The Champion *ON HOLD*

Chapter 12- White Rider VS. Red Rider

A/N: The picture on the side is a close comparison to Jhakkahvar's dragon, though the scale is a bit off.

UPDATE: Wattpad seems to be having some issues with the images I post, so if you right-click the image icon and click "reload" it should reload the image for you. I hope that helps.

On the second day of their travels, Avery was dive-bombed by a cat-sized flying monster.

It slammed into the back of her head, nearly knocking her off her horse. The thing clutched onto her with sharp talons that raked across her back and shoulders, tearing through her cloak, leaving long scratches in her skin, and bit her right where her neck meets her shoulder.

She screamed loudly, Avery startled Gus, who reared in fright and threw her onto the ground. The monster snarled and shook its head like a terrier, tearing at her neck. It took several stabs from Leovar's sword to get the thing to finally let go of her. When it did finally let go, her dogs attacked it with a vicious ferocity, tearing it limb from limb. It died shrieking horribly.

Leovar knelt next to her on the ground as she clutched her torn neck. It was bleeding rather badly and the pain was terrible. He quickly took off her cloak and laid it out under her. Leovar sat her up and removed her hand to peek at the wound. She had to cover it because it was bleeding profusely.

"You will be fine Avery, do not worry. Everything will be all right." He said quickly, trying to reassure her. She was whimpering in pain and her teeth were clenched together; she could feel blood seep through her fingers and soak her clothes She heard him run back to his dragon and she heard the plodding footsteps of the great beast.

"Here, take your hand off the wound." Avery did as he asked and looked at her hand. It was completely red. Avery wasn't one to get queasy at the sight of blood, but for some reason seeing her blood smeared over her hand made her heart race and her breathing quicken. She could feel the blood running freely down her chest and let out a keening sound. Leovar lowered her hand and turned her head away, arching her neck to the side so that the wound was open and exposed.

"Hold still now, this may hurt some." Avery braced herself and bit back a scream when something scraped across the bite. She turned her head a bit and saw that the dragon was lapping at the blood seeping out of the wound. She clenched her fists and sucked in a sharp breath when the rough tongue scraped even harder across the wound.

"Gargoyle bites are not poisonous, but something in their saliva causes wounds to fester and rot. If the wound is not cleaned, you could die within the hour." Avery moaned a bit.

"Bacteria." She spit out. Leovar leaned closer to her.

"What?"

"Bacteria. Their saliva more than likely carries bacteria which causes the wounds to get infected quickly. Where I come from, there are some creatures with bites so full of bacteria, they can kill a large animal in less than an hour." Avery figured it was the pain that was making her spout useless information to him. She did that whenever she was trying to take her mind off of something painful. Think of something interesting or off-topic and talk about it on and on.

"There's one creature called a Komodo dragon that lives on the Island of Komodo. It's not really a dragon; dragons don't exist in my world. It's just a very large lizard and their saliva is so full of bacteria that they can bite a full grown water buffalo and all they have to do is wait for it to die of infection. A bite from a komodo dragon can kill a water buffalo in half an hour."