Chapter Three

Dark Flame

It took a long time for Ravana to recover from his wounds. For several days he was unable to move from his shelter at all; his burnt skin stiffened and if he moved it cracked and bled. He slept a lot, but fitfully, and suffered almost constant nightmares. Often he woke up shivering, expecting to see the giant dragons coming to kill him. But it was only ever shadow or shifting sunlight in the trees. Eventually thirst forced him to leave the overhang. Initially he had managed to lap enough of it from the puddles of rainwater that the storm had left, but these soon ran out. Ravana groaned and sighed, and tried to stand. His legs would not lift him properly; they shook and ached in protest, and his wings hung like bits of wet cloth, their tips dragging in the mud. He didn't give up, though, and dragged himself doggedly over the wet ground and down to the river bank. It was the longest journey he had ever made. Every pull of his forelegs, every thrust of his hind legs, was a terrible struggle. Many times he stopped to rest, lying like a dead thing with his mouth hanging open. But the river beckoned, promising cool relief to his raging thirst, and he kept on. At long last his outstretched snout hit water. He let the lower half of his face flop into the slow-moving current, and lay on the bank, sucking in water as though his life depended on it – which it did. After that it was time for a weary trek back to the overhang, and sleep.

His journey to the river was only one of many he had to make after that, but it gradually got easier as his wounds healed. The torn skin on his face closed over, leaving raw, scaleless scars behind, and the scratches on his back healed similarly. His burns were the most painful while healing; the skin blistered under the charred scales, then burst and dripped clear liquid. But those too eventually healed, though he shed much of the scale around that area, and bore nothing there but dark, wrinkled skin. This unprotected skin made him vulnerable to biting insects, and he spent countless nights curled up in his overhang, pathetically trying to shield himself against their stinging jaws. Deprived of that, they simply bit his wing membranes instead.

The crushed tailtip was the only thing that didn't heal cleanly. It grew infected and foul-smelling, and itched and burnt horribly. He tried chewing at it to ease the itch, but that only made it hurt. But the itch and burn slowly gave way to something else. The injury was not healed, but it had lost all feeling. Now he could chew and worry at it all he liked, which he did, vainly trying to strip off the damaged flesh. Then, one day, to his horror, the tailtip fell off. It left a shrivelled stump of dead flesh behind, and the broken-off bit lay on the dirt, stinking and glistening revoltingly. Ravana sniffed at it and recoiled. Had this thing really been part of his body? He flicked it away with disgust, and gently prodded his new tail-end with his claws. It felt bruised, but aside from that it was pain-free. But despite that he was aware enough to know that it was a relic. His shortened tail, along with the scars on his face and back, would be eternal reminders of his first encounter with other dragons.

Coincidently, it was during that period of recovery that Ravana entered what could be termed his teens. Even for a dragon, that time on the verge of adulthood – and the verge of maturity – is a time of turmoil and confusion, and rage at the world. It was just so for Ravana. After the initial shock of the attack wore off, he began to brood over the implications. There were other dragons out there. They were of the same kind as he was. But they had attacked him and nearly killed him. Therefore, they were his enemies. There were also the tiny, pale two-legged things. They had also attacked him. Therefore, they were also his enemies. Was there any other creature out there who was not an enemy, then? And why were they all so angry toward him?

He discovered rage with these thoughts, bewildered and hurt though they were. There was nobody else in his valley, nobody to express his anger toward, and so he expressed it with violence toward his surroundings. The trees in the valley came under attack from the maddened black dragon, and soon half of them bore deep, ugly claw-marks on their trunks, and pale wounds where branches had been torn away.

It didn't help at all. His rage remained, and worsened. He was shedding his innocence like a skin, and the new skin beneath was very different than the previous one. Only one thing could make it worse, and that one thing struck one night, when he was just about fully recovered from his wounds. He remembered the night of his birth. All of it. He remembered first awakening inside his mother's body, and how his egg had slid unstoppably out of her, though she tried to hold it back. He remembered his father's fury, his mother's fear. He remembered her desperate last flight, and the violent deaths of both his parents. He remembered his mother's blood covering his egg's black shell, and the agonised roaring of his father as lightning tore the life from his body. Lightning. So dangerous, and yet so beautiful. It was the herald of the storm that had protected him from the other dragons.

When Ravana remembered all these things, it was a shocking, pure moment of revelation. He made neither movement nor sound in response. His facial expression did not change. He lay very still, curled up in his shelter, and thought quietly. New ideas, so many of them. His parents were dead. It was his fault they were dead. If he had not been born, they would still be alive. The other dragons had wanted to kill him. Perhaps it was because they knew he was dangerous to others. The storm…

'I brought the storm,' he whispered. 'I brought it to them.'

He raised his head and stared at the awakening stars in the heavens. Beautiful and indifferent. A kind of heat burnt inside him, like a power trying to escape his body. Perhaps it was his fire. His black fire. He wondered if he could breathe it whenever he wanted to. His parents had done it. The other dragons had done it. Even the pale creatures had done it, though with sound rather than action. How had he done it before? He opened his mouth and blew, hard, but all that came out was hot air. Hotter than the air around it, to be sure, but not flame by any means. He tried again, concentrating on the idea of flame. Flame, fire. Flame. There should be flame. Black flame. My flame.

And there was. It burst from his mouth and nostrils in a great plume, darker than the shadows around it. The trees and the underbrush in its path burst into flame, a black flame hotter than any other. Ravana stood, and walked carelessly into its midst. To his wonder, the fire did not burn him. It was his own thing, his own creation. Only another's flame could hurt him. His own was his friend. He bared his teeth in a grin, and dug his claws into the earth. He was suddenly aware of the great power at his disposal. Flight, sharp teeth and talons, and, most importantly, his fire. His mood swung abruptly around from despair to dark joy. He was a dragon. Ravana reared onto his hind legs and roared, while around him the valley burned. It was his first true roar; the roar of an adult. A ferocious roar, a victorious roar. He could feel it rumbling and tearing inside his chest. The ground seemed to shake under his curving claws. He breathed black flame into the sky, again and again, glorying in its savage elegance. He was a dragon.

Elsewhere in the mountains, other dragons heard the sound of the roars. But none saw the black fire. They assumed it was the sound of just another male who had won a fight, or any adult announcing their presence in the territory they owned. But there was a special quality to these roars that made them uneasy. Something angry and violent, and dark.

Back in his valley, Ravana ran out of breath. He dropped back onto his forelegs with a thump, and surveyed the still-burning vegetation around him. It suddenly occurred to him that, without plants, animals would stop visiting the valley. He would also now lack cover. His mood turned from exultation to grim despair. He returned to his overhang to sleep, but inside he knew it was time to leave his old home. There had to be other places – places without dragons or the pale creatures – where he could hide.

But he couldn't sleep. It wasn't just that he didn't feel tired all of a sudden, it was just that he felt restless. The darkness beckoned to him, calling him to go out into the world while it was still night. His every experience told him not to – day was the time when a dragon should be awake and about, surely. But there was something beautiful and mysterious about night-darkness that appealed to him now. He surveyed the burnt-out waste of the valley, visible only as a pair of glowing eyes from beneath the overhang, and wondered. Was the world different at night? Impulsively, he decided to find out. He left the overhang and took flight, the action automatic and easy by this time. Once in the air, he found it exhilarating. The night breezes caressed his black wings like cool, clawless paws, the stars shone brightly, and the land below was a vista of shadows. Beautiful, he thought. He'd never, ever flown at night before. Now he tried it, he loved it.

He flew for much of the night, nearly impossible to see in the dark, even by another dragon. But he didn't dare land anywhere, for fear of being seen and attacked by someone. He didn't want any more horrible surprises. In the end, when he got tired and fed up, he flew back to his valley. There didn't seem to be anywhere else to go, at least for the time being. He landed amongst charred wood, drank from the river's icy water, and lumbered wearily to his overhang to sleep.

A few hours later he was awakened by unfamiliar sounds. He opened his eyes and lifted his head a little to listen. There was a strange, sweet scent in the air. He didn't recognise it. Nor did he recognise the sounds. They were high and weird, and fluting. They reminded him a little of birdsong, but he found himself bristling aggressively in response to it. He got up, a bit stiffly, and poked his head out of the overhang to try and see what was going on. He stiffened.

There were creatures in the valley. Not dragons. They were pale creatures, the same as the ones who had attacked him with word and fire. He hadn't caught the scent of the last ones, but the resemblance was unmistakeable. They had horses with them, but were leading them on thin lines of what looked to him like vines. So the horses were in league with the pale creatures. He was immediately glad that he had killed the last one to enter his lair. The pale creatures were picking through the burnt trees and shrubs, communicating in their weird, high voices. Ravana's eyes narrowed, and he involuntarily growled deep in his chest. The creatures turned at the sound, readying their weapons, which looked absurdly small. Ravana felt only anger and hatred toward him. He didn't think. He rushed out of the overhang, his wings spreading themselves as soon as they had room, his mouth open wide, roaring. To their credit, the pale creatures didn't run away. They scattered, getting out of his path and finding relatively secure places from which to attack him. Two climbed the cliff-face behind him and began to fire arrows at him. Others hurled spears, yelling in their incomprehensible language. Ravana reared up angrily, lashing out with his claws at them. He caught one in the midsection, his sharp black talon tearing the wretched creature's body so that the organs inside poured out through the skin. One managed to run up behind the dragon, and thrust a spear into the vulnerable gap between two scales. Ravana felt the pain of it, and brought his head around, snapping his jaws. He caught the pale creature in his teeth, and crushed him. The taste of the blood in his mouth only fuelled his will to fight, and he rushed at the others, heedless of the arrows bouncing and shattering on his scales. The pale creatures fought bravely, but they barely stood a chance. They died. Often horribly. Ravana belched fire at them when he couldn't reach them with his claws or teeth, and gloried in their screams and cries. He killed the horses, too, and when the massacre was over he settled down to feast on their flesh. It was the best meal he had ever had, better even than the first horse he'd killed, or the rabbit that had been his first taste of real food. He relished every bloody mouthful, and when his stomach was full to bursting he curled up and slept, brazenly in the open where anyone could see him. His black scales were covered in blood and ash, like warpaint.

What he didn't know was that he had not killed all of the pale creatures. Not quite. One of them had fled on seeing the black dragon's first rush out of the overhang, and now he returned, much ashamed, to see what had become of his companions. He crept through the unburnt foliage of the surrounding bushes, as soft-footed as a cat. He was, of course, an elf, though of course Ravana had had no way of knowing that. The elf reached the edge of the burnt patch, and cautiously peered out. He could hardly have missed Ravana. The black dragon was lying curled up in the middle of the burnt patch, covered in blood. Ash had stuck to it, so he appeared grey in some places. The elf paused. Was the dragon dead? But then he heard the brute's deep, rumbling breaths and felt his heart clench itself. If the dragon was still alive, where were the others? Had they run… or were they dead? He waited a while, considering his options, then left the relative shelter of the bushes. He was confident enough in his ability to move silently that he felt able to sneak around the burnt patch without waking the dragon. This assumption turned out to be correct; Ravana didn't stir. He slept on, while the elf explored the burnt patch, looking for signs of his friends. He found them soon enough, though they weren't exactly signs. They were more like… answers. Horrible, horrible answers. Scattered everywhere where they had fallen were the remains of the other elves. They were torn and mangled, mutilated sometimes beyond elvish recognition. Some were burnt, others disembowelled. Some weren't whole bodies at all. All he found of those were… pieces. Sometimes the pieces couldn't even be identified.

The young elf took in these sights, then ran back into the bushes and threw up. But even when his stomach was empty he could still feel it churning. Ice trickled through his brain, and fire through his chest. All he could think was that they were dead.

Dead. The word was both madness and torture to him. On his first scouting expedition, he had seen his entire group, including his two brothers, slaughtered by an evil black dragon. The same black dragon they spoke of so fearfully around the fire at night.

The elf dared to look back at the monster. It lay sleeping, blissfully unaware of his presence. He wondered vaguely if it was even capable of rational thought. Probably not. Nobody with a mind, nobody who was aware of themselves, could possibly do what this creature had done. He walked softly back into the clearing, heedless of the danger. Perhaps he was driven to a kind of mad courage by his grief. Either way, he advanced until he stood over it, looking into its brutal face. He surveyed it emotionlessly, noting the deep scars over the forehead, the jutting lower fangs, the crown of black horns sprouting from the back of the skull. The nostrils flared slightly with each peaceful breath. The beast was the size of an elephant – only half-grown, probably. The elf watched the sleeping dragon, and thought how strange it was that he almost had it at his mercy. It was totally unaware of his presence, and that was its only vulnerability.

If it had been another elf, a deer, a horse – anything other than a large dragon, he would have killed it at once. But he wasn't fool enough to think he could kill a dragon, even if it was asleep and could be taken by surprise – all by himself. The others had failed, even though there were many of them and they were all trained warriors. He himself was young, only just old enough to go out on the mission. They'd tried to stop him from going, but he'd pleaded with them to let him go.

'I can fight,' he'd said. 'I'm not stupid. Let me go. I promise I won't do anything to wreck things. Please?'

Faced with his earnestness, they'd caved in. But he knew they'd been wrong to let him go. At the first sight of danger, what had he done? Run away and left the others to be slaughtered. He was tempted to try and kill the dragon anyway; he didn't have anything to lose, after all. But reason won through. There was almost no chance of success. He had no weapons powerful enough to penetrate the thing's scales, and very little magic at his disposal. He had to at least try to get back so he could give the scouting party's report to the elders. Not that it would be worth much. What could he tell them? "We found a nice valley, but it's got an evil black dragon living in it"? Actually, when he thought about it, the idea didn't seem so bad. If he could get back… if he could tell them where the black dragon was hiding, then they could catch it unawares and kill it. Then his brothers and the others would be avenged, and the black dragon would be dead.

The elf smiled grimly to himself, deciding that it would please him very much to see the black dragon's head stricken from its neck. He looked at the dragon's face again, and welcomed hatred into his heart, most gladly. 'Listen to me,' he whispered to it. 'You killed my brothers here today, dragon. I swear that I'll have my revenge on you one day, no matter what it takes. Just remember my name, black dragon. Remember that Eragon is going to kill you.'

Then he was gone.