The Village of War

An idea that came to pass in the imaginations of my brother and me.

It was sunset as I pulled up to the village. It was very small, arranged in an almost perfect formation of a square, with only three houses; one empty. The center of the village was where most things happened, a smithy is stationed there. The villagers spent day and night making weapons and armor to defend themselves - although there were very few villagers; by six from my count in the whole perimeter. As I got off my horse and tied him up, a man greeted me. I did not know his name and was unwilling to ask.

He told me of the history of this village, adventures and how it started. He said, "Only about two months ago my friend and I (and neither would he tell me their names) were lost in a forest. We wondered for a while until coming upon a swamp; we traveled only a little longer and found a village. It was just as small as it is now, but there were many, cheerful citizens, by my count 30. We were welcomed warmly, they gave us places to stay. We unpacked and set up our things. The next morning we woke, the village was in dreadful need of leather."

"The swamp was full of animals, we killed several and came back, the village cheered on our return. While we were at the village, a local told us that the blacksmith had died; and so we started setting up our own there, and we became the new smiths. But for the time, all we had were stone knives. During the night, raiders came. They killed several of the villagers and almost killed me and my friend. I heard a bang on my door, a bandit was breaking in. I grabbed my clumsy knife and opened the door to attack. It certainly was a foolish move."

"He slashed and swiped at me, I almost died, but I managed to escape. I found my friend outside, the bandit leader was fighting him, he was barely managing to hold off. We had no armor, nothing more than some rags, while the bandits had copper chain and steel. It was a miracle, but we actually managed to hold off the raid. I struck at the bandit king and he died, his crown skittered to the floor. The rest of the bandits ran for their lives, after that, we decided it would be good to make some of our own armor."

"Raids like this happened almost every week, that is why so little people are even remaining. During one of those weeks, we heard a dragon roar, what was left of the village was frightened. They all hid and told us to hide too. But I was determined, even with this little stone knife. My friend stayed behind while I scouted out the dragon. I found him: he was a beautiful green shade with horns upon his head, he was flying incredibly fast. Never have I seen such speed! I ran for my life and made it back home. It would be a while until I could take on a dragon.

"After that, the forge was up and running, today and night we hammered away, making fine weapons out of copper, bronze, and steel. Suddenly, one day while we were crafting armors and weapons, a house caught on fire. We rushed to put it out, and just as we did, a dragon whose skin was blood red came and attacked. With our better weapons, we battled it - the battle was over quicker than it started. We put out the fire and celebrated in triumph. We were invincible with these weapons and we still are.

"We destroyed the bandit's castle, just my friend and me, we raided bandit villages, saving captives, just my friend and me. We were undefeatable: slaying dragons and killing bandits."

As he ended his story I stood up in awe. Just as I did, I heard bandits. The men grabbed their weapons, just the two from the story, and equipped their armor. I grabbed my bow and iron knife and got ready to fight. An arrow barely missed me, I fired back and hit my target. The men charged straight into battle, one with his long iron sword parried and killed; the other, with his bronze sword, quickly killed and defeated anyone in his path. The battle was over in a breeze, they were undefeatable. Then all of the sudden a dragon appeared, not like the ones I knew, not kind and wise, with no real intention of destruction; this one was fierce. One man swung onto a roof and jumped on the dragon, the other went for his belly, he was dead within seconds.

I have never seen such fierceness in a dragon, I decided this was a scary place, no wonder they fought so well and with such courage. I soon left with awe in my mind, along with confusion.