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IT was not that the dragons could hear the army marching through the forest, which was only called The Wood at the time of this tale. It was that they could feel them. They could feel every step. Zorag was only a young dragon of forty-three, and he heard it long before the others.
“Someone is coming,” he said. “A great number of them.”
His parents looked at each other. They had not yet felt the tremors. And when they did, they repeated his words. “Someone is coming,” they said.
“I will go straight to King Brendon,” said Zorag’s father, Erell, and he took off. Zorag and his mother waited and waited and waited, and finally they heard the wings of his father flapping overhead. The ground was still rumbling. Their dragon scout had confirmed their fears: someone was marching through the forest. And it was a great number of someones.
Zorag’s father landed before the multitude of dragons. He let out a thundering roar that shook the land more deeply than the footsteps did. The land held still for a moment, as if all the soldiers marching through it had suddenly stopped. All the dragons turned toward Erell. “An invasion,” Erell said. “We shall help the king keep the peace. You remain here until I send instructions.” He lifted off toward the castle. The dragons stared after him.
His mother looked at Zorag with eyes that spoke of worry, though she did not say anything but, “You must stay here, my son.” She dipped her head, her ears flickering a little, as they did when she was nervous. She lifted off into the sky. Zorag saw two others do the same.
And of course he would not stay here. Of course he would go help. Of course.
After all, he loved a king, too.
His mother was watching the sky when he flew over it, but his father was staring at the king. Zorag landed behind his mother, at the precise moment his father lifted into the sky, with a girl on his back. He had seen the girl before. She was the king’s daughter.
But Zorag did not have time to think on this, for the next moment the three dragons burst into action, taking to the sky. They breathed fire wherever they went. The forest burst into flames.
It was all madness after that. Zorag watched dragons fall from the sky, and he drew further and further back, in line with the castle and then behind the castle, for he did not know what this helping had meant back when he resolved to, and he was, after all, still a very young dragon. He had never seen battle like this before.
The land stilled. The people waited, and Zorag with them. And then his father dropped from the sky. He did not rise from where he landed. Zorag watched, a heat pulsing over his body that had nothing to do with the fire within. His father was dying. His father was dying. His father. He was dying.
Zorag watched, as if he did not live in this world but was only an observer. He watched King Brendon kneel before his father. He watched the king weep. He watched the lifeblood drain from the wound in his father’s neck.
And then someone shouted, and before them all stood the men who had done this. Too many of them remained. Zorag, even in his shock, could see that clearly. The man with an army yelled something. And then one of the village people rushed forward, and madness broke free again.
The old king did not stand when it was all over. A new king did. He called from the castle steps.
“You,” he said. Zorag did not turn, until the king said, again, “You, dragon,” and he realized that the king was addressing him. He must have ventured out from his hiding place, though one might argue that a dragon cannot very well hide with a body so large. Zorag saw that he was only steps from his dead father. He had intended to say a goodbye, perhaps.
But he turned to the new king instead.
“You will take my message to your people,” the new king said. He was young and handsome, with dark hair and eyes that did not miss anything. He strode over to Erell’s body on the ground. “You to your places and I to mine,” the new king said. He lifted Erell’s head, and Zorag roared. The new king waited until Zorag was finished. “Or you shall end up like this dragon.” The new king sliced right through the head of his father, and tossed it in Zorag’s direction.
Zorag felt the hate burning within him. His throat began to glow.
“I have magic like the world has never seen,” the new king said. “I will defeat you.”
And because Zorag was a young dragon, because he did not know so much about magic, only what King Brendon had shown him when he was a prince, Zorag could not say a word in return.
“Now go,” the new king said. “Tell your people what has happened here. Tell them that if they cross into my land, this shall be their fate.” He pointed his sword toward Erell’s body.
Zorag roared again. He lifted into the sky.
“Go away and never come back,” the new king shouted. And this is precisely what Zorag did. He took the message to the dragons, what few were left. His mother, alas, was not among them. They never found her body.
The hatred in Zorag’s heart grew dark and cold. He would never, ever love another human being as long as he lived.