"Can you tell where the voice is coming from, Fafnir?"
"It seems to be coming from the woods up ahead."
The voice in the wind was coming from up ahead, but where? I thought to myself as we flew towards the loosely-packed trees. The woods, this time of year, had leaves bright yellow and orange and were just producing the last of this year's fruit. As Fafnir swooped down to the edge of the woods, I pulled off a Golden Apple, named not for being real gold, but for having a skin when, at the height of ripeness, is a perfect golden color. Golden Apples are one of Fafnir's favorites, and according to him, they taste as the sunset looks, whatever that means. To me, they just taste like really good.
"The voice grows faint. I fear we may lose it if we do not hurry."
"Well, we better get moving then!" I said, not noticing the small, weathered sign off to the left that read 'Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch'entrate.' Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.
The trees, though set apart, still offered very little space for a dragon, much less a dragon of Fafnir's stature. As we made our way through, careful to not make too much noise, the voice getting louder as we walked through, the woods suddenly went silent.
"Fafnir? Do you hear that?
"No, I don't hear...anything. Where'd the voice go?"
Before I could get the words out, we were suddenly surrounded.
There were around fifty men strong, maybe more. Fafnir and I were sorely outnumbered, a vast twenty-five to one. This didn't look good.
"We may have a problem here, Fafnir."
"We've faced worse before." Fafnir pointed out.
"Not by much, and with the others."
Normally we travel with my dad, who taught me how to weave spells before Fafnir ever came along, and my best friend Max, who may be one of the most resourceful spell weavers I have ever met. He specializes in nature magic, which is using what's around him at the time. Not many people can do this because it takes quick thinking and an even quicker tongue.
"I'll just burn them all." Fafnir growled.
"Not likely, they probably have wards."
"Then I will dismember them with tooth and claw!"
"Why don't we try talking first?" I offered. Fafnir has the 'Hit first, ask questions later' thing about him that gets us in trouble more often than not. Fafnir sighed but said nothing.
"Quis tu, alienis? Diximus ante adest ratio non vidi, et qui sedebat super pullum audivimus famam. Tu ergo ille es?" one of the men said.
"Careful, they may have a magic we don't understand."
"I can handle this," I muttered back, "I hope."
"I'm sorry? I didn't understand that." I directed my words towards the men.
The man who spoke turned to the guy next to him and muttered something else in their language. The one he spoke to stepped up and Fafnir and I tensed. He had the build of a blacksmith but moved with the lethality of a cat.
"Iniuriam nullam in animo. We mean no harm. I am Kajeel. I didn't know you spoke English. I speak some, so I can help translate. Why are you here?" the man, Kajeel, asked.
"We heard a voice calling out in anger." Fafnir answered, "It said something of a murder."
"We know not of this voice you heard, but there have been strange disappearances of late. Maybe they are connected." Kajeel replied.
"Disappearances? Like what?" I asked.
"One of our hunters may wonder from the group to follow a game trail, but they never come back." Kajeel explained, "We've lost many good marksmen to this beast of the forest."
"Beast? What kind of beast?" I questioned, curious.
"I say beast, though no one has seen it and lived to tell us about it. None but the mightiest beast could have taken half of my best hunters." Kajeel replied sadly.
"Perhaps they weren't attacked," Fafnir said, rolling his shoulders, "Maybe they ran off."
The others started talking angrily behind Kajeel.
"My men would not wander off!" Kajeel said, "And it's insulting that you even imply that!"
"I'm sorry, we didn't mean to imply-"
"We suggest you leave. Now." Kajeel cut me off.
"We do not take orders from strange men!" Fafnir huffed, "And we will not start taking orders from you!"
आप पढ़ रहे हैं
The Dragon's Claws
एड्वेंचरMe, Alex, and my dragon and partner Fafnir travel to unravel plans and plots set eons before our time. Yeah, I think we got our hands, or in Fafnir's case, claws full.
