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CHAPTER 4
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Tundor stood as still as possible. It had taken him at least an hour to get even this close. It just wasn't feasible for something as large as he was to sneak through a forest of crackling twigs and branches. The antlered kind of animal the elf had called a deer was grazing on the lower branches of a tree on the other side of a sizeable sunlit clearing. Tundor watched it intently as it reached as high as possible to nibble on the tender sprigs of green that seemed just out of reach. Tundor's other attempts at stalking had ended quickly and disastrously. It had only been on the last one that he had realized that it was necessary to circle around and approach from downwind. These deer seemed to have very sensitive noses, or perhaps dragons were smellier than he had previously realized.
“What can you expect from living on a diet of stinky fish?” he thought to himself.
He knew Candasar was probably still waiting in the little bay for him to return. He didn't want to come back to her empty-jawed. He prepared himself, coiling and tensing the large muscles of his rear legs and silently mouthing the syllable he hoped would hold the deer still long enough for him to close the gap between them. Before anything else could go wrong to ruin this chance, he lunged out from behind the thick brush while twisting his mouth in patterns complex and foreign to his reptilian ancestry.
“LETTA!” He cried loudly, although the “t” sound seemed slightly soft and hissy.
The strange feeling of energy leaving his body was distracting enough to cause him to stop mid-lunge as he jumped across the space between himself and the deer. Eerily, he could almost see invisible lines of force, as if a great mental claw was reaching out from his body, grasping and holding the object of his hunt.
The animal did not move, but its eyes were wild and terrified. It took much more out of him than he expected to hold onto the creature with his magic. His physical attack had been circumvented by the need of his mind to concentrate to maintain the spell. He returned to matters more physical.
He snapped his jaws shut around the deer's neck, twisting sharply. The bones snapped, ending its chance of escape. He dropped the deer and sagged to the ground, exhausted on a level he had not experienced since the night of his near drowning. After several minutes, he was able to rise. He gathered the animal in his jaws and returned to the water's edge.
Candasar was waiting in the shallows, her body submerged, but her neck pivoted around as she heard his approach. She slithered through the shallows as he dropped the deer at the water's edge. His legs almost buckled under him as he tried to appear unaffected by the effort. Whatever this power was based on, it took something from deep inside him. It would take some getting used to it and he would have to build up to it slowly.
“What is it?” she asked eagerly
“I'm calling it a deer,” he replied. “It's quite tasty.”
Candasar gave him a strange look but began to eat. Tundor watched her with interest as she tasted her first red meat. He remembered the wonderful flavor from the entire deer he had eaten earlier in the day and felt his mouth salivate despite himself. As if reading his mind, she looked up from the feast, her eyes glistening with amusement.
“I'm not going to be able to eat this enormous thing by myself, Tundor. Would you mind helping me with it? She asked.
He was only too happy to oblige.
Looking down at her, he suddenly realized how much he had grown in only a few short days. It seemed clear that part of the explosive growth rate came from his new diet. He was already almost as large as some of the bigger water-bound males, the ones that had dragged him away to be drowned.
"I could definitely put up more of a fight now!" he thought.
As he finished Candasar’s leftovers, Tundor could feel the weak, shaky feeling left over from using word magic begin to leave his body. By the time he had licked the last of the blood from his lips, he almost felt normal again. He would have to be careful about using this power. He didn't know what would happen if he tried to use it on two deer simultaneously. He might even lose consciousness.
His respect for the elf jumped up a notch. These powerful beings had been the adversaries of his ancestors, so it was little wonder the war was brief. It was amazing that any of his kind had survived at all. It was strange that he had never heard of water dragons attempting to use the power of the words. Perhaps the words were lost to them, he thought, if they ever had them. He asked Candasar about it.
"Do you know anything about using magic?" he asked.
She looked at him strangely. She seemed oddly self-conscious.
"Some females can use magic to attract fish," she said. "And other things."
"What other things?" he asked
She blushed.
"Some use it to attract an especially desirable mate."
He looked at her in surprise.
"Does that work?" he asked.
"I don't know," she said. "I've never tried it. I've never been very interested in mating.... before."
The 'before' had come out so softly that Tundor wasn't even sure he had heard it correctly. It was far too embarrassing to ask again, so he let it go.
He decided to ask the elf about magic instead. It was a safer conversation.
As he swam, following Candasar back toward the cavern, he began to sense something new about her. She swam strongly and looked back somewhat impatiently as he struggled to keep up. Her energy, after eating the deer, seemed greater than before. She gleamed with new power and life. Her blue color was darker, and she even seemed to look younger. He would definitely have to hunt for her again.
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Later, as he lay by her side, in the darkness of the cave, he could feel a different kind of power flowing inside her body. An energy made much more potent by the red meat he had brought to her. It was evident in every little move she made and the subtle changes of scent she had begun to make. It created a hunger in his soul he had not known before. It was all he could do to constrain himself from wanting to get closer to her, much closer. He closed his eyes tightly in the shimmering glow of the cave and tried not to think about it. It was going to be a long night.
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Cursing silently for not discarding the arrow that the young dragon had returned to him, Lothinar briefly locked eyes with his father before looking away. He didn't want his face giving away too much as he tried to create a plausible story. Lying to his father had always been extremely difficult. The man seemed to be able to somehow look into his soul. Surprisingly, it was his father who spoke again first.
“This is deer blood, Lothinar. I hope you have a good reason.”
Thinking fast, Lothinar remembered the bear cub he had seen, lost and crying for its mother the day before. He had taken it to Ardwynn, one of his fellow wardens who was gifted at nursing young or sick animals back to health. For some reason, she always seemed willing to do him favors.
“I found a starving young bear,” he said at last. “His mother was nowhere to be found and his need was great, I hunted something for it to eat and then turned it over to Ardwynn,” he said at last, forcing his eyes to meet his father's, hoping the partial lie would work.
“That was a strange decision,” his father finally replied, setting down the arrow. “Taking one life, interrupting the natural flow of nature, to save another – it is not our way.”
“The Wardens have been concerned about the number of bears declining lately, Father,” he improvised. “They believe the bears provide a deterrent that keeps the men at the village on the other end of the lake from hunting in our forest, and,” he stammered, “The deer are plentiful. What are you even doing over here, anyway?”
“I should apologize for hunting you down at work, but your mother said I would find you here. It’s been quite a while since we saw you. She misses you."
”I’ve been extremely busy.” He replied, looking down
His father nodded slowly, his eyes searching Lothinar's face for something
“I am still disturbed by your rash actions, my son,” he said sadly, seeming to have not noticed the widespread but shallow teeth marks that still lay, unmentioned, on the arrow's shaft.
“Ardwynn, one of my co-workers, thought it was a good idea for me to bring the animal to her,” Lothinar said hotly. “I felt it would be unfair not to help feed it.”
“There are ways that do not require the shedding of blood, Lothinar,” his father replied.
“I had no time to search for berries and grubs,” he replied. “The cub was very weak.”
“What are you reading?” his father asked, changing the subject abruptly, almost causing Lothinar's knees to buckle as he realized he still held the book of history.
“I found a new plant that I could not identify,” he replied. He quickly slid the volume back onto the shelf among the others, hoping his father had not noticed its cover.
“I see,” his father said, raising an eyebrow to a newly dangerous height. “That almost surprises me more than your reckless behavior. You were always on top of your studies on plant life.”
Lothinar shrugged.
“Did you at least bring a sample of this plant?” his father asked as if to test his story further.
“The young bear distracted me, Father,” he replied quickly as if putting an end to the topic.
His father stood still, evaluating for several seconds before the tension finally left his shoulders. He smiled.
“Well then, will you at least allow me to invite you home for dinner?” he asked. “Your mother will be delighted to see you.”
“As you wish, Father,” he replied before noisily gathering his bow and arrows from the table. Snapping the arrow with which he had shot the deer in half, he threw it into the embers of the small fire that burned on the hearth. It flashed as first the feathered end, and then the slender wooden shaft burst into flame.
Silently and with no further discussion, Lothinar followed his father through the forest and toward the place of his family home. His family had lived in this forest for generations, longer, in fact, than any of the other forest wardens, and his family’s house was the closest to the small fortress that contained the warden's office and library. They were there in just a few minutes.
His mother Ardwella’s face lit up with joy as he entered and straightened up again, having bent slightly to enter through the hidden door. The elves of this forest were keenly aware of the proximity of men, and even though there had been peace for a long time, it had not always been so.
“Lothinar! What a surprise!” she said with a radiant smile, “Did you see anything unusual on your patrol around the lake today?”
“Can you believe our son found a plant he could not identify?” his father interrupted before he was forced to lie again.
“The world is a big and wonderful place. It is full of mysteries," she said, beaming as she gazed upon her son. “I am glad you are home!”
Lothinar hugged his mother and looked around at his small but tidy childhood home. Hanging above the fireplace, the ancient sword still hung, its blade uncovered but still bright. It had been made in the ancient days of war by someone in his family, that much he knew. The story was shrouded in mystery. A mystery his parents, if they knew, had not shared with him. Once, as a child, he climbed up on the mantle and tried to pull the sword down to inspect it. His father had come into the room and caught him. It was the only time his father had ever disciplined him harshly. Afterward, though, his father had pulled the sword down for him to see it. While holding it, the blade seemed to glow with a strange light. As far as Lothinar knew, the sword had not been down off the wall since.
His mother's cooking was excellent as usual, and after dinner, the three of them sat talking deep into the night. Lothinar told them of his travels and work in the forest, cataloging the animal population and watching the lake for the encroachment of the men from the other side. He fought the temptation to tell them the truth as he reported that the water dragons, as usual, had been keeping to their secretive ways beneath the surface of the lake.
“Strange, sad creatures they are,” muttered his mother, “I feel very sorry for them.” His father shot her a curious glance before replying.
“It is said that their predecessors ate our kind," he said grimly. These are dumb, ignorant beasts, but they are still dangerous. There is a reason it is forbidden to swim in the lake's waters."
”They are much more than you think,” His mother replied. She gave him a mysterious look.
Lothinar nodded, remembering the rule quite clearly from his childhood. It was against the rules to have any contact with the water dragons. He didn't wonder for a minute what the council would do if they learned of the land-going version he had seen this morning. They would certainly kill it.
Briefly, he thought of the credit he would receive by being the one to sound the warning, but he had already come too far. He had lied to his father and now his mother. He would have to see this through, and if things did not go well, kill the beast himself and hide all traces of the evidence. But first, he would do some research of his own.
As he lay awake in his childhood room late that night, he wondered how the dragon he had met had rid itself of the handicaps the elven magic had created in its formation. His feet and claws were devoid of the flipper changes wrought by the elves. His wings, though pathetically small, were undeniably there. This particular specimen, he thought, must be filled with a powerful magic indeed. That, or the elves' ancient magic, was beginning to unravel.
If the old magic were unraveling, his people should be warned. Lothinar thought again about the female water type waiting for Tundor. A second generation of this dragon's offspring could be formidable enemies indeed.