Esveldza: 'The Lonely Child of Fire'

Chapter VI- Neglect

Chapter VI

Neglect

It had been a few days sense I had actually trained with Johnro and Jemro, it was the day after the weekend and seeing them early that morning I couldn’t tell if they had enjoyed training without me or resented me for it. Well they resented me either way.

Johnro and Jemro’s moods were as sour as ever as we did strength training on the brown stone walls of Forban. Samre walked back and forth from us, motivating us and giving us advice.

 I looked down the stone walls to the landscape below. The terrain was the same as in the village, only a lot less houses and buildings. There were some farms that I could make out and even a traveller as he exited the trees and walked into our village.

To the left I could see the tip of Arimur (ar- ree-murh) volcano which was constantly erupting and giving the old dragons a hot bath. How I wished we could visit Rannen, the city beneath Arimur Volcano. I wanted to see a dragon so bad, they were so beautiful and incredible. I imagined for a moment while I ran across the wall of Forban myself as a dragon rider, I was the bravest, most beautiful and strongest warrior in all of Tivess and I served the King, Queen and country loyally.

“Alright that’s enough guys, take a break and have your lunch.” Samre said, calling us back to him. He had laid out a blanket and took our food out of a basket.

He smiled as he handed us out food and we ate it gratefully. Samre took a bite out of his own sandwich and looked back behind him. “Can you make out a green stone village way out there?” Samre asked after he swallowed the food he had been chewing.

I strained my head, at first I couldn’t see it but then I realised a great area of trees was in fact large green walls. “That is Geigan, isn’t it?” I asked.

Samre nodded, “Grage rebuilt the walls of Geigan to that colour hoping to confuse any dragon wanting to attack him in the village. You see, Grage annoyed many dragons with his obsession with slaying them. The gods themselves also were angry with him. Dragons would come to terrorize his city; so when his city had been reduced to piles of rubble and ash he rebuilt it. That was basically the turning point for Felisha and she left Grage and created a grudge for Geigan in Forban. That wall my students, was the beginning of our wars against Geigan.”

Samre took another bite out of his sandwich before continuing, “Grage was killed by the most fearsome dragon known to all Arveltrians; perhaps even the whole of Esveldza. His death brought her his loyal armies and they swarmed her lair, even with the help of her mate they fled to another mountain where everyone assumed she died. Forban attacked Geigan when their defences were weak, winning them an easy victory. A year later Felisha was betrayed by someone who had access to her food and died of poisoning. They never caught that person but it is believed he or she has returned to Geigan. This was all a century ago.”

Everyone was silent as we ate our food, we all studied this story in class but every time I heard it I was reminded how I hated Grage, I couldn’t understand why he would hunt dragons.

“What was the dragon that Grage wanted to kill so bad?” I asked after a while of silence.

Samre swallowed his food and took a drink of his coffee before looking at me and explaining, “Her name was Kirrahh. She was 30 metres long, over 15 metres tall and the sheer weight of her could crush buildings just by landing on them. It wasn’t her strength that was the real destroyer though; she had an ability where she could create more limbs grow spontaneously from her body, two tails to destroy a street, two heads to burn down the stables, six arms to crush armies and so on. Her scales where darker than black and her eyes were as red as the blood of her victims. The inside of her wings were an abyssal red along with her talons and spikes. Her head especially and body were covered in spikes.”