The Chronicles of Eryn; Book 1

Chapter 1; Part 2

Rash nodded, 'Tis my journey.'

Erica turned to her grandfather, her eyes wide in cheer. 'Yes! I knew that beast wouldn't live on terrorizing our village much longer. We must tell everyone!' Turning back to Rash she exclaimed, 'You are probably the savior the legend spoke of!' She clapped in excitement while jumping slightly.

Her grandfather layed a hand on her shoulder signaling her to calm down. 'Hush, dear, or you'll awake the dragon itself.' He ordered quietly. He then turned his attention to Rash.

'Have you any experience in hunting down these beasts?' The old man asked.

'I have been trained to do so, but have yet to succeed.' Rash admitted. Sadly, he had never successfully tracked down a dragon, much less slayed one. But he hoped to succeed. And live on to tell the tale.

This reminded him of his prior meeting with the King of Glant. The king had offered him quite an amount of gold pieces if he could bring him an egg of a dragon. An almost impossible task. Thus why this particular dragon had taken his interest. Not only was it the most dangerous specimen of a dragon out there and as far as he knew, was alone. But it was also Female.

His hope was for her to be in Egg Laying season, though their was a low chance they would be fertilized.

This was how the dragon world worked. Dragons were very powerful and hard to kill, and practically immortal. Of coarse though, every ten years or so one was slayed. Now, every dragon had one mate out there. Only one. Fate usually brought them together sometime in life. Females had eggs every ten years, about 5 of them. But only when they found their mate, which could happen when the dragon was 5000 years, would it be fertilized. After about 3 Egg Laying seasons the dragon would stop laying eggs, period. They didn't raise their kin, and it was unknown what happened to them after laying their last eggs. Common belief was that the dragon with the designated mate died. So dragons weren't really common, they hadn't died out, but they weren't near common. And that was a good thing.

As far as common knowledge expanded, mates could be human or dragons. The common belief was that male dragons, either had a dragon mate or had a human mate. If it was human they would kidnap it and keep it as part of its plunder. Now, if it was a female dragon, legend was that if it was human, they would swallow their mate and that's how they would stay in fertility for 30 years. The one known fact was that no human kidnapped as a mate had ever come back. Alive or dead.

Randovf shook his head, 'Do you have any idea of how hard to slay a dragon is? Especially a Glameden Fire Breather? You could very easily die.' The old man looked back up, his bright blue eyes shining with sincerity and worry that shocked the young dragon hunter.

'Sir, that is why I carry with me this battle blade. It was enchanted by a wizard, so that no amount of fire could melt it.' Rash defended his weapon and knowledge of dragons.

The old man laughed, 'It isn't just fire that dragon choughs up. We have plenty of adventuress young men and sword makers in this village.' His face turned sad, 'If that dragon only breathed fire we would have allowed many to go and slay it.' His face turned ghastly as of he was remembering a sad memory. 'Oh, no. What that one breathes out is pure flame, it sometimes gets mixed in with lava that pours from its mouth. And if you enrage it enough, blue flames. And we all know, that no wizard spell can halt blue flame.' The man said shaking slightly.

'Well then, I shall have to kill it before it gets enraged, will I not?' Rash said arrogantly standing up slightly straighter.