Cataclysm: Dragonborn

Chapter 10: Encounter

It had been several hours since they had departed the mining town of Kalamanda. Jarvan had fallen in next to Quinn, paying attention to where she looked as they made their way through the heavily wooded forest. The dark evergreen trees rose up menacingly from the rocky undergrowth, sharp outcroppings exploding up from the ground in random intervals like a forest of stone spires. The horses were having a rough time with the terrain, weaving back and forth across the open areas of the trail. Jarvan frowned, struggling as he watched for the small signs that Quinn was following as she picked her way through the forest. He noticed broken branches occasionally, and small splotches of blood on the rocks that hadn't faded despite the oppressive humidity that hung in the air. There wasn't much but he could see the pattern forming. There were branches and pine needles littering the ground from recent disturbances.

"You'll not find what you're looking for down there." Quinn said with a sly grin on her face. She gestured upwards with her thumb. Jarvan looked up and grunted in surprise, chuckling. In the canopy of the evergreen trees, branches had been torn asunder, knocking whole tree tops loose, branches often hanging by strands of their fibrous wood. Some of the sharper branches had black blood on their pale, sappy, broken shards of branches.

"Probably from his wings." Quinn said with a grin. "He was badly injured and from the look of things, his movements were callous, rough and wild." Quinn said with a frown. "He was doing almost as much damage to himself with him movement as you seemed to have inflicted."

"He did his fair share." Jarvan growled. "He did areal number on my back."

"I noticed it in the way you moved." Quinn said. "Was it bad?"

"Nothing I can't handle." Jarvan said, shifting in his saddle as the horse stepping up over a large slab of stone.

"You say that." Quinn mused. "I can see you're in discomfort."

Jarvan shifted again, grunting. The bouncing of the horse was starting to irritate the scars on his back, and though they had begun to heal well, they were still mostly scar tissue. He had been staying well hydrated, and the herbal remedy that Isaacs had Shyvana apply had helped the healing process along immensely, though he would likely have extensive scarring on his back. Jarvan shifted his weight from side to side, trying to relieve some of the tension on his lower back, but he only succeeded in shifting it directly back into the same position it had been in before.

"I've dealt with worse." Jarvan grumbled, telling a half-truth. He had been injured worse, but he'd let the healers deal with it, not choosing to tough it out with field-herbal remedies. "Though nothing this.... Ah... extensive."

"Uh-huh. Right." Quinn smirked. "You'll have to tell me abo-... whoa." Quinn's horse came to a trotting stop in a large char-blackened clearing. Pine needles had been burned away, and the dirt and rocks had been blackened with soot. Stumps of smashed trees had been burned clean away, and some of the remains were still smoldering. The entire clearing stunk of sulfur and charcoal.

"What happened here?" Forsythe asked. "Kampf?" Jarvan, Quinn, and Isaacs all looked to Shyvana.

"It would appears so." Shyvana said quietly. Jarvan could hear the anger growling under her voice, a barely constrained rage as she came so close to her prey and yet remained so far away.

"I remember seeing something like this." Jarvan said calmly. "When I drove my lance straight through Kampf's chest and he tried to breathe fire." Jarvan sighed grimly. "We're definitely on the right trail."

"Told you I was good." Quinn said with a smirk.

"Just because you managed to track down a rampaging, injured dragon in the pine forests of Eastern Demacia, might I add, the ONLY injured, rampaging dragon in all of Southern Valoran, doesn't mean you're good." Isaacs said with a grin. Quinn shot the older lieutenant a dirty look.