Ander drew a sketch as she spoke, adding the details as she remembered, and then showed her what her words had drawn.
“That’s it! That’s what I saw!” she exclaimed. “So what is it?”
“Just an educated guess, but I’d say it was a ‘draco albicanus,’ or a white dragon. Thanks for your excellent help,” he called as they left the girl standing, awestruck, in the lane.
*****
Another night of sleeping on frost-hardened ground and a day of cold rain later, they reached the base of Mount Valcarsha. Ander crouched low to the moist ground, blew hard upon the footprint in front of him to clear it of leaves, then took out his tape to measure the odd shape. “-twenty-four inches long, and about six inches deep, claw marks at the end of each of three toes. Blot, it looks like I was right. We’ve got a dragon up here somewhere. Nothing else makes a print like this. Look.”
The dwarf stood peering over Ander’s shoulder and nodding. “Yep. Dragon. Chief’s gonna like this. Say, now that you got the print, and those drawings you did of what that shepherdess saw, how much more do you need for the entry?”
“Well, we’ll need to get our own sighting, to do it right. Even better than that, though, would be some verifiable piece of physical evidence,” Ander replied absently, sketching the print’s shape upon his tablet
“Let’s go, then.” said Blot, impatiently staring up the steep mountainside.
Half a day of hard climbing lay in front of them if they were to scout the territory the hunters had described. He fell in behind as Ander led the way for a long while through the bare twigs of lowland scrub. A little farther up, the scrub gave way to a thick evergreen forest, the early morning light breaking in hard shadows through its blue-green needles. Blot marked the path well. He planned to be coming back down it alone.
*****
Several hours and a few hundred feet later, they came upon a small clearing, the tall bordering pines split and shredded like kindling, the sheep’s carcass still frozen in the glittering snow where it had been dropped.
Ander eased off his pack, sniffed the air, and listened. Not even the normal sounds of the winterbirds and the snow-tunneling rodents broke the eerie silence.
“This is where it happened, Blot. Look-there’s where the dragon must have caught Rilliger.”
Ander pointed to the scattered snow. Sure enough, only two sets of deep, hurried prints led away from the drift, while one more set stopped dead, as though the owner had simply taken flight. Blot squirmed as he eyed the dead bighorn, then looked skyward and thought about the hapless hunter.
“Hadn’t we better find shelter? I mean, it’s getting dark. And windy. What if the dragon comes back here?” the dwarf said nervously, his words carrying straight up the mountain.
“Yes, you’re right.” said Ander, looking up into the steely clouds. “I had hoped to be finished by now and back down to the valley. I don’t like the look of that sky-could be more snow’s on the way. The hunters mentioned a cave …” Ander said, searching the mountain’s gray, ice-rimmed face until he saw a small, darker shadow. “I think I see it.”
A few minutes later, Blot struck a flint to some gathered kindling and fed a couple of larger windfallen branches into a wanning flame while Ander reviewed his notes in the mouth of the narrow, high-vaulted cavern.
“Think we’ll see the dragon before nightfall?” asked Blot uneasily.
Ander smiled thoughtfully. “I don’t think we’ll have to worry about that. Look at these walls-see how the algae is scraped away and hangs in great wide sheets? There are no bats hibernating in here either. And that smell! Whew! It has to be coming from farther back in the cave system. Blot, I think we’re camping in one of the back tunnels of the dragon’s lair itself.”
“The lair itself?” Blot’s face turned pale beneath the dirt and his scruffy beard.
“From the way the signs read, I’d say all we have to do is explore a little farther here while we wait out the storm. Then we can go back down.”