Here Be Dragons

[gracewriter]

I'm just going to slap my story up here and then surf for a while reading and maybe offering a comment or two if I can screw up the nerve :)

This story was written for an impromptu contest between friends on Helium.com; it was a year ago in October, and we all tried our hand at a 'scary short story'. Word count had to be around 1500 words.

It was my first short story ever - I make my living as a 'hack' writer, and I don't bat an eye at sales copy or ghostwriting books, but I have zero self confidence when it comes to my fiction. I just sat down and wrote this out and put it in the contest because a friend begged me to participate - and out of over a dozen entries it won. :)

However, they are a really sweet 'oh that's lovely!!' group there, so I don't know how good it really is... you know what I mean?

I'll be back after I read and comment elsewhere - I want to be a good forum member!

Here Be Dragons
By
Grace Alexander

The glass slipped out of my suddenly numb fingers and shattered on the stone floor, but I didn’t register it happening. I strained to see, to hear, in a room suddenly devoid of either light or sound. Nothing. Nothing but a shift of darkness within darkness, and my own heartbeat hammering in my ears.

The sensation threatened to choke me, and I sank slowly to the floor, drawing my knees up and hugging them to my chest. I shut my eyes, and amazingly the dark became more familiar. I concentrated on breathing in and out, trying to slow my racing pulse, and the pounding in my chest began slowly to subside.

I was trembling all over, and that realization more than anything else drove home the fact that I was scared. I, Gwylliam ap Clyyd, King of Lleanairr, Protector of the Hold, was sitting on the floor and shaking like a child.

A spurt of red hot rage cut through the fear, and I clutched at it like the hand of a friend. I slowly opened my eyes, and fought down another flash of panic at the utter blackness that surrounded me. I tried to concentrate on my anger, and wrap it around myself like a cloak - fury was something I understood, but this unreasoning terror was alien.

I had come up to the tower in the grey dawn to be alone. It had been two weeks since Kiera had disappeared, and I hadn’t slept more than an hour at a time since. I couldn’t bear our bed - it smelled like her. There was simply no trace; it was like she had never existed.

The hours ran together and days slipped by like sand through a glass, excruciating in its slowness, and there was no word, no hint of what had happened… just a tattered cloak on the edge of the wood. No blood, which fact I clung to like a dying man clings to life itself. Truth was, I wasn’t sure if I would survive her death - she had been my very life for so long.

I opened my eyes, aware that I was rocking back and forth on the cold stone floor. Forcing myself to my feet, I reached for the wall, and almost tripped as I found one of the arrow slots, lurching forward as my arm plunged into the hole. I caught myself with my other hand against the wall, and froze.

My fingers had met with an obstruction. Something was wrapped around the outside of the tower, blocking the light; something almost leathery. I flattened my hand against it, feeling hard ridges and an almost pulsing ribbon that traced its way across the breadth of it. I put my forehead against the wall and shut my eyes again. What witchery was this?

******

Kiera pressed her cheek against the cold stone, and tried to cry. It was cold out, she knew; it was after first frost and the wind blew bitingly around the tower, but she couldn’t feel it.

She couldn’t seem to feel much of anything, it seemed, except the aching need to get home, back to Gwylliam’s arms. She wrapped herself tighter against the tower and shook.

She had been walking by the woods, looking for herbs…what had happened next? She had bent to pick up an oddly shaped stone strung on a worn leather thong, and after that she remembered nothing. Nothing but a ripping sound, and the wrenching as her shoulder sockets strained, and then the burning drive to go home.

Home. Home was where Gwylliam was, it always had been. She fought to keep her head clear; images kept flashing through her mind that made it hard to think. Battles she had only heard told about were in her head in full color, blood and gore and horses screaming. Talons…

She threw her head back and screamed.

******

The tower trembled, and steadied, and I ended up back on the floor, sprawled in the darkness - and curse it, shaking again. I managed to get up on one knee and a deafening roar shook the tower. Something crashed heavily at the far side of the room.

I was suddenly furious again. Enough was enough. I felt my way determinedly to the door and found it bulged and wedged shut under my seeking hands. My boot hit something on the floor, and I bent, scrabbling in a mess of crumbled stone.

A candle. I fumbled for my flint, and caught my breath as the candle flared to life.

The tower wall had buckled inward, and stones hung precariously from what remained of the door frame. I spun and held the candle to the arrow slot. Leather indeed, but rougher than any I had seen, almost scaly in places. A throbbing vein snaked across the surface between twin hard ridges of bone, and I felt the blood drain out of my face.

Dragon.

I was sitting on the floor again, shaking my head back and forth, back and forth. My sword was in my hand, although I didn’t remember loosening it from its sheath.

A scream was building in my throat, of fury and rage and loss. Kiera. The dragon had taken Kiera. I screamed her name as I came to my feet and threw myself at the wall.

******

Something cut through the wind, a wail of anguish, and Kiera stiffened. Someone was screaming her name, over and over. Dimly she recognized Gwylliam’s voice, and reared back, her head snaking back and forth on her long neck as she sought wildly for the source. She cocked her head to the side and tried to peer in the tiny hole in the wall of the tower.

******

Suddenly a gleam of light struck through the blackness, and as quickly disappeared. I rushed to the window that had momentarily been uncovered, and held the candle up, trembling with anguish and a black dead anger. I had to get out, I had to avenge Kiera…

A gleam of brilliant blue, like Kiera’s eyes when she was laughing. I dropped the candle and drove my sword through the opening, feeling the blade scrape bone. An awful scream tore out of my throat, to be echoed on a more horrible scale as the tower shook and stones rained down around me.

I wrenched my sword back through the opening and crouched with my arms over my head as light flooded in through every arrow slot. There was a whistling sound, and a faint scream… and nothing. My head jerked up as an echo ran through the tower, a whispering cry - my name.

I came to my feet unsteadily, and stumbled back towards the door. Shouldering through the rubble, I made the stairwell and staggered downward, my sword still clenched in my hand.

There was shouting and wailing, and a crowd gathered round the foot of the tower, but the noise level dropped sharply and everyone froze as I stumbled out into the open, looking wildly up at the sky.

“The dragon! I shouted, to be met with frightened glances and shaking heads. I advanced, my eyes fastened on a huddle knot of people who stared at me with horror.

“The dragon! Did it fly away?” No-one answered, and the looks directed at me were sideways and terrified. Dash it all, was I that frightening compared to a dragon?

I stepped toward the knot of townspeople, and they scattered, revealing a crumpled blue heap on the ground. I faltered, my eyes refusing to make sense of the crumpled pile of silk and ribbon, the spill of golden hair.

She had been wearing blue. Blue, to match her eyes…dear Goddess, her eyes.

The sword dropped from my nerveless hands, and I fell to my knees, catching up her ruined body in my arms. The sword point had made a wreck of half her face, but I pressed it to my chest and tried to breathe. No. It wasn’t true. It wasn’t.

 I looked around wildly, at the fear and distrust in the faces of the villagers. “The dragon,” I faltered, and fell silent before the accusation in their faces.

They had to tear her out of my arms. I fought like a madman, screaming her name, reaching for one more touch of her silky tresses, a last clasp of the hand. Something jerked and caught in her hair, and came free in my hand as they wrenched her body away from me, and I thrust it into my shirt.

******

The door slammed shut on the dungeon below the tower, and I eased myself up off of the floor where they had flung me. My cousin Davyyth was the natural choice to succeed me, and the only question now seemed to be whether I should be executed or left to rot for murdering my queen.

A sob broke out of my chest, and I finally wept. My hands clenched over my heart, and encountered a smooth hard disk. I pulled it out of the folds of my shirt, blinking through the tears. It was an odd stone on a leather thong, with faint figure of an eye carved on its surface. I slipped it over my head, and the world went black.

******

I am Gwylliam ap Clyyd, King of Dragons. I have laid waste in this kingdom for a hundred years. Hear my howl and tremble, mortals; ye know not my rage and despair.


Grace

[Dolphinia]

I like the flow of it and you have some great descriptive pieces here. This is a story I would want to know more about; I think this is a perfect example of good writing hampered by a word count. There seems to be a lot more that could be said here. Such as, how did she end up with the stone was it left for her or was it just luck of the draw that she was the one to find it?
Did this cousin Davyyth have a hand in it or was he just the next in line for the thrown? Why did no one else see the dragon?
Just little things that you would learn in a longer story. For it's length I think it comes off as a nice read, with a darker element that's not overly done.

There are a few grammar issues you could work on, I know you said this was for fun so I'll just point out one it's probably a typo anyway.

gracewriter wrote:

“The dragon! I shouted, to be met with frightened glances and shaking heads. I advanced, my eyes fastened on a huddle knot of people who stared at me with horror.

 
You forgot the quotation mark: "The dragon!" I shouted...
Also ...my eyes fastened on a huddle knot of people... I think that's supposed to be huddled knot of people. As always just my opinion hope it helps. D.

[gracewriter]

Hey, thanks for reading!

You caught my typos - double thanks :)

You know, I have no flipping idea why no-one else saw the dragon. Major spanner in the works, that. I'll have to think about it. I also have no real idea where the stone came from - I think I was going for the 'ring' type of a feel from LOTR - it has a mind of its own, perhaps, seeking out its victims inexorably. Kind of like the story itself - it just flew out of me one day and I was baffled and startled that I had actually written a short! I always thought shorts were too hard - I'm a lengthy prose kinda gal.

[Dolphinia]

Well I like your style, personally I'm still finding mine as far as fantasy writing goes. I prefer lengthy prose myself I find it difficult at times to write short stories, I usually end up having to erase and rewrite half the story just to make it fit into the word count. So far I like what you've posted keep it up and I'll keep reading it. D.