Chapter 18
Blackscales was surprised that Omen had decided to name the wolf pup after him, but even more surprised that it was his last name that he used. Ashheart was the name that his family earned for a reason that he couldn’t even recall, but everyone knew it was a strange reason. Such dark names were usually only given to families that have a bad past, and whatever gave Blackscales’s family that name, made everyone else wary of them when it was spoken, and his friends were well aware.
“Are you sure that’s a good name for a puppy?” Autumn asked, voicing Blackscales’s thoughts.
Omen looked at her with slight irritation gleaming in his eyes before replying, “The man who that name belonged to first turned out to be something unique, special, and amazing, and this pup has the same potential so he deserves an equally great name.”
Autumn shook her head in displeasure before saying, “Come on; we should get going. Whatever that pup’s name is doesn’t matter right now, and it probably never will. The next ally we meet that knows about Wargals will be taking him off our hands if I have to chuck him at them myself.”
Blackscales chuckled, until he realized that while Autumn was joking slightly, she would have been willing to do just that. The rider was confused about her, since she usually liked animals at least a little bit. Something was definitely off about her, but he couldn’t even begin to pinpoint it.
“Alright, let’s get a move on and go as far as we can before nightfall,” Omen said in response to her, pulling Blackscales from his thoughts.
The dragon rider decided that he’d try to confront Autumn when they got the chance to be alone, but for now he’d try not to bring too much attention to it. He waited a few moments until his human companions started moving again, and they pressed on. Inferno leapt up into the air so he and his rider could fly without focusing on the pointless conversation of the others. Sometimes it seemed that Omen was bored with the others’ talk, but for once he seemed pretty occupied from the few glimpses they got from above. Ashheart had definitely stolen the blacksmith’s heart, and it already seemed that it would be hard to separate them when the time came.
Blackscales sighed, troubling the dragon.
“What’s wrong?” Inferno asked, deeply concerned.
The rider moaned as he tried to separate his thoughts enough to talk to the dragon, “Omen is growing pretty attached to the Wargal pup when we’re probably going to have to get rid of him soon, and Autumn is acting strangely.”
“What do you mean when you say that she’s strange?” Inferno said as he swopped over the trees. “From what I’ve seen of her so far, she seems to have complete disregard for most beings.”
Blackscales was suddenly very confused, and said, “How did you know that I was talking about her reaction to the pup? I know I haven’t told you.”
Inferno turned his head slightly to show Blackscales a single, devious eye before replying, “Our bond is growing. I can hear your thoughts when they are sent directly to me from great distances, but when we are actually touching, I can read your thoughts even if you try to conceal them. And if I’m not mistaken, eventually we will get to a point where I can feel your very emotions, even at a distance.”
Blackscales sat there in silence, completely surprised before the dragon said, “You see? I can read you pretty well without you telling me, enough to know that you were about to ask me how I do it. The same way I talk to Omen; by extending my consciousness to the world outside my own head.”
“Is that part of your magic ability?”
“I assume so, since it seems to drain my energy very slightly every time I do it, like all magic does,” Inferno replied.
“Weird,” Blackscales said as he loosened his grip on the reigns a bit. “I guess it’s getting pretty late; the others will want to set up camp soon, I’m sure. Can you fly around within a half-league of them and try to find a clearing or something where we can set up camp? If we can’t find anything we can just set up on the trail.”
Inferno made a deep, throaty growl in reply and swooped down to the treetops again. His long, scaly neck twisted and swerved like a serpent through the cold air as his ice-blue eyes roved the ground in search of a small spot for a camp. Without warning, the dragon dove into a small opening in the trees and carefully began to glide in between them before landing tentatively on the rocky ground at the edge of an open area. The area was large enough for everyone to squeeze in very easily, but the trees closed above so that they could remain hidden.
“Tell Omen about the clearing,” Inferno said, just before Blackscales was about to ask him the same thing.
“Me?” Blackscales asked in surprise. “I haven’t been able to talk to anyone in my mind except you and Ashheart.”
Inferno swung his head all the way to his shoulder to the point where his nose was actually brushing against Blackscales before replying, with great and surprising affection in his voice, “It’s about time you started. Riders are supposed to be able to talk to anyone in their minds, and it’s never too early to master that, if you can.”
Blackscales exhaled deeply in a defeated sigh before stretching out his mind. He felt long tendrils of thought emanating from his consciousness, and he felt the thoughts of his friends soon after. At that moment he didn’t really want to talk to Aval and Autumn in this way, but Omen was used to it, at least from Inferno, so the rider clung on to the invisible wisps floating through the air that were his thoughts.
The dragon rider pulled himself into the blacksmith’s consciousness, making something click inside both of their heads. Blackscales assumed that it meant that their future interactions would take less time and effort. He was also pretty surprised about how easy it was to identify someone just by their thoughts, even if you rarely spoke to them. Evidently, Omen didn’t have the same sense of recognition.
“Who’s there?” Omen called out nervously through their new mind link.
At least he can tell that there is someone there, Blackscales thought to himself in a sardonic tone, making Inferno growl in disapproval. The rider had already forgotten that they could read each other’s thoughts even if they were trying to hide them.
Inferno quickly scolded Blackscales, “Less than a month ago you had worse abilities, and were basically the weakest among your friends. In fact, Omen is still better than you, since he accomplished a mind link without the magic of a dragon at his disposal. You should have some respect for a human who can do that.
Blackscales reluctantly agreed, feeling pretty ashamed at his arrogance. That was when he realized that the blacksmith was still confusedly searching for the identity of the being in his thoughts.
“It’s Blackscales,” the rider called out, laughing mostly at himself for leaving his friend in the dark for so long.
His relief was obvious when he replied, “I almost thought it was one of our enemies…whoever they are. How did you learn to talk to me and what did you want?”
Blackscales laughed again before responding, “Inferno taught me how to search for tendrils of thought with my own. We just wanted to tell you that it’s getting dark, and we’re at a decent clearing a bit less than a half-league away from you.”
“Good, Aval was just starting to complain,” Omen joked.
They were silent for a moment, until the rider realized that they had unlimited access to each other’s words even at that great of a distance. As he waited for the blacksmith and their friends to get to the clearing, they had a conversation that was dreadfully boring, but made fun with the odd way that they spoke to each other.
Apparently, Autumn and Aval managed to catch a rabbit and three squirrels in the short time the rider and dragon were gone. Blackscales noticed that Omen didn’t mention anything about Autumn’s strange mood, both relieving and worrying him, but he didn’t bring it up. Whatever the problem was would be revealed later, probably when Omen and Aval were asleep, since they were always asleep first anyways.
Their conversing continued for a while, when sometime around dusk Inferno caught their scent. Evidently dragons had amazing senses of smell as well as eyesight, hearing, taste, and touch, but Blackscales couldn’t explore those facts further, as his friends rode into the clearing on their horses.
“Not bad. How’d you find them Omen?” Aval asked, making Blackscales think that omen hadn’t told the others anything.
Omen quickly replied, “Sometimes I can manage to talk to Inferno and Blackscales, with enough effort. They told me where there was a good clearing to use for a camp, and here we are now.”
Autumn pulled herself off of her horse and looked around before saying, “It’s a pretty good spot. At least it’s the best we can hope for at a time like this.”
There it was again. Autumn was acting unusual, even though the signs did seem subtle. She was being negative about anything and everything, like she just didn’t think that the adventure would have a positive outcome, or that the trip itself wouldn’t be even remotely worthwhile. There was definitely going to have to be a conversation later that night when the others were asleep.
As Blackscales began scheming about how he would start off their conversation, everyone began preparing for their first night out in the wilderness. The idea suddenly struck them like a blow to the side of the head.
“No buildings, no people…” Aval mumbled worriedly as he gazed off into space, his eyes aglow with concern.
Autumn made a small sound of confirmation, saying, “You’re an adult, you can handle the scary woods, just skin the rabbit so we can eat something for once.”
Blackscales glared at the back of her head when she turned away before adding, “I’ll collect some firewood and get a fire started.”
He mostly just wanted to get away for a while. He hadn’t been around them for long, but something about Autumn just seemed to make everyone else uncomfortable, annoyed, and negative. Perhaps it’s just the long journey that’s making us feel so awful Blackscales thought, trying to reassure himself. But something told him that something like that wouldn’t come upon them so suddenly, and Autumn was usually the most optimistic in their group, so he wondered what would cause her to be affected most.
The dragon rider wandered around for a while gathering dead branches and logs wherever he could find them. Occasionally he mentioned his thoughts and feelings to Inferno, who was pretty surprised with the mention of Autumn’s mood, but in a way that confused Blackscales. As he began walking back to the clearing, they talked about it in more detail for a time.
“I thought I was the only one who noticed,” Inferno said, startling his rider.
Blackscales gave him a strange look, even though he couldn’t see it, before saying, “What do you mean? You noticed too and you didn’t tell me? We talked about Autumn’s reaction with the pup, but we never discussed how it seems to be a full-time thing with her now.”
Inferno quickly replied, “I noticed about the same time you did, I was just giving you time to sort through your own thoughts until you came to me. Besides, I couldn’t be quite sure since I don’t know her too well in the first place. You’ve confirmed my suspicions though, and she is acting sort of moody, but the trip didn’t cause it.”
“How do you know!?” Blackscales asked in surprise.
“I don’t, as you’d understand,” Inferno began. “I have no clue what’s causing her to act that way, but something inside me is just forcing its way to the surface, saying that she has no control over it.”
Blackscales didn’t have to try very hard to catch exactly what the dragon was saying about Autumn.
Something was wrong.
~
Blackscales was sitting by the new fire eating what remained of their supper. He had let Avalsmokes, Omen, Ashheart, and Autumn get first choice of the food since he wasn’t too hungry in the first place, and wasn’t very surprised when he just got a small chunk of squirrel flesh. They hadn’t been wrong when they said that the wolf pup ate a lot, since Blackscales wouldn’t have gotten anything to eat at all except the others had insisted.
He kept a close eye on Autumn as she gazed at the fire, her eyes sort of glazed over as she probed through her own deep thoughts. Aval was already fast asleep, his back pressed against the trunk of a maple tree and his snores keeping Omen awake, but the blacksmith was dozing off slowly. The dragon rider could hardly keep himself from cheering when Omen’s head hung and he began to exhale loudly with his own snores.
Blackscales turned his attention back to Autumn, who had changed her own gaze, looking around at the trees. The rider decided to try to be as calm, gentle, soothing, and open with her as he could so he wouldn’t set her off. He sat there for a few more moments, trying to gauge her mood before trying to bring her short temper up.
“Do you …want to go for a walk? I want to talk about something,” Blackscales said, hating himself for sounding so casual.
Autumn looked him over carefully and cautiously before replying, “I suppose I could go for a walk.”
She stood, but waited for Blackscales to repeat her actions before they began to walk. The rider basically led the way, and was sure to keep them walking in relatively familiar places so they wouldn’t lose the camp. He wanted to go walking, since he definitely didn’t want Omen and Aval overhearing, and who knew if they would happen to wake up or not. There was little more than silence as they walked, however. They didn’t utter a word for a while, so all that was heard were the faint sounds of busy animals preparing for winter hibernation.
Finally, Blackscales spoke up, “I don’t mean to sound rude, but…the travel seems to have gotten to you a little bit; you seem a bit negative at times.”
He knew he sounded very rude, so he was surprised when Autumn’s shoulders sagged in resignation. She stopped walking, and turned away in what must have been embarrassment. She kicked a rock for a bit as she seemed deep in thought, but Blackscales didn’t press; just waited for her to come out on her own.
“I don’t know what it is,” she uttered, quite helplessly.
“I do,” Blackscales finally reassured her, but mostly himself. “You’re just tired from the other night when you woke up so early, understand.”
He was about to turn back around to head back to camp, when he suddenly heard, “No.”
“What?” He asked in confusion, turning to her.
“No, it isn’t that I’m tired,” Autumn replied. “I don’t know what it is; I just feel this…presence. At the back of my mind; it’s almost as if something inside me is trying to take over, wants me to just give up on everything and go back home, but not. It wants me to abandon you and your quest. I don’t know exactly what that part of me wants to do, but it isn’t good. I don’t think I can fight it much longer!”
She leapt at Blackscales, clinging to his shoulder as wet tears poured down her face. Something is definitely wrong with her now, he thought as he patted her on the back reassuringly. After a few moments, she pulled away again and wiped the liquid from her eyes. She was about to say something, but her eyes suddenly glazed over.
“Autumn, are you alright?” Blackscales asked, grabbing her shoulder.
She suddenly fell forward, straight into Blackscales’s arms, her eyes closed firmly and her body completely limp.
“Autumn!?”