The knight guardsman stood rod straight as if staked to the ground. He gazed distantly just above the horizon line. Mareth tapped his foot and gripped his clubstaff until white bled through his knuckles. The guardsman kept his poise beside a high archway in an even higher stone wall. The archway was barred by a portcullis through which could be seen, heard and smelled al the sounds of a bustling town on the verge of becoming a city. The wall was fresh finished, and the portcullis pristine, though the juxtaposition with the wafting scent of alleyway detritus and human waste somewhat minimized the intended splendor of the place.

Like all large gatherings of human kind there was little order in the growth, an attempt to clean up only imposed after the fact. This wall was that strange marker, a barrier between the wild wastelands outside and what amounted to little more within, just with animals more prone to speech. Aerendir and Siegyrd has stayed behind some distance, leaving Mareth to the money-changing and negotiations. Though the air was temperate, he was sweating profusely having traveled far on foot carrying a few small proofs of their defeat of the dragon. Most towns did not have any real economy of scale to pay for a dragon hunt, and neither did these, but they had a newly named “king” who had imposed enough order to begin levying taxes and pay for just such a guard here at the gate, who, though he wore armour clearly not made for his stature, stood as proud as a prince of empires of older worlds. A sun was emblazoned upon his breastplate with seven stars resting like a crown atop it. The craftsmanship was shoddy, but it would do.

Mareth cleared his throat, “AHEM.”

The guard flinched, but otherwise maintained his look into the distant horizon.

Mareth moved directly in front of the man and poked him gently in the gut with his clubstaff, “Watchman do more than watch – meant to open the gate too.”

The guard clenched his jaw and said nothing, though he was beginning to show signs of wear simply standing in the sun as it slowly descended in the sky.

Mareth was half a head shorter than the man and jumped in a silly fashion to catch the guard’s eyes, then said, “Oi! Lad!”

The guard looked at Mareth with a pleading look and then smiled. He was missing some teeth, and through the gaps Mareth saw, or rather didn’t see the man’s tongue. The man’s eyes darted back to the horizon, and Mareth sighed heavily.

He stepped away from the gate and looked up toward the wall where no one seemed to be paying attention. Beyond the portcullis it was a loud foolish revelry of some kind, and no guard was there either. Mareth tucked his staff under his arm and rubbed his hands together then cracked his knuckles before turning back to the guard.

“If you could speak would you help me in?” Mareth began to chant softly to himself and tendrils of blue-green wisps wrapped like vines around both of his hands.

The guards eyes went wide and he trembled as he tried to lower his spear to respond, but Mareth moved somewhat faster than he expected. The shorter wizard slipped past the spear and grabbed the guard by the face, just at the base of his jaw, and a bloom of blue-green light climbed into the guards mouth and poured down his throat like a rush of fresh water.

He choked and dropped his spear and reached out momentarily to grab Mareth, but then paused and shook his head. The warmth he felt was not pain, nor the choking for lack of air. Something was in his mouth. Mareth stepped back and the guard felt his hand into his mouth and smiled stupidly, then licked his lips. He began rubbing his tongue across his teeth and clicking it, and finally started laughing hysterically.

Mareth let the man run through his disbelief, confusion, and eventual joy as patiently as he could. He felt in his pocket for the small gemstone he had been given, but pulled out a handful of finely powdered dust, barely recognizable instead. He should have known, but he felt the loss nonetheless. He stared at the dust in his hand, then looked back up at the man and cleared his throat again, “AHEM, name, and then get me in would you?”

The guard gawked and then opened his mouth to speak, paused, then tried, “Amron…” his own voice startled him into silence. It was deep and powerful, far different than he had remembered.

“Amron, we are going to be fast friends I think. Now let me go in?” Mareth gripped his staff then tapped it on a small stone at his feet. A hint of a song, like a note played on a cymbal rang through the air, and then it was still.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Amron began to speak, “I don’t have a key, and the guard on the other side has the lever. They locked me out ‘til morning, said I had to keep my watch perfect or they wasn’t goin’ let me go back in at all. I can’t…”

Before the frantic young man finished speaking Mareth had jumped and with a slow upward movement, as if being carried by a giant hand made his way to the top of the battlements. The guard gaped.

Mareth just winked back down and put his pointer finger to his own lips, then jumped down from the battlements into the streets below leaving Amron confused and babbling on the other side of the wall.

#

“A strange vision.” Aerendir’s voice was distant and musing.

Siegyrd was on the edge of excitement, “If even part true then there is something in it that may speak to the fragments we have found, of the lives of dragons long ago. It seems to confirm the wars at least.”

The two sat on their rolled bedrolls in a small clearing near the dirty highway that connected some pieces of the burgeoning kingdom that as yet had no name. One day, they knew, there would be much more, but today it was a dirt path, barely big enough to hold a cart.

“Perhaps it illumines the fragments. Perhaps it is something else. You’ve had such visions before.”

“None so distinct, so detailed.” Siegyrd said briefly.

Aerendir hummed in a low “hmmm” and looked upward toward the lazy clouds hanging in a close sky.

“The disease was farther along by far in her.” Siegyrd’s voice was twinged with sadness.

“It was. She was barely even dragon anymore, even her song was almost incomprehensible.” Aerendir leaned forward and looked directly into Siegyrd’s face, “It had to be done. Little brother. Though it pains us. It was an end of release.”

Siegyrd closed his eyes against his rising emotion and took a deep breath in.

Aerendir stood and walked over to Siegyrd. “Little brother, we did right. She is corrupt no longer. She returns to ash where beauty will one day bloom.”

Siegyrd took another deep breath and then looked up at his brother who was now sitting on his haunches, smiling. “The rites. We forgot the rites of ash. Will she bloom again? What of her kin?”

Aerendir put his hand on Siegyrd’s shoulder and his smile grew sad, “It has been three centuries since we met dragons who cared at all for their kin, even knew the term, little brother.”

“Can this really be the only way?” Siegyrd could no longer hold back his tears, and they began to spill as he spoke in a broken song.

Aerendir knelt fully and embraced his brother, “If anyone can find another way. For now we must find them. Where they bring not life there is death. This burgeoning world is not strong enough to contest them.”

Siegyrd’s face was streaked with the remnants of tears, but his look was stern and his voice strong as he replied, “It is so, but we must conduct the rites of ash.”

Aerendir sighed, but nodded. “The wizard will take some time, and we will have the time to rest.”

#

The brothers stood in front of the fallen dragon, the giant hole still burned through it. The corruption had faded and the sheen of coppery scales were clear in the setting sun’s vibrant rays. A portion of the giant branch they had seen upon entry to the cavern had begun to grow around the dragon’s body almost an embrace.

Siegyrd drew two blades of unique construction. Each was shaped with subtle holes through which air passed and generated sounds in different notes. Aerendir took up a position centered directly in front of the fallen creature and drove his white greatsword to the hilt into the dust of the earth held it with both hands and knelt there, head bowed.

Aerendir set out a rhythmic bass chant and Siegyrd began to sing a tenorial melody in an ancient tongue unknown to this world, and the swords he swung as he danced through forms filled in a harmonic resonance. The steps were precise, each movement guided at perfect angles, and timed with the bass of Aerendir which began to pulse in the ground until dust quivered. The dust rose and hovered above the earth. The air hummed electric with power that amplified the brilliance of the setting sun in a kaleidoscope of impossible colors.

The growing tree spread more rapidly and twisted its branches around the dragon’s corpse, closed its wound with wooden branches and a bush with blooming lilacs. The spread became more rapid, and expansive, and the scales distorted, faded into the earth in a dull gray that was pulled in and fed the expanding tree and roots.

When all the song completed, there stood a small sapling, thin as a rail and half the height of a man, fed by roots the size of a dragon.

Aerendir and Siegyrd stood in silence for a time, staring at the small tree, and then made their way slowly back toward the road.

#

Mareth stood in the low light of his staff as he sat on his bedroll next to the road and ate some fresh rations he had just purchased in town. There was also fresh bread that he set aside on a small cloth nearby. The sun was well down and the grasping ink of night had stained the sky to deep purple with only hints of the red-gold edge of day.

He stared down the road, until his eyes began to grow heavy. “Left me behind, eh?” He nodded off briefly, then looked up and the brothers were in front of him as if apparated from empty sky. He startled and stood, tripped on his bedroll and began to fall.

Siegyrd caught Mareth by the collar and held him in a precarious half fall for a moment before speaking, “Are you going to eat that?” He was pointing to the fresh bread on the cloth nearby.

Mareth righted himself, and Siegyrd let go. Mareth took a deep breath. “I was planning on it, but…” he looked at the two men in front of him and saw an exhaustion that strained his belief. In this one hunt he had seen them do impossibly, inhuman things. Walk for miles on end, leap from high places, pin dragons (with a little magical help). He had never seen them exhausted. They barely even slept.

Mareth shrugged, “You can have it. More provisions in the couple of sacks over there too. Help yourselves. Pre-payment only though until the new king of Tivaer verifies the dragon is dead.”

Aerendir and Siegyrd looked at each other briefly. Aerendir quickly raised his hand to head in a strange sign which Siegyrd tried to beat him to, but couldn’t. There was an exchange which Mareth didn’t understand and then Siegyrd turned and said, “The dragon’s remains are gone. Might as well move on.”

Mareth dropped his jaw and his staff and stared at the brothers. “Wha…”

“Get some rest.” Siegyrd said and started laying out his own bed roll.

Aerendir walked over and put his hand on Mareth’s shoulder, looked into the wizard’s eyes and then just pat him twice before he walked away.

Mareth shook his head, then slumped to fix up his bedroll muttering.

#

Some distance away, a guard named Amron went to kick a rock in his frustration and found it significantly heavier than anticipated. His toe throbbed intensely as he cried out, but still no one let him back into the gate.