The Dragons of the Mountain, Chapter 1: Fangs and Claws
Author's note
Well, this is my first work for this site... I'd like pointing something out before starting with the story. First of all, I'm Italian and I usually write in Italian language, but I decided to translate this in English in order to make it accessibile to a larger public and improve my english as well! I did my best, but probably there are still some mistakes: I'm sorry!
Just one thing about the story: I wanted to focus on the plot and character's development, so the first chapters have a "clean" profile, but... anything can happen! ^^
Lastly, a special thanks to :iconHildale: who greatly helped me with the translation!
The Dragons of the Mountain
CHAPTER 1 - Fangs and Claws
Blizzard hovered nimbly in the foggy air and with a few flaps of his wings he passed a landslide that interrupted the mountain path. From that point he could see a broad view of the rugged versant, with its crags and silent valleys covered in thick and dark forests. The howling of the cold wind filled the dragon's ears, forcing him to flutter his wings faster not to be pushed back. Despite his prodigious sight, he didn't notice any movement in the surrounding area: that desolate landscape was deserted, dominated by a grey sky laden with rain. He flew higher to have a better view of that territory which had always been denied to him.
"Who would ever want to be in this place?" he thought dubious and also a bit disappointed. He was a eighteen-year-old dragon with a smooth, shining, deep turquoise hide, lighter on his chest. His body was athletic and muscular, but it looked agile and quick as well. His eyes were penetrating amber yellow that created a strong contrast on his tapered snout. He had two couples of horns on his temples, two of which were rather long and the other two shorter, near his crest-like ears. He had also a row of crests, the same sky-blue color of his wings' membranes, from his forehead along his back to the tip of his tail, which ended with a small bone point. He wore two leather bands around his ankles.
A little ahead there was a crack in the rock, maybe the den of some wild animal: the dragon approached it, but thought it was deserted for a long time because there were no smells coming from the interior.
"Blizzard, you idiot, come back here immediately!" An angry voice coming from below behind him interrupted his examination. The dragon startled as he realized his error. That was the first time his older companions brought him with them to go on patrol in the mountain, and he had already made a big mistake. How could he have forgotten their recommendations?
"There's nobody here. It's safe" he replied trying to justify himself, but he knew he was in the wrong; he descended until his hind legs were a palm from the rocky surface of the path, where three dragons were looking steadily at him with their amber eyes, frowning.
"I thought I could trust you when I decided to send you ahead! I thought I made myself clear this morning: don't take the initiative, don't fly... You ran the risk of getting ourselves caught!" said the nearest one with thundering voice: the party leader, an enormous thirty-year-old young adult. His broad body showed a massive musculature, especially on the upper part, that seemed vaguely out of proportion to the rest, even though his abdominals and quadriceps were well-delineated. His hide was a strong grayish blue, while the membranes of his wings were bluish. He had a thin whitish scar on his right forearm and the tip of one of his longer horns was chipped, but his high and majestic dorsal crest denoted his iron constitution. He wore two leather belts crossed on his broad chest and two bangles on his forearms above the biceps. His stern look, along with his mighty and venerable appearance, was not very reassuring. Normally his race can't reach such an impressive build: he represented an exception under many viewpoints.
Blizzard settled on the ground. "I'm sorry, master. I thought we were still far enough from..." he started distressed, bringing one hand to his nape and trying to bear the master's gaze.
The master, Hazarkan, snorted interrupting him. "Save your excuses, boy. What were you trying to do? If the Fieryclaw had been in the vicinity and saw you, you would have ruined our plan! Not to mention the danger you could have put us in..." He shook his head, his muscular arms folded on his wide chest. "Let's hope you're right, that nobody's here. We'll proceed until we reach the river, but you're going to stay behind with Migorn and Niktohal this time. Let's suspend your training for now, and don't even dare to open your mouth without my permission, if you care to fly again" he concluded peremptorily.
Blizzard thought well of putting the warning in pratice immediately, so he cleared off alongside the other two without saying a word. Hazarkan was not known as a patient master: his reaction had been far too lenient.
"What an idiot. Against every reasonable expectation, you succeeded in getting into trouble" said Niktohal, but at least kindly. Migorn confined himself to looking at Blizzard with a mix of disapproval and commiseration.
The two were his contemporaries, being one and two years older than him respectively. Migorn was the most similar to Blizzard, but he was taller and somehow more long-limbed, with a pale complexion. His snout had the noble features of who is endowed with a calm disposition and rarely becomes flustered. On the contrary Niktohal was of short height and stout, but he was more powerfully built and his hide was intense blue. His lineaments were quite rough, thin, giving him a stubborn appearance that mirrored well his aggressive nature.
Dragons of Blizzard's age were already considered fully adult for long time in the Moonfang tribe but that kind of tasks, so far from the village, were not assigned lightly, because of their importance and danger. That morning he had been called by the chief, Xavor, who told him that he would have joined the group in charge of inspecting the other side of the mountain which towered that region. His aim was to learn everything he could about that territory and improve his fighting skills, but he wasn't given other details. The young dragon was desirous of proving himself and he felt honored for the trust; however, he should have expected that euphoria can play dirty tricks.
"From now on, do only what they ask you to. And do it how you are supposed to" thought Blizzard while Hazarkan, after a short stop to look around, ordered to get moving.
They flew over the landslide and started to come down the crag. The forest was composed of scattered scrubs of pines with darkened trunks and scratched by the inclement wather, though the inhospitable undergrowth offered a good covering. That place was totally of any interest.
"Stop here" ordered Hazarkan not long after, while they were going through a pinewood on a slope. The other three obeyed, and they noticed immediately what had attracted their leader's attention.
Hazarkan knelt to a stretch of muddy terrain, where many footprints of big clawed paws were evident: dragon paws. Each one showed the marks of three adjacent toes but no heels, because those dragons don't lean them on the ground when they walk, just like them. There were several rows of footprints spreading in all directions, as if some individuals had stopped there for some time.
"These are recent. Very recent" he observed, getting up. "I'd say these footprints have been left less than a day ago. Xavor was right".
"The Fieryclaw have approached our territory, like we are doing now" whispered Migorn, and his expression got disdainful.
"Why they had to have necessarily evil intentions? Maybe they were here for totally different reasons..." said Blizzard cautiously.
Hazarkan gave a short guttural growl. "You are so ingenuous! In your opinion, what other reason could they have had to venture into this place, since they know well that we are the only people here?" he grumbled. The young dragon fell silent, his head bent over those footprints filled with dew.
"This may be the proof that they are plotting. Let's proceed a bit more, I have a presentiment..." said Hazarkan with sinister satisfaction.
But Blizzard's doubts persisted in his mind while he was keeping up the pace with his companions. His tribe, the Moonfang, has been living for three centuries an isolated region at the base of that boundless mountain. Its climate was not nearly mild and living conditions were not among the easiest, but at least they enjoyed some peace... with the exception of the Fieryclaw tribe, which had colonized the opposite side of the mountain. Relationships between the two tribes had never been serene: head-to-head battles were rare, but they studded their stories since their origins. Since they were physically almost equivalent, real slaughters had never really happened, and the amount of deads from both factions had always been trivial; but this meant that none of the two tribes would have ever won out, and that battles would have followed each other maybe forever. Most of them would be satisfied with subjugating or chasing the rivals away, but the most warmongering members of both factions - including Hazarkan - longed for a merciless massacre. Nobody, however, seemed to be inclined to take a pacific solution into consideration, or to move to another place: pride, maybe, but also something else.
When the last battle ended eight years before, bringing a long truce, Blizzard was ten years old, so he had never experienced that belligerence directly. He was interested in investigating about the causes of that profund hostility, but obviously he had always obtained partisan and unsatisfactory answers, and he had no opportunity to evaluate the enemies' version of the facts.
Recently, hostilities between the Fieryclaw and the Moonfang had resumed more seriously than before. Few days before, some Moonfang explorers had been intercepted while they were flying over a mountain pass; mercilessly beaten up, they had then been released so that they could return to their village and report a message. The Fieryclaw accused them angrily of an infamous fact: the destruction of an ancient relic of their tribe, which was preserved inside a crystal urn guarded in a hidden cave of the mountain. From that moment on, no Moonfang sighted in the vicinity of the Fieryclaw territory would have been safe from their fury.
Chief Xavor's statement, which Blizzard heard him make publicly to his people, was that he didn't even know the existence of such an artefact and therefore the Fieryclaw's accusation was only a pretext for declaring war. Meanwhile, with furious frustration, he ordered everyone not to venture alone on the mountain without the protection of an escort of expert warriors.
What appeared incomprehensible, or at least it should have, was that diplomacy was pushed to the background in no time. Xavor didn't even mention a peaceful talk with the Fieryclaw's authorities and none of the Moonfang expressed the possibility of that happening. There was too much reciprocal hatred, and Blizzard thought that solely ideological justifications were hidden in it. Nobody was disposed to listen to the others: a new battle was unavoidable.
Blizzard's umpteenth thinking about that matter got interrupted again by Hazarkan's call.
"We are about to reach the river. Keep your eyes open" he warned the group without turning back.
The uneven terrain sloped sharply for a last stretch which ended overhanging on a rocky valley. Flat plateaus spaced out on the steep, craggy walls of the canyon; on its bottom, a large river with turbulent iron-grey water was flowing, twisting until disappearing among the roughnesses of the mountain. The steady rumble of the water was noticeable in spite of the gusts and the huge height the four were at.
Blizzard, without saying anything, leant out of the crag; it seemed that the mountain had been broken into two by the effect of an ancient, colossal cataclysm.
"This river is very important for us" started Hazarkan gloomily; Migorn and Niktohal waited in respectful silence. "We can say that it indicates the boundary between our territory and the Fieryclaw's, even though there's no agreement which establishes so".
"Where do they live? Are they nearby?" asked Blizzard.
"None of us knows it exactly, but we believe that they are not far beyond those hills," answered Hazarkan pointing at the jagged profiles on the horizon, "because there's nothing but inhospitable moors farther. But here is where we have fought the most important battles, in the vicinity of this river".
Blizzard had already learnt it from his people's tales, however seeing that narrated place with his own eyes made the whole lot way more realistic.
Something drew his attention. "There's somebody over there!" he exclaimed, straightening his tail.
In one leap, Hazarkan was immediately beside Blizzard and he half-closed his eyes. There were some winged figures moving on one of the lowest plateaus, on the opposite side of the canyon. At that distance, they looked like dragons almost identical to them, except for an evident detail: their colors ranged over yellow, orange and red.
Hazarkan showed his luster, white teeth in some sort of baleful smile. "I knew my instinct wasn't lying. So, our enemies are supervising the boundary... They are plotting against us, that's for sure" he said.
"We must inform our chief" intervened Migorn with ardour.
While the other three were exchanging each other their conjectures, Blizzard stared curious at the Fieryclaw. He had never seen such colored dragons: they appeared weird at him, as if they had something wrong.
The tip of his wings trembled at the thought of the space between those rocky walls crowded with blue and red dragons fighting each other with no holds barred. That thought was going to become true, and he would have been involved in it. The feeling which disturbed him wasn't fear: nobody had never been guilty of such weakness, because belligerence was a constituent feature of his race. He knew how to fight, as everyone; or rather, his remarkable dexterousness made him gain the admiration of more than one of his companions in his village. It was now time to try it against real opponents. He should have felt honored. Honored!
What he was lacking in, and that distinguished him from his own kind, was the faith in the ideals he had to fight for. How could he do his best if he wasn't completely convinced of his actions? His instinctive side hoped his hesitation was due to inexperience; while his other side, the rational one, suggested him not to blindly trust people like Hazarkan.
Were the Fieryclaw really so evil and unworthy of living, as they had always been presented to him? What if, among them, there was someone who was wondering the same things?
He tried not to let his companions guess his thoughts, because otherwise he would have been denigrated.
"They are a few, but too many to be just a reconnaissance squad. We should not get closer. Let's return to our village, we have seen enough" was saying Hazarkan meanwhile.
"We won't let them catch us unprepared like the last time. They'll have their lesson as always" agreed Niktohal.
"So will we" replied Blizzard, unable to restrain.
Three pairs of amber eyes stared at him in a disturbing way.
"What's the matter? Are you scared?" said Niktohal with soapy voice. Blizzard had never got along very well with that impetuous adolescent and they had a sort of rivalry: he did never miss the opportunity to criticize Blizzard and he always went hard on trainings against him.
"You're the last who should be. I haven't seen many as quick as you" said instead Migorn in his defence. He had instead a calmer disposition, at least normally; though he didn't lack in pride, he could easily admit other people's merits.
Hazarkan had a hard expression, but then he said with unusual placidness: "I understand how you feel, boy. What happened to your family must have been difficult to accept, but you should try to turn it in your favour. Benefit from that the strenght to fight with your greatest valor!"
Blizzard's muscles stiffened. The last battle eight years before had took both his parents away: a temporary enemy advantage had overwhelmed them and they disappeared from the battlefield with a few others, without return. Their corpses had never been found so that they could receive the right honor for their sacrifice. Blizzard's family was destroyed.
The young dragon clenched his fists and looked towards the Fieryclaw who were moving following their target, unaware of being spied. The grief over that loss caused him mixed feelings. Sympathy for those who had suffered the same fate. But... Would the longing for revenge have made him stronger? Sure, it would.
Blizzard almost didn't notice that Hazarkan had come near him. "The Fieryclaw are the only responsible for your situation" he said, leaning one hand on Blizzard's shoulder. "They've been making fun of us for all these years, making us think that they had forgotten us. Look now, instead! They've attacked us from behind, justifying themselves with an ordinary slander! Don't individuals so petty deserve a lesson, maybe? You can't give them the honor of being doubtful about them!"
Blizzard was listening silently, without reacting.
"I know what you are thinking about" continued the master. "Well then, there will never be peace between us and them, remember this. Even if we wanted it, they wouldn't want it! This fact is the proof: they've been disposed to interrupt an eight-year truce in order to provoke us".
When the talk was concluded, the dragon looked at the sky: the bright halo of the sun, shining through the gray blanket of smoky clouds dragged by the wind, begun its descent on the horizon.
Blizzard wondered if at that point the master would have resumed his training, perhaps having him fight against Niktohal again, but that didn't happen.
"It's time to return. Xavor is certainly going to take action for tomorrow" murmured Hazarkan.
They covered on foot the first part of the trip, then they flew when they were far enough.
Blizzard's mind was in a turmoil for all the time. He kept thinking about those red dragons, lurking at their territory's boundary, waiting for the fight: the enemies. Hazarkan's words had been forceful but he hadn't convinced him completely, because in his opinion that point of view was too much one-sided. Anyway, Hazarkan was the tribe's best fighter... nobody could earn that title with a different ideology.
Blizzard approached Niktohal, who was flying next to him.
"How do you think fighting is?" he asked. The other two were further on, out of earshot.
"Satisfying, what a question" giggled Niktohal. "When you fight, you feel fulfilled. You can show the others your abilities, you can command respect". Blizzard didn't reply.
"You'll understand what I mean only when you'll try it. Trust me" said Niktohal decisive.