The Dragon's Mate

Prologue

Elin, daughter of Eric, hailing from the village of Delken.

Her father had been a successful farmer, his crops and livestock providing bountiful returns each harvest, bringing him note across the region, as well as earning him a modest wealth, for a peasant farmer.

Elin's good diet and relative wealth had helped her grow tall, 5' 6", taller than any other woman she knew and taller than most of the men, as well as keeping her skin soft and her flowing long hair shiny and golden. Helping on the farm had keep her active, so her arms, stomach and legs were toned, but the gods had also chosen to give he ample feminine curves. To top this off, she had blue eyes, full lips, dainty cheeks and a delicate nose.

It was no surprise she had always been regarded a blessed woman, her beauty and her health unmatched by any in her village and some would say even the province.

Elin had always been grateful for her gifts, especially when she was married to the handsome Rainer. Rainer was the son of a village councillor. He was well built, handsome and brave. Had he been born near one of the cities he would no doubt have been trained as a soldier. Elin had borne a son for Rainer, who, though he had barely seen five winters, she could tell would be as handsome, if not more so, than her father.

Elin had been grateful for her gifts.

Delken sat a day's ride from a crop of mountains. These mountains would ordinarily be nothing special, as far as anyone knew, the landscape was spotted with hills and peaks, but these were home to a creature known as the fiery beast, the flying horror, the demon of Valhalla, or most commonly, the dragon.

Dragons had been a plague in this region for millennia. Stories first told by the men who originally claimed this land, dragons were a prominent and fearsome threat. Dragons were huge reptilians, with powerful hind legs and wings for forelimbs. Pale yellowish chests and dark grey-black elsewhere, their whole bodies were covered in scaly armour, stretching from their heads to the tip of their tails, a length of over 40 feet on a fully grown male beast and around 35 on a female. Despite their winged arms, female dragons couldn't fly, only the males could take to the air. When men finally decided to eliminate all the dragons, they hunted the only the females, which were comparatively weak and could not escape as easily, assuming the species would eventually die out, unable to breed.

In a sense it worked; no new dragons were born. However, dragons were long lived creatures, it transpired. They ate, mated and hibernated. Their long slumbers were believed to extend their lives; each one living, it was told, for three, maybe four, centuries. With mating no longer an option, they hibernated longer and ate more, making the male dragons live even more protracted lives, plaguing the humans of the land further.

The dragon of Delken was now one of the last of its kind; it was a youth when the final female was purged. Having roamed these lands for only two and a half centuries, it was clear that this beast would be a persistent threat for generations to come. At first, every few months, the dragon would pillage a couple of sheep from each village near its mountain den. This was a nuisance, but the villagers accepted it, as the cost was a small burden compared to trying to fight the beast.

When it came to humans, dragons were, relatively, harmless. They sought out only sheep to eat, never preying on humans, only attacking those that dared to approach. As long as they were fed, they would leave without incident. Some, arrogantly, believed that this was because the beasts respected man as a superior being.

Elin's grandfather had told her a story, as told to him by his grandfather, of the time Delken decided to hide the sheep from the dragon. When it arrived to find its feeding ground empty, he told, it tore towards the nearby stable, able to smell the concealed livestock, and roasted the whole building, killing most of the sheep and the horses. It ate barely more than the share it would normally have stolen, but left the village without food and had destroyed their stock of valuable horses.

Elin's grandfather had said it had taught the villagers something new too. The dragon had eaten sheep and only sheep not out of some sense of reverence for man, but only because it was too stupid to see anything other than sheep as food. Once it had tasted horse, it swept down, from time to time and stole them too. Man was simply lucky that the beast had no interest in adding them to the menu. The villagers barely managed to recoup their losses and survive, but when the beast was next to arrive the villagers had built a stone plinth, and so began the tradition every season of offering sheep at the village plinth to the dragon, a ritual the which had kept the beast satiated for nearly a century.

Rainer, when he became a father, had decided that he did not want his son to grow up in fear of the dragon. Deciding to make another stand, ignoring the foolish tales of a more timid generation, stole the sheep from the plinth and hid in the nearby barn. Elin remembered watching in horror as the dragon got its sheep. Rainer perished in the burning barn and with that, the dragon had ended Elin's lifelong stroke of luck.

Two harsh winters had taken a toll on the province, with a nearby village even being abandoned. The Delken villagers had become victims of their own success. They had been able to keep their village thriving despite the unfavourable conditions, so dragon had scoured their farmland and taken more than the offering on the plinth four of the last six times it visited. The villagers had become more desperate, knowing the could not sustain this much longer. Some had talked of leaving the village altogether, but there was fear the dragon would stalk them wherever they went and seek vengeance on the fleeing villagers.

Elin was not superstitious like that, she was happy to take her son and leave, but she would have to trek alone it seemed, and her mother, who was deeply spiritual, refused to even discuss something that may 'enrage the dragon'.

The villagers wished to find a new way. The village's chief had studied ancient scripts, he and his son were the only villagers who could read, and found an old story of how one village protected itself from another dragon. The villagers were repulsed by the plan. Elin had had to hold her son close as he cried; the angered screams of the village folk was deafening.

To placate the villagers, first the village's council agreed to try with a sheep. Using cave lizards, creatures no bigger than a rodent and so pathetic one would hardly believe they are familiar to dragons, specifically female ones, the village expert in breeding extracted the female scent, and under the guidance of their chief, concocted a special 'elixir'. This concoction had been used by their ancestors to lure away male dragons who would normally protect the females during the purging times. Lathering the sheep in the elixir had not he the desired effect. The dragon came to the village, saw its meal, and toasted the plinth without stopping to smell.

The next attempt, they tried a horse. Not as familiar with horses, the dragon swooped down and it appeared to have taken the 'hint'. It approached the mare, who was so frightened it tried to dash, despite the shackles on its forelegs. Rather than bolting, the horse collapsed to the floor, thrashing uncontrollably, before it finally stopped moving at all. It appeared the horse panicked itself, literally, to death, before the dragon could even touch it.

Desperate, the village folk agreed, in principle, to trying the council's original plan. They agreement was swift, but this began the discussion of who it should be, which was a much protracted debate. Some believed it should be a virgin, that somehow the dragon could sense the purity, and that it would care. Most realised a beast of that size and a virgin would be impossible. They suggested then a woman who had already given birth, who might be more able to 'accommodate' the monster. Immediately all the married men protested in favour of their wives, leaving only 4 unmarried mothers to pick a 'willing' volunteer from.

The villagers waited a few days for someone to come forward, but unsurprisingly, no one did. All of the unmarried mothers were widows, Elin's own mother had just seen 50 winters, and she was the youngest, other than Elin herself. The village reconvened to discuss the matter of the volunteer. No one said it, but they all had come to the same conclusion.

Villagers shouted suggestions, they said the offering should be young, she should be healthy, some even said she should be beautiful, to honour the dragon. They talked in circles, describing the offering and saying that someone fitting this description should come forward for the good of the village.

Elin's anger grew and grew. The congregation; her friends, her neighbours, her people, had already decided, they had done so many nights ago. They just wanted the right person to volunteer, to ease their conscience. She wondered if this had been a straightforward sacrifice it would have been an easier decision. But this wasn't a sacrifice, this was an 'offering'. Elin got to her feet. All those attending the village hall went silent instantly and looked to her.

The chief cleared his throat and addressed Elin, "Elin, have you something to say?"

She wasn't going to give them the pleasure, "Not unless you have something to ask, my chief."

He, along with the rest of the hall, looked ashamed when they heard Elin's sarcastic, spiteful tone. She looked across the room to her mother, her head was turned away, but Elin could see a tear rolling down her cheek. Elin's son, sat next to her, obliviously playing with wooden carvings of a sheep and a horse; how appropriate.

The village chief had been chosen to lead the people because had always been a man of honour, of intellect, and a true orator. Now, she could see he struggled with the next few words, "Elin, will you do your duty?"

She wanted to make him squirm, she wanted to force him to say the words, but that would not help her, only prolong the shared shame of the room. She bit her tongue and restrained the tirade she had bottled up.

Tasting bile at the back of her throat but feigning composure, simply she said, "I shall."

***

Elin suffered nearly a dozen sleepless nights since the 'debate' at the hall. She had thought being coerced into offering herself to the dragon was bad, but that was surpassed by what came next. The village held meetings, almost each day, to decide how best she should be offered. She sat in silence whilst her fellow men and women talked about how to dress her, if they should at all, one even suggested the dress of a bride. The worst was when one of the councillors asked about the possibility of Elin trying to flee. Members of the village took turns to 'visit' Elin, under the guise of compassion but she knew they were just checking she wasn't about to escape.

They had no idea of the exact day the dragon would visit, but they knew it was likely before the next lunar cycle. They had decided that though a virgin offering would not be suitable, hence choosing Elin, they could present her like one. The fair hairs upon her legs, under her arms, over her sex and between her buttocks were gently shaved by a female villager skilled at preening for ceremonies. Each morning they made her up, massaged her, washed her hair and generally fawned over her. At first she thought it strange, but she realise guilt had motivated many of her fellow villagers to be overly kind to her.

Luxury aside, the villagers did not let her forget what was to come. The village blacksmith had presented her with a metal rod, the width of her wrist and the length of her forearm; it was to help her 'prepare'. Each morning and each night she drew the veil between her nuptial cot and the rest of her hut and 'prepared' herself. No one asked her if she had been using it, like her, they probably realised it was in her best interest to do it as much as she could. By the time she had used it half a dozen times, it was already noticeably easier, a revelation that made her sob silently.

She looked up at the sky, one night after her new ritual, and noticed the absence of the moon. She, and the other villagers, had expected the dragon by now. She climbed back into her cot, after wiping the moisture from between her legs, and wondered if this meant maybe the dragon was not coming. As she drifted to sleep, she convinced herself it was dead or took flight to another province and for the first time since she 'volunteered', Elin fell into a deep sleep.

Her morning began like all the other mornings; she relieved herself, 'prepared' herself, followed by a visit from the woman who helped her shave any of her excess body hair and conduct her beauty routine.

She had finished getting dressed, when she heard a distant, unmistakable, terrifying roar, wiping a rare smile from her face.