Path of Dragons

Book 2: Chapter 1: Recovery

Elijah watched Calix as she shoved one of the rowboats out into the sea, then board the small vessel and start paddling away. He didn’t avert his eyes until almost twenty minutes later when the little boat disappeared behind a rolling wave. That’s when his shoulders sagged in relief.

He knew he’d taken a risk by letting her go. There was every chance that, as soon as she reached Ironshore, she would gather as many fighters as she could find before coming back to his island to exact vengeance on him. But he was also well aware of his own limitations. Certainly, if the entirety of the expedition had remained missing, they would be wary of setting foot on his island. They would also be curious, though, and that curiosity would eventually drive them back to the island.

Now, though, the goblin mage would tell her people precisely what had happened to her colleagues. Elijah had seen the fear in her eyes, and he suspected that she would do just about anything to avoid setting foot on the island again. Hopefully, she would warn the other residents of Ironshore away, telling them that they would find nothing but death if they came to his island.

It was still a risky move, though, and one he hoped wouldn’t come back to bite him. It wasn’t that he had issues with killing the invaders. He didn’t. They’d come to his island with avarice in their hearts; that much was proven the moment they’d abducted and attempted to drain the young dragon, Saraalinisa.

Even so, Elijah was willing to live in peace, so long as they left him alone.

For now, though, he had other issues at hand – like cleaning up his island. He could feel every single dead body, and though he was tempted to let them rot, he chose another tactic. After all, he’d already dug a bunch of holes, hadn’t he? He still needed to refill those traps – otherwise, the local wildlife might fall afoul of them – so throwing a few dead bodies into each one wouldn’t really require much extra effort.

So, Elijah set off across his island and started gathering corpses. At first, he’d resolved to simply carry them, but the first few he’d killed had already begun to bloat, so he retreated to his grove, gathered a few coils of homemade cordage as well of some of the old ritualist’s robes he’d intended to use to make clothes. Then, he stretched those robes between a pair of long, stout branches, tying them off before heading back to the first bodies.

The task of loading the litter was, in a word, disgusting – especially considering that he couldn’t just toss them into place. Instead, he had to search the bodies first. The first group – which was the first trio he’d ambushed the day before – had a few weapons, some clothes, and various leather goods like belts. Each subsequent group was much the same, though he also came away with a decent stash of curious coins. He’d seen their like before, but he hadn’t taken the time to really examine them.

Now, he did, and he came away with a host of questions. First, each one emitted its own localized cloud of dense ethera. Second, they looked and felt like copper, though they were far lighter than they should have been. Knowing he wasn’t going to figure it out anytime soon – not without Nerthus’s input, at least – Elijah thrust every coin into a few pouches. He even found a couple that looked silver, but they joined all the others.

Over the next couple of days, Elijah went through the bodies, one by one, and he even combed through the former campsite near the beach. He looted a ton of interesting items – tents, tools, and more cloth than he knew what to do with – but the one that excited him most was a small sewing kit he found on one of the goblins. Until then, Elijah had been forced to make do with needles of bone or crab shell, so the addition of a few good, steel needles was a godsend. And he hoped it would let him sew some decent clothes.

Because he was still wearing nothing but a gnome-sized robe he’d repurposed into a makeshift kilt and tied around his waist with a bit of homemade cordage. So, the sewing kit was a fantastic find, as was the rope he gathered from the campsite. However, the biggest score was when he uncovered a crate of dried meat, cheese, and bread.

Elijah stared at it in awe. For two years – or something like that – he’d been eating nothing but what he could hunt, fish, or gather. And while there was something to be said for mushrooms and wild edibles, the reality was that he’d never been a very good cook. More, even if he’d had the skill, he didn’t have the spices to make any decent recipes work. So, aside from some wild onions he’d managed to grow in his garden, his cooking didn’t feature much in the way of seasoning.

And that wasn’t even considering the fact that, in the tower, he’d eaten his meals raw. Sometimes, that was as a panther, which somehow made it better, but he’d done so as human often enough that he would appreciate anything he could get.

Still, he didn’t eat right away. Instead, he continued his task of burying the bodies, then took everything he’d gathered back to his Grove. It took a few trips because there was so much, and when he finally had everything in one place, he couldn’t stifle an appreciative sigh.

“The Grove is secure?” came a familiar voice. Elijah looked up to see Nerthus perched on one of the steps leading up to his tree house.

“Yep. I let one go, though,” he said. “I thought she might warn the others off.”

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“Do you think that will work?”

Elijah shrugged. “Honestly, I’m not sure. It’ll probably keep them away for a while, but it’s definitely not a permanent solution,” he said. “If they’re willing to kidnap a dragon, they won’t be scared off by me. Not indefinitely.”

“What do you intend to do?” Nerthus asked.

“For now? I want to eat my weight in dried meat and cheese,” he answered. “Then, I’m going to keep going the same way I’ve been going. I don’t know. I have a few projects in the back of my mind. Plus, I just want to rest for a while.”

The tree spirit cocked his head to the side, then asked, “And what about when you get bored?”

Elijah shrugged. “Who says I’ll get bored?”

“I do.”

He sighed. “Fine. Once I’m happy with the security of the Grove, I plan to explore a little,” he said. “Branch out, you know? Maybe I can find my sister.”

Nerthus said, “Hmm. Perhaps this is overstepping, but you may want to consider diplomatic relations with the settlement across the strait.”

“What? Why?”

“They clearly have a Branch of the World Tree,” Nerthus explained.

“I figured as much. That’s how they got here, right? Through the World Tree.”

“Yes, but not like you’re thinking. When the World Tree touched this world, non-Earthlings were given the opportunity to come here,” Nerthus said. “Some did so as representatives of larger organizations. From what you have told me, the people in Ironshore are like that. Others came to escape something in the more settled worlds. Still others came to take advantage of a virgin world and the progression that will come with taming it.”

“Okay? What does that have to do with anything? I mean, don’t get me wrong – it’s interesting, I guess. But it doesn’t really answer the question, does it?”

“Right. I was getting to that. Many of these colonizers brought Envoys with them,” Nerthus went on. “The Branches they can summon are a little more advanced than the ones native to this world. So, in addition to the most basic functions, like accessing the Knowledge base, Market, and Communications apparatus, they will often come with the ability to detect additional settlements within a certain territory.”

“I see,” Elijah said. Indeed, if what Nerthus had said was true, then if he could gain access to the Branch, then he could use it as a guide to find the next closest settlement. Then that one could direct him to the next. And so on. Eventually, he would find Easton – or at least Seattle. At worst, he could find other people who could send him in the right direction.

It was as good of a plan to find his sister and her family as any he’d come up with. So far, the best he’d thought of was to simply roam around and search for signs of civilization, which he would readily admit was a bad plan.

The only problem was that the people of Ironshore weren’t very likely to let him simply waltz into town and use their Branch. At best, they would refuse him entry. At worst, they would attack him on sight.

But then again, if there was one settlement like Ironshore around, then there were probably others as well. And perhaps they would be more amenable to a good relationship.

Elijah shook his head and said, “I guess that’s a start.”

After that, Nerthus retreated into his tree, and Elijah began cataloguing his new cache of supplies. Soon enough, he had everything sorted into separate piles. One pile held various weaponry – almost a dozen axes, at least as many staves, and a few swords – while another was comprised of the clothing he’d stripped from the corpses. The next was a little smaller, and it contained various leather items ranging from belts and pouches to armor.

The next pile contained various bits of metallic armor. It was all valuable enough, though not to Elijah. If they’d been sized to fit him, it would have been one thing, but given that each piece was made for the much smaller dwarves, gnomes, and goblins, they were useless to him. However, he hoped that, perhaps, he could find some use for the metal. He was only basically familiar with blacksmithing methods, but he was willing to learn via trial and error.

The final pile had the various odds and ends he’d found in camp. Pots and pans, cooking utensils, and various other tools were prominent.

“Aren’t you a beauty,” he said, holding up a large pot. For the longest time, he’d had to make do with an old, rusted, and far too small pot. But now, he was spoiled for choice, which would go a long way toward improving his quality of life.

In all, looting fifty corpses and the camp they’d built on the shore had proven extremely valuable, and Elijah couldn’t help but feel a sense of optimism about life going forward. More than anything, though, he was looking forward to digging into the crate of food he’d taken.

Still, he took the time to head down to his garden, where he gathered a basket of berries and a handful of wild onions. Then, he went back to his tree house where he laid out a feast, which he tore into with all the gusto of a man who hadn’t eaten anything but poorly cooked crab, fish, and wild edibles for two years.

Which was to say, he quickly gorged himself.

The meal wasn’t anything complicated. Generously, the contents of that crate would have been called travel rations. But still, it was better than anything Elijah had eaten in quite some time. And he enjoyed every last bite until, finally, he’d had enough. Once that was done, he stripped down, took a shower – using his homemade soap – and then went to bed.

But he didn’t immediately go to sleep. Instead, he lay there for a long time, just staring at the gently glowing flowers on the ceiling. As he did, he thought back to what he’d been through for the past couple of years.

Sometimes, it was difficult to wrap his head around it all. From the moment he’d washed ashore, Elijah had struggled to survive. For the longest time, even getting enough food had been difficult, but gradually, he had adjusted. Along the way, he’d been forced to become a killer. Not only had he killed dozens of Voxx – the interdimensional lizard creatures who threatened the entire world – but he’d also slain plenty of sentients as well. Goblins. Gnomes. Dwarves. He’d even fought and killed raptors that seemed like they were made of roots and moss.

More than anything, though, he had survived.

And he had protected his island.

But now, Elijah felt like he’d turned a corner. Not just because he suddenly had a glut of supplies. That was part of it, but he’d also proven that he could stand toe-to-toe with anyone. So, with that in mind, he was running out of excuses not to venture out into the wider world where he hoped to reunite with his sister and the rest of humanity.

It was with those thoughts that he finally succumbed to a blessedly dreamless sleep.