Chapter 13: The Furry Creature

Previously:

“We uh, we s-should probably…”

“Run? Y-yeah, I agree!” I finish for her and then find myself clutching her shoulder as I turn to look at the creature advancing for us. Through the brown fur, I catch sight of claws, wings, and, most notably: red eyes. Alarmingly, I realise it is getting too close, and I lash out at it with my leg, colliding with its side which throws it back. “GO!” I scream at Thyra and we take off without a second thought, fleeing up the path.

Now:

“Are we ever going to get a break?!” Practically clawing her way up the incredibly steep path, Thyra screeches out her complaints. “Why can’t we just go on a nice hunting trip without being bloody attacked?!”

Scrambling behind her for footholds on the muddy track, my breath heaves and my side throbs. “Is it following us?!” I yell up at her instead of answering. She looks behind us and curses under her breath, before turning around and climbing faster. “I'll take that as a yes!” I quip, grabbing onto a tree route to hoist myself up.

A loud screech runs through the air from behind, making my ears ring. I let out a hiss of pain, wondering how something so small can be so loud, shaking my head to try and concentrate.

The sound gets louder, causing me to miss a foothold. Fumbling to hang on to the route, I try desperately to push myself up. But the route snaps under my weight, and unable to right myself, I slip down through the sloppy mud on my stomach, getting a face full of it and almost immediately feeling my legs collide with something small, which effectively slows my descent. The screeching abruptly ceases as soon as I make contact. Eyes widening in realisation, I reach out my arm to clutch a moss-covered rock as I pass. My hands are covered in mud, but thankfully my grip is tight enough, and the rock holds my weight. Luckily, the small thing keeping slipping. I turn my head and watch it as I slowly pull myself up, regaining my hearing.

It would be quite comical if this wasn’t a bad situation. The creature—the dragon—is trying to stand up with its legs splayed out underneath it. It’s slipping down the path, fumbling as it tries to right itself, even with four legs it keeps slamming down into the mud. It’s only about the size of a human toddler, and it does have feathery wings—which it is flapping madly, attempting to take off into the air, but it never gets a metre off the ground before they stop working and it crashes right down to the ground again. It must not be old enough to fly? It certainly doesn’t act like an adult dragon, so I guess it’s a baby. Maybe that explains the fur? Do they grow scales? Or is this a different dragon species?

“Tore!” Thyra screams. I look up at her, using an arm to wipe mud from my face. She beckons for me to hurry, peering behind me. Shaking out of my state of distraction, I push myself off the rock and scramble to climb the path once more. My side is still throbbing, but I ignore the pain and grab onto whatever I can—rocks, routes, tree branches—to help myself up the path. Who knows? Maybe the mud has healing properties.

As soon as I am close enough, Thyra offers me a hand. She’s crouching on a large natural rock slab. I reach up to her and grab her hand with my muddy one. I feel my hand slip a little, but she holds tighter and I’m able to climb up to join her. As soon as I’m standing, we start running. The oath is still splotchy with mud, but it’s starting to thin out, and we’re able to step on surfacing rocks as we go.

“Have you ever seen anything like it?!” I ask. “Fur? On a dragon? It’s absurd!”

“Not in person,” Thyra puffs, glancing over her shoulder at me. “I might have seen a drawing once? I don’t know where…”

“We have no idea how to fight this thing!” I groan, holding my bag tightly as we scramble through the mud. I sneak a look behind us and feel my heart sink in my chest. “We have a problem!” I face the front again, trying to quicken my pace.

Thyra looks behind us and sighs. “That’s concerning.”

The dragon had made it to the side of the path and was now running along the bank after us, safely out of the mud.

“Got a plan?!” I ask, hoping to the gods above she can come up with something because I have no idea.

“Does it look like I have a plan?!” She snaps before she nearly face plants. I grab her arm to keep her steady, and we keep moving. The path is starting to get thinner. Ahead of us, though, it flattens out for a little to be a rocky platform, but I can see that right after it gets steeper.

“It was more of, a desperate hope,” I admit, my breath coming out short as I scramble up the path.

My foot slips out from under me, and I yelp as I hit the ground. Before I can slip further, I lunge out and grip a stone slab tightly. As I do this, a deep, rough growling noise booms from behind. Thyra helps me to stand up, and without looking backer continue up the path.

We make it to the flat part and glance at each other, then at the approaching dragon. The path ahead of us is really thin—we’d have to go single file—and it doesn’t look like it is very stable, either. A thump makes me look at the dragon again. It’s just jumped off its safe little route, and onto the same flat section of path we stand on.

”Oh no,” I mumble, chest heaving as I try to regain regular breathing. Thyra pulls her boys off her shoulder and nocks an arrow with shaky hands. She points it at the dragon. I grab my bow as well, nocking an arrow and pulling the drawstring back. The dragon eyes us with glowing red eyes, stalking towards us as it growls. We haven’t even seen it fire at us. Maybe it doesn’t do fire? It could explain the fur. But Thyra’s arrow! It disintegrated as soon as it touched it! I scan the dragon, spotting the same area the arrow had hit it. The hairs were singed. So the fire did harm it. That could be a weak spot!

“Thyra, fire at the singed patch of hair!” I hiss under my breath, eying the dragon.

“Right.” I hear her answer. I pull the drawstring to my ear, and with a nod at Thyra, we let our arrows go simultaneously.

It’s like time speeds up. Because the next thing I know, the dragon is screeching in pain, the arrows sticking out of it, while underneath us, the ground starts shaking, two enormous shadows casts over us, and we pale. Its parents.

They land in front of us. Land is… A weak word. ”They Drop like giant boulders” would be more accurate.

Because of how harshly they hit the ground, the rocks we’re standing on literally shake and crack. I fix my gaze on the giant dragons. Covered in shimmering red scales, they radiate heat. No fur. I note. Scanning over the dragons, I come to a conclusion—FireWielders. They’re the FireWielders we were warned about.

“TORE!” Thyra screams, reaching out towards me. I look down. Oh.

The ground trembles under me. And then it’s gone.

“TORE!” Thyra yells, panicked, as I fall away.

”Thyra!” I breathe, falling away, terrified. I flail my arms out to catch myself, but I feel nothing but air.

My body slams into something hard, and I let out a chocked scream. Everything moves rapidly, in a blur of colours, as I slam into things again and again. I don’t know what direction is up. Even if I try to focus my eyes, I’m moving so quickly that it’s impossible. The last thing I remember is my back crashing against something thick before darkness overtakes me.