Several hours later, only one of them made it back. Yana staggered into the settlement, holding her guts in with one hand and waving desperately to get the attention of the matriarch with the other. Black blood streaked her torso and her dark-green skin was swiftly turning a pale apple. Despite her obvious pain, she still managed to drop to one knee before Khula.
“Matriarch, as the prophecies have foretold, the beast has returned to our world. It slew eight of my comrades and dined on their flesh, yet even this did not sate its monstrous hunger. Though I am a dead woman walking, I find the strength to tell you that the day of the dragon is upon us. Look kindly upon your servant.”
Having finished, Yana dropped her hands and allowed her innards to spill onto the ground at her leader’s feet. Khula examined the steaming loops of intestine and scattering of dark organs, as though searching for confirmation of the prophecy, but she knew that Yana had spoken the truth.
All in Khula’s tribe knew the story of Scaroth the Inept; the legendary orc king who had fed his people on the flesh of his wives when food was scarce, and even when food wasn’t. The cruel patriarchal society under his reign had almost been brought to its knees when Scaroth’s wives finally turned on their tormentors and a mighty battle ensued. Though the rage that drove on the women was pure and awesome to behold — and though a great many men were slain that day — many of the wives themselves were killed, the remainder forced to flee into the hills, or follow their sisters into death. Yet even separated from their people, the wives remained nearby, to observe the tribe from which they had been forced. They were delighted when that which they had awaited for so long — the destruction of Scaroth and his men — came to pass.
That Scaroth led his people’s death directly into their midst spoke volumes of his ineptitude, and the women in the hills made sure to record every detail of the massacre that ensued.
The dragons immolated Scaroth’s men, breathing flames that clung to those they touched, reducing them to ash in seconds. The orc wives breathed a thankful sigh as the black dragon opened its mouth, exhaled, and consumed Scaroth with its cleansing fire. From that day on, they swore that if they ever had to face a dragon themselves, they would fight and defeat it, thus proving themselves Scaroth’s betters.
The wives of Scaroth, now finally free of the shackles of their tribe, formed their own community. Aware that they would not prosper as women alone, they sought out other orc tribes and took their men by force, before fleeing back into the hills. Their prisoners were well treated — they did not want to repeat Scaroth’s mistakes — and after the men could breed no more, they were allowed to go their own way or remain with the tribe. Each female orc born was greeted with great celebration and feasting, and each daughter — once she was of a certain age — was inducted into the secrets of the matriarchy. They were told of Scaroth the Inept, the scouring of the wives and the dragon that had come to kill a king. They were told that — as the shamans had read in the stars — a dragon would come again, and when that day came the Great Matriarch would do what Scaroth had so spectacularly failed to achieve, and slay the beast.
Despite the prophecy, those first mothers never encountered a dragon. Still the story was handed down until it became a vital part of the tribe’s beliefs: images of dragons decorated every home, trinkets depicting the great lizards were worn as good luck charms and wards again evil, and ballads were sung in the honour of each successive matriarch, detailing how the leader would slay such a beast.
Khula almost couldn’t believe that it was she who had been chosen for the task. The prophecy and the stories of those first wives and Scaroth the Inept had become such an ingrained part of her culture that she almost didn’t notice them any more — they were children’s stories. It was only when the first of the shamans knelt at her feet and burned the sacred lichens that the realities of the task hit home, and Khula realised that she was afraid. Not that she would let her people see this; she strode amongst her tribe, proudly holding aloft the enchanted sword that had been crafted many generations ago from midnight steel, mined from the deepest seams in the World’s Ridge Mountains. She allowed each of the women of the tribe to kiss the blade and — as a gesture of goodwill — she allowed the men a reprieve from their nightly couplings.
That night, the shamans joined together to perform the story of Scaroth and the dragon for the last time. The children screamed with delight when the beast of sticks and dyed skins lumbered from one of the caves, manipulated by the shamans hidden within its belly. They giggled as it stomped into the crowd, sniffling this way and that for naughty children to devour, and cheered as it closed in on the cowering Scaroth, with his goofy wooden teeth and bulbous nose carved from a turnip. When the dragon opened its mouth and the shaman in its belly roared for all she was worth, the faux dragon’s call was answered by another; this one far more real, chilling the blood of all who heard it and sending many running for their homes. After that, nobody felt much like continuing with the charade of costumes and make-believe, and as the thing in the mountain roared again, all eyes turned to Khula.
Looking at the women before her, she made her decision.
This task should not be hers alone, but the duty of all the women of the tribe; for within each of them burned the spirits of Scaroth’s wives. It was they who had kept alive the contempt for that long-dead idiot king, they who had raised up a new society founded on the principle of avoiding his mistakes. The killing of the dragon was as much their right and destiny as it was Khula’s.
When she explained this to the women, there was a moment of silence in which she thought she had lost them, but then Yana’s sister — Lynca — came and knelt at her feet. Khula stared blankly at her until Lynca nudged the blade of the enchanted sword and held out her right hand, palm up. She marked Lynca’s hand with the tip of the weapon and as the black blood dripped onto the rocks, each female member of the tribe came forward in turn to be similarly marked.
The women hissed and howled as a strange, dark passion overtook them; they beat their chests and tore their clothes — some even mounted the men not swift enough to flee the mania that gripped the tribe, leaping on them and rutting with savage desire in the dirt. Next, the dragon costume from the play was pulled apart and burned, and the ashes from the pyre used to mark the women’s flesh. Finally one of the men of the tribe was dressed as Scaroth, the women circling and taunting him, clawing at his face and arms — hissing and growling, panting and shrieking — until, with one decisive blow, Khula removed his head from his shoulders.
The women bowed their heads in silence as a warm rain fell.
From somewhere in the mountains the creature roared again.
Looking at those gathered before her — bloodied and marked for battle — Khula raised the obsidian sword and answered the dragon’s roar with one of her own.
“Did you hear that?” Silus said, bringing their party to a halt.
They looked up at the high walls enclosing them, but all they could hear was the sound of their own breathing echoing through the narrow canyon.