Chapter 8: (Old memories)
Cynder had heard Spyro. She dropped what she had carried and took to the skies, hoping to find him faster from above. They had split apart just ten minutes ago, and he already needed help. 'Typical Spyro, I can't leave him alone for a minute without him getting into some mess…' she though. A quick look ahead told her that the vegetation would be too dense for her to land, so she went down where they had parted. "Spyro!" she called out. The forest remained silent, except a few animal sounds here and there. The wind blew silently along her scales, bringing a few leafs with it. "Spyro, where are you?" she called out again. Suddenly she felt cold, something very, very bad had happened, again. She noticed Spyro's tracks and ran along them, hoping that she would find him before it was too late. She ignored everything in her way as she ran. The smaller animals ran out of her path as she rushed past them. Then she saw it, a purple mess lied next to a small bush. "Spyro!" she cried and ran to him. She didn't see anything that could have caused such damage. Long gashes ran along his back, his neck was badly injured and his wings was broken and twisted in ways Cynder never thought was possible. The blood that came out of his wounds had formed a red, viscous puddle beneath him. Cynder didn't hesitate a second, she immediately got one red gem out of the bag. She felt the energy; it was just the same as when the huge monster had attacked them the last night. But this time Spyro was in a worse condition, and they had only two red gems this time. There was no way he would be able to walk out of this mess, at least not without help. Just before Cynder was about to use the second red gem, she felt something dark behind her.
Without looking back, she jumped to the side as the black creature swooped past her and Spyro, missing them both by just a claw-length. She turned around just in time to see the other creature jump towards her. She sidestepped and used her tail to slice the side of the creature. But it moved so fast she was unable to dodge the attack completely, long red stripes appeared along her scales where the claws hit her. The creature seemed to take quite some damage from the wound she inflicted on it; it landed hard on its feet and collapsed. It tried to get up, but fell back down again. It then slowly stopped moving, lying there motionless. As Cynder got back up on her feet, the other black creature rammed her legs hard. She collapsed and felt muscles being stretched to their limit, some of her bones bended so far that they could snap any time. The creature landed on top of her, pinning her tail under herself. She blocked the creatures punch with her paw. It tried to slice her unprotected throat, but she kicked the creature with her hind legs, kicking it off her. She got back on her paws, and so did it. They now stood face to face, circling each other while looking for weaknesses. Cynder noticed that the creature seemed to halt on one leg, some blood trickled out from a wound, so she took aim for this leg. Then she lunged for it, but she realized the mistake. The creature had faked the halting; now it used Cynder's momentum to its own advantage. It sidestepped her and struck her side, hard. Cynder landed on the ground, coughing some blood and gasping for air. Her ribs had absorbed a lot of the strike, but her lungs had taken damage from the punch. The creature walked slowly over to her, ready to finish her. Cynder rolled over so she could see the creature. It had this smirk on its face. It snarled and bared its teeth. The bright yellow teeth were longer than Cynder though, long enough to bite through her chest and to the spine if she allowed it to. The creature leaped towards her. As a last resort, she lifted her hind legs up and held her front paws in front of her. Apparently the creature didn't expect this; it tried to flinch but was too late. With full force it rammed its softer belly tissue against Cynder's talons. The speed the creature had made it bounce off of Cynder paws, tossing it into the bushes behind her.
She gasped, forcing air into her lungs. The pain was intense at first, but subsided for each breath. She turned around to look for the creature that was launched into the bushes. It was nowhere to be seen, no sounds could be heard either. She looked for the first creature that had attacked her. All she found was the pool of blood where it once was. Cynder couldn't see or hear anything else; neither did she feel any darkness. She rushed to Spyro, fortunately the gem Cynder managed to use before she was attacked had sealed up most of the wounds, but Spyro's problem was now the damage on the inside, where Cynder couldn't do anything. The second and last red gem was used, fixing the worst of Spyro's neck. "Spyro, why do you always get into such trouble…?" Cynder slowly said. "I can't leave you alone for one minute without you almost getting yourself killed. Even after all we've been through, when the fighting was supposed to end, when all the evilness was supposed to end; here we are again, fighting against those beasts." She dried her eyes with a paw. "I could feel that those creatures were evil, I felt the darkness." She was sad, worried about how they would end up. Surely one of them would suffer an immense loss soon if they kept getting into trouble like this. 'Maybe there is something even worse than Malefor out there…' she though as she lifted Spyro up like she had done the night before. Then she began to walk towards the temple. Slowly at first, but when she began to notice that the forest cleared up, she picked up her pace.
~ One hour ago~
Back at the swamp, the tracks after the two young dragons were barely visible. After running for some hours, he was really tired so he decided to take a break. A small rock was quite well-placed, right next to a small stream running from the forest and into the swamp. He drank some of the cold, refreshing water, stilling his thirst. A small butterfly flew past him, the beautiful pattern formed two dragon's eyes. The colors were sky blue and fire red with a hint of dirt brown. He continued looking at the butterfly as it passed him and landed on a yellow flower. The butterfly folded it wings on its back, drinking the flower nectar. The sun shone down on the flower, it looked like it sparkled. Some dew still hadn't vaporized yet. The creature lifted his head and looked ahead. He could see some hills about five kilometers away, he knew that the dragons he was chasing had been there. The butterfly took off and began its journey to the next stop and so did he.
~Present time~
He had moved fast and reached the hills in about one hour's time. He had heard someone yell out from the forest, but he could not make out the words. Right after that another cry was heard before it went silent again.
He noticed a small opening in the hill, so he walked towards that cave. He had lost the tracks; the ground here was much more eroded after the rain, so the tracks had been washed away. But he noticed that the cave had been used. Blood trails in the entrance revealed that a violent battle had been fought here. He thought back to the night before, during the storm he had heard many sounds through the storm. Now there was no doubt that an edustor had been here. Just thirty meters from the cave entrance, there the remaining of the decomposing body of the edustor lay. The huge beast had been dissolved into tiny fragments by now. He barely recognized the pieces from the corpse; the memory of his encounter with an edustor so many years ago came forth, almost bringing him back to those days. The details were hazy, but the horrors he felt and the truly terrible sight of one of his fellows being ripped to shreds in the claws of the edustor pained him. The rest of the group, the seven that still lived, barely made it out alive. If they hadn't been nearby that mountain passage, they would surely been killed every single one of them. The plains had pretty much been a death trap, they knew that from the beginning, but they had to take that risk.
~Flashback~
They had just escaped from the edustor and hidden in the passage. The edustor didn't follow them, but released its rage outside, not able to get them. It pounded the mountain, knocking loose huge lumps of rock, violently falling down towards the group. The rocks triggered a chain reaction, knocking loose even more rocks, forming a rockslide. Panicked, the group ran further in, hoping to escape the falling debris. Just a hundred meters away, they could see a cave opening in the mountain wall. The rocks fell closer to them; one fell right next to them, soaking them with dust and pebbles. They barely reached the cave and threw themselves in, just twelve seconds later the entrance was completely sealed by the debris. Now they had another problem, they couldn't see anything. They had no light at all.
~Present day~
He entered the cave where the two dragons had been just an hour ago. The red blood had now turned dark red as it coagulated. A green gem lay on the ground, along with a plant bag. He picked the gem and examined them. He had seen those before and knew that dragons somehow extracted energy from them, but he had no idea about how they did this. He put the gem away into his own bag where he kept the essential supplies as well as equipment, so he could examine it closer later. He looked around in the cave, he saw a small puddle of blood, either something had been killed there, or they had been badly injured. He spotted something shiny half buried in the ground. A hint of red shone from the object. He picked it up, it was a red gem. He examined it; he could feel the energy inside it, just like he had with the green gem. He placed the gem next to the green one in his bag. Suddenly a strange feeling hit him, he knew this feeling. Something was there; he was no longer alone...
He quickly pulled his sword from his side and readied himself for whatever that was nearby. He stood perfectly still. He felt the vibrations through the ground and he heard the snarls from the creature outside. He grabbed a better hold onto his sword, and then he charged outside, ready to face any creature that might be there, ready to fight to the death.
…
Cynder had just gotten out of the forest, Spyro was still unconscious, but he was breathing and seemed stable. Sometimes he moved a little bit, but not enough to be a problem for Cynder. He almost fell of her back once, now she used her wings to hold him in place. It was quite uncomfortable to have him hanging over her, but she didn't have much choice. "I'm starting to think Sparx is right Spyro… You ARE heavy" she said as she climbed up another slope. They were out of the forest, but not out of danger just yet. Cynder had seen much wildlife, mostly bugs and insects, but also some larger animals. Some wasn't among the most friendly she had seen, but luckily they kept their distance. Some of them came quite close so she had to drop Spyro on the ground to fight them off before she could continue.
The surroundings weren't much different from down in the valleys, the grass grew everywhere and plants and bushes grew in large clusters here and there. Some trees stood clumped together in groups of two to five trees here and there, spread out over the edge of the field. Cynder looked outwards, she could see the temple in the other end of the field, but it was around ten kilometers over there. She sighted. She looked at the sky. The sun had already begun to descend, but if she walked fast, she would be able to reach the temple before the sun fell below the horizon. "We're almost there, Spyro!" she said and smiled. "Let's just hope that someone is home!" 'And let us hope that they are friendly…' she thought for herself.
Author's note:
Seems as we're getting somewhere ;)
I would love to hear your suggestions and comments, especially about things you feel is good/bad, so I can improve. Please read&review :)
Currently I'm pausing this story, I'm now working on a game I'm creating. I'll be back here in about a week some days. In the mean time, you can give suggestions to this story ;)
This chapter has been rewritten due to heavy blood and gore.
