The Master Of Eight

Chapter One

The ship docks in coarse black sand and the white froth of the sea laps at its aft. The parasites now dress in thick wraps of fur, they pull leather gloves on their sickly pale hands and wear the remnants of gutted animals on their heads. Cuffs of iron rattle when he is pulled out of the damp bilges, despite the dark mass of clouds in the sky, he winces at the assault of daylight on his deprived senses. On the right side of the ship, mountains of obsidian black loom high into the blemish of charcoal clouds. He only drags his eyes away from their magnificence when he’s held by the crook in his armpits and dragged forward.

The bulbous bow points to the top of fir trees overcast in bleached smog beyond the sand. A forest? He wonders beneath the neutral pull of his lips, two parasites on either side of his talk in a foreign language, they wait on their crew to release the gangplank. Whatever they're saying, they are anticipatory of what will happen to him. He takes no offence; he is anticipatory of what will happen to him.

When the gangplank is brought out with a heavy thud on the beach, he is escorted down its wet surface with an aggressive pull of his limbs. He knows they do not need to be so aggressive with him, but it is what a real man would do- considering he received the same lessons from his father. Good heavens, as if Bawok was not bleak enough.

On a high jagged black rock, there is an engraving of words in white chalk. It is not the terrifying promise of the words that surprise him, but that it is written in his mother tongue.

Here, we drown dragons.

A small group of parasites follow him off the ship, chattering with one another, clouds waft out between their lips as their insides burn to keep them alive. He wonders how cold they are, while they only burn on the inside, he burns through to his skin until he can see the steam rise out of its pores. Despite his destination, he knows they wish they were him. To be forever warm.

There is no time for dillydallying, a dragon chained from its wrists to its ankles is still a dragon. A dragon in the coldest corner of the world is still a dragon. They know this, they have experience. They pull him along, bare feet seeping into the cold sand. They point to the jagged rock and its promise with rough laughter at either side of his head. Given the isolation in the bilges, it echoes painfully in his ears until his temples throb with it.

He takes a deep breath when they plunge through the thick white fog into the forest, it's heavy enough to choke him for a moment. The air is dense and the heat that radiates through his very bones- feels lukewarm. He may have underestimated the parasites. Although they are small and powerless, they have always been intelligent. Where they cannot use claws, they create claws.

Despite the harsh conditions of Bawok, there is the caw of birds over the trees and the thrum of a fly caught in a translucent web. An intricate spider with an array of red eyes twists and spins above her web, as if listening to the harmonious playing of a harp. He waits on them to pass by the web before he collapses to his knees.

“Blessings upon your web, friend,” he says in a quick breath, the parasites pull at his limbs, but he stays firm on his knees “send aid, and I will make it ever more abundant.”

His language scares them, it is heavy in the throat and smooth on the tongue. The spider does not move, she simply watches him through her many eyes as he’s heaved off the wet ground and dragged through the trees once more. It is a sacred bond between dragon and beast that allows their share of the mother-world. It is the ugliest of creatures that invariably understand one another.

It does not take long until a lone hut is seen on the horizon. It sits amidst the high black trees; the canopy is covered in a sheet of snow and its old timber door is guarded by a stern-faced woman.

Her hair is as red as the setting sun and her eyes as hard as stone, she wears a wrap of white tiger skin and when she lifts her hand, it is stained red. She presses a cold finger to his chin and tilts it side to side so she may scrutinise him. She says something and the party of parasites laugh. He is comforted that it cannot be that funny, she doesn’t look the humorous type.

She takes him by the arm, beckons the others away and knocks. A small woman opens the door, she could be about a century old in parasite years. Her skin rolls and hangs off its skeleton, her hair as grey as ash and has a grim look in her spotted eyes.

“Bring him in.”

He’s brought in and isn't given much time to allocate his surroundings. He is pushed headfirst onto a stone table and the redhead begins to attach his arms and legs to its bindings. Pressure builds in his chest. When he is bound, the party is welcomed back into the hut. They whisper and stare, he is a mighty miracle in this mother-world but now, beneath their agog gaze, he is only a mockery.

He does not know what torment happens here in the hut; no dragon has lived to tell the tale. He imagines them now, great bodies sunken in the white sea. He wonders what his father would think of his body in the sea. When he pictures him, his father simply twitches his lips in disappointment.

A fine thread of white attracts his gaze to the stained floorboards until he makes out a row of bulge-back spiders. They march after one another as if preparing for battle. He can’t help the spasm of his lips, although they shiver, he feels a smile coming on.

They bring a message with them, and they march and match until they seem to find what it is they wish to show him.

He can hear the sharpening of a blade behind him, the aged woman and the redhead speak in hushed voices- which is useless, he can't understand them anyway.

He looks over and finds the spiders settled at the boots of a young girl. Her hair is long and red like, presumably, her mother. Her cheeks are red too, blotchy and round at the apples of her cheeks.

She stares hard at him, thick brows furrowed as if she's waiting for them to cut him open just so she can explore the mechanisms of his being. She catches his gaze and glances down at the spiders. With a simple stamp of her foot, she crushes the creatures until their white blood oozes beneath the soles of her boots.

He suddenly wants to rip her head off her small shoulders. Why had they settled by her? What were they trying to tell him?

He keeps his eyes on her, and she shrinks away from his gaze, fingers clenching at her fur wrap.

She is afraid, he feeds on fear.

"You crush the spiders because they are small?" He whispers, "do not forget that you too, are a spider to me."

He only means to scare her, it is entertaining how afraid the parasites are of his mother tongue. He does not expect her to reply.

"A female spider eats the male."

The sharpening of the blade stills, and he can hear the intake of breaths, the shudder of hearts. The girl speaks Draken-tongue, heavy in the throat and smooth on the tongue.

The old woman pushes through the party, her hands show no sign of her feeble age when she grabs the girl's face. Her mouth is squished painfully between her fingers and she tries to pull away.

The woman whispers first, as if asking her what she had just said, but when the girl struggles, she begins to shriek. The girl's mother pleads with the elder lady, but she is knocked to the floor by the party who surround the girl until she is swallowed in their bodies.

A trail of spiders begin to eat away at the iron binds. He sags in relief against the stone table, humming sweet encouragement to the eight-legged creatures.

There are screams now in the hut, horrible and blood-curdling. They remind him of the visits he and his brothers would pay to nearby villages, where they would burn to ash and scream to their Lord.

The girl's mother is wicked with her blade, she has no choice but to wield it, to drench it in her own party's blood. They have no mercy towards the abomination she calls a daughter. A dragon? A half-breed? A traitor?

They pull at her robes and beat her with the handle of the blades, and in turn, her mother guts them.

It truly is a sight to behold. But he cannot stay long to admire it, he has a ship to seize. When the spiders have finally chewed him out of his binds, he realizes the mother and her daughter are the only ones left alive.

She is on her knees, arms wrapped around her daughter's shaking shoulders.

He wonders for a moment if his father will hold him that way when he makes it back home. He sees red when he knows that he won't.

He takes no risks with the parasites and carefully picks up a blade off the floor, quiet enough to be one of the spiders.

His arms lift and plunge the blade into the mother's spine. It makes a delicious crunch and she screams into her daughter's face.

He doesn't bother with the wailing daughter, he simply belts the blade and makes to leave.

"Coward," the woman says in his native tongue, there is blood in her mouth, blood in her eyes and it drips from her back "she is just a child."

He looks between the mother and her daughter and gives a sympathetic smile "and you were a dragon."

"Please," she says, but she doesn't know what she begs for, perhaps she wishes for him to kill her daughter, perhaps she wishes he lets her live.

He does neither, instead, he reaches over and grabs the young girl's collar, she shrieks at him, reaching for her mother but it is short-lived when he hits her over the head.

"You owe the spiders a debt, young one."