Dragon among Men

           Prologue
                                                    
These were the winters, sitting in front of the fire he could feel the warmth surging through his cold self. He sat in the wilderness; still, his eyes were vacant. There were no emotions, like the darkness of his black eyes and the feeling of nothingness justified the dead man that lay beside him.

He had been looking at the fire for a while now. The yellow of fire and the crimson of snow contrasted in the dark night. He was still but his mind perturbed, the flames danced, teasing him while he was trying to put the pieces of psyche together. At last his eyebrows knitted together and a word slipped his dry lips “Again”.  Voice filled with pity and disgust, disgust felt for the one looking in the mirror.

It   was not known for how long he might have been here. He had woken up in a daze, his intermittent grasp on his conscious gauged it well that “it” has happened once again and was sure that there might lay another person beside him, lifeless. But this was different.  For three years now since ‘it’ has started he was never in such dire state. He knew several of his bones were fractured; he barely had any vision in his left eye as it was swollen to lump. In all these years whenever and wherever he woke up he never had drop of blood on him but now he was drenched in it which he could tell was partly his and of his most unfortunate unacquainted friend. He brought his thoughts in order, there wasn’t any time to grumble about his state. He has to leave this place and leave behind none of his traces.
For three years there was no blood; none of his. "He” always made his job spotless, never left a clue, always has stayed clear .There were thirty six before him and all Yenzai had to do was leave as soon as he could comprehend that his life wasn’t just his own. But today there lay a man no older than himself, who could be his down fall.

“Has he become sloppy or he doesn’t mind me paying for him” he murmured to himself with scornful eyes.
He called forward enough strength to pull himself up again. When he had opened his eyes it was half from the excruciating pain in his chest and other from the cold and the heavy wind. He had to drag himself in the night which was only lit by the moon near the broken trees, to somehow start a fire, if not from pain he would have died of cold.

  He took a step towards the men who he thought must have been ill fated to have met this kind of fate. He could see the left arm had been severed , his legs bent in a way that it would have been less frightening if they were severed. His nape had a long deep cut which made his head look like a broken tree which was hanging from the splinters.
He looked at his wide open eyes which had lost their gleam but still reflected his figure. He looked at himself with disdain running in his eyes ‘must have been this cut, he always has fought dirty’. As he was about to move closer to the men he suddenly felt as his life has been sucked out of him. He slowly lost his sense of being and felt as if his conscious has been drifted into nothingness.

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                                                                           Chapter one : A reckoning with past

The wind sang songs of the dead. The dark abysses of the forest dint seem to end. The trees kept running, running as if their lives depended on it.
It all stopped.
For a moment there could be seen nothing in that darkness, it was still. For one’s ear one could not hear his breath but felt his throbbing heart was too loud, loud enough to spill the forbidden secret.
  From the darkness appeared a vermillion snake, it had no vision, blinded by the wrath, it could only listen. It listened to the fluttering leaves in the whistling wind slowly dragging itself away.
Suddenly the darkness was filled with blood; the redness did not seem to ebb even after a long time. In that redness a snake was seen pushing its way inside a man’s heart. The shrill noise of a girls cry was heard and was left unheard.

This  was the nightmare of a young boy of Diveer kingdom.
Adam Hitcher lay wide awake in his bed sweating and shaking. He looked around to grasp the reality that he was just dreaming. He reached out for the glass of water kept by his side on the table but though he was awake his mind has not left the dreading dream that he had had. The glass of water fell from his wobbly hands and tumbled on the floor.
The clank woke his brother who had been in the same room as he.
He woke up all of a sudden in daze and asked “same?” looking at his brother’s miserable self.

“Fundamentally” he replied with a quiver in his voice.

For over a year now Adam has had nightmares, though they were different in details but few things never changed.

There was always the fast wind and sudden darkness, the vermillion snake, the dying man and the wailing girl.

Nothing scared him more than the cry of the girl. He had always mentioned the girls cry to his brother.

“It felt so real, D it felt so real please make it stop, make it stop I can’t take it anymore” he once pleaded his brother woken up by the nightmare in the middle of the night.
David could do nothing for his brother’s misery.
“Try to sleep, it will be light in couple of hours don’t worry as always it’s just a dream dear brother”
David looked at his brother and laid on his back, eyes shut tight; he had always felt helpless for his little brother.

The mornings had always been cheerful in the city of Hergevia of the Diveer kingdom until the nine countries of Diveer were in a dispute among themselves around a quarter of century back.
Diveer has always been an isolated land from the other three kingdoms. From generations the nine countries of Diveer were ruled by five emperor empresses and four emperors.

So as the four emperors could never possibly attain an alliance with the other kingdoms all the coasts of Diveer were under the rule of the five countries ruled by emperor empresses.
The Blue bird alliance was formed by emperor empresses against any possible threat that could have come from the emperors of the other four nations. Formed by the emperor empress of nation Pearl Heart, Amelia Heavnrt, she had always been wary of the emperors of the four nations.

“Which self-respecting men would let a women rule over him, men’s ego lies between his legs, if today we enjoy peace with ‘them’, we should be well prepared for a war tomorrow” this was her argument for the other four emperor empresses.

Although the alliance was kept a secret at that time but within few weeks of the secret Blue bird alliance the emperor empresses got discreet news of the four emperors forming an alliance Dragon Nest, to which it became clear what future may Diveer hold in her womb.
For years to come the tension was palpable amongst the nations of the two great alliances. But only a couple of years ago it all escalated when the four emperors attacked the coast of Diveer and that was when the Douzengh clans were approached.