The Song of Thaedritus

There weren’t always dragons in the valley and there have not been for a very long time. Not since knights in their glinting silver armour chased them away so very long ago…at least so say the songs of old.

Tucked under threadbare blankets, my brother, Rishi, and I, would listen with wide eyes to the tales my grandmother would weave every night before we fell to sleep. The natives that lived in the valley were a peaceful group of people, who nurtured the earth, cultivating livestock and crops from the valley’s supple soil. They were a simple people; the only hint of civilisation being the clay huts speckled along the foothills. For they had learnt long ago that any permanent dwelling would be destroyed without notice on the whims of the vile dragons. Woven through the fabric of the tale, my grandmother would recount the atrocities that the demonic beasts committed. Tales of children being swallowed whole, attacks that raze fields to the ground and decimated the people’s way of life…it was why they chose to be more nomadic, often forgoing their clay huts on more pleasant nights to instead sleep with their flocks or in their fields to camouflage themselves against attacks.

My grandmother would say that the dragons were impossible to spot in the mountain as their blackened skin afforded them invisibility against the soaring rockface in which they made their home; the entrances to their lairs shrouded in the same tumultuous green ivy that carpeted the mountainous paths. It is said that one could tell if a cave was inhabited by a dragon if they paid attention, if they knew the signs to look for…if they paid attention. The mouth of the cave would be unusually warm – so inviting in the icy peaks of the mountains that any traveller would want nothing more than to take up residence inside to chase the cold from their bones. The scent was the other thing to watch out for. Thanks to the diet of a dragon, the heavy scent of rotting meat and death would permeate through the cave. If one was so unfortunate to set foot in an inhabited cave, it was rare that they would walk out again.

The people of the valley were suffering…so when King Wilmot, leader of the Dules Empire rode valiantly to meet the dragons head on, they rejoiced; for he was their saviour, their new king…and so the kingdom of Thaedritus, my home, was born.

So elated by their new found freedom, the people of the valley, known amongst themselves as the Bonac people vowed to forever serve their Dulain liberators and helped build the city of Thaedritus, carving the castle into the soft dragon stone of the mountain. Despite the protest of both the Dulain and original inhabitants of the valley, the Bonac people, King Wilmot had vowed to his blushing bride to her and his throne in the capital, and so he interposed his representative, Margrave Franco to rule in his stead.

Despite being united under the united flag of the kingdom of Thaedritus, the people were divided. The Dulain people came from aristocracy with their soft angelic features accentuated by their supple skin that shimmered like fresh milk in the morning sun. Coupled with fine golden hair and pale eyes that seemed to reflect the sky of a summer’s day, the Dulain people looked like ghosts in the vibrant fields of the valley. It was a far cry from the earthy beauty of the original inhabitants, whose raven hair swept in luxurious thick braids across their umber skin and whose deep eyes embodied the freshly tilled soil of the land that they called home. The natural division in their colouring meant that the people were slow to mix, rather choosing to stay in their with their own, for you see, the Dulain people were strength incarnate, the saviours of the land and the Bonacs were the meek; everyone knows that the lion does not associate with the sheep after all. This was a factor that Margrave Franco sort to eradicate for it was causing the King grief in the capital as the rumour mill spun and so it was decided to integrate the two people. Dulain soldiers were financially enticed to take the Bonac women as their brides to sire a new race, my race. A people born of both cultures to pave the bridge between the two so that all could live in harmony and the hard-won kingdom of Thaedritus could thrive. We were aptly named the Bolain people, and so a city of irrefutable power was born.

Fairy tales always end there, with the triumph of good over evil, but this is history… and there are always two sides to every tale.

Despite the merge of the Dulain and Bonac people, neither race was completely obliterated and over the centuries, the enclaves reformed, each more wary of the other but united in their disgust when it came to the ‘half breeds’ for we did not belong in either faction. For me, I could pass through the Bonac people relatively undetected if I dressed appropriately, for my coffee skin and onyx hair afforded me that anonymity. Only my eyes, as pale as the stormy sky above gave away my heritage; inherited from my father and his father before him, the latter of which still perched by the fire each night to doze as my grandmother recounted her stories. The others, my brother, mother and grandmother, however, did not have the same fortune with their auburn hair and rosy cheeks, not technically angelic enough to be considered Dulain but somewhat accepted in their circles nonetheless. To say the least, family outings were…interesting. Mother always told me to stay near the house, to not explore past the baker three blocks away as it marked the end of the Bolain area but I yearned to know the other side of the story. To learn what life was like before, of how the Bonac people lived but most of all, what were the dragons like for they were the closet form to magic I had heard of in my twenty-three years.

In the dead of night on the feast of Aidra, a festival of the Bonac people, I slipped through the kitchen window, my black cloak melting with the shadows around me. Willing my feet to become silent on the cobblestone path, I crept through the winding streets, past the bakery all the way to the edge of one of the great rivers where a bonfire roared. The people had gathered to listen to the elders weave the tale of their history… and goddess above, was the difference startling. They told the tale of their people, nestled in the valley bourn of pure legend with its iridescent streams, shimmering burnt cliff faces and violet wildflowers that created an unearthly beauty that reflected in the tumultuous sky above. Here resided the Bonac people; a beautiful, cultured people who had crafted monuments into the mountains, morphing the dragon stone that lined the valley into an intricate series of alcoves, creating the palace of which the seven ruling families held their court. They mined the mountain for precious gems that adorned their bodies, grew spices so potent that they stained their hands and wove fabrics from the finest threads to pleat and wrap around their bodies to create a permanent rainbow in the darkened mountains. Livestock and crops prospered in the foothills, blossoming along the edges of the river where the goddess of creation, Aidra, stepped across the worlds. They were considered peaceful to most, living untouched by the rest of the world.

Peaceful but not without warriors…warriors who legend says, rode the dragons.

In perfect harmony, the people and dragons lived; each one reliant on the other. The dragons offered protection from outsiders and warmth in the icy caverns of the mountain castle. The people provided them with food and shelter from the ravages other men had tried to force on them. Although the dragons flourished throughout the valley, the Bonac people understood the balance of life. Instead, of enslaving the dragons to their whims, the seven ruling families elected that only the eldest children of their families would work with a dragon of their choice to guard the valley unless in a time of war where any of their people could take to the skies. The Spirits of the Valley, as the seven were more commonly known, would create an arc of colour against the pristine sky every day as they raced on dragons of amethyst, sapphire, emerald, crimson, topaz, pearl and onyx; a far cry from the supposed dark creatures the Dulain people described dragons as. Ultimately, the mutual respect that of that decision paved the way for peace… until the Dules Empire entered the valley.

Ten thousand Dulain soldiers flooded the valley to lay their claim – not one walked out.

King Wilmot refused to concede defeat, refusing to believe that dragons were so fearsome for tales of Bonac people had not reached the court of the Dules Empire. Ten thousand more men were sent to the valley and ten thousand more men died. The rich civilisation that was Bonac remained untouched.

King Wilmot was enraged. Several members of his court offered their suggestions but he would not hear any of them. The king spiralled into a tirade, inconsolable at his defeat until a master builder’s apprentice came forward with an ingenious idea. Every chain link, doorknob and coin in the kingdom made of iron was gathered and thrown into the melting pot to be cast into giant bolts which fuelled cross bows so large that new garrisons of thirty horse and thirty men were established to operate a single of the deadly machines. The battalions were replenished and the king chose to make the trek to the valley himself, for his pride had received several fatal blows with the murmurs of the court. Twenty thousand spike, each with a body perched at the end met the King as he crested the final lolling knoll. At the foot of the macabre forest laid a single man. Left alive by the inhabitants of the valley, he delivered his final message; to speak the tale of the Bonac people and to warn the king, beg him, to turn back…but he refused. Weaving their way through the valley, the cries of men reverberated of the mountains as fear halted the army when flashes of every colour streaked against the greying sky as the dragons took their flight. In front, the seven Spirits of the Valley led the charge…but they were no match for the newly developed weapons and the civilisation of the Bonac people was conquered, the ruling seven families slaughtered and their subjects forced into servitude of the Dules Empire.

I do not remember much after the bonfire, only the taste of salt as I sprinted through the labyrinth of streets towards that grassy knoll where King Wilmot had stood so many years ago. With lungs burning and heart thumping, I beheld the sprawling city that had been resurrected on the mass graves of soldier and dragon alike and since that starless night, I have never been able to look at my home the same way again…

Thaedritus is a city where the conquered and conquerors waltz in a disjointed dance along the razor edge of peace. Both sides forced to degrade themselves in a bid to survive thanks to the whims of King who was now no more than ash. A society forced into being without the consent of both sides will inevitably breed contempt and my home was no different. It’s funny, everyone seems to forget that people of mixed blood are not truly accepted. You’re either too pale to be a Bonac or too dark to be Dulain and so we exist in the in between; unable to claim either culture as our own and yet belonging to both. We represent the history of Thaedritus and are despised for it. So, I did what I must to retain my sanity…I started to daydream of dragons.