[Originally published October 21, 2013]
Callista could feel something very
large making its way to where they all stood, and she could feel the
sacrificial animals seize up in fear.
Her warrior's instincts told her danger was coming, and her hand
reflexively dropped to he blade concealed against her back. Her mother put her own hand over the younger
warrior’s, checking the weapon in place.
“Wait,” she whispered knowingly, and
gestured back to the pool.
A nameless, primal dread came over the animals, keeping them from
fleeing, or even from moving. Callista,
too, felt something inside her, an ancient menace that held her in place as
much as the animals, though she did not truly comprehend it.
And then it burst forward from the steaming lake in a rush, its red-gold
scales gleaming in the early morning sun.
Before the reindeer could escape, before Callista had even realized what
was happening, each animal was snatched up in rapid succession and quickly
devoured.
Bheilorveilthion'durtaxsteingakila, the Lord of the Vale, who was known
as Old Smoke in the tongue of the men of the north, and also named as Severin's
Vengeance in the songs of Callista’s people, had come forth to receive its
tribute.
Dragon! her mind screamed, and yet she could not voice the word. In a supreme effort of will, she slowly moved
her enchanted dagger into a ready position.
When the mighty wyrm had finished gorging, it looked down through feral eyes at the small creatures standing before it. Gorragh Yeti Bane, chief of clan Armageddon, stepped forward, wordlessly raising the clan's ancestral, silver-hued greatsword in salute.
The scarlet hued dragon threw
its head back in return, gouting a great plume of flame into the sky. Callista would later swear that the runes on
her father’s sword had suddenly glowed as red as the dragonfire, and had danced
along the length of the blade as the wyrm vented its fury.
Then, in an instant, the dread fled from her, and was replaced with a sense of awe as the creature's presence washed over her and through her and then outward across the valley as it announced its primacy to every living thing in the Grommon'Kash.
Just as suddenly, mortal words could no longer express what she felt, as
a connection, an ancient bond between them all, between herself and the dragon,
between herself and every member of her clan, seemed to join them all together
into a single being.
As the connection deepened, a vast
emptiness overwhelmed all her senses in an incomprehensible, silvery haze that
she could not truly see or touch or taste or hear or feel, but saw, touched,
tasted, heard and felt all at the same time.
And at that moment their shared being was not of her world anymore, but of
sometime elsewhere.
Callista felt a sensation of
drifting endlessly in an umbral void, and then, almost before it began, the
intense connection was broken, receding far back into the memory of her
blood. She sank to her knees, her senses
reeling. By the time her head had
cleared, Old Smoke had already descended back into the darkness, where she
somehow knew the beast had returned to its watchful rest.
Touch of the void. Om'Gorrah.
She now knew what it meant, and she knew it was so. She looked at each of her kin as they looked
back at her, and it was affirmed in their gaze.
Touch of the void. Something she
could not explain, nor did she want to try.
Words would never suffice for what she had felt.
Dazulka helped her rise, and put her hands on her daughter’s shoulders,
then embraced her.
“Welcome to the Clan of
Armageddon, Callista, daughter of Gorragh,” she said, her eyes tearing.
“Om’Gorrah.”
“Om’Gorrah,” was all Callista
could manage in response. There was so
much to think on after today. She would
need time to come to terms with what had happened, and she retreated back into
her own thoughts.
*
*
*
After she and the other elders had returned to the entrance of the
valley, and long after the celebration had begun, it dawned on Callista that
she had just seen the fabled Old Smoke in the flesh, and close enough to reach
out and touch the beast, at that.
She had never considered the
possibility that this creature from her clan's stories and legends still lived,
let alone in the middle of their ancestral lands, and amongst the graves of her
departed kin. She realized then that the
bones of her ancestors could not have been safer if old Gruumsh One Eye himself
had kept watch over the valley.
But it was not the One Eye who guarded the valley, it was the
dragon. She sat by herself, reflecting
on the whole matter. Was it truly her
kin? How was such a thing possible? Had there truly been a bond at the
moot? Or was the experience merely some
effect of the creature's overpowering aura?
There were too many questions, and no answers near in sight. She thought more about the dragon as she sat
aside from the others as they drummed and danced before the great fires.
Once, when she was just a small child, she had seen Old Smoke far off in
flight over the plains of Vaasa as it hunted.
She had not been close enough, nor for long enough, to have actually
seen it strike its prey. It was the only
time in her life she had ever seen the creature until now. Back then, she had wondered out loud what it
ate, and had grown worried at the thought.
What if it was looking for her, she asked. Her father had laughed and not been the least
bit worried. After today she understood
why. Still, she had assumed that over
the years Old Smoke had either gone elsewhere or had met its end at the end of
some paladin’s blade, or some such thing.
She shrugged to herself. She was
glad it still lived.
"And at least now I know it won't eat Armageddons," she said
quietly to herself, then mused, "But, Varisia . . ."
The thought of the Lord of the Vale devouring the haughty Baroness of
Ironspur lightened her mood immeasurably.
She decided at that moment to rejoin the throng, and for the first time
in many weeks, Callista Armageddon smiled.
