The First Dragoneer (4 page)

Bren fired two more arrows at the beast, but
the force and speed of the attack on March, and the way the torch
had gone flying across the air, had been dizzying. Even still, he
had struck the sun starved creature well enough to stop it in its
tracks. The dying torch was behind the wyvern now, near where March
was stirring. The creature was perfectly silhouetted and Bren went
to fire another arrow. Reaching in, he found his quiver empty. He
looked down at it in shock. He never retrieved the arrow he had
loosed at the white stag. At that very moment of realization, a
razor sharp claw ripped down his hip tearing his leg wide open.

He crumpled to the ground without a sound.
When he looked up, he saw stars swirling around the blackness. Then
there was nothing, nothing at all.

With a lustful triumphant roar the wyvern’s
serpentine head lunged toward Bren’s limp body. The victory growl
was cut short though. The sound quickly turned into a horrid pain
filled screech as the smoldering end of the torch came down on its
pink scaly back. The brand sizzled and popped back to life, flaming
hotly before it rolled off and hit the ground. The torch rolled to
a stop just under the raging beast’s underbelly. March
instinctively reached to his belt for his knife, but it was not
there. He had dropped it when he was smashed into the wall. He
didn’t panic though; instead he reached back over his head and
grabbed hold of the ancient sword’s hilt in an effort to pull it
from the scabbard. At first it wouldn’t come free, but with his
second try, it did. The heavy metal hand guard cracked him in his
ear and sent him stumbling head first across cavern floor towards
the creature. The razor sharp blade sliced across his scalp,
cutting him to the bone as it slipped free. March had to grab the
sword by the blade to turn it around so that he could hold it
correctly. He cut his palms open in the process, but not so badly
that he couldn’t grip the hilt.

March looked up to see the slithery beast
fighting to turn around and face him. It was trying to avoid the
torch flames that were licking its tender underbelly. March’s heart
hit the floor when he caught a brief glimpse of Bren’s torn and
bloody body crumpled against the wall. He saw Bren’s thigh-bone
fully exposed, and the huge pool of blood surrounding his friend.
He feared Bren was dead.

A deep rush of anger fueled adrenaline shot
through his veins. He gripped the sword with both hands. The grip
wasn’t very good due to the blood leaking from the wounds in his
palms, but it was good enough for him to raise the blade over his
head and charge recklessly into the range of those horrible,
finger-long fangs. At least the albino beast was easy to see in the
muted torch light.

March was getting dizzy, and he could feel
his warm blood sluicing down his back from the head wound. Luckily,
his rage took over as he brought the gleaming sword down into the
exposed flank of the turning creature. He felt the blade slice deep
into flesh before it was yanked from his hands.

The wyvern bucked wildly, slamming March and
itself into the rocky wall. Then it hopped backward into the
darkened cavern. It was too late for the wyvern though. The slam,
into the unrelenting surface of the wall, had driven the sword
deeper into its vitals. With a series of deep, guttural moans that
resounded with a hissing wetness, the creature curled and thrashed
until it finally stilled.

March reached for the back of his head. His
wound was bad. He could feel his bare skull. But, he quickly forgot
his pain when he heard Bren’s familiar voice moaning from across
the cavern. Stopping only to retrieve the still smoldering torch,
he went to Bren’s side.

A finger deep gash ran from Bren’s hip to
just above his knee and a fat purple knot was forming on his cheek,
from where it had impacted the rocky floor. He had lost a lot of
blood, but was slowly regaining consciousness. March pulled the old
pack off of his back and gently put it under Bren’s head. He then
tore off his shirt. Using Bren’s skinning knife, he cut the cloth
into wide strips. He wrapped the strips around Bren’s thigh, pulled
the wound closed with them, then tied them tightly. Only after he
was sure that his friend wasn’t going to bleed out right there on
the cavern floor did he use the last strip of cloth to tie around
his still bleeding head.

When that was done, he poured a generous
dollop of the brandy hooch along the length of Bren’s wound.

“
No… no,” Bren said weakly as the burn
of the liquid shot through his leg like a length of forge heated
steel. After a moment of wincing and clench jawed groaning, he
hissed, “Drink.”

“
Here,” March tipped the flask to his
friend’s lips and let him take the last of it.

March shook the flask over his hands and let
the last few drops sting the wounds on his palms. Then he rubbed
them together. He cut off a piece of Bren’s shirt and tore it into
two strips which he then tied around them.

“
You’re a damn giboon,” Bren said
quietly. He adjusted his upper body and pulled a fist sized stone
from under his arse.

“
Well, if you’d have been a better
shot, maybe we could have avoided the ruckus,” March forced a
chuckle as he staggered to his feet.

“
Is it dead, or did it just run off?”
Bren asked with worry. He started to roll over to look, but his
wounds kept him from turning.

“
It’s just down there resting,” March
answered seriously. “I’m gonna go get wood for a fire. Just yell as
loud as you can if it comes back.” He then started off into the
darkness.

“
March! Hey, don’t leave.” He choked as
he rolled over despite the pain. He stopped yelling when he saw the
albino wyvern’s pale lifeless bulk at the edge of the torchlight.
Four arrows protruded from the thick, pinkish-white scaled body.
The blood covered hilt of the sword March had pilfered protruded
from the thing, as well. Below the sword hilt there was a gash big
enough to crawl into, and a massive pool of black thickening blood.
The creature would have been ten or twelve paces from head to tail
if it was stretched out.

Relieved, Bren lay back, closed his eyes, and
slowly slipped into blackness.

March could never in his life remember being
as relieved as he was when he finally saw the daylight shining at
the mouth of the cavern. By the look of the sun, it was still only
early afternoon. What had seemed like a day long ordeal had
actually lasted less than a turn of the glass. Thankful to still be
alive, he grabbed the rope and his skinning knife, and began to
gather up pieces of dried wood. The medallion hanging around his
neck gleamed brightly in the sunlight. He was compelled to pause a
moment to examine it.

It was palm-sized and disc-shaped, formed
from a heavy metal that he had never seen before. Not gold or
silver, but easily as shiny and as beautiful. It was finely worked
with runes and symbols that he did not recognize. In the center, a
thumb sized, teardrop shaped, diamond was mounted. Turning it over,
he saw that both sides were identical and that the jewel sparkled
with a million prismatic colors. The chain appeared to be made from
the same metal as the medallion. When he tucked it into his shirt
he found that it hung perfectly below his collar between his
pectoral muscles. It felt as if it had been fitted for him. He
decided that it would be his good luck charm since he’d worn it
while defeating that slithery beast. It could be magical like the
artifacts from the old world he had heard about. If not, it was
surely worth its weight in gold. Enough to buy a small farm he
figured. Silently he swore to never sell it, or give it away. He
also vowed to try to find the meaning of the markings on its
surface.

The scream of a distant predator bird pulled
him from his musings. He still had to get his badly injured friend
home. It wouldn’t take the wolves long to pick up the scent of all
that blood, and Prominence was a long way away.

After gathering some wood he started back
into the darkness of the cave. He could see the dim torch flame
flickering ahead and he carefully continued in that direction. His
arms were full, so it was hard to step over the lifeless lump of
the dead creature, but he managed. He marveled at the size of it.
It was easily three times as long as Bren. Maybe he would cut off
the head and some claws. He could make himself a trophy, and make
Bren a necklace with the teeth.

“
Marcherion?” Bren called out weakly.
“Is that you?”

“
Who else would it be, you big giboon!”
March laughed. “How are you feeling?”

“
Like a tumbler at the fair.” Bren
smiled broadly, but he gasped and turned a sickly pale color when
he tried to sit up. Through clenched teeth he said, “My leg is
pretty bad off, March!”

“
We will get you home,” March
reassured. “If I can get you back over the ridge to our camp before
dark, I’ll have you back in your bed by tomorrow night.”

March talked on as he built a fire. “Getting
back over the ridge is gonna be hard on you.” He looked at Bren
seriously. “But if you can grit it out that far, we’ll be home
free.”

“
I don’t think I can stand,” Bren said
with more than a little worry in his voice. He knew the way the
wolves had tracked and attacked other groups of hunters when they
hadn’t gotten their fresh kills into the lower valley fast enough.
He also knew that he smelled like a fresh kill, and that the wolves
would surely come for him. March was a great hunter, and a superb
woodsman, but no match for even a small pack of hungry
wolves.

“
I wish I had something to make a
splint with,” March muttered. Then he cursed himself for letting
the medallion dazzle him from his wits while he was outside. He was
about to start back through the cave when he noticed the sword’s
scabbard lying on the cavern floor. An idea struck him then, and
even though the cuts on his hands hurt badly, he went over to the
white scaled wyvern’s side and struggled to pull the sword free. He
screamed loudly as his hands slid roughly off of the hilt. The
sword hadn’t budged and the cuts on his palms were reopened. He
stood there grimacing, with his palms held to his chest, as fresh
blood trickled down his arms and dripped from his
elbows.

Bren positioned himself to where he could see
March. He saw the blood soaked band around his friend’s head and
watched him wince as he wiped his bloody hands on his pants. Bren
started to worry. They wouldn’t stand a chance if they got stuck in
the woods in the dark. With both of them lame and smelling like a
feast, all sorts of hungry things would come sniffing. He felt
little relief when March tried again and grinned proudly after
finally pulling the sword free of the wyvern.

March searched the cavern for something to
wipe the sword’s blade clean. His gaze finally landed on Bren, who
was staring straight back at him with true fear in his eyes. March
disregarded the look and walked over and pulled the dead man’s pack
out from under Bren’s head. He opened it, and luckily, right there
on top was a rolled up woolen cloak. It was exactly what he needed
to save his friend. As he pulled it free, a fat leather pouch fell
out of the roll. It chinked to the floor just beside Bren’s ear.
Bren struggled to grab it while March went about rummaging through
the rest of the backpack.

“
March look!” Bren said excitedly. He
rolled to his side and poured a pile of shiny gold coins onto the
floor. “We're rich!”

March found a wine skin and was sniffing the
spout to try to see if it held water or wine. It turned out to be
some sort of liqueur. It probably had a fruity aroma at one time,
but now it smelled of nothing but pure grain. He braved a small sip
as he turned to see what Bren was carrying on about and nearly
choked. Whether from the strength of the drink or from the sight of
the pile of golden coins, he would never know. He forced himself to
swallow and felt the burn of the liquid all the way down his throat
and into his belly. He nearly choked again when he saw that Bren
had only dumped out a small portion of the contents from the pouch.
Bren was holding the heavy bag of coins in his hand and grinning
ear to ear.

Without hesitation, and with the eagerness of
a small child reveling under the Giver Man’s tree on full winter’s
morn, March dropped down to his knees and began rummaging through
the rest of the contents. To his disappointment only two items
remained. Neither was as glamorous as the bag of coins.

“
What’s left?” Bren asked
excitedly.

“
Only an old book and a scroll tube,”
March said flatly. “It’s all for nothing if we can’t get you back
home. The wolves don’t take bribes.”

He regretted saying it as soon as it came out
of his mouth. It wasn’t right for him to scare Bren like that. It
would be hard enough to get Bren over the ridge, even if his idea
worked, and all the harder if either of them panicked.

After giving Bren the skin full of the
liqueur, March laid out the cloak and began cutting it into strips.
After that, he gently took off the blood soaked pieces of the shirt
he had tied around Bren’s leg. The cut looked like a long black
gooey line. March wished he had a way to stitch it up, but the
nearest needle was back over the ridge with their other gear. He
thought about leaving Bren here and making the trip alone, but
thoughts of what could happen to his friend lying defenseless in
the cave made up his mind for him.

“
You pouring, or me?” March asked,
pointing from the wine skin to the gash.

“
I’ll pour it,” Bren sounded reluctant.
“You have to hold my leg still so I don’t pull it all back open if
I jump.”