Chapter 4
- Morgan -
The jungle hits me like a punch to the gut. The heat, the darkness, the sounds, the movements everywhere. And the smell, always present in the village too, but so much stronger here. Decay, rot, life. And danger. Intense danger.
But that could just be Vyrathion.
For a moment the world rotates around me. I went with him. I volunteered to come with him. With the dragon.
I obviously need my head examined.
He keeps me hanging over his shoulder as he leisurely walks straight into the jungle. It gives me a good view of his rear, which seems firm and muscular enough, but it’s not very comfortable.
I start writhing. “Hey. Let me down, please.”
He slaps my butt. “Stop moving.”
“All the blood is going to my head,” I explain. “I’ll black out soon.”
“Then maybe you’ll stop squirming,” the dragon says. Then he sighs and stops. “Why must your species be so fragile?”
“Sorry.”
He sets me down and looks down at me with those icy eyes. “If it is your intention to slow me down so that your cave-dwelling suitors can catch up, it won’t work. I’ll simply leave you behind.”
“I’ll try to not slow you down,” I promise as I straighten my dress and rub my butt.
The skin definitely has a hand print on it now.
“And they’re not suitors so much as predators.
” I can’t meet his gaze, and the terror he instils in me is showing no sign of abating.
It’s not the fear of something specific he’ll do, so much as the knowledge that there’s nothing to stop him from doing absolutely anything he wants.
“Let’s see if you can keep up.” He turns on his heel and walks on, moving fast because of his long legs. If I walk and jog intermittently, I can just about keep up with him.
We’re walking straight away from the village. If I’m going to change my mind, this is the time.
But I won’t. This is dangerous, but I’m not being held in a tower like some kind of medieval princess, just waiting for the king to find a husband for her.
Or maybe I just lost my mind. Anything is possible.
I scramble over roots and past bushes to not let Vyrathion get too far ahead. Already he keeps vanishing among the greenery, and his dark scales don’t make him easier to spot.
“Vyrathion,” I finally pant. “Can we rest? Please?”
He doesn’t reply, just strides on until I lose sight of him.
“Vyrathion!” Damn. I may have to slink back to that village full of virgin cavemen after all.
“You’re holding me up,” comes a cold voice from right behind me.
I jump, heart racing. “Shit!”
“I knew this would happen,” Vyrathion sighs. “Your legs are short and you’re plainly not a creature of the jungle. Even if you try to keep up, you can’t.”
“Sorry,” I pant. “I just need a break.”
“Of course I can’t have this happen. I have places to go. Now tell me all you know about Praxigor’s hoard. It’s in the jungle, you said. Where in the jungle?”
I think fast. Of course there is no hoard the way Vyrathion means. “He flies, so I don’t know where he goes. But usually roughly towards the sunset.”
His eyes bore into me. “Towards the sunset? He only flies at dusk?”
“No, but he flies in the direction where the sun usually sets.”
“How long is he gone?”
“I don’t know. Sometimes long, sometimes… not so long.”
He frowns at my inane statement. “‘Not so long?’ Are you making fun of me, little female?”
My heart jumps in my chest, despite already racing. “No! It’s just… I don’t like looking at him. He scares me. He’s usually gone all day.”
“All day,” the dragon ponders. “To check on his hoard. It might be far away. But of course he will enjoy lying on his gold, so it might be a short way away, too, giving him time to properly enjoy it. Nothing you say helps me!”
I take a quick step back. “I… I’m trying. I just don’t know. Wouldn’t he want to keep his hoard secret?”
“Of course!” the dragon scoffs. “He would kill anyone he thought might suspect even what little you just said. Towards the sunset? Such a nonsensical idea- oh, this again!”
He looks past me. Two Plood aliens are waddling towards us.
I step out of their path. They give me the creeps, with their over-sized heads, big, black eyes and stubby limbs. They’re a blueish white, just come alive from their mushroom form. They’re the same kind of aliens that abducted me from Earth, so I have zero affection for them.
They walk up to Vyrathion and reach their hands up to him as if offering him something. It looks like branches and rocks.
The dragon quickly examines their objects, then slaps them out of their three-fingered hands. “Trash!” he yells. “You always bring me trash! Gold! I need gold, not this worthless filth!”
His anger has a telepathic element that pierces my brain with its fury, making me groan in terror.
The two Plood drop to their knees and knock their heads on the ground as they quickly crawl backwards past me, away from the irate Vyrathion.
He kicks at the items they brought, sending a huge shower of dirt that I have to duck to avoid. “Useless trash!”
I recover from the shock of the furious dragon. The Plood clearly want to serve him, and they are doing that the best way they know how. “Maybe they don’t know what gold is.”
He glares at me. “What? What did you say?”
“They were just… um… hatched,” I quickly explain. “They don’t know what gold is. They’ve never seen it.”
“What kind of worthless being has never seen gold?” he groans. “It’s the only thing of any value in the universe! And they haven’t even seen it?!”
“They’re probably doing their best,” I say as soothingly as I can when my voice trembles this bad. “Maybe they will suddenly bring you real gold by pure chance.”
“By pure chance,” he repeats mockingly. “What chance do these brainless things have of finding real gold when they don’t know what it is? They could bring me a thousand rocks and not one of them would be a nugget!”
“It’s a long shot,” I agree. “I’ve never seen gold here.”
He peers at me. “But you have seen gold?”
“On Earth, yes. Never on Xren.”
He takes a step closer. “You never saw Praxigor’s hoard? Not even a part of it? His wife! You said he has a wife. Or was that also part of your insane lie?”
“He’s married,” I confirm carefully.
“And he never gave that wife any gold? A ring? A necklace?” His eyes glint dangerously as he bends closer to me.
I swallow in a dry throat. “I’ve never seen her wear any.”
He straightens. “You pass the test. No dragon would give gold away. At least in this you are truthful. But you have seen gold. You know what it looks like. Thus you may assist in finding some for me.”
I should probably try to seem useful. “On Earth, they usually have to dig into the rock to find gold. In mines.”
“Yes, yes,” he scoffs. “That’s the common way of the lesser species. But a dragon doesn’t mine. He takes the gold that others have already mined and refined and shaped and cherished. And now, you will find it so I can take it. Your break is over and we can go on:” He turns and walks on.
I hurry to keep up. The jungle is deadly on its own, and he’s my only protection. He’s clearly not trustworthy, but if he thinks I can be useful for him, he might keep me safe. From the jungle, anyway. Probably not from him.
He seems to be walking a fraction slower now, so that I can go on longer without exhaustion.
I slowly have to think of what I want with this. Sure, I want to get away from the Borok village. But where am I going? The only place I know that might be safe is wherever Callie is with her fisherman husband. It might be a better place and a better tribe-
I hear movement behind me and spin around.
Then I scream. The raptor must have followed me for a while, and it’s so close that it could be all over me in one long bound. It stares at me with yellow, lifeless eyes, green slime dripping from its gaping maw, all triangular teeth in uneven rows. The predator is a splotchy blue with brown bits.
“What is it now?” Vyrathion says somewhere behind me. “Another friend?”
I’m too petrified to answer. On shaky knees I slowly back up, away from the dinosaur.
The predator tilts its head as it studies me. One clawed foot lifts and settles again without making a sound. The thing is deciding what to do. Its yellow eyes never leave me, and every instinct in my body screams that it already knows exactly how fast I can run.
"Female," Vyrathion says with exasperation from somewhere behind me, “I have no time for this.”
I can't look away from the dinosaur long enough to answer. My heart pounds so hard that it hurts. The raptor takes another slow step forward, then another, its tail perfectly level behind it. Every movement is smooth and deliberate.
"There, there," I whisper. “Good monster. Stay.”
Behind me, Vyrathion sighs again. "Good gold. What is the holdup?"
"Raptor," I manage without taking my eyes off the predator.
"That thing? I don’t want it following us. It has a stench to it. Send it on its way."
I keep walking backwards, one short step at a time. "I can’t. It wants to eat me.”
"Ah. I’ve heard of these things. A lesser predator."
“It could kill me,” I inform him as I back up.
The raptor is clearly not sure about what to do. It must feel the fear of the dragon, but it also seems dead-set on attacking me.
It lowers itself. Muscles bunch beneath its mottled blue hide.
“Ah. I see,” Vyrathion sighs. “Just like everything else in this jungle.”
The raptor launches itself forward. I scream and crouch down.
One moment it is standing there and the next it is a blur of claws, teeth and blue scales tearing through the jungle.
Vyrathion moves almost lazily. His arm snaps out and a crack echoes through the trees.
The raptor is suddenly moving in an entirely different direction. It crashes through a stand of ferns and slams into a tree trunk hard enough to shake leaves from the branches overhead. For a heartbeat everything is still.
Then the predator scrambles back to its feet and stands there, swaying from side to side. Vyrathion simply hit it.