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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