A Match of Monsters

Chapter Four

At Elain's shriek, the startled kit jerked backwards. It moved too suddenly to stop – or even slow – its momentum as it fell from Elain's lap and onto the smooth stone floor of the cavern.

The impact forced the baby dragon's breath from its lungs, and, at its startled expression, Elain couldn't stop herself from laughing.

At the realization that she felt comfortable ant safe enough around the small hatchling to actually laugh, Elain snapped her jaw shut.

Dragons were considered the most terrifying of creatures by humankind, and with good reason. Not just in Elain's village, but across the entire continent and even past the treacherous seas to other lands, man feared the powerful monster. The dragon was an ancient being that could live past the endless life cycles of humans; their pitiful subjects. Once a dragon had matured and their scales developed, they would find a territory and rule over everything inside it.

Elain shivered every time she thought of the horror stories from other fiefdoms, where dragons punished even the smallest of crimes and infractions with public executions, or where they waged war on each other. Dragons were considered – by both humans and themselves – to be the superior of the animal kingdom, and with their selfish and cruel natures they were not modest about the opinion.

In comparison with many others, the Lady of the Fine Tooth Mountain Range was a very considerate ruler, demanding annually only and eighth of each of her subjects' profits, and if those subjects had children too young to provide for themselves, then she demanded only a quarter of an eighth additional for each child.

To Elain, a poor village gatherer, the tax was difficult to pay, but she had met enough travellers to know how lucky she was to live in a fiefdom with such a generous lady. Her lady did not demand a pint of blood every month, or all profits not necessary to survive, or force betrothals on every subject. She had even heard of a fiefdom in the far south, where the land finally ended in sea, of a dragon lord that demanded the eldest child of every family, regardless of their political or social standing, that survived its fifth year of life.

The traveller had not known what happened to the children.

Stories like these, that had been repeated so many times from so many places, were the dragons were feared. Even the Lady of the Fine Tooth Mountain Range was terrifying, despite being one of the "better" rulers.

When Elain had been a little girl, only in her seventh year of life, she had witnessed first hand the punishment of the dragons.

Her village had unwittingly harboured two amateur witches, a widowed mother and her daughter who had used be-spelled blood to attempt necromancy. When the women had finally succeeded, their uncontrolled magic had released a signal strong enough to attract the attention of not only of the nearby dragon scout, but also awakened the Lady herself from her cavern.

Their punishment had been horrible, and even years later, Elain shivered in fear every time she thought of it.

The Lady herself had given verdict over the two humans, and Elain's very own mother had been un charge of carrying out the execution. Two blood pines were cut down and soon the predatory trees had been lashed and cut, standing tall in the village with their acidic red sap slowly pouring from the bruised openings in their bark.

Dry straw and hay from village lofts, stables, and beds supplied tinder to surround the base of each pyre. The women, who had been lashed themselves, were firmly tied to the blood pines as unforgiving eyes looked on.

Elain's mother had forced her from behind her skirts to watch. "Look, daughter," she told the small girl. "Watch what happens to those who challenge the dragons."

The daughter's pyre had been set alight by a slow burning, red-tongued flame, her punishment for using the blood of humans and animals to fuel her dark magic. The older widow's execution, however, had been much more severe. Each time a burning coal had formed from within her daughter's pyre, the Lady would slowly reach a talon into the cool flames as the woman was forced to watch. Each coal was pressed to her flesh before being covered in blood pine sap and placed at her feet as it slowly smouldered and began to regain heat.

For using the blood of dragons and other superior monsters to power herself, the sorceress had been sentenced to be burned to death by the coals that had killed her daughter, as she watched her child blaze.

The natural fire-retardant nature of the blood pine sap ensured that the kindling at the base of the widow's pyre only began to alight as her daughter's were dying down.

Dragonkind ruled humanity without mercy throughout the world, and that's why they were so greatly feared. But as Elain looked at the silver hatchling in front of her, something other than fear began to bloom in her chest.

"You're different," she whispered.