Young Writers Society

Chapter 5

The hunters used the oncoming darkness as cover. Their master was tired from finding their quarry, but once he’d located them the rest was easy. The hunters ghosted through the grass at a lope; never tiring, never flagging. There was only one thought on their primitive minds- To find, and take.

When I returned, the fire was burning lower, and flickering in the wind. It was gusting strong towards the south, so I sat with my back to the north to shield the fire. In the rapidly coming darkness, we couldn’t afford for it to go out; in this wind, we’d never get it started again. I added some fuel and fanned it, then checked my fish. It needed to be flipped, so I used my green stick. The one side was a little charred, but beggars can’t be choosers. I sprinkled the watercress on top and all around, pushing into the juices of the fish to get it to cook. Limok wrinkled her nose, saying:

“Why do you eat that stuff? You know, the plants?” I raised an eyebrow at her, though I didn’t take my eyes off my work.

“Because I can. And I like it- it’s spicy. You’ve never tried it, how can you know you won’t enjoy it?”

“Because Dragons are not meant to eat plants. We are higher beings- the plants are only good for feeding the animals that we eat. They’re fodder for food.”

“Well I think you’re being too high-and-mighty about it. I eat plants- does that mean I’m a lesser being? Am I food?”

“Of course not.”

“Then try it.”

“No”

“Come on, you don’t know you won’t like it. You’re being a hypocrite.”

“No.”

“Your loss then.” I shrugged as I placed a raw sprig of it in my mouth. She looked at the remains of her two fish, at my fish, then at me.

“Mirayah, I’m still hungry.”

“And?”

“Can I have some of your fish?”

“What about the watercress? I thought it wasn’t worthy food.”

“Well you can just pick it off then.”

“Oh no, I will not pick through your food for you. You have to eat it watercress and all.” I felt like I was talking to a young child, trying to get her to eat her dinner. Then I reminded myself, suppressing a grin, that she was still a young child. The arcane wisdom she seemed to be born with didn’t do everything to cover up the fact that she was just a baby, only a day old. I shielded this thought from her; she wouldn’t think it funny, though I did. Limok sighed, defeated by the complaints of her belly.

“Alright. I suppose I’ll try it.”

I still had a bunch of the raw watercress on the ground next to me, and I picked a sprig for her. Placing it on the ground near her, I watched as she lapped it up with her rough tongue. For a moment she looked thoughtful. “Hum. I think I actually kind of- Oh!” she exclaimed as the peppery taste hit her. Then the heat was gone, and she looked at the watercress, saying:

“Are all plants that fun to eat?” How eager she sounded! I shook my head, a little smile tugging at the corner of my lips.

“No, only some are edible. So don’t go chewing any grass! And I don’t know how you’d feel about other vegetables. But by all means, you can have some more watercress.” I replied, handing her a few stems. She chewed on it happily as I pulled my fish from the fire. Having nowhere to put it, I also took the hot slate from the flames. So the fish continued to char as I used a stick to pick it apart, but I didn’t mind the burned bits. I was famished. When all of the succulent white meat was gone from the ribs, I scooted over so Limok could come eat the rest.

“You call me picky, but you left all the rest of it just laying there!”

“Yes I’m an awful hypocrite.” I teased, then corrected myself. “No! I can’t digest bone; it would hurt me.”

“If you say so.” was her reply.

When the last morsel of food was gone, I heaped half of the fuel we had left on the fire, which was burning low again. Limok’s belly was full and she wanted to go to sleep, so I curled up on the ground as close to the fire as I could get without burning myself. Limok crawled under my arm and snuggled up next to my body and within minutes she was asleep. I, however, lay awake longer. The fire had already consumed some of wood I’d added, and we would use up the rest of it during the night. It was too exposed here, to open. There was so little to live on, and nowhere to hide, and I knew we wouldn’t survive without help. I didn’t want to die here, not when my life was suddenly so filled with beauty; I couldn’t bear it. With that thought in my head, I pulled Limok closer and shut my eyes.

I had a nightmare.

It started out as a regular dream. It was the usual strange, surreal things that the subconscious mind makes up, the kind of thing one doesn’t remember the next morning. But it solidified, and in my dream I felt like I was burning. In reality, I must have just rolled too close to the coals of the fire, but in my dream it was the sun. The sun waxed closer and closer every day, until all of the grasses of the Long Plains were burned up and the ground cracked. I was standing in the middle of the wasteland with Limok at my side, but she was shivering with cold despite the heat. I picked her up and held her close to myself, to give her some of my warmth. The touch of her scales was icy, but it was a nice kind of icy after the heat I’d been feeling. She, in her turn, felt warmer by the second.

When we were both comfortable again, the grass of the Plains began to re-grow from the dry, cracked ground. We bent down to look, and saw that issuing up from each of the cracks was a host of tiny shoots. The sound of water filled my ears again, and looking to my left I saw a flood of water barreling our way. Limok and I leapt back, and the water took its place back in the streambed. The dream was happening as if time was sped up, and after what felt like seconds the sun had set on the re-grown savannah. But as the sunlight faded from the western horizon, the darkness began to creep over the mountainous skyline of the east. Normally I looked forward to the twilight hours, but as Limok and I turned to look I realized that this wasn’t the cool darkness of night that was bearing down upon us. This was different. It came as a storm of sickly grey shadow whose gases seethed with malice. Every instinct in my body screamed at me to run, and yet my limbs were locked in place. As the clouds bore down on us I heard coming from its depths a bestial howl that froze my blood in its veins. The sound was somehow akin to a hunting cry and a scream at the same time, yet the reverberations seemed to echo back on themselves; nothing, multiplying onto nothing, multiplying onto nothing-

I was jerked from my nightmare and into reality as Limok woke up in a fright. We both sat up and looked at one another in alarm.

“I had this horrible nightmare-"

"And you were in it-"

"And I was so cold-"

"And I was so hot-"

"And there was this awful nothing-storm-"

"And that hunting cry!"

"And it was-"

"-Wait, we had the exact same dream at the exact same time, and woke up in the exact same moment."

"I'm not surprised that we shared a dream, but that it was in sync was weird."

"I don't think we should stay here." I told her, gazing out into the night as I did so. The fire was but a few glowing coals now, so I fed it the last of our wood. The darkness beyond the ring of firelight seemed thicker, and more menacing. Somehow I knew the dream wasn't thing that awoke us. Something else had disturbed our sleep, I was sure of it, I just couldn't put my finger on what it was...

Until another howl pierced the stillness.

My blood ran cold, my heart skipped a beat, and every hair on the back of my neck pricked. Limok whimpered with fear, and for a moment we were paralyzed, just as we had been in the dream. The scream had been real, and that meant there was something making it.

"Run." I croaked. Limok was still crouched, trembling, by my feet, so I said it louder. "RUN!" Galvanized into action, she streaked away south, which was the opposite direction from where the eerie cries had come. But she stopped a few hundred feet off when she realized I wasn't following.

"What in the name of sanity are you doing?" she cried. I knelt by the fire as I answered,

"Whatever it is, it's bad news. You run ahead, I'll stall it and catch up later!"

"Like hell you will catch up later!" said my brave little Dragon, and before I could utter a word of protest she was at my side helping me re-stoke the fire. I knew I couldn't dislodge her now if I tried. She couldn't breathe a lot of fire or breathe it for long, but it was enough. It was burning bright in the space of thirty seconds.

The blood-chilling hunting cry was repeated, but this time is was shorter and softer. It was also closer; so were the numerous answers it received. My fingers trembled as I worked to pull some grass, wrap it around a stone, and light it. Quickly, before it could burn my hand, I hurled it off in the general direction of the hunting cries with all my strength. The grass lit immediately, and the fire spread like... Well, wildfire. I saw a few indistinct shapes dodge out of the way, as large and lithe as mountain cats. I was turning to make another projectile when Limok whimpered,

"Mirayah- look."

I whipped around just in time to see a mass of fog wash over the wildfire, smothering it out in an instant. It was the evil storm from our dream, only this time there were shapes loping through the gray. Quickly, before my limbs froze with fear, I snatched a burning branch from the fire to use as a torch.

"C'mon, Limok! We have to run!" I shouted. She shot off like an arrow from a bow with me close on her heels, the torch leaving a trail of sparks behind us. Another screaming cry rose from our pursuers, and the chase was on. Our breath was ragged in our chests from fear, and all of a sudden I knew the terror of a hunted animal. The cries behind us would fade, then intensify, then fade again as the creatures surged forward and fell behind in turns.

Suddenly I realized that the only sound I could hear was our own ragged breath and the slap of the grass hitting our legs as we ran. The creatures' howls had silenced, leaving all but us in stillness under the moon. I slowed from a mad dash to a sprint so I could look around, and what I saw scared me more than the shadowy pack of hunters that were there before. At first glance I saw nothing but moonlight and the sea of undulating grasses as they rippled in the breeze. Limok peered over her shoulder as we came to a stop, and I could feel that she was relieved.

"It's so quiet and still. I think we've lost them!" said she with hope. I held the torch higher, but it only deepened the shadows around us. Despite the relative peace I was uneasy, and I gazed out on the night with apprehension.

A movement in the long grass some thirty feet to my right caught my eye. I zeroed in on it, and though it didn't happen again in that spot, I searched the areas around it. There it was again! Now that I could see it, I wondered I hadn't caught it before. Something was loping through the grass, causing the blades to swish to and fro opposed to the wind. They were all around; behind us, on our left and right flanks, and fast closing the kill circle. Though I did know exactly what they were, I somehow knew that all would be lost if they succeeded in surrounding us. We turned and tried to run west, and the shapes sprang ahead. We tried to duck away in the opposite direction, but they closed that avenue before I had a chance. Each time we turned, they were moving with us, closing in. Limok whimpered and hid behind my legs, and I silently prayed that she would be safe; if I had to go down fighting every single one of them at once, let her be saved.

The less I moved, the slower they closed in, so we stood waiting as the unseen hunters crept up. The torch was killing my night vision on my left side, so I switched it to my right hand. The movement produced a reaction that surprised me; the things surged towards my right side, forcing me backwards. I switched the torch again, back to my left hand, and they zeroed in on it again. So they were watching the torch, were they? Were they afraid of it, or were they using it to keep track of us? There was only one way to find out. It was a stupid, desperate plan, but it was all there was left. Limok seemed to know what I was about to do, and she got ready to run.

With all the strength I had, I flung the torch over the creatures’ heads and away southward. We didn’t stop to see how far it went, or what the hunters did; we took off north. There was a village there, right? My panicked mind struggled to remember. Yes, that was where Larry, the carriage driver, had gone to get parts for the broken wheel! Well if Limok and I had considered avoiding it, that idea was gone from our minds. As the terrible screaming cries of the creatures picked up again behind us, I decided we would take our chances.

There was endurance in my body I never even knew I had; it was probably one of the Dragon’s gifts. But we couldn’t run forever, and I realized as I stumbled once again that we couldn’t go on. The things, whatever they were, could run like the wind and they never seemed to tire. My chest heaved, my legs ached, my head hurt and sweat was dripping in my eyes despite the cool night. Limok was in even worse condition, and the only thing spurring her on was the fear of our pursuers. I prayed we’d see the village soon; we had to see the village soon! This was the middle of nowhere, the lights should be visible for miles around! The cries behind us had been gaining for several minutes now. My mind registered that the howls had suddenly stopped again, but this time we didn’t dare slow down; we just kept on going. It wasn’t more than a few seconds before we saw a blurry smudge of light above, and I knew why they’d given up. We’d finally reached the village!

The second I had the thought, a weight hit me from behind. Teeth dug into my left forearm before I could do anything; it was so heavy! My flesh burned and froze at the same time, and the agony was blinding. I must have screamed, because I tasted blood in the back of my throat. I struggled violently to dislodge it, until suddenly the creature rolled off. I scrambled to my feet, shoving Limok behind me in the same motion. Blood was running down my arm and dripping from my fingers, but the pain seemed dull compared to the fear that froze my nerves the second I saw the creature.

It was like nothing I’d ever seen before, and there was no doubt in my mind that it wasn’t natural. In terms of size it was roughly the size of a mountain lion. The head was heavy, square, and full of teeth. It had no skin to speak of, only a shadowy mass of grey that somehow took the shape of legs, claws, and a tail. It reminded me of the cloud we’d seen in our dream, and I realized that that was exactly what it was. But its eyes! Oh, its eyes! If anything could glow black, they did. My head hurt just looking at them, and being near the creature was enough to freeze every drop of blood in my veins. There was a scream in my ears, so high it hung on the edge of hearing and yet so low that I felt the fearful vibrations in my chest. A second one joined it, and I saw more shapes coming through the tall grass. The things looked like they were going to attack again, and I knew we wouldn’t make it if they did. We were going to die, we were going to die…

A square of light was thrown down on us. The creature and its brothers were gone as soon as they’d appeared, and for a moment I thought some spirit from heaven had come down to save us. But then I heard voices- human voices- and I realized that someone from the village must have heard. I turned towards them to see, and as I did Limok cried- “Mirayah! Your arm!”.

I took one step towards the light, and my legs failed. There was something wrong with my arm… I couldn’t feel it. I could barely feel anything. What had the creature done- it had bit me, hadn’t it? There was something wrong…

I passed out.