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" At the Feet of a Dragon God"

by, WolfHound Baxton

The island of Glaukon was a cold and desolate place. There were a few buildings around the shores of the island where some furs lived, sheltered under the tall snowy mountains. These people made their livelihoods from the bounty of the sea, for the land of Glaukon was not agreeable to growing food. So, the people of Glaukon were accustomed to a diet of fish, seals, penguins and the eggs of the birds that nested on the high cliffs.

There were five settlements on Glaukon: Eisarr, Mylkdyr, Ajonair, Korso, and Mrktar. The villages were near beaches used by seals and penguins for their broods or near a chilly cove of pure water that drew in large shoals of fish in their season of spawning. the boundaries of each illage were set down with a strict line that may not by crossed by land by any fur. The land was a cold and hostile desert of ice and rock, ever-swept by high and violent winds, so it was just as well that the people were not allowed to go there.

Despite this, however, there existed a series of roadways, well-paved with flat black stones not native to the island, connecting each village to the Great Mountains. From there the roads wandered the ridges and gorges and hugged the slopes, finally reaching a magnificent palace of ice at the peak of Mount Badar in the center of the island.

In this ice-palace dwelt the dragon-god Martius, a towering giant of sixty feet. Martius was an ice-dragon with breaths cold as the deepest winter. The dragon's scales were a deep shimmering blue like the polar seas and his chest and belly scales were white as a glacier. His eyes were an intense burning orange, color of the never-setting summer sun. They blazed with an intense intelligence but an equally intense cruelty and hunger. His massive icy throne was adorned with the bones of his victims, halfway frozen into the frosty surface. The Lord Martius was not known for his mercy and forgiveness, for those smaller creatures frozen within his throne were only those with whom he had been lenient. Those who had brought him displeasure usually found their demise under his enormous scaled feet or between his viciously clawed toes.

It was this image that Davvin thought of as he made his way from the village of Korso along the black road heading northwards to Mount Badar. The arctic fox shuddered and shivered as he walked, not mainly from the intense cold that bathed this barren land but from the thought of the mighty dragon he must face. For today was the 2,261st birthday of the Dragon Lord, and it was on his birthday that it was customary for each of the island's settlements to offer a sacrifice in gratitude for their continued protection. The sacrifice which every village gave was its strongest and most fit male. Nobody knew what became of them except that they were never seen again.

The villages of this land always thought the bargain worth it. They had never had the troubles of war that many on the mainland had because Martius was always there to keep the peace between them by force if necessary. Any foreigners looking to settle this land were also quickly turned aside, except for those who now formed the village of Ajonair, tolerated only because they accepted the Dragon Lord's demand of sacrifice and worship and altered their culture in accordance with his demands, but that had been so long ago that it was barely remembered except in the Old Tales.

Davvin, though, had a much harder duty than being a sacrifice. It was his duty to inform that Dragon Lord on behalf of the village of Korso that they would no longer be making the yearly sacrifice. If a dark fate awaited those who were sacrificed, he knew that the end he faced must also be far more terrible.

But it might not be so bad. Martius might not even exist. That was what some of his village's new elders thought anyway. The village shaman objected, and as soon as the decision was made to send Davvin on his mission he had brewed up a deadly potion that he drank to kill himself peacefully rather than face the terrors that were soon to arrive. He had offered it to the others in the village, anyone who would take it, before he died, and a few did drink before the village guards stopped the whole affair.

Davvin wasn't sure what to expect. He had been a believer in Martius since he was a kit, but now he was hoping very intensely and trying to convince himself that the village elders were right. There was no Dragon-God, just a bare mountaintop of ice and rock in which he was to plant his spear bearing his village's crested banner as a sign of defiance and triumph over old superstition. And perhaps they were right. Martius had not been seen for over a thousand years, not since the year 1093 in fact when it was said that he destroyed the village of Kaldam for a similar act of defiance. But that was just in the Old Tales. Nobody believed those myths anymore.

Davvin pondered these things as he walked down the beautifully constructed road with its solid curbs and perfectly aligned black paving stones. Who built these roads? Certainly they were beyond the ability of any mortal hand for nobody in the island's villages made such things let alone over a gray and barren worthless tundra.

There! In the distance he thought he saw something -- walls, buildings. A settlement! But nobody lived in this barren wasteland. His heart sank when he realized the truth -- that he was approaching the village of Kaldam.

The place was desolate and the wind howled through the broken remains of its buildings, now mostly piles of smashed stone and rubble. Some great mounds of ice were strewn here and there with bits of somewhat more preserved buildings protruding from them. Was this were the Great Dragon froze them in time with his icy breath as the Old Tales said? No, it must have been an avalanche or a great storm or some other natural catastrophe that caused this destruction. Or perhaps they just picked up and moved and their buildings decayed over time. After all, this wind-blasted tundra couldn't support a settlement of this size. Yes, Davvin reassured himself, this all seemed much more likely than a Dragon God or anything of the sort. This thought comforted him as he set up his tent and bedroll in a ring of trampled rubble that had once been a prosperous shop.

Curling up into his bedroll he hid from the biting and wailing of the fierce cold wind which seemed to roll down from the mountains with ominous purpose. He slept uneasily that night and dreamt unusually.

In one dream he reached the mountain only to find its summit an empty patch of windswept rock. He placed his banner triumphantly among the stones and rubble and came back down only to find himself trapped and freezing among the boulders. Desperately, he cried for his Lord to save him but no help came and he died, freezing among the jagged rocks.

Davvin awoke to a chill. He had partly slipped out of his bedroll. He pulled it back on him and then rolled over on his side, painfully drifting off again as fear and insecurity gnawed at his belly. He dreamed again, but this time he found himself at the foot of the Dragon's ice palace. Going inside, he met his Terrible Lord who knew his intentions even before he approached the Frozen Throne. He looked up to see a great blue clawed foot coming down on him and the grimacing face of his displeased Lord was the last thing he saw before that sole covered his vision in a dark and total blackness.

Davvin awoke to the bright sun glistening off the ice. Picking himself up and putting his tent and bedroll on his back, he continued onward along the black road through the gorges and over the ridges of the Great Mountains. The eerily perfect road continued into this region, curving delicately along this ridge or around that slope until finally it reached the awful slopes of Mount Badar. The fox wound his way up the mountain, somewhat grateful for the heat the extra stress brought to his body.

Finally, the slope began to ease and the road turned further upward. Davvin could see something now, possibly the peaks of a great formation of ice. As he walked further it became clearer that this was no natural formation but a great building made of hundreds of columns of hexagonal ice to form a scary pipe-organlike structure towering hundreds of feet into the sky. And at the base of this towering mass of ice was a great gate of black metal with the face of the Dragon God carved into it in relief, an odd twisted looking sigil of forked lines and crosses engraved onto his forehead. The gate itself was over seventy feet tall, tall enough for Martius himself to pass through without difficulty.

Davvin's heart sank in fear as he looked up at those predatory eyes and that gaping mouth. His feet quaked for a moment. Martius was real! He must be. And then suddenly, the gate of the great mansion of ice began to open slowly, revealing a vast hall inside it with an arched ceiling of greenish ice crystals and benches of ice. At the far end of the hall was the Frozen Throne, just as spoken of in the Old Tales, and on it sat the great and terrible dragon known as Martius.

"Come forward, bug!," shouted a great voice that shook the rocks and resonated with the ice, "and join the other sacrifices in the presence of your God."

Davvin shuddered in fear as he entered the hall slowly. Several rows of enlarged ice benches, probably built for beings of the dragon's own size, filled the hall, though they were empty for some reason. Near the gate there were blocked off doorways leading to a balcony above for other smaller ones to get a better view if there were ever moments when the Dragon wanted an audience. Davvin continued, the walk down the hall being another journey in itself until he came to the sacrifice cages that he knew he would be expected to put himself in were he a sacrifice.

At the feet of the Dragon God were five small pedestals. Each pedestal had atop it a tall and narrow iron cage. Four of them were filled with a representative of each of the villages, reflecting the different races on the island: A polar bear from Eisarr, a lynx from Mylkdyr, a wolf from Ajonair, and a white mink from Myrktar. Davvin stood out from the rest of them because he alone wasn't wearing the blue robes customary for a sacrifice. There was one empty cage remaining, obviously intended fro Davvin. The side of it facing him was opened and would be closed and locked once he stepped in.

Davvin shook, frozen in fear looking up at the monstrous dragon. For a moment he considered running but he knew there was no way he could escape this mighty Dragon Lord. He then considered revealing his true purpose, but a deep piercing glare from the dragon was enough to compel him with such power to obey. He lowered his head and approached the cage slowly, standing inside and closing the door. A slight click and he knew it was sealed. His life was now in the hands of the Dragon Lord Martius.

Martius looked over Davvin with a dissatisfied glare due to his lack of the expected sacrifice robe before turning to the cage with he wolf in it, picking it up and rolling it around in his massive claws like a toy. "Oooh, what have we here?," he said in that gigantic resonant voice.

"An offering from the village of Ajonair, Lord Martius," said the wolf with a look of humility and a low voice barely concealing his complete terror.

Martius hmmed to himself and turned the cage over in his claws, flicking a switch on the side of the cage with his thumb. The switch, actually a huge and immobile iron lever to the smaller furs, released the roof of the cage which popped open, spilling the wolf out into the dragon's left talon.

Holding onto the wolf tightly in his left claw he sat the empty cage down.

"You give yourself willingly on behalf of your village, insect?"

"Yes my Lord," said the wolf unreservedly, his head lowered as he knelt in the palm of the dragon's talon, shivering at the cool of the place.

The dragon reached over with his right talon and took the fabric of the blue robe between his claws. with a small yank, the robe came apart at its main seam and easily peeled off the wolf as it was designed to, leaving him naked before the dragon who had just disrobed him as simply and eagerly as a child would tear open a candy wrapper. In one more moment, just as quickly, the dragon grabbed the wolf by his tail and pulled him up above his gaping and cavernous maw.

The wolf looked down into that yawning abyss with a look of total terror and hopelessness on his face before being dropped in.

"Crunch!"

With a loud and sickening crack of bone, the dragon crushed the wolf-sacrifice in his jaws with as much force as he could. It was really a most merciful end for an obedient sacrifice as since, killed quickly, the wolf would not feel the subsequent chewing or face the horrors of prolonged digestion in the dragon's stomach.

Davvin and the other sacrifices watched in horror as the dragon chewed the remains of the wolf, wiping a trickle of blood from his lips before swallowing his sacrifice with a mighty gulp.

"So, who's next"," asked the dragon ominously as he looked over the remaining four cages, moving his finger back and forth over the cages before coming to rest on the one containing the bear.

"... You...," said the dragon. "You will do nicely."

The polar bear , largest of the victims now before the dragon pointed to himself and looked up questioningly, gulping a bit before his cage was lifted up and he also found himself spilled into the dragon's claw and disrobed.

"Now what should I do with you, speck?," asked the dragon with an evil smile, showing off his now bloody teeth. He sometimes enjoyed amusing himself by asking the sacrifices to suggest their own fates.

"I'm sure," said the bear meekly, "That I would make an excellent slave for you. I could bring you things. I could clean ... I could even make food. I could rub your feet .. ah!"

The bear found himself sat down on the frigid floor of the throne room, though he was not as bothered by the cold as others. Soon, the great shadow of the dragon's blue feet was cast over him and he felt himself pushed down beneath it. The pressure was great, but he was not crushed.

"You will spend the next fie minutes worshiping my godly feet, bug," said the huge dragon. "If you do a good job, you will earn yourself a quick rather than a slow sacrifice. Do an extra good job and I will bestow a great quantity of furs and ivory on your village this year.

The bear's heart sank as he began his work, rubbing his paws gently along those massive soles and teasing them worshipfully. He was saddened that the dragon would not spare him, but he accepted his fate for the good of his village as he had prepared himself before and during the long journey to the dragon's palace.

The bear squirmed under that sole, his otherwise huge and muscular body being nothing but a speck in comparison to Martius. It was so difficult to worship a foot that was so much bigger than himself but he poured himself into it eagerly, summoning up as much energy as would be necessary for this task. It was his final and only purpose now.

The bear rubbed along the sole of the dragon with both of his paws, nuzzling and exploring the cracks and crevices of the tough skin with his muzzle and tongue. Finally he came up to the dragon's big toe. He embraced it with all the strength of his upper body, holding it as if it had been a lover, and making love to it with great passion.

The bear pressed his pips to the great toe, embracing it and kissing it, wiggling his tongue over this part of the flesh and that. At the same time he rubbed his arms up and down the toe and squirmed against the flesh of the sole. At one point, he even began to hump the dragon's sole.

Martius sighed, smiling in pleasure as he idly moved his toe back and forth, enjoying the attention. This small and insignificant movement of the dragon shocked the bear as he was bent back a bit then forward by the movement of that massive toe.

The bear continued to make out with the giant dragon's toe, nuzzling along the crevices as he lavished it with tongue-worship. He was only finally stopped by a sudden and quick push of the dragon's sole against the hard stone cold floor.

The dragon grinned down at the smaller bear, bloodstains and flecks of gore still dangling in tiny bits from his massive teeth. "Time's up bug..."

The burly, yet now tiny bear shuddered in a moment of terror as he realized his fate. He considered crying, begging and pleading for his life but then the thoughts of his village and his duty overcame him.. He gulped and nodded, submitting to whatever fate the giant dragon had in store for him.

The bear's stomach wrenched in sudden movement as he, still clinging to the dragon's toe, was lifted up into the air as the brule dragon raised his thick-soled foot.

"Crash!..."

"Crunch!..."

"Smoosh!..."

Within seconds, nothing was left of the once-proud polar bear warrior but a stain on the floor and the dragon's foot, a fleck of scarlet flesh and crushed bone scattered here and there.

The dragon shook the hall with his loud and mocking laughter, quite similar to the juvenile laughter of a naughty child amusing himself by torturing small feral rodents and insects.

"Now who's next?," asked Martius forebodingly as he reached for the cage containing the lynx. The dragon frowned as emptied the cage into his hand and tossed it aside.

This was not a worthy sacrifice! In his clawed hand he held nothing but a weak scout from the village of Mylkdyr. The tiny lynx shivered and cowered in his clawed hand, hunched over and holding his paws over his head in a puny and pointless effort to shield himself from the mighty wrath of the Dragon God. The lynx was small, barely of age, and scrawny with hardly any muscle on him.

"What is the meaning of this!?" raged the Dragon King. "everyone knows that I demand strong male warriors as sacrifices, not weakling rejects!"

The dragon squeezed his great hand tightly, causing the young lynx to cry out in fear. The smaller fur grunted and struggled against that huge hand in vain, crying out in intense fear and painc as the full horror of the situation overcame him.

"I will deal harshly with your village this year, little one," said Martius frighteningly before tossing his snack in the air.

The lynx screamed , disoriented as he tumbled through the air, going up, up, up, then suddenly falling like a stone only to land in the jaws of the giant dragon with a snap.

It wasn't quick like it had been for the wolf, for this lynx had been a displeasing offering and was to be dealt with harshly.

The dragon chewed slowly and agonizingly, a forked blue tongue poking from his mouth from time to time as he did. The sound of crunching bones and agonized cries flowed down from the dragon's muzzle, along with a small stream of blood, as he deliberately took several seconds to complete each chew. Finally, as the screaming faded the dragon swallowed the mangled remains of the lynx in one great gulp, rubbing his tummy.

Grinning the bloody smile of a pure sadist, the dragon reached down and grabbed the cage of the mink, emptying it onto his clawed hand and then pulling off the sacrifice robe.

"Well, little one," asked the dragon. "Are you ready to join your companions?"

The mink stumbled a bit and then stood up, looking directly into the face of his Lord and Oppressor. He was the smallest of all those chosen for a sacrifice but by far the bravest. He had known for many years that this would be his fate on this day and he had mentally prepared himself since, conceiving over and over in his mind the worst fates that could befall a sacrifice to a Dragon God.

"Yes my Lord," said the small but well-muscled mink warrior. "I am ready to die for you as an offering of my village."

He stood straight up, looking boldly up into those cruel and merciless eyes.

Martius' face went from an expression of a grinning sadist to one of utmost seriousness. He liked for his victims to squirm and show at least some fear, to beg and plead. He was not quite prepared for a brave one. His obedience and boldness was paradoxically both pleasing and displeasing at the same time.

"For you, little one, I have a special treatment to reward you for your total obedience."

The little mink couldn't help but show a look of bewildered puzzlement mixed with both hope and dread. Would he be shown mercy or an even more grisly fate as the victim of a cruel jest?

"You will be swallowed whole, little one. Sometimes I like to feel my sacrifices squirm on the way down my throat and I'm sure you won't disappoint."

The mink shuddered at the thought, but was somewhat relieved to escape the stomping and chomping he had already witnessed.

"I won't disappoint, Sire," said the mink. "I am ready to face my doom whenever you think its time."

The dragon peered at the bold and confident mink for a few moment before bringing him up to his face for a closer look, then opened his cavernous jaws into what could almost be taken for a giant yawn. As he tilted his head back, he dropped the mink onto his quivering blue tongue. His saliva flowed at the presence of his latest meal in his mouth as he tossed his head back and swallowed the mink with a great gulp, sending him whole to the vast stomach of the Dragon Lord.

As Martius rubbed his belly he gave a loud burp that shook the halls. In fact, the mink's fate, though unseen, was likely to be worse than that of any who went before him, for among their remains in the darkness of the dragon's stomach he would be slowly and painfully digested while yet alive. This, Martius thought, was fitting punishment for an insect that thought it could stand tall and proud in the presence of a Dragon God.

"You there!," said Martius as he quickly pulled up the final cage, containing the fox Davvin." "You're not dressed properly for a sacrifice. What's the meaning of this!?"

Thoughts of fear ran through Davvin's head. He was expecting and hoping that this would not be real; that the dragon Martius would just be a myth. What was he to do now? He could lie and pretend to be the dragon's slave or he could defy him openly in the name of his village as his instructions had been. Either choice was fatal. How does one make a correct choice when either outcome is a certain grisly doom? He still felt what was right within himself. He couldn't be and claim to be a sacrifice and his clothes betrayed him there. Angrily defying the dragon was sure to bring some unimaginably grisly end.

Davvin, in what was sure to be his final moments, quickly reviewed his life in his mind. He remembered his mother who, after a fight he had with a bully, told him he should always tell the truth and always tell it in a soft, kind, and respectful way to avoid giving offense. This was what he would do."

"Good Sir," said the fox with a bow after he was dumped from his cage and onto the dragon's hand. "I know you are a harsh ruler but just and fair, so I wish to tell you the truth about my visit here. I am not a sacrifice. I was sent here by my village of Korso to defy you, on this your birthday, or more accurately to confirm you didn't exist and report back. Some foreigners came to our village on big ships to trade with us. They told us you weren't real. They laughed and said you were just a story someone made up long ago to control us. And we believed them. So here I am Sir. I can't be an honest sacrifice but all I can do is beg and plead for mercy on my village, and do what you will with me."

The fox couldn't help but quake in fear as he looked up at the dragon's angry expression, but was shocked as he found himself slowly set down onto the platform his cage had been on as the dragon stood.

As Martius rose from his throne and spread his wings, stretching out his clawed arms, he seemed to double or triple in size. He roared loudly, his hall shuddering as here and there an icicle fell, shattering with a loud clash on the floor of the hall, adding a sort of percussion accompaniment to the dragon's ravings. As he roared, he balled his clawed hands into fists and lifted them angrily towards the ceiling of his hall.

"Do not imagine," huffed Martius, looking down at the fox as his rage had passed with a great huff of cold steam billowing from his nostrils like the chimneys of some infernal engine, "That you can with pretty words and speeches spare yourself or your village from the faith that awaits all traitors and disbelievers."

Davvin looked down with anguish in his eyes, anticipating the painful end he was most likely about to receive as well as the fate of his people and a tinge of guilt and self-hatred for his failure.

"Please merciful Lord, if you only showed yourself to them they would believe and serve you. I know they would."

"And where would be the fun in that, bug?," asked Martius. "If that's what I wanted I would be out among them all the time, but its particularly gratifying to know that I can have the faith of my toys without being seen."

"Gratifying!?," said the fox, remembering the bully from his youth once more who beat him helpless and then his younger brother in front of him and laughed. Was this, the fabled Dragon God Martius, no different but on a grander scale? That was what he thought of the shaman for a while, using a belief to give himself power, but hew he knew that the God himself was no better than a cruel and selfish bully on a cosmic scale. Moments before, he would have served willingly if it brought mercy but now he saw the true fruitlessness and evil of it.

"If that is what the world is to you then, I'll have no part of it. Take me out of it! My people were right to rebel against you and now I can say I am proud to be the first one to defy you... and I'm not the last. Someday we'll beat you... maybe you'll have to deal with someone of your own size." There had to be more than one, thought Davvin logically.

"Ah... the failings of you bugs; the pride to ever think you could put yourselves on the plane of the Gods ... the ones who came before you. It is my right by nature to have my way with you, just as it is your right to have your way with a seal or a bird ... but enough of this. I tire quickly of explaining myself to a puny, pathetic, squirming maggot!"

With this, the dragon raised that great and massive foot and brought it down on the fox, pinning him down.

Davvin turned and tried to run, but it was of no use. He couldn't outpace the Great Dragon and was fully expecting his life to end when he saw that yawning shadow descend over him.

"You shall taste the fulness of my wrath, young slave!," said Martius with a growl as he very slowly increased the pressure, squashing the fox slowly.

The pain was intense and the pressure made Davvin feel as though all his insides were about to burst. He screamed and groaned painfully for when one is in great pain the natural impulse to escape it extinguishes all reason. He was indeed reduced to that squirming maggot, and like that basest of all creatures writhing in hopeless agony when hit by a spray of salt or acid, he squirmed as well, groaning in a vain attempt to escape his tormenter.

Unexpectedly the dragon let up the pressure after a few moments, giving Davvin some release.

"Oh thanks and praise!," said Davvin hoarsely. "Is there mercy in your heart?"

"Not a drop, speck!," said the dragon, pushing once more but much harder this time.

Davvin was in an ultimate agony. The air was squeezed out of his lungs and he couldn't breathe. He thought as well that he heard the distinctive creaking and snapping of his own bones being crushed.

Martius curled his lips as his sadistic nature rose to new heights... sometimes he wished for rebellion just so that he had occasion for such torture and mayhem. The dragon dragged his foot back and forth across the rough stone floor, dragging Davvin across it and seriously cutting his torso and legs in the process. A shining bloody slick soon formed on the stones, though soon to be frozen like the rest of the surroundings.

The dragon nodded to himself in approval at his work, but then spat on the floor. The frost dragon's saliva didn't pool, later to freeze, like normal spit would under the circumstances, but instead froze quickly into a wicked spheroidal ball of icy crystalline spikes held fast to the floor by freeing. Martius dragged his victim across the stones and to the icy spikes, pressing him down on them with a cruelly slow shove, not stopping until he felt the wet icy tinge of the ends of the spikes on his sole.

Davvin blinked and coughed up blood as the spikes pierced through his broken and battered body. An empty scream of pain issued from his mouth as an ice spike punctured his lung.

Finally, relief of a sort came. The dragon's claw was removed, leaving only the broken dying fox on the floor. Relief was short-lived. The clawed foot came down again with a crash, though not enough to shatter the fox's body, the fox now faced the precipice of the void of death. The foot was lifted once more. This was it. It came down on Davvin with punishing force, smashing the fox and splattering his blood across the floor with a great deal of flesh and gore, his head shooting across the hall and rolling around into some corner.

Martius hmmed and twitched his toes back and forth in the bloody mass, enjoying the soft warm feeling on his feet. He smiled and delighted himself with thoughts of the carnage he could look forward to tonight. He hadn't had this much fun in a thousand years. Yes, rebellion could be tiresome and infuriating but the release that came with snuffing rebels out was an unmatchable experience. It was so convenient, he thought, to have domesticated enemies to release upon ... not at all like the old days. Not at all. Truly, though he pretended to be the only god of this land, Davvin's rebellion had struck a nerve ... reminding him of the great time before when the others of his kind were here. Sometimes he wished for them to return ... though more often he did not. It was just as well, best even, for him to remain here as the Lord of his own universe.

And of the foreigners who had promised to help the people of Korso? Martius laughed He would crush them too. He might even leave some alive to bring back here and devise some new and hideous demise to punish the insects for intruding upon his lands. Though maybe not. After all, he would need a new community to replace doomed Korso, for his plan always called for five villages. It was just as likely as not that they would accept his bargain and become his newest slaves.

The dragon walked down his hall one more time, flinging open the metal doors and spreading his wings to take flight. Tonight would be a night to remember...