The Dragon Chaser

The Dragon Chaser stood on the shores of Atlantis, vigilant. She had watched these skies for years.

Waiting. Anticipating. Knowing.

The blood that ran through her veins was inextricably linked to the power of the Dragons and she knew in her heart that they would come, with a conviction she had never felt before. The last time they came, drawn to the power of the island, the tsunami from their wings was so large, it reached the mountain, devastating everything in its wake.

It couldn’t happen again. Atlantis couldn’t withstand another attack.

Katarina turned to look back towards the harbour, where fishing boats bobbed up and down, unperturbed, peaceful and serene on the calm, green waters. The people of the city were like ants, moving around in their daily routines and chores, children headed down cobbled streets to school rooms that welcomed them safely, and they were all blissfully unaware of what was coming. Only the Chaser was ready.

In times past, she would have had an army of women waiting with her, ready to face the cloud of Dragons and the tidal wave that followed, but the people of Atlantis had grown soft and comfortable in the time between. There was no more training for the women whose blood sang with the blaze of dragons, no more towers armed with brave and fierce warriors ready to sacrifice themselves for the good of others, and for the island of Atlantis. The Dragon Chaser was alone. Ready, willing and able to fight a battalion of dragons, not if, but when they came. And she would lose.

Shaking her head out of her reverie, Katarina turned again to face the sky. For years she had stood on this beach, silent and still. She had given away her rights to a partnership, a marriage, to children, friends, a life, purely by merit of her birth. Katarina sighed. How could it be possible to long for something you’ve never had? Had she been born into a different family line, Katarina would have had all the opportunities any other girl in Atlantis would have had, but as she was born a Chaser, so there were consequences out of her control. There were no visits to houses to gossip over the latest round of intrigue in the city. There was no walking her children to school and saying hello to the same faces each morning, building relationships that would help her navigate the world as she knew it. There were no glances across a busy tavern, catching the eye of someone to take home to fill the empty hours of the night or the empty space in her bed. Hers was a world of warfare and sacrifice; preparation for a day where she would lose her life to save people that she didn’t know, that didn’t know her.

She couldn’t remember the last time she had a conversation with anyone. Food was dropped off at her door in silent acknowledgment of her position, however, even this stripped her of the casual conversations one might have in a shop or at a market stall. It had been made clear to Katarina, in no uncertain terms, that the people of Atlantis preferred to keep their Dragon Chaser at a distance. Perhaps it was simply that the end of her story was cruelly inevitable. But if they didn’t know her, they couldn’t grieve her. Just another name on an epitaph, another faceless woman surrendering her life to the good of the island nation that barely knew her name. She had long since swallowed her bitterness, but the longing for something different still stung, at times.

Things were different now, though. Katarina knew that this time, there would be no etching of her name in stone, because the memorials wouldn’t take place. The yearly celebration of another twelve months without an attack simply would not happen.

She had tried to warn them, as Noah had warned his people before the Great Flood. She broke her bonds of silence and attended a council meeting to let them know that the next and very real attack would be ferocious and that as one woman, she couldn’t possibly hold back what was coming. But they hadn’t believed her. Dragon Chasers had lived and died without ever seeing a Dragon and so her concerns were dismissed as hysteria, a clamor for attention, an unnecessary expense.

But they were coming.

Whilst Atlantis slumbered, the Dragons had not. They had bred stronger, faster young and they had trained their army to kill on sight. They would create a wave so huge that the people of Atlantis would be lost beneath it, and then the Dragons would claim the island as their own, waiting for the waters to recede, waiting until the City was empty. The strange, mystical power that ran through the island would sustain and nourish the Dragons, allowing them to regroup, and leaving them free to expand their army even further. And then they would approach the mainland, where Dragon Chasers didn’t exist and all would be lost.

Katarina tensed and narrowed her eyes as a black shadow moved into sight above the horizon, her hand moving instinctively towards the crossbow on her back, ready to notch an arrow and let loose within seconds. But the Dragon didn’t make it as far as the island; seeing her on the beach it turned tail and left, disappearing behind a cloud.

A Scout. That was three in the last two days. The only advantage Katarina had was that the Dragons were unaware of how woefully, abysmally, terribly unprepared the island was.

In vain hope, Katarina had single-handedly repaired the watch towers, preparing them with kindle and branches that she could light with an arrow in an attempt to warn the people of Atlantis to ready themselves and to get to the boats. By her calculations, there were enough boats for almost everyone within the city…. if they made it to the harbour before the wave. The farmers and villages surrounding the city, however, were almost impossible to warn and Katarina couldn’t see how she could help them when the Dragons came. They would be lost to the waters, and even if they miraculously survived the rising tide, the villagers would not be armed. As a peaceful nation, Atlantis had never bothered to raise an army from its own people. After all, what was the threat? Dragons hadn’t been seen in almost a century.

But a century was a blink of an eye to a Dragon.

Katarina shifted her weight and mentally sighed, as she did every day at sunset, running through her facts to reassure herself she could rest easy. She knew the Dragons would attack in daylight, for their night vision was poor. They would send the smaller, black Dragons in first, as these could fly easily against the wind. The Great White Dragons would follow, their enormous wing beats whipping up the ocean. The Ice Dragons would then arrive, scorching the higher parts of the island with Dragon blaze, making it impossible for Atlanteans to run for higher ground when the waters reached them. And there was absolutely nothing she could do to prevent this from happening. Her crossbow may have been strong enough to take down some of the Black dragons, and maybe even some of the White, but she couldn’t fight the Ice Dragons. Not on her own.

As the sun dipped beneath the horizon, Katarina headed back up the shore to the city, headed for the Spartan cottage she called home. The one-room dwelling was sparse. A bed, a desk, a wooden table in the middle where she cooked, ate and fletched the arrows needed to pierce dragon skin. She had hundreds. A cabinet filled with weaponry that she couldn’t handle on her own.

Another day over, a night of rest.

After lighting the fire and the lamps, Katarina sat down heavily at her desk, working her fingers through the knots in her neck and shoulders that bore the weight of every citizen of Atlantis. Looking through scrolls and manuscripts for something, anything, that she had missed did not help. She had read and re-read these documents again and again and tonight, as usual, they offered nothing new.

A knock at the door. Unusual. Katarina stood and crossed the room, eyes narrowed in suspicion. She opened it a crack and there stood a child, mid-way between childhood and adolescence. A girl. She offered her arm to Katarina and there, in the fading light, glowed the unmistakable mark of a Dragon Chaser.

“They won’t let me home, Chaser,” the child-woman whispered, sorrow etched along her young features.

Katarina’s shoulders slumped further, agonising after the extraordinary stupidity of the townsfolk. “You’d best come in,” Katarina’s voice whispered in the near dark, throaty from misuse.

“I didn’t know where else to go.” Misery.

Katarina motioned for the child-woman to enter. “It’s okay. You’re safe here.”

“My parents… they took one look…” Shock.

“I know, I know. It’s okay,” Katarina shushed. “Please, sit, let me make you some tea.” She looked at the girl. More child than woman.

The child sat with her head slumped and spoke quietly. “I don’t know what happened.”

Katarina busied herself with the task of making tea. She filled the kettle from the single tap in the cottage and took it to the fire, and then she prepared two mugs of chamomile tea and crouched in front of the child.

“You’ve had a shock.” Katarina tried to clear her throat. This wasn’t the first child who had appeared on her doorstep with a mark that branded her as different. There had been others. “I can talk to your parents, if you like?”

The girl looked up, hopefully. “You can? Can you make it go away?”

Katarina shook her head, sadly. “No, child. I can’t make it go away. Your blood is the same as mine. You are a Chaser by blood, but you don’t have to become a Chaser. You can go back to your life. This, I will explain.” She sighed, and patted the child on her knee as she began to rise.

“But what about the Dragons? Will I always feel them?”

Katarina frowned. “Feel them?” This was a rare gift.

The girl nodded and looked at Katarina straight in the eye, suddenly looking older than she had before. “I can feel them, Katarina, and I can see them. They’re coming.”