| It was on Sunday the 8th April,
Easter Sunday, that the letter arrived. It had no stamp and had
been delivered by hand, addressed to Mistress Heather Stewart. Eagerly
she opened the letter and unfolded the parchment inside, It appeared to
be burned at one end. The letter read :
Dearest
Mistress Stewart I
send this to you as I made a wondrous but monstrous find in the woods of
the Crowe’s Thorne near your abode. I
fear my find was more than I could cope with, the lair of a She Dragon
hidden deep in the woods.. My timing was as poor as my luck, as I came
upon her as her clutch of newly laid eggs was ready to hatch….. Her
fury at the threat to her offspring was unfounded… Augustus The handwriting was shaky and hard to read, and with the letter, another piece of charred paper read: On
top of the hill above the coach park stands a four legged giant, who
guards the path into the Wyrm Woods… At his feet lies the first of my
markers.. |
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The letter and the first clue |
We set off, with scant provision and headed off to the woods with great fear in our bellies. If Augustus Vimes, an apparently experienced dragon hunter had failed, what hope had we??? On arrival in the Crowthorne woods, we set our minds to the first clue.... the coach park? where we left our horseless carriage ? the four legged giant? Heather spotted the first of a series of electricity pylons on the hill above us..... we pressed on.. Up the hill and to the feet of the great steel giant, the air crackling about us with static electricity, and there , as suspected , was the first marker.. not only another piece of burnt paper, but also an item almost beyond belief.... A dragon's egg.... wrapped to protect it from the elements
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| Carefully, Heather opened the wrapping and
read from the clue to our next marker...it read
Follow back the path to the giants brother then cross the blasted heath to the South towards the marshes…. Turn left onto the path and find where I took brief rest when the She Dragon pursued me…. Tarry there not long, for it is exposed and would be in sight of a circling dragon above…..But m second mark lies there. The
giants brother???? another pylon... off we went along the path ,
carefully watching the sky lest a fearsome dragon appeared above us, the
sky was blue, there was not a cloud, A keen eye would spot us from miles
off. |
Nestled at the giant's feet lay the dragon egg
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| On reaching the second pylon, we
turned south and looked across the desolation that lay before us. Trees
were broken like matchsticks and strewn across the ground, this was not
the mark of some human cultivation, but the sign of a great force
passing this way, low , fast, and hard.......
Across the Heath we went, ever a watchful eye on the sky above. Soon , we came upon the path, and turning left as instructed we followed it, only to find a patch of ground that was burnt to ash....with not a mark on the surrounding fauna... we collected samples of the ash to with some charred earth Heather had spotted earlier....
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Across the Blasted Heath
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The young dragon hunter takes a sample of ash from the burnt ground
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| Looking around for some hint, we spied a bench
:"find
where I took brief rest" , and searched around it for another
marker....and there it lay, hidden in the scrub beneath the bench....
grabbing it, we ran back to the path , heeding Vimes advice not to tarry
on the exposed bluff where he had no doubt invited the chasing dragon's
wrath, given the evidence of the blasted scar we found nearby...
In the shadow of one of the few untouched trees, we unwrapped another Dragon's egg and read:- Return to the path and head East towards the road, turn then south along the walkway across the dead marsh to a place where once stood a building, now blasted away by Wyrm Breath so that only a tiny piece of floor remains… here lies the next marker. Onwards,
ever onwards............... |
again, the fragment of journal was shakily written and burned
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| The trees thickened and afforded
some cover from attack from above, a brief respite for now as we tracked
along the walkway through the marshes....the respite was brief indeed
when we noticed that as soon as the trees thinned slightly, we saw claw
marks in the mud either side of the planks... sign that something had
been attacked as it passed this way....passed? fled ? ran in blind
terror???
The deep claw scars in the mud did not bode well
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Nestled in the roots.... another egg.....another marker
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At the end of the path we searched among the
trees, hoping for some sign.... and there on the ground lay a patch of
tiles.
They were intact, but out of place... they belonged in a building but here the sense ended.. They sat alone...there was no sign of walls or the rest of the floor...as if the whole building had been swept away.....but how...?????? The only answer filled us with dread... We knew we had to hurry... we were getting closer to the lair of the dread wyrm and every single second was precious, every second counted towards our goal, our survival....and possibly our untimely demise. Scrabbling amongst the brush and the trees , tucked into the roots of a twisted tree, we found the next marker... the note, this time, was brief.....
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| West
take ye along the wooded path to a cross in the road where my last
marker lies…
We were close.... very close...... Maybe getting too close. As we stood and regained the path , Heather spotted and even more worrying sign, fresh claw marks gouged in the tree opposite.... It looked as though something had used the tree almost to change direction...I pictured the dragon sliding to a halt and pushing itself against the tree to turn quickly and head along the walkway that sat at right angles to the wooded path... We ran along the wooded path.... the cross roads appeared ahead ... we hurriedly searched and found the final clue..... With mounting terror we unwrapped the final egg, and read :- Track
South across the planks and past the broken silver birch to a grove of
trees where you will find the remains of the dragon’s last competitor,
sacrificed near the entrance to the Great Wyrm’s lair…… BEWARE….
Here be dragons !!!!!!!!!! |
Fresh.....deep .......frightening
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| Looking around us we saw the
silver birch, broken in half and twisted by some mighty force. Fear held
us fixed......but the insatiable curiosity drove us on....slowly and
carefully across the open ground , exposed again to the air above,
towards the lonely grove of trees...
We knew to expect something horrific, the remains of the dragon's last competitor....but who, or what, could possibly have been in competition with this ferocious lizard.. What could possibly have been a threat ...? Then we saw it... loosely bound to the first tree.... horribly burned , with one leg torn clean off , it hung , grotesquely twisted like some totem to terrify those who came after. It was the lifeless corpse of ..............
The Easter Bunny !!!!!
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| Behind the next tree something caught our
eye..... it was red and scaly, at it's tip...a golden arrowhead ....unmistakably
the tail of a dragon... a juvenile by the size... but a dragon none the
less.....
Bravely, Heather stepped forward and drew the beast from the tree.. it was only half emerged from its shell, like a crocodile egg, strangely soft.... Peeling the shell away , the young dragon hunter revealed the young dragon to the world.. Apprentice and hatchling regarded each other...... and understanding passed between them.. It was abandoned....the old dragon was nowhere to be seen.. slain or gone, it was not clear. The young dragon hunter knew that she had a dragonologists duty to protect the little red dragon............. |
The tail of our tale |
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And so , they set off back through the forest, the young dragonologist and her new charge... the eggs held safely to protect them......
THE END
Note: no animals were harmed in the telling of this tale, except maybe the Easter Bunny.... he got toasted.......sorry! |
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