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CHAPTER SIX
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Lothinar stared down at the torn body of the water dragon as it rose and fell in the small waves that lapped at the lake shore. Tundor's rear claws had torn through the underbelly leaving a grotesque display of internal organs blood and fatty tissue exposed. It had been lucky for the dragon that death had come almost instantly from a snapped neck. It would have taken several minutes of agony for the water dragon, suffering only from these injuries, to die.
The other dragon, Lothinar's arrow lodged in its brain stem, had also met a mercifully quick end.
"I have killed, yet again!" he thought bitterly. "What am I becoming?"
"Tundor!" Lothinar called suddenly as the blur and haze caused by the shock of what he had just participated in dissipated.
The stub-winged dragon, who had been about to leave the narrow beach and enter the forest, returned to his side, gazing down at the carcass to which Lothinar pointed.
"You need to help me drag this body up into the forest. We need to bury it quickly," he said as the enormity of the decisions and actions he had taken began to settle, crouching and snarling in his troubled soul. "If it is found, it will cause me big problems."
Together, they pushed and pulled the dead body of the male up over the stony shore, through the brush, and into the tree line. Lothinar retraced their steps several times to retrieve bits and pieces of intestines that spilled out of the open body cavity. Eventually, Tundor managed to roll the creature onto its back to prevent this. Handling the wet, slimy organs made Lothinar want to vomit. There was so much blood. Watching Tundor as he grasped the creature by the neck, Lothinar suddenly was struck with a thought.
"Tundor, do you have any desire to feed on this dragon?" He asked cautiously.
Watching the dragon's face, it occurred to him how short a time he had known the dragon and how unlikely he would be able to decipher what it was thinking by looking at facial expressions. When the answer came, it relieved the elf somewhat to hear it.
"I know I said that I'm usually hungry, but I feel great disgust at that suggestion," replied Tundor, locking eyes with Lothinar.
Apparently, dragons were not as insatiably bloodthirsty as Lothinar had been led to believe.
"And although I do not look forward to the work it will take to bury him because you want that, I will certainly help you. That's what friends do."
It surprised Lothinar a bit that Tundor now considered him a friend.
He continued as if reading the elf's thoughts.
"I know you consider me a bloodthirsty meat eater, but would YOU eat another elf that you killed while defending someone in your family?"
"No, I would not," answered Lothinar, the bile rising in his throat at the thought.
"We elves do not eat meat at all, but even if we did, we would certainly not eat our own kind."
"Although I once was once told about an extreme winter when the great lake froze and the water-dragons ate their own kind to avoid starvation," Tundor replied soberly, "the thought of doing so is disgusting to me."
"I wonder why I was given so much information?" Lothinar thought to himself. Tundor was now beginning to dig rapidly in what looked like an already partially excavated burrow.
"I pulled some animals out of a hole here a few days ago," Tundor explained to the unasked question. "It seemed a good idea to drag the body here and follow up on the work I had already started. It will save some time."
Lothinar watched in fascination as the dragon used both sets of legs in unison. Sharp claws cut through the soft earth like large garden trowels. His muscular rear legs pushed the ripped-up dirt backward and out of the quickly expanding hole. There was not much he could do to help. The dragon made relatively quick work of it. For digging, at least, it seemed advantageous to Lothinar for the dragon to have smaller wings. Larger ones would have certainly trapped some of the dirt that the dragon was vigorously throwing out behind him.
"How did you learn to do that?" He asked as together they pulled the body into the hole. "You have never had anyone that could show you how.
The dragon paused a moment as if thinking.
"I don't know," it finally said. "I guess it is just a skill I was hatched with. I think Candasar did some digging to make her cave bigger."
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"Well, you made short work of it," Lothinar commented.
He nodded with admiration as Tundor, after pulling the dead dragon into the hole with a squishy plop, began piling the dirt on top of the body. At last, he finished it off by pushing the large boulder that had been laying nearby over the top of the freshly turned earth.
“Do you think one of your people will find him now?” Tundor suddenly asked.
“You have done your part,” replied Lothinar. “Leave the rest to me.”
“What about the other one still in the lake?” Tundor asked.
“That one is actually more important.” The elf said. “It's got two of my arrows still sticking out of it.”
Tundor only growled in acknowledgment, a low rumble that sent shivers up the elf's spine as he turned and moved quickly away.
"It will have to wait. I go now to hunt," he said, violently shaking the remaining dirt from his body as he walked toward the trees.
The elf watched him go, standing silently and allowing his thoughts to calm. Then, reaching down with his mind, he sent tendrils of thought into the soil that covered the newly filled hole; patiently, he sought the location of the hundreds of thousands of seed spores that lay sleeping within the top few inches of the freshly turned dirt. He could see them in his mind's eye, lying there filled with life—so many pinpricks of energy, like stars dotting the night sky. Locking onto them with the power of his mind, he said the words.
"Eldhrimner nuanen, dautr abr deloi, Eldhrimner un fortha onr feon vara."
The rich brown soil, overturned and disturbed by the efforts of the dragon, began to twist, and writhe of its own accord as the seedlings and plants within it, answered the ancient call of magical power. Grow!
This was Lothinar's greatest skill, and he smiled as the plants began to spread and cover all evidence of having dug there. In only a few minutes, the explosive growth was done. An unbroken field of green meadow and low-lying plants lay before him. It would take someone deliberately looking to find the dragon's body that Tundor had killed. Looking back toward the lake, Lothinar wondered if he was going to be lucky enough to see and then hide the body of the one that he had killed with the arrow. For this task, he would need the female. Tundor had said her name was Candasar. She was undoubtedly resting in her cave after her ordeal with the two males.
Retracing the path over which Tundor had pulled the dead body, Lothinar moved small rocks and branches and sent small magical requests for additional growth from various plants they had disturbed along the way. By the time he reached the lake shore, except for a few smears of blood that the next rain would wash away, there was nothing to show, even his trained eye, that they had dragged something large though here.
Lothinar realized that the underwater entrance to the cave that Tundor had been sharing must be directly below the cliff face as he swiftly climbed the side of the steep hill overlooking the water. It was from here that Tundor had leaped to disembowel the first male. It was from here that Lothinar had fired his arrow. Lothinar suddenly made an impulsive decision to help this strange pair of dragons. Whatever the consequences, there was probably no turning back now.
Suddenly, he felt surprisingly lightheaded. Staggering, he stopped momentarily to lean against a tree overlooking the water. The magical energy he had used to grow the plants quickly and the physical effort of dragging the bloody carcass through the brush must have taken more out of him than he thought. He quickly pushed the feeling aside. He had no time for weakness.
Before removing his green forest garb to keep it dry, Lothinar scanned the shoreline for signs of the other lake wardens. He had a good vantage point from the cliff top. There was no one in sight. However, if he was to be seen as he entered the lake, having to answer to them for breaking the rule about swimming in its waters would be the least of his worries.
Stripping off his clothes, he quickly hid them under a rock. Feeling the wind bite at his naked body, he gathered a lungful of air and dove headfirst into the lake. The water was colder than he expected.
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Candasar awoke in throbbing, unbearable pain. The powerful jaw of the male the elf had killed had deeply bruised the bones in her neck. She groaned and started to try and shift herself to a more comfortable position but suddenly stopped, a rising sense of terror taking hold of her. Tundor was nowhere to be seen, but due to the faint luminous glow of the cavern walls, she realized that she was not alone.
Ancient fears and a lifetime of living in hiding rose to a fevered pitch as she spotted the elf squatting on a large boulder near the water's edge. He seemed to be staring at her. Strangely, he was no longer green in color, but his body seemed almost uniformly brown. She squirmed under his gaze, unsure what she should do. There was nowhere to go except past him and into the water.
Remembering that it was the elf that had killed the male that had almost crushed her spine gave her the confidence to do nothing. If he had wanted to harm her, she would be dead already. Strangely, though, she did not see his weapon. Pointing her long, slender head directly at him, she waited. It did not take very long for him to speak.
“I thought we should meet,” he said. The unheard words tickled strangely in her mind. “I hope that you are feeling better.”
“My neck still hurts!” thought Candasar, surprised when the elf seemed to nod as if understanding her thoughts.
“If you wish, I will try to help you,” came the strange words, again into her mind.
Candasar nodded.
The elf paused for a moment, then spoke aloud.
“Heill”
The word meant “Heal,” and its power to affect her was felt immediately. Even as she marveled at how “suitable” the word sounded in her ears and how correct its purpose for this occasion was, she felt a warmth in her neck and an extraordinary easing of the ache deep in her bones. In addition, the puncture wounds on her skin and in the muscles seemed to fade quickly.
Candesar could almost see the energy flowing in the eye of her mind as it left the elf's outstretched hand and flowed first to the skin of her neck and then deeper into the bruised muscles and bones. She was amazed that she could even help guide the direction of its healing power to the places that hurt the worst. The energy seemed a silvery blue string of light. It felt wonderful. Grasping at it with her mind, she caught the end like a rope and began to help it along, pulling as the elf pushed.
Suddenly, she felt a great resistance and tension on the cord of energy as it snapped taught. Caught up in the wonder of feeling incredible health and even a sense of renewed youth, she resisted, continuing the flow and pulling strongly upon the tether of magic. Savagely, the energy began jerking and shaking as, finally, it tore free of her mental grasp. The marvelous healing flow of power suddenly stopped.
Candasar stared at the elf in grateful amazement but then watched in surprise as his eyes rolled up into his head and he crumpled, followed by a splash as he fell face first into the dark murky water. He did not come up.
Confused, she thought to herself, “Tundor will be very disappointed with me. I have already managed to kill his elf.”
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