The First Fight

BOOM

Still closing his eyes, Brand heard a loud crash as he was thrown backwards by an incredibly powerful shock wave. For a few moments as he lied on his back, Brand thought that he had died. That thought vanished as a surge of pain rushed into his body. He rolled over and threw up his breakfast all over the forest floor.

Wiping his mouth, Brand turned around and stared in awe of the spectacle he was about to witness. Calreme riding on his dragon Thuum had dived down through the trees and landed right in front of Brand just as he was about to be eviscerated by the tree monster's fast approaching root. The root had ricocheted off the top of the wyvern's blue, scaly head and flew off to the side. Thuum then rose up on his back legs standing almost as tall as some of the trees, spread his wings wide, and let out a deafening roar.

Brand tried to cover his ears, then dodged to the side as he barely avoided being crushed by the dragon's tail. He retreated a few feet behind some debris and saw the tree monster was hesitating. It stopped moving for a minute before finally deciding to engage the giant reptile. It roared back and sent the roots it used to move through the ground. They burst out of the dirt under the dragon and started to entangle its legs.

The dragon roared again and flapped its giant wings. The air shook violently as the dragon left the ground, pulling up the roots wrapped around its legs and dragging the struggling tree monster toward it. Calreme then took action from the base of Thuum's neck and released two large fire balls from the tip of his sword to the roots that were entangling the dragon. The monster screamed and drew back its singed limbs.

Once the monster released its hold on the dragon, Thuum dove straight for the tree monster biting it at the base of one of the branches. Showing its incredible strength, the dragon yanked back on the tree monster and completely pulled it from the ground tossing it threw the air like a dog would play with a stick.

The tree monster fell heavily on the ground with a loud bang and struggled to stand up. Right as it was regaining its balance, Thuum reared back its head while inhaling a mouthful of air. Then the dragons head shot forward as a jet of searing hot flame raced toward the tree monster. The monster shrieked terribly as it lit up like a bonfire. It stumbled forward, all the while wailing, when Thuum quickly turned its whole body around and whipped the monster with his tail. The monster flew back and crashed onto the ground. The giant burning monster twitched a couple of times and then moved no more.

Calreme and his wyvern mount, Thuum, had completely defeated the tree monster. Brand was incredibly impressed by how one sided the fight had been. The giant beast that had completely annihilated the armed escort of the caravan was defeated just as easily by the dragon rider pair. Brand didn't have much time to reflect on the fight though as he suddenly remembered the elves that were taken out before Calreme had arrived.

Running over to where he had last seen Alreya, Brand saw that the recovery had already begun. The few elves that hadn't been injured were walking around, gathering and healing those that had been hurt. He saw Alreya leaning up against a tree and ran over to her. "How are you doing?" he asked concerned. "I saw you get hit by that branch, are you okay?"

"I will be fine." Alreya grimaced as she grabbed her left arm. "My arm and my bow took the brunt of the blow." She motioned over to where her bow was lying in pieces. Looking a little further, Brand saw that his spear had not survived the fight either. He guessed that it had probably been trampled by the tree monster when it was battling Calreme and Thuum.

"What about your wings?" Brand asked. He had always assumed they were quite fragile from the way that they looked.

"They are fine as well. Our wings retreat into our bodies when we experience a major trauma to protect them." Alreya replied to him resting her head against the trunk of the tree. "We were quite lucky that Calreme and Thuum were following us. I doubt we could have beaten that oaken by ourselves."

"You are lucky." Calreme had dismounted from his wyvern and had walked over to where Alreya was sitting. "You know how valuable you are to the village. It would be a disaster for Masarch if anything were to happen to you now that you are a rider candidate. You should have taken the opportunity to run away while the guards distracted the oaken. That is their job."

"You know I could never do that." Alreya said resolutely.

"I suppose not." Calreme shook his head. "And as for you," he turned to look at Brand. "I saw what you did. Your aim might not have been true, but it was a very courageous throw. Maybe my first impression of you was a wrong one."

"Yeah, but that throw didn't do anything." Brand looked at the ground feeling embarrassed.

"Not true." Calreme said. "Your actions might have saved Alreya. It at least distracted the oaken long enough for me to intervene. Sometimes the courage to do a thing is more important than having the skills to accomplish that thing. Remember that. Now, let me have a look at that arm Alreya."

As Calreme started using some magic on Alreya, Brand began to think how surprising it was at how nice the usually stern elf was being. Maybe his initial impression about Calreme had been wrong as well.

After the cleanup had begun and the elves had taken stock, the aftermath of the attack wasn't as bad as Brand had feared. One of the unicorns had been killed, the two deer creatures called hirms that had ran off were lost in the forest, one of the wagons had been destroyed, and all of the elves had survived. A couple of them had injuries too severe to be able to heal completely where they were, so they were loaded up into one of the remaining wagons along with the supplies that had survived from the middle wagon. Searching through the wreckage, Brand had found his satchel and the dinosaur tooth had both survived, as had Alreya's dragon scale which she had kept with her when she flew off to fight the oaken.

"Thank you for saving me." Alreya told Brand as the cleanup was still going on. "I guess that makes us even."

"You're welcome." replied Brand, a little less embarrassed than before. "Although you probably looked cooler saving me than I did saving you."

"That is probably true." Alreya said jokingly. "You hardly struck the imposing figure as you raced to my aid." They both laughed as they finished helping clear the debris.

When everything was loaded on to the two remaining wagons, Calreme pulled the leader of the caravan aside. After speaking for a few minutes, Calreme turned and approached Brand and Alreya. "The caravan will be heading back to Masarch." he told them.

"But what about the ritual?" asked Alreya confused.

"You will be coming with me." Calreme answered her. "The appearance of the oaken has made me worry about the rest of the journey. You will accompany me on Thuum and we will fly the rest of the way to Ragash."

"Wait a minute." Brand said nervously. "We're going to fly? On your dragon?"

"Is that a problem?" Calreme asked.

Seeing both Calreme and Alreya looking at him quizzically, Brand had no choice but to say "No problem. I've just never flown before." And he hadn't. He had never even flown in an airplane before let alone on a dragon.

Calreme raised one of his eyebrows before muttering under his breath "Well, this should be interesting."