Shon ran through the forest, nearly out of breath. He darted past trees, ducked under branches, and leapt over roots, all without slowing his pace. He was miles away from any road or manmade path, yet he was acutely aware of his position and surroundings. He moved past his surroundings and obstacles like wind through tall grass, leaving little more than sound in his wake. Shon was amazed at the freedom he felt as he experienced the world through the senses and perspective of Solimar Silverbow. The feeling was so exhilarating that he nearly forgot his terror at being pursued by a crazed and ferocious black bear.

Of course the first three days that Shon traveled with Solimar had been nothing like this. Knowing that Solimar didn’t appreciate company, Shon had tried to be the best traveling companion that Solimar could ask for. During the first day, he had tried to make friendly conversation with the elf, asking questions about Solimar’s past and conveying how willing and eager he was to learn how to track like a real dragon hunter. Solimar’s responses to the friendly banter were curt replies at best, and total silence at worst.

Shon changed tactics the second day, deciding to keep absolutely silent and to only speak when spoken to, hoping that Solimar would open up better if Shon didn’t come off as so over enthusiastic. This approach did lead Solimar to speak more, but only to criticize Shon for how slow he was going, for walking too loudly, or for just holding Solimar back in general.

By the third day of their journey, Shon had lost his patience and decided to confront Solimar about how he felt he was being treated, and asked what he was supposed to do to earn Solimar’s respect and guidance. “How am I supposed to help you track this dragon if you won’t take the time to explain anything to me?” Shon had asked.

This strategy had yielded the worst result of all. Solimar had angrily replied that “Some things just can’t be explained,” before running off alone into the woods and not returning until hours later with a freshly killed deer for their dinner. After eating the venison, neither of them said a word to the other for the rest of the night.

On the fourth day of journeying together, Shon was starting to miss Tarun’s company terribly, and began to wonder how he could possibly endure two whole weeks spent alone with Solimar. As he walked silently through the forest behind the elf, the idea seemed to bother him so much that he started to develop a headache. When the headache abruptly became increasingly severe, he realized it wasn’t actually his own.

Shon had barely had time to shout, “Look out!” before the black bear came crashing through some nearby bushes. Fortunately the warning was enough to allow Solimar to jump out of the way, spin around, and fire an arrow into one of the bear’s front paws.

Solimar had expected the shot to scare the animal away, but the bear had instead lifted its injured paw to its mouth, snapped off the shaft of the arrow with its powerful jaws, and then growled at both of them through large teeth covered with purple foam and drool.

At that moment, Solimar looked directly into Shon’s eyes, and something inside the wizard’s mind had clicked. There was fear in Solimar’s eyes, but also a strange kind of acknowledgement as well, almost like permission. In the same moment, Solimar had shouted, “Run!” and darted away into the trees.

Shon had immediately started running after Solimar, not even sure if the black bear was pursuing them. At first Shon had been too frightened to notice anything different about the way he was running and moving through the woods. Then he had looked over his shoulder to see if the bear was chasing them, and found to his horror that it was. Despite the fact that it was running with only three paws, Shon was amazed at how fast the large animal could run. When he turned his head back around to look at where he was going, he saw a branch that his face was about to smash right into.

And yet, Shon had managed to duck his head just in time to avoid hitting the branch. As he continued running, in disbelief at his own reflexes, he noticed that he wasn’t stumbling or running into any of the usual obstacles that typically slowed him down in the forest. At one point, he had grabbed a branch and instead of using his strength to push it out of the way, he had grasped it firmly and kicked his legs in the air to suddenly make a sharp right turn. It was at that point that Shon realized that he was moving in a way completely foreign to his body.

Somehow he had connected to Solimar’s mind and was allowing it to drive his movements and actions. He wondered for a moment if the elf had somehow taken over his body, but when he raised his hand in front of himself and wiggled his fingers, he was certain that he was definitely still in control of himself. Rather, it was like his body was a boat floating along in a stream, and as long as he didn’t fight the current, he continued to run at a pace that kept him out of the jaws of the bear.

As the exhilaration of the experience began to set in, Shon started to realize what Solimar had meant about being unable to explain some things. As Shon felt himself move through the forest, he knew that if Solimar had tried to tell him how to maneuver like this there was no way he would have understood. It was all so strange and alien to him, and yet every muscle and instinct in his body was telling him that it was right. Until, that is, his heart and lungs began to tell him that he couldn’t keep up his current pace for much longer.

Just as Shon was beginning to think that he couldn’t run any further, he saw Solimar standing in front of him with a drawn arrow, and steely gaze. “Duck!” Solimar shouted, but Shon had already dropped to the ground and rolled to one side of where the elf was standing. Solimar let loose the arrow, which lodged firmly into the shoulder of the oncoming black bear.

The bear roared defiantly at them, but then made a strange sort of snorting sound, rolled its head back, and stopped moving. Shon laid on the ground, gasping for breath, and felt the intense pain from the beast’s mind slip away, and he realized that the creature was dead.

“Good shot,” Shon said between great gasping breaths.

“That shot shouldn’t have killed it,” said Solimar flatly. “I was only trying to slow it down some more and make it mad enough to chase after me. It was obvious you were just about to collapse.”

“I can’t argue with that,” said Shon. “But if you didn’t kill the bear, what did?”

“I believe those are what actually lead to the bear’s death,” said Solimar, pointing to several long black and purple quills sticking out of the bear’s back.

“Oh no,” Shon said. “Not more of those freaky quills. Do you think that means that crazy dragon is around here somewhere?”

“I’m sure she must be somewhere in the area,” said Solimar, “but it’s impossible to know how close she is at the moment.”

“Do you think we should pull out some of those quills and take them back to Krall to look at?” Shon asked.

“No,” Solimar replied, “I think that is the absolute last thing that Krall would want us to do with those quills. He believes they are poisonous in some way. In fact, I believe we should avoid touching the entire bear, if possible.”

“Well, what should we do then?” Shon asked. “Just leave it here, and keep walking?”

Solimar considered this for a moment, but then said, “No, I believe we should find a suitable hiding place and wait for the dragon to come eat the bear. I believe this dragon may only eat creatures she has first poisoned them, so waiting for her to come here may be our best chance to see the direction she will head next.”

“Aren’t you worried she might catch us by surprise?” asked Shon.

“I thought that’s why you’re here,” said Solimar. “So make sure you don’t put your hood on or take a nap.”

Solimar moved a good distance away and began constructing a rudimentary shelter out of branches and leaves where they could hide. Shon wanted to help with building the structure, so he tried reading Solimar’s mind to figure out how to build it. To Shon’s frustration, he found that the harder he focused on Solimar’s thoughts, the harder it became for him to distinguish what the elf was thinking.

Feeling somewhat foolish, Shon began picking up leaves and sticks that he hoped he could offer to Solimar for the structure. Once he began to collect the sticks and allow his mind to wander, however, he noticed that he was picking up specific branches and arranging them on the shelter along with Solimar. Shon began to realize that in order to connect with Solimar’s thoughts, he had to be doing something that could be influenced by them. He pictured Solimar’s thoughts as a river current again. If he wanted to be lead by the current, he would need to be in motion like a boat, rather than stationary like a stone.

Once the shelter was built to Solimar’s satisfaction, they both crawled inside and waited. The canopy of the shelter leaned against a nearby tree, and was just large enough to fit Shon and Solimar if they laid flat on their stomachs. A small hole in the leaf covering allowed them to see out to the body of the bear.

Shon was tense and ready for a confrontation with the dragon, but after several minutes passed and nothing out of the ordinary happened, he began to grow restless. He tried to calm himself by taking in his surroundings the way Solimar did. He heard the birds chirping above him, and the buzzing of flies that were starting to gather near the bear. A minute later, he was able to make out the sound of a distant stream.

Shon observed the shadows on the ground from nearby leaves and trees. He noticed that the shadows that had been so long and stretched earlier in the morning were now much shorter and almost directly below the objects casting them. He wondered if that meant it was nearly noon. He wondered just how long he had actually been running away from that bear.

For the first time since the bear had stopped chasing him, Shon became aware of just how exhausted he was from the exertion. Now that the rush of excitement and terror had left him, his legs ached and burned intensely. He closed his eyes and listened again to the peaceful sounds of the forest around him. He was vaguely aware that he could no longer hear the flies buzzing around the bear.

***

A loud squawking sound woke Shon up with a jolt. He was not sure how long he had been asleep, but his body felt stiff and achy. He looked over at Solimar who was staring ahead intensely. “I’m sorry,” Shon stammered, “I didn’t mean to doze off-“

Solimar immediately shushed him. “Forget it,” the elf whispered, “it was only our lives at stake.”

Shon looked ahead at where Solimar was staring. He saw two large black crows sitting on top of the bear’s corpse. They were cawing at one another and occasionally picking at the bear with their beaks.

“Should we try to drive them off?” Shon whispered.

“Why should we?” Solimar whispered back. “They are just doing what crows always do. I know that humans have a problem with death and decay, but it will be better to just let the birds continue until the dragon arrives to eat the main portion. All plants and creatures must return to the life cycle eventually. Let them play their part.”

Somewhere in Shon’s groggy mind, he could feel himself begin to move along the current of Solimar’s thoughts again. Rather than trying to focus on any particular thought, he allowed his still-waking brain to lazily drift along and gain what he could from the elf’s consciousness.

Shon saw the bear in front of him and thought of all the berries, insects, fish, and other living things the bear had eaten throughout its life. He thought of the smaller plants and animals that had been consumed by the bear’s prey, and how many living things had supported the life of the large creature. He now thought of the many animals and plants that would be sustained by the nutrients within the bear’s dead body. Shon’s mind drifted further, and for just a moment he began to see the entire forest as one great interconnected web of nutrients, meals, birth, death, and everything in between. And in an elusive flash of insight, Shon glimpsed the great magical energy that connected them all.

Just as quickly as the insight had come, it had fled from Shon’s mind. He tried to chase the thought, but he harder he focused on it, the further it fled from his memory. He turned to look at Solimar, trying to figure out what had disrupted the current of the elf’s thoughts, and saw an expression of great concern on Solimar’s face.

“Something is very wrong,” Solimar said with furrowed eyebrows.

Shon looked at where Solimar was staring and saw that the two crows now seemed very agitated, and began cawing at one another much louder than before. They began to become aggressive and peck at each other, and Shon could faintly sense a growing pain in his mind. “I think they may be poisoned like the bear was,” Shon whispered. “We should be careful.”

As soon as Shon had spoken, the two crows erupted in a furious clash. Black beaks and claws flashed and darted as each crow tried to finish the other off. The fight was brief, but it was intense and unsettling. When it was over, one crow stood above the other, furiously pecking at its lifeless body. Shon turned to look at Solimar and saw a look of horror and disgust on the elf’s face. “This has to end now,” Solimar said.

The victorious crow finished mangling the body of the other bird, and spread its wings as if to fly away. Solimar stood up from the middle of the shelter, sending leaves and sticks scattering around. Solimar drew back an arrow aimed at the crow, but before the bowstring could be released, the crow’s wings contorted and it fell straight to the ground below.

Shon crawled out from what was left of their makeshift shelter, and ran to join Solimar next to the body of the now-dead crow. They were both unnerved to see purple foam around the bird’s beak, and purple blood seeping from wounds caused just a minute before in the fight between the crows.

Shon and Solimar walked back to the body of the bear, where the other crow lay dead and bloodied. They observed that the murdered crow also had purple blood, and still had a bit of the bear’s purple-stained meat in its beak. As they looked more carefully around the body of the bear, they saw countless dead ants and flies that had apparently tried to eat the bear and been poisoned by its tainted flesh as well.

“This poison is worse that we thought,” Solimar said. “It isn’t just the dragon’s quills that carry the toxin. It’s in the blood of anything it touches. And its effects seem to be almost immediate. And it would appear the smaller the animal is, the quicker it will die from it.”

“What do we do?” Shon asked, remembering the great web of life in the forest. “We can’t just leave it here, or it could contaminate the whole forest.”

Solimar looked surprised at Shon’s statement, but nodded in agreement at his conclusion. “No,” said the elf. “No, we can’t.”

“Should we bury the poisoned animals to keep anything else from eating them?” asked Shon.

“Digging a hole that large would take too long,” Solimar said. “And that would require touching the tainted animals, and we could risk being poisoned ourselves. Besides, there are lots of creatures underground that would try to eat the animals down there. I think we’ll have to burn them”

“Won’t building a fire that large take almost as long as digging the hole?” asked Shon.

“Perhaps,” Solimar replied. “But we still have to do it. I don’t dare leave these creatures in the open where they could poison others. Let’s just hope that the fire will neutralize the poison.”

Solimar decided that before they started gathering wood and fuel for the large pyre, they would first create a small controlled fire around the bear’s body so that the larger fire wouldn’t spread to the plants and trees around it. After clearing away some of the longer weeds and digging a shallow circular dirt trench around the bear’s body, Solimar used small pieces of flint and steel to create sparks to ignite the dry grass and leaves within the circle.

Much to Shon and Solimar’s surprise, the moment that the small flames licked against the bear, the purple blood burst into bright hot flames. The heat and intensity of the flames reminded Shon of the lamp oil Uncle Grodin would sometimes use when working into the night. The smell however, a mix of burning fuel, flesh, hair, and feathers, was nothing at all like his uncle’s lamp oil.

Shon was glad that they had first dug the trench and pulled the weeds around the bear, as he was sure the intense and unexpected fire would have otherwise quickly spread to the rest of the forest. After a few minutes had passed, Shon was relieved to see that despite the volatile heat from the blood fire, the poisonous fuel was quickly consumed, and before long nothing but bones and ashes remained.

When the last of the flames had died down to a few small embers, Shon put his hands on his cheeks to feel the heat on his face, and noticed that one of his eyebrows was now a bit shorter than the other. “Well that was unexpected,” he said to Solimar.

“Yes it was,” agreed Solimar. “But it should make disposal of bodies much more convenient in the future. My only regret is that now we have no bait to lure the dragon back here. I’m afraid we’re back at the beginning for tracking her.”

Shon felt disappointed at the setback in tracking the dragon, but he was glad that they had protected the web of life in the forest. He shuddered to think what would have happened if the web itself had been poisoned. At that thought, there was a tickle in the corner of Shon’s mind, and he could feel an idea begin to form, just outside of his consciousness. Rather than try to pin the idea down, he decided to flow with the current and see where the idea would take him.

“Actually,” Shon said, “I think we may not have to start from the beginning. Follow me!” Shon ran off into the thick growth of the trees around them, with Solimar following closely behind.