The Shield (Part One)
The boys understood with an unshakable faith that the dragon was evil.
The brothers brought their possessions to a camp they had chewed out of a thicket 40 feet behind the edge of a tree line. Early spring swept gently over their faces as they made their site neat but hidden in the blue shadows under waving boughs and drifting stars.
The eldest, Jude, was 17, his brother Abel was 15. The rumors about dragons spread over them like a blanket. But it was a year before anyone confirmed seeing one scrape the clouds and throw an icy shadow over rivers, woods, and homes.
Their parents raised them purposefully, but the nurturing guidance had abruptly ended in the bleakness of midwinter. That is when their father had left to defend them and their property from the howling rumble that had grown closer since a dragon spread its angular wings across the gentle gray-blue winter sky. Their mother, weakened by pneumonia, faded to death while her fever grew as hot as a phosphorus fire.
Now, the rumors of the dragon’s return drifted over them like a dream, too hallucinogenic to be true, yet more real than reality. Could the sky, the air, and the land be sick? Could, in an afflicted stupor, the world become delirious like a person?
But with the finality of a star falling into the sea to extinguish itself and poison the ocean, the boys had seen it. Their eyes still burned with bitterness that this day had come for them and their world. They watched everything around them change and mock what they once loved.
Now, their world was gone, and it stayed gone, and no matter how many mornings they prayed their grief was only a nightmare; they still carried it next to their skin like a tattoo. It was indelible.
But they had each other and worked to be prepared because that was hopeful. Still, they woke up each morning and left their camp to scan the skyline and watch smoke rise, dark and acrid like old tires burning, to the breathless heights of the heavens. Fires raged somewhere, and over the winter, they grew closer. Now, they watched ash float downward gently like snow but as black as hatred. They knew the dragon was coming nearer.
A shrieking rumble toward the west and billows of smoke and ash rose over the tree line and drifted toward the woods where they huddled together.
The boys understood with an unshakable faith that the dragon was evil. Some, despite the coming destruction, welcomed the dragon. Others accepted its fire as a cleansing surge forward. The dragon would right things after the destruction. Some, in an almost shamanistic fever, worshipped the beast. The two boys saw through the confusion and self-deluded fantasies of many adults. They saw the dragon for what it was—a destroyer. Their parents had taught them what to look for, the signs of lies and half lies, that made reality palatable to those who had already given themselves to foolishness. These boys knew the truth and to resist deception at all costs. Though they were frightened for when the end finally came, their stubbornness lifted them above the smoldering, distant landscape to the stars hanging overhead like a billion guideposts pointing to the truth.
A shrieking rumble toward the west and billows of smoke and ash rose over the tree line and drifted toward the woods where they huddled together. It grew colder as the sky darkened with the gray haze. A bitter smell bit at their noses. They gripped sharpened pikes they had made in a frenzy of preparation. To do nothing was unthinkable, and to think they would prevail was only a bleak hope.
The boys stacked stones as a boundary, a retaining wall to guard them from the river of fire that was supposed to flow from the dragon’s mouth like a plume of lava. They had no hope in any of these weapons or defenses. They knew they would not win, only swallowed in flame. Both searched the blackening sky, waiting for their end. They would only resist the dragon, not defeat it. The dragon would win, but they prayed they would stick in its throat like a bone and choke the life out of its hellish lungs.
“I think I hate waiting more than I’ll hate dying,” Jude said. “I don’t think we’ll feel much—for long. But we fight to the end. Do you hear me? With everything I have, I’ll fight for you. You fight for me,” Jude cleared his throat. There was choking from emotion, anger welling like a wave, stubborn venom for all he was losing, all that had fallen in this sweet old world. He looked away from his brother toward the dark green of the English ivy snarled around the thick trunk of a tulip tree to his left.
Abel didn’t say anything. He fought back nausea and fear that pulled at him as strong as a tide, ripping his courage to shreds.
Over the tree line on the horizon, a black shape waved like a leaf lifted by a hard fall breeze. It was angular and frenetic in its flight toward the boys and their destruction.
“It’s not going to be much of a fight. We can’t beat this thing! If we fight, we’ll be dead—ashes,” Abel said. His voice was shaking from anger and fear.
“It doesn’t matter. We’ll still fight. We’ll do it anyway,” Jude said.
“What if we run? Maybe we should hide and figure out a way to fight this thing. Maybe somebody else can help. Let's find somebody who knows how we can win,” Abel said.
Slowly, Jude raised his head, following the dark shape growing as it neared. Glimpses of blood red could be seen on its sides as its twisting flight caught flashes of sunlight cutting through the gaps in the heavy clouds and drifting smoke. He watched the dragon grow larger against the sky, locking his eyes on the body that writhed at the center of its wings; its length glowed like a furnace.
“No, no, no. No matter what, I’ll fight,” Jude said.
“Okay. I will, too,” Abel whispered, then stood hefting a long and wide shield both boys made from panels they found on the smoldering remains of a house with a metal roof. The panels and their insulation had survived the fiery blast that turned the home, and probably the family shuddering inside, to cinders.
Jude looked at his brother with affection and sadness. He lamented that their last years should flow swiftly like a river over a waterfall, spent like mist in the air, like God’s rainbow over white water.
The dragon grew bigger, its shape more distinct in the darkening sky—a silhouette, heavy and threatening. It dropped over hundreds of yards, moving toward the tree line where Jude and Abel waited. They wished they had guns. But guns and ammunition had become as scarce as food packed in shiny tight wrappers on supermarket shelves.
Now, the dragon was closer.