Chapter 11: The Song
The green dragon walked slowly down the river, following the lingering scent left by the strange two-legs. He had his head down and was deep in thought. He suddenly snarled and breathed a shot of fire.
‘Aargh, maybe I shouldn’t do this after all,’ he sighed, thinking back to his pack.
He had only been away for four days and now and he was already beginning to miss his pack. He had been missing his pack ever since he entered the lonely expanse of the desert.
He looked up at the sky to find it dimming into another sunset. The dragon smiled and took to the wing, flying up into the sky to see the sky change colour. He hovered, watching it go down. He thought he caught a glimpse of blue against the horizon but couldn’t be sure.
He glided down to the river again and landed. He didn’t feel like flying at that moment. Sharrag laughed at the thought. Him, tired of flying? He shook his head; he really was in a strange mood.
The green dragon was suddenly startled by a growl from the darkness of the forest. It sounded a lot like the growl of a Shrrg, but a lot less terrifying. He snared back with a deep rumble. He really wasn’t in the mood to be terrorised by forest animals.
A wolf stalked out of the forest, hackles raised and teeth bared. It caused Sharrag to stop in confusion. It was a Shrrg, he was sure, but it was a lot smaller. More like the size of a human dog he had seen once. He frowned, there usually were others with it in the pack. He quickly spread his mind through the forest to find at least ten of them stalking around him, and they were looking for food.
Sharrag snarled at the wolf and snorted a burst of green fire. The wolf hesitated, confused at the sudden flash of light. It backed away slightly, but its territorial instinct drove it forward.
Sharrag sighed when he felt that the wolves weren’t intending on retreat. He didn’t really want to hurt them, he like wolves, but he guessed he was in their territory. He had scented a strange scent earlier.
Trying a second option he reached out his mind to the wolf, tying to communicate with it, but it’s intellect and understanding was a lot less refined then that of a Shrrg, even an average one. If anything it’s only instincts were to hunt, look after its pack and reproduce. Not things that the Shrrg were always focused on.
The wolf suddenly leapt at the dragon. Sharrag snarled and swatted it out of the air with his tail, causing it to fall onto ground whimpering. The wolves that were in the forest instantly attacked. They leapt straight into the waiting claws of the dragon on the shoreline. He scattered them easily. They were nowhere near as difficult as the enemies he faced in the Beor Mountains. He made sure he didn’t deal to many serious blows, for he knew an injured wolf was a wolf worth leaving behind, for most packs anyway.
The wolves began to back away, beginning to see that Sharrag would be able to destroy them all rather easily. They left their injured comrades and sprinted into the forest. From what he could tell from their minds there were about ten more wolves back at the den, either pregnant females or cubs. It would be enough to keep up their numbers.
The three injured wolves were whimpering in pain. One had a broken leg, caused by his tail. Another seemed to have a broken back. It wouldn’t last long. The last one was cut along the side, and was loosing a lot of blood. It wouldn’t last long either.
Sharrag walked up to the one that had a broken back to put it out of its misery, but was startled by the sound of voices from behind. He quickly dashed into the forest and hid, trying to see who they were. Two of the strange two-legs walked out of the forest. They had bows on their backs and a delicate sword at their waist. He doubted they would withstand any hard blows, probably made for quick and light attacks.
The two-legs stopped when they saw the three injured wolves they stopped and gasped. One of them rushed over to the wolves and the other, probably the more wary, drew an arrow and knocked it into the string. It called out something to its companion in a magical voice. It spoke of danger.
The other one nodded and knelt by the wolf injured by the claw marks. It whimpered and tried to crawl away from the two-leg, but it calmed it with a few words of the magical language. It then said something else in the language, but this time the words were laced with power and its hands glowed slightly.
“Waise Heill,” said the voice.
The claw wounds in the wolf closed over and the wolf closed its eyes in relief. After a few moments it got to its feet, still week from loosing so much blood, and ran into the forest. The two-leg sat back in exhaustion. Sharrag could see from the look on its face that it was surprised at the exhaustion.
The other two-leg said something to the other one, and drew its sword over the broken wolf. It laid its hand over its head and said something to it, giving it calming reassurance. It then drew its sword over the wolf’s throat, putting it out of its misery. They then healed the last one of its broken leg and stood up as it ran off.
They looked at each other and began speaking. Sharrag could feel from there words that they were confused about what had happened from the wolves. He then heard them mention a word, and his form seemed to shudder slightly. He tilted his head as they mentioned again. Skulblaka. He frowned as he sensed that the word, whatever it was, meant dragon. Not in the way that the word dragon meant dragon, but it was the very essence of the creatures.
His focus was drawn away from his thoughts when something touched his mind. He growled and instantly shielded it. One of the two-legs pointed to where he was hiding. With a growl Sharrag took off into the forest as fast as any wolf, leaving the two-legs far behind. He hoped he wasn’t seen.
He spread his mind back and was startled when he felt them closing in on him slowly. He pushed himself for a greater speed, running through the trees easily. He had run through denser forest then this before with ease. He debated flying into the air, but instantly thought against it. He would definitely be seen then and he would need to be in a clearing to take off anyway.
After almost an hour of running the two-legs fell away. Sharrag stopped and hid in a denser part of the bush. After he was sure that they had gone he took a sigh of relief and walked out of the bush, glancing around. With a snarl he realised that that he was a long way from where he had first started, and couldn’t even scent the water river anymore.
Grumbling to himself he began to go back the way he had come, or at least what he thought was the way he had come. He wasn’t the best dragon with directions. The forest where he was looked denser then the other parts of the forest he had been to. He guessed it was a place that not many things went to.
As he walked along a small drone reached his ears. He growled and shook his head, thinking it was because of a headache or something else, but no matter what he did the drone didn’t leave him. It slowly began to become louder and words began to join in with the melody.
As it became louder Sharrag noticed the forest becoming alive with sounds. Everything from the chirping of crickets from the long howls of the wolves that lived in the area. Sharrag himself began to feel something within his chest. It was the feeling of longing.
Something rushed past his feet, then something else. Before long the ground seemed to be alive with little creatures that were all over the place. Sharrag shook his head as the song continued to get louder and louder. His mind filled with images of the blue dragoness from earlier. Saphira. The dragon let a long low keen that spread through the forest. He felt like something was driving him forward and it fogged his mind with images. He let out another keen, wishing he was with the blue dragoness called Saphira, yet he didn’t know where she was.
The song continued to get louder and louder and the forest thrummed with the sound. It seemed alive as even the trees seemed to be pulled together with the song. The tree leaves danced and the roots mingled with another’s.
The forest was alive with sound, a lot different from the sounds of before. Sharrag whipped his head around and bit into a tree, trying to get rid of the longing feeling that covered swirled around his mind. It was dangerous. Finally a rational part of the dragon’s mind managed to gain some control.
‘I need to get out of here,’ he thought.
He jumped into the air and began to flap his wings. He didn’t care about who would see him or that the trees were to close for him to launch off safely. He just wanted to get out.
Branches stabbed at his wings, drawing blood from several places. Sharrag ignored that and continued to push himself out from the undergrowth. Be breathed fire into the sky, incinerating the brush in front of him and finally he was free into the air, yet the song still haunted him.
The dragon let out a deep roar that covered the sky. He growled and shook his head as he struggled to hover where he was. Every sound seemed to be in sharp detail and in the distance he thought he heard another roar, yet it was to far away to be sure.
Sharrag keened once more before flying off in a random direction. He didn’t care where he went as long as it was away from the haunting song that cast a spell over the whole forest. It felt like he was melting inside and loosing control. He didn’t want to loose control.
He snarled as he struggled with the different images that flashed through his head, and his reality. The song haunted him as he flew, driving him further and further away. It was all too much for the young dragon to take at once. It was like someone was trying to control him.
He let loose another roar and a jolt of fire, and he pushed himself for more speed. He wanted to get away from this place. Wanted to get away and never see it again. Its beauty haunted him and the song that strung across the land was attacking his mind. If his mind was attacked at that moment then he wouldn’t have stood a chance.
He flew for hours and hours, zigzagging across the landscape, but no matter where he flew he couldn’t get rid of that song. The sun began to peek over the horizon and without thinking Sharrag flew towards it. It’s light almost comforted him.
Suddenly a familiar feeling washed over him, and his wings locked up. He cried out in alarm and plummeted to the ground. He tried to open his wings again but couldn’t. The dragon crashed head on into a tree. The last thing he remembered was the absence of the song.
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Hey guys, new chapter. I hope you enjoyed. Please vote and comment if you did, I know I keep asking this but it'd make my day :) Next chapter out soon, See Ya!
Pennator^^
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