Chapter 15
- Morgan -
Vyrathion steps into the river without looking back. Before I can say anything, he keeps walking until he vanishes in the churning, muddy mass.
“Shit,” I mutter to myself. Because none of this is looking good. There’s no sign of the river monster right now, but something hit the island with great force, and it doesn’t take too much thinking to figure out what that roar was.
Yeah. I’m stranded on a small island that keeps getting smaller because some kind of dinosaur is knocking at it. And now my only protector is gone.
A coldness spreads through me. He got what he wanted, and now he’s gone. Like someone leaving right after a one-night stand.
Or maybe he didn’t like it. Maybe I wasn’t good enough.
Clyde waddles over and offers me a rock.
“Mhm. I don’t think you need to look for those things anymore,” I tell him. “Unless you can find some coffee and a spaceship.”
The rain beats down with less intensity now, but I’m completely soaked. Still I crawl back into the hut and embrace my knees.
I’m too cold and too numb to feel much. Being alone on Xren isn’t something I ever wanted, or ever thought I could survive. How am I going to get off this island? Even if the river calms down, I can’t swim across. Not with that monster lurking in the depths.
I suppose I could build a bridge or a raft, if I had any way of cutting down trees. I can’t just tear them out of the ground with my bare hands like Vyrathion.
Another judder goes through the ground.
“That monster still hasn’t given up, I guess.”
Clyde ignores me and puts the rock carefully on the ground.
I absentmindedly pick it up and fidget with it. “No, let’s not be pessimistic. Positive thinking, Clyde. What’s the best outcome here? Ideally we save ourselves and make our way to those other girls or whoever lost that comb.”
Obviously the best outcome would be for Vyrathion to return, but he’s a dragon and he’s been complaining about me following him the whole way here. If he wanted to get rid of me, this is a pretty good way. I can’t follow him if I’m stuck in a raging river.
It doesn't make sense. He jumped into a river after me. He fought that thing twice. He built the shelter.
He… well, that was both of us. And I thought it was great. Maybe none of that means what I thought it meant. Maybe he got it out of his system and got back to his normal dragon senses.
The jungle gets darker fast. When I can’t see much out the opening, I arrange loose leafy branches to cover it. It’s not great camouflage, but it’s better than nothing if that river monster tries to look inside.
It’s the most miserable night I’ve ever spent on Xren, and that’s saying something.
At least when I was living with the girls on that beach, we had a dead flying saucer that could keep us safe and give us water and even some kind of disgusting nutrition.
Here, all I have is a heap of damp leaves, a dripping hut and a real live Plood for company.
“If you get anywhere near me while I sleep, I’ll kick you,” I tell Clyde. “Just saying. Your kind are not my favorite aliens.”
I curl up on the leaves. The only good thing about this is that Xren doesn’t have small crawly insects to bother me. Of course, whenever the ants do come, they’ll be the size of iPhones.
It’s been a long, difficult day and I feel really tired all through me.
And still, every sound from outside makes me open my eyes.
Was that the monster? Was that a dactyl?
Was that the sound of the island collapsing fully and sliding into the river?
Was that a tree falling or a huge dinosaur just casually strolling by, about to put its immense foot on my hut?
Sleep comes in fits and starts and the night lasts forever before morning comes.
Then my eyes fly open in alarm for the fifteenth time. I smell smoke.
Smoke can’t mean forest fire - the rain has stopped, but the trees are still dripping onto the hut.
It can only mean tribesmen.
For a while I stay still. It’s unlikely that there are tribesmen on this island - they would have trouble getting here. And making a camp here would be weird.
So they must be on the shore. But I swear I can hear the crackling from that fire. And the smoke is seeping into the hut through the twigs and leaves.
I slowly turn so that I can look out through the leaves in the opening. I can’t spot movement.
But I hear someone muttering angrily. Someone with a deep voice.
Trying to be quiet, I remove the branches from the opening and crawl out.
He’s sitting with his back to me, looking like he’s tending a fire. His golden scales shine under the black skin.
“Vyrathion!” I exclaim as relief explodes in my chest. “You’re back!”
He turns and sends me a sour glance. “So it appears.”
I run over. “I thought you’d left me for good!”
He turns back to the fire. “That can still happen. I’m onto your spells now.” He’s got a number of slices of meat beside him that he clumsily tries to thread onto small twigs.
“You know, you could have told me you’d be back. I was worried!”
“Dragons never announce what they will do. I didn’t know I’d be back. Sit down and be more demure.”
“Where did you find the meat?”
He picks up one slice and looks at it with disgust. “The iron tribe.”
“They gave it to you?”
“In a sense. They were going to eat it, so I took it while I passed through their village. There was a fire as well.”
The fire is just one big log with one end burning merrily. I’ve never seen Praxigor make fire. “Did you… did you take their fire, too?”
“It seemed the best way. I assume eating raw meat is too uncivilized, even for you. Although it’s hard to believe that there is any such lower boundary.”
I plop down, overwhelmed. “You carried the actual fire all the way here? How did you get it across the river?”
“I made a bridge. And before you start asking, no, it’s not something a dragon should ever do.”
I remember the sound of the tree falling in the night, so I stand up and look around. And sure enough, there’s a giant tree lying across the river, with the roots on the other bank. It’s as thick as I am tall. “That’s a big tree!”
“Big, but already leaning because of the wide river. I helped it lean all the way over. Oh, this is silly!” He tosses a twig into the undergrowth, immediately followed by the slice of meat.
“May I?” I ask. “You never prepare food, but I do it a lot.”
“Help yourself,” he growls and stands up.
“I assume the tribe followed me to retrieve their fire. Their village is disgustingly, shamefully short of gold. Can you believe it? They’ll happily spend their lives hammering pretty patterns into worthless iron, but they don’t have a smidgen of gold!
Not a scrap! It’s enough to make one furious.
” He strides off towards the tree, then turns.
“Oh, and since you need advance warning: It’s not out of the question that I’ll be back. Don’t be shocked.”
“Smartass,” I mutter as I easily thread the slices onto long twigs and place them over the fire. But I am relieved and happy that he returned. My life would have looked pretty grim if he hadn’t.
“It’s not like it’s a Hallmark movie as it is,” I mutter. But for now, I’ll enjoy the relief. If there’s something planet Xren teaches you, it’s to enjoy every little happy moment because you can bet it’s cooking up something terrible to unleash on you pretty soon.
Vyrathion crosses the river, simply walking along the tree trunk as if it was an empty sidewalk.
“He’s so good,” I tell Clyde, who’s holding out a leaf. “And then he’s also so crazy. What do you think? Should I have thrown myself at him last night? Yes, right? I did the right thing? What I like about you, Clyde, is that you always agree with me.”
I think about it. Vyrathion walked into the muddy river, came up on the other side, walked to the iron tribe, casually strolled into their village and stole their dinner and their fire, came back here, pulled a tree up by its roots to get to me, placed the fire outside the hut and then tried his damndest to fry the meat on skewers.
That’s not very dragon-like. At least not as he has made me understand dragons. And yet, I don’t think he has any ulterior motives. He’s too direct, too confident, too above it all.
“Clyde, go over to the other side and see if you can find your friends. Check if they have gold.” I try to picture what I want him to do in my mind, including him coming back with gold.
I spend some time imagining nuggets and coins and gold dust, which is a challenge, because I haven’t seen a lot of it in my life.
Finally he scurries off, waddles across the river on the tree trunk and vanishes into the undergrowth. He shouldn’t have far to go - there’s a lot of Plood in the jungle.
I munch on fried mystery meat, which is actually not that bad. The world starts to look brighter and less deadly, which I’m fully aware is an illusion.
The rain has stopped completely and the river has sunk a great deal, so I’m not that worried about the island collapsing anymore.
And yet, when I hear noises from the other bank, I quickly duck out of view and peer out from behind a bush.
Someone is coming. Two shapes. No, three.
Tribesmen. Orange stripes, swords in their hands.
Damn. What if Vyrathion has gone into an ambush and these guys killed him? And the tree is still across the river, so they could easily reach me.
They move slowly, as if they expect to be surprised at any moment, making their way to the tree bridge.
Shit.
One of them puts his foot on the trunk and pushes, but the tree doesn’t budge. It must weigh several tons, and the roots on the other side and the crown on my side obviously keep it stable.
He jumps up on the trunk and slowly makes his way out towards the island.
I’m painfully aware that they must be able to see the smoke and probably also smell the cooked meat.
I slowly pull away, staying down. I don’t have any weapons, and I’ll only jump into that river if I absolutely have to.
For several long moments, nothing happens.