The Lizard King

Part 7: An Ancient War

"And then he just let me walk down the road on my own before he went back into the woods." Kayla, out of breath from speaking for more than half an hour, looked at Marlana for some sort of response.

Marlana, however, wasn't doing responses today. She just sat there, ghost-silent, with some solemn expression her face. Maybe she thought Kayla was crazy. Or maybe she was trying to take it all in at once. Finally she asked "He just let you go?"

"Yes," Kayla said, "And after that I just walked the way he said and I got home." Marlana sat silent again, her thumbs twiddling between her palms. It was interesting, what Kayla was seeing. Marlana was never one to be nervous.

"Marlana?" Kayla began. No response. She just kept fumbling with her hands. "Marlana!" Her head snapped upward and her hands froze. "Are you alright?"

Marlana's face slowly contorted into a grimace. "Bah I'm fine! Giant lizards don't mean shit." She got up and made her way to her mortar and pestle. Kayla watched as she fumbled with the instrument, crushing herbs with it. It was a lot less steady than usual. Her gracile hands suddenly seemed burdened. Her hard steely eyes now looked scared.

Kayla went over while she was working and placed her hand on her shoulder. Marlana stopped what she was doing. "Marlana," Kayla said, "you know something about that creature. Something you're not telling me."

Marlana put her tool down and turned to Kayla. "Kayla, it's time I show you something." Marlana took Kayla by the hand and led her into a back room. The darkness was overwhelming. Almost pitch black. Marlana grabbed a match, struck it, and lit candles around the room. What came to light was unlike anything Kayla had ever seen before.

The room itself wasn't big, but it contained a treasure trove of knowledge. Books completely lined one long length of the wall, each of them on different and more intriguing subjects than the last. Skulls of various creatures from around the land lined other shelves, having belonged to creatures that Kayla had obviously never seen before. Lastly, there was a small desk in the corner with several candles, a few quills, and a vial of ink. Perfect for writing and illustrating.

Looking around, Kayla determined that the room had to be very old. Many of the shelves were dusty and so were many of the skulls. The books and the desk, however, were tidily kept. Whatever Marlana had been doing back here, she used them quite a lot. Kayla felt such awe and amazement at these things and, even though she never learned how to read very well, she longed for the knowledge and wisdom everything in this room contained.

"Yeah ya live as long as I have and ya tend to learn a thing or two." Marlana said.

Kayla looked at her and then back to the books. "This is incredible. Where did you get all these books and skulls?"

"Well, I got a desk don't I? I wrote them. And these skulls I got from merchants who traded em to me. I tell em I use em in my medicine but truth is I'm a fan of the world's forgotten history."

Kayla stepped back. She had no idea Marlana cared about anything. To find out this was so near and dear to her was incredible. She was so overwhelmed by this new perspective she didn't know where to look next. Her eyes finally settled on a big, locked trunk next to the desk. There was no serious detail on it and if there was, it was coated in a thick layer of dust.

"What's in the trunk?" Kayla asked.

Marlana held up a key. "The thing I want to show you." Marlana gave Kayla her cane before making her way over to the trunk. She knelt down, inserted the key, and turned it until the lock clicked. Marlana then opened the trunk and, struggling, lifted a huge item wrapped in a thick cloth onto the desk.

Marlana took her cane back from Kayla and began to unwrap it. After a few seconds, Kayla saw firsthand what Marlana was keeping tucked away. There, on the desk in front of them, was a gigantic skull. But that wasn't the most amazing thing about it. It was triangular in shape. Flat. Horns jutting out the back. Large, sharp teeth. Two large, circular eye sockets. Kayla didn't ask what it was. She already knew.

"H-how did you get this?" Kayla stammered.

"A merchant sold it to me a while back. He was a pretty useless old fart but he did one thing right by him: he told me exactly what it was." Marlana grabbed a book off the shelf and opened it wide. In it were illustrations of giant, lizard-like creatures that looked just like the thing Kayla had seen. "They're called lizardlings. A race of giant, man-like lizards who once roamed the land as nomads. In their heyday, it was said one group could have hundreds of members, maybe thousands."

"Thousands." Kayla whispered the word in disbelief.

"That's what I said girlie! They had a whole system, a culture, all headed by one solitary ruler: the Lizard King. He alone ruled all lizardlings and, in times of need, united them in a common purpose."

Kayla couldn't believe what she was being told. She had heard tales of elves and dwarves forming large civilizations but something like this was completely new to her. Here was a creature that was prominent everywhere, with a society and culture, and it didn't even look close to humans. It made her wonder...

"Wait," she started, "if they were around and such a great civilization, what happened to them?"

Marlana looked up at Kayla with sadness in her eyes. "Same thing that happens to all good things: humans found em. The lizardlings tried to make peace with the humans, offer them help when they needed. The humans, however, thinking themselves superior, pushed away from them. Tensions grew until finally, all-out war was upon us.

"The world descended into 100 years of war. Millions died on both sides. It was so horrible at times that children were often drafted into the service to fight the fight that adults couldn't. The lizardlings were superior in nearly every respect. They were stronger, faster, and far more ruthless in combat than any human soldier could ever be. They would've easily wiped the humans from the planet had humans not created the ultimate weapon.

"It was late in the war when a great human inventor and scholar noted that one of the few items that could pierce the scales of a lizardling was the claw of another lizardling. Collecting multiple claws from a deceased lizardling, the inventor crafted a sword, the first of its kind. The sword sliced as easily through the scales as a hot blade through butter. The inventor called it a lizard gutter.

"With the new weapon on their side, the odds were much more even. The giant reptiles fell, and each death led to the creation of even more swords for their enemy. Out of the tens of millions of lizardlings that had originally roamed these lands, they only numbered about 10,000 when they finally admitted defeat.

"Again, they attempted to fix relations with the humans. The humans, prideful and arrogant, wished the exact opposite. The remaining 10,000 lizardlings were hunted for sport. They were the ultimate prey. Legend said that if you killed one, you'd be the ultimate predator. Those who know and were told the lizardling legacy believe the last of their kind was slain hundreds of years ago."

Marlana looked away from the book she held and reached for her top shelf. From it, she pulled down a small item wrapped in cloth. "I thought they were truly gone for good." She unwrapped the item and pulled out the scale Kayla gave her the other day. "But you proved me wrong Kayla. I don't know how long your lizardling has been there, but he may very well be the last of his kind."