Short Stories

Dragon-Lord

“The Call of Gold”

FROM THE DRAGON LORD'S LIBRARY, VOLUME 1
18th Wall Productions 11/20/2015

Synopsis

Why do dragons guard their hoard so ferociously? The answer may not be what you expect!

Excerpt

Humans died so easily.

The dragon circled the small castle, checking for survivors. To her satisfaction, nothing moved. The walls of the fortress where they tried to fire arrows at her were black, char marks defacing the walls. Tumbled stones littered the area, victims of blunt attacks with her body. One of the turrets lay crumbled; the others also incomplete .Her wings spread wide across the sky, blotting out the sun. She circled again, saw nothing alive that mattered for miles, and descended. Bodies were strewn around the landscape, lying in heaps where she had destroyed them. They looked like broken dolls, and it wasn’t until she got close enough that they resolved into the humans who had foolishly opposed her. They could not stop her now.

The scent was on the air, calling to her like a magic spell. The dragon dipped and wheeled, all thoughts of dead creatures vanished. There it was. Gold.

It winked at her, visible through the shattered roof, beckoning her. The humans had dug it out of her earth and then hoarded it, squirreling it away in goblets and coins, out of her sight, away from her use. It couldn’t be allowed. It was hers. It was hers.

Gold. She had felt it inside the castle, through doors and locked away. It called to her, summoning her to this place. The color of her wings matched the objects. She raised her head, sniffed for a moment, and then lowered her head, diving to the places she scented metal.

Stones were no deterrent. Without humans to protect them the castle fortifications eventually gave, the stones yielding to her. Her wings battered them down, and her strong body cracked the mortar until it split apart. Chips flew around her until the formerly imposing walls and roof were in ruins, tumbling to the dirt in an arc. The castle would not be used for habitation again.

There it was. Her eyes whirled, refracting light. She folded her wings and landed, her feet making claw mark shapes in the dust of the building.

Gold.