Page 1 of Dragon Valley
Prologue
No outsiders have enteredDragon Valley for twenty years.
Villagers once scaled the dangerous mountain terrain surrounding the valley in hopes of seeing one of the fire-breathing, majestic creatures. To see one was believed to bring good luck. To bring back a discarded dragon scale or tooth? The finder would make a fortune.
Three adventurous young men once set out in hopes of spotting a dragon of their own. Like those who’d gone before them and failed, they crafted razor-sharp weapons and practiced with them extensively. They wanted to make a dragon fall from the sky and bring the body back home to their village. With a whole horde of scales, claws, and teeth, they could turn their starving village into a rich metropolis overnight. Their great-grandchildren could live like kings and it still wouldn’t make a dent in the riches they’d make.
These three men trekked through wild and unforgiving terrain for weeks, slowly ascending to an elevation where the air felt like frozen knives in their throats. Dragon Peak was in sight but the climb had wrecked their bodies. Another day and they would be standing at the peak, looking down into the lush valley below.
They heard rumors that dragons flew through the air in dense flocks like birds. The valley was said to be so infused with magic from the Dragon God that as soon as a tree caught fire from dragon flames, it would regrow immediately before your very eyes.
Many stories were also whispered about the people who lived in the valley with the dragons. Some outside villages believed they turned into the dragons themselves, others thought they only rode the dragons like flying horses.
Either way, the people of Dragon Valley were regarded as savage and uncivilized. They rarely left the valley, choosing to stay isolated from the villages outside and the rest of Tannia. Parents used stories of the dragon people to frighten their children into obeying.
“If you don’t go to bed, the dragon people will wait until you fall asleep, then drink your blood!”
“If you don’t obey your parents, the dragon people will drag you away and feed you to their dragons!”
As no one in Tannia really knew or had contact with the people of the valley, folk tales and rumors spread with abandon. They became the wild, evil spirits of superstition and prejudice.
The three men on their trek up the mountain were so close to seeing the truth of the legends with their own eyes. They pushed on, despite the weariness in their limbs and lack of breath in their lungs.
In the middle of trudging up a steep incline, a monstrous cry rang out and a wave of heat washed over their half-frozen skin.
All three looked up to see a massive, winged shape in the sky. As it turned sharply in the air toward them with a beat of its long, powerful wings, they saw a rider sitting at the base of the creature’s neck. A rider who appeared to be a woman.
The dragon landed on the hillside behind them with all the grace of a small house falling from the sky. The woman was wrapped in furs from head to toe but wild, tawny hair whipped around her face like a lion’s mane.
All three men acted swiftly on instinct.
They loaded their crossbows and fired.
All three shots went wild and the dragon blocked them easily with the broad side of its scaly body. Then it opened its terrifying jaws with a roar, and sent a wall of flames straight toward the three men.
Two of them caught fire immediately. Their screams could be heard down in the valley, alerting other dragons and their riders to the threat outside.
The third man managed to dodge the flame with only minor burns on his feet. He rolled behind a boulder and quickly loaded another bolt into his crossbow. When he peeked around the rock, the screams of his friends had already become silenced. Their bodies laid as smoking, charred flesh in the snow.
His eyes followed the rider woman as she dismounted from the dragon and patted its neck affectionately as she would a horse.
The gesture filled him with rage. That savage bitch and her monster just killed his two best friends! When she turned to his boulder and started walking toward him, he aimed the crossbow quickly and loosed the bolt.
She stopped in her tracks, stunned for a moment. Then looked down at the bolt sticking out of her chest as blood began to make a dark, wet stain on her furs. When she stumbled, that was when the dragon noticed its rider was hurt.
It nudged her with its nose, sniffing the wound before letting out an eardrum-shattering cry of pain and rage.
The man ran as fast as his feet could carry him, zig-zagging and ducking behind boulders and trees to escape the flames singeing his back side. A tree behind him exploded with the force of the dragon’s breath, sending splinters stabbing all throughout his head and neck. But he kept running. And soon he no longer felt the flame of death that consumed his friends.
On death’s doorstep, the man returned to his village and survived his injuries to tell what happened.
Ever since then, no outsider has been able to begin scaling the Dragon Mountains. It was like an invisible barrier was set up all around the valley and its surrounding territories. If anyone tried to push through the barrier, they would feel an unimaginable burning pain until they stopped.
After the tragic events of the three men, villagers elders deduced that the Dragon God had been angered that one of its riders and worshipers was killed. So He erected a barrier of protection to keep all enemies out, and His children safely within.
With less contact with the valley than ever before, even more wild and scandalous tales flew across people’s mouths. Fewer and fewer dragons were spotted in the sky and as years passed, the younger generations wrote off the stories as just that, stories.
But time does not exist in a vacuum. And the time would come when the people of Tannia would need to put aside their pride and fears and reach out to their isolated neighbors. A time would come when the monsters they feared would be creatures that saved them.
