Sharrag watched as Angela disappeared into the forest. It had been nearly a month since he had returned and Angela had told him that she was planning on joining in the war effort in Surda. He was sad to see her go but happy at the same time. As good a friend she was, she wasn’t a natural part of this environment and always changed up the place a little every time she was around.

With a sigh he turned around and walked back inside the cave where his pack lived. It was a rather large cave, more then big enough for the five Shrrg and their pups, as well as the Urzhad, who he had come to call Mae. At that moment she was in the corner, lying near the stack of weapons that he had started collecting from the many soldiers that had been patrolling the area. In the middle of the cave burned an emerald green fire that sent warmth through the cave. Winter had come early, the first winter Sharrag had experienced and he found himself warming up the cave with the occasional fire. The Shrrg seemed to enjoy the warmth provided by it as well.

To one side two of the Shrrg, Siserl and Craves, were sparring with each other. It was a little strange to see the two wolves fight. They each held a sword in their mouths, pointing to the right. When they struck at each other they would run forward and swing their heads sideways, or rush forward and angle themselves so the blade would pass through the opponent. They never hurt each other badly, which Sharrag was thankful, for they knew how dangerous these weapons were.

The two sparring Shrrg clashed together and the sound of steel rang through the cave. Mae’s ears twitched at the sound and a low growl came from her throat. The wolves backed up from each other before charging again. Siserl leapt above Craves and landed on his back, her extra weight bringing the wolf to the ground. She placed the blade of the sword against his neck and he snorted.

‘Well done Siserl,’ said Sharrag with a nod of his head.

She nodded back, ‘Thanks you.’

It helped that they were beginning to add more words to their vocabulary. It was slow work but slowly and surely Sharrag was teaching them, even if he wasn’t the most fluent speaker himself.

Craves got to his feet and took a few couple of steps back and the two were back to sparring. Sharrag turned his attention away from the two and curled up near the fire. Two of the Shrrg were out at the moment, Talismen and Tay’el, while Seriah was getting over her recent pregnancy. She had birthed another four cubs with took the total of the pack up to ten and three, including the other pups.

Sharrag closed his eyes a fell to sleep with what he thought was the rather pleasant clanging of metal against metal.

* * *

After a few hours the green dragon woke again, to a strange scent. With a frown he got up, sending out his mind. He met up with Talismen who he was pleased to find was nearly back at the cave.

‘Do you smell that?’ he asked the Shrrg.

‘Yes, smell like you, but…’ the wolf paused, unsure of the word.

‘Different?’

‘Yes. Different.’

Sharrag padded towards the cave opening and looked outside. He scanned across the valley and was rewarded by the sight of a red something disappearing behind a mountain at the other end of the valley. Sharrag flew off from the cave and rose into the air, flying towards the mountain where the red something disappeared.

He flew higher until he was passing just above the smallest mountains. He found he liked flying high. After he had returned from his trip he had missed flying above the mountains and sometimes went up there again and flew around for an hour or two, enjoying the silence. Now he was doing it to catch whatever this red thing was.

He stayed at the height he was flying, passing over into the next valley. As he scanned the ground below he caught a flash of red once again. He focused on it and the longer he did the more he was surprised. It was a dragon, or at least what looked like a dragon.

The colour of it was blood red. It was a little smaller then him and on its back was a rider of the strangest look. This rider was wearing similar armour to what the soldiers of the empire had worn and his weapons were the same as well.

‘A dragon and rider,’ thought Sharrag with confusion.

His confusion grew as he recognised the rider. It was the human he had seen that was riding the horse, the first time he had seen Saphira. He was high above the dragon so it didn’t see him. He began to tilt his angle so he would meet up with it, but something stopped him.

The way the rider dressed and the way they were scanning the ground made him hesitate. He also didn’t reach out his mind in case they noticed him.

‘There hunting for something,’ he thought again.

He stretched out his mind to Talismen and Tay’el, ‘Get to the cave, now.’

The Shrrg sensed the urgency of this message and began to run towards the cave, dragging their catch with them. Sharrag titled his wings and began to fly back towards the cave. He took a steep dive on the opposite side of the mountain to the blood red dragon and landed in front of the cave with a large thud. He walked into the cave just as Talismen and Tay’el returned from their hunt.

‘What wrong?’ asked Tay’el, dumping her catch in another corner of the cave.

Sharrag didn’t answer and prodded Mae awake with his mind. The bear growled but got up all the same and plodded over to them. She sat on her haunches, looking at Sharrag. She preferred to talk to the dragon through images and feelings rather then words. Why, Sharrag did not know.

He spread out his mind to all the creatures in the cave that were old enough to understand and showed them what he had seen. The Shrrg were interested in the new findings, and confused.

‘Good thing? Bad?’ asked one of them.

‘Bad, I think,’ replied the dragon, ‘We must hide.’

He made sure to use short words with the Shrrg because they found it difficult to understand large sentences and words. Mae sent a couple of images to him, asking why they would have to hide from this dragon and its rider. Sharrag showed her an image of the red dragon breathing fire at the Shrrg and another picture of him and the red dragon clawing at each other. It was then followed by a picture of a small army of humans coming and slaying the Shrrg pups and her babies. Mae growled.

‘Just until he go’s,’ said the dragon, ‘Then we don’t worry.’

The Shrrg and the Urzhad agreed. They were going to lay low for a while until the dragon disappeared. Sharrag sighed; it would be a restless couple of days. He knew the Shrrg didn’t like to be cooped up but if they were seen in their new armour and weapons then they would stand out to any dragon. He would just have to hope that they wouldn’t search this area with their minds.

* * *

As Sharrag predicted the next three days went by rather slowly. The Shrrg filled there time by practicing their swordsmanship and learning a few new words. The constant clanging of blades didn’t bode well with Mae however and she often came up to the Shrrg and pinned them down, growling at them to stop. They rarely did and decided they would rather pick on the bear. A few times Sharrag had to stop Mae from tearing them up.

On the third day Sharrag poked out his head to look up at the sky again. Three days was enough time to explore this area thoroughly. If the dragon was here any longer they would be found soon anyway. However Sharrag decided to test his theory first.

He flapped his wings and once more was above the trees. He flew high into the air and passed the clouds with a couple of flaps of his wings.

He smiled at the feel of getting into the air again. He loved flying. Once he was above the clouds he stayed their for a while, scanning the area below for any sign of the red dragon. After an hour or so he smiled when he found not trace of it.

He pulled into a dive and descended back to mountain level. He glided towards the cave slowly, relaxing for the first time in a few days. It didn’t last long however as all his tension came back in an instant as the challenging roar of a dragon sounded behind him. He looked backwards and growled. The blood red dragon was charging towards him, and it didn’t look like it was going to stop.

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Hey guys, hope you enjoyed this chapter. Vote and comment if you did, a new one will be out as soon as I can get it. See Ya!

Pennator^^