If it weren’t for the early morning sun peeking in through her bedroom window, Nora Barlow would surely have fallen back asleep. The mixture of the crashing waves along the coast and the goings-on of the village folk was a kind of lullaby in and of itself. And the peace and quiet of an empty home was more than enough to entice her.
But there was a full day’s work to be done and Nora had already slept enough. She rolled out of her bed and gave one last large yawn before exiting her bedroom. Even on the days where she would have the house to herself, there was work to be done.
Her husband left a sizable mess in the kitchen from when he prepared breakfast earlier that morning, before he’d departed for the plains. Nora sighed and lazily made her way toward the small statue of plates and other dishes left on the counter. As she began to dismantle her husband’s creation, there was a knock at the door. “And just as I was going to get started,” she mused.
At the door was one of her neighbors, a leathery, kind-faced old man, carrying a small pitcher of pure white milk. “Good morning, Nora,” the old man greeted in a slow, raspy voice.
“Horace, what brings you by?”
“Well, wouldn’t you know,” he propped up the pitcher in both hands, “ol’ Delly finally produced some milk early this morning. We got more ‘an enough at the house ‘n I thought you ‘n Darrin ‘n Liara could use some.”
Horace pushed the pitcher into her hands. Nora knew better than to even try to dissuade him, even though she knew it would cost her. Every interaction with Horus was like a backhanded compliment.
“Horace,” Nora smiled, “this is awfully nice of you.”
“Well,” he grunted, pulling up his trousers and pulling his pipe out from his back pocket, “just don’t tell the other townsfolk, ‘cause we ain’t got ‘nough for all ‘em.”
“Your secret’s safe with me.”
There was a pause while Horus very deliberately and carefully packed a well-apportioned chunk of tobacco in his pipe and set it in his mouth. Nora watched him take a test draw before taking a matchbox from another pocket and striking a match to light the pipe. He puffed it a few times and looked around him, eyeing the various villagers milling about and then the sun on its downward slope toward the west.
“Would you like to come inside for a minute, Horus?”
He put his hands up in protest. “Oh, no, I couldn’t, I should get goin’ anyhow.”
“Oh, alright.”
“Say, I still got some logs that need choppin’ whenever your husband wants to come get ‘em.”
“I’ll pass the word along to him.”
“Where is he anyhow? Run off to find us some meat where there ain’t none?”
And now the pendulum had swung back.
He let out a hearty laugh and puffed a few rings of smoke into Nora’s face. “And where’s the young’n? Off playin’ by the waves again?”
“No,” Nora sighed, “she elected to go with her father. She wanted to learn more about what he does.”
“Ain’t much huntin’ goin’ on these days anyhow, ain’t much to learn unfortunately.” He pointed his pipe back towards his farm. “What she ought’a be learnin’ is how to grow good vegetables, them’s the future of this village.”
“Well,” Nora flashed a great big smile, “not too many vegetables-”
“Look!” came a female voice a few doors down to the right from Nora. She was pointing past Nora and Horus to a man on horseback, rapidly approaching. He galloped past them, kicking up dirt and dust and making Horus stagger back. He dumped out the contents of his pipe and hobbled after the newcomer. Nora set the pitcher in the doorway and followed.
As villagers from all over gathered together around the new arrival, the man descended from his mount and cried out in a parched, exhausted voice, “I’ve come straight from the capital. There’s been an attack!”
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“Liara, pay attention.” Darrin Barlow pressed a dirty finger against his lips and gestured with his head back in the direction of his original focus. “Look at the ground.”
She huffed and followed her father’s eyes to a series of footprints pressed into the fresh mud underneath them. She studied them for a moment and then looked back up at her father. “An animal was here?”
“Recently,” Darrin added. “What animal?”
“I don’t know.”
“What kind of animal leaves these tracks, Liara? You know this.”
She examined the length and width of one of the small impressions in the mud for some time before answering. “A wolf?”
“Do you see claw marks? No wolves here anymore anyhow, not since... Again.”
“A deer?”
“Where are they headed?”
“Over the hill.”
“And?”
Liara crawled up to the crest of the hill where her father had been laying for the past half hour and peeked over its ridge. The tracks descended down the other side of the knoll until it reached a patch of grass and a bundle of bushes. From there, the tracks disappeared. She told him as much.
“So where did it go?” he asked, leaning on his side to face her. He watched her gaze at her surroundings. Hills were splotched to the north and south as far as the eye could see. They were close enough to the Verraine Woods to the west to see a few dozen yards into the forest. Nothing but open sea lay to her east.
“It’s gone, daddy.”
“No, not gone. Just hiding. And we need to find it. If you were a deer, where would you want to be? Where would you feel safest?”
“At home. With you and mommy.”
“Yes,” Darrin couldn’t help but let out a soft chuckle. “Yes, if you were still Liara. But you are a deer now. Where do deer live?”
“In the forest?”
“Good work.”
“And that’s where this deer went?” Liara pointed at the tracks that lay between them.
“Most likely.”
She looked off in the direction of the forest, resting her chin on her hands propped up by her elbows. She was quiet, contemplative almost, as if absorbed now with the idea of playing the part of a deer.
Darrin eyed the treeline and counted the handful of arrows left in his hip-quiver. Then he wiped some sweat off of his face with one hand while reaching for his half-empty waterskin strapped to the opposite side of his waist from his arrows. As he undid the cap and brought it to his mouth, Liara turned back to him and asked, “Are you going to kill the deer?”
Darrin paused before gulping down two swigs of stale water. He dried his mouth and handed the canteen to his daughter. “I plan on it, yes.”
“Why?”
“Liara, you know why.”
“Because we need food?” She sipped from the skin.
“Yes.”
“Why can’t we grow vegetables and fruit like the Duncap’s?”
“The Duncap’s haven’t been able to grow anything for a while.”
“Why not?”
“Because we’ve been in a drought.”
“Why?”
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
He sighed and looked side-eyed at her before looking up at the sky. The sun was still high in the sky, but on its downward trajectory. Sunset was not for another few hours, but they were already a long way away from the village. The forest was perhaps a twenty minute hike but there was no telling where this deer could have gone. But he couldn’t go home empty-handed, not again.
He rose to his knees, and Liara followed. “We make for the trees. We only have a little bit more time left in the day and we have to make the most of it. Come on.” With that, he crested the hill and began his descent. Liara took off after him as fast as her little legs could carry her. A single one of Darrin’s steps equaled three of hers yet she knew how to keep up.
They arrived at the tree line soon enough, and Darrin immediately went to work scouring the ground for any tracks that might lead them in the direction of food. Liara watched. He seemed to pour over every inch of dirt and grass like there was some hidden message waiting to be revealed. To a hunter like Darrin, footprints were a kind of message, explaining what his prey had been up to and where it might be going. After a few moments, he rose to his knees and sniffed the air, hoping to catch a whiff of an animal, maybe a rodent, something. However, whatever trail or scent had been here, it was gone just as he’d suspected.
“Liara, where’s the sun?”
His daughter looked up and moved a few dozen feet away from the treeline. “Halfway, I think.”
“Good. It means it’s only about four in the afternoon. We’ll go into the forest for just a little while, try to find something, and then try to make it back to the village before sundown. Do you need more water?”
“No, I’m okay.” She smiled. Darrin realized he’d not smiled all day. For his daughter, these hunting trips were simple excursions out into the wilderness, where she could be nearer to nature and play among the foothills and towering boulders dotting the eastern plains. Darrin wished he could experience things once more like his daughter. How simple life seems to someone who is not worried about where her next meal is coming from.
Darrin took Liara by the hand and they marched into the Verraine Woods.
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A dreadful silence befell the villagers crowded around this young man for what seemed like an eternity. Some might have seemed doubtful while others appeared terrified, but everyone waited expectantly for more information. The messenger simply stood there, mystified by his sudden audience, and dumbfounded at the quiet.
Finally, someone within the crowd cried out, “You said there was an attack?”
The young man exclaimed, “Yes, something terrible is happened. The dragons have returned.”
There was an eruption of hushed murmurs and gasps from the crowd. Nora put a hand to her mouth and all she could do was listen to the frightened voices around her. Horus brushed a trembling hand through his long white hair. “By all the gods above,” he muttered and then proceeded into a prayer.
“What of the capital?” asked a villager.
“The dragons are back?” exclaimed another.
“How can this be?” came a third.
“I don’t know how or why it all happened,” the man answered, desperate. “It was a terrible sight. A large dragon with blackened scales, each the size of a wagon, demolished a tavern in the heart of the capital and burned everything and everyone in its wake with its horrible fire breath. It tore straight for the municipal district and leveled every building in sight. The Coalition is destroyed!”
“That’s not possible!” cried someone on the other side of the square.
“How long ago did this happen?” shouted another nearby.
“I set out immediately as the devastation was occurring and I have been traveling for three days now. It horrifies me to tell you that everything I say is true. I barely made it out of the city alive myself. I saw it all happen! I am – was a member of the city guard, I was tasked with carrying this news to every village along the eastern trade routes.”
More people cried out: “So what do we do?” “Where will we go?” “Are they coming here?”
“All I know,” the traveler said, “is this: I was instructed to alert all those who would listen to make for the mountains. There is shelter below ground. In the meantime, what mages we have left have sent out communications to the elves in the west, but no safe passage has been granted us yet.”
“We can’t just leave our homes,” Horus cried out, aghast.
“I’m afraid that’s exactly what you’ll have to do,” the young man retorted, “if you want to live. Our lives mean nothing to the dragons. The tales of old, the legends of their reigns of terror, every story I ever heard as a child, they’re all true. Make peace with your gods and get to safety, all of you. I must go now, there are other villages to warn along the coast.”
And within a split second, the man was back on his horse. Before he could gallop away, several villagers descended upon him, crowding around him and terrifying his horse, pleading for more information, for answers he didn’t have to questions they didn’t know how to ask. Nora could here the young man beg them to move, but to no avail. Others, with their families, tore apart their homes as they packed their belongings to set out for one of these shelters. A few naysayers, however, gathered together to discuss the validity of the warning.
Nora simply froze, mouth agape, sweat swelling on her forehead, her hands shaking. Her husband and daughter were miles away from here, how could she get to them? And where would they go? What if this was all just one mad trick? Were they really in any danger?
Suddenly, the voices grew quiet and the commotion slowed to a halt. She looked around her, and everyone was staring up and out to the west. In the distance, high in the sky, a shape was rapidly approaching. A few seconds later, the shape let loose an awful, cacophonous roar that shook the very foundations of their homes. The shape grew closer and closer, larger and larger, until the man on horseback cried out in agonizing fear: “Dragon!”
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They waded through thick underbrush as if they were waist deep in a sea of green. The dense canopy overhead blocked most of the afternoon sun, yet thin trickles of light made their way through, shining small spotlights on lucky plants.
Liara gazed around her with amazement, listening to the many sounds of insects and birds and rodents around her, like it was a symphony being performed only for her. Darrin knew she loved the beauty of these woods, how ancient and mysterious they were.
Her friends had filled her mind with enough folklore about this place that you could fill a library with their stories, and he knew Liara believed every word. And he would let her, for a time, as he had when he was her age. But there would come a time, just as it had come for him, that she would have to learn the harsh realities of life. Breaking this barrier was crucial to survival.
They walked on, hand in hand, for what felt like an eternity, delving deeper into the forest, losing more sunlight with every step, weaving around impenetrable clumps of trees and foliage, until Darrin suddenly felt a tug on his hand, and Liara whispered, “Look.”
Roughly twenty-five yards to their left, draped perpendicularly across a fallen tree, was the body of a deer. For the first time since entering the Verraine Woods, he released Liara’s hand and gripped his bow. She began to protest, but Darrin put a free hand up to stop her before removing an arrow from its quiver.
Every step he took towards the animal was made with as much precision and nimbleness as he could muster. He notched the arrow back while his eyes darted all around him. The deer appeared to still be breathing, albeit haggardly. Its hind legs jolted and kicked up some dirt when he stepped next to the log. He leaned over the body to take a look at its head and that’s when he realized what had laid the deer out like this.
He found two sizable wounds, one near the top of the deer’s spine and another on the underside of its face, possibly near the jugular if Darrin had to guess. The blood looked bright red and moist, so the deer must have just been attacked. And by the looks of it, the wounds looked like bite marks.
Darrin put his bow and arrow back and pulled a dagger from his belt loop and slid the blade into the deer’s skull from under its chin. It stopped kicking up dirt and Darrin wiped the blood off his blade. If there was even at least one wolf about, these woods were now truly unsafe for Liara and he would have to take her back. And just as he finally found an animal worth bringing home, too!
He couldn’t just leave it here though. It would slow them down, but he could also carry it if he-
“Daddy!”
He whipped his head around to see Liara backing away from him while a large gray wolf, roughly three feet tall at the shoulders, nearly as tall as his daughter, separated them. Even from his position he could hear the horrendous snarls coming from the beast’s mouth. Without another thought, he bolted for the wolf. It looked back at Darrin before lunging at Liara, and it was on her before Darrin was halfway to her.
He lunged forward and tackled the beast, diving over Liara and crashing into the base of a tree. His grip on the wolf came loose and the wolf scrambled to its feet before Darrin could ready his knife. The creature lunged at him and he stuck up an arm at the last moment.
A razor-sharp maw, which was going for his neck, clamped down on his forearm. He swallowed a scream and instead wrapped his loose hand around the top of the wolf’s snout to try to pry its mouth off of him, but it was no use. The wolf’s teeth were dug in, and blood was beginning to pool in his sleeve and drip out onto the ground.
He realized his knife had flown out of his grasp when he tackled the wolf and landed a few feet behind him. He had no way of fetching it with the wolf attached to his arm as it was, and he didn’t have any idea when it would let go of him. So he grabbed the beast by the scruff with his one good hand and, with all of his might, pulled it back onto him and they both fell backwards.
The wolf released his arm momentarily before lashing out once again. This time, Darrin was ready and braced both of his arms against the wolf’s neck. Its gnashing teeth were biting fruitlessly at the air right above his nose, and he knew he couldn’t hold it back for much longer.
He chanced a peek behind him and the dagger was just within reach. If he used one arm to reach behind him, he risked giving the wolf too much leeway to deal a killing blow. But he also knew that a wrestling match with a wolf this size was a war of attrition that he was bound to lose. He inhaled deeply and roared in this creature’s face, and then rolled slightly to grab the knife.
At the same time, the wolf reared back to make another bite. Darrin plunged the knife into the wolf’s side, right in front of its left hind leg and just underneath its spinal cord. The wolf whimpered and snarled and snapped back at the dagger in its side. Darrin was able to shove the beast off of him and rolled away from it. Its hindquarters dropped to the ground, immobile, while it attempted to remove the weapon, spinning in circles on the ground.
Darrin reached for his bow but it wasn’t around his shoulder. He looked around him and realized that it had splintered and snapped when he’d initially tackled the wolf. The arrows from his quiver were spread out all over the ground as well, but he quickly picked one up in time for the wolf to pull the dagger out of its haunch. It dropped the weapon and went to bite at Darrin again, but Darrin was quicker.
He plunged the arrow through the wolf’s open maw and through the back of its skull. It immediately went limp and collapsed. Darrin released the arrow embedded in the wolf’s head and dropped to his knees. He looked at the grisly bite wound on his arm and was thankful for the adrenaline pumping through him.
“Daddy?”
“Liara!” he cried out and sprang over the wolf’s body to his daughter. She was lying on the ground, and there was a large bite mark on her right side, as if the wolf had caught her as she had turned to run. Her clothes were soaked and a pool of blood was forming and soaking the grass underneath her. She had lost so much blood already.
“Daddy, it really hurts!”
"I know, sweetie, I know, just hang on." He cradled her in his arms. She reached out to grab at his arms but was too weakened to grab on for long. He looked out to the treeline that opened up into the plains. The village was over the horizon to the southeast, a couple of hours away at least. He looked up through the canopy of trees, trying to find a line of sight to the sun, as if pleading with it to halt time so he would have a chance to save his daughter.
He looked at his daughter as his vision began to flood with tears. His clothes were now soaked with her blood too but he didn't care. Her arms had fallen, limp, and a blank stare looked back at him.
“No! No, no, no, Liara, please!”
There was just so much blood.
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TO BE CONTINUED . . .