The Forever Grass
His tongue was scorched, dry as a desert, sticking to the roof of his mouth. Each time he tried to swallow, the inside of his throat felt like a thousand needles poking through it. His hands drifted to his cracked lips, but the effort to lick them brought no relief. Marching for so long, his internal fuel reserve had been depleted.
"Thirsty," he tried whispering. It didn't come out right, the sound barely passing through the throat.
He had not noticed that his flask was empty. Shaking it, barely a drop came out. The human body can survive for weeks without food. Without water, it can only do so for a maximum of tree days.
Pafe's childhood guides often referred to the rule of 3 when teaching him about survival in the wild. You can survive 3 minutes without air, 3 days without a sip of water, and 3 weeks without food.
How much time has passed since his last drink? Pafe wasn't sure. In his state, he had only concentrated on moving forward. However, now his entire body was shutting down. It needed liquids. Fast.
Where to find water? There must be some source nearby. After all, he wasn't in a desert. He was surrounded by green. And green signified life. And life depended on water.
Squinting in the sun, he tried to catch a glimpse of anything that might point him in the right direction. There wasn't much to go on. Only grass everywhere.
The Forever Grass was a vast stretch of grass spreading out in all directions. He knew it was so great that it took months to cross it from one side to the other. The landscape was mostly flat, but varied in places.
Pafe thought back to a lesson his teacher gave on it. He pictured the old man's face and his slow matter-of-fact way of talking.
"The Forever Grass is located to the east of clan lands. It is inhabited by different types of nomadic peoples. You have the fierce raiders of the western steppes, who can cover long distances in short amounts of times. The vast prairies of the middle are inhabited by horse-mounted tribes who live in small camps made up of tepees. In the east, the herders of the plains survive off of breeding herds of cows, sheep, and camels," he recalled his teacher saying.
"At different points, the tall grasses of the prairie were replaced by short grasses of the steppe, to be once again replaced by the tall grasses," was the way the old man described the scenery.
"What have I gotten myself into?" Pafe tried mumbling, a way to keep sane amid the predicament. The sounds didn't leave his throat.
Pafe didn't know much about the Forever Grass and what he could encounter there. He had heard stories, ones told around the campfires of his castle at night. However, most of these were embellished tall-tales which had very little to do with reality.
Walking on, he kept a lookout for anything that could help him out of his difficult situation. As time passed, this determination began to wane. His parched lips were beginning to crack. The pain kept increasing, weakening his concentration.
It felt useless. A hint of despair entrenched itself in the back of his mind, only prevented from growing bigger by the fact his head was spinning. It's as if the world had suddenly started shaking.
His skull kept falling lower, the neck breaking under its weight. At that point, he had almost given up. His eye was no longer scanning the horizon. The legs were just trudging on.
Then, his feet stumbled into something. Mud. Continuing on, the ground started to feel wet. Straightening up his head, he opened his good eye wide. Spread in front of him was what he was searching for.
He found a pond of water, nestled between the grass. There was horse manure all around, and flies everywhere, but not much of a smell.
At least he couldn't smell anything. He didn't know whether this was a reflection of there really being no odor, or rather because of the fact that his nose was plugged shut by dried up blood.
The water seemed kind of murky, but it didn't matter. Pafe's mouth was cracking. His tongue was as dry as a desert. The mere thought of liquid sent ripples of anticipation inside him.
He kneeled on the ground, and then tilted his body towards the water. In quick gulps, he swallowed up the life-giving liquid. He drank it fast to quench his thirst.
It seemed to revitalize him, but only for a minute. As soon as he drank it, a queasy feeling started developing inside his stomach. Soon, he began throwing up.
As mountains of vomit entered the water, his good eye spotted other things inside of the pond. Dead animal carcasses were floating around. The water must have been contaminated.
Pafe got up, but kept stumbling around. Somehow, he managed to move forward. Not sure where he was going, his body kept on thrusting ahead.
He walked on for days, in a hazy mental state, not even sure he was drinking or eating. Looking up, he saw vultures circling overhead. You know you are a dead man when these birds are not leaving your side.
At certain moments, his mind managed to string together some coherent thoughts. He kept on thinking about his past. Self-doubt, his eternal nemesis, was making an overtime appearance. He wasn't worthy, he thought.
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Why did he think someone cursed from birth could somehow escape his destiny? He didn't deserve to be a leader. He wasn't worthy of anything, but contempt.
These thoughts were running in his head, but not for long. Even a mind as active as Pafe's can get tired. With his reserves being depleted once again, the going kept getting harder.
After a time, his legs began to give way. He could no longer go on. There was no energy left. Not even willpower could overcome this physical fact. His body collapsed into the soft embrace of the grass below him.
Lying on Forever Grass in delirium, the young man kept on reflecting. His final moments were near. It's not how he imagined his last breaths, but sometimes you can't choose how you go out. He would certainly not be the first man to die alone, in the middle of nowhere, nor the last .
"Well, at least I won't die in a ditch," he mumbled.
His mind kept replaying his story. He was a man cursed from birth. His bad eye was a sign of that.
He thought he could escape his fate, but somehow he had made it worse. He kept replaying the moment he took out his eye, believing it would change his destiny.
The ripping out of his eye occurred after his father had died, but before the funeral. It was meant to show he was worthy to be his father's successor, the leader of the Tanamuse clan. It accomplished nothing. He knew that now.
He had imagined his story differently. A man with a bad eye comes to the scene. He is fierce. After tearing out his mark of shame, he has to battle his way to power in the clan.
He becomes the leader of the clan born of fire. To reclaim greatness for his people, he goes on a quest to discover the ability to turn into a dragon, while at the same time going on a blood-thirsty conquest of lands.
This was the vision he was having as he lay in the grass. At the beginning of the tale, he takes out his bad eye. This memory was real. It brought him back to the torment he felt after that act.
A similar pain was just unfolding. While going in and out of delirium, he once again had visions of dragons and men turning into dragons. Dragons. And again dragons.
After he took out his eye, the sight of this creature brought him strength. Now, it was just torture. He wasn't a dragon. He would never be a dragon. His family was right. He had no dragon blood.
--
Where the eagles fly
He didn't know how long he lay there. It could have been hours. It could have been days.
His mind had been blank. Now, the inner vision was returning. He still wasn't feeling fit, but somehow he felt better. The bouts with delirium had subsided, his body was getting some of its energy back.
A light rain had fallen, drops of water invading his mouth, moistening it, giving him another lease on life. It still took some effort to move the limbs, but at least his abilities were returning.
Digging into his pack, he discovered a few crackers. Gobbling them down, he made sure not to leave a single crumb uneaten. That gave him the strength to get back up once again, and continue walking.
If he had the ability to see himself from the side, he would realize what a sorry sight he was. His clothes torn, his side bloodied, the wrap around his bad eye dirty, he seemed more like a sick pauper, than the heir of a noble clan he really was.
It was once again a matter of putting one leg in front of the other. There was no ability to plan, much less imagine the future. He stopped caring. If he lived, he lived. If he died, he died.
He wasn't dead yet, so he should continue. However, if the Grim Reaper comes to visit him, he will not give much of a fight.
Pafe looked up at the sky. The vultures were gone. Perhaps they sensed he had pulled away from the brink of death. The valley of shadows was nowhere in sight.
On the horizon, he saw a lone eagle flapping its wings, majestically floating through the air. As a kid, he had spent hours, sometimes days, watching birds like this flying through the air. While coasting or catching prey, they projected a sense of power and complete control.
With dragons gone, they were the kings of the sky. Their vantage point gave them a unique perspective. Whereas everyone else saw the world in a line, they saw it from up top.
As he was eyeing the bird, Pafe thought he noticed what must be figures in the distance. Was he dreaming? Were his hallucinations coming back?
Clouds of dust appeared to rise up from the ground. They got closer and closer. He could now pick out individual riders on horses. Feathers in their hair, they wore strangely colored vests, with bows and arrows strapped to their backs. Some of them were brandishing small throwing axes in their hands, while others held big sticks.
Were these men, actual living men? Or were these ghosts?
His thoughts wondered about their purpose. Are they the horsemen of the Grim Reaper? Have they come to take him to the underworld, to the land of the dead?
It didn't matter. Whatever happens, happens. If they want him, they need to make an effort. He didn't care if he lived or died. He made peace with his predicament, but was determined to keep on walking.
The men lined their horses around him, blocking his path forward.
"Let me pass," stated Pafe. He kept on going, as if the horsemen weren't there.
One of the men on a horse beat him down with a stick. Pafe tumbled to his knees, but got back up. Another man on a horse swung his stick at the youngster, hitting him across the face. A deep cut opened up, but Pafe continued on walking. Then, he once again got hit and fell on his knees, but got back up.
The warriors on horses spoke a foreign tongue between each other. They kept looking at Pafe, and pointing in his direction.
Annoyed, Pafe raised his voice: "Come on! Let me be!"
The men continued talking between each other. Pafe continued on mumbling. He knew he was going to die, but he didn't want to go quietly. He would curse his way to hell.
The voices of the warriors got louder, and some of them put up their axes in the air. Then, one of the men raised his hand, and the chatter between them suddenly stopped.
"Ah, he speaks the Western Tongue," stated the man on the horse. Pafe listened. Did he just understand what the man said?
"Stop! We won't harm you," said the man on the horse. Yes, Pafe definitely understood that. The mounted warrior spoke in his language.
The man noticed what language Pafe spoke, and incidentally that man could also speak it. The mounted warriors spoke The Tongue Of the Prairie People, a language no one outside of the few prairie tribes understood.
The Dragon clan of the Tanamuse spoke the Western Tongue, a language spoken by most of the people of the lands in the west. Due to traders passing by, some of the inhabitants of the Forever Grass also managed to pick it up.
The mounted warrior started saying something to the rest of the men on horses. Initially, the men wanted to kill the foreigner. Yet, when they saw his defiance and indifference to death, they spared him.
More men on horses joined them, some of them tugging along rider-less horses laden with provisions.
"Come with us," commanded the mounted warrior who spoke the Western Tongue to Pafe. Some of the men dismounted off their horses and put him up on one of the free animals. Then, they rode back in the direction from which they came from, with the young Dragon man in tow.
