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Chapter VII: The Children

Maragh had not much to say. The only thing people had seen were large bird of prey, but those would never have been big or strong enough to eat the cattle. We were now hiding in the big barn of farmer Jones, and my rituals had been cast. Indeed did we see the birds of prey as well as they were circling above the field. There were two of them, constantly circling in silence.

We waited for several hours, and the night grew darker and darker. We had lit a small contained fire in the barn on which I had cast another ritual. Now we would be warm and well lit without being discovered by enemies. But the field and the woods next to it were still as dark as ink.

There was nothing we could do but wait, so I wrote in my journal about the last few days. Hours passed without anything happening, and I was starting to wonder if we'd have to stay awake the next night as well, when suddenly Surina rose her hand. Everybody looked down the field, but there was nothing there. Surina whispered that we were looking the wrong way, and she pointed to the sky.

There, the birds of prey seemed to grow every second as they were coming down. It seemed everybody misjudged he distance these creatures were flying at as they came closer and closer. By the time they came close to the barn, still circling around, we could see that they must've been about 15 feet in total length, and the mighty wings of the creature were widespread, and over 25 feet in width. The bellies of the creatures were an off white colour, and the rest of the scales were gray, which caused it to look way smaller from a distance at night. That must've been one of the reasons the two creatures had looked like bird of prey; you could only clearly see the bellies.

We all watched in awe as the two creatures flew over the cattle, looking for a good target. Bardryn looked around. This was not something she had expected. 'What do we do now? I don't think we can negotiate with these vile creatures, now can we?' We were silent as we tried to think of something. It seemed there was no way out of this one. We had to fight them. 'Does anybody know anything about these creatures?' Bardryn asked. The Minotaur replied first. 'This is a Gray Dragon Wyrmling. Their parents leave their eggs near previous hunting grounds. The Wyrmlings who hatch often work together to hunt. These are vicious creatures. We have to be careful.' Then everybody was silent. 'We have to get down there, they are closing for the kill.' Surina said, and she was right. The Wyrmlings were circling around a large cow, herding it to a solitary spot on the field. 'We'll never make it in time!' Asteron said as he began to run down.

'Darastrii!' Surina shouted down at the Dragons, and they immediately looked around. The rituals made it hard for them to find out where the sounds were coming from. We all sprinted down the barn towards the big doors as Surina kept shouting at the confused Dragons. 'Darastrix! Nurh malsvir irlym!' She was calling them names, distracting them, but she'd have to hurry to get down and help us, or we'd be in big trouble.

Asteron opened the door with his shoulder, shield and weapon ready. Behind him were the rest of us, except Surina. She was running down the stairs to get to us.

The Dragons looked both surprised, eager and startled by the sudden visitors. They hesitated and stepped back, but they had reached the end of the field. We stood there, unsure what to do. Then the two Grays suddenly ran towards us, and jumped up, taking to the sky. Hindsight, they were just trying to flee and live, and we were cowards striking down frightened children, but in our minds lay only one thought; we must be careful not to get killed, cause all chromatic dragons are vicious, evil, deadly creatures.

The creatures tried to fly past us and gain height, but Asteron ran forward and brought his weapon down on one of them, hitting it on the head and bringing it back to the ground. I quickly cast a sleep spell on the other dragon, and the creature slowed down and fell back to the ground. It shook off the effect, and turned itself towards the Minotaur, just like the other Dragon. Both creatures opened their mouths wide and let spit out a large amount of acid, but the Minotaur guarded himself and dodged the attack.

Quickly, Maragh ran forward, sliding through the shadows, unseen, and thrust his shortsword up the chest of the dazed Dragon. The weapon almost bounced off of the scales and hide, but it left a great bleeding gap across its chest.

A great picture of a golden dragon rose from Bardryn, enfolding us all in a golden shimmer as we were protected from harm, while Surina charged the bleeding Dragon, avoiding the panicking cattle, attacking the child.