It all started the day we were invaded by the Darenis.

I was a shy, skinny boy from a village called Ha Gian, at the gates of the Fan Si Fana mountain range, the highest in the world. My father died when I was just a baby and I have no memory of him. My mother had to raise me single-handedly, besides working hard in the quarry to feed us. When I was eight years old, I started working in the tin mine and life began to treat us better. Until the accident. Everything changed.

The elevator suddenly fell several dozen meters, and on impact everyone but me was killed. I was found on top of the pile of dead men and boys, my face bloody and unconscious. But I was pulled out and I lived. Or I lived badly.

Since that accident my life changed completely. I no longer had any friends, as the three I had died in the mine. After that, nobody wanted to play with the boy with the pierced face. A sharp shard had pierced my cheek on impact, leaving my gums and teeth visible to anyone who saw me in profile. I was very lucky, because at that age my baby teeth had not yet fallen out, so many moons later I was able to bite again on that side. My mother told me that it would heal over time, but the truth is that for some reason my skin refused to close the gap.

Most people ignored me, but there were those who began to mercilessly mock my new status as a walking abomination. They threw stones at me so that, they said, the other side of my face would be just as scarred. They called me the hole boy.

My arms had grown somewhat stronger during my four years in the mine, but my enemies were too many. And facing them would only have made the village hate me even more. My mother was adamant that I leave the mine, which I refused, as work was the only thing that kept me busy and I knew we needed the money. However, seeing that the other workers were not comfortable with me, as I reminded them daily of the terrible tragedy in which their co-workers died, the manager fired me.

So, first I was friendless, then jobless, and a year later I was penniless when my mother became ill. The doctor came from a nearby village. My mother was a well-liked person in the village, despite having a horrible, outcast son. Many people came to see her and to leave stones of encouragement during the two weeks of her torture. The disease of the side, they called it. The doctor could not heal her and, in the end, the infection took her, with fever, sweat and pain.

It was horrible. I cried and cried for days. I stopped eating and went back to being the skinny kid of yesteryear, with a cadaverous face and a hole in my cheek. I had no friends, no job, no money, no mother, no self-esteem. But I did have a house to lock myself in. But that too was taken from me.

It was during a cool, wet, clear, starry night. They came from all sides and started burning houses everywhere. The silence gave way to a multitude of chilling noises. The crackling of the gigantic flames, the screams of horror, the metallic clash of steel, the creaking of wood devoured by fire or of bones broken by swords, the barking of dogs, the squeaking of rats... I remember it as if it were yesterday. I went out the back window, afraid of meeting some Dareni soldier at my door. I saw bodies burned, bloodied, pierced by guns or crushed under collapsed beams. I saw my village turned into a blazing inferno. And my veins froze. Dareniel was invading us.

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I realized at that moment that I had lost nothing there. That my house was nothing more than an empty shell in which I slept every night dreaming that my mother would return from heaven, or that my father would suddenly appear to take me out of that nightmare. None of that was going to happen. So, I ran.

I ran up the mountain. I ran up the steep slopes of the Fan Si Fana, I climbed the narrowest and most slippery chimneys, I fell down smooth rocks and climbed rough ones, I crossed snowy valleys, I waded through icy streams, I ran away from the howling wolves... And finally, I reached the watchtower.

The lookouts gave me a fire and soup, bedding and blankets, smiles and thanks. The watchtowers were lit one by one in the distance, until the whole mountain range was illuminated, warning all the towns that we were being invaded. To all the hidden cities, to all the armies, and to all the horsemen.

That’s when I saw them for the first time, streaking across the orange skies at dawn. Hours later, after repelling the Dareni attack, a rider stopped at the guard post where I was. Then, for the first time, I had a dragon in front of me.

The head was the size of a man, scaly and of a brownish color that glistened in the sunlight. Its eyes were formed by a black pupil glowing in an iris of pure fire, its nostrils gave off a stinking air that tousled even the dustiest hair, and its forked, bluish tongue hissed curiously from time to time. I looked at his claws, sharp as no sword could be. I had heard that there were swords made of dragon claw capable of cutting rocks in half, and, seeing those of that beast, I was not at all surprised. Its two hind legs were larger than its front legs, stronger and more muscular. Its wings protruded from both sides like two unfurled brown sails, capable of picking up the wind at will. From the skull to the tail, the back was full of large spikes that ran along the entire spine. Barbs as black as the night. Black as death.

“Do you know how many leagues Ha Gian is from here?” asked the rider after getting off his majestic mount and talking to the watchmen of the watchtower, and I denied because I did not have the slightest idea despite having traveled the distance. “Twelve leagues. Without your warning, An Long, many more people would have died. The Darenis would have destroyed our crops in the foothills and we, on the summits, would have run out of grain, barley, and many other things. You have saved the Tiber, An Long, and as far as I am concerned, you are a hero.”

Then I could no longer hold back the tears. They burst in a salty waterfall that slid down one cheek to the ground, and down the other to my hole. I collapsed.

The rider, shared the meal with the lookouts and me. I still remember the smiles of those men and the respect they had for the rider. Afterwards, the rider called out to me.

“Come on, An Long, I’m taking you back home,” he said.

“I... My home...”

“I know, I have seen your village. There is nothing left. We are not going to Ha Gian, I’m taking you to Do Shoi.”

And then, the dragon lowered a wing that landed in front of me, inviting me to come up. And finally, after so long, I smiled again. No longer caring about the hole in my cheek. No longer caring about anything. Nothing but flying on the back of a dragon. My dream.