The Therontales continued....
The Wolf Dragon
When Theron was thirteen, something happened that had never happened before: Father got sick. Not only sick, but deathly sick, so that he was bedridden. For two weeks Shara never left his side, but tended him always. Theron also tended his sick father. The fever never left him, and he grew confused, and addressed Shara as if she were Niviana. She did not wish to contradict him, so pretended to be the same, to be the goddess he had once loved so much. It was a scene that deeply upset and troubled Theron.
But then something worse happened. In the nearby village, a terrible beast had begun attacking and eating livestock and people. When the Shepherds’ sheep began to be attacked, Theron could stand it no more, and vowed to kill the beast.
It was a Raugwulf, a dragon that had a head like a wolf. Normally, Father would slay the beast and protect the people, but he was too sick. He ordered Theron to vow not to attack the monster, that he was too young to take on a dragon. Theron vowed he would not. But when Father fell into a swoon, Shara nodded at Theron, and Theron knew what to do.
He took Ernhurst and his arrows and went to the sheep. It was night and all was silent. Nevertheless, the sheep were awake and terrified. Something was afoot.
As the skies were overcast, Theron took one of his arrows, Ninhurst, and held it before him. The arrow tended towards darkness, and the Raugwulf was a great darkness. He stumbled through the dark, but finally came upon a cave where the dragon lay snoring, fat on Tivia, Samsades, and Seralif, from among his sheep.
Theron gathered some underbrush while the dragon snored, and when he had lit enough, he lit it and hollered. The dragon was caught off guard. With the fire burning brightly, and the boy charging into his cave, he staggered awake, but his eyes were immediately put out by swift dark arrows, and the boy had climbed and darted right unto the beast’s belly, and in a moment a great sword the boy had brought for the occasion stopped the dragon’s heart.
Theron didn’t have much time before father woke up, but he had heard that dragon’s blood opened the ears to hearing the languages of birds and beasts. He cut out the dragon’s heart, though it scalded his flesh, and he bit into the raw flesh. He felt its power saturate his being. Then Theron built a fire around the dragon and burned its remains up. The dragon burned in a peculiar way: its body seemed to vaporize. It burned with a beautiful fragrance, and left not a trace.
When Theron returned home, he discovered that while he had gone, Father had died. He could get no explanation from Shara, who was pale and would not speak. But he came to understand that Mattriama had consumed his body in a cool loving fire, and left not a trace of his father: his body had been brought directly to heaven. All that was left was a pewter necklace in the shape of a phoenix. Mattriama told him that his father had left this for him. He put on the necklace and sat with his mother to console her.
\ ~@M@~ /
perfectidius.com
No comments:
Post a Comment