Jenna Elizabeth Johnson
-The Beginning-
The Legend of Oescienne - 2
-Prologue-
Shadows in the East
Gilded sunlight poured over the landscape and pushed through the trees, announcing the break of dawn or signaling the approach of evening. It was hard to tell in this strange, noiseless place. The colors here were bright, but fuzzy around the edges as if stained and blurred by water. Nothing stirred here; there were no deer, no foxes, no rabbits, not even a solitary bird to disrupt the foggy solitude. All around the trees stood silent, watching and waiting for something profound to happen. And then something did happen.
Far below the wooded hillside in the bare, spacious glen something finally moved. A fair-haired child, barely older than ten, danced into sight. She looked happy and carefree, her laughter alone breaking the unnatural, oppressive silence. She wasn’t dressed like a typical girl, wearing only a plain cotton shirt over a pair of leather pants. Her hair was loose, unbound and falling past her shoulders. It caught the eerie light and reflected it in golden shards that cut through the monotony of this world. She chased after butterflies, doing cartwheels and kicking up clouds of ladybugs with her bare feet.
It was obvious she felt safe here, even as the atmosphere slowly began to change. The slumbering trees grew more rigid and the pleasant scene dimmed, as if a black cloud had crept in front of the sun. Something sinister was approaching, but the girl was too caught up in her own antics to realize she was no longer alone. She was too busy dancing across the field and making merry, so she didn’t feel the change in the air; she didn’t notice the darkening sky.
And then it happened. Something like a dark flame appeared on the edge of the meadow where the dense wood began. It was a figure wearing a blood-red cloak, creeping between the shivering trees, stalking around like a predator hunting down its prey. The creature crawled from the edge of the tree line and drew closer to the girl. But the girl kept at her games, unaware of the menacing threat to her safety.
As the ominous figure moved ever closer, it threw open its arms like a great, blood-stained bat, its crimson cloak curling and flowing behind it as if pushed by an imperceptible wind. The creature began to grow, becoming larger and larger with each step. It was only a few yards from the girl now and had grown to twenty feet tall and twice as wide, engulfing the entire glen with the flowing scarlet fabric of its robes. It stood over the girl for a few seconds more and then, as quickly as the blink of an eye, it wrapped its massive arms around her and vanished.
Raejaaxorix jolted awake, breathing heavily as his heart pumped the overly-heated dragon blood that pulsed through his veins. Instinctively, he grazed his surroundings with his sharp eyes, looking for the girl who had been swallowed up by the red demon. After a few moments, he breathed a sigh of relief, wisps of smoke curling from his nostrils. A dream, he consoled himself as his heartbeat calmed, just a dream.
The Tanaan dragon lifted his head and stretched out his legs, working the tension free of the stiff muscles. Though the dream wasn’t a new one, it continued to terrify him each time he woke from it. He knew it was only a result of the recent discovery of Cierryon’s soldiers setting up camps around the perimeter of Oescienne, but it felt too real to simply ignore. There was no denying that the girl in the dream was Jahrra and that the monster, the demon, was the Tyrant King himself, or at least those who worked for him. The corrupt soldiers of Ghorium, he reminded himself with a grimace.
Jaax shuddered and tried to convince the pounding ache in his head to go elsewhere. Jahrra was safe, he had to believe that. She would not be found by their enemy, at least not yet. He stood, stretched out his stiff joints and his great wings and waited for his scales to slowly change from the dull, dead gray of the granite crag he’d been sleeping on to his own natural colors of green, gold, bronze and turquoise. He yawned once, exposing all of his deadly teeth, and glanced around as he tried to judge the time of day.
Just after sunset, good, he thought. That gives me plenty of time to hunt before full dark. Jaax lifted his nose to the frigid breeze pouring over the mountain peaks. Mixed with the scent of fresh snow and crisp pine resin was the distinct odor of deer. The dragon smiled. It had been two weeks since he last ate and he hoped that whatever he caught tonight would be enough for another few weeks. He lumbered over to the edge of the cliff where he’d slept the day away. The drop was treacherous, over three thousand feet, but he had nothing to fear. He thrust out his great wings and leapt, allowing the biting winds to pull him away from the mountainside and towards the valley far below. Down there somewhere he would find his meal, grazing one last time before the night.
While he flew, Jaax thought about the nightmare that had been plaguing him nearly every night for the past few months. Ever since King Dhuruhn of the Creecemind dragons informed him of the suspicious activity around the border, Jaax had been haunted in his sleep. The first time he’d had the dream, he knew exactly what it had meant: the Crimson King knew about Jahrra, and he would do what it took to find her. And just like the Jahrra in his dream, the Jahrra in real life was oblivious to what was after her. Jaax shivered. He knew the time to tell her who she really was was drawing near, but he feared telling her the truth, though he knew it was necessary. How would she react? Would she even believe him when he told her she was the only human being in the whole of Ethoes and that the fate of the world depended on her?
Jaax shuddered again, causing the rhythm of his wing beats to falter. He needed to stop analyzing his nightmares; it was getting him nowhere. Instead, he decided to reflect on the positive outcome of constant vigilance and hard work. For the past few months he and a handful of other dragons had been camped out in the far eastern rim of the Elornn Mountains where the southern boundary of Felldreim met with the borders of Torinn and Rhiim. The dragons had been studying the activities of the Tyrant’s troops, Ghorium soldiers, for half a year now. They’d watched them carefully, noting every movement, listening to every order, memorizing every camp schedule. After all they’d seen, Jaax and his colleagues had finally come to the conclusion that if the enemy were to enter Oescienne at all, their march would begin here, where the three provinces met.
The soldiers’ main camp was, gratefully, east of the Oribiy River, still well within the province of Rhiim. But once they crossed the Oribiy it wouldn’t be long before they continued west. Since it was located far on the outskirts of Felldreim, the southern Hrunahn Wilders contained little magic to ward off any unwelcome intruders. Once through the Wilders, the army would merely follow the southern shore of Lake Runess until they came to the Cornaith River. A week or two south along the river’s mountain valley and they would find the head waters of the Raenyan River, splitting from the Cornaith and leading directly into the heart of Oescienne.
Jaax winced at how easy it could be for them to trickle into the western province unnoticed. He only hoped that it proved as difficult as legend claimed. The valley that existed where the Elornn and Thorbet mountains met was notorious for claiming the lives of thousands of explorers and adventurers. If the Tyrant’s army followed the path Jaax imagined, then they’d find themselves in a treacherous river valley riddled with cliffs, disorienting canyons, weather that could change almost instantly, and ferocious wild animals that were nearly impossible to kill. If this was their plan, Jaax could only hope they met with every obstacle imaginable along the way. Until they made their move, however, he was determined to delay them as long as possible.