I would call ‘overwhelming’. At least we didn’t starve, the ones who weren’t dragged off or executed anyway. It did rain a lot though.

After the big battle, Prince Etrillian, as I became obliged to call him, gave a big speech about how we, the people of the Valley, had endured; full of strength and superhuman determination despite the evils and oppressive nature of our overlord. He made it sound like a big hurrah but it never particularly felt like that. We just got on with it, as we’d always done. I don’t know about superhuman determination but I will say it’s always surprising how people can adjust to things.

You’d go to market like normal, get into conversation with an acquaintance, chat away until you take a break to prostrate yourself in the street at the passing of a Revenant Knight patrol, get up and continue where you left off. As long as you kept to your business and followed the rules, life just went on as normal really, give or take a few intermittent horrors.

The trolls would occasionally crush someone in the street but you have to wonder why someone thought being in their way was a good idea. Their smell alone could almost kill if you got within ten metres of them, but then again; without their strength to withstand the river’s current the Nazh’ruuk Trollbridge would never have been built. The tolls were a mite harsh but it cut my commute to the market by more than half, so I didn’t complain. Not that complaining would have got me anywhere besides several kilometres downstream.

But that’s what life was like. And yes I suppose we endured, even if it was miserable. We made the best of things, such as was possible. It was Etrillian who stirred up all that trouble. Sure it worked out for him in the end, but at the time it was a right cavalcade of catastrophe. Most of us didn’t know he was a prince until it was all over. For most of my life he was just some local nutter who spoke of rebellion and stories of dragons.

I was always suspicious of that boy, and I don’t mind saying it, especially now after all that’s happened. For one thing, how is it that we all grew up under a sunless sky and there’s one child who isn’t as pale as the moon? That should have given the game away years ago, what with Etrillian being the one child in the land with a healthy pallor.

Some people just have a...way...about them. Those little things that grate at you, and push invisibly against your senses, and Etrillian had that in spades. He’d do things like stand up straight and defiantly talk at the top of his voice with a dopey grin on his face, despite the rest of us having had it beaten into us from an early age not to call attention to ourselves in such a manner. All the ways he acted should have been lightning rods for the minions of evil to come get him but it somehow never happened.

Finding out he had some grand destiny wasn’t entirely surprising after all that strangeness. Having the magic of the dragons flowing through his blood certainly explained how he was the only one with a tan in a land without sun. He didn’t know he was a prince either until the dragons apparently confirmed it. Not that it stopped him from acting like one his whole life. Like I said, some people have a way about them.

Always wanting to be the leader, to take us all places we shouldn’t go, playing pranks on the undead thralls, never content with anything less than what he saw as victory and achieving some higher purpose. And just endless amounts of frankly inappropriate positivity in the face of the dismal state we were living in. It was all a bit of a headache, and I wasn’t sorry when he started going off into the woods on his own rather than involving the rest of us. I thought he was just playing swords by himself, but who knew the old hermit out there had been a wizard the whole time, waiting to teach the willing lad? Who’d ever want a scraggly old man watching their entire childhood, from a distance, waiting to pounce?

The old man filled his head with all sorts of oddness too. Etrillian kept coming back and talking about dragons, magic doo-dads and lands of freemen and dryads and whatever else was out there to fight against Lord Nazh’ruuk. The day the crazy old hermit and his head-touched protege disappeared I thought they’d either run off or been taken by the thralls. Either way, it had brought some blessed normality back to the place.

Eight months later and I’m woken suddenly at sunrise by the sounds of battle and the ear-piercingly loud screeches of stonking great lizards with wings. I’m not sure any of us expected to see Etrillian again in any shape or form, let alone armoured as a knight astride a house-sized dragon, wielding a magic sword.

Even from my farm out in the fields I could see and hear the destruction going on at Sentinel Castle and beyond. Thankfully they’d chosen the hills a few fields over for the place where their armies clashed. I told cousin Rutger those hills were bad luck but he didn’t listen to me, and his farm was flattened during the battle. A lot of mushrooms were lost that day. Mine suffered too, but only because the dragons zoomed across the sky burning off the black clouds of Nazh’ruuk.

It really was nice to see a blue sky, I’ll give them that.

The mushroom economy took a dive after that, but the livestock fared much better once they had greener grass and light. At first, it seemed like things were looking up. We’d swapped out a mad sorcerer king for a long lost Praetorian prince in the space of a day, which is really just going from one autocratic monarch to another on the face of it, but at least the new one didn’t raid the cemeteries for servants, even if he was a twit.

Then, the dragons. The bloody dragons.

My Nan had some great wisdoms to share before she was taken to the castle to help feed the chimaera.

‘Complacency, that’s what’ll get yer,’ she’d say from her rocking chair. Her voice had a tremor to it like lute strings stretched too far over sharp corners of wood. Painful to listen to, but I missed it once it was gone.

‘Complacency gets ‘em all in the end. Hubris, then complacency, then comeuppance. Them Praetorians thought their kingdom’d last forever. Blep, dead. This new feller, Niz’naak or whatnot. He’ll get complacent, sittin’ up there with is ‘ead in them black clouds, and things runnin’ fine down here. Someone else will show up and kick him out and the whole thing will start again. You boy, don’t you get complacent either. Just ‘cause things are workin’ out don’t always mean they’re workin’ well. You’ll get yours, boy, so watch it!’

I doubt Nan was a wizard, but she had a knack for prophetic statements. Predicted rain with uncanny accuracy too.

“Comeuppance” can mean a lot of things. For Nazh’ruuk, it meant dragons. Strangely enough, it meant dragons for me too.

Over the course of a decade I had put in backbreaking effort to maintain my flock of sheep and goats. It was long, slow work coaxing them to survive on black rainwater, mushrooms and very sludgy grass. They were as miserable as we were, but they shared our plodding resistance. Only one ever seemed to flourish no matter the circumstances; a bug-eyed billy goat named Fredbert. Rain or very minimal shine, his strangled bleats would echo across the fields with defiant vigour, aimlessly challenging the world. If he hadn’t been such an ornery creature I might have admired his determination. He reminded me of Etrillian.

I’d heard Fredbert’s bleats before the wind of the wings. For something so large you’d think they’d make more noise.

I’d barely come out of the barn before a wash of green, scaly hide dipped over the trees, blurred across the paddock and snatched two sheep in its claws as easily as I’d pick up a cup. Gone, just like that. Fredbert’s eyes rolling in every direction as his apoplectic bleats called after the monster.

I’ll be honest, I wasn’t really sure how to respond. I stood in the field for a good twenty minutes, staring at the spot where two of my prize ewes had been abducted from. I’d have been less stunned if someone had slapped me in the face.

Two Dragonguard, as Etrillian’s army of followers had styled themselves, showed up at my door not a day later. My heart froze at the sound of a gauntleted hand rapping on the wood.

In my foolishness, I calmed upon remembering the Dark Lord had been defeated, and these guards must be the good guys. I thought they’d come about the dragon helping itself to my livestock.

Complacency, that’s what gets you.

The two men that stood outside my door were decked out in the red and gold armoured uniforms of the Dragonguard, with plumed helmets under their arms and swords at their sides. They did look quite shiny in the newly bright sunlight, but to this day I have no idea how they managed to tailor so many outfits for an entire army just before they marched on the castle.

‘Hello, is this about my sheep?’ I asked.

‘Oh, you’re ahead of us, yes it’s about the sheep. The goats too if’n ya please,’ said the first guardsman, cheery as you like.

‘Yes, I…please? Goats? No, sorry, it was just sheep. Two of them.’

‘Two of them? Dunno where y’eard that, we’ll be needing them all I thinks?’

‘Sorry, all of them?’

‘Well, yes, of course!’ said the second guard. ‘Can’t feed everyone with just two sheep now can we? This one’s funny-minded eh Rhod?’

‘He is a bit. Might be ill? Y’feeling alright there fella?’ asked the first guard, sounding genuinely concerned for my health.

‘I just, wait. So, you’re taking all of my livestock?'

‘Woah there, now. Takin’?’ said Rhod, looking quite taken aback at the accusation. ‘‘That sounds a bit harsh don’t it? We’re not takin’ ‘is livestock are we Lawrence?’

‘No-no-no-no,’ said Lawrence, earnestly searching through his vocabulary. ‘It’s more like we’re...relieving you of your livestock.'

‘Ooh, yes, that sounds much nicer,’ said Rhod, relieved.

‘Yes. I mean you’ve just been looking after them for the crown, and well…the crown’s back now,’ said Lawrence, as if this explained everything.

‘What do you mean I’ve been looking after them for the crown?’ I asked, still trying to puzzle it out. ‘They’re my sheep!’

There was a pause.

‘Ohhh, I see the confusion here,’ said Lawrence. ‘Yes? No! Nobody’s saying they’re not your sheep.’

‘Oh golly,’ said Rhod, breathing another sigh of relief. ‘They’re certainly your sheep, sir. Yours for sure, and no mistake.’

I too began to breathe more lightly for a moment.

‘Right, okay, thank the gods. I thought you weren’t about to pay me for them.’

‘Pay you for them? No, these sheep are for the crown,’ said Lawrence. ‘We’re here to pick them up.’

The tension and confusion came right back.

‘I’m a bit confused,’ said Rhod. ‘Did you not see that the Prince and his dragons defeated the Dark Lord? Those dragons brought with them their magical might, but they also brought a fairly serious hunger, all concordance-like with their size. Put that with a united army of men, dryads and beasts of the forest, there’s suddenly a lot of mouths to feed yurr.’

‘And I’m expected to feed them?’ I was yelling a little at that point.

‘I have to say sir,’ said Lawrence, his eyebrows beetling as if he were getting a headache. ‘And I don’t mean to be rude, but you’re not sounding like you’re particularly grateful for what the Prince and his Dragonguard have done for you. It might not be a good idea to be rude about the dragons either, friend.’

‘I mean I was, I am!’ I said, scrambling. ‘But you’re here to take half my livelihood away. Surely you can see that? Winter’s on its way and all I’ll have left are the mushrooms until next season.’

‘Oh right, I forgot about the mushrooms,’ piped up Rhod. ‘We’ll need most of that too. Turns out the dryads love ‘em.’

For twenty years I’d kept my cool. I knew I was just a small speck in a big world, and there wasn’t a lot I could do about most things. Best just to let things slide, stay out of trouble and never mind all the bigger nonsense. After all, what can one peasant do against the might of a sorcerer and the armies of the dark?

Perhaps it was because I’d allowed myself to relax in the three weeks since Nazh’ruuk’s defeat. Without the more immediate threat of terrifying pain and death looming over my shoulder, I’d let a little complacency in. Perhaps it was the simple brazen attitude of the two idiots at my doorstep, extensions as they were of the brazen, entitled existence that Prince Bloody Etrillian had brought back into town.

Either way, it was at this point I may have lost my temper.

I don’t remember the precise wording. It had been such a long time since I’d properly lost my temper about anything that I somewhat stepped out of myself for a minute or two. I’m not sure if the two Dragonguard were listening patiently for the first part or just standing in bewildered silence as I launched into invective about what I thought the Prince, the guards and the dryads could do with my mushrooms, and where they could do it. It was simply unheard of for anyone to say a bad word about their beloved saviour Prince, I don’t think they knew how to react.

It was probably somewhere around the point where I believe I mentioned ‘big, ugly lizards dropping out of the sky to steal from already beleaguered farmers’ that I got a fist to the gut. As it turns out, the Dragonguard are even less fond of people saying bad things about the dragons as they are of the Prince. That might sound obvious, but I was a little lost in furious outrage at the time, nor had I yet gained an understanding of the mounting worship the dragons had earned.

I dipped in and out of consciousness after that. I remember briefly opening my eyes to see my livestock being herded out the gate, with the exception of Fredbert bleating angrily at being left behind. They had beaten me down in seconds but I’m not surprised they didn’t want to go near that mental goat. The next thing I remember, I was on the back of a cart, my hands tied, surrounded by crates of my own mushrooms.

I was out for some time after that. I only properly woke up once I was already in the dungeon. The one place I’d spent my entire life doing everything I could to stay out of. Anyone who went under Sentinel Castle was never seen again.

That thought struck me in those first moments of consciousness, but I calmed almost immediately. With only a headache running through my skull, I was thinking more clearly. I was on a makeshift pallet of straw, dim light filtering in from a torch sconce on the wall opposite my barred cell. Three stone walls were close in around me, and I could hear dripping somewhere.

On the one hand, I was definitely in the dungeon under Sentinel Castle, but on the other - the forces of light, if not “good”, were in charge now. Perhaps I wasn’t due a violent, painful death? These new people didn’t seem like the torture type. There was a chance I could go home, back to my farm.

I sometimes wonder what life would have been like if that had happened. I’d have been destitute, but I think it would have been less harrowing and constantly death defying than all the events that followed.

What did happen was a conversation.

‘Are you awake in there? I can hear you shuffling.’

The voice that came through the stone wall of my cell made my Nan’s seem angelic in comparison. He sounded as if he’d been breathing in smoke, stones and woodchips his entire life. I was a little afraid at first, and still addled after my beating, so I stayed silent.

‘Come on then, report!’ came the voice again. ‘The guards might be back soon, I need information. What’s happening out there?’

The silence hung for a few seconds, but I found myself compelled to respond, if only for politeness’ sake.

‘Hello, are you talking to me?’ I said.

‘Yes, who else would I be speaking to?’ came the voice, exasperation doing nothing to take the edge off its rough effect.

‘Oh, sorry, I’m new here,’ I said.

‘Nevermind that, tell me what’s happening out there, where are the others? Did anyone else make it?’

‘Um, no it’s just me…sorry?’

‘Just you? What? Who is it in there? Is that you Melkior?’

‘No, sorry. I don’t know who that is.’

‘Don’t know? Wait, are you even one of mine?’

‘No, I don’t think so? My name is Tobias, I don’t think we’ve ever met. Pleased to, um, meet you?’

‘Beggars and dragon breath! I don’t understand, why are you even here?’

‘You know, I’m really not sure,’ I said, closing my eyes and resting my head back down against the cold stone as I took stock of my situation. ‘I think I’ve just had a very bad day. I have no livestock, I have no mushrooms, all I have left is a headache.’

My eyes opened for a moment as I remembered something.

‘I may have a goat. Just one, but he’s insane and useless.’

He was likely confused by all that, as it took a while for him to respond.

‘So, why did they charge you with sedition?’

That was news to me, but I’d managed to find my way back to the stoic pessimism that had guided my life until my earlier slip-up. Sedition? Because they took everything I had? Sure, why not.

‘Probably because I called their dragons big and ugly for stealing my sheep without so much as a “by your leave”’.

I’d thought the man’s voice was horrible enough, the wretched sound of his laugh was truly nightmarish.

‘Matters become clearer then,’ he said. ‘That would explain the heresy charge too, as well as the death penalty sentence. I had wondered.’

‘The…what, sorry?’

I felt as if someone had scooped the insides of my chest away and flung them with great force. It didn’t make sense. I was a farmer, not a seditionist!

‘Yes. They do take their foul dragons rather seriously. When they said you were going to the headsman I’d assumed you were one of my agents. Although, Tobias, did you say?’

‘Wuh? Oh, yes, that’s me.’ I was still reeling at the notion of losing my head. And they’d only been in power for three weeks but they’d already hired a headsman? No wonder their priorities seemed off.

‘I see,’ he said, with some amusement. ‘I’m afraid you are mistaken then, we have met before. You’ll have to excuse me, I’m often quicker with a face than a name and we can’t see each other right now. Plus, I’ve had a lot going on lately, as you might have noticed.’

I am aware that I’m not always the quickest mind either, but it should not have taken me as long as it did to realise who it was I had been speaking to. To give me some credit, I was in a very strange, well-beaten situation, and his voice was not as I remembered it, as at that time it had yet to be scarred by dragonfire.

The Lord of Shadows, Nazh’ruuk the Terrible, had maintained many different minions in his service. Most were fearsome for their prowess in battle, but one in particular held his reputation through the power he wielded by his office: Gretzal, majordomo to the Dark Lord and Grand Overseer of the Valley of Darkness. Although he was a simple human man, with no known magics or noble background, he had oft been the voice of the sorcerer king, and managed the day-to-day of the land.

We had met just once, not long after I inherited the farm and its keepings, and was told to present myself to the Grand Overseer. He had asked me a few simple questions about who I was, what I was farming and what my expected output would be. I was reminded to pay my taxes, and that was that. It’s one of the few times in my life that I’d felt real fear. A simple word from the man and I’d have been in the selfsame cell or a troll’s stomach. In the moment of my realisation over my companion’s identity, I lost the power of speech for several moments. The majordomo continued on however.

‘The farm, over the river and offside the hills, yes it’s coming back to me. You paid your taxes, provided wares at market and remained a productive member of the community. You had no ties to either the resistance or the secret police we had watching everybody. I had a very specific note about you somewhere, “non-troublesome, useful pillar, leave alone.” We needed solid people like you to keep things running properly, the mob around here could be so very fickle. That’s a long fall for you to end up here.’

My fear responses gave me back the power of my voice so I could respond, rather than leave the conversation hanging.

‘Y-yes, my lord. It’s been a...trying day,’ I said.

‘Yes, well, trying times here too,’ he chuckled nastily. ‘It’s been weeks since anyone called me “lord” unironically, so thank you for that.’

Before I could muster a reply, another familiar voice came echoing towards us, accompanied by descending, clanking footsteps.

‘-all I’m sayings is; maybe we could put up a few more tapestries round yurr, liven the place up a bit, take out that echo,’ said Rhod.

‘Oh gods, not these two,’ said Gretzal, a sentiment that made me feel surprisingly warm towards him at that moment, all things considered.

‘Speaking of echoes,’ said Lawrence as the two guards rounded the corner from the stairs to walk across in front of our cells. ‘The sound really carries in here. Heard you calling this one “lord” and everything. I guess we really sniffed out a secret spy eh Rhod? That explains the heretical remarks about our mighty dragons.’

‘Aye Lawrence, that it does!’ said Rhod in amazement at their good work. I was less enthused.

‘No, I wasn’t, I mean I did, but I’m not-’ I stammered, but no one was listening. Lawrence was pulling out a pair of manacles while Rhod unlocked my cell.

‘We were only coming down for old Nastyface here, but I think two traitors will make a good showing,’ said Lawrence.

‘What ‘bout the manacles?’ asked Rhod, hauling me up and out of the cell, barely any resistance to be found from me as my mouth opened and closed like a stunned fish. ‘We only brought one pair.’

‘These two’ll be no trouble. We’ll put them together,’ said Lawrence, clapping one iron ring around my wrist before retrieving the majordomo.

The former Lord Gretzal was a man reaching his elder years but remained taller than most people I’d ever seen. His face, skin and body had the appearance of once having been quite hale and muscular but a mixture of age and something namelessly dark had withered them over time, an effect only made worse by the recent burns adorning the right side of his neck and chin. His head was mostly bald, but for the long, winglike shocks of silver hair spreading up and out from over his ears. Half of his once long and lustrous goatee had been burned away, the remainder now as twisted as his oddly over-elongated limbs. In many ways, he reminded me of Fredbert.

The other half of the manacle closed over his thick wrist, literally and figuratively tying me to him. Despite his once elegant black attire looking very worn, he held a certain scary dignity, even with water droplets falling from the roof onto his nose.

‘Very well,’ said Gretazl with great dignity. ‘Let us go and see your P-...Prin-,’

Sneezing was only expected given the dusty water in his nose, as was his movement to cover his sneeze with his hands. What was unexpected was my hand being closely attached to his, and his prodigious height gave my hand a long way to travel. Arresting its movement was the nose of Lawrence, whom I clocked in the first act of physical violence against another person in my life, albeit not of my own accord.

All three of us watched as Lawrence tipped back and struck the ground unconscious, Rhod perhaps the most surprised of all. I don’t think he even saw Gretzal take hold of the spear in his hand before the majordomo conked the guardsman on the back of the head with his own weapon, sending the poor fool to sleep on top of his friend. Gretzal checked both of them quickly, yanking me forward again.

‘Well,’ said Gretzal, turning towards me with a matter-of-fact shrug. ‘This was not precisely what I planned, but it will have to do. I apologise, Farmer Tobias, but we are escaping now. I say “we”, because whilst they brought the keys to cells with them, it does not appear they thought to bring the key to these manacles. So, keep up, do as I say, and this will all go swimmingly. Hup-hup, on we go.’

I expected very few things from my life. My lot was my lot, and that was good enough for me. I never expected to meet dragons so frustratingly often, or to be shackled to a terrifying madman. I never expected to send a Kraken to its bed or trick an argumentative wall.

Of all the things I never expected, I never expected I would kill a Prince, but since the moment I met Gretzal I have yet to find the depths of just how many unexpected things can happen to a person.