BERT HAD FOLLOWED Nock’s instructions to the letter. Stay with Yellow. Let him rest. Allow no one to approach. No matter what, the leg should not be moved. Nock tried to explain the physiology—the inner workings—of dragons to Bert, but it wasn’t sticking his brain. He understood one key difference. With humans, a smaller wound would eventually clot and scab over, stopping the blood flow. Nock explained that this made sense: humans would suffer many small wounds over a lifetime, and if the bleeding didn’t stop, the human would die to the first little scrape they had. So, humans had been given the ability to clot a wound by nature. Dragons, on the other hand, had incredibly thick scales that could not be penetrated by anything in nature. Even if a dragon had fallen from the sky into a pile of rocks, there was little chance of the thick, hard scales being damaged, let alone split open. So, nature had balanced the lack of blood clotting with other benefits instead.
Only the evil ingenuity of humans had managed to ruin what nature had so carefully balanced. An incredibly sharp arrow made from metal that required digging into the earth and smelting, launched with incredible speed and power from a new type of bow was not something nature could have anticipated.
Even when Bert had first met Yellow, caught in a brutal trap, the dragon had only suffered superficial wounds that dug into his scales. It had bled a lot, and had seemed to hurt the dragon a lot, but it hadn’t penetrated beyond the scales themselves.
Still, Nock assured Bert that Yellow would heal from his wound. The poultice he had applied would allow Yellow’s skin and scales to regrow, but it would take time and rest. Loosening the sticky application in any way would result in the wound reopening and them needing to start anew.
Both Yellow and Stree’Sta’Ba seemed to understand this and went into some sort of deep sleep. The big blue opened his eyes partway at any sound loud enough to reach them, but Yellow seemed completely asleep. Only his incredibly slow heartbeat and the odd snore escaping his nose convinced Bert his friend was even alive.
Bert was able to sneak off to go to the bathroom or get some food, but otherwise sat at Yellow’s side. The Wyrm People stayed far away, completing the tasks needed to keep a small army running, but never ventured into the field. Bert slept on his pack, with everything he had to his name jammed in it, along with his sword.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Even Mira stayed clear, greeting Bert quickly in her own way and asking someone to find him some things to keep him busy while he waited.
And so he sat.
He had some children’s toys like a cup-and-ball, some dice made from bone and a board game Eldritch had taught him that he couldn’t remember the name of. The Wyrm People called it the Royal Game, and Bert played it against himself until he thought he had seen every possible combination of moves from the various pieces. He was bored, but knew his place was beside his friend. He knew he would have received northing but endless support had the situations been reversed.
In the brief times he talked to Mira, she informed him of why she was here at all.
After returning to Castle Tall Tree, the Earth Mother had taken over and put everyone to work. They had built weapons, harvested and preserved food for a likely prolonged battle-filled journey from home. They had sent messengers and groups of fighters to nearby communities, hoping to find allies, but prepared to find corruption like they had found at Black Cave. Of Black Cave itself, they had sent some people back to restart the mines and smiths, as well as a large number of archers to man the walls against the potential return of Crows. She had sent a small team to find the dragon who had paired with the now-dead Earth Mother of Black Cave. It had flown off to the wilds after her death, in agony at her loss. Any additional dragons they could work with would make reforging peace much easier.
Mira was here, because she had been sent with this smaller force to find and support Catrin when word reached them of Leoric and Crowe’s return. Mira had followed rumors and eventually spotted Yellow hunting. Either they had communicated with him in some way Bert was yet to learn, or had simply followed him towards Keelwick, but they had figured it out somehow. They waited here, on their side of the border, in hopes they would be able to add their group to a larger group of new allies from the port city if Cat had been able to accomplish that. Mira had been disappointed to learn Bert had been forced to abandon Cat before learning exactly what would happen next. She told Bert they would wait for Yellow as long as they could, but needed to move to Keelwick shortly to either join Cat and the royals there, or aid them in whatever battle might be waging against the Eels.
For now, there was nothing to do but sit and wait. Bert pulled out his eating knife from his belt and started to work at one of the game pieces, making it look like Cat.
