The Bones of the Earth (The Dark Age) Read online

  “The dragon grabbed the child again and jumped straight up. The wind as it flapped knocked us all down and it flew back into the night.

  “Well, everyone was crying and panicking and running around. Some of us set up a watch, but the dragon did not reappear until the next night. We thought we were ready, and we all threw our spears at it, but they just bounced off its skin like it was made of steel. Again, it took a girl, a young woman actually, who was about to be married. It cut her in two in front of us like it was laughing at us, and then ate her in two gulps. Then it flew off again.

  “It returned a third time the next night. We thought we were armed more heavily. We had fashioned armour of leather and our blacksmith had made as many shields and breastplates as he could in a day. But the swords and the spears did nothing, again, and the dragon’s spit burned straight through the hardest leather, even through the metal. It squashed one fighter, a brave young man named Darko. He was my friend.” Zdravko closed his eyes at that point and a tear worked its way down his cheek. “It seemed enraged and struck out all around, killing with its long claws, squashing pigs and cattle, flattening houses. It leapt from house to house, tearing through them, piercing women and children, eating some, burning others! It was horrible, horrible.

  “We had never seen such evil. Why did it attack us? We were doing nothing wrong! We were only trying to live, to grow a few crops! We have been peaceful for years and years. We wanted no trouble. We sent no young men to war. When the Avars came, we gave them as much food as we could so they would go away. We did not even retaliate when they would rape the girls. We just kept our heads down and went on with our lives. And now to be punished like this.

  “That is why we came here. All around, the people know of the Roman fortress. No barbarians dare attack the Romans in their fortress. Everyone knows the power of the legions. So we came to ask protection. That fool, Chibor, he thought you would not believe in the story of the dragon. So he made up a flimsy story of an attack by Avars, and made us promise not to talk about a dragon. But the idiot is a bad liar.

  “And now I have told you the truth. We are running from an ancient evil so powerful that nothing can stand against it. If you do not believe me, then you may kill me. I don’t care. I have already lost everything: home, family, friends.”

  Javor translated all as best he could. “And he says, if you don’t believe him, then … then you can decide what to do with him. He has been pushed beyond caring.

  “And I understand exactly how he feels.”

  Valgus nodded silently. Then he drew in his breath and looked down the slope. The refugees had gathered a hundred paces away, where the legionnaires were no longer pushing them along. They were too far from the fort to be any threat or nuisance; the legionnaires were not willing to go any farther from the gate without more reinforcements, and the people were not going to go unless they were forced. They certainly weren’t willing to go back to their ruined homes.

  Meridius came up then on a horse, followed by ten mounted knights. “We’re ready, my lord.”

  “Call them back,” said Valgus.

  “My lord?”

  “Those people. Call them back. And bring me Chibor.” He waited while Meridius rode down the slope and directed the people, while other legionnaires dragged Chibor back to the gate. There were heavy black manacles around his wrists and ankles and a thick iron brace around his neck, all linked by heavy chains. He shambled and stumbled as a soldier pulled him by another chain to fall in the dust at Valgus’s feet.

  By then, the rest of the refugees were gathered in front of the little bridge, ringed by Roman spears. “This is my decision,” said Valgus is a strong, clear voice. “You may stay here for three days. You may set up tents or camps inside the courtyard, within the walls. But you cannot bring your animals in. I suggest you slaughter them now, as we cannot spare enough food for you all. And you will do work here, fetching water and such.

  “You will be peaceful and respect the Empire at every moment. I will tolerate no nonsense, no disrespect, no disorder. Any transgressions will be immediately punished by ultimate means. And you,” he said to Chibor. “Pick him up,” he said to his men, and they hauled the pathetic Chibor to his feet. “If you lie to me again, I’ll have you killed. Do you understand?” Chibor nodded, weeping. Valgus tossed his head and strode back into the fort. Babbling and crying, the refugees started slaughtering their goats and cattle on the spot, making a terrible mess. Some went into the fort to set up camps in the courtyard.

  Photius brought Javor and Zdravko to his temporary quarters and asked him more about his home and the stories that the old men told. Javor provided translation where needed, and felt pretty smart about it.

  “We lived a few miles north-east of here, on a pretty steep part of the mountain because that’s where the grapes grow best. We make a good wine there,” he said while chewing on a loaf of the Roman bread that Javor liked best. “The Romans say our people did not always live here. I don’t know. The mountains have many caves and the old people tell stories about heroes and monsters who live in them.”

  Danisa listened quietly with an expression that Javor could not identify. She seems to know these people’s story already, he thought. No, that’s crazy! How could she?

  “I heard one story about a dragon when I was very young. It told how a young man was in love with the chief’s daughter but had nothing to offer her in marriage. So he went searching for treasure. He climbed high up the mountain until he found the opening to a cave. I think there might have been something about following a white rabbit, but I’m not sure. There were also stories about a young girl who chased a white rabbit, so maybe I’m getting them mixed up.

  “Anyways, this guy, he goes into the cave, right? It’s very narrow at first, but he squeezes through until it gets wider.” The hairs on the back of Javor’s neck rose—this sounded like Ghastog’s cave. “And finally, he comes to a great open cavern where there’s a huge pile of treasure! Gold coins and cups and jewels and gods know what else! And on the very top of the pile is a dragon. It’s sleeping and smoke is coming out of its nose.

  “Now this guy is scared, but he sees all this treasure, and he wants to marry the chief’s daughter. So he creeps close as quietly as he can, and he takes a cup, a single golden cup, because he thinks the dragon won’t even miss it, and it’s precious and will make a good bride-price.

  “So he hustles out of the cave with this golden cup, and he’s all happy cause he thinks he’s the richest man in the village now. And he makes it back to the village and he gives the cup to the chief and asks for the daughter’s hand in marriage, but he doesn’t say where he got the cup, right?

  “Well, night comes and the dragon wakes up, and boy, it notices the missing cup. It gets really mad and charges out of the cave and burns up the whole mountainside with its breath—did I mention it breathed out fire? Yah, so it breathes fire and sets the whole forest on fire, and the vineyard too, and then it flies down—oh, yah, it could fly on great huge wings—it flies to the village to get its cup back. It’s a greedy bastard.

  “Well, it sets the whole village on fire and kills a whole bunch of people. And when it finds the cup, it picks it up. Then it grabs the guy who stole it and the chief’s daughter and eats the girl, and then it kills the guy. And then it flies back to its cave, and no one else ever dared to bother it again, let alone tried to take any of the treasure.”

  Photius said nothing through the whole story, just nodded his head or looked to Javor when he needed a word translated into Greek. When Zdravko was finished, he took a drink of wine and sat back in his chair. “An interesting story. It’s similar to stories told in many other places, but it seems to fit here. Come, eat up, the Romans have been more generous with the two of us than with all of you for some reason.” Zdravko was already tearing into chicken and pudding.

  Ulf and two other servants came back then with a complete evening meal for all of them and another jug of wine. Javor asked
Zdravko about his home, and they passed an pleasant hour comparing villages. They were surprised to discover that their lives had been very similar. They each amused the other with the small differences in their languages and words for the same things.

  When dinner was done, Photius announced that he wanted to talk to the village’s chief. “What was his name? Chibar?”

  “Oh, Chibor is not the hetman,” said Zdravko, still chewing on a big piece of cake. “The hetman was Chibor’s brother. The dragon killed him, and his son, too, so Chibor stepped up and said he would be the hetman, and for some reason—I’ll never understand why people do what they do—the whole village accepted this. I tried to say something, but everyone shushed me—even my friends!

  “Chibor thought no one, especially not a Roman commander, would ever believe that we’d been attacked by a dragon. So he came up with that stupid story about being attacked by unmounted barbarians, and he’s such a fool that he did not even come up with a believable story. He did not even think about what kind of weapons they had. I’ve always thought he was an idiot.”

  By now, it was evening, and the sun was setting behind the mountains. Photius, Javor and Zdravko went out to the crowded courtyard. Danisa followed them. It was a chaos of makeshift tents and lean-tos with little cooking fires flickering in every direction. The refugees looked for space to cook a meal and get what sleep they could. Legionnaires barked commands to keep what order they could. Babies cried, children whined, old people whimpered. And the stench of unwashed bodies, of human waste and fear! Javor thought he would lose his mind.

  They found Chibor stirring a pot over a miserable fire. Photius hunkered down beside him and spoke politely. “Tell me everything you know about the dragon.”

  Chibor looked both scared and guilty at the same time. He stirred his pot of soup and looked from Photius to Zdravko and back. “What did you tell them, Zdravko?”

  “Just what happened.”

  Chibor opened and closed his mouth repeatedly. Javor started to feel very uncomfortable. The amulet felt hot. “Photius…” But before he could say anything, the wind whipped up a cloud of dust that stung Javor’s eyes and filled his mouth.

  “What did you do?” Chibor screamed at Zdravko over the wind. Refugees screamed and legionnaires shouted as they ran to battle positions. A bugle sounded as the wind reached an insane level.

  Javor saw it then, silhouetted against the angry red sky: the dragon.

  In its way, it was beautiful, sweeping out of the sky on outstretched, bat-like wings. And then it was in the middle of the fort, its head towering over the men. It used its tail as a whip to scatter civilians and warriors. The light of the cooking fires reflected off its shiny, scaly hide. Its neck was as long as … well, Javor had never seen a snake that long. Its head was shaped like a snake’s, but it had horns on top of its head. When it opened its mouth, Javor saw rows of teeth longer than his great-grandfather’s dagger. It snapped at panicking people who ran back and forth. It reached out a claw and with talons as long as spears cut people in two. It walked through the crowd, crushing tents and wooden sheds without noticing.

  Legionnaires poured out of their barracks, strapping on armour or waving spears. Centurions bellowed orders and the soldiers threw spears and shot arrows, but the missiles bounced with no effect off the dragon’s scales. It reached out its long neck and snapped up armoured soldiers, biting them in two and gulping down half their bodies. Blood dripped off its jaw. Dragon drool dripped onto the ground, hissing and smoking. Flames climbed along thatching and tents as the dragon scattered cooking fires, and a choking smoke filled the courtyard.

  One huge claw came down on Chibor, squashing him into a horrifying mass as Photius, Javor and Zdravko jumped out of the way. The dragon reached into the hetman’s tent and dragged out his wife and daughter, both of them screaming and pounding on its claw.

  Javor realized he had no weapons. He grabbed a spear that had fallen on the ground after bouncing off the beast, and jabbed it into the claw. The shaft shattered, and the point slid over the beast’s skin and fell uselessly to the ground. The dragon turned its head to look at the spear, then peered closely at the shaft. It hesitated. It doesn’t see me!

  But the spear is useless. I need great-grandfather’s knife! He ran back toward the barracks. Behind him, a legionnaire in full steel armor swung a huge battle-axe at the dragon’s rear leg. The steel blade rang as it struck the beast’s hide. The soldier raised the axe and brought it down again on the leg, and again had no effect. The dragon stepped forward and unconsciously kicked the soldier, knocking him down.

  The dragon’s long, long neck reached out to snap at people as they ran. Where its spit fell on people, their skin burned and they screamed.

  Javor ran as fast as he could across the yard, bumping into villagers as they panicked. As he neared the barracks, he bumped into a woman carrying a baby, and they all fell sprawling. The baby screamed and the woman said something he couldn’t understand. Javor picked himself up and ran into the barracks. “Coward!” someone yelled.

  Where is the knife? Emotions spasmed through him as he lifted the straw mattress to find the hiding spot: fear that he wouldn’t find it, panic when he didn’t see it in the gloom, despair when he realized it wasn’t there.

  Fear and anger surged as he stumbled out of the barracks. Helplessness. How could I have lost it? What can I do now? Run? Save myself?

  Where is Danisa? He ran around a corner of a building and suddenly she was right in front of him. She was walking away, past panicking Slavs and rushing legionnaires. Unlike everyone else, she was calm, composed. He caught up with her and tapped her on the shoulder. She stiffened, stopped and slowly turned around, eyes wide.

  “Where are you going?” he asked. “You can’t get through here alone!” Then he saw the dagger in her hand: his great-grandfather’s dagger. “What are you doing?”

  Danisa opened her mouth, but no sound came out. Javor could only hear the dragon’s roaring and the men’s screaming. “You weren’t going to try to kill the dragon yourself, were you?”

  She just looked at him with wide eyes. She shook her head, and then nodded.

  Javor reached for the dagger, but she pulled it away from him. “Give that here,” he said. “You don’t know what to do with it.” He got his hand on it, but she resisted. “What are you doing?”

  Danisa would not let go of the dagger. She wrenched it out of Javor’s hand and ran toward the dragon. “Wait!” he yelled, running after her.

  They turned a corner and were suddenly in the hell of the courtyard. The noise was maddening: women shrieked, children wailed, men shouted and cried, soldiers shouted orders and replies and pleas for help. People were still running and fires leapt high, silhouetting the bulk of the dragon which had walked to the far end of the courtyard. It had dropped the two women it had held before; Javor didn’t know if they were alive or dead. The dragon deliberately swept down buildings and stepped directly on the well just to see it break. Spears and arrows continued to bounce harmlessly off its shiny reddish scales. It slashed its claws, long as a Roman legionnaire’s sword, tearing through steel armour as easily as through human flesh. Blood gushed as the monster moved through the fort. Its head moved back and forth, and Javor realized it was looking for something. Photius was waving his glowing staff, trying to attract the monster’s attention. Zdravko carried a limp woman across the courtyard.

  Danisa stopped dead, and as the dragon turned its head toward her, it stopped, too. For long second they stared at each other. Then it moved toward her, slowly and deliberately. Danisa raised the dagger high.

  Stupid girl! That’s not how to hold a dagger! She won’t be able to stab it that way—she might as well just hand it over!

  Javor snatched the dagger from her grasp. Danisa gasped, then ran, disappearing into the chaos. Javor could not take his eyes off the dagger, though. It felt so good in his hand again.

  Then he saw the Legate Valgus, glorious in shining s
teel armour and plumed helmet, double-timing up to the dragon. Following him were two fully armoured spearmen and three archers. Valgus led his little contingent in front of the dragon, and even though it kept killing anyone it could reach, the soldiers followed him.

  Valgus pointed. “Aim for the eyes!” he shouted over the screams and the roar of flames. The archers shot their arrows, but missed. The dragon reared up, its height terrifying.

  Valgus pointed again. “The base of the neck! Aim at the little hollow at the base of the neck!” One of the spearmen charged forward, lifting the spear over his shoulder, but a flick of the dragon’s tail sent him tumbling head over heels. The dragon spat on him and the legionnaire screamed as his body burned.

  But the other spearman was already charging forward, and instead of throwing the spear, he closed in on the dragon as it settled back down on all fours. He leaped, thrusting the spear forward, driving it into a spot where the neck met the body. The spear struck and bit in. Black blood spurted. The spearman hit the ground and pushed hard, driving the spear in deeper. The dragon roared, its spit spraying all round. More legionnaires, emboldened by the beast’s agony, charged forward. Two men leaped on its back and began hacking at it with axes.

  The dragon shook itself like a wet dog and the legionnaires flew off. It bent its neck and closed its jaws around the spearman, and Javor heard him scream for a second before the monster bit him in half. But then he was in front of the beast, and saw its eyes focus on …

  The dragon’s eye. Javor couldn’t take his own eyes away from it. Red, it had depths that lured him in. Shadows danced, merged, changed hue. Javor stood still, transfixed, looking deeper into the eye. What would you have me do? he asked the eye. In answer, he heard only murmurs, confusion. The eye wasn’t looking at him. It wandered, letting him go, and then focused on …