My European Adventure! pt 3

Something had to be said about the food this last week at the Chateau le Pin. It was good in a way that defies description. One might say,  "Ann, that salad was amazing," or "Ann, I can't stop eating this bur blanc. What's in it?" But in order to really understand something about how amazing it was, we are going to have to get a little context:
I'm a picky eater. Always have been, probably always will be. I don't know when it started, but ever since I realized how bad it is, I've been trying to come back the other way. Pushing myself to eat foods I normally wouldn't has had its successes and failures. But at the end of the day, I have a very limited selection of tastes I enjoy. Its not something I'm proud of, but there you go.
From the first dinner, I already knew I was in for a treat. By the second day, I had no worries that I would dislike anything I put in my mouth, no matter how strange it seemed to me. By the third day, I was dreading leaving because for the rest of my life I have to put up with mundane food now. By the end of the week, I worshiped Ann's cooking like a heretic.

Here's a quick run down of our mealtime experiences:
At every meal there was several different kinds of wine - sparkling, red, white or pink, a basket full of fresh rolls, and enough anticipation for Ann's cooking to make your palms sweat.
A 'little' wine and chatting, while we all gathered
Appetizers - Salad/light protein
Main Dish - Meat/Veggies/Starches
Interlude  - Cheese plate(always of the region)(with wine)
Dessert - Exactly that, life-changing, mind-blowing dessert.
Conclusion - licking our plates and finishing off the bottle(s)
Drinks and discussion(puzzle) in the Greatroom.
(All the drinks should have their own post but I really know so little about the subject I wouldn't get very far. Needless to say, there were many of great range and value, and not just wines either. On my next trip maybe.)

Maybe some pictures will help:

(Chocolate Mousse cake with a divine cream drizzle - Probably everyone's favorite.)

(One of our group was a vegetarian, so Ann, saint that she is, cooked her a separate dish to replace the meat dish, FOR EVERY MEAL!) 

 (Butter basted scallops if I'm not mistaken)

(Ann's own dressing, smoked salmon, and fois gras. I'd never had it again, probably never will, but Ann made the fois gras herself, and I even knowing what it was I still couldn't stop myself.)

(Artichoke hearts drowned in butter and cheese, and some kind of peasant or duck. I don't know what it was, but I know it was delicious.)

(My favorite of the week, buerre blanc (which was essentially vinegar, white wine, and butter), over potatoes and sandre, a fish which is apparently only caught in this region's rivers, and only during this time of the year. The beurre blanc apparently took her a dozen times to get right. It seems this sauce was invented to go with this specific fish. I literally cleaned the plate so thoroughly you wouldn't have even know we'd eaten yet.) 

There's more (so much more) but I don't really have the bandwidth to keep going, if you want to see some more, Mimi posted some similar and parallel things on the writeaway blog here:

  http://www.writeaways.com/blogaways/ 

I'll try to go into it more later, but man, I'm depressing myself now because the week is over and I don't know if I'll ever get to eat Ann's cooking again. Bwaaaa!

(PS> For all those worried that I might have been having too much fun to get any work done: You were right to worry. However thanks to the experienced and insightful guidance of John and Mimi, we did get a lot done, and I have moved forward extraordinarily with my book. I hope I will be able to give you all a glimpse at a near complete draft soon.) 

My European Adventure! Pt 2

Day 2, after many trails I ran into my host for the weekend and arrived at the designation for leg 1 of my trip: chateau le pin, an old castle in the heart of France with roots to the twelfth century. After a long winding road we turned into a little courtyard and through an old carriage portal so narrow the car barely fit. And the I saw it: like something out of a folk story, it's tall gothic spires reminiscent of another age; and my home for the next week. 

(The entry)

( the lounge)

(The great room)

(The stairs)

(My room)

(My view pt1)

(My view pt2)

(Even my own gold plated throne)

Needless to say this will be a week to remember. 

My European adventure! Pt 1

Man has it been a  crazy few days. I've been awake now for somewhere beteen 18-24 hours but somehow the excitement of the trip keeps me going. Unexpected bonus: I got to see some norther lights while passing over Greenland. At least I think it was Norther Lights. It was really dark out my window so I couldn't see if there was a moon or not but it did seem like the light was only coming from them. Nothing developed on the camera though. I took a few pictures of other stuff though. 

(PDX pre-flight ritual)

Nothing fancy and nothing extraordinary to anyone but a noob like me. 
(Waiting for my second flight in Calgary. Man was it crowded.)

I asked the Starbucks in Kings Cross Station if they'd take a picture for the partners back home but they didn't want to. I can respect that but I'm a little disappointed. 

They did have a nice selection of mugs though. I'm too cheep to buy any... Maybe on my way back. The biggest thing I've gotten out of the trip so far is 1) How similar to home it is. 2) how much older everything is compared to back home. 

That's all for now. More to follow. 

Even the road to hell, is taken one step at a time . . .

Stories are a strange thing. Both as the writer and the reader, the pull to immerse myself in a good story has always been irresistible. Even from the earliest age I was pulled towards stories, writing them in pitiful form and soaking in every source I could. Later, stories became a refuge, safe from the rest of the world.
There is a tendency towards escapism in both writers and readers, because it is a way of helping ourselves work through things we aren't strong enough to face head on. This happens not only conscienceless, but subconsciously as well. We are pulled towards the stories that speak to us, sometimes not knowing what it is that calls. As a writer, this is even stronger; the amount of possibilities, tied to the flow and drive of the story can confuse a me even in the middle of a story and send me veering off the storyline.
The story begins in a rush, the images so vivid, and the characters so real you can smell the salt in their tears. But as it progresses I begin to lose my grip on them. Characters, like young children, pull away, getting more defiant as they get older and stronger. The desire to mother hen them into a particular storyline overwhelms the original inspiration. It overwhelms the truth that cried out to be heard, and my desire to write something that conforms to a preconceived theme derails the very story I was trying to bring to life.
In parenthood there is a impulse to guide your children. It is a natural impulse and not wrong, but as the children get older they need freedom. This too is natural, yet fraught with wrongness. The job of the parent is to walk the tightrope: guide their children but allow them opportunity to grow. A child who is given free reign from the moment they are born will grow up wild and spoiled, yet a child who is caged from their first steps will be stunted and dull. Children need to experience their own faults and their own destinies, their paths must be their own or they will lose the desire to keep moving, but without guidance from their parents, they will flounder rudderless looking for meaning. I'm speaking in generalities of course because there is exceptions to just about everything, but this analogy translates to writing almost perfectly.
Just as a parent may spend the first decade getting to know their child and he or her personality, a writer may spend years writing but not understanding their story. And the crux of both cases comes down to ourselves. Children are products of their parents, both genetically as well as habitually: We inherit the sins of our predecessors, and we endow them as well to our offspring. We may not recognize it,  in fact we may refuse to admit it, but truthfully we share as much of our bad habits with our children as we do the good.

Likewise in writing, we often drag more than just inspiration into the stories that we write.

That's what I ended up doing during this last project. I've always had a soft spot for extravagant fantasies. Floating cities, daring heroes overwhelming sinister enemies, mythological monsters, and exaggerated stories. I've always wanted to write a story like the St. George and the dragon. Dragons always having been the pinnacle of monsters in my mind; physically powerful, sly and crafty as they come, fundamentally greedy and jealous: In classic (western) mythology they play the part of the perfect villain. Yet as I began to write my story, I could already tell was deviating from my own ideal dragon story. Firstly, there was no damsel, no great trial, only a single hero with a goal which even early on only seems ambiguously moral. Even the first chapter was robbed of the common whitewashed heroism of classic romantic dragon hunting stories. Tsorn finds himself not fighting a worth foe, but a weak and unworthy one. He is forced by circumstances to a result which immediately afterwards he regrets. The end hints at themes of pride bringing him to this end, and his own stubbornness which drives him forward even though he knows he has passed a point of moral cleanliness.
The next chapter the he continues to move, haunted by his own pride and stubbornness. But in a filtered perception he, and by extension the audience, begins to brush aside the doubts they had earlier, and plan an assault against an enemy who seems to deserve Tsorn's hunting.
The third chapter then I danced between a current Tsorn and his scheming self, and again there's a torn nature. In the current, there is no room for half measures, there is no time to rethink a plan of action, so there is no moral deficit. But in reflection Tsorn clearly had time to plan, time to execute, time to retreat if he wanted, yet he continues to push forward. He again pushes into the moral grey area, using tactics which seem dubious in the extreme, yet justified by a unexplained end goal which the audience can only assume is righteous and worthwhile.
Then the final stage: Immediately the audience is hit with a grim scene. There is an impulse to doubt Tsorn's methods, even his motives. We rely on faith that its in line with his previous tactics, and an assumption that the ends may justify the means, but there is a nagging wrongness to the whole story. They way he manipulates the dragon, makes him seem more the villain than the story's protagonist. But as the final confrontation plays out, even Tsorn wakes up to his own sins. In the end Tsorn looks around at his own actions and asks, "what was the goal that could justify this cost." And at the same time, so did I.

The entire time I was writing these chapters, I continually asked myself 'how'. How does an inexperienced hunter fight an apex predator? How does he distract it? How does he trap it? How does he kill it? And in the few months I was working on the story (between other projects), only a few times I asked myself 'why'. "Why would a boy go to such lengths."
I wanted to make a character who the audience could root for. Not one that was perfect, so to speak, but certainly someone who was  good in a relative sense. But even as I wrote the previous chapters I did not mean to write a morally driven piece. I was not intending to include so many morally ambiguous actions on the part of the protagonist. I had planned a completely different ending to the story that I wrote. The way that Tsorn acted, the tactics he used seemed logical, and the morality of it never really dawned on me until I came to that very same scene that Tsorn did, I looked back and I realized Tsorn was not a hero. I looked at his actions and through them my own, and I saw something ugly, something twisted. He could not be called a good person, and through him, neither could I.

 I could not end the story with him walking away with a trophy of his hunt after so many hideous actions and still hold his head high. Certainly having a morally good character is not a requirement for my writing, but for this story, I wanted Tsorn to be a good guy. Yet after having written the former three pieces, I could not go back on the forth and re write it and more than I could the first three. Because Tsorn would have acted like that. At that point, I could only look back and regret what I had done, the same as Tsorn, because in a true sense that's exactly what would have happened to Tsorn. No one can rewrite their past either. There was truth there, even if ugly.

As a writer I could not truthfully un-write Tsorn's history. It would have been as dishonest as trying to lie about my own past. But at the same time, I could not in good conscience write a story so close to praising trophy hunting. Personally, I detest trophy hunting. Hunting in general is fine, as long as the hunters are aware and responsible for their actions. But killing an animal for a single piece, which serves no function other than to elevate one's statues is wrong and hideous. Animals are not playthings, they are living creatures who experience pain and loss the same as we do. As the pinnacle of our habitat it is out responsibility to act appropriately. Tsorn's goal, though not wholly for status and in the end turned out to be for a selfless cause, could not justify what he'd done.

Tsorn then faced a dilemma that everyone has faced at least once in their life. It is innately human to be flawed. From the moment we are born we amble forward instinctually. We learn to talk and we learn to walk without thinking, and in the same way we learn to sin without thinking as well. We hurt those around us as a matter of nature. It is not generally intentional that we wrong those around us, it is just that life is predisposed to chaos, and often we find ourselves the agents of woe. But at some point after the fact, we wake up and realize what we have done. And that is where our caliber shows. Do we choose to make things right, to do the hard thing and work to fix the sins to reign the chaos. Or do we turn a blind eye, ignore our own actions out of defensiveness or selfishness, and thus continue to walk in it. The thing is, it is never one decision, these points hit us everyday. They are small, usually imperceptible unless you're looking for it. Thus it is a step by step fall. Often it is not until we hit the bottom or near bottom that we wake up and see the devastation left in our wake. That is the point we witness Tsorn wake up to; his rock bottom. We saw his step by step, we saw his willful ignorance, and we saw him face the consequence of his actions, only because desperation gave him no other option than to stop and look. I could not go back and 'fix' Tsorn because I cannot go back and 'fix' myself, I can only keep walking forward, meeting each of those evil-impulsed moments as they come, doing my best to step rightly, praying I have the strength to do the right thing the next time, and the next, until my end.

That is the beauty of writing. The art of writing both informs us of the world, but also of ourselves. I didn't know I was writing about trophy hunting until I looked back at my own stories and saw the evidence there. But the story speaks about so much more than trophy hunting as well, it is a cautionary tale of walking blind. That is the truth that stories can show us. Waking us up to the cause associated to effects. There are so many things in our lives and in the world that we can willfully ignore, but doing something so nuanced as writing reveals those things to us. Anyone who tried to write better, can and must become aware of these issues playing inside of them. The more you write the more aware you become.
The act of imitating life requires close observation and insight. As you stare at these things, you cannot ignore the contradictions and flaws as easily as in normal day to day life. Just living sun-up to sun-down, its easy to turn off your mind and live on autopilot, but you do not grow that way. You don't get stronger, if anything you atrophy. Writing and in a lesser extent reading, helps me become more aware of my life. It helps me to be intentional about how I live.  
I know I'm biased but I urge everyone I meet to write. Not necessarily for an audience, but for themselves. Because the awareness you gain helps you to live intentionally, to awake to those moments in your life before you reach a destination of desperation.

If you were walking towards a cliff, wouldn't you want to know?

By the Dragon's Tail pt 4

The end of the valley was something out of a nightmare. Rotten hides, bones, fetid meat lay strewn about, hanging from branches and vines strung along the sides of the valley and staked to the ground. Supplemented by wet and moldy foliage, limp and musky leaves and branches.The smell was overwhelming, the sight gruesome and disorienting. But that was the plan, if it disturbed the Greck half as much as it did Tsorn, then that was in his favor. In the couple days he'd been tracking the Greck, some of the carrion had been picked at by the local wildlife, but the stench of poison over the whole bunch, kept the more intelligent creatures away.
Grecks were as picky eaters as Storm-bears, and their senses were much finer, meaning the smell would hide him, but rather it was the Greck's hearing that would give him away. The smell was meant to be disorienting and distracting; having the Greck follow him was part of the plan as well.
"Go, Leon," Tsorn said, looking the wyrm meaningfully in the eye, "My life is in your hands. Please listen to me for once." The watcher chirped and blinked reassuringly, then flew off in a spectacular flurry. No time left. It's all come down to him. Tsorn thought as he made his way to the traps' head.
The walls of the valley were steep where the trap began. There was no point otherwise. But just in case, Tsorn had gone through the trouble of placing stakes into it, pointing down, to discourage the Greck from trying. Those were the only options, try to go over, or try to go through. Going over would be impossible, and the cliff at the other end of the valley meant the Greck had to come his way. He bound up his shoulder, trying the useless arm around his waist so it wouldn't get in the way later. He'd been dumb, leaving himself open, while luring the Empress into the trap, but what was done was done. He'd known about her intelligence, and ability to smell out a trap. But he still let her get too close. He needed her to think he was true prey, but now he was going to have to do the difficult part with one hand. He smiled at that.
Tsorn's father always said he could take an adult Greck one handed, now Tsorn would take an Emperor one handed. Or die trying.
"Nothing ventured," Tsorn laughed to himself.
The Empress showed herself a few minutes later. She was crouching low at the end of the valley, her hide blending into the mossy mud of the valley floor. She didn't seem to mind the stream flowing around her either. Tsorn only saw her because he was looking for her and the possible area for her to approach was extremely small. She'd enhanced her normal camouflage by rolling in the mud as well, taking on a similar hue to the natural geography. But in the end, it was impossible for her to sneak up on Tsorn. As she saw him see her, she stood up and shook the earth from her long slim body, the crown glowing fiercely with her defiance.
"Just you and me beautiful." He called out. "One last dance, before the music ends."
The Empress roared challengingly. It was majestic and heartbreakingly beautiful.
"Come on!" He yelled grabbing a rough made spear and threw it at her.
She dodged easily, and then almost as an after thought batted it out of the air. The speed and precision of her movements, even injured, were inspiring. She began to move towards him, and Tsorn backed into the web of rotting cover. He moved so she could no longer see him, retreating into the maze, giving up ground liberally. The trap extended back maybe a few hundred feet, so every allowance was expensive, but if he played too conservatively, it could cost him in blood and life. A reminder the bloody arm was consistent in delivering. If tendons or nerves had been severed, his life as a hunter might be over, but it was too late to worry about that now. The hunt had to be finished; even if getting away alive was possible at his stage, which was doubtful, Tsorn's pride would never have allowed it.

The Greck snarled as it encountered the wall of decomposed matter, well seasoned with poisonous plants; from mild irritants to lethal bitters: Tsorn had pulled out all the stops. With an Emperor Greck he couldn't hold back. Nothing there could kill it, the crown offered ridiculous resistances and regeneration, but any advantage Tsorn would seize, even just giving the monster a rash. It slashed down the first wall, baring fangs against the difficulty of the task. Tsorn had reinforce every few partitions, just to frustrate the beast. If it got so aggravated and used more energy than necessary at just the first layer, it might make the final task easier. As it pushed into the trap, Tsorn threw another spear. This one the Greck didn't see, since it was preoccupied with the slush it was walking through. The spear was a simple branch, sharpened ruggedly and poisoned. It struck the Greck near the backside, where the Greck was already limping. It failed to pierce the drake's hide, but the Empress snarled, and Tsorn knew he'd hit a sensitive point. Good to know, he thought as he disappeared behind the cover of his maze.
The Greck moved forward again, and Tsorn moved to the next position, cutting a line leading to the top of the valley, where a bundle of sharpened sticks and stones fell to the valley floor. They pelted around the Greck, and while maybe three or four of the few dozen actually hit it, but it served to further infuriate and confuse the Empress.
The tactic was to continually bombard her with new and unexpected traps. If she didn't know where the next trap was going to come from she'd get nervous and strain herself. But at the same time Tsorn needed to keep her attention and aggression to make sure she didn't retreat up the valley to recuperated. She was tired and hungry before, now injured and insulted, the more strained she was like that, the better chances Tsorn's last play would work out. A pit fall was next, and she snarled as the fell into it, one of the spikes even puncturing her foot. Just as Tsorn was about to thrown another spear, she did something completely unexpected.
Tsorn dove to the ground, landing badly on his hurt shoulder, as one of the spears from his barricade careened where he had just been standing. It was thrown poorly, the shaft drifting during flight, but thrown from an animal, for the first time, it was as incredible as anything as Tsorn had ever seen. The Empress barked triumphantly and Tsorn had to rush to his next trap to make sure the Greck didn't get carried away with her victory.
But still, the idea of a wild beast throwing a spear like a person; terrified and excited Tsorn. The Greck tore through two more barricades before Tsorn managed to set the traps up in proper order. He catapulted a number of spikes into the air, and released a sling with a burning sap at the Greck before it slowed again. It put out the burning sap by rolling in the stream, though that was almost as an after thought, unperturbed by the heat since she had a drake's normal resistance. They were reaching the end of the maze when Tsorn heard the long screech from down the valley. Abandoning his spot he rushed down the valley, taking up his next position. Timing was everything; the traps were all just so he could get the players in position for the final act.
When the last barrier fell, Tsorn was standing a dozen paces away, in full view of the Greck, and looking as tired and worn as the Empress. "Well we've come to it at last, haven't we." The Greck sniffed the air expectantly, the clean, open glade so different from the valley-trap; it must have just seen another trap, more enticing than the last one.
"Just one last surprise," Tsorn said. "Think you can take it?"
Tsorn's last few words were muted by the tremendous roar from behind him.
Leon glided down over the the foliage, as the crashing of a large beast tearing through the forest echoed up the valley towards them. The Greck shuttered, and tensed, looking back towards the trap it had just come through, but also watching the shaking forest with trepidation.
That was the play, the Greck would never fight anything bigger than itself if it didn't need to, but Tsorn had no chance of beating it by himself, so he figured he'd borrow some muscle. All he had to do was arrange an unavoidable fight, and clean up the mess afterward.
Tsorn rushed to a spot he'd picked earlier, hidden in the valley's side. He just reached it as the impossibly large Storm-bear rumbled into the clearing. It was well past twice the average size of a Storm-bear. Since Tsorn was hidden from view, the first thing the Bear saw was the Greck. There was a moment while both of the monsters processed the event. Then the Storm-bear stood, its furry hide, shimmering with electrical light. And it roared challengingly, easily the loudest Tsorn had ever heard. A tremendous roar. Shaking the foundations of the earth, roar.
For the last few days, while he was building his trap, Tsorn had been antagonizing the bear. Never directly, he'd toss spoiled game into the Bear's den or have Leon screech into the entrance in the middle of the night. Or Marring territory, around the den in a fashion like the Greck, as if something was encroaching on its grounds. The Empress' scent was already around, since the Greck had been trying to find Tsorn days earlier. So having come to a place that was filled with carrion, facing a Greck that screeched similarly to Leon, with the familar scent: The Storm-bear came to one quick and ultimate decision, the Empress was responsible to all the Storm-bear's woes. It was poetic, since all of the things Tsorn had imitated were directly inspired by the Empress. Leon, in one final evidence of guilt, swooped down behind the Empress and screeched defiantly.
The Storm-bear couldn't have possibly known Leon was a different species, or that it was trained to deceive him, or tell that the Empress had as little understanding about what was happening as he did. He just saw two little reptiles, both needlessly antagonizing him. He saw enemies. And he charged.

The Empress froze in fear. It was as surprising as it was unpredictable. Emperor Drakes were known as fearless, peerless rulers of their domain. No matter size or ferocity they never doubted their own strength. But then again, all Emperors Tsorn had ever heard of were males; they were almost always huge, with total superiority in power. The Empress was little more than a third the size of the Storm-bear, and couldn't spit like a male Greck. And for a moment, Tsorn doubted his plan. But just as the bear charged and was about to close in on her, the Empress exploded. It was faster than anything Tsorn had seen her do before. She started to move to the side but after a few feet she dug her claws into the earth, stopped dead and rolled the opposite direction. The Bear was unready for the maneuver and stumbled. Rolling, slashing and biting empty air, while the Empress fluidly jumped clear attacking back. Staying behind him, the Empress, bound off the valley wall, clawing the back of the storm-bear's legs and back. His hide was tough, but she was an Empress. He snapped in retaliation, but she was never where he thought she was. He was the storm, sparks flying from his black coat, as foam from his mouth, but she was the lightning. Blindingly fast, even more unbelievable by her size. She was all claws and air. But the angrier the bear got, the stronger his storm got. Even she couldn't resist his electricity after a while, her feet scorched black after just a few minutes. So they were at a standstill, he couldn't touch her, and she couldn't get a killing blow. But still they circled; too drawn into the fight to breakaway. And then she made her move.
The Storm-bear never saw it coming. The stake, nearly six feet long, only looked like a twig sticking out his back, but even the fact that it broke through his hide was incredible. The Bear roared in furry. But the Greck moved gingerly, keeping well out of the monster's reach. Then again, the Grech threw a spear. This time Tsorn watched closely, fascinated. The spear glanced off the bear's shoulder this time, but Tsorn could tell it was as surprised as Tsorn was that the Greck was throwing things.
It was awkward the way it picked a spear up off the ground. Grecks had no thumb on their paws, so it grabbed the stake by wrapping its claws around it. With a jerk, it threw another spear; there was no fluidity to the motion, but the focus and aim of the Empress made it possible. Any other animal wouldn't have been about to do any damage by tossing it that way, much less accurately enough to hit its target, but the Empress was no longer an ordinary beast. The Storm-bear roared fruitlessly as the spear drove into its shoulder, the tip snapped off in the wound while the rest of the pole flew off across the clearing. The Bear then tried to toss a branch at the Empress. It went less than a dozen feet. It was hilarious to watch though.
The Greck did something like a laugh, but sounded like a bark. It picked up another spear and hefted it almost threateningly. What am I watching? Tsorn wondered to himself. The Storm-bear stomped, and shook its coat, the hairs spiking with charge. The Greck threw its projectile, which the bear swatted from the air, splintering the wood into a dozen pieces, before charging. The drake, obviously pleased with herself over the spear-throwing was unprepared for the Bear's attack. She began to dodge, but at the edge of Tsorn's stake pit, slipped, her back feet losing their grip, it was the same leg that had limped after the fall, which Tsorn had hit with his spear. Her speed worked against her, and the rest of her feet, slipped from the loss of coordination. She got quickly mired in the mess of vines and branches left from Tsorn's maze. The impediment lasted less than a few seconds.
One chance was all the Storm-bear needed.  Closing the distance, in a few strides, his claws crushed the Greck to the ground and sunk between her scales. His maw seized her at her right shoulder; he'd been aiming for her crown, but reflexively she dodged. Rolling onto her side she furiously counterattacked, her speed doing considerable damage in just a few seconds, her claws raking him up and down his back legs and lowed belly. Snaps of electricity attacking her every place their bodies connected, though soon the Bear's charge was depleted. He still had size on his side, and by pulling out one of his claws he immobilized her backside with one tremendous blow sinking his claws in again. If things continued like this, Tsorn saw his prize being lost. Whistling, he ran forward tossing a bomb he'd made for just this case. It was a little of the burning sap left over from earlier, in case the bear was more than the Empress could handle. Pulling the snap fuse, Tsorn tossed it against the Bear's back, just as it exploded, covering the bear in flaming goo. Without the drake's resistance to fire, the trick worked much better. The Bear roared again in confusion and terror as it realized it was on fire. At the same time Leon swooped down and clawed at the Bear's face. The Bear snapped his head back and forth and Leon careened off limply.
"Leon!" Tsorn screamed. The Bear seemed to see Tsorn for the first time and turned, more than three times the boy's height, and a hundred times his weight, it was like being seen by an angry mountain. There was such fury in the bear's eyes, and Tsorn could feel the air charged with electricity, even a twenty strides away.
Then the Empress was there, on the Bear's back, biting down on his neck. Blood gushed, splashing down on Tsorn like molten lead. He opened his mouth to scream but found it filled with thick, burning iron. The monsters were falling towards him, and he scrambled to get away, slipping in the thick mud and fire. Something heavy hit him from behind and threw himself forward so as to not be crushed by. It threw him a dozen feet, through mud and water and blood.
Rolling up for his life, hands up defensively, Tsorn looked just in time to see the Greck brutally finish the bear off, the crown glowing bright as the sun. No longer greenish-brown, the Empress glistening ruby, her drake's hide covered in blood, reflecting in the light of her crown and the shine of the midday sun.
Standing on top of the Storm-bear, Tsorn was certain there was no greater power than an Emperor drake. There was no contest of who held the strongest title. Tsorn knelt there waiting for the Empress to descend the Bear and kill him. He was too weak to put up a fight, not against something that powerful. But as the Empress turned towards Tsorn, her leg slipped and she fell from the bear's back, landing in the clearing with hard crash.
Too tired to even roll over, her breathing was slow and labored.
Tsorn could barely believe it. Trembling he moved towards her. He couldn't feel his left side anymore. His whole back throbbed, his ankle creaked, and he barely had enough strength in his hand to keep his balance. His whole heart jumped as the drake flopped into its belly, its eyes turning slowly towards Tsorn. For all their weariness, a strong will remained, defiance was still there; as though it could kill Tsorn with its mind alone. But even a few feet away, it couldn't raise a claw to swing at him. By the way its haunches still lay twisted the way it fell, its back was broken, probably by that blow the bear had given him. Tsorn looked over at the bear. Its head alone was almost as tall as Tsorn, its fangs as long as his arm, lay closed for good, still pressed into the clay where the drake had forced it. Tsorn would never have set up this fight if he'd know how big the bear was. There should have been signs but Tsorn had been to focused on the Empress, on his prize to think things through properly. He didn't have time to think it through. He came too close to losing his prize.
The Drake rumbled as Tsorn reached out and touched its crown. Given enough time, the drake would fully heal, given an intact crown. Something about the miraculous composition of the fluid inside, granted powerful abilities, like regeneration back from near death. It was these properties that drove Tsorn so far. As he examined the crown his heart broke. Along the backside, the crown had cracked, and was leaking its precious fluid over the Drake's back. He put his hand out to stop the flow, but could only stand the burning heat of it for a few seconds. He tried to stem the flow with his shirt and then collect a pool in his leather jerkin, but everything it touched melted, sluicing away, along with Tsorn's hopes. Frustrated he pounded the drake's side. The Empress rumbled angrily.
Falling desperately to sit against the monster, only vaguely away of the teeth just a few feet away that would have torn him to shreds if they could.
The Emperor's Mantle, as the liquid was called, had powerful healing abilities. Able to bring men back from the brink of certain death. Able to cure any disease. Rulers the world over payed kingdoms to bath in the stuff, said to grant decades even centuries to one's life and endow them with powers mortals could only dream of. And here it was draining into the dust. Tsorn laughed as the stuff flowed over his shoulders. Laughed as he cried.
The Empress would be dead within the day. No drake survived a cracked crown. Tsorn stood sudden and aggressively and began pounding at the crown's base. It was thick and hard like a goat's horn, too thick for Tsorn's to break. It was trumendously strong, it probably cracked when the Storm-bear tried to bite down on the drake's neck, but even that amount of power had only cracked it. He pulled out the long steel wire he'd brought for this purpose and began to wind it around the crown. The Crown rose out of the drake's head like horn, but ballooned out into a majestic crescent shape, but even at its base it was as large around as Tsorn's torso. At full strength and without it leaking, the cutting would have taken four hours, but at the rate the Mantel was leaking, he didn't have a quarter of that time.

He stopped, hands trembling, looking at the terrible scene. The blood of the two beasts literally covered everything in the once idyllic meadow. What beauty there had been had been trampled in their fight. The stream that ran through the valley was now clogged, red, and muddy. The carcasses, the rot, the traps he'd all set up; desolation he'd caused for his goal. Tsorn looked at himself, also covered in blood. He though about how far he'd gone the last few months. He looked over at where Leon lay, still motionless where he'd landed after getting caught by the bear.
Was it worth it? All this to save one man? Tsorn's father always insisted a man shouldn't fear death, nor complain when it came; the life of a hunter was knowing one's place in the cycle. Tsorn had gone so far outside that cycle he could barely see the path anymore. All to divert fate for one man who was already at peace with his own demise. Tsorn hobbled over to Leon.
The little wyrm was alive, but only barely. The Bear had bitten down on Leon's left side, almost severing the wing at the shoulder, and crushing his side. Gently Tsorn picked up his companion and carried it over to the Empress, laying him in the little pool of Mantel that had gathered at the base of the drake's skull. In the liquid, Tsorn pulled the wing together and using the remaining hem of his shirt began to bind the wound together. The effect was immediate, the wound sealing up as Tsorn watched. He continued to bath the wyrm in the liquid, slowly reviving his companion. As Leon came alive again, Tsorn could feel tears of joy burning in his eyes.
"Thank you, I'm so sorry, thank you so much," He said hugging the Empress' crown. He pressed his hands into the crack, ignoring the pain of the heat. The Mantle leaking out was felt boiling, but Tsorn gritted his teeth, and bore it. It took him a second to realize he was using both hands equally, not having noticed when the pain in his arm went away. But with both hands he was able to hold the crack closed for a moment, stemming the draining, and prolonging the drake's life. He thought as hard as he'd ever thought in his life. But every way he thought about it, he couldn't think of a way to seal up the crack. By this time, nearly everything he had been wearing had melted away, so he didn't have so much as a bootstrap to stuff in the hole. Even the binding around Leon had liquified, though now there was enough flesh to hold itself together.
Tsorn knew he didn't deserve it, but he wished for a miracle, wished there were some way he could fix what he'd done. And a few seconds later he had one. The crack had closed. Not totally, maybe only a few centimeters, but Tsorn was certain it was smaller than it had been. There was hope, even if just a seed. As long as Tsorn held the burning fluid in with his hands, he could save the monster's life.
It was more painful than anything Tsorn had ever felt. It cooked the flesh in his fingers to the bone. But if, just if, he could fix just one thing... Trying harder to stem the crack, he pressed his hands into the burning flow, the sticky substance flowing down his forearms and chest.
The way he pressed up against the Drake's body to get at the crack on the backside of the crown meant he made a perfect conduit for the liquid's flow, wrapping around his body as it slid down to the mud. It felt as though he was dying, being cooked, basted alive, though in a poetic way, he kind of deserved it. He didn't care about the pain, it was so intense it almost felt unreal. He just hoped that maybe there would be enough Mantle to save the Empress' life.
Her breathing was slower now. Besides the Crown's crack, she was also bleeding profusely from the claw and bite marks around her body. But all that was secondary to her Mantel.
Slowly, ever so slowly the crack did close. It was almost night by that time, and Tsorn was so exhausted he could barely stand. Gingerly he pulled his hands away, making sure it really wasn't leaking anymore. With more relief than ever before in his life, he stepped back. He was so tired he literally lay down right there and fell asleep, the mess of the battle still covering him.
He woke the next morning, the smell more terrible than anything. He wanted to go back to sleep but there was too much to put right.
He walking the forest gathering healing herbs for a salve, along with clean clay from upstream. He brought them back to the clearing where he began to put these in the Drake's wounds. The bleeding had stopped mostly already but it felt necessary. If enough Mantle remained to keep her alive, the wounds would be fine, but he couldn't stop himself. When there was nothing left for him to do, he picked up Leon, who had almost fully recovered though deathly tired, and started home.

By the Dragon's Tail pt 3

Tsorn ran for the clearing ahead, holding his torn, bloody arm to keep it from swinging lifelessly. Leon's screech told him the beast was right behind him. He didn't dare look. Looking could slow him down. Slowing down would get him killed. He spotted the red cord he'd tied around an upcoming limb and turned sharply. A bluff was just ahead, its sudden edge hidden by the thick foliage. To the Right, the hill rose sharply, creating a wall on one side, which lead right up to the edge of the drop. But between the rise and the valley, there was a small lip. Large enough to run on, but narrow enough that you had to be very careful where you stepped or else you'd be rolling down a hill too steep to stop yourself until the bottom, some fifty paces below. And the embankment was so steep down there, not even a drake could climb back up. Further up the valley, the embankment got steeper, turning it into a full cliff. All of this was necessary to his plan. And why he chose it over the other thousand valleys in the territory. If only he stayed ahead of the wild hunger chasing behind him.
A low growl warned him, teeth and claws were on their way, just as he reached the embankment, he dove for the lip.
In the sudden turn, he almost lost his footing, but desperation and years of training helped him fight the impulse to tuck and roll; instead grabbing a tree branch he swung himself back on to the game trail along the lip. The sound of tearing earth and clawed wood told him the Greck hadn't expected the maneuver and was wrestling gravity as it found itself tumbling down the slope of the hill that he'd just avoided. He was hoping the Greck would have fallen right in, but from what he'd seen, she was more agile than that, so he moved for plan B. The maneuver did give him a few extra seconds. Each one counted now. A pain in his ankle told him he'd taken the turn too sharply, but there was no time to worry about that. He shot down a vial of Tiem, a powerful painkiller, his face souring at the bitterness. It would make thinking harder, but if he was busy fighting down the pain in his own body, the Greck would tear him to pieces before he had a chance to think. The adrenaline would have to help him fight to think for the moment. As the waves of lightness hit his head, the pain in his ankle lessened and he quickened his pace.
A scream of desperation sounded from behind him, telling the Greck was already back on his path, though struggling with the narrowness of the trail. And none too soon either. If he got too far ahead, the whole plan would have been shot. It was less than a dozen feet to the objective. The Greck was smart; if it suspected he was leading it into a trap, it might cut the chase off and retreat back to it den.
That would mean days of misspent planning and labor. He started to hobble again on his bad foot, giving the Greck time to catch up. The little theater lulling the Greck in. He could hear it behind him. Hundred paces. Fifty. Twenty. Ten. The beast roared victoriously.
Tsorn jumped the last ten feet, the Tiem giving him supernatural strength. The snarl from the Greck, was full of resentment and surprise. It knew it had been tricked. But it was too late. The lip the Greck had landed on was already sliding away under the force of its landing. The Greck tried to backtrack but every step sent buckets of earth raining into the valley, further enmiring its legs in the thick, heavy clay of the hillside. On the reinforced pathway that he'd jumped to, Tsorn grabbed the vine-rope, leading to the framework of branches he'd hammered into the trailside. Pulling it out, it displaced the delicate support of the earth, stealing the last bit of support for where the Greck was standing. In a slow, almost comical slide of earth and scales and claws, the Greck slid away from the face of the cliff down into the valley.
The Greck crooned as its last footholds crumbled away, tearing clawfuls of earth down with it as it tried desperately to climb to the reinforced lip where Tsorn stood. But even as it gained ground, Tsorn condemned it, picking up the pole he'd left there and pushing the Greck down into his trap. He felt grim satisfaction after the weeks of being hunted, watch the Greck balefully side into the valley.
The valley wasn't deep enough to kill the drake, but it was deep enough to injure it. Not to mention all the earth that would subsequently bury it, even momentarily. From where he stood, Tsorn could see the Greck, land, heavily, splashing into the shallow creek flowing through it. Soil and clay still tumbling down on top of it, though the majority of the landslide was finished. The Greck was stuck, muddy and partially buried, but alive. It would dig itself out in a matter of minutes, aided by the flow of water. An hour at the latest. But it would be tired, and hungry and wounded. In strange territory and routed into a narrow valley with only one exit. If he was lucky, the Greck would start up the the wrong way and find the cliff face at one end of the valley before needing to back track to the entrance where Tsorn would be waiting. If not, it just meant he had that less time to waste. Everything else was ready for the final part of the plan. He just needed to get into place.

A month's worth of planning, and it would be over in a few hours. The first week, Tsorn had barely slept more than a few hours a night. He spent the daytime exploring his quarry's territory; game trails, watering holes, nesting pads, valleys and ravines, the lay of the land. Once he had a pretty good grasp of the area, he soured the water sources. Nothing lastingly harmful; a Tart pill dissolved slowly at the head of the streams and creeks, making the water bitter to drink and prompting mild nausea. It would drive the normal game out of the valley, depriving the Greck of a food source. Then he started leaving bait out in the open, lulling the Greck out. He banked on the Greck taking obvious bait rather than trekking miles to find fresh herds.
As the Greck got more and more accustomed to eating his snacks, Tsorn got the opportunity to study his prey. To his surprise, the Greck was female. Generally smaller than males, females were also usually less aggressive. Though the rabid territorial-ism made more sense, since nesting females were more protective of the nests. But by the size of her crown and the strips on her back, she was well past egg-bearing age. There must have been an exceptional event to drive her to expand her territory so aggressively, when she had no nest. It was indescribably deviant from the norm. But then again, Emperor Drakes were always exceptions.
For a female she was exceptionally large, but compared to even average adult Grecks she was still small. Drakes often began growing again once their crowns reached a certain maturity, but The Empress, as Tsorn began to think of her, was still quite small despite her advanced age. After a few days, he realized why. While most drakes got larger and stronger, they used their spitting abilities to compensate for their lack of mobility. They could shoot farther and faster, with greater accuracy, so they used it to hunt rather than chasing and wrestling their prey to the ground. Because of the lack of exercise, most ancient drakes were slow and lazy as lizards. But the Empress was anything but slow. If anything, she was faster than even adolescent Grecks. Faster than any drake he'd ever seen.
Female drakes occasionally mutated without the ability to spit. Their ferocity was often a defensive posture more than anything else. They were excellent hunters, but the lack of the offensive maneuver. It was one reason many hunters believed females never reached Emperor status. Certainly this was the first time Tsorn had ever heard of one. But now it made sense why she was so cautious. And why she so aggressively marked her territory. It was to avoid a showdown between full grown Grecks with the spitting ability. But if her speed was any indication, she'd still have the upper hand in a showdown. After that, Tsorn had to adjust his plan. He had thought he was facing a near century old male Emperor Greck. Something slow but enormously strong. But so poorly disappointed, he needed to rethink his strategy, since most of the gear he'd brought with him was worthless now.
He started with letting a few wild hogs back into the valley, to watch her hunt, and get a better understanding of how she fought. Out of the three he release, he only saw one taken, and that one only just barely. Which meant she was even faster and smarter than she seemed at first. She used cover and stealth rather than brute strength. Closing the distance with speed before prey could sense her.
But she knew he was watching. As closely as he watched, he couldn't get a good mark on her. The only thing he could think of why she hadn't slain him his first hour in her territory was that she had been hunted before, and knew how dangerous a professional hunter was. If she'd suspected he was an amateur, he wouldn't have survived the first night. From then he knew it was only a matter of time before she made her move on him.
His hand was forced though when he woke up to her creeping up on his campsite in the middle of the night. Leo's screech was the only warning he had, before he dove for cover, her black form blinking against the night, straight through his camp sight, clawing the earth he'd been laying in a heartbeat before. She was gone again, before he could gage where she was. He never even saw her, but he was certain that night was the closest he'd ever come to dying in all his years of hunting. He used every trick in his book to spook her off, flares, bombs, smoke, and whistles; but in the end he was forced to ditch all his belonging and jump a ravine into a river, in the pitch dark, to avoid being killed and eaten. Even as he swam blindly, he could feel her eyes on him from the dark. The next couple days he spent just trying to stay ahead of her, Leon his eyes and ears, as he ran blindly across an unexplored side of her territory. He found refuge in an old Storm-Bear pit. The bones in the entrance were fresh, but he covered himself in old skins disguising himself as leftovers, knowing Storm-Bears refuse to eat carrion. The Empress stalked the den for a few nights but refused to meet the Bear in open confrontation, and left him after a few days. And it was in those few days that he'd come up with his plan.

By the Dragon's Tail pt 2

It was a cold morning, and the forest canopy was thick enough that very little sun could piece it's foliage. Tsorn woke easily, instantly aware of every kink and sore in his body. He yawned, pulling the blanket wrapped around him snug, bidding warmth goodbye as the haze of rest fled. A freezing drop of water fell down his back then and repressed a growl. Untying the strap that held him in the tree, he steadied himself so he didn't loose his balance and fall twenty feet to the ground, in trying to stand. Shrugging off his blanket, he lifted his pack from where it had hung beneath him, off the branch he'd slept on. Riffling through it, he pulled out his morning rations and chewed it slowly. As he ate, he whistled absently to find out where Leon had gone. A quiet cooing came from above, but it took a few more exchanges to spot Leon. The Spying Spiegal's ability to blend into its surroundings was surprisingly useful, and even Tsorn lost track of him every once and a while, needing their game of echo to pinpoint him. Sometimes when Leon was being more playful he'd move spots during their conversation just to confuse Tsorn. Thankfully Leon wasn't as playful this morning.
Tsorn clicked twice, dismissing the Watcher to go find his breakfast, as he himself followed his own morning routines. Carefully lowing his gear to the ground, then following himself, took some time. The tree was a tall oat, meaning its lower limbs were few and far in between. What few there had been, Tsorn had hacked off on his ascent the night before. He slept in trees because out in the Wildens the ground after nightfall was especially dangerous. He trimmed the limbs similarly, because there were even some climbing beasts out here, and he wasn't going to leave them any advantage if he could help it. Once safely back on the ground, Tsorn saw to his equipment.
Starting with his weapons, he sharpened, polished and oiled each one. With his life in their effectiveness, they were his first priority. Then he took stock, down the the gram, of everything on his person. Food, medicine, gear, supplies. Every morning, so he always knew exactly what he had, how much, and where they were. Again, if his life ever came down to knowing if he had a twelve foot rope or a twenty foot, he wasn't going to be the fool. That was how his father taught him; and there was no better Slayer in the Nine Valleys than Gregger Valten. Even Earl Tilbour said so. But the world was a big place and Tsorn always had the feeling he was living in small shadows, never really glimpsing anything real.
"Leon." Come about. Tsorn whistled. If I'm going to surpass him, it won't be waiting here, He thought, trudging into the misty forest.

Two hours later, Tsorn held up as Leon screeched sharply, winging down to his shoulder. But he didn't need the Watcher's warning. He could clearly see the marking the beast had laid at its territory. As if the putrid mucus spewed over everything wasn't enough, several nearby trees had been scarred deeply, with smaller trees uprooted; it gave the clearing a general atmosphere of desolation. But the trail he was following lead right through it into a narrow gully. The ridges walls were sharp, leading as far in either direction as Tsorn could tell, and if he left the path to try around there was no guarantee he'd be able to find it again on the other side. The gully itself was foreboding, dark and narrow, hard to move it with a trickle of water running through it so the earth would be well soaked and hard to move through. The lips of the crest, well covered with foliage. A crowned Elephant-Wyrm could have been hiding up there and Tsorn wouldn't have known the difference.
"Well buddy?" He asked, looking over at Leon. The little wyrm keened uncertainly.
"A great help you've been." He said, rubbing the Spiegal's head reassuringly none the less. "Well, you've got to fall before you can fly," he said, pushing into the little valley. Holding Torg, his trusted spear, up before him he walk sideways, keeping his profile parallel to the valley ready to charge or retreat at a moment's notice. He ignored Leon's fluttering wings, shuffling against his head and shoulder.
"Gonna abandon me at the first sign of trouble? Yeah, I don't blame you."
Leon trilled as if offended, but continued to shake like day old kitten. The hollow was only a hundred paces long, but crossing it felt like an eternity. Despite the cold, sweat dripped from Tsorn like it was mid summer. Every rustle in the eves brought his hackles to bare, and he felt certain something was watching them hungrily. But they reached the other side of the gully eventually, without any incident.
And as soon as they did, Tsorn knew they were in trouble. His quarry was vicious. Killing Barking Grecks as a territory dispute was evidence of that. But what it just showed was far worse than ferocity. What it displayed in letting them enter its territory was cold, and calculating intelligence. Worse than that, it was patience. And patience and intelligence in such a beast, was the worst like of hunt. He doubted it would let him leave as easily as he had entered. It could tell he was taunt, and it was letting him stew in his own fear. Letting him exhaust himself. Shifting his sweat soaked grip on Torg, he scanned the open forest, knowing he wasn't going to spot it. "Leon, I don't know what we've gotten ourself into." He said with a grown smile. "But this is going to be fun."