A Wizard's Dream

Goblin Raiders

With a thunderous crack, Vagran's feet touched the ground. A few steps later he came to a stop, his enormous wings fully outstretched to help break the fall. A grimace of pain betrayed the force of the landing, lessened only by the giant bird's delicate frame. With his wings still open, the thunderoc brought a talon to his chest. Asja climbed onto it from among the feathers, a long stick and a travel bag strapped to her back. She jumped off the talon when it reached the ground and scampered a short distance, bending down as she went to scour the muddy surface. 

"The tracks lead into the river," she said. 

"Cowards!" Vagran spat out in frustration, sparks flying from his mouth and eyes. He wanted to face his quarry out in the open, on the dwarf side of the shallow river. 

"Wait!" cautioned Asja, still studying the tracks. "There are some large footprints here. I don't know who they belong to, but it's definitely not goblins." She reached out and touched one of the smudges nestled inside a footprint. A dark liquid smeared her fingers. She brought them to her nose. 

"Blood." 

A shot of charge coursed through Vagran's body at the sound of the word. His eyes focused on the sprawling river who blocked their way, even though she was easy to ford at the end of the cycle, before fresh water poured from the mountain. "They crossed here," he boomed. His gaze shifted to the dense forest rising beyond the channel. 

"They must have. We're too late." 

Vagran looked back at the grassy rolling hills populating the dwarf land. Hunting down a band of goblin raiders on open ground would have been easy. A forest was an altogether different proposition. Her dark, foreboding depths looked decidedly uninviting to a creature of the sky. But he doubted he could track them from the air amongst the dense foliage. 

"What do we do now?" asked Asja. "Hunt them in their own land?" 

Without saying a word, Vagran spread his wings, grabbed her with his talon and lifted her back to his chest. His wing feathers donned an azure hue, shimmering softly in the mountain breeze as he lunged across the river and into the goblin land. Thesombre trees stood dead still, tall and unwelcoming. He zeroed in on the path of broken branches and stomped shrubs who littered the forest floor; goblin companions had their own difficulties navigating through the woods. He pressed on, stepping over roots of trees with giant steps and ducking under tall branches with his wings folded tightly by his side. The makeshift path veered to the right. Vagran groaned in frustration, his feathers sizzling with a build-up of charge. The forest had just started to thin out, soon to be overcome by the desert sands – the goblins' home. He ached to see the sprawling dunes on whose naked skin the goblins couldn't hide. The twisting path followed the meanderings of the river instead, and of the thick forest who accompanied her. The thunderoc turned the corner and followed, as determined as ever to hunt the raiders down. A low branch blocked his path only to buckle under the pressure and send a cracking noise through the quiet wood. He moved on as quickly as he could, knowing that he wouldn't have time to plan an attack, and had to be prepared to spring into action at the first sight of their quarry. His eyes arced at the thought; he was ready. 

Sudden pulling on his chest feathers distracted him from his thoughts. 

"Someone's ahead!" whispered Asja, just loudly enough for him to hear. He stopped dead in his tracks, his eyes peering into the tall wood. 

"Put me down and wait here." She snuck ahead into the thick brush. 

Vagran hugged the forest floor, keeping quiet, not moving, with only his head up and alert, trying to discern what his friend might have seen or heard, or sensed in a way he did not understand. She soon returned, visibly shaken.