The Last of the Dragons-Set 1

59

      The next morning, I woke up covered in morning dew. It was cloudy, cold and damp, the suns light dampened by the thick cloud cover.

"Amy, wake up." I said as I nudged her back.

She woke slowly, rubbing her eyes as she sat up against a tree laying behind her. 

"We've still got a lot of ground to cover. Let's get moving." I said.

We continued riding in the direction of the volcano. I had a funny feeling throughout the entire day. The forest felt smaller than it had previously. I felt the urge to draw my bow, but i didn't do it in order to avoid frightening Amy.

"How do you know they went to the volcano?" Amy asked.

"I don't. But for a while they seemed attracted to it. That's where their eggs were laid, I can only imagine that's why. I don't know where else they would go." I said.

Just then, I heard a twig snap off to the right.

"Shh." I said in a whisper.

I felt an even stronger urge to arm myself, which I did. I pulled my bow from around my neck and drew my arrow. I could feel the horses muscles tensing up with anticipation. I could hear Amy's heavy breathing in my ear. It was clear that she sensed my fear even though I tried my best not to show any. I scanned the forest floor, looking for any sign of movement. Then I heard something running through the bushes behind us. I turned sharply around and blindly fired an arrow into the brush and heard something heavy hit the ground on the other side.

"Come on, let's check it out." I said as I jumped off the horse.

Amy followed with her dagger in her hand, which I could tell was shaking slightly. We walked around the shield of bushes to see an adolescent deer dying on the ground in front of us, the arrow stuck right through its neck. I took Amy's dagger and put the deer down by stabbing it in the middle of its head.

"Well... That looks like lunch for a while." I said.

"Hell yeah, good shooting." Amy replied as I handed her back the dagger.

"Well, we certainly can't drag this thing behind us. Let's get to work separating the meat and we'll take as much as we can carry. Anything we don't take will get eaten by predators."

I tied the horse to a tree, then began the slow process of stripping the best meat from the deer. 

"Give me a hand here. It will take us till dusk to get this done." I said.

We sat there fleshing the deer for hours, before the sun started to go down. I decided that we couldn't hang out around a half gutted deer carcass in the middle of the night. That's begging for predators to come and kill us while we slept. I took the deer's legs, as well as several other large chunks of meat and strapped them to the horses side.

"Let's go. The rest will get eaten by a bear or something." I said as I mounted the horse.

Amy climbed on, and we rode off. We rode until the sky started to turn orange and pink with the sunset. I couldn't believe my luck, as right when the sun was nearly gone, I spotted a large clearing up ahead.

"Well, that was luck if I've ever seen it." Amy said.

We rode to the center of the clearing, tied the horse to small tree, then built a fire to cook some of the dear meat. As we ate, I got the same uneasy feeling I had gotten hours earlier. I scanned the treeline.

"Amy, hand me my bow will you."

She looked up, then handed me my bow with a few arrows, unsure of what was going on. I scanned all around us, until my eyes caught sight of something.

"Oh dear God." I said.