They Say the Sky

There weren’t always dragons in the Valley.

My father said it had been abandoned for decades, the cluster of structure that sat in the gorge of the mountains - sharp and brooding and finely tuned to the nature that had crept into its walls. Trees and thorns and vines twisted in the cracks of the cobbled stone, through the shattered windows and dilapidated roofing. It was the dragons’ valley, quiet and still, night after night, snowed-in during the winter and flooded in the summer, tentatively observed by the people in the mountains. They would peek out behind their curtains at night, yellow firelight flooding in from behind them, eyes straining to catch a glimpse of something from across the distance. Curiosity and fear combined into inaction, a lifetime of us watching each other through windows. It became something of a comfort to me, a mirror up in the mountains that I could see my reflection in, something small and something kindred.

I supposed the Valley did look well enough from up high - where one was able to take in its whole at once. It looked inviting in a dangerous sort of way, if nothing else, for someone who had never been trapped on the inside of it, locked in its lifeless encasing. It didn’t look any less lifeless from the cliffs, but it did look smaller.

I pulled my coat tighter to my body as if to block out the chill night wind, and turned away from the grim stone below and toward the upwards slopes of the firelit homes. The rocky cliff top began to break into patches of dirt and long grass, and though I tried to keep my pace steady and measured until I reached the village, the sensation of stepping directly upon the earth instead of unforgiving plateaus of carved stone was enough to make my resolve falter.

I had never gone out unless hunting, and never alone. Never without permission.

I looked over my shoulder, back into the Valley, back into the windswept rubble I came from. It wasn’t too late to return, to sit and be able to remember the night I made it as far out as I had. But there was something different, something that held itself humidly in the air, like a warning of danger.

Every instinct I possessed stopped me where I stood, stopped me several times in my attempt to make it out of the Valley, and fought for me to turn around. It was the competition against this instinct that compelled me forward again until I reached the winding dirt road that marked the entrance to the village.

It was different, being so close to the homes I had watched from my windows. It didn't take much time to walk farther than I had been able to see before, to see new buildings and trees and turns in the road. There was a yellow tint about the entire place, partly owed to the orange sky - still finding its way into the last recesses of dusk - and partly due to the firelight glowing from the windows of the houses I walked between.

“Nic! Nic!”

I turned around at a voice calling to find a girl, near to my age, no older than 20. Her face, human and soft and round, turned apologetic when she realized she had mistaken my person for another. It took only a second later for all traces of congeniality to fall away when she realized something else further. It couldn’t be that I was inhuman - while of course I knew my fine frame and features lended themselves well to deceivers in human form, I had covered the pallor of my skin with tint before setting out, I had filed my nails and kept my hair short and took great care and many years of practice to dim any malignant verve or inhuman nature that tried to make itself apparent in the simplicity of my presence.

“I’m sorry- I-” she began retreating with small steps backwards, never turning her back to me. “I thought- I must go.”

“No, wait!” I took a step forward and held my hand out.

She stilled, but it was clear it was out of fear and not acquiescence. Was it simply that I was a stranger that worried her so? Or had I really been so unprepared?

“Don’t be afraid,” I tried to assure, though I could feel the unsteadiness in my voice as well as I could see it in her. “I am not from this place, I am only looking for lodging to stay the night.”

She stayed frightened and still. I didn’t dare another step forward.

“Is there an inn nearby? Somewhere you could direct me to?”

“No.” She finally said. “We don’t take travelers here. You should go.” She all but ran away after that, into a house that she slammed the front door of behind her.

I stood alone, unsure. It was impossible to go back home now. Not after coming so close to having one night away, one night among these people I had been watching for so long. And it could not be a consideration to submit to the foreboding that simmered restlessly inside me, which grew stronger the longer I stood alone in the middle of the road.

I saw the girl come to the window of her house, with someone older hurrying not far behind. Her face, upon seeing me looking back at her, turned just as fearful as the girl’s had. Probably her mother, but I had no time to look further upon them before the curtain dropped abruptly, blocking out the warm light.

A building farther up the road housed the sound of voices, choruses of cheers and laughter that carried on the wind to me. I couldn’t see it from where it sat on the dip of the hill, but I keened my ears to the noise and followed it farther into the town.

The girl must have been telling the truth about not housing travelers. It was not a terribly large place, and in my walk I didn’t come across any sort of inn or wayfarer’s lodge. The only thing that caught my attention was the children playing out in the cold twilight, stopping and staring or running into their houses after I walked by them.

Finally I found the building I had been searching for, its open windows letting errant light and the familiar stench of alcohol flow from all four of its walls. I did not need to acquire a room to stay in, especially when taking into account I would not be sleeping. A night among the people in the tavern seemed a better plan than the original, and perhaps a roomful of drunkards would have less fearful guard of themselves than the girl.

I bolstered myself and approached the door, opening it with cool precision and tamping down the hesitancy that lingered in the pit of my stomach.

The heat of it was the first thing that hit me. Even with every window open, it seemed only to be letting hot air out and no cold air in. I had never felt anything like it before - neither the massive amount of human warmth collecting in the air, just as I had read it described so many times, nor the proximity to the two fireplaces lit inside. Both were completely foreign sources of heat and excited me in a way I had often imagined, but could never have realized how incompletely and inaccurately.

It was a sizeable room, large enough for the eight tables and twice as many benches it contained - many of them filled past capacity - as well as a full bar with half a dozen staff behind and a dozen stools in front. It looked like something out of a book, almost to the word how I had imagined taverns in any number of novels my father would bring back for me from his trips.

It had never been so easy to ignore the warnings of my instinct as I gently closed the door behind me and made my way into the thronging heat.

I sat down on a stool at the bar. Heads began to turn, one at a time at first, then table by table. I shifted in my seat and wanted to put my head down, to remain as inconspicuous as possible, but couldn’t help peering around at more and more of them beginning to stare at me. The raucous noise haltered a bit, then came to a complete stop as soon everyone’s eyes became fixed upon me.

“Can I help you, son?” A burly man with strong stocky arms and a thick brown beard came forward and stood on the other side of the bar. The rest of the staff took some odd paces back, forming a sort of half circle of distance away from me. I looked over my shoulder to see the same effect had occurred behind me, and the barkeep and I were deadcenter in an otherwise empty circle. The air didn’t feel as warm anymore.

I steeled myself. “I came in search of something to drink, and somewhere to rest for the night. I’m only passing through.”

“You must forgive our misgivings. It’s not often we get travelers around here.”

“So I was told,” I replied, but the barkeep’s eyebrows knit in confusion, so I elaborated. “I ran into someone on the way in here, a girl. She said the same thing.”

The sound of benches and chairs scraping against the wood floor from behind me and all around stirred the silence, and I turned to see various men across the room now standing, some with hands around sheathed knives or glass bottles.

“What did you do to her?” one of them accused. “Where is she, you scaley bastard?”

“I didn’t touch her.” I didn’t have to work to put any earnesty in my voice. Fear for my own safety as well as offence taken by their fear for hers didn’t leave any necessity on my part for false pretences. Even so the room began erupting into clamor. A few men started to slowly advance towards me, and my head snapped around at the sound of a wooden leg being broken off of one of the bar stools, fashioning a makeshift splintered stake.

The circle was closing in and I stood from my seat though I had nowhere to run to, nowhere safe to turn my back to as panic started to claw its way from my stomach and into my throat.

“Hey, hey, settle down! I said, calm yourselves!”

I turned back around to the barkeep, whose shouting had managed to emerge over the growing uproar of the crowd. The room faded back into silence, but still I stood, panicked and shaking like an animal locked in its death grip.

“Let’s not forget who we’re dealing with here,” the man said before focusing his attention back to me. “Look here, son. We’ve never given you cause for trouble, and you’ve never done us wrong neither. I think you just wandered a little too far from home.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“I know, I believe you. But I don’t reckon this is where you belong.”

I couldn’t help the scowl that I felt come over my face. None of this was right. None of this was fair. All I did was come into town, I never hurt anybody or gave any cause for any of what had happened.

All heads swung to the door of the tavern slinging open with a bang, a gust of cold wind sweeping inside along with a group of five new occupants. They were all of them dressed for the cold, with faces flushed as if they had been out in it for some time. In front was the obvious leader, tall and broad and several days past shaven. Next to him was a woman, just above him in height and dark of eyes, hair, and skin. Behind them were a boy and a girl, tanned and scarcely younger than myself, and bringing up the rear of the group was another woman, shorter than the rest and stockily built.

Each of them had their hands on their respective weapons of some sort, and each of them surveyed the room for potential threats as the door swung closed behind them.

“We thought we heard some trouble,” the leader announced, his grip on the hilt of his sword easing as he took into account the state of the room.

“And who might you be?” The barkeep inquired.

“Name’s Eoin. This is my band. We come from Târgu Mureș.”

“On what business?”

Eoin’s eyes switched from the barkeep’s to mine and lingered as he gave his answer. “Hunting.”

He heaved the pack off his back and unceremoniously set it down on the floor, then sat down at the stool two to my right, leaving one empty between us. The woman who had been next to him sat to my left, the boy and the girl stood some distance behind me. The last woman kept her place in front of the closed door.

"You'll find land best suited for hunting south of here, past the river." The barkeep continued in an easy manner, but kept his eyes carefully trained on the hunter. "There's also plenty for fishing if you follow the stream down-"

"We're dragon hunters," Eoin interrupted.

“Dragon hunters," the barkeep repeated back.

“Dragons, draculas, devils, demons, vampires - whatever your name for them.”

"I've never heard of a dragon hunter before. Wouldn't think there'd be much fare to it, hunting down myths and fairytales for a living."

Eoin's response was to pull a necklace from over his head, shiny white stones threaded through a leather band. "The demons' fangs," he said. He looked from the barkeep to me and held out his hand. "Would you like to see?"

I did not take it, but upon involuntary closer inspection could see that they were not stones or gems after all, but pointed teeth, 30 or so in number, with a hollowed out hole near the top and strung side by side.

"I've their claws too, in my bag." Eoin put the necklace back over his head and reached below for his bag. "Ugly, twisted things, and sharper than a cat's, if you wanted a look-"

"No." I didn't mean to say anything, I would have thought myself too terrified to, but my revulsion of Eoin and his party was tearing at me from the inside out, like their beings themselves were repelling me, trying to physically push me away from them.

Eoin stopped and looked over his shoulder at me, before slowly coming back up with a drawstring bag.

I grimaced and looked away despite myself, but opened my eyes to find Eoin had only slid coins across the bar, in trade for a drink that was slowly slid back to him.

"We're following a lead we've been on, coming on some months now.” He nestled the drink in his hands and nodded his thanks across the bar. “A man who comes to Bistrița alone, trades by night. No carriage, no horses, buys in wares far more than one man can carry alone. Would you know anything of this?"

I stared at my hands, clasped tightly together on the bar, and only looked up when the barkeep had still not given his answer. I found him looking at me, and a glance to my right at the dragon hunter showed to me that he had been waiting on me for his answer.

“No,” I managed. “I’m not from here. Just passing through.”

“You’re a mite dark for these parts,” he said, as if agreeing with me.

“I’m not from here,” I said again.

Eoin raised his eyebrows and brought my gaze into his, a demand to surrender more information. I stared him back, but did not say anything.

“What’s your name?” He finally asked.

“Ariel.”

“And where are you from, Ariel?”

“The Americas.”

“Where in the Americas?”

“South. Southern. The- it’s hot… over there.” My often visited upon mortification of a lie poorly told and the less familiar to me mortal peril combined together into a churning medley, forcing me to finally break away from Eoin’s eyes, which had begun to shine with a delighted sort of satisfaction. I felt sick, and I grabbed a tankard from the bar for want of anything to do besides sit there stupidly with all eyes on me, and slew it down as fast as I could manage, clenching my eyes shut. As I was drinking, I realized all I could do was hope it wasn’t Eoin’s drink I took, because I know it wasn’t mine.

“Well,” Eoin announced, “it’s always good to meet fellow travelers on the road. Tell me, Ariel, if I were to show you our map, would you be able to point me to the way you passed in here?” He began pulling items from the inside of his coat - knives, papers, a flask. “The route we took was on bad advice - nearly fell clean off the mountains more than once or twice, and that was after we barely scraped by the wolves. Terrible creatures, aren’t they,” he kept muttering as he rearranged his pockets, setting things on the bar in front of him or putting them back in a different spot. “Here, would you hold this for me?” He finally lifted his head up from his rummaging and held out his hand with a guarded expression.

He was holding a wooden cross, extending it out to me.

The severity of my situation became suddenly clear to me as I looked down at it - simply carved with smooth, clean edges, sanded down into fine lines. Eoin sat still with an unchanging expression, arm still hovering in the air as if there was no time passing at all.

There was no mistaking this, and I knew I was damned if I turned him away.

The cross burned into my palm even as it exchanged hands, sinking into my flesh like a footfall in snow. I rigidly set it down on the bar in front of us, for the torment was far worse than I could have anticipated, and took great effort to remain neutral and unaffected by both the searing pain and the near maddening urge to recoil from it and from Eoin himself, who undoubtedly had many more just like it hidden on his person. I kept my hand closed and away from him, as well as my head tucked down to hide the biting of my lip and the tears I felt burning my eyes.

I could hear Eoin replacing the items back into his coat. “Perhaps you could show us tomorrow. We best be getting an early heading to bed, what with the full day tomorrow. Is there anyone here who could show young Ariel and us about the place? Seeing as we’re both new to these parts, it makes sense we should stay together, yes, lad?”

I stayed with my head down, one hand clenched over the fist of my injured one. “I don’t have time, I must continue my journey.”

“Nonsense. What’s the point in letting this beautiful village be wasted upon you? We can stay here tonight, set up by the fire. At dawn we’ll set out - down the cliffside to that ruinous castle we saw on our way in.”

I stayed with my head down, unable to show my fear and my pain, though I could hear him stand up and heft his bag up over his shoulder again. He clapped his hand on my shoulder and leaned in.

“At sunrise, dracul.”

Sunrise, I thought. My father.