Scales and Talons

There weren't always dragons in the Valley. They came hunting the carrion that preceded them. Rodents and crows, followed by wolf, wildcat and other vermin. None of us lived from before the onslaught before the air lay deep in smoke. Before the poison turned even the timid to thoughts of violent mutiny.

Who is to say that before the time of Dragons life had been better? Not I, whose life was still shorter than the gestation of a hellfire’s spawn. I only dreamed that it could not be any worse. For when life is a nightmare, dreams are the only place of hope and comfort.

We only knew what our masters had told us. The failure of our ancestors, their humiliation and subjugation. Only those made of scales and talons, whose wings covered the sun when they rose above us, truly knew the life of our Valley before they scorched our land and enslaved our people. Those among us fortunate enough to be born with insight and just a little cunning, learned that our masters were not speakers of the truth and often they would lie to each other, as though it were one of their favoured pass times. Young though I was, it soon came to me that those who held us as thralls, were unlikely to tell us anything of worth about who we were. If indeed they cared to remember who we were, it was only for the pleasure of torturing our minds, to let us think hope would return. Allowing us to think that life had more meaning than digging deep into the earth for their source of scale resin and fire fuel.

Oh, they are cunning vipers! For they know the exact moment when the light returns in the soul of a slave. It is one of their innate and most merciless qualities to be able to sense when our hope is nothing but a seedling and then to pierce it with the most precise and cruel of lances. So, I keep my eyes low as I trudge through the wasteland that is my home, for I have seen what hope can do. I saw it wither in the eyes of Eirini as a River Dragon slew Amon as he steered the barge of scale resin through the mighty river.

From a great height, Romiver spied Eirini lift her head but for a moment, as Amon passed. He observed Amon’s body weight shift ever so slightly on the barge. Their purpose was not meant for reproduction. Romiver could smell the connection between them, and he had not had the excuse for sport in the life cycle of three generations. The great controller of the second tributary swept downwards, a cyclone of emerald and sapphire.

I do not remember where or how Romiver brought the other thrall to replace Amon with him. I remember Amon, fearless, roaring Eirini’s name, wrenching his chains from the tiller swinging at the oncoming tempest of death. I remember the feeling of futility as I watched Romiver pierce him with a single talon and fling him into the water, no better than disused bait from a hook.

I will never forget Un-Alazaar, Master of the River Dragons, sweeping above us all, sparkling sapphire and flame, his voice a lightning strike.

“Thralls! Your pleasure is that you breathe. Your will, to serve the Triumvirate. See what happens when you hope in each other. Now see what happens when you hope in anything.”

Ruhminshar controller of the Third Tributary lifted Eirini into the sky and Un-Alazaar breathed on her the mist-smoke. A poison that numbs the mind in time and place so that she could never think beyond this moment.

“Take her to the manipulators.” Un-Alazaar’s voice now quiet and cold.

Ruhminshar soared through the smoke and haze, her emerald scales shining a last glimpse of my brave and caring sister as she hung limp in ruby talons. No sooner had they disappeared then flames of gold and sapphire burst through the haze and Fulguenore was amongst us, rising-up in challenge to Un-Alazaar.

“What madness is here?!” Bellowed the Master of the First Tributary longest of the Valley and greatest inlet to the sea.

Out spread Un-Alazaar’s wings, up stretched his mighty body in readiness strike. Yet there was hesitation, was it wisdom that he waited to learn of Fulguenore’s anger? Or was there something more? To fight Fulguenore was no simple matter. He flew the longest and the fastest. He drove his thralls the hardest. Even when the Master of the River defeated his dreaded lieutenant, he would not be unscathed, and he would have lost his best warrior.

Fulguenore sensed his master’s uncertainty and used the pause to move to a more respectful and advantageous position.

Still poised to strike with both fire and talon, Un-Alazaar spoke.

“I knew not the thralls were so precious to us that just two brought the return of the great Fulguenore from his overseer duties, is then, the transfer of our scale resin and fire fuel from river barge to seacraft beneath him?”

Fulguenore circled, subservient, yet noted his master, still able to retaliate with speed.

“Oh, Master Un-Alazaar, forgive my rage. I care not for the barge thrall, strong as he was.”

At this Un-Alazaar was even more curious.

“One!? You returned for one? What madness indeed!”

“It is not the thrall, but what she can do. Romiver’s sport has not only cost us delay in the travel of this barge. See his replacement only matches half the speed of the one he skewered? My anger is at the waste of what the thralls produce and the speed at which they do it.”

“What is so special then about the one who Romiver has taken to the manipulators?”

“Her capacity to absorb. From a yearling I have watched her grow. Her pain, her suffering, they feed her. Was she not pulled from the most poisonous trench of resin filtering? Her body and her mind adapt quickly and each year she filters the resin more quickly than anyone I have ever seen. The residual smoke does not affect her, she starts earlier and works later than any other.

Romiver’s second of sport has decimated my production rate. We will not find her like for another 7 life cycles, if at all.”

“As ever, your temper has wasted your argument. We cannot have thralls interacting outside of the breeding program. Romiver’s senses are attuned to their feelings of hope and desire. He is never wrong in the crushing of their souls.”

“Except when his hunger for sport outweighs his understanding of the logic required to master the use of all thralls.”

“Which alone falls to me. Remember your place Master of the First Tributary. Well may you lust for my power, long will it remain beyond your reach!” Boomed Un-Alazaar

“Then surely oh Master, you have deduced the problem of which I speak?”

Fulguenore moved further into the clouds, creating shadows about his form, his skill as a shapeshifter had grown. Un-Alazaar now found it more difficult to tell body from wing.

“Speak plainly! Remove your shadows. I have had enough insurrection from the thralls, I need it not from my legion.”

Fulguenore rose smoothly through the cloud, eyes now level with Un-Alazaar.

“There could be no bond for these two thralls. The resin filterer would have killed the barge thrall with so much as a touch. Her immunity has built from birth, from the smoke that consumed her sires. As her strength and endurance grow, so our production has increased.”

“Yet you held this valuable information from me? Did it blind you to the growing feelings between them?”

“An inconsequential risk. The thralls’ anger was stronger than a hope that could never be fulfilled. They would have looked across the water at each other until they died.” Sneered Fulguenore.

“Let your anger pass Fulguenore. For there may be another. Your value is your drive. Yet your logic blinds you as much as Romiver’s hunger for sport blinds him, and ultimately you will never reach my wisdom, until you understand the power that hope gives a thrall.” At this the Master smiled, his teeth barred, smoke and flame seeping around his jowls.

“How so?” Now it was Fulguenore’s turn to hesitate, what had he missed?

“Your precious thrall has a brother. Test his strength in the resin filter trench.”

I could feel their eyes upon me. I dared not look up. One foot after the other, I continued to haul the resin wagon towards the barge pier. I had known this time would come, Eirini had prepared me for this moment, rubbing the resin on my limbs and torso every night, from before the time that I could remember. I had just not expected to be alone.

The river ran through the Valley, branching out into the three tributaries as the Valley opened out across a wide flood plain gradually declining to the sea. The second and third tributaries eventually faded into mangroves and a sandy delta that met a rocky coast. They were the paths to our waste and eventually death. The weakest of our kind worked along these paths, pushing the waste, floating our dead into the decaying mangroves.

The first tributary was a double-edged blade, it gave us life and it worked us to death. It ran from the mountains in the clouds, where the thrones of the Triumvirate stood with Khorforian the Great, Master of all Dragons ruling our lands. It then rushed through the roots of the mountains, opening the great caverns where the hardiest of thralls mined the resin of the ancient trees. The trees were harder than stone and only the wicked fire of the Manipulators could burn the stone to fire fuel, a black hard substance which fed our masters and kept the flame alive inside of each of the great worms. The river grew its second and third tributaries nearly halfway across the Valley floor taking their decay with them, whereas the first tributary continued its mighty flow to the great harbour beyond our sight. We only knew of these things when our masters spoke of it in passing.

All of the resin came from the burning of the great stone roots. Originally the resin had been cast aside as a waste product by the manipulators in the quest for fire fuel. The legend shared amongst us, is that a thrall had discovered that it could be hardened over time and in secret he built a second skin that began to emulate the scales of the dragons. Hope had led him to believe that he could make enough scales to cover his companions and that they would be protected from dragon fire when they rose in numbers against the Eleven.

Yet Aligu, Prince of the Manipulators, discovered the thrall’s secret use and killing him took it for himself. In turn the Triumvirate sensed Aligu’s newfound strength and together they surrounded him before he had yet strengthened his armour to match all three of them. Then Khorforian banished the manipulators from oversight of the mining of fire fuel and shared it between his brothers Adtalaamao and Lodomarlin. The manipulators were left to burn the stones to create fuel fire, and torture thralls and the resin was sent down the river to be hardened by the saltwater in the great harbour and then returned to the mountains by ship along the coast. Then all the Eleven took the resin according to their position, to strengthen their bodies, so that no blade could pierce them between their scales.

The triumvirate first, Khorforian the Great and his brothers, Adtalaamao and Lodomarlin, then Un-Alazaar the River Master, then the Manipulators, Aligu, Prince of the Caverns, the sisters Valegnero and Vanu, and Opoldemille the Treacherous and finally Fulguenore, Romiver and Ruhminshar.

These evil beasts controlled my every waking hour. They had taken everything from me. Except what Eirini had left me, an immunity to the resin waste and ears to listen.

Be prepared for a time that may come. Eirini would whisper to me at night as I slept on the valley floor under the resin cart. Then before I woke, she would be gone again and so it had gone for all my childhood. Now she was gone, and I was not yet a man. I fought the growing fear inside me, pushing it back down as it began to suffocate my thoughts. Listen to the worms as you work. Hate them and learn from them. They have recognised my strength from my sister, but they do not know its power yet, for that matter nor do I. I must be prepared. I must hide my hope and then one day I may see Eirini again and we will find a way to free our people. First, I must make them forget me.

The eyes of Un-Alazaar and Fulguenore watched me as I was moved to the resin trench. I began my new task with the same intense monotony that I used to pull the cart. Focus on each task, show no emotion, keep my eyes low. Hardening my heart to the loss of Eirini and the death of Amon, I stepped to the trench and began filtering the resin waste, so that the thick sinewy substance covered my hands and arms. It fell across my legs and feet, and I paid it no mind. The liquid waste filtered into the trench at my feet, as I swept my great mesh basket through the resin. Each grain and each drop that absorbed into my skin, made me harder and stronger. By the end of the day, the dragons tired of observing me and seemed satisfied with my work. My companions either side me spoke no word and we dared not acknowledge each-others presence.

My turn ended and I was allowed several hours of rest. Another thrall brought me bread, water and a bowl of grain mixed with a little oil and broth. I ate slowly, breathing evenly. Inside, my heart was tearing asunder. My only family was gone, and I could do nothing. Then it came to me, my sister’s quiet voice,

"Rest is our friend. Save your strength… sleep little brother."

As I closed my eyes in my new resting place, on the edge of the resin filter trench, a thought crossed my mind with the rush of a dragon’s wing. What use is the resin to strengthen me if a dragon has talons? I must find a talon of my own.