Scourge of the Dragon Lord

Introduction

Authors note: As a new author any comments that could be constructive to the construction of my story will be greatly appreciated. Any typos that you find that distract your attention please feel free to bring them t my attention via comment. I hope you enjoy the story I am in the process of writing. Thank you for choosing Scourge of the Dragon Lord.

Introduction:

Flames flicker at my feet. The ground below me, charred, stripped of all life by the hungry flames. I don't know where I am, who I am. My head is pounding in my skull, the ground feels like loose sand beneath my feet although I know its solid. The world starts to spin and sway around me and I begin to fall. Rolling down the hill, I don't know whether I am up or down as I tumble, I have lost all sense of direction. My head hits a rock that juts from the hillside, stars explode behind my eyelids. Small black dots jump and play in front of my eyes, their playful bounds bring them together, congealing into a darkness that engulfed me, I lose consciousness.

*******

I don't know how much time has passed as my eyes struggled to open, the effort makes my skull pound with concussion. I stagger to my feet, my ears are buzzing as if there are bees flying by, a continuous drone. Blood flows from the wound on my forehead, dripping down into my eyes. Slowly, I stand. The pain in my head stabs my brain with a thousand needles. All around me there is only darkness, I fear the hit to my head has rendered me blind.

Taking small shuffling steps I move forward; each step causes pain to shoot up my right leg; I think my ankle is broken. How could I have broken my ankle? It wasn't just a fracture, when I put any weight on I could feel it bend like wet straw, the foot was numb. I stop to take assesment of my injuries: the gash on my forehead has stopped bleeding but the pain in my ankle is intense. I need to find something, a crutch, something to take the weight off of my damaged ankle. I can no longer stand on my right leg, I drop down to my knees. The ground is covered in some type of powder, slipping through my fingers when I lift it. It sticks to my skin in a thin film, coming into my mouth as I breathe making me choke. I sift through the darkness looking for a branch or something sturdy enough to support me. As my hands search through the powder my hand brushes against a glowing ember. The coal burned my skin, I recoiled from the sudden heat. I could see the shifting red light mixing with the black void, pulsating, never still. I am not blind the night was merely moonless, there were no stars only the never ending vortex of swirling darkness. "That's funny. Why would there be an ember here?" I spoke only to myself, for there was no one else there, no other sound. My search is fruitful as my hand hits the sturdy form of a branch. I stand up with a slightly burned but sturdy branch in my hands. The only light was a soft red glow from around the lip of the ledge, barely perceptible. I want to get out of the crushing darkness, I want to get to the light that glows and burns below. I step off the hill leaning heavily on the crutch as I begin the descent to reach the valley floor.

*******

Reaching the bottom of the valley, I look at the destruction caused by the flames. A large clearing, possibly a field for some kind of grain, or wild grasses, is outlined by a ring of embers and small flames; the remains of forest that once stood strong and mighty, felled by the uncaring flames. There were the crumbling remains of a small shack that once contained firewood as evidenced by the axe head that sat within the ash, gleaming coldly in the flickering light. I continue, each step kicking up small plumes of ash and embers. Some of them hit my exposed skin, scorching where they hit. The heat seeps through the soles of my shoes raising blisters, yet I continue to walk, heedless of the burning pain. Ahead I could make out a solid figure among the razed beams of a house. I began to run, I can't reach the still form fast enough. In my haste I trip over a beam and sprawl head on into the ash. I am covered from head to toe with the sticky ash as I reach out to run my hands across the still warm bricks. They feel familiar to me stirring something deep inside me, something that I didn't want to remember. My knees became weak at the sudden memories that are trying to surface. I could hear things that were no longer there; the laughter of a little girl, the rustling of tall grasses in the wind, the far off sound of a dog's bark. The more I dwelled on these fragmented memories the clearer they became. A girl with short auburn hair that falls no farther than her shoulders, no older than nine stands in the field, wheat waving in the wind, like the ripples on a still pond. There was a house just beyond the fields with smoke coming from the chimney. "That's my house." I said out loud. The realization settled on my shoulders like a lead blanket. "I remember, I remember it all. ", I cried into the wind, pain and desperation permeating each word as the horrors of what I had experienced came back to me in full force. My knees crumpled beneath me, like wilted flower stems under the dry dead husks of their buds, as the images flooded back, crashing over my mind like waves over weather worn rocks. I could remember what had happened from the beginning; how could such a beautiful day turn into such a horrendous nightmare.