The Dragon and I (an unfinished story from Hurmu)

[Kaspar]

A night in spring and Aldin gazed over the still surface of the water. Billows so small washed against an empty shoreline of Cashma Lake. He inhaled the dark smoke that in silence blew around him, from the sacked settlement of his, where carcasses of his fellow tribesmen, having been burnt, lay in scores.

Yesterday, the settlement, having been set up not long ago, was filled with life, movement and smiling faces. A dragon had been caught! A dragon had been caught! In a time where food was scarce, when the buds had not yet burst, a dragon would have fed the tribe in whole. A feast was planned. O! The joy!

Aldin had led the band that found, caught and killed the dragon. It had not been easy. He had lost two men and a lot of blood in the ordeal. But it had been necessary. Little food had been found in the forest, the lakes were lacking fish, and the tribe had few riches for which to trade grain and other foods. Aldin had been charged by the village to find something for the young, sick and old. Anything edible would do. Fungi, leaves, rabbits, hares – no traces of them were found. What was left was bark which could be boiled and made into tea.

He himself and his men and women were strong. They could last long without much to eat. But for the young, he had a responsibility. They were the future of the tribe, the future of his land, of Hurmu. For the sick, he had to provide. Every man and woman had a role in society; every one was needed for the very survival of the tribe – but not only because of that. Aldin had been taught that the innate value of man and woman was something you could not overlook, not under any circumstances. While everyone among the Isammaband, Aldin’s tribe, had a role to play, a responsibility and duty toward the tribe, it was not a one-sided relationship. Aldin’s tribe also took care of its people. Aldin knew this, and he had to make sure that as many as possible would survive.

The winter had been a harsh mistress. It had been colder than ever. Many plants and animals had died, and for the first time as records could show, Cashma had a cover of ice on its surface. Thus many of the fish perished too. Nature was dying, freezing to death.

As Aldin and his band of four men – Eirik, Helgi, Jotun and Donol, and two women, Vanadis and Rikja – found the trails of the dragon on top of the Hill of Agramal, they wondered if they would have a chance. None of them had ever hunted a dragon before, nor had dragons been seen in these areas of the Lyrican continent for two generations.

Rikja, Aldin’s elder sister by some thirteen years, had studied the old hunting techniques for dragons, movements of those creatures, and the ways to take them down bridaically. Old Isam men believed and taught their children that it was always a sorrow to take a life, but that was necessary for the sake of survival.

They believed, as Aldin today continues to believe, that all things holding life, be it plants, fungi, bacteria or animals, are designed by a creator unknown to all. They are designed and bearing the seal or signature of the creator. They call the creator the Artist of Brida and is impersonal, a life force, designing evolution, designing all. Designing, yes, but not by will, but by its mere existence.
This seal of life is inalienable and can never be taken away from the soul of the living thing. Rather, when its life is broken, the force of life returns to the Artist and becomes one with it and joins in the design of new evolutions, of new movements, and of new lives.

When Aldin was eleven years old, his parents died in an accident outside Haraldsborg. Rikja and her three brothers took care of Aldin, raised him and taught him the Brida and its application among the Isammaband. They taught him to hunt and it was not before long he became the best hunter the tribe had seen for a long time.

Now, Aldin had to prove himself – not for his own sake but for the tribe’s. It was a small tribe, numbering maybe fifty people at all. During its zenith, the population peaked in thousands, but today few people in Hurmu considered themselves members of tribes.

[Verion]

I do hope they are not going to kill such a noble creature as a dragon...