Blood like Mud

In the Haravan Tribe village, on the exact day a young tribesgirl named Vandri had planned on running away for a personal mission, a dragon’s call thundered down onto the forest floor. Though living in the expansive forests of Shanvala made Haravan tribesfolk accustomed to the bellows of those flying beasts, Vandri grew still. This wasn’t just any dragon that called—it was her dragon. Being the most recent to turn seventeen, she would have to hunt and kill the beast in the rite of passage. The Ritual, as it is simply called by the Haravan people, was a convenient alibi in an otherwise subpar plan to find her missing father, though Vandri didn’t realize how meager her plan was just yet.

The winged beast’s shadow momentarily eclipsed the sun as it descended from the mountaintops. The sky grew dark over Vandri’s family’s mound-house, and she groaned in irritation. She conceded that, sure, not having to leave under the cover of nightfall would make her disappearance appear less questionable. On the other hand, she didn’t much feel like dealing with all the baggage that came with the Ritual, even though she had no intention of actually hunting and slaying her dragon. For one thing, she would be the first girl—or technically woman now—to partake in the Ritual in close to a century. This decision had been decided a year ago, but even still Vandri couldn’t help but feel as though the Elders sort of thrusted it upon her, a second try after her brother, Dakim, died during his Ritual not three years prior. 

That was another thing: she thought the Ritual itself was a stupid tradition. The Elders send newly seventeen-year-olds to kill dragons, yet they expect the novice initiates to perform the task sober. Would killing a dragon not be as admirable if the initiate did so while under the influence of the dragonhigh? Considering the mysterious invaders from the south pushed deeper into tribal territory every day, Vandri certainly thought the Elders wouldn’t be so stingy with whom they dished out the dragon meat. Not that Vandri wanted to consume the dragon meat, far from it actually. Just the thought of chewing that stringy meat and gaining its temporary god-like powers made her gag. 

As the sound of Uncle Bashkar’s hulking footsteps approached from outside, Vandri quickly donned the leather chestpiece and thigh guards he had prepared for her. She pulled it over her thin torso, trying to stretch the stiff material, which she hadn’t bothered breaking in. The leather armor would get hot under the muggy summer sun, but maybe it’d protect her from wild predators and dragons. She still planned on avoiding them altogether. Vandri collected her bow and arrows and tugged at the tight collar as Uncle Bashkar swung the door open and walked in. His emerald dragonscale armor clinked like metal as he moved. He pursed his lips bittersweetly, and it hardly showed under his bushy beard.

“How’s it fit?” he asked.

“Well enough,” Vandri said. She tugged at the leather as if that would loosen it up. 

“Let me see,” Uncle Bashkar said. He reached down and inspected her bracers and callused hands, which still hadn’t healed properly after a year of training for this moment. Then he gripped her chest piece and tugged at it just as she had, then he moved to her thigh guards, and she jolted when he yanked the straps tighter. “Fits you nicely, and it’ll stretch a bit once you get movin’. You ready?”

Oh, I’m more than ready, Vandri told herself. She had already packed a sack with items she would need for her disappearance—dried apples, a canteen, a thick wool blanket, among other items—and stored it in a pine tree next to a squirrel’s nest just outside the village. Her dagger always sat poised on her left bracer, and she had considered bringing a sword until she realized she didn’t have one to begin with—her father had taken the family sword with him to the south. For the first time she wondered how she was supposed to perform the Ritual if no family sword could be passed down to her. 

Although, she kept all of that to herself and only replied with, “As I’ll ever be.” 

The afternoon light that streamed through the splayed tree branches blinded Vandri briefly as she and Uncle Bashkar walked outside. When her eyes adjusted, she found the entire tribe gathered around her mound-house, though she only glossed over most of them—Vandri found her mother amongst the faces. Vandri’s insides tore themselves apart upon seeing the devastated look upon her mother’s face, a sort of incredulous acceptance that everyone must leave her—first her son, by dying in his Ritual, next her husband, who had traveled south to assist other tribes with the invaders, then finally her daughter, who she surely thought would die just like her son.

Already in a steady state of despair, Vandri’s mother had pleaded with Chief Rhitet to not let Vandri partake in the Ritual. She had clenched his chest and whimpered onto him after he had announced the final decision to the tribe: girls would once again partake in the Ritual.

“There’s a reason we stopped sending girls,” her mother had sobbed. Her tears glistened Rhitet’s gray-scaled armor. 

“Desperate times, Shaana,” he had responded in his usual raspy clinical tone. Vandri had watched unseen from another room.

Vandri’s mother had worsened after that, a culmination of nevers: never wanting to eat, to feel the sun on her skin, to swim in the pond, to pick apples or berries, to mingle with the other tribesfolk, to leave the mound-house. It seemed as though she simply ceased to enjoy living.

“Let’s go picking tomorrow, mama,” Vandri had asked her the night before her dragon called. Vandri knew her mother always enjoyed picking fruits with her, something Dakim never did. He had concerned himself with swordsmanship and physical training, not that it did him any good.

Vandri’s mother had smiled as best she could, seemingly aware her daughter was trying to mend the fissures in her spirit that, for so long, had been left to splinter without repair. Perhaps the eagerness in Vandri’s dark eyes had spoken to her mother in some long-forgotten way, and she had replied, for the first time in a long time, with “I would love to, Van.”

Now both of them had to let the memory simmer: a promise that would go unfulfilled, at least for the time being. The fruit basket lay empty on her mother’s hip. Vandri would come back for her mother, and she’d bring father with her when she found him. Not only did her memories of his skill and strength play in her mind—even imaginary visions of him slaughtering invaders left and right—but so did his sensitivity. He could fix her mother. 

He could fix her. 

Vandri and her mother held each other’s gazes for as long as they could, but the sun began to set on that afternoon day. She opened her mouth to speak to her mother—a goodbye, an I’m going to find dad for you, something that could tell her without words that she’d be gone but not dead—but only a croak came out. Her mother looked too saddened for her to say anything.

“Best you don’t speak,” Uncle Bashkar said. He nudged Vandri forward. “It would make it harder for the both of you.”

Though Vandri might be gone for weeks or months in search of her father, at least she wouldn’t come back from the Ritual as a shredded corpse like Dakim. Though she didn’t know what would make her mother more anxious: thinking her daughter was dead or praying she was still alive. Vandri would need to be efficient with finding her father and bringing him back.

Uncle Bashkar and Vandri made their way through the crowd, which formed a tunnel on either side of them. Vandri could barely look at all of the people she had ever known. Sorrow painted their faces, and she didn’t want to see it. Vandri turned to Uncle Bashkar, and now more than ever she could see his discomfort. He bit at his lip as if it were gristle and specks of blood dripped into his beard. 

“What is it?” Vandri asked. 

Uncle Bashkar glanced down at her before quickly averting his gaze to the procession of tribesfolk following them.

“Uncle—”

Begrudgingly, he leaned down and whispered, “Those dragons are vicious monsters, though I don’t need to remind you.”

Blood like mud. Sand-colored skin carved like a carcass. She swallowed and shook the image of Dakim’s corpse out of her head. Instead, she played along. “Those aren’t words of encouragement, Uncle.”

“They’re not supposed to be, niece,” he said.

“I’ve known dragons all my life. I know the wyrmlings are clumsy and I know to hide from the big ones. I know this cured leather is fire retardant and that dragons are susceptible to wounds in the mouth, belly, and eye.”

“Recite the facts all you want,” he said. “You’ve gone your whole life without much havin’ to fight the things.”

“Oh, I see how it is: You don’t have faith in me,” Vandri said. Now a small part of her actually wanted to go through the Ritual, kill her damn dragon, and return victorious. “You don’t think girls are capable—”

“Don’t you start that with me,” he said. “You know damn well I think all of you children should be going through the Ritual, now more than ever.”

Vandri found some contradiction in his words: Dragons will kill children. All children should go kill dragons. Yes, very logical. 

Up ahead, the Sacred Tree came into view, its winding branches spiraling out from the ancient pink trunk, forming shade speckled with light. Under it stood Chief Rhitet—the old wolf—straight-faced and stern in his battered, gray-scaled armor. Dakim and his idiot friends always told Vandri and the other girls that the old Chief Rhitet had gotten his armor from a fully-mature wyvern that trapped him on a cliff. The Elders never confirmed this.

When they neared, Vandri pulled her back taut and readjusted her armor. Pulling at her thigh guards, she felt something wedged in her pocket under the armor that hadn’t been there before. She reached in to discover what it was and found two small slivers of a warm tender substance.

A chill scampered through her hand at the touch, and she thought her skin had gone as pale as her mother’s. Uncle Bashkar quickly grabbed Vandri’s wrist and pulled it out of her pocket. He must’ve slipped her the dragon meat slivers when he had adjusted her armor. By giving her this precious meat, Uncle Bashkar risked lashings, exile, or heaven forbid, social ridicule. The crowd still remained at a distance as they trailed them.

“I have more faith in you than you would ever know,” he whispered, each word a secret between them. “And I know you are capable of completin’ this task.”

“I-I cannot consume these,” Vandri stuttered. The raw self-preserving power of the dragon meat vibrated softly against her leg. “If I consumed this for the Ritual, I would be nothing but a fraud, a cheat—”

“I rather you cheat this Ritual and live than have you not come back at all,” he said. 

“I would bring shame to our house.”

“That you would, more so if others found out,” he conceded. “But at least you’d live.”

Vandri knew an initiate wasn’t permitted to take the dragon meat during the Ritual—they had to slay their dragon using their own skill to prove they could fight without the dragon meat. But she knew dragon meat would have been useful in her journey—bears, drakes, elk, wyrmlings, dragons, and other creatures roamed the land. So did the invaders, and she would surely come across them farther south in search of her father. However, she feared the madness the meat brought to those who consumed too much. On cold winter nights, she could hear the withered warrior named Amruv howl like a wolf. The story goes that he had single-handedly fought off thirty aggressors on a bridge, but he lost his mind after overindulging on the dragon meat. His children chained him inside his home and took care of him now, fearful of what would happen if he got loose.

A slight sense of guilt overcame Vandri. Was she abandoning her mother in a way? No, she told herself. She needed to help her mother by finding her father. 

When they reached the Sacred Tree, Vandri knelt before the chief. Uncle Bashkar stepped back as the rest of the tribe streamed towards the tree. Vandri felt their eyes upon her and sweat rolled down her neck.  Chief Rhitet raspily recited the words of the Rite of Passage. He asked who would answer the dragon’s call. Vandri responded that she would be the one to answer it.

Rhitet seemed satisfied. He pulled the dragonbone sword from his belt—the Sword of a Thousand Hands, passed down from Chief to Chief. With needlelike precision, he slit Vandri on each shoulder. She winced at the sting, but remained quiet. Rhitet sheathed the sword and bid her to rise.  

“Bashkar,” Rhitet prompted. He folded his hands behind his back.

Uncle Bashkar took a step forward and offered Vandri his family’s dragonbone sword—cream in hue and webbed in red, the blade curved slightly and sat mounted on a steel hilt. 

“Uncle Bashkar, I cannot except this—”

“Do not protest,” Uncle Bashkar said, shoving the sword into her hands. “Your father is killin’ invaders with this blade’s twin right now, and since I have no children of my own, it’s only right I pass this blade to you.”

Vandri felt sick. She knew that if she were to take this blade, she would not use it the way her uncle intended. Yet, she couldn’t turn it down. Reluctantly, she grasped the hilt.

As she studied the heirloom sword in her hand, the world became quiet. The birds ended their sweet songs. None in the crowd spoke. No animal or branch moved. Letting the silence overwhelm her, Vandri sheathed the weapon on her hip. She took a step forward, but Rhitet stopped her and leaned forward, breaking the silence as he said to Vandri, “You know why you were chosen: We need more warriors for what is to come.”

She would be leaving when the tribe needed defenders the most. So many had already gone south, like her father, and more were desperately needed. The guilt swallowed her up when Rhitet gave his final words, “The invaders are coming.”

******

The invaders are coming. Rhitet’s words pinged around Vandri’s mind as she began her trek through the forest. When she arrived at the big pine tree, she climbed it, bid her farewell to the squirrels in the nest, and grabbed her pre-packed sack. The sun began to set, and the cool breeze flew at her back. She considered abandoning her plan altogether. Perhaps the tribe needed her to complete the Ritual more than she knew. She did have Uncle Bashkar’s sword, and she even had the dragon meat if it came to that. But she shook the uncertainties out of her head. She needed to go find her father and had no reason to fight a dragon. What would completing the Ritual accomplish? Would it simply provide her scales to craft armor and bones to forge swords, assuming she could kill the thing? But no, Vandri thought more cynically: The tribe only wanted the dragon meat, and she wanted no part of it.

Vandri followed the southern trail her father and the rest of the other missing warriors had taken seven months earlier. Their departure had been one of the first times in decades that they left to provide aid to another tribe, rather than war against them. The wars of recent were nothing more than petty squabbles in Vandri’s estimation: tussles over where the lines of land ownership began and ended, disagreements on Rituals and dragon hunting, and other such matters. But now the tribes found a common enemy in the invaders from beyond the great forest. The invaders kept creeping farther north into their territory, killing dragons and slaying the tribesfolk who got in their way. Only nine other warriors had left with her father, and that didn’t seem like nearly enough for the supposed thousands they would have to face, despite what her father had told her before he had left. Vandri didn’t know how long his mission away was supposed to last, but if it were supposed to be hasty, then the warriors’ perception of hasty differed from Vandri’s.

The constant vibrations in Vandri’s pocket made the hairs on her neck rise. She considered throwing the dragon meat into the thicket, perhaps that would ease her discomfort, but she knew the meat was too precious a thing to give to the squirrels and raccoons. The time when Vandri thought nothing of the dragon meat felt so far away, though she knew it had only been a few years back. When she stood no taller than a sword and saw the dragonhigh warriors for the first time, she awed as they smashed through trees like obsidian and repelled blades like water. Once, after Vandri begged for weeks, her father had secretly consumed the dragon meat in the middle of the night, and while the village slept, he held her as he bounded in grand leaps through the forest. Vandri laughed with him as they soared above the treetops.

Vandri wasn’t so naive anymore. Only a year before Dakim would be killed in his Ritual, Vandri witnessed two young warriors, Hara and Prajli, get into an argument. She didn’t remember what they had been arguing over, but it angered Hara enough to shove his cousin into the ground. Others intervened, but Hara, under the dragonhigh’s influence, only bellowed as he threw them off like nestlings. He grabbed Prajli and hurled him at a tree.

Briefly, Vandri thought Hara would come for her next for no reason other than she stood nearby. She never forgot her feet glued to the ground, the stiffness of her body, her eyes unable to drift away from the scene—how all at once her body told her to stay and her mind told her to run. 

Dakim had found her and shook her out of her daze as father, Uncle Bashkar, and a few other dragonhigh warriors pounced on Hara. Some held Hara back while others took turns beating him.

“Let’s go, Van,” Dakim had said.

“No,” Vandri had responded. She hadn’t let her brother pull her away. “They want us to watch.”

Their father delivered the final blow. He avoided his children’s eyes as he brushed past them into the forest, going to the creek to cleanse himself of the boy’s blood. Vandri crossed over that same creek now, wondering if Hara’s blood had been washed away or if it became a part of the land—seeped into the soil. 

******

After walking for hours, and only stopping twice to relieve herself, Vandri’s legs had grown stiff. A saffron haze lingered in the sun’s wake as it set, which leaked through the tree gaps. Whenever she thought about the chilly nights she’d have to endure, she pressed on harder. On several occasions Vandri found herself at forks in the trail, but no matter which route she took (she went back and forth a few times) the trails all seemed to fade away into the thicket. If she continued south, she would find other tribes—hundreds of them lay scattered across Shanvala after all. All of them too would recognize Vandri as one of them. Though Vandri had never seen an invader, she had heard they wore silver and golden armor, carried longswords six feet high, brought nets and grand wooden contraptions, and had skin of different colors—black, orange, white.

The wind whistled against the trees, and Vandri shivered. Night would arrive soon, and she would need to find shelter. As she looked around for a suitable place—a hollow log or a cavity in the ground, perhaps—she heard a rustling up ahead. Two deer emerged onto Vandri's path. They cracked the fallen branches under their hooves as they darted away.

Vandri eased up. As the deer disappeared into the thicket, more branches cracked and fell from the treetops. A sour rankness stung Vandri’s nostrils, and reflexively she jumped back, narrowly avoiding the wyrmling that dropped before her. The wyrmling contorted its wet winged claws in abnormal motions, making the beast three times as large. The wyrmling glared at Vandri with round frosty eyes, which indicated this beast was a newborn. Still, this didn’t reassure Vandri on account of the wyrmling’s fangs that had yet to be blunted by bone, and its hulking size that put grizzlies to shame. However, newborns were as blind as bats, which gave Vandri a better chance at survival than Dakim had—fully-matured dragons possessed tremendous sensory awareness.

She flexed her stone-still legs until they moved. She didn’t know if this was the same dragon that had called her, but she couldn’t run now. Drawing Uncle Bashkar’s sword, she brandished the weapon and warned, “Back off!”

The wyrmling’s ears twitched while its snout still sniffed around, trying to catch her scent. “Back off!” Vandri repeated as it crept closer. She took steps back. Sweat dripped down her skin under her leather armor.

Once the wyrmling’s nose locked onto her, it charged. Vandri shuffled backwards, guarding herself with the blade extended forward. The beast reared up as it reached her. Vandri’s bones rattled when it wailed into the dusk, and she took another step back on an upturned root. Stumbling to the ground, the sweat-licked sword flew from her grip and arrows scattered from her quiver. 

The wyrmling surrounded Vandri, dropping its claws into the dirt around her entire body, trapping her in a leathery cloak of darkness. Here she felt so feeble, so small under the beast’s weight, as if it had stolen everything that made her who she was without batting an eye. She turned her head away as the beast snarled, warm drool slinking onto her face. But she never croaked, never gave out a sob or a whimper—she knew crying, not the wyrmling, was the true harbinger of death. Crying would make this situation absolute, and she was absolutely certain she couldn’t let the warriors bring back another mutilated corpse to her mother. 

As the beast snapped its open maw at her, Vandri spun her bow and caught the wyrmling’s teeth. It slobbered the blackwood riser, teeth carving off splinters as it snapped its jaw over and over. Vandri clenched tighter, the muscles in her arms working triple duty. Her father had crafted the bow from the strongest wood in the forest, but even it couldn’t hold much longer. She didn’t know if she or the bow would give out first. 

The wyrmling pushed harder into Vandri, teeth whittling the bow. The splinters that fell stung Vandri’s eyes, and she screamed as she pushed back with all her fleeting strength. A dagger to the eye, she thought, feeling the extra heft on her left bracer. Still, the timing of releasing the bow and pulling the dagger would be tight—

A whistle shot through the trees. It caught in the beast’s neck, black blood spraying from the wound. The bow snapped in two when the beast pulled its teeth from it, which frustrated Vandri considering she rather liked the bow. 

Another whistle, and another arrow into the beast’s neck, causing it to pull its claws from the ground. Vandri rolled out of the way as figures emerged from the trees. More arrows came, and Vandri could only watch as the figures surrounded the wyrmling. Briefly, Vandri thought Uncle Bashkar and some other warriors had come to her aid, but that wouldn’t explain why he’d given her dragon meat. One of the figures lit a torch and hurled it at the wyrmling, and it danced as the flames licked its legs. Light erupted as it caught fallen leaves. Vandri wished it hadn’t because she didn’t like seeing three golden-armored invaders. They scared her more than the bloody wyrmling.

Before Vandri knew what to do, one of the invaders turned his head and caught sight of her and hollered in a strange tongue. His words, whatever they were, did not sound friendly. 

Arrows flew in Vandri’s direction. One sliced her shoulder, widening the dried cuts made by Rhitet earlier that day. She scrambled to her feet and fled; shouts followed her but didn’t catch up. She ran hard into the dark forest, away from the wyrmling and the invaders. Not before long, the arrows stopped flashing around her, and the shouts became nothing more than forest soundscapes. Vandri found herself in utter darkness and slowed into a saunter. The wailing of the dying wyrmling echoed through the trees.

Vandri tried to catch her breath. Her saviors were no saviors at all, she knew. Invaders had never been this far north before, and anger brewed in her gut. Before, the invaders were nothing more than stories to tell children or mythical creatures just beyond sight—a threat that never felt real. But they were real—she saw them, damnit. Now they were only hours away from her own village. What did that mean for the tribes south of here? 

What did that mean for her father?

Vandri stood under the canopies of the trees, studying the outlines of them through the moon’s blue hue. The stars peeking through the leaves glimmered like a vigil, and Vandri closed her eyes. She listened to the wyrmling wail in agony, that of a child. And now for the first time did she realize how meager her plan to find her father had been. She had limited directions, knew nobody specific who could aid her outside of the Haravan village, and, if the invaders were already this far north, knew her father had not returned for a reason. Her plan to find him was the last remainder of her childhood clinging onto her, a desperate reach for someone else to solve the problems she didn’t want to handle. With the invaders on her doorstep, she couldn’t leave the healing and protection of her despairing mother to a ghost. Vandri would have to let go of her clinging remainder.  

All she had left was her small dagger, but she could retrieve Uncle Bashkar’s sword if she remembered where it fell. However, that did not solve the numbers problem. Though she knew she should’ve retreated home, back where she could’ve called others to fight, the threat of the invaders felt too immediate. They outnumbered her, but she had one advantage that they probably didn’t. Vandri doubled back towards the invaders, and now more than ever, she felt the dragon meat humming in her pocket. It pressed against her thigh guards as if begging for attention. It wanted Vandri. 

She only pulled one of the two slivers out, and studied it in her hand—marbled, metal-scented, glowing auburn. Vandri felt sick that she even considered consuming it. The thought tore at her insides, and when she brought it to her mouth, the metallic tang made her gag. But she knew she had no choice in the matter—she could flee back to the tribe, but the invaders would come eventually.

She shoved the dragon meat in her mouth and chewed hard on the sinewy substance. The warmth of it slugged down her throat and into her gut. 

“Keep my head clear,” Vandri whispered to Dakim, hoping he could hear her somewhere. “Do not let the power I am about to bear consume my mind. And please, for heaven’s sake, do not let me end up a howling madman like Amruv—”

The punch pounded her chest—an ocean crashing down jagged mountain cliffs. Vandri collapsed and she found herself drowning under the weight, unable to reach the surface. She gasped for air, clawing at the leather armor that even the sweat couldn’t help her slip out of. Her body collapsed on itself, and at any moment Vandri thought she would shatter into sand, scattering across the forest floor as if she had never existed at all. Her heartbeat slowed down, and Vandri realized her heart must’ve been too weak to handle the strength of the dragon meat.

Until static shocks jolted her to her feet. The weight that had once crushed her now pushed outwards from her. Her veins throbbed with strength. Her muscle fibers strummed like blades of grass in the wind. Her heart pumped to the rhythm of a dance only she knew. The darkness around her brightened in hues of blue, and her ears twitched to the crackling, bristling, breathing of the forest. The fear of this great power that had once haunted her mutated into something else. Before she had feared the consequences—the toll the dragon meat would take on her body and mind—but now, those consequences were distant stars struggling for sight, trivialities that sunk beneath the surface of her vastness. She was power. She harnessed the dragon. 

The wind rushed against her as she sprinted back to the invaders, her feet kicking up dirt and clumps of grass. Her ears perked up when she got near, the foreign tongue of the invaders amplified as if they stood beside her. Ahead, the wyrmling lay dead, surrounded by the three invaders. They glowed bright in Vandri’s enhanced vision, and she heard their words turn into roars as they spun their heads. 

The one farthest from her fired arrows in Vandri’s direction: she easily dodged one, and the other skidded across her skin. Uncle Bashkar’s—no, her—sword sat patiently where she left it, glinting under the moonlight. She couldn’t help but recognize how stupid she would’ve been if she had left the tribe without a sword, and now she was more thankful than ever for Uncle Bashkar. 

Sprinting through the storm of arrows, Vandri scooped up the sword—now light in her grasp—and pulled it back in the motion she had practiced every day for the last twelve months. The closest invader parried her swing, the metal thunking as it collided with her dragonbone. The invader swung with precision but couldn’t keep up with Vandri’s enhanced speed. Vandri broke the invader’s guard in the onslaught of swings and managed to slip her sword through a gap in the woman’s armor. The invader fell. 

Vandri winced as another invader swiped at her back, splitting the leather armor Uncle Bashkar had so kindly crafted. She spun, barely catching the invader’s overhead swing. He towered over her as he pressed down, and Vandri felt her back foot slide before stumbling. Both of their swords flew from their hands as the big man fell on top of her. He made fists and began wailing them onto Vandri’s chest. She wheezed with each hit, trapped under his weight. One of his hands went to her throat while the other grabbed his sword. As he pulled it up, Vandri wiggled a hand free and pierced him in the eye.

She pushed him off like a child as he brushed at his bloody eye. He swung his sword frantically and sliced Vandri across the torso, splitting the armor and striking blood yet again. More arrows came at her from the third invader, and Vandri didn’t much appreciate it. She scrambled to her sword and charged the half-blind invader. 

She swung and relieved the half-blind invader of his swordhand before she took an arrow to the shoulder. Vandri grimaced, only feeling a fraction of the pain. The half-blind invader struck her with his last remaining hand, and Vandri faltered back before relieving him of his head. As his corpse and all of its hacked off extensions fell to the ground, the arrows stopped coming. 

The last one stood there dumbstruck—a twig-thin boy clad in golden armor a size too big and fuzz above his upper lip. Vandri didn’t move. Neither did he. While blood painted Vandri’s face, fear painted his. She wondered if he saw a girl no older than he before him, or if he saw something else. The quaking boy dropped the bow on the ground as he took a staggered step backwards, and another, before bolting from the scene. 

When the boy finally disappeared in the darkness, Vandri fell to her knees. She spat blood and tried to catch her breath, though her chest ached. The effects of the dragonhigh probably wouldn’t last that much longer. Gradually, the sensation overcame her, at first no different than the sore morning after a long day of gathering apples and fiddleheads, but soon she felt it creeping into her bones. She lurched forward and gripped the shaft of the arrow buried in her shoulder and, with one large grunt, yanked it out. She stopped herself from sobbing. She thought her chest would cave in on itself, though she knew deep down it wouldn’t. This was one of the consequences of the dragonhigh—the grounding, her father had called it.

She slumped to the forest floor and rested. It was cool like her bed in mid-winter, and she smelled ginger honey tea wafting through the mound-house and listened to Uncle Bashkar tell Vandri and her mom stories by the fire. Her mind lingered here for but a moment before she knew she had to get back to them.

Slowly, she got up and double-checked that her sword was secured to her hip. She’d certainly have to tell Uncle Bashkar it cut well. Her steps were shaking and unstable, and she doubted she’d be able to get back to the village quickly enough to tell them what happened. Good thing Uncle Bashkar had given her another sliver of dragon meat—one for the journey home. 

As she consumed the dragon meat, she wondered if it would taste any better if cooked over an open flame… then, the flourishing power of the dragon meat overwhelmed her, though this time she felt more prepared for it. She let it run through her bones and revitalize her sore muscles, and in moments, the dragonhigh flowed through her. She stretched her hands and flexed her legs before pressing her feet into the ground and bounding into the sky. In the distance, dragons circled near the mountaintops, but more worrisome were the hundreds of invader campfires that lay scattered across the never-ending forest. She would need to warn the village when she returned. That is, if she could make it back in one piece: She bounded clumsily, limbs flailing as she ascended and descended, and she could hardly push off or stick the landings without tripping. But then she recalled how her father had done it holding her all those years ago, and soon, she bounded back home gracefully like he once did.

THE END

Bio: Jonathan was born and raised in Michigan and is a graduate of Hope College. He is currently pursuing his MFA at Butler University, and his work is forthcoming in "House of Zolo’s Journal of Speculative Literature."

E-mail: Jonathan Mann

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