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Chapter 15

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Yrog was doing boring dragon stuff today and Lily was busy playing with her new kite, so I wandered off to explore. Yrog told me I could go up any canyon that drained into the one below her eyrie, but I wasn't supposed to cross the ridges to the East or West because that's where the dangerous monsters and their hunters were.

I grabbed my pack, poncho, and a lunch, bopped my little brother on the head for stealing my knife, then wandered South into the hills. The canyon below Yrog's eyrie splits in two and I'd always explored the western branch, so today, I resolved to explore the east fork.

As I wandered up the creek, the land rose around me and the tall pines closed in overhead. I wended my way along the left bank, following whichever game trail seemed to offer an easy path and scrambling through brush or over rocky outcroppings when they didn't. The word "bushwhacking" is always slightly misleading; it most often refers to a hike where one gets whacked by bushes.

I detoured up the canyon wall again to get around another cliffy outcrop of granite that interrupted my path yet didn't have to decency to form a compensatory waterfall. I stayed high for a bit, listening to the raucous creek below as I contoured up and back through side drainages. After the fourth drainage, the canyon wall brought me back down to the creek and the confluence. I found ripe strawberries and picked a bunch, then picked my way over to a grassy spot just above where the two creeks flowed together and ate lunch. I sat for a bit on that sun dappled sward and enjoyed the stillness.

When it felt right, I refilled my waterskin from the creek and journeyed up the left fork. The canyon climbed steeply, so I did too, switchbacking up the side of the canyon (loathe switchbacks). Where the canyon finally leveled out, I found a beaver pond and stopped to rest. In the mud by the bank, I found some some fresh coyote tracks and, on a lark, followed them. The tracks led up canyon and eventually turned off up a shallow side canyon. I heard whining and slowed down. As quietly as I could, I approached the noise. I found a coyote pup nosing its mother, who was lying, dead, in front of the den with an arrow in her side.

I slowly approached the pup. It back off. I squatted down and reached out my hand to introduce myself. It came forward and sniffed my hand. I gently scratched it behind its ear. The pup looked up at me an let me pick it up. I unslung my pack and pulled out a piece of jerky. I chewed on one end a bit to soften it up, then offered to the pup. It sniffed at the jerky then gave it an experimental lick and nibble.

The noise of something crashing through brush attracted both our attention. We looked up canyon from whence the noise came and pretty soon the elf girl I met the other day pushed through the scrub oak into view. She looked at me for a moment and I looked back at her. She was dressed in green and brown tunic and trousers, carried an orate bow and quiver slung on her back and an equally ornate dagger at her hip.

"Hey, you're that pet girl. What are you doing here?" She asked. "Well, nevermind, this is perfect. You can carry my kill back."

"No."

"What?" The girl looked at me in disbelief.

"You killed her, you can carry her."

I turned around and walked away, still cradling the coyote pup in my arms.

"Wait!" the girl called.

I didn't wait. I picked my way back down to the beaver pond. The sun was getting low to the canyon rim, so I decided I'd better prepare to spend the night. I set my folded poncho on the ground and laid the pup on top. I left him the piece of jerky. The pup watched me attentively while I gathered a couple hours worth of firewood and assembled a lean-to fire lay.

I heard a fish jump in the pond. Time to catch some dinner. I dug my fishing line and flies out of my pack, tied them off to a particularly appropriate branch I'd found while gathering wood, and cast into the upstream end of the pond.

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Elsewhere...

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I sat on my rooftop, across a game board from Allic. Allic reached out and placed a gold general infront of my king, checkmating me again.

Shogi is a curious game that is a lot like chess and a lot not like chess. In some respects, it's the zombie survival version of chess because pieces refuse to just stay decently dead; like the general that just checkmated me. Though, I do have to respect a board game that lets you have dragons.

Luckily, we weren't betting on the outcome of the match.

"Again!" I said. "I'm finally starting to see the logic."

Allic stared across the board at me with equal parts mirth and pity.

"I think I'm done for the evening," Allic replied, "I'm going to go see if anything fun got dragged in for supper."

She stretched sensually (that best kind of all unwitting sensual), and just then a distraught elf barged onto the rooftop and interrupted my moment of appreciation.

"Lord Yrog, is Evalyn with you?" he demanded.

"Evalyn... Eva... Oh, her. No Zach, I haven't seen your little sister. Why?"

"She's missing. She wasn't at the hotel when we returned from our hunt and we haven't found her around town."

"Have you asked your son?"

"He was in the hunting party with us."

"Oh. Where did you see her last?"

"This morning, at the hotel. She wanted to go hunting, but you keep some rather dangerous beasts, so I didn't let her..." The man seemed to have an epiphany, "You don't think she went out on her own?"

I shrugged. "It's very possible, even likely. You left her behind for her safety, but took her cousin who is the same age.  Nobody left by wyvern today, and you said you looked around town. There's not many other places she could be." I looked up at the setting sun. "Speaking of missing waifs, my own one is a bit overdue."

"Aren't you worried?"

I regarded the frantic elf. "A little bit. But Sarah knows how to handle herself. I'm sure she just found something interesting and lost track of time. I'll get concerned if she's not back by tomorrow afternoon."

"Can you help us search for Evalyn, at least?"

"It's too late now; we're very unlikely to find her in the dark. I'll let the other dragons know and we'll mount a search in the morning."

"But what if she's hurt? Or something eats her?"

I sighed. "You squishy little folks are a lot tougher than you give yourselves credit for, especially your youngsters. I'm sure we'll find her alive and well, if hungry, and in ten years, she'll be telling this story to impress boys."

My attempt at comfort didn't help.

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I had three fish strung on a sharpened stick and was just about to clean them and return to camp when the elf girl caught up to me. She set the coyote down and sunk to the ground.

"Finally, I found you," she said.

We weren't more than a twenty minute walk from the coyote's (former) den.

"You got lost."

The elf girl looked away.

I looked at the coyote's corpse.

"How come you didn't field dress it?" I asked.

"I don't know how!"

"Alright. It's getting to dark now anyway. Let's move the body away from the pond and a little farther from camp."

"But..."

"Come on. If an animal comes after the body, we don't want it in camp with us."

We each grabbed an end and hauled the carcass away from the water and out of sight of camp. Then I took the fish and crossed the stream to get distance from the carcass and camp. The elf followed me.

I handed her one of the fish.

"You can at least clean a fish, right?"

She shook her head. So, I showed her on the first fish and then we each did one of the remaining two. Her look of disgust was a sight to behold.

I led the way back to camp. The coyote pup looked up from its spot on my poncho, the jerky held between its paws. I gave the guy a scratch behind his ears.

I handed off the fish to the elf. She sat down by the fire pit and watched me work. I found a few green branches and set them in the pond to soak, then knelt down by the fire lay. I took a few deep breathes and focused the way Yrog taught me.

I commanded the wood, "Ignite!"

The tinder popped into flame and I fed it kindling, then steadily bigger pieces till the fire was crackling happily. The elf girl scooted a little closer to the fire.

"Hey," I asked, "what's your name?"

"Evalyn."

"I'm Sarah."

Evalyn nodded.

I picked up the coyote pup and set him in my lap, then took the jerky and slowly poured water down it and tried to interest the pup in it. The puppy caught on fast and lapped away at the end of the jerky.

"I'm going to have to give you a name too," I told the puppy.

Once he'd had his fill and the coals were ready, I set the pup back on my poncho, fished the green sticks out of the pond, and scraped some coals to the side of the fire. Rocks by coals, sticks on rocks, fish on sticks, and pretty soon we were chomping down on grilled fresh fish. I tore some bread of the loaf I brought and shared it with Evalyn.

When it was almost dark, I got up from the campfire.

"Alright," I said, "I'm going to bed."

I made a me length pile of pine straw between to conveniently parallel downed trees. I displaced the puppy for a moment to don my poncho and put up the hood, then I took the pup and we curled up on the straw.

I woke up a couple hours later feeling slightly chilled and poked my head over the log. Evalyn was huddled by the embers of the campfire, shivering slightly. Oh well. I shrugged and nestled a little farther into the straw.