Return of the Stormcriers

CHAPTER 6 - CAPTURED

​ Crouching down beside a large, fresh deer track, Matt closely studied the sign of life for direction. Judging by the depth of the track, and the spacing between it and the others he had found, it appeared to have been made by a slowly traveling deer of a size that could easily sustain him for several days. He rose to a hunch, following the tracks in a low crouch, desperate to not lose sight of the small signs of the deer's passage that had been left behind in its travels. He placed a hand on his stomach that grumbled loudly in protest as he walked; he needed to find that deer soon.

Maddeningly, the forest appeared to stretch out indefinitely in every direction he turned his vision. The countless boughs of the evergreen forest above him stood tightly enough together to turn the days into perpetual gloomy dusk, making it nearly impossible to keep track of time and direction. By his count, he had been wandering in the forest, hopelessly lost, for close to two weeks, desperately searching for a way out, and ways to sustain himself during his travel.

  After leaving the clearing where the dragon had come to life, he had hoped to be able to cut through the trees on the other side and be out of the Shwarzvald Forest and into the neighboring province of Dragonfyre by the end of the next day. That had not happened. He cursed his stupidity; how could he have been so absent minded. In his rush to find the source of the dragon he must have gotten himself turned around; too busy crashing through the forest to keep track of the twists and turns he had taken. His stomach groaned again, louder this time, begging him to hasten his pursuit of the deer; he had not had a bite of meat since the stew in Clearfield the night the dragon destroyed his home. He had survived solely on small berries that he recognized as safe to ingest; when they were little, he and Mark used to eat them by the handfuls from stray bushes that grew close to their farm. His drinking needs were satiated by a narrow, crystal clear stream that he had been fortunate enough to stumble across early on his second day in the forest. He hoped it would eventually lead him out from the shadow of the trees, sustaining him all the while. Unfortunately, it had not yet lead him anywhere of use.

  Slowly, stealthily, Matt followed the sparse trail of prints away from the stream, letting his need for food win out over his fear of further losing his way. Years of hunting for dinner and keeping watch for predators around his family's flocks afforded Matt the skill to observe the faint signs that the deer had left behind as it made its way through the underbrush. Small indentations and broken twigs that would pass unnoticed to many, stood out starkly against the otherwise untouched growth to his trained eye. Reaching up with his left hand he absentmindedly pushed a low-hanging branch out of his face; in his right, he clutched a hefty fallen branch that he hoped to wield as a sort of improvised club. It was a crude weapon, but efficient nonetheless if he could manage to strike with enough force.

  The tracks led him on a meandering walk through low hanging foliage that cut and scratched at his face, hampering his movement and stealth, forcing him to follow at a greater distance than he would have preferred so as not to spook his quarry. The thick foliage from the many trees cast dappled sunlight across the forest floor, illuminating random patches of earth while leaving the majority of his surroundings shrouded in darkness. In a clearing before him, a singular doe stood at ease, chewing leaves off of a small sapling, blissfully unaware of her approaching predator. Matt silently wished that he could use his newfound powers as a Stormcrier to kill the creature from where he squatted, hidden in the undergrowth. Unfortunately, that was not an ability that he had yet learned to employ. Back at his farm he had instinctively tapped into an innate ability he had never known he possessed to redirect attacks from the dragon, Aundin, but during his time in the forest he had failed to call on even the slightest whisper of his own power. Hours of his forest exile had been spent attempting to will lightning to shoot from his hand. It had been such a rush when the redirected energy had left his body back at the farm, using the dragon's own weapon against him. He wished he could wield even a fraction of the power that the dragon held, because while he had been able to absorb and deflect the strike before, he had not even been successful enough to summon so much as a spark of his own making to his fingertips. He crept closer to the doe as silently as a shadow, just as his father, or rather adopted father, had taught him.