The Dragon Knight Prophecy

1-14 Ripples of Light

 Lilly ran for her life, wildly dashing through a forest of tall, slender trees. Most were supple pines with dense needle-coated branches. Others were birch with white paper-like bark that peeled in places. The forest floor was a bed of needles and ferns, dotted by pine cones and hardy flowers. The trunks of fallen trees were scattered about, long since covered in carpets of green moss. It was a quiet place of stillness and mystery where time seemed to flow at but a trickle.

Lilly thundered through it all, snapping slender trees like twigs and bending the larger ones as they bounced off her hide. Where her clawed feet touched the ground, she tore the earth, heaving clouds of ferns and needles into the air behind her.

She pushed on in a reckless panic, heedless of what was in her way. The only goal was to escape, and she was too tired to choose a careful path. As a result, the battering of trunks was taking its toll, and she could not keep up the pace. Every collision was battering her body and forcing her to work harder to maintain the frantic pace. Her body ached from head to tail and bled from a hundred wounds. She found it difficult to catch her breath and heaved for air as she collided with yet another tree. It fell over in a great crash as she stumbled on, her left leg alive with pain where the spear point continued to do damage.

Eventually, the race was run, and Lilly could go no further. She wobbled on her legs, staggering a final few paces before collapsing into the ferns. Finally, calm returned to the forest as a dragon lay shaking and bleeding as her chest heaved for breath.

With panicked tears, she lamented why she was here, calling herself a fool. She should have run straight out and gotten as far away from the city as she could. She should have gone with Thayle and the others and headed straight away. But greed and dragon lust got the better of her, and she took a foolish risk. For a pathetic sack of coins, she separated from the others and stayed close to the city. She risked being recaptured for a nearly insignificant amount of gold. What were a few handfuls of coins worth in comparison to a life of slavery and torment? It made sense now that she had failed but at the moment, having those coins back was all that mattered.

Lilly knew she had to keep going and struggled to get up. However, the moment she put pressure on the leg, she knew it was futile. The spear point had dug deeper with every step, and now that her shock and panic were abating, she could feel just how much damage it had done. She would go no further, and those men would be here soon. Dellain would arrive with whips to teach Lilly a new lesson in suffering and pain. That thought alone drove her to claw at the earth, desperate to drag herself away.

Nearly blind with panic and tears, Lilly almost didn't notice the approaching woman. It was the same woman that Thayle told to put away her bow. That black bow was in her hands once again as she stepped through the foliage while hardly rustling a leaf. Her face looked determined with a firm gaze watching Lilly's every move. Lilly was surprised to see the color of this woman's skin; its reddish hue was very different from Gersius's tan. She had dark hair like Thayle, but it was twisted and tied in a long rope. The strange woman approached silently and put up her hands to show Lilly she did not intend to use the bow.

"You're the one Gerisus calls Lilly?" the woman asked from a safe distance.

"Yes. My name is Lilly," she replied between deep breaths.

"Then you are the dragon Gersius speaks of. The one he calls his friend?" the woman added.

Lilly heard the words but found it hard to think them through. She concluded that Gersius must have told them she was a friend in the letter. That seemed odd considering their relationship, but Lilly didn't have the strength to puzzle it out. She let her head fall to the forest floor and closed her eyes as she weakly replied that yes, she was his friend.