Hoarder

Gruff groaned. The rattle-pop of rusted joints alarmed a lone widow spinning nightmares in the frigid shadows. Cold. Still cold. Go back to sleep. But now he had to piss.

With a grumble, he shook feeling into his tingling toes. His muscles, once battle-forged iron, cramped and ached and protested hauling what meager meat still clung to his bones.

Cold. Too cold.

He remembered a time before winter's bitter venom penetrated granite armor and trailed hoarfrost crystals down stalactite drips. The mountain's roots thrummed with warmth and living laughter. Rosy firelight spilled wondrous shadows over silver-veined firmament. Grizzled voices spun tales of bloody, heroic deeds. The resilience and bravery of the ancestors burned fierce against harrowing darkness.

Ashes now. Memories iced over.

Gruff emerged from cavernous depths into blanched daylight. He blinked one good eye against the barbarous glare. The other lid drooped dead over a sunken socket.

As he limped toward the ledge and the rocky labyrinth below, day stroked a warm, tender greeting over his face. He had slept so long in the lonely dark, he forgot the friendly banter of morning rays.

A bird pined somewhere in the needled treetops. Gruff caught the darting flap of wings overhead, and an ache stirred between his shoulder blades. How long since he crested the arc of the sky? Breathed cedar-sweetened drifts as he sailed a westerly breeze?

"Watch me, Daddy!" a giddy yip echoed across the canyon of time.

In his blind eye, he saw her. Soaring and scintillating. The sun liquid gold on her membranous wings. She swooped and roared, jubilant smoke curling from her nostrils.

"Did you see? Did you see me?"

"Yes, little one. I saw."

"Watch this!"

Gruff rumbled. Tensed. Exhaled. Blistering heat crackled through parched brush and blackened solemn stone. He slumped, breath heaving. Yesterday faded in kerosene fumes.

Cold. Too cold. Go back to sleep.

***

Shuffle. Clop. Shuffle.

Gruff twitched an ear toward the surface. Some winter-wasted animal sought shelter in his cave's mouth. Too skin and bones, no doubt, to make a worthwhile morsel. He scratched at a peeling scale and settled back onto the spinal shards heaped beneath his sagging body.

Back to little Una gnawing at tough mutton tendons, snarling with pleasure as she licked her scaly opal chin.

The warm, sinewy beauty nestled against his side lifted her sleek, horned head. "Don't eat yourself sick," she scolded, eyes laughing twilight in the ember glow.

"I'm growing, Mama!" gnarred a defiant reply.

Burning resin smoked Gruff back to his frigid lair. Bawdy shouts. Clanging metal. He opened his eye.

They spilled through the twisted corridor. Two-legged cockroaches, marching. Wicked torchlight glinted from cruel caricatures of horns and wings and swirling flames etched into their polished breastplates.

Gruff reared up into the vaulted cavern, flinging his flint-studded tail across waves of blustering steel.

Crack! Squish!

Hot, luscious scents woke a rumble in Gruff's hibernating belly. With a bellow and a lurch, his lips puckered around sour metal. Teeth crunched down to a tender spurt. Juicy. Too sweet. Lipid lumps sugared and gout-tinged.

Gruff cleansed his foul palette in a torrent of flame.

***

Dusk.

Gruff raked a clattering mound of dented armor and decapitated crossguards. Singed mail. Tarnished coin. Crown inlaid with sooted gems. He draped his bulk over his battered hoard, licking oozing blade nicks.

Cold. Too cold. Go back to sleep.

In his dreams, Una giggled and zipped, fading into a golden-winged cumulus swept away on a sun-warmed breeze.