Saturday, August 11, 2018

Serial Saturday: "The Dragon's Mark" Part 1


Part 1
"The Dragon Bride of Sithonia"

Southern Greece
First Century, CE

From the tiny window embedded in the wall, barely more than an opening, she watched the sun climb high over the treetops. They were coming; she always knew she would see this day. Even now, they marched down from the ruins of Sparta—she could see the wisps of angry, black smoke billowing, marking where they had been. Every moment brought them closer. She winced, shifting the pin at the corner of her draped toga. It weighed on her shoulder like a yoke of stones. Her scalp crawled under the mound of “fashionable” curls the hairdresser had promised were “all the rage” in Constantinople. What did she care? Would she ever get used to the Roman style, or would she die before that happened? She took her mind off impending doom by focusing on the sound of the slave girl polishing the floorstones. Shush-shush; shush-shush.

The scrubbing stopped as the door banged open, and finally, she tore her eyes away from the otherwise peaceful scene just outside the walls of the stronghold to survey the man covered in battle-filth, staring at her through the haze of other men’s blood dripping into his eyes.

“They are coming, sister,” he grunted hoarsely.

She swallowed her fear like the headstrong Greek she was. “I know they are, Brophis,” she declared. “Let them come; they cannot reach us.”

“Damn you, woman!” Brophis lunged forward and grabbed her wrist before she could pull it away. “A horde of them have breached the outer walls already, and they’re laying waste to the village we swore to protect! It’s only a matter of time before they are breaking down this very door!” He pointed to the wooden slab standing open beside them. “I have a squadron waiting to escort you—“

“No!” Nadia pulled away from her brother’s grasp. “I will not run; let them defend the city, take down as many Goths as they can, protect the main gate. I’ll stay right here—“

“Then you’ll die, don’t you see that?” Brophis barked. “Don’t you know who is leading the charge against us right now? Gabbaldur himself! You know what he’s like,” Brophis let his eyes wander away from his sister’s face, down to the fist clenched at her side. “You know what he seeks, and what he’ll do to get it.”

Nadia swallowed down the fear gathering in her throat. The Goth clansman was not to be trifled with—the very fact that no one ever heard a firsthand account of the villages he conquered was reputation enough to cause anyone he invaded to yield under him. She squeezed her hand until the pointed spur on the edge of the silver dragon wing bit into the opposite finger. Nadia held out her hand and waited until her brother looked at it. “This, you mean?” The rays of the setting sun cut through the tiny window and glinted off the fiery stone. “Every firstborn woman in our family has received this ring, Brophis; there are ceremonies—“

“What good will ceremonies do against that pagan?” Brophis spat. “Hang the tradition! Why do you wear the Dragon, anyway? Is a Dragon supposed to come save us in our time of need?”

Nadia scowled at her brother. “I am his Bride, his Ring-Bearer; he will come for me. And I’ll not let Gabbaldur or any other person take it away from me, be he Goth or Roman or Persian!”

Brophis shook his head, as the sounds of frantic horns raising the alarm notified him that the outer gate had been breached. He nodded to his sister.
“If he wants you, he’ll have to go through me, first,” he promised.

Nadia swung the door shut behind him, and she heard the scraping, thudding sounds of the guards outside barricading the door. It wouldn’t stop a swarthy man like Gabbaldur for very long, but at least it would delay him long enough for others to come to her aid.

She waited for the noise to die down, but the battle raged inside the stronghold now. Nadia sank to her knees with a groan, and her servant ran to assist her. Nadia refused her touch and curled into a ball, wrapping her arms around her head as if to shut out the terror happening around her.

“Oh mighty gods of Olympus,” she prayed, “let him not come near me. He cannot touch me! He cannot! He—“

“Lady Drakistos.”

The voice, thick as the ice and deep as the sea, seeped through her fingers and into her ears. Rough hands gripped her wrists and yanked her to her feet. She saw a dark, hulking figure, then she saw the ice-blue eyes, desperate and wild. He said not a word as she looked at him.

“Gabbaldur!” she snarled, pulling against the men who held her. “I’ve heard of you—if you want to kill me, do it quickly! Tear my limbs from my body, have your wicked way, but I will not yield to you! My brother has sworn to cut you down, foul dog! You’ll never get—“

With all the ferocity of a rushing bear, he lunged for her. Nadia felt hands grip her at the waist, and her body floated upward, only to come crashing down over the huge man’s shoulder. He held her by the thigh as she beat fruitlessly at the pelts draped over his back, screaming, “Unhand me! Let me down! I will kill you myself!”

Gabbaldur strode out of the room and down the stairs, his captive screaming and flailing the whole way.
Till they reached the foot of the stairs.
The mighty Brophis lay in a crumpled heap where he had stood, the crown of his head bent and bloodied.

Her vision twisted and wobbled, as if what she saw before her was nothing more than a terrible nightmare. They had nearly reached the gates of the stronghold by the time she found her voice again.
No!” Nadia shrieked. “What have you done? You monster! You demon! You killed them all!”

If he heard her, Gabbaldur gave no indication. He didn’t even look her in the face as he tossed her over the saddle of his war horse, mounting just behind her. He pulled the reins and directed the animal with his heels, but Nadia felt none of it. Her whole body had gone numb as the powerful animal carried her northward, away from all that she had known, all that was dear to her.

Finally, the horse slowed, but the Goth chieftain showed no sign of getting off or stopping.
Nadia tasted blood. On one of the tosses from the horse she had smacked her face on the stiff saddle and split her lip.

"Sit up."

The second time Gabbaldur had spoken to her, and Nadia obeyed blindly. He kept her on the horse while she slowly maneuvered her body into a sitting position. Once she was settled, she saw that he offered her a rough scrap of linen. She accepted it and looked around as she dabbed the blood from her mouth.

They were alone, and by the forest surrounding them, and the mountain just ahead, she knew where they were. She finally looked up at him in alarm.

“The Pits of Sithonia?” she gasped.
He nodded.

“They say a demon lives there,” she babbled as fear seized her brain. Her hands clenched so tightly, she could feel her nails biting into her palms.

“They say a lot of things about the Pits,” grunted the Goth, in rough, heavily-accented Greek. “They say that the only person allowed to tread among the stones must be a Drakistos Bride.”

Some of her wits returned, and with it, a keen ire that made Nadia sit up straight and lift her chin defiantly. “Is that why you slaughtered my family, yet spared me? You are after some sort of treasure that can only be found here, and you brought me along to ensure your safety?”

Gabbaldur's broad, blood-stained face tightened. "Let us say for now that our fates are entwined, Lady Nadia," he mused darkly. Putting an arm around her, he coaxed the horse onward into the murky fog creeping over the mountains.

Nadia shuddered, seeking solace in her family’s tradition, the one handed down to her from her mother’s mother, and her mother, and her mother, and hers, all the way back to Lady Despina, the one who started it all. Brophis might not have understood, but that was because the truth was a very closely-guarded secret, one for which Gabbaldur might have killed her on the spot if he had known. Only the Bride knew truth regarding the Drakistos Ring and its ability to control the most powerful monster ever to exist in the world. The Ring she now wore—

Nadia blinked. On the back of the cantering horse, she raised her hands and inspected her fingers one by one. The ring, the precious Ring of Drakistos—was gone. Had it slipped off when she fought Gabbaldur in her chambers, or had it been some time during their flight from the citadel?

"What is it?" Gabbaldur grunted.

Nadia did not answer. Their climb halted at the foot of a series of enormous, toothlike monoliths arranged in a deadly, forbidding wall. Gabbaldur reined his horse, and urged it through a gap in the stones. Here, the fog hung thick, and all of Nature braced herself.

A roar sounded in the distance, followed by the noise of enormous wings.
Nadia felt her heart go dead inside her. She had lost the Ring that was their only protection.

And the monster was coming for them.
>>>>>>>>>>>


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