The Lizard King

Part 1: The Hunt

A snap of twigs alerts the young rabbit doe and her head instantly jolts upwards. The moon is full but the trees overhead block nearly any light from reaching the forest floor. Her eyes can just barely make out empty columnar shadows of what are supposed to be trees. Her ears twitch back and forth for another sound, anything that could give away a cause for the noise. Nothing. Too much nothing. Everything's gone silent. Even the crickets have fallen quiet. She's prepared to jump and bolt away at the last second. Then suddenly: nothing. A sharp pain in her eye and all fades to black around her. If she'd jumped earlier she'd have been safe. But she didn't see the arrow coming until it was too late.

Kayla instantly steps forward and grabs her kill, wringing the neck for good measure. It'll make for a good stew, though Kayla knows she'll have to get more to trade at the market tomorrow morning. She pulls the arrow out of the rabbit's eye and examines the arrowhead. Good for another shot. Without thinking, she tosses the rabbit into her sack and moves on.

Kayla follows the game trail, keeping her bow at the ready. The darkness is a great concealer and it works in conjunction with her earth-brown pants and cloak to make her almost invisible. Her forest green shirt keeps the heat close to her body in the cold weather. She aims to bag at least another kill before dawn and she can't do that frozen. The only indicator that she's even there is her long, golden hair just peeking out of her hood. And so it is every night: Kayla hot on the trail of game, killing just enough so that she can make a living.

A few more hours in and the sun is almost ready to rise. Kayla moves at the same, slow pace she always does when she spots something out of the corner of her eye. Deer scat. Fresh. Laid less than ten minutes ago. Her ocean blue eyes dart up and she follows the subtle, almost hidden trail the deer made. It's a big one, probably about seventy pounds or bigger if she's lucky. Suddenly she stops. There, in the middle of the small clearing, is a big stag. It's a giant, a good 130 pounds at least. Kayla can hardly believe her eyes. Something like that would fetch her over 70 gold pieces. Everyone loves fresh venison.

Silently, she begins to move downwind to catch her prey by surprise. Her feet are heavily padded with wool on the inside of her boots. Kayla's footsteps make almost no sound as she trudges through the thick undergrowth. Kayla moves into position with the silence of a ghost, all the while keeping an eye on her prey to ensure it hasn't moved. The stag keeps eating the soft greens in the clearing, confident in his ability to defend himself. He only glances up every so often to examine his surrounding and make sure he's alone, not often enough to see Kayla's arrow targeting his brain. Before Kayla can unleash her arrow, something stops her. She doesn't know what it is but she can instantly tell she's not alone. It feels like its right behind her...

Before she can turn around, an incredible force knocks her to the ground and rushes into the clearing. The stag only has enough time to look up before the enormous entity has him in it's clutches. Kayla is face down in the dirt and leaves but she can hear the noise coming from the clearing. The stag's screams are filled with a pain that Kayla can only imagine as unbearable. It's as if the stag is screaming for mercy and is receiving none. The cries are so horrendous Kayla dare not look up and see what's causing them. Her eyes stay clamped shut as she covers her ears and prays that whatever is killing that deer doesn't come for her next. Then suddenly: nothing.

There's no more screaming. No sound from the deer. No sound whatsoever. Kayla slowly lifts her head up and opens her eyes. The stag is gone, and the same goes for whatever's taken it. As she slowly rises, it's clear that she's been injured. Her leg is in excruciating pain and there's blood coming from the back of her head. The sun has just begun to rise and it exposes a little light onto the scene.

Kayla stumbles into the clearing and begins to try and make sense of what has happened. The forest floor looks like something had been thrown all around. The ground was completely torn up. Moreover, there was blood everywhere. It was no doubt the stag's blood. The noises Kayla heard signaled nothing short of a gruesome end. There was something else too. There, on the ground, was a smooth, greenish brown scale. It was shaped like some roughly made hexagon and was the size of Kayla's hand. She shoved it into her pocket without thinking. The ground was soft enough to capture good prints. Looking at the prints, Kayla could tell that whatever did this was big, aggressive, and only had three toes for each foot.

After a little examination, Kayla turns around and sees where the creature had come from. The entry point into the clearing from the forest was huge, almost ten feet high and about three feet wide. The very sight of the tunnel alone filled Kayla with fear. She's never seen anything that big and she didn't want to stay around long enough to bump into it again. Kayla picked up her bag, found a big enough stick to use to help her walk, and limped home.

As Kayla limped back into the woods, the big yellow eyes stared back at her. As he gripped the stag head in his hand, he couldn't help but feel a sense of urgency to get back home. He didn't want be seen and attract more.