Chapter 7: Bone Dragon

Simone bent at the waist, head down and coughing. Great wracking barks issued from her throat. She forced tears into her eyes, as she felt a gentle hand on her arm. “Simone, are you ill? You sound awful.”

Simone straightened, releasing a well of fake tears to stream down her cheeks. “I am sorry, mistress. I am still unwell. I didn’t want to miss another shift.” She held an arm over her mouth and forced another faked cough into the sleeve of her livery.

The plump, greying mistress of the kitchens ran a critical eye over her, pushing her tongue into the side of her cheek as she considered what to do. “I cannot have you coughing over the food. Not only will you make everyone else in the palace sick, but you are also infecting the other workers here.” Simone’s gaze circled the room. The other kitchen servants had moved as far away from her as they could get, unwilling to catch whatever it was she carried. “You need to go home. I release you from this shift.” Simone nodded, then turned away to gather her cloak. “And Simone? Do not return to work until you are completely well, understand? Go see the herbalist in the lower town. She might be able to help you.”

“Yes, mistress.” Simone gave her a small curtsy then gathered her cloak and left the kitchens. As soon as the door closed behind her, she swung her cloak over her shoulders and hurried down the hallway. The sun was a thin ribbon in the sky and shadows pressed against the walls of the castle, providing the perfect cover for her swift-footed escape. The gates would be closing soon, and she didn’t want to be seen leaving the grounds. Although Simone had permission to pass, she did not wish her face to linger in the minds of the castle guards. She drew her cloak closer and hurried down the main thoroughfare which was emptying of people.

As she rounded the last building, she heard the gates close with a clang and the security bar thudding into place. Annoyed, Simone veered to the left. She knew from studying the guard’s movements that the postern gate was the last one to close at sunset, but the first one to receive a guard. If she was swift enough, she could still slip through. She ran through the expanding darkness, at one with the shadows. She paused just short of the dark doorway cut into the wall. A guard in a bright red tunic and armour leaned up against the stone, adjusting his chest plate.

She flattened back against the stone, considering her options. The guard would carry a key for the gate, but he would not open it unless she had papers allowing her through that gate. Everyone coming and going from the castle after hours had to leave by the main bridge, the one she had just left. Yet if she left by the main gate, they would know her face. It was imperative that she not be identified. Simone checked the street. It was empty, except for her and the guard. Simone slipped into motion, fading into shadows and doorways, sliding beside carts and ducking behind rain barrels until she was within ten feet of the guard. The man straightened then turned with his back to Simone, to begin his patrols.

The moment his back was turned, Simone launched herself at the guard. A wickedly sharp knife slid into her hand. She landed on his back. With a quick swipe, she sawed through his throat, the cartilage of his trachea separating. A ragged rasp escaped the man’s ruined throat as he struggled then fell. Simone jumped clear of the body, rolling onto her feet clear of the man. Face down, the man gave a feeble kick of one leather-booted foot, then stilled. Blood spurted from his severed aorta, soaking the stones under his body.

Simone wiped the knife on his sleeve, then folded it returning it to her pocket, before searching the body for the key ring. She clutched it in her hand and ran over to the door. Moments later, she was on the other side. She ran, putting some distance between her, the slain guard and the gate.

She had just reached The Frog’s Leap when the warning bells sounded. She glanced down at her hands. They were covered in dried blood, and her cloak was also splattered with the man’s last life flow. She unclasped her cloak, burying her hands in the soiled bundle then entered the inn. Climbing to her room, she stashed the soiled cloak under the bed, then washed her hands, emptying the sanguine tinted water out the window. She pulled a new cloak from her chest and swung it around her shoulders, then descended the stairs at the rear of the inn. The stable boy met her at the doorway of the barn, and a flicked coin had her mount saddled in a trice. Before the bells ceased their ringing, Simone was riding out of Camelot.

She followed the main road, keeping her mare to an even walk. It would not do to cause injury to her mare by hurrying in the dark. She knew the route like the lines on her palm, a perfect map of the roads surrounding Camelot. She had grown up at the destination she rode toward, a village called Afallon Ford. Originally a Druid settlement, its proximity to Camelot had made it an early target for the proselytizing friars and the equally misguided knights of Camelot. But the village had managed to escape the most crushing of purges, that is until of recent date. Charged by the church’s puppet, King Uther Pendragon, with wiping out the old religion from the village, they crusaded against their own people, driving the Druid population into hiding.

But her brother, Dwayne, and his wife Anna and their children had remained in the village. The gift of magic had bypassed her brother and so they stayed, believing themselves to be safe from persecution. They’d cut off all contact with Simone and their mother Nimue, believing that turning their backs on the old ways would protect them, but they were wrong. A year ago, Abbot Gillion himself had visited the village and selected ten boys to return to the abbey with him to serve as altar boys. It was a great privilege to be selected to serve the church, they were told, and the family would be compensated for his absence with a monthly pension, and so they willingly offered their eldest son, Theodore, to the service of the church.

About a year later, her brother had travelled to their hidden Druid camp, deep in the Woods of Awen located on the Northumbrian border. He begged for help with returning Theodore to them. They had been to see their son and had been turned away at the door of the abbey, their request refused. Outraged, they had demanded to speak to the abbot, who had also refused to allow them visitation. Disappointed, they were about to leave the compound when Theodore surprised them by leaping out of a lower window, running toward them. He had fallen into his mother’s arms, sobbing about the abuses heaped on the boys kept within the abbey walls.

Before they could take him away, Theodore was separated from them by the abbot and several friars, all loving smiles and the picture of patience. They dragged a sobbing Theodore back inside the walls of the cloister. The abbot, with a hand on each arm, had pushed Dwayne and Anna back outside the gates. They were instructed to go home to their remaining children with assurances to look into the stories that Theodore had spouted. In the end, the abbot had insinuated that Theodore was exaggerating as children do and that discipline was needed to maintain order even within the church. As the boys were too young for penance, their discipline took more traditional routes.

But Dwayne had not believed it. His son Theodore was not a child given to lies and exaggerations. Theodore’s words had been so horrendous that they’d immediately travelled to the Woods of Awen to seek help from their kin.

Simone and her mother returned to the abbey with Dwayne, intent on freeing the young Theodore, but by the time they reached the abbey, Theodore was dead.

“An accident in the night,” said the priest who delivered the news to the shocked and grieving parents, but he would not elaborate further. They had demanded their son’s body to bury, and the abbey released the wrapped body to their care. They brought Theodore back to Afallen Ford, and there prepared his body in the Druid way. Druid custom, in contrast to the religious traditions of the Christian church, required that the body be dressed in an eslene, a garment woven from the hair of a slain baby goat. Once the deceased was dressed in the death shirt, candles were placed around the body to light the way to the afterlife, and the day of the funeral, Nimue brought her fey rod and measured her grandson for burial. With words in the ancient language, she provided instructions to Theodore for finding his spirit in the afterlife.

It was during his body preparation that the truth became evident. Simone joined her mother, Nimue, and together they had unwrapped his body. Simone bent over his still form, horrified to discover scores of bruises from shades of mustard to deep plum. The flesh of his neck had swollen around thick roping injuries. She had touched the cold flesh over one massive bruise on his chest where the ribs were caved in. His ribs were snapped, driving deep into the body. Theodore had been beaten and strangled.

Simone had been so shocked by the treatment of her favourite little nephew, she had screamed with fury and vowed over his mangled body, to avenge him. From that day, she’d planned her revenge. That vengeance began today.

Simone disappeared into the darkness, a lone rider on a lonely road. But she was not alone. The spirit of her nephew rode with her, urging her on with a quiet voice that only she could hear. “Today, Teddy, is the day we have been waiting for. Today, the people of this village will pay for rejecting our beliefs and for inviting the priests into our village. They will rue the day that they betrayed the old ways.”

Simone left the road and pushed her horse along an animal trail that led her to the river side. The waxing moon danced on the surface of the water, providing a ribbon of light that guided her mount’s steps. A short ride later, the river slowed and widened as it backed up against a mud and stone dam. The waters spread creating a wide waterfall, beside which the grain mill perched, its massive wheel turning under the force of the tumbling waters.

Simone dismounted and knelt at the river’s edge. She dipped her fingers into the cool waters. With her eyes closed, she searched for the magic she had released into the waters. Her fingers wriggled as she murmured, “Surge os draconis, et ad vescendum carnes.”

The still waters surged. Water bubbled and frothed, then the stream split and sluiced around a boulder-shaped object which rose up from the depths of the river. It grew in size, expanding until a second dam was created by its bulk. The river, constrained by the magic churning in its depths, backed up as though fleeing the conjuring in its midst. With a groan, the mass broke the surface. A gigantic head of bone rose from the churning waters, its mouth stretching in a silent cry. It was followed by a long, sinuous but fleshless neck, curving into a backbone and ribcage, followed by a length of segmented tail. Bony spikes ran along is length from tip to tail, like the silhouette of mountain peaks. Skeletal wings unfolded, streaming with luminous tears as it rose into the air.

Once clear of the river the bone dragon threw back its head and roared, the sound a jumbled, screeching scream of a thousand souls in agony, trapped within the underworld from which the dragon was conjured. The cry of the bone dragon sent an involuntary shiver down Simone’s back. The dragon turned in the air, its fleshless sockets focused on its master, awaiting its first command.

“Avenge the Druids. Avenge my family. Your prey is there.” She pointed at the village at the base of the valley, where pinpoints of light announced the presence of homes.

The dragon turned. With a rasping, grinding surge of its wings, it rose higher into the air and dove toward the dimly lit village of Afallon Ford.

Simone watched it disappear over the falls, listening hard. A few moments later, screams filled the air. Fires sprung from homes as the dragon swooped low over the village, great gouts of flame raking tinder dry thatch, its bony claws slashing and tearing at the structures in its way. Not being alive, it drew its flame from the depths of Hades, brightening the night sky with the glow of destruction left in its wake.

Satisfied, Simone swung into her saddle and left the burning villagers behind.