Chapter 17: rare species
"I always thought it would be you who would take down a dragon," Claudia teased her brother, "what do you mean?" Soren asked a little confused, "well this was one of your life goals but…" Claudia pointed to the dragon then her, "technically i'm the one who fired the shot" Snake pointed out as he dismounted his horse.
"Well i think it's dead but how can we be sure?" Soren stated kicking the dragon, "secure it" he ordered as guards took out chains, Snake dismounted his horse to help but then stepped on something.
He looked down to see it was a deer skull, odd, there weren't any dead deer about, and the skull looked perfectly clean, he pick up the remains of it as a section of it had been crushed and examined it his witcher senses picking up a trail.
Meanwhile back at the cave
"Zym?" Ezran called as they all made it back to the cave, "Zym, are you okay?"
For a moment there was no answer then there was a whimper and the hatchling quickly scampered out of his hiding place and clung to Ezran worriedly, Bait meanwhile crawled out and over to Callum and allowing the elder brother to pick him up.
"I should have done something" Rayla said looking regretfully back to the spot where the dragon was, "Rayla…" Callum began, "no she's right" Kaja interrupted a little crossly, "we all should have at least held our ground. My powers could have healed her and we just left her", Rigran only looked to the ground.
"Look, we need to get to Xadia," Rigran said, not entirely convinced himself, "yeah. Rayla you're always telling us that getting Zym back to xadia is the only thing that matters" Callum agreed, "so why are you hesitating now?"
"I'm not hesitating! This is different!" she snapped. "Every fibre in my body is telling me this is wrong! That dragon is defenceless, and I just left her there!"
"I don't get it Rayla. Why are you so worried about a dragon that just set fire to a town of innocent people?" Callum questioned.
"I've been thinking about something someone once told me," she replied. "About how when one person hurts another and then that person hurts them back, it becomes a cycle that never ends."
"Who told you that?" Callum asked
"You did," she said. "But Callum, to break that cycle, someone has to take a stand when no one else will!", "I guess you're right," said Rigran with a sigh. Callum nodded, "but how can we take a stand?" Callum asked, "look I want to go down there with you guys and be a hero but I can't do anything at the moment".
"That's not true Callum" Rigran said, "you can do alot of things, but finding what you're good at does take time", "he's right if you want to help you can find a way to" Kaja added.
"If we don't get back, get Zym home" Rayla ordered as she jumped from tree to tree back to the crash site, "are you sure you will be alright?" Rigran asked Kaja, "my wounds completely healed now so yes I can" Kaja replied as she slid down the incline from the cave following her.
Rigran placed a hand on Callum's shoulder, "we will be back" he reassured as he followed Kaja down the incline drawing out his bow and arrow while doing so.
Katolis castle
Viren walked down the stairs to the secret chamber of his, Gren smiled at him while Dravaan still scowled, "welcome back" Gren said, jovially, standing up, "I hope you had a pleasant trip", Viren sighed and turned to them, "how can you possible remain so cheerful in your dire circumstances?" Viren asked.
Dravaan noted how down Viren seemed, "well I think about it like this" Gren began, "why see myself as being chained down, when I can be chained up?" Back the Viren and Dravaan raised their eyebrows at him, "I admire your tenacity" Viren said with a little uncertainty.
"Let me guess the kingdoms refused your plea" Dravaan said, Viren took in a deep breath, "yes" he admitted. He then left the two and entered the chamber of the mirror.
Outside
Just outside the castle grounds Hainn waited with Azazel beside him, from above in the sky a trail of fire came racing down to them and halting just in front of them was Malum and his horse, ruin, the newest members of the wild hunt.
"Good to see you Malum" said Hainn, "welcome to the hunt", "thank Criorhainn my old friend" Malum responded as he got into one knee and knelt in a bow, "rise" Hainn ordered and Malum rose, "I have a mission for you"
From his cloak he produced a scroll with the seal of the wolf hunt on it, "get this to our Witcher. Snake. He should be close to the border of Xadia" Hainn explained, then brought out a bow and arrow, the arrow head was in the shape of a hawk.
"This is a Shadowhawk arrow it'll help find him for you once you meet up, get him to the capital of the kingdom of Neolandia in the north-west, he will take over from their"
"I understand my liege" said Malum, Hainn gave a approving nod he tied the scroll to the arrow he spoke the words to make it work and fired it, Malum on his horse quickly took to the sky as the arrow turned into a blood red and black hawk and flew through the air on its way to Snake.
Inside the castle
Viren closed the door behind the two as he entered the chamber with the mirror and magically lit the candle in the room. "I have nothing left to lose" he told himself as He pulled the cloth off the mirror illuminating the room in light of the other place where the being was.
Crash sight
The dragon had been successfully chained down to the ground by the human soldiers while Soren, Claudia and Snake watched, Claudia was reading a book on the ingredients that dragons had for dark magic. Needless to say there was a lot that could be used.
"There are so many things we can do with a dragon," Claudia said to the two, "there's even a chapter about spells that use dragon snot. It's some power goo"
Snake rolled his eyes, "and what off dragon shit?" He asked to lighten the mood, Soren began to snigger, "let's not get into that" Claudia said disgustedly, closing the book sheepishly.
"Anyway we might not have the dragon prince, but if we brought this dragon home, dad would…" she let the sentence trail off so Soren could think about it, "hmmm" Soren said thoughtfully, "it's something" he admitted, "but it does way, oh I don't know…about a million pounds? How are we going to move it?"
In answer Snake drew out his silver sword, "would in pieces help?" He asked, Claudia nodded, Snake was about to move but then he stepped on something that made a crunch beneath him, he looked down in surprise to find he had stepped on a deer skull.
What was odd was that it looked perfectly clean and carefully extracted, "everything okay?" Soren asked as he looked down at the slightly crushed skull. "No," Snake admitted with a bad feeling in his stomach.
He ran over to the trench that the dragon had made when it had crashed, when he looked closer he found skull fragments among the destroyed trees and plant life, "what's he doing?" Soren asked as Snake began following the trench.
"I have no idea" Claudia admitted but then she picked up the deer skull, "but I can use this for some spells I have been wanting to work on"
Soren sighed as his sister went into full lecture mode.
In the bushes Rayla, Rigran and Kaja watched, "well at least we might not have to deal with him" Rayla said with no small amount of relief, the silver sting as bad as anything she had felt.
"That just leaves the soldiers, Claudia and Soren" Rigran agreed, "live or die this dragon goes home agreed" Kaja said, they all agreed. Rigran was actually just there to make sure they made it back alive, in his opinion dragon be damned but he didn't say it out loud he had to be better than that to hope for peace.
The trio split up, Rayla started by knocking out the guard closest to the tail of the dragon by hitting him on the back of the head and pulling him behind a rock then knocked out the second closest guard by using the blunt end of the first guard's spear.
Rayla then began cutting the ropes, Rigran used his bow and arrow to shoot the single ropes binding the dragons back legs, he then put away his bow and helped Kaja sneak up to the chains binding the dragon's tail, Kaja drew out her dagger and focused the magic superheating it to the point that it looked like a sunforge blade.
Making it relatively easy to cut through the chains.
Unfortunately while Rayla was working on the ropes near the front, somebody tapped their sword on one of the chains to get her attention, "oh this guy again" Rayla groaned, swords raised as she glared at Soren while the other soldiers raised their weapons behind him.
"A dead dragon and a dead elf all in one day," the blonde snickered. "Everything's coming up Soren."
Rigran drew out his short swords and hurriedly rushed forward next to Rayla, "and a Witcher well this should be fun" Soren added
He charged at her, sword raised and she returned his challenge, their blades clashing, sparks flying off with every strike. She ducked under a swing, stepping back and raising her blades again as he leapt at her. She could feel her arms shaking with the effort to hold him back, when the wind was suddenly knocked from her lungs as something hit her in the gut. Landing on her back, she scrambled to her feet, watching the soldiers around her slowly approaching.
However Rigran rushed in front of her, "Aard" he said, throwing his hand out in front of him and the telekinetic blast knocked the four soldiers onto their backs.
They quickly scrambled back to their feet and charged at Rigran who readied for the oncoming attack.
Back at the cave
"What are you doing?" Ezran asked curiously to his big brother as he drew in his book, "I'm just drawing Ezran" Callum responded not looking up, "you seem upset" Ezran noted worriedly.
"Yup I draw when I'm upset" Callum confirmed, he was daring Rayla and Rigran, however his chalk broke and in frustration he threw the book down onto the ground, and by chance the pages happened to land on Claudia looking in her spell book.
Callum remembered the spells she had done, each one of them, how each was performed, and he had an idea of how to help, how to play to his strengths.
"Ezran you have to stay here and protect Zym" Callum told his brother as he hurriedly made his way down the slope, Zym made a jump to go after him, "hey don't worry Zym" Ezran said to the young dragon blocking the path
"Why don't we play a game while they are gone?"
Back at the battle
Rain was coming down as Rigran and Rayla fought off, Rigran parried a sword thrust from one of the soldiers before using the blunt side of his short sword to stun him. He then cartwheeled over a spear that another guard tried to trip him up before sweeping the legs from underneath a third soldier and kicked him in the head to knock him out.
"See weeping the leg is a real thing" Rayla remarked snarkily to Soren, Soren made another sword Slash which Rayla backflipped onto the dragons back to dodge. On the dragon's back Rayla switches the blade of one of her elven swords.
She used the blade to lift it off the dragon slightly then made a slash downwards onto the chain, unfortunately the blade just bounced off, "ooh yeah that's the thing about chains" Soren said in a gloating fashion, "they are made of metal and hard to cut".
"Oh really" said a snarky voice, Soren looked and paled as Kaja stood by one of the chains and used her superheated dagger to cut through it like butter, unfortunately a soldier had managed to sneak up on her and put her in a chokehold position with a spear making her drop the dagger into the mud by the blade.
"Yeah sorry not happening" Soren responded, but Kaja used her magic on the spear setting it on fire breathily before it extinguished and turned to ash. Now free Kaja punched the soldier in the face but then backed away shaking her hand in pain as the metal had really hurt.
Rigran hurriedly rushed to her side to protect her as she had her dagger no longer and both were soon surrounded by soldiers, if she wanted Kaja could have superheated the metal Armor of the soldiers but it was used to kill them.
"We are not backing down" Rayla said defiantly despite the situation, "try not to kill them" Claudia told everyone, "they can lead us to Ezran and Callum".
"They don't have to" said a new voice, they turned to find Callum standing there with a book in one hand and a dark magic ingredient(a grub of some kind) in the other.
"Callum! You're safe!" Claudia exclaimed in relief, but then the book and grub in both his hands registered with her, Rayla noticed as well and she paled. "What are you doing?" Claudia asked anxiously.
Callum looking rather menacing now raised the hand with the grub in it, he looked at Rigran, Rigran could see Callum's plan, he nodded in understanding and to say 'go for it' Rigran himself would have done this if he was in the same position.
"Your kind of magic" Callum said, Rayla paled even more, what was this idiot trying to do?, "y-you don't want to do this callum" Claudia stuttered, "it's really dangerous unless someone shows you how". "You already did" Callum said and crushed the grub in his hand causing the green blood to dribble down his arm.
He then began uttering a chant with his eyes closed and when he opened them they were glowing purple, pure dark purple, and green fire erupted from his hand and shot towards the chains binding the dragon turning them into hissing metal snakes with glowing green ruins. Callums eyes turned as black as a witchers after drinking a witcher potion and the snakes began slithering towards the soldiers making them back up hurriedly.
Callums eyes returned to normal but the effort was too much, he collapse on the ground unconscious, Rigran hurriedly rushed over and made sure he was okay, Kaja right behind him, Rayla meanwhile bent down and tried to push the dragons head to wake it up. "Get up your free" she said desperately to the dragon.
But a sword levelled itself at her throat, "congratulations" Soren said as Rayla stood up and moved away from the dragon the sword still levelled at her throat, "that was impressive. Really. You did everything you could to save a monster that torched a town of innocent people. But it didn't matter because the dragon is dead"
However behind him the dragon began to heat up as the rain turned to steam on its body and its eyes fluttered before snapping open.
Soren smiled victoriously as he pointed his sword at the elf, everything was coming up Soren, but then he heard a soft growling come from behind him, he looked and recoiled as the dragon stood up and roared a roar of pure rage, spreading its wings in anger.
Elsewhere in the forest Ezran was walking down the track looking around until he spotted a glow from a nearby bush, he moved the branches away, "you're still bad at this buddy" he said to Bait as he took the glow toad out of the bush.
"Now where's Zym" he asked looking around, there was no sign of Zym anywhere, "oh no" Ezran said as he realised what must have happened, "I am so stupid. Hide and seek was a really bad idea"
Not to far away at the end of the trench the dragon had made Snake found where the trail of deer skull fragments led, it led to a branch that lay bent on its tree, with multiple skulls hanging from it, oh no, Snakes felt his heart drop into his stomach as he knew only one thing made these totems. He turned and ran back to warn the others of the coming threat, he hoped he wouldn't be too late.
Then he heard a chirping behind him, he stopped dead and turned, there looking up at him nervously was the dragon prince itself, for a second Snake thought about killing it, but what good would that do against the creature of these woods.
"Go" he said to the dragon who cocked its head in confusion, "best leave and let the professionals handle this", the young dragon continued to look at him in confusion, Snake sighed, "I don't normally make attachments but Soren and Claudia are my friends, possible my only ones" he admitted to the dragon he did not know why he was but it seemed right.
"They may not agree with my methods but they are my friends and I am not leaving them to face the beast that will kill them". The dragon prince gave a tip and rushed off in the direction of the dragon, "hey where are you…" he began then sighed, that damn thing was going to get itself killed.
But perhaps there was hope for humans and elves, he didn't really believe it, he should kill the damn dragon prince and be done with it but for some reason he couldn't bring himself to do so, "think on that later help Soren and Claudia now" he reminded himself as he raced after the dragon prince.
Back at the battle the soldiers screamed and retreated away from the dragon while Soren readied his sword for the fight, "we have to leave" Rayla said to her friends as she took Callum's other arm and wrapped it around her shoulders.
The dragon roared once again gaining the attention of the group, Soren however slashed his sword at the dragon which jumped back a little before going to bite Soren but Soren sidestepped out of the way and slashed his sword again succeeding in cutting off one of its horns.
The dragon brought one of its paws down forcing Soren to jump back, Soren righted himself just as the dragon's tail lashed out and that might have been the end of Soren had he not been tackled by someone who then slashed his sickle at the soft underside of the dragons tail.
The dragon yelped and jumped back as the soft scales of a dragon underside can be very sensitive depending on what kind of injury is inflicted and where it is inflicted.
"Snake?!" Soren exclaimed upon realising who had saved him, "thanks", "don't thank me yet we need to get out of here" Snake responded helping Soren to his feet.
"Why we can take it" Soren retorted, "I'm not talking about the dragon" Snake responded, the dragon roared at them. But then it noticed something, it was the dragon prince, the dragon turned to Zym who began to whimper, "Zym!" Called a voice, it was Ezran who picked up the small sky dragon.
The dragon roared at them, then the dragon calmed down and sniffed them, it realized who it was, the dragon prince itself, realising that there was no king a threat it began to lift off, flapping its wings, but just as it leapt into the air.
Roots and wooden vines shot out of the ground and trapped it, sending it crashing back down to the ground struggling and unable to move. "What?" Rigran exclaimed, "no" Rayla cried, "alright nice job Claudia" Soren said turning to his sister
But Claudia was looking anxious, "that wasn't me" she stammered, "no it wasn't" Snake said as he took out a flask of Blizzard potion to help increase his reaction time and reflexes.
"Young Witcher ready for battle" he ordered Rigran, "what?" Rigran asked as he let Rayla take the full weight of the very ill looking Callum.
"You heard me we are going to have to work together" Snake responded, "why what's going on?" Soren asked anxiously, there was no time however as a low but loud and dreadful moan echoed out of the forest, all around them, Banthers black and mean looking but their eyes were glowing bright green.
The soldiers slowly backed away from them as an unusual mist entered the area to help fill in what the rain could not. And with powerful steps, the creature emerged from the shadows of the trees.
It was massive almost as big as the dragon of not slightly larger, it had long bony limbs with large sharp claws at the end of each, it's head was covered by a deer skull with huge antlers that ended in sharp points with some dead animals impaled on them or some points broken off. Around its body was a dark red fabric rather like an apron over its wooden and skeleton like body.
"It can't be" Rigran said as the stories of Dravaan made him recognise the creature, "yes" Snake confirmed.
The creature of the forest, was a very big and very mad…Leshen.
