The Dragon Lost to the World

Ashes rained down from the red soaked sky. The Alpha star setting in the North while the Minor star rose in the South, both barely visible through the hazy pollution of Kronsphere. Trees still smoldering, crackle with new life, remnants of the fourth Great Burn.

“Don’t fear it my good man,” said the lazy squeaking voice, sounding much like a seadog sunning himself upon the shore, “you’ve seen at least one other burn in your days. Push through.”

And so Charvus Dalineon obeyed. After all the squeaky voiced man, albeit annoying, was right. There was nothing to be afraid of regarding a Great Burn, it was only called a “Great Burn” because of the appearance, not the physical damage one would expect with such a name. During these Great Burns, the entire surface of the planet is enveloped by a crawling bright reddish orange hue. The most recent burn, which is the fourth Great Burn, lasted a total of fifteen long years. Four years longer than the previous three combined and Charvus was entering a particularly impacted section of the forest. Living creatures are seemingly unaffected by the burns, however on the contrary for plant life, which thrives following a burn. Even with that knowledge, entering the freshly burned woods still gave Charvus Dalineon a bad feeling.

Soot crumbled from the leaves, revealing new growth underneath as he pushed through the thicket at the edge of the woods. “Atta boy, the big tough Dragon proving he’s not craven after all,” the squeaky voiced man mocked Dalineon openly. He believed everything was fair game to ridicule, even Dalineon’s station as Dragon, but in Charvus’ opinion the other man had gone too far.

“You watch your fucking mouth,” Charvus said in a barely intelligible voice that sounded closer to a growl. Subconsciously he fingered the Dragon insignia pinned to the lapel of his officer’s coat. He was proud to be a Dragon. After all, the Dragons’ main goal was to rid all Kronsphere of evil. In Charvus’ mind there could be nothing more honorable than that.

Fifteen years ago, just before the last burn began, there were rumors of a Helonaught slaughtering innocent Dragons in a dingy store cellar and that the evil witch even took one hostage. Legend goes that a Helonaught will enslave people, forcing them to feed their powers by way of being a walking reservoir of blood awaiting manipulation by the witch they serve. It is said that these so called “blood bags” are drained at will so the Helonaught can continue casting his or her spells but not so much as to kill the enslaved person. Saving them for future use.

As if plucked directly from the horrible thoughts of Charvus Dalineon, a man clad in red robes appeared from the backside of a tree. He was waving his hand in a fluid yet sinister way. Charvus sprang to action, he dove forward, tucking his head and rolling to a kneel. With one swift motion he nocked, drew, and released and arrow, perfectly aimed at the robed man’s heart. Except at the time of impact the man refused to be there, and the arrow struck a tree. Cursing the sorcery, Charvus whipped his head back and forth trying to locate the intruder.

“Oh boy,” the squeaky voiced man said. Charvus hadn’t noticed but the other man was now draped over a sooty branch, ten feet off the ground, in the same tree Dalineon’s arrow was sticking out of. The man whose brown leather tunic billowed two sizes too big, continued “you’re going to get your pretty new uniform all sooty down there. Now collect your arrow you great buffoon, we’ve barely even entered the woods. It’s far too soon to be seeing ghosts.” And that is exactly what the robed man had to have been, as there was no trace of him.

Sheepish but still flowing with adrenaline from the strange encounter, Charvus Dalineon wedged his black fletched arrow from the trunk of the tree. He placed it back into his quiver and continued through the brush, hoping the other man would simply let the matter go, if not just this once. Dalineon would not be so lucky.

“I mean if we were in these woods to slay trees, I’d say you got one.” He squeaked on, “Because you know that was a tree, right?” at first Dalineon was going to let the question fall unanswered as if rhetorical, but the other man continued. “Oh Gods, please answer me, you dopey Dragon you. It’s beyond crucial to this fellowship, dare our friendship, that you know that the enemy you recklessly loosed an arrow at, was no more than a helpless tree. A fine tree, albeit, but an innocent tree none the…”

“I know that.” Charvus interrupted, “I fucking know that. Now shut your Gods forsaken mouth. Know this, we are not friends nor fellows or whatever else that constantly babbling mouth of your spews out.”

“I’m wounded Charvus,” Charvus Dalineon rolled his eyes as the squeaking continued. “why, I consider us fast friends and I dare say you only need to give me chance to win you over.” Charvus doubted very much that the remedy to his annoyance was more time with this irritating little man.

Before too long Charvus Dalineon was covered in the soot that sluffed off trees and bushes, despite his incessant pausing to brush his uniform clean. The officer’s coat billowed puffs of the gray powder easy enough with well-placed patting but his plate metal armored arms that protruded from his coat in lieu of sleeves proved more difficult. He shook his arms with a clink and clank to free himself of as much soot as he could, but a wetted rag and a good wipe did the trick. Problem being, his anal-retentive tendencies caused this trek through the woods to take longer than desired, every time he stopped to shake off, the clanking could be heard for miles, and his armor would need a good oiling when this mess was over. The latter did not bother Charvus Dalineon too much as he took considerable pride in his uniform and relished the time and responsibility it took him to reach his lofty standards.

Weaving in and out of blackened sooty trees with ultra-healthy new growth peeking out like a shy child looking through his mother’s legs, while pausing to clean the armor, restoring the image of the shiny gold coin amongst the oxidized copper ones, formed a sort of routine. For Charvus, that eventually bought him a sense of peace. Also, the squeaky voiced man had not been interested in voicing his opinion for some miles and Charvus wasn’t complaining about that either. Especially because if there was one thing Dalineon would have expected the other man to go on and on about, it would have been the farse that was the cleaning of the armor. He could almost hear the voice saying, “Again? For the love of Gods man, it’s just going to get re-dirtied when you walk through that thicket up ahead.” and he’d point at the thicket that Charvus was looking at as he ran the wet rag over his armor, revealing the well-smithed steel being concealed by the layer of soot.

As the unspoken words of his squeaky voiced companion echoed through his head, Charvus took a second look at the fresh thicket. It was a squatty bush of brilliant orange that stretched ten feet across and was tangled with vines covered in brambles of a bright green. The whole thing did not look right to Charvus Dalineon. There were patches of the colored new growth on trees and other plants where a squirrel had skittered up them, but this bush was near completely uncovered. Charvus Dalineon glanced at the way he had come, to insure this is not another trick of his mind and sure enough a trail of new growth, every plant he brushed against or walked through was also teeming with color. As far as his eyes could see, a line of bright greens, reds, and oranges mirrored his every footstep to this point straight through the otherwise soot covered forest.

Charvus understood the implications of the unmarred bush, he grabbed another arrow from his quiver. “No, not again,” the squeaking came, “this is a bush… they are like tiny trees. Either way there is no need to kill this one.”

“Shut up,” scoffed Charvus, “This one doesn’t have soot on it.” As if pointing out the obvious would aid the other man into seeing that if a plant is void of soot, something must have disturbed the bush and whatever it was could be dangerous.

"Oh boy, oh no, it’s finally happened. Hello, Kronsphere to Charvus, we’re not here to kill de-sooted plants either. Whether or not it has soot on it, a bush is still just a bush. You know that, right? Please tell me you know that. It’s imperative to this fellowship, dare I say friendship that you know…”

“Would. You. Shut. Up.” Charvus Dalineon said in his best whisper, but it was closer to a growl. “something had to have knocked the soot off the bush. Right?” Dalineon crouched but the other man just stood there with a speculative grin on his face stretching ear to ear.

“I don’t know” the other man said making a performance of his feigned stupidity. Charvus ignored the relentlessly annoying man and stealthily crept to the bush ahead. Closer, Dalineon noticed the thorny vine had blood and bits of cloth still stuck to it. His suspicions confirmed, someone had knocked the soot from the bush but where were they now and why was there no path leading to and from this bush?

A rustling behind the baggy clothed man stole Charvus’ attention. He whirled to see a giant boarlox swat down the other man with a blood melon sized, razor sharp clawed mitt. The man’s chest incaved with the blow and he instantly began hacking blood everywhere. The great fur beast stood on the bleeding and dying man with its two front legs, Charvus could hear bones snapping under the immense weight. It temporarily went to its hind legs and back down, crushing the man completely with a horrifying crunch. The other man’s coughing stopped and Charvus knew of no way he could still be alive. That’s when the boarlox sunk its teeth into the man’s face completing what had already been done. Charvus loosed the arrow he’d nocked when inspecting the bloody bush. It stuck true, lodging into the beast’s shoulder. The awful creature looked up at Charvus Dalineon and bellowed a horrific wail, before charging him. Dalineon was able to loose another arrow, which sunk deep into the boarlox’s chest, and nock a third before it reached him. The beast rose its complete height of fourteen feet as Charvus tripped backwards over an exposed root. Roaring another guttural wail, the boarlox descended on Charvus Dalineon. However, not before Charvus managed to release the third arrow, striking the beast in the throat. Weight, such that Charvus Dalineon had never felt crashed down upon him. An excruciating crack in his left knee, told him that he would not be walking from the woods this day. The more pressing issue than his leg, was the sheer weight of the boarlox, despite being dead, laying on top of him.

Just as Charvus began to ponder his next actions, he heard a slow but deliberate clapping. “That, my fellow might have been the best bit of theater one could have asked for.” In Charvus’ struggle with the corpse, he hadn’t noticed the familiar squeak of the man’s voice. “What was it this time?” the voice continued, “A killer shrub, out shedding its leaves before the proper season?”

The weight pinning Charvus Dalineon lessoned and finally released completely. He looked up and saw the squeaky voiced man’s toothy grin staring down on him from a nearby tree. The other man’s face and chest were completely intact and there was no boarlox corpse anywhere to be seen. Dalineon had tripped over a root and bashed his knee on a sharp piece of rock protruding from the ground but even that pain subsided as it turned out to only be a flesh wound.

Dalineon murmured a “shut up,” as he stood but he was too embarrassed to meet the other man’s eyes. Much to his astonishment the man listened. So much so, Charvus snuck a quick glimpse to ensure that the baggy tunic wearing man had not fled or worse, was actually dead and the boarlox attack was real. The man was absolutely trembling with pleasure. His lips cracking, they stretched so tight over his dopey grin. Charvus’ temporary curiosity of the man’s wellbeing faded the second he laid eyes on the man’s smirk.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he almost sounded concerned but Charvus Dalineon knew better at this point not to fall into the man’s trap. The squeaking of the man’s concern would only turn to ridicule before long, so Charvus decided to dust himself off, collect his things and most importantly ignore his annoying companion.

One of the arrows fired in the phantom boarlox attack had struck a nearby tree but the other two black fletching arrows were beyond lost. Charvus spent little to no time looking for them as they were launched at too high of a trajectory. Even the youngest and most unpracticed of archers quickly learn, arrows loosed like that could travel miles before finally arching back to the Kronsphere. Dalineon could spend the rest of his life looking for either of the arrows and he was likely to never see either one ever again let alone both. It was not worth wasting another thought on, so he collected the rest of his things, stuffed the smaller items in his pack, and set off with not as much as a glimpse toward the squeaky voiced, grinning man.

He hadn’t walked more than fifty to sixty feet before he heard a whimpering. A chill zapped up his spine, his eyes fluttered erratically with a new wave of adrenaline coursing through him. After a moment of standing frozen, this situation replayed itself in Charvus Dalineon’s head and he flushed, his cheeks turning the deep red of a blood melon’s husk. However, the squeaky voiced man again showed restraint and this time when Charvus snuck another look, the man’s grin was replaced by the same stern, curious and slightly scared look in its place. Sure that this was also a ruse to catch Charvus of his guard, Dalineon continued to ignore the other man. His demeaner changed just the same, he straightened his posture and put on the “brave Dragon soldier” act people expected of him.

Dalineon stepped forward causing the ashy thicket to spill out onto an open white ash covered field. He could just make out a line of color poking through the blanket of ash leading to near the center of the field, where a larger clearing shined against the colorless surroundings like a beacon of hope in what otherwise was a depressing forest.

Hurriedly Charvus and the baggy clothed man made a break for the blot of color. More whimpering turned to soft moans and eventually could be made out as open crying and a small voice pleading for help. As Dalineon got closer the spray of blood soaking into the nearby plants gave him pause. He could make out two figures, the larger of the two lying flat on their face and the other, half the size of the first, guarding the corpse with a defensive posture.

“Cut the shit, you’re seeing this right?” Charvus growled under his breath to the other man.

Upon asking the question the man’s spittle covered lips tightened into a wicked smile again, “Seeing what, Dragon Charvus Dalineon?” he said with a little giggle to twist his unhelpful knife further.

“Gods damn you man,” Charvus yelled at the other man, voices booming in the open field and echoing off the trees surrounding them. The little figure jumped as if goosed, before resuming its defense of the body on the ground. “We mean no harm, my child,” Dalineon directed at the figure, who he could now make out to be a little girl, no older than four or five.

Dalineon slowed his pace as he approached the child and opened his raised well-armored hands at his side. Charvus’ best “I mean you no harm” posture. As if to cram his meaning home he even began to repeat, “I mean you no harm, my chi....” but was cut short as he finally could see the entire scene before him. This small soot-smudged child was defending the corpse of her mother, who had not one but two black fletched arrows protruding from her back.

Guilt at the recognition of his stray arrows jutting out of the dead woman’s back dropped into Charvus’ gut like rocks in a shallow well. He fell to his knees at the woman’s side, hands fumbling to unclasp his gauntleted hand. Once free, Charvus threw the glove absently and immediately looked for a pulse. After some nervous clumsy probing at the woman’s neck, he located a weak throbbing. Excitement flooded him. It was possible he hadn’t unintentionally murdered this woman. He wedged both hands under her and attempted to flip the woman when he felt something sharp penetrating his shoulder blade.

The five-year-old had a small dirk and was cramming it, with pinpoint accuracy, into the small chink located where the armored arms connect to the back plate concealed by his coat. Reacting to the pain more than his logic, Charvus spun swinging the newly injured arm wildly. It connected with the little girl’s nose, spraying blood to match that of her fallen mothers. The child began to wail, this was expected as Charvus was sure the girl’s nose had broken with the blow. As if the guilt of shooting the girl’s mother wasn’t enough, now he’s a child beater simply because she was doing what was expected of her when a strange man starts fiddling with her mother’s corpse. He stood and reeled on the girl, hands back into a submissive posture. Just then realizing that the hand he had backhanded the girl with was the still gauntleted hand.

The girl’s face bleeding, she cowered into the fetal position. Charvus Dalineon didn’t think his guilt could worsen but somehow it had. He dropped to one knee by the girl, leaving her mother forgotten, “You’ll be alright,” he said in as soothing a tone he could manage but he only received more whimpers in response.

Charvus Dalineon rifled through his pack and found one of his old shirts. He pried the crying girl’s hands away from her nose and firmly pressed the discarded shirt in their place. She yelped a little, and new tears welled in her eyes, but she stayed silent. Charvus took this as sign she would remain calm. He turned his attention back to the mother but, after some fumbling, he concluded that the women had died during the commotion.

He ran his hand through his hair and sighed long and hard. Dalineon stood and fully assessed the situation. A dead woman, who he killed, lying in a growing pool of blood, the woman’s daughter sobbing quietly into an old shirt, and a useless man standing in a billowy tunic with an absolute expression of glee smeared on his face.

“Do you think you could’ve helped instead of just standing there?” Charvus yelled, losing his temper at the other man, “you’re proving to be more useless than I originally thought possible.” Dalineon usually tried to keep his emotions in check but after the day he was having he couldn’t keep from unloading on the man. To make matters worse, the man’s smile grew inhumanly large.

Charvus thought the smile might tear at the corners of the man’s mouth but before it did the man said, “why, you wound me Sir Dragon,” the insult of using the knight’s pronoun alongside the title of Dragon was not lost on Dalineon. Dragons where an honorable faction of witch hunters that would stop at nothing to rid Kronsphere of any and all evil. They couldn’t be bought, they couldn’t be ruled, they answered only to their own higher archies, put in place by the leaders of the Dragons.

As for knights, they were bought and sold like old blood melons at a discount flee market. They answered to the state mainly but had extraordinarily little moral back bone to speak of. To be called “Sir” was a sign of respect that was earned by way of being knighted by a previous knight. However, to a Dragon it was an incredible insult and, even if by mistake or lack of knowing, not many Dragons would take it lightly.

“I’m not as useless as you presume me to be,” the squeaking voice continued to the look of Charvus Dalineon’s growing anger, “in fact I’m about the only reason we are as far as we’ve gotten. After all my dear Dragon, I found her, didn’t I?” he waved a hand at the little girl.

“What in Gods’ name are you even saying?” barked Dalineon, the girl squeaked. “You haven’t done fuck all but mock and ridicule,” much to Charvus’ annoyance the grin began to grow again. “I found her,” Charvus pushed on, “I’m the one who is going to return her, and her mother’s death,” he paused, “that was just a mistake. No one said anything about needing her alive anyhow.” New tears have formed in the girl’s eyes. Charvus Dalineon was nose to nose with the other man when he noticed the pain in his shoulder subsided.

“Sir,” a small voice whined.

“For the last time I. AM. A. DRAGON.” Charvus Dalineon yelled pounding his chest with every syllable, before realizing it was not the squeaky voiced man who had said the insult. Charvus turn to witness the last remnants of the little girl’s bladder spill onto the ashy forest floor.

Trembling she still managed to ask, “who are you talking to?” Charvus Dalineon spun and to his shock the man was no longer where he stood moments before. In fact, there were no signs he had ever been there. The footprints he had left as he walked next to Dalineon to the clearing were undisturbed and still ash covered. With a glimpse, Dalineon noticed the corpse of the mother had also vanished from thin air.

Confused and not sure what to believe anymore, Charvus Dalineon dropped to his knees, tore off his helm and discarded it haphazardly. He clutched his head between his two meaty hands, one uncovered and the other still in its gauntlet. Just as a throbbing built to a crescendo in his head he felt a tiny hand rest on his shoulder, “you’re the only adult for miles” the child said through the filter of a broken nose, “I need you here, I need your help…please.” he thought she added but when he looked up, she was ten feet away, confused, looking at him with red eyes, but nose completely healed.

“Alright little girl,” Charvus said showing his palms again in a submissive statement, “I don’t know what evils has befallen us here but we’re leaving.” He rose from his kneel and scooped her in his arms. He refused attempting to make sense of any of this as she, tired of fighting capitulated to the cold unyielding steel of the Dragon’s embrace.

As he followed his footsteps back through the ashen woods the little girl leaned in and whispered something in his ears just before she drifted off to sleep. “I love you, Daddy.”