The Final Kingdom

There weren’t always dragons in the valley. The once green plains, speckled with the colors of spring, summer and autumn, are now an ashen sea. Like a scar across the land, the ash twists like a serpent from the Swordbreak Mountains to the west to the Etherian Capitol in the east.

The Capitol had been constructed into and against the western side of the Alterian Mountain Range as a means of protection from enemies to the east because of the difficult nature of trekking siege equipment and foot soldiers through the snowy granite peaks. The dozens of miles between these two mountain ranges were once part of a treaty of peace between mankind and the dragons that have now laid ruin upon these lands.

The few dozen farming and fishing villages throughout this valley are now wastelands. The few hundred residents of these villages that were lucky enough to have the time to flee now find themselves within the city gates of the Capitol. They are now refugees of a war that was anticipated by only few.

Three days have passed since the last dragon sighting. Small patches of embers cause smoke towers to appear across the land. The red morning sky only serves to make the embers appear brighter than they truly are. On the fourth day, a scouting group prepares to cross the valley to determine the extent of the destruction since the dragon run a few weeks prior to this most recent sighting.

The scouting groups were comprised of five members of the city watch and it was, typically, some of the youngest of them. Today was no exception. It was common for some members of the scouting group to not return, so the guard commander seemed to favor the younger members under his command to be assigned to this role to avoid losing the older and better-trained members.

The mission objectives were simple but accomplishing them was far from it. The scouts were tasked with identifying the route that the dragon had taken after leaving the Swordbreak Mountains. Each scouting run could take anywhere from three weeks to over two months. During this time, there was no way of knowing that another dragon was approaching until it was close enough to see through the wind-carried ash that often fell from the sky. If a scout laid eyes on a dragon during a scouting run, it was already too late.

Heath, the leader of this scouting run, had been on a few runs in the past. The most experienced of the lot usually earned that leadership role. He would be ultimately responsible for the crew’s success and would report their findings to the lead sergeant of the king’s army. Bentley was the second most experienced, so he was responsible for tracking the most recent path that the dragon took. The paths were usually denoted by the warmer, fresher, ash. However, this role relied heavily on previous experience and the notes taken by previous crews because sometimes the most recent destruction would be the only way to truly tell where the dragon had come from and where it was going. The remainder of the group, Huxley, Fulton, and Chadwick were there to search through the rubble for any metals that could be smelted into armor or weapons for the army. If any of these members were killed, the other members would absorb that scout’s duties.

Each member was given a horse to ride, a three and a half feet-long steel sword and a rucksack attached to the horse’s saddle to collect any of the scavenged materials picked up along the way. Since food in the valley was now scarce, options were restricted to what the storage in the capitol could spare. This amount seemed to decrease with each scouting run, as more refugees would enter the city. If scouting runs lasted longer than a few weeks, the scouts would have to resort to the occasional small animal hunted along the route. In the event of a scouting run lasting more than several weeks, they may have to face the decision of turning back towards the capitol without completing the mission. The more times dragons would come through the valley, the farther the scouting missions would have to travel. They never seemed to cause any damage within a day’s worth of travel to the base of the Swordbreak Mountains. This is where the scouting groups that make it that far restock on food utilizing the remaining wildlife and fruit trees. The threat of starvation was sometimes almost as severe as the threat of the crew unknowingly entering a dragon’s path.

“This ought to be about it, then” Heath announced to the rest of the crew. “We should get going.” The announcement led to some murmuring amongst the others, which led to Heath repeating his direction. “Let’s get going” he said, moderately more sternly than before.

Each of the crew pulled themselves up on their horses, and within a few moments they began to trot at a light pace along the stone roadway and headed the short distance from the stables to the city gates. The city portcullis rose and was lowered shortly after the scouting crew had made their way through and outside of the city walls. The clinking of the chains was an eerie sound to those on their first scouting runs.

Outside of the portcullis was a stark contrast to the inside of the city walls. The city walls generally protected the city from winds, so ash typically only fell inside the city walls during and shortly after a storm. Outside the city walls, the ash was bountiful and had even blown up against the walls in many areas. The stone road leaving the city was barely visible, hidden beneath ash which was scattered across the valley and would swirl with the ever-changing winds.

The crew traveled in the general westward direction to start their journey. The previous dragon sighting was towards a farming village about ten miles southwest of the Capitol called Barkamsted. It was originally a village of a little over fifty people, all of whom were now refugees with most other villages within the Etherian domain. Not much longer than a few hours passed after leaving the Capitol and each crew member’s clothing was now stained black with ash. As they got closer to Barkamsted, they began noticing that there was more ash on the ground than there had been on previous runs. Typically, this would happen if the winds were heavy in the area, but this seemed different.

They held there for a few minutes, and as they started to continue onward, Huxley noticed something strange. “There’s ash falling from the sky” he said, as the others began to look up.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” mumbled Heath. It was minimal, almost unnoticeable. While it was common to see ash blow in the heavy storm winds, this ash appeared to be falling from the clouds and, while the sky was overcast, it was not a storm. The ash was slowly blanketing the patches of the ground that had not yet been completely covered already.

The crew all exchanged looks of half confusion and half amusement. “As strange as this is,” Heath began. “We’ve got to keep moving.”

They began to trot forward and continued their journey. The crew expected the ash to stop falling, but each of them were shocked that the more time that passed and the closer they got to seeing the peaks of the Swordbreak Mountains on the horizon, the ash kept falling. Some even thought there was more ash falling than there had been earlier.

A few hours passed and even the ash that seemed to fall from the sky began to feel normal. They came to a small village known as Millstone, or what was left of it at least. It was one of the smaller villages in the valley and home to no more than a dozen families. Each farming village would supply the Capitol with their surplus food in exchange for protection from the nomadic thieving groups that would travel from village to village demanding reparations for their “protection,” even though all they protected was the gold and silver they carried with them.

Once the dragons began traveling through the valley, though, there was never enough surplus to provide the Capitol with the same willingness as there was in times of peace. Seemingly with the dragons came increasingly harsh winters and longer droughts in the summers. The smaller of the villages, such as this one, simply did not have the resources to maintain the food supply to feed their own people, let alone the kingdom’s army. This led to the village being under-protected, but even the protections allotted to these villages were no match for a fully-grown dragon.

“Let’s make camp here for the night” Heath told his crew. He then gave a few orders, giving everyone their tasks for the preparation of their camp. As the sun was beginning to reach the horizon, the crew had completed their tasks of setting tents and collecting material for the burning of a fire. Gathering material to burn wasn’t a complicated task when an entire town had been abandoned with much of it already burnt to the ground.

They gathered around the fire, each having one of the limited meals they were able to carry with them. There was nothing too special, mostly vegetables and thin steaks of beef which they cooked on skewers alongside the fire pit.

A day’s worth of riding led to a few of the younger members of the crew to experience soreness and some minor muscle stiffness. They would get used to it with time and more scouting runs, but the first few were always the hardest on the body.

“We should alternate watch tonight” Heath suggested. “Who wants first watch?” The crew all glanced at each other around the fire.

Eventually, Fulton spoke up. “I’ll do it” he said, and before long each of them was preparing for the night’s rest. The crew would exchange watches of about two hours in length. The member keeping watch would tend to the fire, which was usually a natural deterrent for most predators.

The night was rather quiet with most wildlife being displaced with every dragon attack. The starless night did not make for any quick passage of time, so Fulton spent his time thinking of his village and the dragon that had laid waste to his family’s land. Fulton had been a refugee from Westwind, a farming village much like Millstone. Many boys of age who were refugees had been recruited into the army and Fulton had been 16 when he had his first scouting run. Now at the age of 17, he would soon have the experience necessary to promote him to the tracker scout position, so volunteering for first watch might look good to his superiors.

Suddenly, there came a sound Fulton had not recognized. He perked up and stood still for a few moments. A screeching? A howling? Just as he was about to sit back down and pass it off as the wind, he heard it again. This time, a little louder, a little closer. Was this something he needed to wake Heath for? What would he think if he was awoken by a scout afraid of a little wind? He imagined that it wouldn’t do well for his future in scouting.

Again, though, right before he was about to give up on determining what the sound was, he heard it again. This time it seemed to be getting much closer until finally it dawned on him.

“Dragon,” he whispered. He scurried over to Heath and began to awake him when he heard the sound again, but this time it was close enough to startle Heath as he awoke from Fulton shaking him.

Heath’s face went white, a few shades from snow. “Everybody, get up!” he commanded. The crew lazily began to awake but did not have much haste. He shouted it this time, which seemed to work.

“Put the fire out,” said Bentley. The crew hurried to put out the flames.

“It’s too late for that,” said Heath. “It knows we’re here.” The screeching got louder and within moments, they finally saw it. A fully grown dragon, around 150 feet in length from head to tail, revealed itself from the blackness of night by releasing the first blaze on one of the remaining structures of the town.

Heath looked at the group of petrified scouts under his lead and let out a brief sigh. “Today is not our day” he said. He looked around at them and snapped his head towards Fulton. “You,” he said. “You must get back to the Capitol and tell them we’ve been attacked.”

Fulton shot a surprised look at everyone, which made Heath repeat his command, this time in a yell. “Get to your horse and go. Now. Quickly.”

Fulton did as he was ordered. In a sprint, he gathered his rucksack and got to his horse, accidentally leaving his sword behind. He could hear Heath barking orders to the crew but was so hyper focused on his task of returning to the Capitol that he wasn’t aware of what was being said. He raced to the northeast along the path they had taken to get to this point. After a few moments of a high paced gallop, he pulled his horse to a halt and looked back at Millstone.

With a dragon flying over-head, the town blazed in embers. Fulton turned but the shrieking was nearly paralyzing. He returned his horse to a full gallop and did not look back again, nor could he if he tried.

“I have to tell them,” Fulton murmured. “I have to.”