Alone in the Valley

      In our village we were about 120 inhabitants. Our families had lived in this valley for hundreds of years. I liked our village, I liked the people there and the valley itself. Everything could still have been exactly like it was then if that day had never taken place…but it did…

       It was an ordinary day like any other. I was sitting with my family by the table eating dinner. It was around midday. Suddenly a man, one of my father’s friends, came rushing in and shouted; “He’s here! He’s here again!”. My father quickly reacted and stood up, grabbed his bow and his quiver and ran out with the man. My mother took me and my two sisters and led us upstairs where she told us to stay until they returned. I wanted to follow them so when my mother went I grabbed my dagger, a gift from my father, and ran out. It was a beautiful day, the snow lay thick and reflected the sunshine. I stopped for a moment. Everything was so beautiful. Then I suddenly remembered why I was out here. I heard voices from the other edge of the village. I began running in that direction. Then I saw him. Garfereas, the dragon who had punished our village for many years. His wings threw a huge shadow over the village; it almost seemed like the sun had disappeared. He was about 30 metres above ground and his flames consumed the snow beneath him and ignited nearby houses. He began to fly towards me. He crushed a house before he flew over me. I was thrown backwards. I laid still, scared. I heard the sound of houses crumbling behind me. I just couldn’t move. He seemed a lot larger when he was this close.

       Minutes passed. The dragon had flown away at least ten minutes ago. I stood up, still shaking. I picked up my dagger which had been thrown away some meters when the dragon passed over me. I looked around me in shock. The whole village was destroyed, some houses were still burning and slowly falling apart. I began walking to the other edge of the village from were I had heard voices before; first with slow, shaking steps, but soon I found myself running. I came to the slope were our village ends. Then I knew why the dragon had flown away from there and into the main part of the village; his work here was done. I was looking at a morbid scene of slain men and women, all of the village’s adults were laying there scattered all over the area. Slain in the most ruthless ways. My dagger fell from my hand. I couldn’t move. I knew my parents were down there. I went down the slope. Some people had been charred unrecognisable by the dragon's flames, others had been shredded by his claws, pierced by his sharp tail or even bitten in half by his huge jaws. I wasn’t able to find my parents among the recognizable bodies. The snow was red. It seemed that the sky turned red too. My world trembled. I was left alone, alone in this world, alone in the valley…

       Though all of this happened long ago it still haunts my heart. I was ten years old that day, I’ve now been alone for 27 years. I live in an old house outside the original village. Some years after the village was destroyed goblins dared to come into the valley. With no men they could roam over the lands almost unhindered. The dragon is still alive but the goblins were so many that it didn’t bother them even if a hundred goblins died daily. I don’t know if the dragon even knows I’m here, nor do I know what it’s like outside the valley. It is told that that is where we men in the valley originally came from. I’ve never been there and I don’t think I’ll ever go there. I’ll live my life in this valley where I was born. The goblins want me out of here but they’re afraid of me, I’m a lot stronger than they are. They attacked once, and I killed at least 50 of the wicked weak creatures before they ran away. Since I’m alone the only thing I do is hunt the animals here in the valley for food to survive and train to one day fulfil my one and only dream. I often visit the old village to remind me of what happened on that day. I can’t forget it, I don’t want to forget it. It’s the only reason for me to live: so that one day I can avenge my family and my village, I have to kill Garfereas. The goblins never move close to the old village. They think it is cursed and the dragon doesn’t care about the ruins so it’s quite a safe place for me. But I don’t want to live there even though it’s safe, because when I’m in the village I get so many different feelings at the same time. Good memories, bad memories, anger, hatred and sorrow. The village is almost sacred to me; it’s my only connection to the past. Except for one other thing; my dagger, my father’s last gift to me. It’s too short for me to fight with normally so it’s strapped to the upper side of my right wrist, with the blade sticking out about 5 cm forward from my hand, so I’m able to use it in close range hand-to-hand combat. The dagger didn’t slay any dragon on that day but it has slain many goblins since then and more will it slay before I die.

       This is how I’ve lived until today. Here I am, still alive in the valley where my family and friends were slain. I often sit here on this place; a part of a house in the village where I have a clear view over the slope where it happened. The sun began to set; it was time to return to my house. But when I stood up and turned around I saw something that seriously shocked me; there stood several goblin warriors. I just couldn’t understand how they had entered the village area which they never used to even come close to. These thoughts stopped rapidly when they began running towards me with their weapons drawn. I drew my sword and began defending myself against them. The fight went well and I had the upper hand all the time. They tried to attack me on my right side but I was able to defend myself with my father’s dagger. The fight was soon over and one goblin tried to escape. I picked up a goblin spear and threw it through the last running goblin. The snow around me was coloured black by the blood of my fallen enemies. It was at that moment I realised that it was time. It was my turn to move. If the goblins now crossed their lines and entered “my territories”, they would soon overrun the village with me inside it. I went home to my house to get some sleep.

       That night I saw myself on an open field. The ground was white and the sky was blue. Behind me there stood a group of people, maybe around a hundred of them. I turned towards them to ask them where I was, but suddenly the sky turned red and the sun faded. The people looked as scared as I was and began looking around to see what was happening. Then it happened; the people were ripped apart by some invisible force. They were screaming in pain as they were being slain. Soon all of them were lying of the ground bleeding and taking their last breaths. I couldn’t move. I had never seen anything like this…or had I? I suddenly realised that I had seen something like this, 27 years ago.

“Aren’t you going to help them?”, I heard a voice behind me. I turned around, but I didn’t see anyone there. “Are you just going to watch them bleed?” The voice again; it came from above me. I looked up. I was so surprised that I fell backwards when I saw who was talking to me; Garfereas himself. He began laughing.

“So you’re the one who will kill me?”, he said. “You’ll be dead even before it begins”. I stood up. In the same moment Garfereas swung his long sharp tail towards me. I couldn’t avoid it and at the moment it pierced through me I woke up. It was just a dream. It felt so real that I could almost feel the pain from the wound made by the dragon’s tail. This wasn’t a normal nightmare. I had to do something now. I stood up and looked out of my window. It was at least an hour before dawn. I strapped my dagger to my wrist, my sword to my right side, my bow to my back together with my quiver, grabbed a spear and went outside. I looked southwards and saw a hill by the horizon, Garfereas’ hill. There was no need to hold back any more. I began to walk. The walk would take maybe three days if the goblins left me alone. There were a lot of wild animals in the valley so there was no need for me to take food with me.

       The first day went well. I didn’t see a single goblin that day. I rested in a cave that I had found when I walked up a hill to get a good view over the surrounding area. When I woke up the next morning I wasn’t alone in the cave. By the cave’s entrance there stood three goblin warriors looking out towards the raging snow storm. I stood up slowly. I drew my sword and began moving towards them. But at the moment I was about to cut down the first one, another goblin turned around and saw me and alarmed the others. I was able to cut down the first goblin before he even turned around, but after that I had to jump backwards to avoid the other goblins’ attacks. The fight was short but violent. The remaining goblins both fell for my sword. I was able to avoid getting any injuries from this fight. I had to be uninjured when it was time to fight Garfereas himself. I picked up all my equipment and went outside. The storm was fading more and more the longer I walked. After maybe an hour of walking the sun was once again shining over the valley. During my walk I climbed many hills which were in my way, but when I reached the top of one hill I saw something that made me change my plans; a huge goblin camp that lay between me and Garfereas’ hill. I sat down on the hill and began to think about my next move. The goblins were weak but faced with such numbers I couldn’t just walk down there and fight them. I had to either walk around the whole camp or then…were there any other things to do? Soon I realised that if I hadn’t sat down here from the beginning and instead began to walk around it directly I probably would’ve been on the other side already. I decided that it’s probably the only thing to do, so I stood up and began to walk around the whole camp. I had come about half way around when a goblin patrol spotted me. There were seven warriors that now ran towards me with drawn weapons. Two fell for my arrows before they reached me, and the rest fell for my sword. No other goblins seemed to have been alarmed by our fighting. Suddenly I realised that there were only six bodies lying on the ground. I looked down towards the camp and saw one goblin running towards it. He was already out of reach, even for my bow. By the moment he reached the camp at least a hundred goblins streamed out of the camp towards my location. There was nothing else to do than just run away as fast as possible. The goblins followed me for a while but after some time they stopped and turned back to their camp. Luckily for me it seemed like they didn’t want to run all day just to get one person. After this little incident I rested by a ridge in the eastern parts of the valley. The night was quite cold, and on the next day it was snowing lightly. I killed a deer to get some food and then I moved on. I followed the ridge for several hours before I reached a huge open flat field. On the other side if the field I saw it; the hill of Garfereas. I had nothing to wait for so I began walking over the field. It seemed to take years to walk over the enormous opening and the hill seemed to be as far away as it was when I began. But after some hours walking I arrived at the foot of the hill which seemed like a mountain when I now stood there. The sun slowly disappeared behind the horizon and I decided to rest in a small cave I found on the hill.

       After several days of walking I woke up next morning and knew it was today it was going to happen; my revenge on Garfereas, the day I had been waiting for so many years was about to take place. I stepped out of the cave I had been sleeping in. It was a perfect day. I turned around and looked towards the hilltop. I knew he was somewhere up there, waiting for any easy prey that dared to come close to him. But this time it was his turn to be the prey. I began the last part of my journey half-walking, half-climbing up the hill. Almost half way up something terrible happened; I was walking along a small edge when I suddenly lost foothold and slid down. I was barely able to get hold of a rock sticking out from the hill, but my bow and quiver fell down, so far that I didn’t see or hear them land. It was too far to climb down there so I decided that I had to slay Garfereas with my sword, spear and dagger only. I looked upwards again and saw a small path between two huge rocks, I aimed for that passage and found that it was only a short distance to the top. I ran the last meters and came to a quite big plateau which was the top of the mountain. My heart began beating twice as fast as usual; somewhere here Garfereas laid waiting. I had my spear ready if he should try to surprise me. But he wasn’t the kind of dragon who would fall for that. As soon as he heard me he stood up on his legs and came forth from his hideout and unfolded his wings to show his greatness and maybe even scare me. After looking at me for a moment he asked curiously; “a man? I haven’t seen a man in many years. Who are you and how come you’ve climbed my hill armed as you were about to kill me?”. He wasn’t scared or even a little bit afraid, just happy because this meant that he didn’t have to eat only goblins today. “I’m here to avenge my village. To kill you for everyone you killed on that day”, I answered him to show him that I wasn’t afraid of him. “Your village?” he laughed loudly. “Are you trying to tell me that you’re a survivor of the village that lay in the north corner of this valley?”. “Yes I am”, I answered him directly. I held my spear ready to strike at any moment. He was still about 20 meters away from me. He didn’t say anything for a long time. Then he suddenly broke the silence; “if that is true you have to die…”. He suddenly flew up and flew fast towards me. He was flying too high and would fly over me. Then I suddenly remembered how he used to kill his prey; with an extremely fast swing with his sharp tail. By the moment I realised this he was almost straight above me, I jumped aside as fast as possible, but not fast enough… his tail pierced my right shoulder and almost ripped my arm of. I fell down on my knees. Was it over already? Wasn’t I strong enough to kill him? No… I couldn’t accept it and despite the pain I stood up. My spear was thrown away several meters and as I looked for it I saw it roll over an edge and fall straight down. I couldn’t fight him with just my sword because he would probably never would fly that close to me and always use his tail to pierce me instead. I couldn’t just stand here. I had to figure out something to do. I looked around me, Garfereas was on his way to turn around and come for the next attack. Then I saw it a few metres away from me; there was a opening, a small tunnel, too small for Garfereas but large enough for me. I took a few rapid steps towards it. It went straight down for about three meters. I hesitated for a moment; it was too deep for me to jump into with my arm this damaged. Then I heard Garfereas; “you have got nowhere to hide; I know every part of this mountain”. I stopped hesitating and jumped. I was quite lucky. The bottom of the hole was covered with snow that reduced the impact a lot, but not enough to protect my arm. The pain was almost unbearable. I was lying on the bottom unable to move because of the pain. “Either you will die down there or then you get out of here and let me kill you”, said Garfereas from above the opening of the hole. All my hope faded. What should I do now? It was too high to climb with one arm and what should I do if I got up there? Without my bow or spear I had only my sword to rely on. While I was thinking, I suddenly felt a cold wind. I sat up. I could feel the wind coming from deeper within the mountain, through a small opening beside me. I soon realised that there had to be another opening to the tunnel. I crawled trough the small opening and found myself in a lot larger tunnel. I was able to stand upright and walk the rest of the way. Soon I got to the end of the tunnel and stepped out on a ledge. I walked out to the middle and looked around. There was no way out. It was several meters straight down in all directions. “Trying to run away?” I heard Garfereas behind me. I turned around and saw him flying towards me for another attack. This time I was able to jump aside in time, but I landed on my right arm and almost failed to stand up after that. But I forced myself up and ran to hide behind a rock. Right before I reached the rock I tripped on something and fell to the ground. When I laid there I realised that I couldn’t hide. Blood from my arm would leave a red trail in the snow and show Garfereas exactly where I went. I sat leaning towards the rock. Then I began looking for what I tripped on. It was beneath the snow so I felt with my hand after it. It was root…no, it was too straight to be that, it was some kind of stick. I tried to figure out how long it was, then I realised what it was; my spear. When it fell it must have landed on this ledge. But now I didn’t have time to think, Garfereas saw me and came flying towards me with his jaws open. This time he was flying low to strike straight on his target. I did not have much time to think but I figured out a plan that could work. Garfereas had not yet seen the spear. So I stood up with my right foot on the spears end. Garfereas came closer all the time. This was my last chance to do anything. By the moment he almost touched me I grabbed the spear and raised its tip from the snow right in front of him. He saw this and realised that it was too late to turn away. The spear pierced his throat. The dragon in pain turned away from his target and flew over my right shoulder. But he didn’t turn enough. His huge claws hit me and I was thrown backward. I landed with my face turned towards the dragon. He wasn’t able to do anything about the spear which was stuck half into his throat. He was moving back and forth in pain and suddenly the end of the spear hit a rock and was pushed deeper into the dragon’s body and pierced his heart. He roared a last loud roar before he gave up his breath and fell to the snowy ground. Garfereas was no more. I had succeeded in my one and only task. But was it really this I wanted out of my life? I wasn’t able to move any part of my body, I was completely shredded and it was getting harder to breath. The snow around me was red, coloured by my own blood, the same colour as it was on that day so long ago. I looked at my lifeless right arm; my dagger was still strapped to the wrist. “Father, I did it. I killed the one that killed you so many years ago.” I was proud of myself. My life had existed for one purpose; to kill the one that took everyone I knew away from me. Now I had completed it. I felt death coming closer and closer all the time. I knew I had only minutes left to live, maybe seconds, but I wasn’t afraid of death anymore. Death had shown me its power 27 years ago, that was enough for me. It was time. I was drawing my last painful breaths. Before everything began to fade I asked myself the question again; “Was this what I wanted out of my life?”. Now I had an answer to that question… yes…

-RcaH

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