From far across the forest, Rake observed them.
Cresting out to the edge of his significant reach, he evaluated the newcomers. Two cores. They might have blended amidst the numerous dragons he was charged to safeguard, only these had bonds to go with them. Riders then. Young ones. And another with them, one with a scarred soul.
Rake knew the feeling of those scars well.
He judged they could pass. This trio were no threat to the wild emeralds he had been charged to protect. Wild dragons were not like to venture close to riders in any case. And yet, Rake found the small band intriguing. Why come to the woods? Did they know of the threat at its heart? Unlikely. Lords of the Order would investigate that. And something about the weakest of the party drew his inner eye – what notes he faintly discerned were none that he recognized.
Well, he might steal a moment here and there to observe them along their journey. He had other business this night.
From his cross-legged position, Rake stood in one fluid movement, using his tail to maintain his balance. He tightened his grip upon his polearm and drank in the dark woods with his draconic eyes.
Sickness ran deep here. The emeralds had made little headway against it despite a valiant effort, although he would refrain from complimenting the West Warden so. That dragon would get no such satisfaction from him.
Rake started running, channeling arcane energies to his feet to muffle the sound as he returned to the closest group of emeralds. Four of them –
their green scales washed out in the night – had gathered around a blighted oak. Snouts held high, they swayed rhythmically together.
Synchronizing songs was delicate work but it granted them the power to halt the blight, even cure it if enough chimed in. They’d been at this tree for an hour already, and Rake didn’t wish to break their concentration now.
He reached out to the surrounding area, a more intensive search than his light sweep of the wider forest but found nothing of note. Nothing to worry about, at least. Perhaps the Life Elder had just wanted to be rid of him after all. There was no danger here worthy of Rake’s attention.
And why should there be? The kingdom of Feorlen was small, out of the way and largely forgotten in the great histories. It was said to be an unwanted land. The Skarl Empire discovered it by accident. Centuries later, an army of the long lost Aldunei Republic conquered it by accident. In time, Feorlen became a kingdom of its own, but only because neither republic nor empire felt it worth bloodying themselves over. A spit of land at the edge of the former world and the distant after thought of the latter. What great threats could be here?
The rumblings of the emeralds seemed to reach a crescendo and drew Rake’s attention. Before his eyes, the green-gray bark on the sick tree started to recede. Progress. Always nice to see. Lucky for those who could still experience it.
Mystic motes emanated in abundance from the minds of the emeralds, so keenly focused on their task. He’d Cleanse and Forge his core beside such a group once he’d checked upon the others.
An acrid odor brushed his sensitive, reptilian nostrils. He licked the air out of an instinct very much non-human and one he had not fully adjusted to despite his long years in this form.
A squeaky cry croaked from down at his taloned-foot. Rake squatted. A badger cub crawled along the forest floor. Patches of its fur had fallen away, and a slick trail of puss-flecked blood dribbled in its wake. Its cry sent a shiver to long dormant places inside Rake.
A pained beat thumped from his soul. Rake placed his free hand over his chest, grunting a sigh as his curse plagued him.
I know, he thought. But the emeralds will wish to try saving it first.
The pain grew. Rake gripped his polearm so tight he chaffed the scales on his palm.
His dragon, Elya, was insistent. Rake never knew if talking to himself got through to her, but he did it all the same. Helped stave off the madness if nothing else. He also understood her intent.
This badger cub was doomed.
It was only one small creature, it shouldn’t matter, shouldn’t stir him so much.
He lowered his hand flat on the ground, palm side up, and let the poor thing climb on. Following his nose, and the trail of blood, he found its sett. He lowered and sniffed again. It didn’t take an emerald dragon to know death lay down there.
His soul grew tight.
I’m sorry you have to see this, he thought. With luck the emeralds will give up soon and we can leave this wretched forest.
He hadn’t decided what to do about the poor badger when he realized it had grown silent. It had died right there in his hand. Sighing deeply, Rake placed the poor badger back down by the entrance to its sett. With a delicacy unthinkable for one his size, he dug his hand into the soil and dragged it over the baby and its family buried below.
Fire would have been best. As well they set the whole forest on fire for all the good burning one sett would do—
A snap cracked through the clearing. Rake stood, gripping his polearm in two hands, and rounded on the source of the noise. He found a flayer flanked by ghouls. He stepped coolly back – the scourge advanced – and he swung his polearm in a clean, strong arc, cutting the scourge down in a single strike. Only the flayer wiggled some more upon the ground. Rake placed his foot upon its head and pressed hard. That was the end of it.
There had been dozens of small groups like these, cut off and lost from the main swarm. Purging the woods of them was trivial work to Rake but at least it was something to show for his time here. Although, he had wondered why the riders stationed at the Crag had allowed this recent infestation to run so wild.
He put such matters aside. What the Order did or didn’t do was no concern of his. They had made that clear long ago. For now, he returned to the group of emeralds. Their tree-patient looked healthy now. Another small something to show their own time here, he supposed. At least they were trying to do something about it, unlike the other wild flights. For that at least, Rake respected the Life Elder more than he did the others.
Rake moved on, checking in on other groups of emeralds and covering vast tracks of the western forest before the sun rose.
Over the next days, tracking his emerald charges and the trio of riders became harder. The emeralds continued to spread around the woods, searching for the freshest patches of infection. The young riders kept to the distant southern edge of the forest.
They wouldn’t know they benefitted from his industrious scrubbing of the scourge in those parts before their arrival. An old part of him, the part that still remembered being a rider, wished them well.
One day, they passed beyond even Rake’s impressive sight.
As did two of his emeralds, although they had been firmly within it only moments before.
Rake ran – a blur through the Withering Woods – until he came to where he had last sensed them. No trace of them remained, nor any sign of a struggle. He reached out for the West Warden, but the great emerald was too far away for communication.
He scanned outwards again, throwing his sixth sense as far as he could, pulling on great quantities of mystic magic from his core. Still no sign of them.
Perhaps they had flown away, or the Warden had sent them home and neglected to inform Rake. That seemed like something he would do. Anything to avoid conversing with Rake the soul-cursed.
He had just resolved to find the Warden and inform him of the missing emeralds when a roar echoed to the south. Rake reeled his magical senses back in, homing in on the distant core flaring as only a core will flare in combat.
Rake ran. The core of the emerald flickered and died in his mind’s eye.
An hour later, he found the body of the drake sprawled on the forest floor. Its eyes were still wide in horror, its forked tongue lolling out as it had breathed its last. A single bloody stroke ran across its neck. An execution. No dragon could make such a precise cut. The cultists that hunted dragons used pikes and arrows. Such a smooth incision could only have been made by a blade. And only a rider’s blade, forged at Falcaer, wielded by a rider with immense strength, could part dragon hide so easily.
Lifting the wing of the fallen emerald, Rake found scorch marks. Not from fire, such a fire would have burned the nearby grass or leaves. He
listened to the motes, hoping to hear an echoing note. Power rumbled in the area. Storm magic.
A storm rider. A Champion at the very least, and likely pushing at the boundaries of Lord. He hoped for the latter, as the former would prove about as challenging as ghouls.
He spared a moment to check upon the veil surrounding his core. Maintaining it required constant effort and magic, but he valued the privacy. A truly powerful being focusing their efforts would see through it, but it obscured him from those searching merely, so to speak, ‘at a glance’. In his hunt for this rider, his technique would give him an invaluable advantage.
The question of why a rider had attacked wild dragons didn’t trouble him at present. He could find out once he caught the rogue pair. More troubling was that the Life Elder’s fears had merit. Someone was indeed hunting wild dragons. A rogue rider was nothing revolutionary to Rake, but killing wild dragons seemed senseless.
“Rake,” the West Warden called to him. “What has happened?”
The pompous dragon had edged just into telepathy range, and only because Rake’s vast mystic core made it possible to answer over such a distance.
“I am handling it, honored Warden. Fear not a dark scale on your head.”
“Your task, soul-curse—”
“Is my top priority. It is in my interest after all. Recall your dragons to your side, I’ll head south and aid wayward members of your flight. I did encourage them not to pass beyond my sight.”
The Warden said no more.
Rake blew out his cheeks then got to running again. South, he went. South and east. Before nightfall he had traveled far enough to sense the young riders on their own meandering journey. He wondered now whether their presence was not so peaceful after all; perhaps they were here in a supporting role to the storm rider.
As Rake drew closer to his quarry, he sensed that their power was great. Like a lighthouse sending out its beacon. Yet he or she could fly and Rake, fast as he was, could only run. The storm rider approached a cluster of emerald drakes that had flown too far south. They stopped but did not start fighting. Rake powered his mighty limbs, leaping in such strides as to almost take off from the ground himself.
Closer now, Rake discerned the rider was nothing less than a Storm Lord. An extremely powerful Storm Lord. Finally, something worth his time.
As he crept toward the gathering, he wondered warily why the Lord had not engaged the group of emeralds at once. Even together, they would not be a match for his power. Suddenly, a dragon burst from the trees overhead, taking flight to the north-east. One emerald had left while the others remained. And the Storm Lord remained with them.
Intriguing.
When Rake at last drew close enough to spy the group with his own eyes, he found the Storm Lord’s dark gray dragon and the emeralds deep in conversation. Rake could sense the mystic energy transmitting between them, though he couldn’t tap into their thoughts. Would that he could, he would have had a great deal more fun in his life.
Whatever was being said, the storm drake had grown weary. It pulled its jaw wide and lightning began to charge. Negotiations had broken down.
Rake gathered his own power and hefted his polearm. It had his old rider’s sword welded onto the end of the shaft. He ran a talon-like finger along the blade, the metal clear like orange glass. It had been years since he had a good fight.
A pang reverberated from his soul, although whether Elya was afraid or imploring him not to harm the storm drake and rider, he couldn’t say.
I don’t think this pair deserves your sympathy, Rake thought. We do this, earn the Elder’s favor, and we get our wish. Not long now.
The emeralds roared in fear now and tried to back away, gathering breaths of their own. A great wind started to swirl and beat down, preventing them from taking flight. That was fine by Rake. Rake couldn’t fly.
Grinning, he sprang out from behind his cover and charged the Storm Lord.
