Wild (An Inheritance Fanfiction)

Chapter 24: An Old Rival

Sharrag swooped over the tips of the trees, barely scraping them with his claws. He was flying rather slowly for a dragon, keeping a close eye on the ground below. Every so often a streak of grey brown appeared below telling the dragon he was still on the right path.

The valley they were going through looked mildly familiar. Sharrag still couldn’t place together everything that was there, and still was unable to stretch out his mind, thought he was able to withstand the touch of another’s mind. His memories were coming back full force now and almost every minute something new came to him.

They had been travelling for two days. Talismen had already sent Siserl ahead of them so she could tell Tay’el that everything was fine. He had no doubt that the old wolf was getting extremely worried by now. They had been gone for over two weeks while they tracked down Sharrag and waited for him to heal enough so he could at least fly.

Levial and Aradon were also accompanying them back to the cave. Levial was now riding on the back of Talismen while Aradon was on Craves. Talismen felt it was a bit strange with something on his back but had forced himself to allow it, even if it did slow him down slightly.

‘We are here,’ Talismen said to Sharrag and the elves as they turned into the valley that housed the pack.

Sharrag spotted a cave that instantly sparked another memory inside him. With a dragonish smile he descended to the cave, landing with a small thud. The first thing he noticed was the overwhelming smell of blood. He growled. It was fresh. It wasn’t the scent of Feldunost blood either. It was wolf blood. Shrrg blood.

He tried to stretch his mind back to the pack, but couldn’t. He growled in annoyance and looked back to the cave. Something was definitely not right. He padded into the cave warily. The scent of blood was a lot stronger inside. He walked to the end of the cave and stopped, in slight horror. The bodies of wolf pups were littering the cave floor.

To one side was the massive form of the Urzhad mother. She was lying there, dead, with claw marks covering her flanks. Whatever had attacked hadn’t shown them any mercy, and was obviously extremely powerful. One would have to be to be able to kill an Urzhad. Sharrag felt a rage overtake him and looked around, before suddenly flinching as something touched his mind.

‘Sharrag, we found Tay’el and Siserl,’ said Talismen, ‘but the cave has been attacked. Only those two and two pups got out. They also managed to rescue an Urzhad cub. Whatever you do don’t go to the cave. A Shrrg attacked that none of us recognize. It’s still there.’

 

Sharrag instantly swung around as he heard a deep-throated growl sound behind him. He stopped and snarled. It was a Shrrg, larger then any other he had seen before. Blood mattered its fur and dripped from its muzzle. As it took a step towards the dragon Sharrag noticed it had a slight limp, and there was a large scar running up its left foreleg, a scar that looked suspiciously like ones made from a dragon’s claw.

A deep growl from Sharrag answered the Shrrg’s. This was the wolf that had killed half his pack, and had somehow managed to defeat an Urzhad. The green dragon was not going to give it any mercy. With a roar he opened his maw an unleashed a torrent of green fire. The Shrrg didn’t even flinch as the fire washed harmlessly over its fur. If anything it laughed.