Page 6 of Mountain of Dragons and Sacrifice

At the end of the village, a thin track led up into the mountains. Most of the elders, all of their wives, and the villagers remained behind, leaving only me, the head elder, and the guards to make the climb up the mountain.

The gravel and dust squished between my toes. The head elder set a rapid pace, and I found myself panting as I struggled to keep up.

The air grew colder, the night darker. The effort of the climb distracted me from what was coming. I could just climb, my breaths panting, my muscles burning. So very much alive.

Then we pushed through thick evergreens, and a clearing opened before us, a slab of stone in the center. A layer of snow dusted the evergreens and lay mushy on the ground.

My heart kicked up, and not just from the exertion. I froze, staring at the stone, everything in me quaking and sick.

Two of the guards grabbed my elbows and dragged me forward, my bare toes sliding through the slushy snow and layer of wet pine needles coating the ground.

I dug in my heels, incoherent protests and screams tearing from me. I didn’t want this. I didn’t. I couldn’t.

It didn’t matter. Iron hands hauled me forward, forced me onto my back on the stone, and lashed my hands and feet to rings set into the stone. I yanked at my hands, the harsh rope digging into my wrists, but the knots didn’t give.

The guards stepped back, and the head elder took their place. He tested the knots, then swept one more glance over me. “Fortunately for you, it is a dark night. There is no need to blindfold you to keep you from seeing the dragon’s face.”

No blindfold. All the better to watch when the dragon ate me.

The guards turned to leave, marching down the path without so much as a backward glance at the maiden they’d left to die.

The head elder leaned closer, his voice lowering as he pinned me with his gaze. “Remember. Do not look upon the dragon’s face.”

With that, he turned his back and strode from the clearing with his head high.

Leaving me tied to the stone. A sacrifice laid out for the dragon.

Chapter Three

Now we are back to where we started. Me, tied to the stone waiting for the dragon to eat me.

Do you know there’s an ancient word for ritual sacrifice by dismemberment? Sparagmos. Such a visceral word. Then there’s omophagia. The eating of the raw flesh after sacrificial dismemberment.

Funny that the ancients needed to come up with actual words for those things.

That was what was about to happen to me.

Or so I thought.

Cold seeped through my thin dress from the stone beneath me. My damp toes ached, and I found myself shuddering uncontrollably, and not just from the cold.

Would the dragon eat me whole? That wouldn’t be as bad, would it? Just one snap, one gulp, and everything would be over.

Who was I kidding? It would be bad. So very bad.

I couldn’t just lie here, freezing, waiting for the dragon to come and do whatever he would do.

Yet I was supposed to lie here. Supposed to let the dragon do what he wished. Sacrifice my body, my dignity, everything to save my village from the dragon’s wrath.

I choked on a sob, my breaths coming faster and faster. Blindly, I yanked at the ropes binding my hands. The rope burned, then tore my skin, but I didn’t care. Couldn’t care. I just had to get away.

At last, I stilled, sweating from my exertions, shivering from the cold and the damp on my skin. Tears stung my eyes, frigid as they trickled down my face.

All I’d succeeded in doing was knocking the olive branch crown from my head. At least the branches no longer dug into my scalp.

It turned out, there is only so much terror a mind and body can take. Eventually, the mind stops processing, the body stops panicking. I lay still as my breathing steadied, though I shivered as the cold seeped into my bones.

I stared at the stars overhead, encircled by a ring of trees. I’d never seen trees like this or stars like these. What was I even looking at? I didn’t know enough about the wider world to say exactly what I was seeing.

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