Ten Minute Tales : The Bridge by Erica Lainé

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The Bridge
by
Erica Lainé 
For Mike Welch 

The city had grown stone by stone, near the two rivers, which flowed together in a turmoil. Never quiet here and no boats could make their way through the rough water. But a city was built and with it a castle, a stronghold, huge blocks to protect the kings and princes. Bridges were made across the turbulent water and into the castle so that men and carts could come and go. Soldiers clattered on the roads and into the keep. Watchmen on the towers, vigilant and stern. This was a fortress worth its name...

DRACO

It had been a long trek up from the coast, several moons had grown big and become like the curve of woman when she was filled with child. And then shrunk away, eaten by the dark.  But here was a good place to camp and consider the earth. To rest. The women sat and made the fire. They carried the magic in their pouches; it lit twigs and dried leaves. Only three women could do this, they were the hearth women, the rest stood guard so that the wolves would not find the secret and the men made a circle around them, their spears and staves at the ready. Fire was good. Fire kept them safe. Soon they would begin to build huts here and work the ground for planting. And the goats and cattle would make the soil alive with their dung and the people could be fed.

     When the spring came the young men, some of them as tall as their mothers, with voices that had begun to grow deep after years of lightness, went off to begin their lives as wolves. They shivered in the dawn, looking at the mountains where they would climb away from the villages full of corn and cattle. This must be and was known for all time, and was told and retold by the fires at night. A story they must understand and then they must live the story to make it part of them. The women whispered how the god had come down among the goats and strangled one so it would not bleat, and dragged it away to feed. The god had teeth that could crunch the bones, eat the pelt, lick the blood so that the ground was dry. And that once a she god had suckled some young, not of the god’s making, but young belonging to one of the villages. And two boys had grown strong on wolves’ milk.

      And the seven young men listened and felt proud that some like them had been fed by the wolves. Now they must live like a wolf, take what they can from the weak, prowl on the unsuspecting, and when they had proved themselves, they would come back here and wear the wolf skin and the mask with the other men. There would be dancing and some would howl while the totem was carried around the fires, the magic would be stronger each time.

***

A year passed and five men came back from the mountains, taller and stronger, brown limbs, scarred backs and tough faces. The women greeted them with laughter and led them into the heart of the village where the men waited, standing, arms wide to show they were welcome. And the women held the young men and inked their arms with symbols and each woman showed them a magic circle that was a dark blue about their ankles, and whispered that this was eternity.

      Goats’ milk was offered steeped in the fly mushroom and all drank. The energy flowed through and the women sang, high voices reaching to the sky to tell of what would become when the group was as one. Such strong young men, so vigorous in their dancing, as the wolf pelts were thrown across their shoulders, the head masks making them appear even taller and fiercer.

     But three men and one woman, the woman who picked and prepared the fly mushroom, were leaping higher than everyone and falling to the ground before they leapt again and again. And the man who guarded the totem signalled for silence.

       And the four told what they could see, the wolf was there, powerful, eyes that pierced the world, but this wolf had two brothers, there were three heads, howling or watching. And the three heads had the body of a great armoured snake. 

       The Draco had come, to guard this village and all the villages, to guard the wealth that was found in the mountains, to guard the secrets that the women owned, fire and magic.  And this night in the late spring when new life would begin, would make the most powerful of all people. And the wolf dragon would protect them forever against evil.

***

And it happened that the world turned many times and the people who were born from that night of the Draco, built houses and temples, they mined for the gold, silver and copper in the mountains, they traded back to the coast and beyond. The houses were full of fine pots, tapestries, marble was used to make benches and tiny pink and gold shells were embedded into the local stone.

      And the great wealth and all the possessions and knowledge made others angry and they wanted what was here and came with fighting men from far away.

      The battles and wars were bloody and bitter, the people called on the Draco, and the women said we will help. And they made several great hollow dragon wolf heads that were mounted on poles to be held up into the wind where the air filled and whistled, and the heads shrilled and twisted as if alive. And horsemen carried these into the battle. High and strong. The bravest of them all, one scribe wrote, were the people who followed the Draco

      And so the Draco was carried across mountains and rivers, carried through forests and snowfields, carried up to high castles and onto boats. Other people took the Draco with them into battle and believed in the strength and magic that was there. Believed that when people went to their deaths, they went happy, knowing that the Draco would wrap them in its tail and that they would fly near the sun, coiled together. Not only fighting people wanted to follow the Draco, it was told that a huge man, taller than a tree, took the head of the Draco for his own head and marched into the river with a staff and a cross, fearing nothing.

      But then the Draco slumbered. Too many wars, too many battles.And the wolf dragon was made into gold and silver bracelets that the women twisted around their wrists, no one carried him high in the air, close to the sky where he had come from. Instead noisy war came from the sky, came from the forests, came up the rivers. Fighters in glancing armour and others in drab uniform like the trees, and others who falsely claimed to be the brothers of the wolf dragon and snarled at any who disagreed.

       Under the great bridge that linked the fortress with the world, the wolf dragon lay; weary with the fighting and the cruelty. It wanted the magic again and the young men leaping and dancing, the songs that told the story and to see the women who knew how to pick the fly mushroom, who knew how to ink the magic into a man. And in its slumbers the Draco dreamed and the dream was in the river under the bridge. And the dream whispered every day as the current tumbled the water past the castle and the water splashed onto the rocks and the dream ran deep in the crevices of the old stone. And the Draco turned under the bridge and lashed its tail and lifted its wolf heads and yawned.

 © Erica Lainé 
website: https://ericalainewriter.com/

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